GHOST DANCE written by Eric Schultz illustrated by Tiffany Kamerman

2010-09-17T23:59:00.006-04:00

Helena, South Atlantic Sea.
October 3rd, in the year of our Lord 1890

The small island of Helena was breathtaking from a thousand feet up. The sun was quenching its fire in the Indian Ocean, lighting the clouds afire in gold, purple and green. Exotic birds warbled in verdant forests. Marie clung to the gyrocopter harness in sheer dread.
“Don’t you think we’re a bit too high, Monsieur Foucault?” Marie shouted.
Marie Sklodowska had faced monsters of the imagination and abominations of technology in her short twenty-three summers, but great heights terrified her beyond reason. Marie had one white-knuckled hand firmly securing her green felt tea hat. Her princess panel dress that fluttered in the hot wind would have been fashionable in Paris or Milan, except for the utility belt which housed all manner of test tubes and measuring devices.
“I lost the beast in the trees. No, wait, there it is!” Foucault pointed.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex loped almost a half-mile ahead. Its thunderous footsteps shattered the peaceful steppes of Helena.
Leon Foucault was a dwarf in a black wool waistcoat, Italian silk vest and stovepipe hat. He had the ruddy face of a drunkard but the eyes of a monk. Foucault was the inventor of the gyroscope, which he used to power his many amazing devices. He had introduced Marie to the amazing world of science and adventure.
The gyrocopter was not much more than a squat iron barrel with a rotor that spun overhead for lift, and another in the back for thrust. An alchemic combination of gyroscopes, known only to the dwarf, made it run. Foucault and Marie were held into wicker seats by only a thin leather harness with brass buckles.
Foucault rammed the gyrocopter’s nose downward. Marie found the air forced from her lungs as the ground seemed to explode up towards them. Foucault pulled up at the last minute, leveling off only a few feet above the rocky ground, hurtling towards their prehistoric prey.
“I’ve seen dinosaurs from the center of the Earth before, Mademoiselle Curie,” Foucault exclaimed, never missing an opportunity to reveal his exploits, “but one seems to set on some unholy mission!”
“The device on its head must be the cause!” Marie shouted back, pointing to the ornate black piston engine attached to its skull with thick sutures. Greasy smoke poured upwards from its stacks.
“Clever girl,” Foucault said. Marie felt her heart quicken as the dwarf laid his sober eyes and capricious smile upon her.
“It’s heading directly for Napoleon’s grave!” she replied. Marie and Leon were among the chosen few entrusted with the knowledge that the ashes in Les Invalides were a fake. Napoleon Bonaparte’s body was secretly interred under the ground of Helena where he spent his final years. The village above the grave protected the secret with their silence.
Marie thought of the innocent villagers faced with such prehistoric fury. She set her lips in a thin line, as if to press away her fear.
“Get us closer, Monsieur Foucault. We must stop the beast.”
“Bier sur, Mademoiselle Curie,” he said, as if he’d known what she would say all along.
“Will you stop calling me that? My name is Sklodowska!’ she shouted indignantly, drawing her Ray Gun.
It was a cylinder of bubbling silver fluids upon a pistol carriage. Inside was a potion of purified pitchblende that emitted brilliant Essential Rays. Marie’s hat flew off and was digested into a green mist by the rotor. Her long brown hair fluttered across her back like a banner as she lined the Ray Gun’s crosshairs on the dinosaur’s back.
So intent was she on her target, Marie didn’t notice that as her weight shifted, the gyrocopter tilted. Her harness popped open and she let out a tight scream as she toppled out. Foucault grabbed her utility belt at the last second.
“Alas, Mademoiselle,” he shouted, leaning back with all his might. “It seems you are always in need of my assistance!”
Marie dangled from the ‘copter, flailing her arms. The ground shot under them like a stone grinder, eager to crush her bones. A tall rock snapped off one of the landing wheels.
“Pull me up!” Marie screamed in terror. “God, pull me up!!!”
