Out the left side window of the hansom, Alexia caught sight of a peculiar looking contraption above the embankment and trees. She tugged Madame Lefoux’s arm. “What’s that, Genevieve?”
The inventor cocked her head. “Ah, good. The sky rail system. I had hoped it was operational.”
“Well?”
“Oh, yes. It is a novelty freight and passenger transport. I had a small hand in designing the control mechanisms. We should be able to see it in full presently, just there.”
They rounded a bend in the road and began climbing ever more steeply. Before and above them stood the contraption in all its glory. To Alexia it looked like two massive laundry lines strung parallel across the tops of pylons. It became clear, however, that the lines were more like sky high train tracks. Straddled atop them, crawling along in a rhythmic, lurching, buglike manner on large wheels threaded with moving treads, marched a series of cabins, similar in size and shape to stagecoaches. Each cabin emitted billowing gouts of white steam from underneath. Hanging from the cabin, down below the cables, each supported a swaying metal net on long cords, loaded with lumber. Like a spider with an egg sac or a trapeze train trolley.
“Goodness!” Alexia was impressed. “Are they unidirectional?”
“Well, most are going downhill with freight, but they are designed to go up as well. Unlike trains, those cable rails require no switchbacks. One car can simply climb over the other, so long as it is not carrying a net, of course. See the way the cabling goes over each side of the cabin roof?”
Alexia was enough impressed by the invention to be distracted from her current predicament. She’d never seen or heard of anything like it a railway in the sky!
Floote kept popping up and looking back over the cab roof like a jack in the box. Alexia became quite sensitive to the pattern of his movements and so noticed when his legs became suddenly tense and he spent longer than usual standing. Madame Lefoux did as well and bounced up to lean next to him, much to the driver’s annoyance. Scared of further upsetting the fly’s center of balance, Alexia stayed seated, her view filled with trouser clad legs.
She heard a faint yelling behind them and could only imagine that there were drones following. On the next switchback, she caught sight of their enemy. Out the right side window of the cab, she could see a four in hand coach loaded down with intense looking young men in hot pursuit. There was some kind of firearm equipage mounted atop the carriage roof.
Just wonderful, thought Alexia. They have a ruddy great gun.
She heard the pop of Floote firing off one of the tiny derringers and the sharp hiss of Madame Lefoux doing the same with one of her darts.
Floote popped back down to change guns and reload. “Madam, I regret to inform you, they have a Nordenfelt.”
“A what?”
Madame Lefoux sat down to reload while Floote stood back up and fired again.
“I have no doubt we shall witness it in action shortly.”
They reached the snow line.
A whole fleet of bullets of ridiculously large size hissed by the cab and embedded themselves in an unsuspecting tree. A gun that could fire multiple bullets at once, imagine that!
Floote hurriedly sat back down.
“The Nordenfelt, madam.”
The horse squealed in fear, the driver swore, and they came to an abrupt halt.
Madame Lefoux didn’t even try to argue their case. She jumped down from the fly, followed by Floote and Alexia. Floote grabbed Alexia’s dispatch case. Alexia grabbed her parasol. Without waiting to see if they would follow, Alexia charged up the embankment, stabilizing herself with the parasol, and began slogging through the snow toward the cable lines.
Another burst of bullets churned up the snow just behind them. Alexia let out a most undignified squeak of alarm. What would Conall do? This kind of gunfire action was not exactly her cup of tea. Her husband was the trained soldier, not she. Nevertheless, she recovered enough to yell, “Perhaps we should spread out and make for that support pole.”
“Agreed,” said Madame Lefoux.
The next round of fire was not nearly so close.
Soon they were too high up to be seen from the road below, even by that deadly swiveling gun. Also, the four in hand was even less able than the fly to handle off road terrain. There came a good deal of shouting, probably the drones and the cab driver yelling at each other, but Alexia knew it was only a matter of time before the young men left their precious Nordenfelt behind and took to the ground in pursuit. At which point, she was at a distinct disadvantage with her heavy unbustled skirts dragging through the snow.
As they neared the cable rail, one of the laden cars came heading downward toward them. Of course the darn thing was going in the wrong direction, back into France, but it still might provide some limited refuge. The three made it, finally, to the support pole. It was furnished with flimsy looking metal rungs, intended to be used for emergency evacuation or repair.
Floote seemed to be taking stock of their situation like some extremely dapper Roman general. “Madame Lefoux’s dart emitter is the fastest weapon we have, madam.”
“Good point, Floote. Genevieve, please guard the base while Floote and I climb.”
The Frenchwoman nodded, looking fierce.
Alexia hated to leave her alone, but there was no other option. She hoisted her muddy skirts over one arm. Well, Paris had already seen them; she might as well show the rest of France her bloomers.
Floote and she climbed the post.
Floote paused on the small platform at the top, put down the dispatch case, and crouched to fire downward with a derringer, reloading and firing each gun in turn until he was out of ammunition, while Madame Lefoux climbed up behind them. Meanwhile, Alexia aimed her parasol at the approaching rail cabin. She could see the startled face of a driver in the window. She fully understood his confusion. She must present quite the lunatic picture a statuesque Italian woman dressed English style in a gown gone well beyond grubby, hair wild, and hat askew, pointing an ugly parasol at his large mechanical transport in a threatening manner.
Just as the front of the cabin drew level with the platform, Alexia pulled back on a protruding carved lotus petal in the handle of her parasol. The magnetic disruption emitter sent off its silent but deadly signal and the rail car jerked to a halt.
Inside the cable compartment, Alexia could see the engineer yelling at her in confusion. Behind her on the platform, she heard Madame Lefoux screaming obscenities in French, and the drones, now climbing up the support pole after them, were also shouting.
She turned to see if she could help her companions in any way. The infant inconvenience kicked an objection to all her recent exertions, but Alexia disregarded it with an internal, Pack it in, proto nuisance. Time for that later.
One of the drones now had Madame Lefoux by the boot. She was kicking at him while simultaneously attempting to climb the last handbreadth up onto the platform. Floote, finally out of bullets, was pulling at the Frenchwoman’s shoulders in an attempt to assist.
Alexia, thinking quickly, opened and flipped her parasol. As swiftly as possible, she turned the special inset dial in the parasol’s tip around to its alternate setting. Holding the parasol far out over the edge of the platform, Alexia rained a mixture of lapis lunearis and water down onto the young men climbing after them.