Phoenix Rising (5 page)

Wellington's knees buckled slightly, but his dizziness soon cleared on hearing what Sound said next.

“And as I said in my office, Agent Braun, your mission history of ‘snap decisions' begs for disciplinary action, so I am assigning you a new partner.” Sound, apparently as pleased as punch with himself, glanced at Wellington. “Or would you be more of a mentor?”

No. The Director could not be—

“Are you serious?” Her voice echoed around them. “The Archives?!”

Sound motioned around him. “Lovely orientation for your reassignment, don't you think?” He leaned close into her. Wellington thought the only reason Braun didn't punch him in the nose was due to the fact she was in shock. “I think a little time down here, out of the limelight, will teach you a valuable lesson.”

“And exactly what lesson is that?” Braun asked, her face still reflecting her horror at the Director's decision.

“Humility, Agent Braun,” Sound added in a light chortle. “I feel you need to find out that there is more to being a Ministry agent than ordnance and action. More than chaos and destruction.” And then his expression changed. Abruptly. The faint mirth that was there faded as his eyes took in, seemingly for the first time, the decades of casework surrounding them. The Director was still speaking to Braun but not looking at her. His voice was distant. “For they are the domain of those we stand against.”

With a slight jerk he came back to himself, and Doctor Sound returned to peering over the top of his glasses at her. “And there it is. I have arranged for your desk contents to be moved down here.”

Braun looked at Wellington, shook her head, and then returned her attention to the Director. “May I ask how long this ‘reassignment' will last?”

“Indefinitely,” he returned without hesitation. “Time in the Archives will give you a different point of view and teach a valuable lesson. And there is no need to be so glum. Books is down here. He's one of ours, remember?”

Now it was Wellington's turn to furrow his brow. Whatever did Sound mean by that?

“And as for you”—Sound turned his undivided attention to him—“you need to learn that there are not two agencies within the Ministry. We are a single unit, a collection of gears and cogs that work together in order to preserve the peace in extraordinary circumstances. You need to rise above your petty differences and perceived rifts, and remember that we are united under the same creed.”

Petty differences? Perceived rifts?! By Jove, what did he mean?

“You need interaction with your fellow agents; and particularly in light of your recent dilemma, we will need someone ready to pick up the mantle in case something unfortunate were to befall upon you.”

He took a step back and beamed. “I don't believe I could have written such a delightful pairing.” Sticking his thumbs into the shallow pockets of his vest, the Director rapped his fingers lightly against his belly. “Good luck, Agents Books and Braun. I do believe this is the start of something special.” He then turned and walked back through the years of Ministry history. “No need to show me the way out. I know my way down here.”

Wellington was adrift in a void. And there he remained with Agent Eliza D. Braun, in silence.

Well, not complete silence.

Drip . . .

Drip . . .

Drip . . .

“By God, that drip is annoying!” Braun snapped suddenly. “Where is that coming from?!”

From his desk, Wellington heard a single bell chime. The analytical engine had finished brewing the tea.

CHAPTER FOUR
Where Our Dashing Hero of History and Cataloguing Undertakes the Taming
and Training of This Shrew!

W
ellington glanced up from his desk, his eyes narrowing on the woman sitting opposite him. It had been a week. Only one week.

168 hours.

10,080 minutes.

604,800 seconds.

And Wellington Thornhill Books, Esquire, had felt every one of those seconds. Even during the weekend.

He had no idea what he could have done to deserve such a punishment. He stared at the words jotted down in his journal only hours ago.
And yet with all my accomplishments and accolades, I find myself asking repeatedly ‘If I am so bloody brilliant, how in the name of God on high do I continue to find myself here? With her?

Very simple
, his inner voice chided.
You were captured. You're lucky she wasn't sent to kill you right on the spot out of worry you had been compromised.

He dismissed the thought immediately. Wellington knew his value in the Ministry. No one could do what he did. Any replacement would take years to reach his clerical adeptness. No, he was indispensable.

Wasn't he?

A tension rippled up along his spine to stop at the base of his skull: the omen of a splitting headache.

Braun did not even bother to look at him, and Wellington was fully aware of his “over-the-spectacles” stare's reputation: it was legendary in its ability to part the aether with a chill rivaling the place where he had been kept prisoner. Shaking his head, Wellington closed his journal concealed within the gutter of the ledger, tapped in its code to lock it tight, set it back in its place on the shelf next to his desk, and continued with his own cross-referencing, this time with a set of small clay vases just checked in by Agent Hill. His memoirs reminded him of how he wanted to bring up to Doctor Sound, once more, the deplorable condition of the Archives. Wellington had been promised improvements months ago, and still there seemed to be no steps in remedying the situation. He understood there was no other place for the Archives, and he accepted that the facility needed power; and what better power supply than the Thames?

