Ch.BONUSSide Story – Clarice Holmes, The Leaden Study (2)

“Her Majesty the Queen is coming!”

Beep-beep-beep! Five steam locomotives started simultaneously. Following the well-laid tracks, side by side, they pulled “a part of the Queen.”

At that moment.

“The Queen is a machine!”

Someone shouted. It was a young man with a red band around his head. Around him, standing by the mailbox, were other young men wearing identical red bands.

“The Queen is a machine! People should be ruled by people! Citizens of New Albion, wake up! Machines should not rule us! People should rule people!”

The young man looked bewildered.

If people had shown anger, he would have matched it. If they had wailed, he would have wailed with them. The young man was prepared to handle any insult. He had even secretly anticipated it.

But the people. Ah, those people. They merely backed away.

As if slowly avoiding a foul-smelling homeless person. Like looking at a pig that had been hit by a steam locomotive, left to rot. They just hesitated and slowly retreated.

“No. Um, e-everyone…!”

The young man was flustered. As if they hadn’t expected this reaction, his comrades around him were equally confused.

The problem was that they were all holding coal baskets, and the agitator was precariously standing on top of a mailbox among them.

“J-just a moment!”

The young man wobbled. “Wh-what?!” His comrades quickly grabbed him. In the process, the coal baskets spilled over. The eyes of the street citizens changed instantly.

“Coal!”

People rushed forward. Coal that fell to the ground was considered ownerless—finders keepers. Quick-thinking people left their portion of baskets with their families and jumped in empty-handed.

“Get out of the way, you bastards! I got it first! I got it first, I said!”

The cultured citizens of New Albion didn’t hesitate to engage in fistfights.

Just one more piece of coal meant they could fuel their boiler for 10 more minutes. That meant 10 more minutes of warmth for parents and children suffering from tuberculosis. And there was no one here without a sick family member.

Police officers came running, blowing whistles. They were machines modeled after spiders, with legs three meters long.

Police officers mounted on each leg swung their batons indiscriminately. People with cracked heads screamed and collapsed. Families let out anguished cries of pain and regret. Because they had lost the coal in their hands.

And Clarisse saw it.

“Isabel.”

“Yes.”

“Get ready.”

There was no need to explain what to do. They had prepared for this very day.

Taking advantage of the spider-legged police’s diverted attention, workers with bags slung over their shoulders moved. The bags contained explosives used in coal mines.

For the intelligence of the ‘Neo-Luddite terrorists,’ it was quite a creative plan. Everyone knew the Queen moved through five steam locomotives. After all, they had laid five tracks.

But the plan to blow up all five steam locomotives with explosives to incite a riot on Labor Liberation Day was bold. Of course, this wouldn’t change the Queen’s reign.

However, just the fact that such a disturbance occurred on what should be the most blessed day would spread rumors quickly. As Her Majesty the Queen, who liberated the humans of the British Empire from labor, prepares for the next step, such ‘disturbances’ and ‘rumors’ would interfere with Her Majesty’s work.

This could not be tolerated.

Clarisse extended her hand. A steel pike connected to a wire embedded itself in the hotel wall across the street. Though it was as thin and slender as a piano string and barely visible, it was a sturdy item proven through numerous field operations.

Isabel, on the other hand, didn’t even need wires. She clung to the stone wall and slithered down, then leaped nimbly across balconies, roofs, and chimneys. Much more efficient than Clarisse, who had to fire and retrieve her wires each time.

But not yet. They still had a chance. They had time to make a decision not to pull the string from their bags. They still didn’t know the Queen.

Now they would learn. The Queen was coming.

Five steam locomotives screamed as they pulled the Queen. ‘It’ was part of the Queen. A very small part. Something equivalent to just one finger joint of a human.

From a distance. From very far away. One might call it a pipe organ.

Of course, ordinary pipe organs aren’t as massive as the New Albion train station. Nor are they connected by dozens of boilers, dense chimneys, and pipes whose origins and destinations are impossible to trace.

“Where is Her Majesty the Queen? I want to see her!”

People’s eyes were still not open. They still sought a physical body. They wanted flesh and blood like their own. Or perhaps they wanted something modeled after a physical form, like Clarisse and Isabel.

Ah.

The time had not yet come.

Clarisse felt a certain melancholy in this fact. ‘This is the Queen.’ But her feeble strength couldn’t convey that. Telling someone who doesn’t know the sun “that is the sun” a hundred or thousand times has no meaning.

