The Game Called Revolution, - [ebook reader 8 inch .txt] 📗

She adjusted her glasses. “It really wasn’t that hard; only time-consuming. You see, after we landed here, I had the others help me build a pile of junk around the airship before I sent them on their way. Since then, I’ve been working to keep the ship operational—as well as repairing the damage to the bridge caused by that volcano. I think you’ll find that the Minuit Solaire II is good as new and ready to go any time.”

They entered the bridge, which was dark because of all the junk which covered almost the entire airship. Celeste pressed a button on the wall and the bridge was suddenly illuminated. She pointed to a spherical glass object—the source of the glow—on the ceiling. “Isn’t electricity amazing? We don’t even need a lantern in here. I would have had a hard time fixing up the bridge of the original Minuit Solaire under these conditions.”

The damage caused by the eruption of Mt. Erfunden had been fixed, just as Celeste had said. However, the engineer had clearly used what was available in Le Junkyard. The new canopy window didn’t fit exactly right; the areas it failed to cover had been covered with metal sheets. Also, the console in front of it had been repaired with mismatched parts of varying colors and composition.

All in all, though, it was an excellent repair job, all things considered. “Well done, Celeste,” Jeanne said.

Celeste gave her classic smile which she radiated whenever she was praised by her idol. “Thank you, milady. That means so much to me!”

“Yes, you definitely chose your friends well.”

That had not been spoken by any of them.

They all spun around to see a white-haired man wearing flamboyant (though dirty) nobles’ robes standing in the bridge’s doorway. Jeanne pulled out her rapier and pointed it at him in one fluid motion, while Pierre and Victor rushed in and grabbed him by his arms.

“Who are you?” Jeanne demanded.

He gave them an innocent smile that implied it was absurd for anyone to think he was up to mischief. “We finally meet, Jeanne de Fleur. To tell the truth, I expected you all to die in one of Robespierre’s suicide missions.”

Pierre applied pressure to the arm he was holding. The man grunted in pain. “The Commander asked you a question.”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m the one who arranged for you all to have some fun at the Bastille.”

Jeanne couldn’t believe his audacity. “The Marquis de Sade! I don’t know what you’re doing here, but after what you’ve done to us, maybe this is a good opportunity to execute you.”

The Marquis actually seemed disappointed. “Not my kind of woman. I like them younger and less feisty. If only you were more submissive, we could have such fun.” Pierre wrenched his arm even harder, causing him to cry out in pain again, louder this time. “Agh! I was just joking! Come now, there’s no need for this.”

“How did you find us?” Celeste asked him.

“You aren’t the only one who’s been hiding out here, my dear engineer,” de Sade smirked.

“You’re hiding? From whom?” Jeanne said.

“Well, it all has to do the fact that I didn’t magically drop dead once I ceased being useful to Robespierre. That was a problem for him, you see, because he really wanted me to die so I couldn’t tell people how he came to power. And if I wasn’t going to do it on my own, he was going to have it done by his personal executioner. I didn’t want that, so I slipped out of Paris. I wasn’t sure where to go, so I’ve just been hiding out here in the one place no one would ever expect a sophisticated nobleman to go.”

“Your story sounds plausible—coming from a sadistic madman, that is—but it doesn’t explain why you have approached us here,” Jeanne said.

The Marquis said, “In my robes I have a document that you will find most useful. No, it’s not one of my scintillating texts. It’s, well…if one of you would reach in and see…”

Jeanne gave an annoyed exhale. “Pierre, would you do it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Carefully,” she clarified.

Using his free hand, Pierre pulled one flap of de Sade’s robe aside. He reached in and felt around, causing the Marquis to giggle (whether from a tickle or some perverted emotion she did not know or want to know). He then pulled out a rolled-up sheet of paper and tossed it to Jeanne.

Jeanne unrolled it and looked it over. “It’s a map of Paris,” she said, surprised by how ordinary it appeared. She expected something much more interesting from the Marquis de Sade.

His mouth twisted into a playful grin. “Look closer.”

She did so. At first, she didn’t see anything out of place. After a few moments, though, she noticed something odd. “What are these symbols at the center of each arrondisement?” Paris was divided into districts called arrondisements.

“That is the symbol for electricity, my dear Commander,” de Sade explained. “I’m no scientist—my pursuits being more carnal than scientific, you see—but I’ve had a lot of free time since Robespierre got me out of prison, and I ended up studying his long-term plans out of sheer boredom. That, and I needed something to use against him if he ever tried to slip a metaphorical knife in my back.”

“Get to the point, de Sade,” Jeanne commanded impatiently.

“Fine, fine. Some people have no appreciation for a good story. Anyway. That map contains the locations of the key components of the Alset Project.”

“Alset Project? What’s that?” Celeste asked.

“It is what Robespierre foolishly believes will ensure the future of France.”

***

They escorted the Marquis to the captain’s cabin, which had a table and better lighting. Jeanne laid the map on the table in the center of the room so they could all examine it. Pierre and Victor still held de Sade firmly.