“I can’t!” Foucault shouted back. “We’ll have to land!”
Out of the corner of her eye, past flashing brush and rock, she saw the Tyrannosaur rise over a peak and look down to the village. Natives scattered. The Tyrannosaur turned its head towards a woman who had fallen to the ground.
“No! There’s no time!” she said through gritted teeth. Still hanging upside down, she raised the Ray Gun with trembling hands. “I’m going to take the shot!”
“Do not feel you need to rush,” Foucault shouted, straining with one arm on her belt and the other on the control stick, as the ground threw stony punches trying to knock them out of the air. “After all, we have all of time in the world!”
The Ray Gun irised open and Essential Rays boiled out in a searing silver bolt of pure energy. The ray sliced along the ground, shearing through rock and tree alike, and finally caught the Tyrannosaur’s flank. The dinosaur fell onto its side next to the scorched trench of destruction.
“Alors!” Foucault shouted. “Good shot!”
Foucault hauled Marie back into her seat, and then pulled the crank back with all his strength. The ‘copter steadied, still streaking across the leaf-strewn ground towards their prey.
The beast jumped to its feet. Its flank was seared to muscle and bone. It bellowed with primal rage that had survived six hundred million years.
“Well, this is an interesting predicament,” Foucault mused. “You managed to make it angry at us.”
The dinosaur ducked its head and charged.
Monster and gyrocopter hurtled towards each other. At last moment Foucault banked right. The creature’s snapped it’s jaws only inches from the ‘copter. Marie could feel the vibrations of teeth grinding as they shot past.
They sailed upwards past the tree line.
“That was too close, Monsieur Foucault. You must take us higher!”
“If we go up any higher, Marie, the Pterosaur will certainly overtake us.”
“Pterosaur? What Pterosaur?”
Marie heard a keening cry and the shadow of wings fell over them. The dinosaur flashed by them, it’s claws screeching across the brass side plate of the ‘copter. The gyrocopter spun. Marie grabbed the basket, her fingers white trying to keep from being thrown out.
Warm fluid splashed across her face. Leon Foucault gurgled, his viscera spilling purple and black across the driver’s seat. The Pterosaur pirouetted on leathery wings. Then it turned back towards her, claws spread in primal rage.
“I’m afraid, Mademoiselle Curie, that you will have to save the day yourself,” Foucault said, his face suddenly the color of granite.
The gyrocopter wobbled, dead midair, as the Pterosaur dove towards her. She raised the Ray Gun, knowing she was not quick enough.
Every detail was incredibly clear. Each beat of the rotor overhead. The bright sky. Foucault’s rattling sigh. The wings of death flashed high in their final dive.
And were eclipsed by flame.
A young woman, hung by plume of raw flame emitting from the jet pack on her back, dropped between Marie and the monster. She had a long skirt, a Western hat on her head and a Winchester rifle in her hands. She pushed a lock of curly hair from over her eye and smiled wickedly.
The Pterosaur broke off and circled hungrily, looking for another vector of attack. The woman raised her rifle and two shots rang out. Two branches fell from above onto the Pterosaur, snagging its wings and forcing it to land clumsily on the ground.
Marie had barely time to take a breath to thank her savior. Then the gyrocopter began to wobble. Marie saw that the rotor was slightly bent. Surely the vibrations would rattle the craft apart.
The woman on her jet pack aimed her rifle again, squeezed one eye shut and fired. The bullet pinged off the rotor, straightening it. The vibrations calmed.
Marie could only stare mutely at her strange rescuer.
“Anne Oakley at your service, ma’am,” she said, and tipped her hat in a salute. “Sorry about yore really small friend, but all’s fair in love and war, and I’ve got my own duties to attend to.”
Marie could only nod mutely as Annie Oakley flew away in gout of flame and smoke.
The copter slowly lowered to the ground and the rotor died. Marie rolled out onto the ground, boneless from exhaustion.
“I will never, ever be able to sleep enough after this,” she said.
