Engines of Obsession: Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Roots

"That... can't be the same woman we're chasing."

Turner stared. Both the date and the notation paired with it made no sense. Was this woman a descendant of the student here? And that name... it couldn't be the same Middleton from the stories, could it?

"Middleton was famous in his era," Nora said, echoing Turner's own thoughts. "If he pulled someone out of school for this, wouldn't we have heard her name before?"

Pomfort tapped the book thoughtfully. "Not necessarily..." He frowned turning in his chair to look at Turner and Nora. "Middleton was and is still famous, but his fame only began around the late nineties... 1997 or 1998 was when most of the earliest stories were from. By then he was already a seasoned explorer."

Nora nodded slowly, "So the earlier years, before he started doing anything famous, are a lot more ambiguous, you're saying?"

"I am hardly a scholar on early twenty-first century wealthy explorers," Pomfort noted in a dry tone. "But yes, that is my understanding. Middleton was the first person with a private airship, not that it's common today either. His crew would often number six or seven dozen people, and changed quite a bit over the years. Everyone knows the twenty or so most famous, but the rest?"

Turner leaned back in his chair. "They didn't keep logs and crew rosters? I'd think those would have been studied."

Pomfort placed the tips of his fingers together as he turned about to fully face Turner and Nora. "You are asking all the right questions, but please remember I only know passing information about this. Maybe there are records, or maybe they've been lost, or are incomplete. I simply do not know."

His head tilted to the side, and one hand lifted to stroke through the short, greying beard. "That said, you were looking for a younger woman matching this description? The woman listed here couldn't be younger than in her eighties. Most likely she taught a talented granddaughter -- perhaps even great granddaughter -- her craft when the younger showed promise. All we know is she is a redheaded woman, and that can resurface in the family. Names can be reused, as well."

"That's true," Turner agreed. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if the woman were one and the same, but a companion of the famed adventurer himself seemed an unlikely suspect. "Though she would have been too young for that incident thirty years ago anyway. Which just brings us back around to who did that?"

Nora offered another view, "Perhaps the younger Blakely studied under an apprentice of the original? Wouldn't even need to have been family. As long as the techniques were passed down."

Turner sighed, "True, but then we also run into the question of where did they get the materials or funds for this? A puppet shop?"

The short discussion prompted Pomfort to clear his throat in a gentle reminder that he was here. "Excuse me, you seem to have left out some details. Incident thirty years ago? You mean the Automaton? I was a student then. What does this have to do with you two? You were not even born yet."

At this, Turner paused, before glancing at Nora with a warning, slight shake of his head. To Pomfort, he explained, "We fought some automatons out on the frontier. Someone who knew the incident noted the similarities, but in truth we don't know that they are the same. We brought what was left of one of them with us, but the automation lab hasn't had a chance to look at it yet."

Nora nodded slightly but didn't add anything. She noticed Turner had left Byron's involvement out of this.

Pomfort rubbed his beard again, one eyebrow lifting. "I highly doubt it was the same sort of thing. That monster was... well, I doubt you could have beaten it without an entire unit of soldiers. But then, it isn't my field. I'm afraid if you are looking for the original Blakely, your trail ends here. I've certainly never heard of her, and I'm surprised she had an entry at all, since she didn't graduate."

"Mnhm," Turner mused, staring at the book. "Unless she were really something. But it would take someone like that to do what we've seen." He sighed as he slumped back into his chair again. "I guess our hope of meeting anyone who knew her is gone then, huh?"

Pomfort nodded, but his motion paused. "Well, unless she happened to know Professor Thorpe. He's in his eighties now, but even then, they'd have been students together. Not likely, but I suppose that's your only chance. Too bad he's ah..." The man tapped his temple. "More kept on as an honorary than a real professor now."

Turner grimaced, "Sounds like we don't have much choice." He shook his head and smiled wryly at Nora. "I feel kind of bad though. Now that we know how far back any lead is, there's no chance Milo and Martin will dig anything up. I hope they aren't getting too frustrated..."

Nora shook her head back, "I'm sure they'll be fine. Just a little discouraged. What's the worst that could happen? Let's go find this Professor Thorpe."

Meanwhile...

"Of course, Miss Rhodana had red hair, but not the brightest student," the old man droned on. "I felt sorry for her, but I believe all her brains went to her generous bosom. It was a sight to see."

It had been fifteen minutes listening to the old professor. About sixty and with a glistening, obviously-dyed beard, the main just wouldn't stop getting off-topic. He'd been the one that Milo had been directed to when he'd started asking about former female students.

"That's nice," Milo interrupted desperately, "But we're really looking for very intelligent alchemist or engineering students."

The man nodded, droning on, "Ah, yes. Well, there was Miss Clavert. Had the most ingenious clockwork gauntlets she was working on. May have revolutionized dock labor and heavy lifting, if she could ever get them to work. She strained quite a bit, it really gave quite the heave to her chest, noticeable with how top-heavy she was, if I may say so myself..."