Only when one is blinded by the sun, gains hope from its warmth, sweats from its heat, and praises it until their mouth dries and lips crack and they die burning…

Only then might they see even a fragment of the sun, isn’t that so?

“…If you have eyes, see! Is that the Queen? Is that, is that the Queen who rules us?!”

Only the terrorists had eyes to see. They knew the Queen was ‘carried’ by ‘five steam locomotives.’ Therefore, they ‘knew’ that the massive pipe organ itself was the ‘Queen.’

The position of Queen is so lonely that…

Only her adversaries see her completely, while those who fall in love with her cannot find her form, and those who truly seek to understand her call out to her, wait anxiously, and search for her but fail to recognize her.

So the Queen uttered a plea full of sorrow. The plea was not in human language. The language of the noble one was not something ordinary humans could understand.

The pipe organ emitted a volume never heard before. From high-frequency sounds far beyond the human auditory range to low-frequency sounds that were felt throughout the body rather than heard.

When a specific frequency is applied, it can shatter glass. The same thing was happening to stone buildings that had stood for a hundred years. If even stones trembled at the Queen’s speech, what of people?

Everyone knelt and covered their ears. But the Queen’s message was heard not through the ears but through the body. The Queen’s plea. The Queen’s tears. The Queen’s sorrow and sincerity.

By pounding bones and twisting organs and shaking heads as if struck in the jaw. By agitating people’s bodies as if in an earthquake. As if people were collections of sugar cubes that could crumble if the ground beneath them shook.

Everyone knelt and screamed. They cried and coughed up blood. They couldn’t even hold their precious coal baskets properly.

But no one considered it filthy. Nor did they consider it painful. No, rather, they felt catharsis. From the beautiful melody that stirred body, mind, and soul, from the escape to the pressure that bound their hearts.

It was the pleasure of being completely subdued. The relief felt in a narrow crevice from which there was no escape. That I will never be able to escape from here in my lifetime, but this place where I might suffocate to death is my sanctuary.

“Ah, my Queen. Hold me tight. Make it so I never leave your embrace!”

The Queen’s song bound their bodies. Perhaps it was a feeling only experienced in the womb. Such a peaceful and comfortable, yet forgotten time.

“Is that… is that human… is that our Queen…!”

The adversaries rose. Even as they shed tears of blood, they stood. Even as they coughed up ruptured organs, they desperately tried to pull the bomb cord from their bags. But wires wrapped around their necks.

“Let go… let go of this…!”

With their lungs torn, they couldn’t continue speaking. Only their strangely rising and falling breaths remained. The circus agents dragged them to the loudspeaker streetlights and bound them with wires.

Then, they pulled out amplifiers. They fitted them with amplification filters and forced them into the terrorists’ mouths. They didn’t care about broken teeth or crushed jaws.

“For the dignity of Her Majesty the Queen, sing.”

Death screams spread through the amplifiers. It was music that only souls facing death could produce, inhaling and exhaling. The Queen responded joyfully. Because it was a melody she truly loved.

The Queen let out a cry of joy.

A shockwave swept through the entire city.

Windows shattered and cracks appeared in building walls. Those tied to the streetlights burst apart while singing beautiful hymns. Just as a balloon makes a “pop” sound when burst, so did their bodies. The sound of a majestic trombone? The sound of victory cannons? What could it be compared to?

Blood and flesh fell upon the citizens of New Albion. The citizens cheered and raised their arms high. It was the Queen’s baptism, the bouquet the Queen handed to them, the promise of an eternal empire.

This was the finale prepared by the circus agents.

Providing enough explosives to blow up five freight cars and teaching them how to make bag bombs. Hiring amateurs to draw attention. And finally planning a scene of harmony where even those opposed to the empire would sing for Her Majesty the Queen.

“May eternal glory be upon the future of the Empire.”

And Clarisse Holmes was the conductor of this orchestra.

“You’re really… amazing, senior.”

Isabel looked at Clarisse with eyes full of desire. She seemed to covet Clarisse’s body and thought circuits.

“Well. Has this proven my loyalty?”

“I’m sorry. The judgment isn’t mine to make. I only submit reports. But, truly, I’m impressed.”

Isabel’s hand brushed against Clarisse’s.

“If you’re not busy, how about looking at a mirror together at my place? It’s a very. Pretty mirror. Looking at it will make you happy.”

It was excessively blatant. Just then, a circus agent approached. Isabel retreated, touching her lips in displeasure.

“What is it?”

“A letter, ma’am. You must receive it now.”

When a circus agent says “receive a letter,” it means the director has summoned you. Clarisse nodded.

“I’ll go now.”