She had forgotten the Tyrannosaur, but it had not forgotten her. In a few short bounds it was upon her. The sky was eclipsed by prehistoric flesh and bone and hunger.
Having braved incredible heights, flying lizards, and Foucault’s injury, Marie’s nerves had been stretched too far. Some fragile bit broke inside her.
“You impertinent beast!” Marie shouted, “I have had quite enough from you today!”
The Tyrannosaur actually paused for a moment, taken aback. Then it decided to eat her after all. The giant maw opened.
She blasted it.
A beam of brilliant Essential Rays cut the monster cleanly in half. The machine on its head broke open, spilling parts across the leaves.
Suddenly the jungle was quiet once more.
Marie turned towards Leon Foucault. His perfectly oiled locks were affray as he held in his intestines with his hands.
“Oh, Leon,” she breathed, smoothing the hair on his forehead. The cold sweat on his skin belied his casual, blue-lipped smile.
“Do not despair, Mademoiselle,” he coughed, and sucked in air. “Do not waste a single moment with your tears.” Then the dwarf smiled and said his characteristic phrase. “All these moments are precious, and there is science to be done!”
The words struck her resolve. Marie straightened her back. She was a proper young lady, and it was improper to show so much emotion. The modern world had no place for inappropriate sentiment.
Indeed, there was science to be done.
The strange engine that had been affixed to the dinosaur’s head spilled out at the base of the creature’s remains, a mass of crystalline gears, oxidized pistons and glass tubes. And within it, she was certain, the key to the mystery. From her utility belt she pulled a pair of examination tongs, a magnifying glass and a bottle of nitric acid. With these, she probed the wreckage looking for clues.
“Aha!” she exclaimed. With a flush of pride, Marie removed two delicate glass vial attached with rubber tubing. Inside the right was a sulfurous vapor that licked at the glass like fire. Within the other was a hypnotic purple and green light.
“I have never seen such vapors.” Leon breathed.
“Nor have I. They are certainly gaseous, but they do not seem to follow the simple movements of Brownian motion. This one on the left is exceedingly strange.”
She peered at the glittering light. It darted at the edges of its vial as if it was--
“Alive. It’s alive,” Marie breathed.
“What manner of creature is entirely gaseous? I have heard Monsieur Verne talk of gas-spirits that live on the Moons of Jupiter. Surely nothing like that exists on Earth.”
“Nothing on Earth…” Marie said, and then the answer came to her. “Yes! On Earth. Not in Heaven, as it should be. This poor creature must be a human soul.”
Leon gasped.
“This is D’lumiere’s doing.” Marie said. She pulled a small leather bound book of vellum from her bag. On the cover, in gold letters over black, were the words: A Treatise On The Division of Vitae at Death, by Paul D’Lumiere. She opened the book, skimmed a few lines, and then pointed to the page in triumph.
“It’s all right here, Monsieur Foucault. D’Lumiere supposes that in life, soul-matter and phlostigon are inexorably linked. Upon death, the soul and phlostigon separate. The soul rises to heaven due to negative weight, whereas phlostigon sinks downward, leeching into wood and oil to make them flammable.”
“The red mist must be phlostigon. The other could only be an entrapped human soul. Clearly, using his hypothesis, he has created an engine to compress soul and phlostigon once more, binding the poor soul to Earth.”
“Clever girl,” Foucault whispered, a bubble of blood forming on his lips.
Marie pulled off the rubber tubing. The hellish mist sunk down into the Earth and was absorbed. The rainbow lights danced upward in delight, expanding as they went, as the tortured soul ascended.
To think, when she was a girl she had the most terrible fascination for the dashing and now thoroughly evil Paul D’Lumiere, not so much for his ivory skin or pouting lips but the twisted claw that was his left arm and the darkness in his soul.
Since then, she had grown into a woman. Foucault had opened her eyes to a world in which she could use science to help forge a better tomorrow. However, it seemed that the past was unwilling to let her go.