"I'd prefer you didn't," Martin mumbled.

Milo groaned, "Sir, we really need to focus on-"

"And then," the man continued, "There was Miss Layton. Lovely girl, very friendly. A bit flat, you might say, but had such a sway to her step, you had to pay attention to her, if you know what I mean."

Martin tugged at Milo's arm. "I'm getting very, very uncomfortable with this man," he whispered, his face looking more than a little green.

Milo grumbled, "Yes, yes I think so." Then louder, so the man could hear, "Ah -- we really need to meet up with our companions, thank you for your time!"

Professor Thorpe's office was just as Turner had imagined it. He'd read stories with professors in them, always hidden behind towering masses of paper and books strewn about, old teacups gathering dust in forgotten corners. A semi-organized mess of papers, writings, and whatever else captured the eccentric's fancy.

While his imagination as a child may have imagined the stacks of paper as unrealistically high, Turner was mildly disappointed that the image for Thorpe was all too correct. It was getting late in the afternoon, so this was their last chance to visit, yet the room carried a musty, stale smell that had a very mild moldy stench to it, as if the owner hadn't left in weeks.

Thorpe himself was not quite what Turner had envisioned, though. While his office may be stereotypical, the man himself was not a doddering, white-haired mumbler. Thorpe still had a head of hair, though thinned with age, and it was a rich walnut brown despite belonging to an octogenarian. His face held deep laugh lines and had some sag in the jowls, but his skin was otherwise not very wrinkled, and only mildly mottled.

"Yes?" His voice quavered when he looked up at Turner's knock, and Turner saw that while his hand trembled amidst adjusting his wire-framed spectacles, and a cane lay propped against the wall, the man's deep brown eyes were clear and unclouded. They struggled a bit to focus at first, age weakening them, but they had no hint of confusion in them.

If the man were losing his faculties, this wasn't one of those moments.

"Sorry for bothering you so late in the day, Professor," Turner stated, standing aside to allow Nora to peek in as well. "I know you only teach class once a week, but heard you might be in your office at this hour. Call me Turner, and this is my companion, Nora Graves, a former student here. We were hoping you could remember a student from long ago."

The old man heaved a sigh, "My boy, I can barely remember what I ate for lunch. Ask one of the other faculty. They'd have far better memory for any transient student that passed through these halls." His tone was weary, and Turner recognized it. He just wanted to be left alone to settle into his obsession... whatever it was. Turner was far from uneducated, but these notes were far beyond him.

He also suspected that Thorpe's reputation for being addle-headed was an act. Those eyes flicked away too fast to be confusion-laden.

Nora smiled gently, "Ah, see, that is the problem, Professor. The student we are looking into is from a long time ago, before most of the other teachers worked here. Also, she never graduated, so finding information about her has been difficult."

Thorpe looked up when Nora gave more information, and squinted hard. His fingers trembled as he tried to adjust his glasses and get a better look at Nora. "Eh? Chances are I'd not remember her then! You must be truly desperate. Why should I answer anything?"

Now he was pulling the 'cantankerous' angle. Turner could tell they were annoying him, and the man likely didn't enjoy spending time with kids who, in his view, could barely comprehend the basics of what he worked on day by day. He'd seen people who loved their work so much it consumed them like this.

So he went for the direct approach. "It costs us nothing to ask. If you don't know her, we leave and you never see us again." Turner left unspoken the idea that the man could simply deny knowing her, but he was betting on Blakely, if she were known, being unusual enough to pique the man's interest.

"She was here back in the early 1990s, you see. A pretty, young redheaded girl who went by the name of Anne Blakely." He paused, hoping that he could at least pick up a sign of recognition. If the man showed any such sign and then refused, that would still be a clue.

Instead, Thorpe stiffened. His eyes blinked as he turned to look first at Turner, then at Nora. "Has Miss Blakely returned after all this time? Do you have word of her? I remember a girl of that name, yes. Do you have news?" His voice still wavered, but the indignant and dismissive attitude was gone. In fact, he flicked a hand toward the door. "Close the door."

Nora closed the door, but she exchanged a look with Turner, worried. That was not the reaction either had expected.

Turner cleared his throat. "We haven't met her, but we have run into someone who met her, or someone matching her description and name. We think it might be a granddaughter or something? What can you tell us about her? We only knew she ended up on Middleton's expedition."

Thorpe groaned, rocking back in his chair. The man hadn't moved recently, and Turner could see the stiff and aged muscles protesting. Despite the cane, he still looked in good health. "A granddaughter? I can only hope. That girl deserved happiness, a lot more than she got."

Another glance at Nora, but she shook her head minutely. Turner focused on Thorpe again, holding back further clarification to see what the man said.