“As you can see,” de Sade began explaining, “basically, at the center of each arrondisement in Paris is a tower, built on Robespierre’s orders.”

“I don’t remember there being such landmarks in Paris,” Jeanne said.

“Neither do I.” Pierre said.

“They seemed to spring up overnight,” de Sade said, “right about the time Monsieur Robespierre cut me out of his plans—so I can’t tell you how they were built.”

“Are the towers used for generating electricity?” Celeste asked.

“Yes, but not for something practical like energy or torturing your unwitting love partner because they have severely misbehaved.”

Pierre shot the Marquis a disgusted look. “You really are a sick individual.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“To me, it was.”

“And people call me a deviant,” Victor said.

“Get on with it, Monsieur de Sade,” Jeanne ordered.

“Hmmm? Where was I? Oh, right. As I was saying, at the center of each arrondisement is a tower built to generate electricity. All the electricity generated by each tower will come together at the Tuileries tower, the center of the network.”

“And what will happen then?” Jeanne asked.

The Marquis said curtly, “A city will be destroyed.”

“Which city?” Pierre asked him.

The Marquis did his best to manage a shrug with the two men holding him tight. “Robespierre hopes it will be Vienna.”

Jeanne couldn’t possibly have heard that right. “Vienna? Austria?”

“That’s right. The central tower will fire an enormous burst of concentrated lightning into Austria. I don’t know the details, but supposedly Robespierre’s scientists have figured out how to aim it.”

Jeanne was glad Farahilde had chosen to stay behind; she didn’t know if all of them combined could stop the hot-blooded Austrian if she found out about this monstrous plan. Farahilde could very well have sliced the Marquis into unrecognizable pieces if she were present. And although Jeanne wouldn’t have blamed her, they needed to keep de Sade alive, at least until they got more information out of him.

“That’s insane,” Victor declared. “There’s no way such a thing could hit a target hundreds of miles away.”

“You may be right. But therein lies the other problem. You see, the man in charge of the Alset Project believes there is a certain danger that the whole thing could go out of control, flooding Paris with deadly electricity.”

Jeanne couldn’t’ believe what she was hearing. “What do you mean, ‘go out of control’?”

“I mean, if it doesn’t work right. The technology isn’t fully understood, you see. If Robespierre’s scientists bungle this, it could fry the city’s populace.”

Celeste shook her head wildly. “Even he’s not that stupid. Haven’t the risks been explained to him?”

“You all should have a firm grasp of his character by now. Once he gets it in his head that some course of action is necessary for the future of France, no amount of explaining can dissuade him,” de Sade explained. “Besides, he’s invested far too many resources into this project. He can’t abandon it now. It’s all or nothing.”

“Let’s put that aside for the moment,” Jeanne said. “You said Robespierre is planning to use this thing to attack Austria. Why?”

The Marquis rolled his eyes. “Isn’t it painfully obvious?” The looks on their faces told him it wasn’t. “All right, look: The reason is twofold. First, he wants to knock out France’s greatest enemy once and for all. Second, he’s looking to establish our position as the premier superpower of the European continent. He thinks that no one will dare attack this country ever again after he wipes out the Austrian capital from hundreds of miles away.”

Pierre looked like he was dying to spill some blood. “After all his complaining about the monarchy’s spending, he actually has the audacity to build some monstrosity to commit genocide?”

“He doesn’t want to kill all the Austrians. Just the ones in Vienna,” the Marquis clarified. When he saw the furious look Pierre was giving him, he apparently decided to keep the almond-skinned Frenchman’s anger directed away from him. “B-But yes, Robespierre is a sick, twisted man—which admittedly sounds strange coming from me. I believe he has lost sight of his original ideals and is now playing for keeps. If I were to speculate further, I would say he’s determined to make up for all that France lost under King Louis XVI by taking it to spectacular new heights…or destroy it trying.”

Jeanne asked, “So, how do we shut down these towers?”

There was another half-shrug from de Sade. “That I do not know. Robespierre keeps them heavily guarded at all times. The same is true of the towers’ original schematics. But,” he said, “it logically goes that if you were to shut down the main tower at the Tuileries, they wouldn’t be able to fire it at Austria.”

“But what happens if you shut it down while the other towers are running?” Celeste inquired. “Where would the electricity go?”

“Hmmm. I did overhear one of the scientists mention something about installing insulation in the smaller towers to allow the electricity to dissipate harmlessly if something should happen before it reaches the main tower.”

Celeste took a feather pen out of its glass receptacle on the table and began scrawling what looked to Jeanne like mathematical formulas on the edge of the map. “If we shut down the main tower before all the electricity finishes collecting in it, it shouldn’t cause an overload. But if we don’t, all the insulation in the world won’t be enough to contain the sheer amount of deadly energy stored in that tower. Based on what the Marquis has told us, I calculate an eighty-seven-point-nine-nine percent chance of a critical overload which would decimate the surrounding arrondisements. And that’s my most optimistic projection.”

Jeanne locked a penetrating stare on the Marquis de Sade and asked him, point-blank, “How long until this thing is activated?”

“The