However it was criminal so many rare antiquities and irreplaceable documents were kept in a basement with a moisture quotient rivaling Welsh summers.

Then he noticed it: the constant droning of the Ministry generators. That was all he heard. There was no other sound accompanying it. Nothing. Only the low rumble of their shared power source.

“What happened to the dripping?” he asked, his voice now sounding too loud for the Archives.

“Well, thank God! He lives!” Braun scoffed. “I thought I was the only one consumed by the boredom of this hole!”

Wellington stared at her for a moment. Every slight against the Archives, he felt, was a slight against him. Perhaps he shouldn't expect a field agent to be sensitive to that. “Agent Braun, do you not notice that? The drip is—”

“Gone. Yes. I mended that damnable leak my third day here. It was working under my skin a bit.”

“After only two days?” he asked incredulously.

“Books, when you are interrogated, you achieve a sort of Zen state, knowing you are about to be tortured. That way, your threshold for pain is far higher.” She motioned around her. “Walking into your place of work and being subject to a torture that you have control to end at any time? That is control I intend to take full advantage of!”

The clearing of his throat made his head shake a bit. Wellington swallowed, the grating causing his mouth to twitch. “I know this has been an adjustment for you, what with your familiarity with a more exciting vocation, but I think you are doing this office a true disservice. I do not find my assignment within the Ministry boring, but quite rewarding. Without me—” He looked up from his ledger and attempted a warm, welcoming smile. “Without
us
, the Ministry would not be able to function.”

Braun let out an explosive breath and produced from one of her vest pockets what appeared to be a length of polished bone. In the shadows of the Archives, he could not make out any details. She gave the shaft a quick flick, and the blade extended with a sharp
shickt
.

“Really?” Braun asked, then casually tossed the stiletto at the desk. Between two of the vases that were neatly arranged between them, the blade struck hard, causing Wellington to jump. “I thought things were sent down here to be catalogued, stored . . .”
Thunk
went the knife, “. . . and then forgotten about.”

“Agent Braun,” Wellington said, watching her repeat the throw again. As the blade was doing more damage on her side of the great desk, it was no matter to him. Still her accuracy was unnerving. “Did you conveniently forget my tour only a week ago? Where do you think field agents acquire their logistics before an assignment? We are the backbone of the Ministry.” He motioned around him, but the
thunk
of knife striking desktop told him she was not catching his enthusiasm. “When peculiar occurrences occur, we are charged with the responsibility—”

Thunk
.

“—of recording for history the bizarre finds behind said peculiar occurrence.”

Thunk
.

“And when field agents need to know the hows, the whys, and the what-ifs of a new mystery—”

Thunk
.

“—we are called upon to arm them with what may help them solve whatever evil secret or minion of darkness has been unearthed—”

Thunk
.

“
Agent Braun!
” Wellington snapped. “Would you
please
stop doing that?”

Braun sighed as she leaned back in her chair and propped her feet upon the desk's edge. “Look, Welly, I'm sorry if I'm not swept up in the passion you nurture in being the Ministry's Librarian—”

“Archivist.”

“—But I did not sail to the other side of the world to number, file, and sort so others could go where the real action is. This job is about the case, about the mystery. If I stay down here for too long,” she groaned, stretching her arms high, “I'm worried my skills are going to—”

With her arms still over her head, Braun threw the knife. The blade struck the desk with a hard
thunk
, but this time the hilt rapped the vase closest to it. The pottery's shattering seemed far too loud for something so small.

Wellington remained motionless, his eyes watching the shards scatter across both their desks, some of them still moving from the impact.

“See what I mean, Welly?” Braun said, sitting upright in her chair. With a grumble, she snatched a nearby brush and dustpan, sweeping up the mess as she spoke. “Normally, I would never miss; but one week in this dungeon is already cocking up my eyesight.” The remains clattered and tinkled as they struck the bottom of the dustbin. “At least it's a clean dungeon. I'll give you that, mate. You really do a yeoman's job down here. I just don't know if I'm cut out for this.”

Wellington pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his spectacles high up on his forehead. He had to remember to breathe.

The question, had it not been so absurd coming from her, would have made him laugh. “You all right, Welly?”

“I'll be fine,” he said through clenched teeth. “It was . . .” and his words trailed off as he motioned to where the vase had once sat.

She looked at the spot where the vase had been, her brow rising. “Oh. Um . . . oh dear . . . was it valuable?”