A piece of black glass, gleaming through dinosaur blood, caught her eye. She poured a single dab of nitric acid upon it. A puff of acrid smoke rose, leaving a gleaming perfect obsidian gear underneath. Only D’lumiere would use volcanic glass gears for their incredible precision. Marie examined it more closely with her microscope.
“Aha,” she shouted, as Marie raised the iridescent black stone to catch the dying rays of sun. “Monsieur Foucault, this is a rare gyrate obsidian—“
Marie turned back to Foucault, expecting praise, but the dwarf’s face was white and lifeless.
He was dead.
But Leon Foucault had died before. Like his gyroscopes that constantly turn, it seemed that the dwarf died only to return to her life again. It had something to do with his time travel device, the same effect that made him shorter with every leap through time, the same device that had showed Marie her own fate as the discoverer of Essential Rays and the creation of her Ray Gun.
Marie wiped the edges of her eyes. She tried to restrain the pounding of her heart, which seemed to claw against her ribs. She could almost hear Madeline, her finishing school instructor, telling her that the only expression appropriate for a young lady was a modest smile. A stiff upper lip was all Marie could manage.
She saw a trail of fire on the horizon of Annie Oakley’s jet pack, followed by the Pterosaur. Dinosaurs, entrapped human souls, phlostigon, and an American heroine at Napoleon’s grave. Such amazing curiosities!
Marie knew where answers lay. The obsidian that twinkled in her tongs could only be found in one place, in the northwest corner of the New World.
America!

Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota, December 29th 1890

The train slowed to a stop at the base of a mountain. A small shack had a rickety painted sign ‘Wounded Knee’ hanging sideways from a single nail. Snow covered the Rocky Mountains that stretched in every direction. The sky was enormous over Marie’s head.
Marie had been traveling for almost two months to arrive at this icy corner of the enormous New World. After burying Foucault on Helena, she set sail with a British schooner trolling for pirates in the South Atlantic. She disembarked in Casablanca, and from there she had flown by private dirigible, compliments of the King of Spain, to Dublin. From Dublin she crossed the Atlantic in a tramp steamer to grandiose New York, with grey buildings so tall that they pierced the clouds above. Enormous sheets still covered the enigmatic present from the French, the Statue of Liberty, standing three hundred feet tall on Ellis Island. Underneath sweeping arms of the new Brooklyn Bridge, she boarded a train and hurtled across steel rails towards the West.
Thanksgiving had been spent in a tiny town in Ohio which only had four skinny inhabitants and a cow. There she met a Lakota Sioux named Sitting Bull. His skin was brown and cracked. The smell of tobacco clung to his tribal blankets. Huddled together over a small fire under a blanket of stars, they shared a steaming pot of boiled snow while he told her tales of his amazing life.
He was a Lakota shaman, a chief, and even an actor in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show with Annie Oakley. Reflected firelight glinted in his eyes as he exposed on their adventures. Together he and Annie had prevented Doctor Terrible from destroying the Statue of Liberty, stopped an invasion of Aqua-men that rose from Lake Michigan, and brokered a peace treaty between Virginia settlers and the exiled Martians that shared their lands.
Sitting Bull was also a revolutionary, trying to free his people from invaders. The natives of the New World: the Sioux, Pawnee, Cherokee and others, who once numbered in the millions and roamed across the great land hunting buffalo, were now prisoners in their own country. They were herded onto reservations by the white men. Unable to hunt like they were accustomed, they were given rations by their captors, but the rations were thinner and thinner every season.
Then he told Marie of the great Ghost Dance. Together all the shamans would dance the terrible deep magic of war throw off the yoke of the white man. With the help of a powerful sorcerer from the East, they would bring their ancestors back from the grave to help their fight. A man who drew the fury of Great Spirit from within a volcano at Wounded Knee, a man with a beautiful face and a malformed left arm.