"I had a crush on her, you know," Thorpe chuckled. Oh yes, he remembered her. "But then, half the boys in my class did. She was two years older than me, and tutored a few of us. She didn't have much money, you see, and made a little spending money that way."

He took a breath, but thankfully didn't meander too much, unlike some of the elderly. "She was patient, and careful, but most of all... well. They keep me on because I am the best alchemist in the city." Thorpe said this without any hint of boast. It was the reserved, simple statement of someone so confident they were right, they didn't need to brag.

"But Blakely... she made me look like a child," he muttered, shaking his head. "I understand what she was saying now, but it took me thirty years to really grasp some of the concepts that she sometimes skipped, assuming the rest of us knew. That was her only flaw. As kind and helpful as she was, that girl never realized how much smarter she was than everyone else."

Thorpe grew silent with a heavy sigh. Turner spared another quick glance to Nora, uncertain now. Healing Gretchen, now being described as kind and helpful... this didn't match up with building murder machines. Their only lead wasn't bringing them anywhere closer to the culprit, was it?

"But James..." Thorpe cut into the thoughts with a grumpy note. "I know he has all these stories about being a noble, caring man, but he was just so arrogant. And Anne... that poor girl was starry-eyed over him." He grunted, "Or maybe she was just being practical. James had money, you know. The ring he put on her finger cost more than a year of my salary, I bet!"

Ring?

Nora beat Turner to the punch here. "Hold on, wait," she interrupted. "Ring on her finger? Are you saying James Middleton, the famous adventurer who had an entire series of stories written about him and is known across the continent, had a wife before Isabetta? And nobody mentioned her?"

Thorpe grunted, "Eh? Oh, no, not a wife. Engaged, sorry." He shook his head, "She ran off with him instead of finishing her schooling. That first expedition lasted two years, and didn't go so well. Less than half the crew came back. Anne wasn't with them."

The old man picked up his cane, gripping it tightly in the gnarled fingers. They curled, grinding along the smooth, polished wood in an angry fidget. "I'm still so angry at him. Oh, I don't think he meant to get her killed. And I think... I think that accident made him the man from the tales. I asked him about her once, but he just stared at me. I couldn't make out what he meant by it, so I just... assumed she died, and he was taking it hard."

The fact that nobody knew the famous adventurer had a now-dead fiancée before he became famous still made Turner raise an eyebrow, but he could understand people not wanting to talk about their early failures.

"You likely know the rest, young man," Thorpe sighed, his brief burst of energy fading and once again giving him the look of a weary, brittle old man. "Middleton went on to grand adventures, married Isabetta, had a family. His brother retired early to start a business, and financed their expeditions. The family was barely holding on when they died in that accident ten years ago. I thought I'd never know what happened. But you say someone sharing the name is alive?"

Turner stood up more attentively -- he hadn't been able to find a chair in the mess, nor been offered one -- and filled in some blanks. "Someone using that name, who has red hair, was seen in Laston a few months ago. They're much younger than you, Professor Thorpe. The witness was unreliable with age, but guessed no older than thirty. Definitely less than forty."

Nora stepped in to add more detail, "She ran a puppet shop, but also knew some alchemy. And we think... we suspect she may be making some kind of ah... advanced devices, or be working with an engineer who is. So maybe she was taught a few tricks by her grandmother, or someone close to her."

"Mmm... maybe," Thorpe replied. "It does sound like her, and she had a thing for contraptions. She used to cobble together wind up toys for the noble kids. Another of her moneymaking schemes." He frowned after that. "But teaching? I'm grateful, but there's something missing. Teaching that level of craftsmanship takes resources, and... I'm pretty sure she never returned here. She probably forgot about me, but I'm sure one of my friends would have run into her."

Turner was really starting to suspect that this wasn't a descendant. Nora insisted preserving youth for that long was impossible, but too many things didn't make sense. Impossible as it was, the idea that this was the same woman was the only thing that kept it all consistent. Ranked slightly above a lookalike using the name, but that just didn't seem likely.

"You should ask the Stonemans," Thorpe cut in suddenly. His trembling hand scribbled a note in spidery handwriting on a piece of scrap. "They'd never talk to me, I didn't have much to say to them, but they worked with the Middletons right up until the accident. If anyone around here knows more about what happened to Anne, it'd be them."

Turner accepted the slip of paper with a smile. "Thanks. You've been a great help. If we find out more about what happened, maybe we can give you some closure."

Thorpe just grunted. "I may not last another three months, but I appreciate the attempt." He wagged a finger, "I can tell you two are just like James. Don't you get cocky, all right?"

Nora answered sweetly before Turner could get over the surprise of the chiding. "Oh, not to worry, sir. I'll make sure to curb his rampant impulsiveness."

Turner mumbled a farewell and hurried out of the room before Thorpe could see the heat flooding his cheeks.