Listener Submission: Chapter 3 of An Unbreakable Radio Cypher (Etc.)

Doug Van Hollen sent in the beginning of chapter 3 for An Unbreakable Radio Cypher and John Wilkes Booth's Diary in Liverpool! We shared a piece of it on the podcast but here is what he sent in its entirety. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 3

The alley was something of a rarity in New Liverpool; real estate was always at such a premium. At least it was until the whir-bombs turned the Southern Bank into "developable lots”.

The alley was lined with industrial-size waste bins that glowed various shades of red and green to indicate their fullness, as well as awnings hanging over little stoops and porches that once held kitchen staff preening themselves on their breaks but now stood empty. Most of the rubble and loose urban detritus had been cleared off to the sides into oddly organic banks that hugged the backs of the buildings lining the alley.

Fenster hovered well behind Westinghouse's elbow, poised, it seemed, to bolt back down Central Boulevard the way they had just come. "Are you quite sure that this necessary, Agent Westinghouse? My staff can surely furnish - "

"It's necessary," said Westinghouse. He wasn't annoyed with Fenster yet; he'd only been planetside about an hour. But he could tell he would be very soon. "About a fifty meters in, is it?" He began walking down the center of the alley, his green eyes moving constantly from left to right, from high to low.

Fenster turned and scanned the street in both directions. "Er, yes..." He nestled the monocle deeper into the fur around his eye socket and walked backward into the alley a few steps, as if afraid of being followed, but then, more afraid of being left alone, dropped to all fours and scampered to where he could more or less match the agent's pace. Walking upright it took two steps from his hind paws to match one of the human's. He nonetheless attempted to recover some of his bearing.

"Yes, just over there behind that big green, er, receptacle. He was found, at least, we think it was a he, this morning by some rather unsavory street types." The rat looked back at the alley entrance. "Speaking of which, this has been claimed as territory in some...bizarre feudal disagreement, so I would advise we spend as little time as possible here."

Fenster, not watching where he was going, collided with Westinghouse, who had stopped at the standard three meter radius to make his initial assessment.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Fenster. Westinghouse didn't seem to notice the collision, his eyes locked on the crime scene, but as he spoke, he brushed at some hairs that Fenster had left on his sleeve.

"This is Agent Omar Westinghouse on special assignment to Rattus I, standard date Forty-Seven Blue Window Nine, fourteen seventeen GMT. For immediate transmission to Silver Branch, field analysis begins."

Fenster, once he understood that Westinghouse was addressing some unseen mechanical listener, tried to find some dignified, non-interfering posture of assistance.

"Deceased is a mature male muridae, gross features are Norwegian, perhaps a mixed breed."

"I say..." muttered Fenster, blushing under his gray fur.

"Cause of death appears to be cranial trauma, from the lack of spatter not at the body's discovered locus. The victim is clothed: high collar shirt, black three-piece suit, no shoes or socks."

Fenster sighed. Really, an official record of the shocking fact that the rat wasn't wearing shoes or socks. This was certainly worth the price of armadine to fly this agent through the jumpgate. Fenster's toe claws tapped in agitation. But he held his tongue.

Westinghouse continued to rattle morbid observations for another minute, pacing the outside of an imaginary half-circle around where the dead rat lay, face-down, the mangled head against the curb of rubble, one foreleg crumpled underneath. One of the hind legs was straight and stiff, but the tail made a pink wandering path against the gray surface of the alley. The eyes were not visible, thank God.

Westinghouse said, "I'm deploying four ingestion spheres prior to making my approach." In his hand were four spheres whose whirring made Fenster's ears perk and pivot to face them as they flew up and around the alley.

"My word!" said Fenster. "What are-"

Westinghouse touched his ear and turned. "The spheres will do a lot of the dirty work of photography, granular spectroscopy, genome scraping, that sort of thing. The data packs will be encrypt-synced back to Silver Branch, er, to headquarters, and the brains back there will be able to tell us all sorts of things. Just take a moment."

Fenster had guessed at their purpose, and had heard rumors about the technical tricks the off-worlders had invented to deal with their own violent tendencies. He had in fact taken great pains to prepare himself emotionally, trying to be the stoic noble rat he had always imagined he would be in such a circumstance. But here in the presence of genuine wonders he could not hide his awe at the engineering. "But the wings move so fast you can hardly see them. And the lights that they're sweeping over the ground. Are they-?"

"Oi! Who's that down my alley?" A large hairy voice from behind them, the vowels of the Tongue lodged deep in the throat, every syllable sharpened into a threat. Fenster felt icewater sluice through his veins. His instincts told him to freeze in the presence of the threat even though he couldn't see it yet. His eyes looked at Westinghouse, who had turned to face in the direction of the voice, but whose eyes looked right back at him. There was very little fear on the agent's face. He knew that this was Fenster's problem to solve.

Drawing upon the collective pride and indomitable strength of a thousand generations of Fensters, he straightened his spine and turned face the harpy that he had feared they might run across this day.

"Good morning, Ms. Spinach," he shouted down the alley. "I don't believe we've met. I am Stephen the nine hundred sixty-first Lord of Fenster, here on official state business. My associate and I - "

"I said this was my alley!" she screamed back, and she was joined by shouts of agreement and encouragement from the angry pointed faces that seemed to be continually filling the alley opening behind her.

"Er, yes," said Fenster. "Perhaps we should - " and he turned to look where Westinghouse was already looking at the other end of the alley, which was similarly filled with red eyes, paws holding clubs, and whiskers twitching with bad attitudes.

Spinach roared again. "They took everything else from us, but they're not taking this, are they, boys?" Raised voices, dissolving into the angry screech of a rat hoard on the attack from all sides.

"Agent Westinghouse, we must protect the crime scene." Fenster fingered the catch in the handle of his cane. He looked back and forth, trying to decide which pack was going to reach them first.

Westinghouse stretched open his side pocket and the four spheres dropped into it. "Don't worry, my lord. We have everything we need. Now please hold still."

On the agent's patent leather loafers, a blue light had begun to trace itself faster and faster around the edges of the soles. Fenster was entranced but not appeased.

"Er, but how - ", but Fenster's voice was cut off as Westinghouse suddenly lunged and hugged him under both his armpits, and then the alley was disappearing around them, growing smaller and smaller below as Fenster's threat response once again cycled away from frozen, this time to a panicked squeaky squirming that could not break the grasp of the agent's hands clasped against the velvet back of Fenster's greatcoat.

"Please, sir," said Westinghouse, "I know what I'm doing. Just relax. We're only jumping a few blocks." And then they were falling, and Fenster was releasing a moan as he tried to think thoughts that would make him easy to hold onto. "And sir," said Westinghouse, as they alighted in a nearby park in an explosion of pigeons, "you were right. It was murder."

Fenster had just managed to withdraw his silk handkerchief when he fainted.