And so, a month later, Marie pulled her enormous suitcase off the train into the snow at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The sky was a gigantic white expanse that seemed to wrap around the horizon and under her feet. The only building in sight was a skeletal cottage at the railroad platform. Wind whistled in between the rotting planks. As the train started again and steamed into the distance, Marie sat on top of her suitcase and cupped her hands for warmth, wondering how she would find D’Lumiere amongst such desolation. Surely there would be a carriage or some sort of transportation? She rapped on the cottage door, but her heart sank as it appeared to have been abandoned for some time.
She had not long to wait.
Two horses topped a small hill, with two very familiar riders. The first horse pushed through the deep snow towards her, and its rider jumped off gracefully.
“Well, darlin’, what a surprise to see ya again,” Annie Oakley said. Up close, the American’s shoulders spoke of Amazonian power, where her hips were subtly soft curves from which a pistol was hung low. She wore a short cotton frock a frilled edge, and thigh-high leather boots, with far too much creamy skin at the mercy of the elements. She jumped off her horse and stepped up.
“Hardly a surprise, I suspect, for either of you,” Marie said, more towards Annie’s companion, sitting stiffly upon his mount.
Paul D’lumiere regarded Marie with a cool eye. He was dressed in a formal long suit coat, pointed leather boots and a foul expression. His perfect white skin and ruby lips glowed blue from cold.
“Once again I underestimated your persistence, Marie,” Paul said.
“Your schemes have claimed another victim. Leon Foucault is dead. You will pay for your crimes, Paul D’Lumiere!” Marie shouted.
Marie pulled her Ray Gun from her belt. Cobra-quick, Annie’s hand fell on hers, and twisted it backwards with effortless strength. Marie’s nose filled with aroma of roses and gun oil.
“Maybe he will, darlin’, but not today,” Annie said, as pulled the Ray Gun from Marie’s fingers with an apologetic smile.
“Well, I suppose this is an auspicious meeting,” Marie said to Annie, rubbing the feeling back into her fingers. “I never had a chance to thank you for saving my life in Helena.”
“Shucks, weren’t nothin’.” Annie said.
“You are too modest. I had the chance to run into Sitting Bull on my way here.”
Annie’s eyes widened.
“He told me of your exploits, as a sharpshooter with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and your many amazing adventures together. He brewed the magical potion which granted you the strength of a bear and speed of a mountain lion.”
“He gave me a sight more than that, ya know,” Annie said, her face fallen. “You musta seen him just before he died. Weren’t but two weeks ago, shot down cold by the Army, in his own house!”
She wrapped her fingers around a glass phial that hang from her neck, with had a luminescent purple smoke darting inside. Even more compelling were the American’s eyes. Marie could see the depths of her despair, which could only come from the loss of a loved one.
Annie raised her eyes and recovered. “I ask’t around about you, too. I saw in them Europeeann papers you wuz fightin’ some giant Octopus over Vienna in a fancy aircar. Yore quite a young woman, Marie Skowoldka.”
The intensity of Anne’s gaze was palpable. Marie felt her cheeks burn.
“Well, aren’t you two absolutely lovely,” Paul said with disdain.
“Indeed. How could you partner yourself with this man?” Marie said.
“I gots my reasons,” Annie said evasively, fingering the amulet at her neck.
“But you are a great American hero, while he is…”
“Is what?” Paul asked, apparently amused.
“Thoroughly evil!” Marie spat. “You raised an army of plant zombies in order to take over the Kremlin! You created a death ray in order to destroy the Moon!”
Paul puffed up, from indignation or pride it was difficult to tell. “I had no intention of destroying the Moon, foolish girl,” he retorted. “It was a feint. If you and your dwarf hadn’t arrived, I would have been able to steal the Philosopher’s Stone from the Royal Museum of London--”
“—that never would have worked anyway, you hadn’t properly calculated the coefficient of photonic convergence—“
“—bah, both you and Tesla had the same absurd criticisms, which I thoroughly refuted in an open forum at the Academy of Sciences in Reykjavik—“
Marie put her hands on her hips, unwilling to give an inch. “—Open forum? You kidnapped the entire auditorium to a parallel dimension! I had to rescue them by integrating the relative stresses using Farbourg’s hypotheses—“
“—which I must admit, was a streak of brilliance on your part—“ Paul demurred.