“Agent Hill was on assignment in the Americas. South America to be precise. He had discovered an underground network combing the jungles for these jars. When placed in a specific order, these jars were to have formed a map.”

“Oh really? How clever!” Braun perked up, intrigued. “Where to?”

Wellington closed the main ledger in front of him. “The Lost City of El Dorado.”

She nodded slowly. “Ah. And all the vases need to be . . . intact . . . and not in . . .” Braun looked between the dustbin and the empty spot on the desk, continuing to nod her head as she did so. “That's . . . well . . . sorry, Welly.”

A stinging sensation suddenly captured Wellington's attention. He looked down to see his fingers were clenched into tight fists, his knuckles quite white. Splaying his fingers, he felt the tingle subside and the comforting warmth of circulation return to his hands.

His eyes hopped from his hands to his secured journal to the deposed field agent sitting across from him. These past seven days had each been a colossal disaster. Had it not been for the analytical engine, Eliza D. Braun could have taken the Archives back to the way he had found it more than four years ago. She was not certain if she could not catalog, or was just making the choice to ignore him and not catalog anything properly. She seemed to operate on a work ethic that if there was an empty space on a shelf, that would serve admirably for an artifact. If he wasn't repeating himself once again in methodologies of proper cataloguing, he found himself double-checking his difference engine. On Day Five, she had somehow managed to overload it with commands, something he knew he had cautioned her about several times prior.

He did notice, though, whenever Agent Campbell paid a visit, her skills would sharpen and her efficiency on the job was nothing less than spectacular. He never thought he would wish this, but secretly he hoped the Australian operative would pay more visits.

Eliza Braun's repeat failures, and her subtle insubordination towards him, was a mnemonic of how dreadful his fortune with the fairer sex had been of late. Before being sentenced to servitude with his one-time-savior-now-harbinger-of-destruction, there was the unfortunate series of events that had landed him in Antarctica. Unlike his fellow agent, the lady who had spent a day having tea with him more than a month ago had been just that: a proper lady. A striking beauty, and Wellington thought himself lucky they happened to make eye contact from across the tearoom. It would have been a delight to have a chum or even a workmate to chat about the next course of action. Perhaps they would have provided some insight, or even a warning. Instead, he blundered on his own ineptitude into an afternoon in the park with an exotic Italian beauty. Such piercing green eyes. He should have noticed more than her eyes and the rather attractive bosom, now that he thought about it. What proper lady would suggest going to a pub so late in the day, offering to pay for the first round of drinks? The first round being the last he would remember.

Now, sitting across from him was his comeuppance. Had he taken just a moment—a single, precious moment—to consider his “luck” in catching the eye of an Italian Venus, his domain at the Ministry would not have been sullied by this colonial harpy.

Patience, Wellington
, he told himself.
Doctor Sound did this for a reason, and it must be good.
He looked at her in silence, repeating the thought as a mantra.

“What?” Braun barked as he continued to stare at her.

There has to be a reason
, he assured himself. That, or the old man was losing his grip.

“I think,” Wellington finally said, punching a sequence into the analytical engine. “We are in need of a change.”

Eliza motioned to the remaining vases. “You're not putting them in the basket with the notes?”

“I'll tend to the jars later. Perhaps I can retrace the destination from memory. Wellington stared at where the last jar once was and his shoulders fell. “Perhaps.”

He pushed “Enter” on the analytical engine . . . and nothing happened.

“Welly,” Eliza said, catching her bottom lip in her teeth for a moment, “There is no ‘s' in El Dorado. Nor is there an ‘o' in City.”

He looked at the display:

LOST COTY OF EL DORSDO

“Oh, dash it all!” he huffed, beginning the sequence again.

“I would think,” Eliza began, her head tilting to one side as she watched him type, “being an Archivist for one, and seeing as you built this bloody thing, typing would be a skill of yours.”

“You would think,” Wellington grumbled, his index finger smashing each key as he continued, “but I did not pursue the fine art of typing at university or elsewhere. So. I. Am. Self.” And finally, with one last look at the display, Wellington hit the final key, punctuating it by stating, “Taught.”

As the pulley system whirred into action, he motioned to the shadows behind Braun.

“Now then, if you would follow me, please.”

The stiletto collapsed with a quick
click-click
and Braun was on her feet, following him deeper into the more recent case files of the Archives. Wellington felt a pang of hope, of optimism, that maybe his unexpected apprentice would grow to appreciate his hallowed ground. When he took this position, the cataloging was far from perfect, and Wellington shouldered the challenge as Atlas did with the world itself. How nice it would be if he could share this accomplishment with—