“Ah-HEM!” Annie cleared her throat loudly. Paul and Marie averted their eyes to the ground, both ashamed at their unseemly outburst. “Gawsh, you two clearly have the pig’s jeebies for each other. Howdja start fightin’ in the first place?”
“He blames me for his sister’s death,” Marie said. “Madeline was my finishing school instructor, who fell infirm after Anemia’s dark kiss. I was unable to cure her of the pestilence.”
“You cured your brother Jozef, and managed to destroy the miasmata of disease from all of Warsaw with Dr. Koch’s microscopic soldiers, but you were unable to save my beautiful Madeline,” Paul said, icicles hanging from every word.
“I tried my best, Paul, you know I did,” Marie pleaded, already feeling the weight of guilt pressing upon her.
“And yet, you were invited to join the Adventurer’s Society of Paris, whereas despite my far more brilliant exploits, I was denied,” Paul snarled.
“Because of your intentions, not your genius, which is certainly unparalleled. For the last seven years I have had to scour the world in order to thwart you…”
“Thwart you? Is that some special Euro- pee-an sex position?” Annie asked.
“Heavens no.” Marie said, feeling the blood rise to her cheeks.
“Aw, shucks. Just when it looked like you might not be a stick in the mud after all.” Anne smiled. “See, men aren’t all that complicated. You don’t have to roam the world playing tag with death rays an’ flying carriages. Just tell him what you want.”
“That’s completely impertinent. I don’t want…” Marie’s cheeks burned again.
“Enough.” Paul, also seeming uncomfortable with the topic, pulled a pocket watch from his waistcoat with his twisted right hand. “You two have an have an appointment to keep, Annie, ne c’est pas?”
“Shore do. Come on with me, Marie. This will be so much quicker than explainin’”
“And you, Paul?” Marie asked.
“I have my own appointments,” he said, and with a swirl of his coat and a kick of spurs he rode off. A boiling cloud of wind and ice seemed to appear magically and envelop him.
“That man always has to make an exit,” Annie said thoughtfully, and snorted.
“You sound like you…know him,” Marie said carefully, feeling a yellow surge of jealousy of the confident American.
Annie snorted again. “Not the way yore thinkin’.”
Annie helped Marie onto her horse, jumped up behind her, and urged them forward. The horse ploughed through heavy snow, mist rising from its nostrils. Marie crossed her arms over her chest in silence as they rode, refusing to say anything to her captor.
Annie shrugged, pulled out an ornate snuff box, tapped out a small pile onto the back of her hand, and snorted it. Marie was unable to hold her tongue.
“Disgusting! That is no habit for a woman.”
“Aw, Marie, you haven’t tried nothin’, have yeh? Well, what kind of scientist wouldja be if you judged before you tried?”
Anne tapped out another pile of dust on the back of her hand, then raised her hand to Marie’s mouth. Marie trembled, and not from cold.
“It’s bad enough that I traipse around the world, doing science. How am I ever supposed to attract a man, doing manly acts like this?” Marie asked.
“It ain’t all about men, darlin’. You gotta be a whole person first, ‘fore you can have another person in your life,” Annie said. “You just be you. Pretty young thing like yoreself, you must be beating them off with a stick.”
“Hardly,” Marie said, bringing her nose to the back of Annie’s hand. She closed her eyes and snorted. Immediately she started to cough.
“It burns…” she whispered, blinking through tears.
Anne snorted and pounded her on the back. “We’ll make’a real woman outta you yet, Marie.”
The horse passed through a craggy valley with skeletal trees. It opened onto an icy plain. In the far distance a mountain smoked, which could only be an active volcano as it burst bits of fire every few minutes.
The Sioux encampment was a sad collection of lean, fur-covered tents. The natives huddled around fires looking hungry and desolate. Hungry babies suckled at dry nipples in their mother’s arms.
A small squad of Army cavalry approached the camp on horseback from the opposite direction. Their face were pale and drawn, their blue military coats looked inadequate for the cold. Behind them strode a terrifying robotic figure.
It was tall as a house, and looked like a man made from an iron kettle. The body was a metal box with steel rivets, powered by a boiler in the back. A field cannon was mounted on its forearm. The soldier that piloted the creature from an iron cage in its chest had a dour look, hawkish nose and multiple bars on his shoulder to indicate the rank of Colonel. His face was flushed; sweat pouring down his face and handlebar moustache from the incredible heat of the steam boiler behind him. A meanly-dressed boy of no more than twelve years followed behind the iron monster in a mule-driven cart, filled with cannonballs and stacks of coal.
The cavalry men jumped off their horses, and unloaded several misshapen burlap bags at the feet of the Indians.
“There are yore rations, courtesy of the guvernment of the United States of America, in which you live,” the Colonel boomed from within his iron monstrosity.
Two Indian warriors rifled through the contents, looking displeased. Behind them was a skeletal figure in a tall headdress of feathers, covered in a blanket stained with blood. He coughed up pink froth in between words as he spoke, his voice inexplicably loud and clear across the brutal snow.
“This is only half of what we received last month, and it is winter, Colonel Forsythe. It is not enough to feed our children.”
“It’s a sight more than you deserve, Chief Big Foot.”
Big Foot looked up at the Colonel with a gaze of one wedded to death.
“Beware, Colonel, for the Ghost Dance has begun. Soon our ancestors will rise from the grave, and we shall throw off your Army like fleas off a dog’s back.”
“Har har,” the Colonel replied. “Oh, it’s that Ghost Dance. You all think yore dead will rise from the grave and kill all of us God-fearing Christians. A bunch of cock-amamy if you ask me. I’ll give it to ya, you folks is crafty, but with these here Hotchkiss Iron Soldiers you don’t stand a chance.”
Forsythe pulled a control lever, twisted a crank, and the Iron Soldier’s arm rose up with a clenched fist. As if responding to his signal, three more of the Hotchkiss soldiers lumbered over the hill.
In response, the Sioux warriors rose to their feet. They pulled rifles from under blankets, pistols from out of tents. An armed mob was gathering, and they looked angry.
“Chief, yore gettin’ into dangerous territory. You better tell yore braves to drop them weapons,” the Colonel shouted. “Take yore food and pack up yore tents. We’ve got orders to get you on trains, to move you to Omaha.”
Chief Big Foot crossed his arms over his chest. His warriors mimicked him, standing tall with faces of stone. “We have lost our land and our buffalo. We have been penned in, and moved against our will, too many times. My people will not move again.”
“Injuns ain’t people. You ain’t got readin’ and ‘ritin, and you aint’ got no God.” The Colonel pulled more levers, and the arm with its massive cannon pointed directly at Big Foot. “Now drop yore weapons or we’ll hafta drop ‘em for ya.”
The ragged Sioux warriors, trembling Cavalry and Iron soldiers faced each other with obstinate resolution. Marie could feel the pressure boiling between the starving Sioux and cold-riddled soldiers.
“We can’t let this happen!” Marie said. “Stop!—“ she started to shout, when Annie’s hand clamped over her mouth. Marie tried to struggle but it helpless against the American heroine’s strength.
“Shh,” Annie whispered in her ear. “I don’t like it none neither, but this is the way it’s gotta be.”
The three other Hotchkiss soldiers made a half-circle around the camp, weapons pointed in. The cavalry soldiers raised their rifles, looking cold and scared. Women and children poked their heads out of tents, curious and equally terrified.
Marie locked eyes with a Sioux woman holding her baby tight to her chest. Like the mother, Marie felt helpless against such naked aggression.
Chief Big Foot looked over at Annie. She nodded. The cachectic man threw off his blanket and started to chant. He changed ancient words that were old when the first hooves struck the ground, words of the Great Spirit himself.
Colonel Forsythe laughed, and snorted. He hawked a huge wad of brown spit onto Chief Big Foot. Some of the warriors raised their weapons. The cavalry men’s rifles shook. Nervous shouting flew back and forth.
A finger slipped on the trigger. A single shot rang out, and a Sioux warrior choked and fell.
Then all hell was unleashed.
The great booms of the Hotchkiss cannons fired. Tents were shredded with grapeshot. Sioux warriors howled as they picked off Army soldiers, but were soon cut down by the incredible firepower of the Iron Soldiers. The massacre only lasted minutes.
Gunsmoke wafted on the wind as the shooting ended. The groans of the irons soldiers died. The ground was littered with bodies. It seemed that the snow wept with blood. Four cavalry soldiers lay on the ground, and more than a hundred Sioux.
The Sioux woman stood alone, over the body of her fallen husband and son. The woman leaned her head back and started to chant the Ghost Dance. She pranced around clumsily, drunken with grief. Then she opened her mouth to shout again, but the howl that echoed across the valley was horrible and bestial, louder than any human mouth could attain.
“That, that couldn’t be her, could it?” Forsythe said with true fear.
The ground shuddered. Suddenly the air was split with the sound of roaring. Dinosaurs rushed out of the trees. Many-toothed Tyrannosaurus. Bony Ankylosaurus. A Triceratops. First a few, then a dozen. All of them with D’Lumiere Soul Compression engines smoking on their heads. The soldiers and Hotchkiss soldiers raised their arms, but the prehistoric monsters were among them.
The Ghost Dance had truly begun, and the massacre at Wounded Knee was just beginning.
A Stegosaurus flashed in front of Annie’s horse. The horse reared and Marie was thrown. She landed flat on her back stunned, unable to do anything but watch. The dinosaurs ran amuck through the soldiers, sewing death. Claws flashed and blood sprayed. Most of the men could not bring breath to scream before their breath was torn from them.
Annie leapt to her feet and ran over to Chief Big Foot. She was carrying a curious device of iron pipes, rubber tubes and glass vials. She pressed a brass funnel against the chief’s chest, and Marie could see the bright blue lights of the rising soul collected into a glass tube.
“You harvest souls for D’Lumiere’s infernal plans,” Marie said, rising to her feet.
Annie moved to a Sioux warrior’s headless carcass and reaped again. Behind her, an Iron Soldier decapitated a Tyrannosaur with a blast of its cannon. “Paul is giving the Injuns the only fightin’ chance they’z got.”
Anne pulled her jetpack off the horse’s saddlebags and slung it to her back. She pressed a button. It coughed black smoke, then greasy orange flame.
With a burst of vigor, Marie ran and jumped onto Annie’s back.
“Get off!” Annie shouted as they shot up into the air. Annie reached behind her awkwardly to grab Marie, but Marie twisted her head and hung on like a leech. The jet pack skewed right and left, over the carnage of dinosaurs versus robots.
“No!” Marie shouted. Marie grabbed at her Ray Gun on Annie’s belt.
Anne put one hand on Marie’s face and shoved her backwards.
“I’m sorry, darlin’, but you don’t want to go where I’m going.”
Marie fell back into open space. She panicked and flailed her limbs. She only fell a few feet into the branches of a willow tree. Her petticoats caught in the branches, slowing her fall, and she landed on her face in the snow.
She tried to stand but cried out. Her ankle was twisted and swollen. Marie she could only watch with helpless fury as Annie disappeared into the mouth of the smoking volcano above.
Her Ray Gun was bent on the ground next to her, destroyed. Marie was lucky that the cylinder hadn’t broken, or she would have been incinerated by Essential Rays. The disemboweled body of an Iron Soldier pilot lay in the snow just a few feet away. The Iron Soldier leaned over it’s fallen pilot as if in grief.
A Stegosaurus limped up into the clearing towards her. It was bleeding from several bullet wounds. Its great head turned to her, and they locked eyes. Marie froze, helpless. The air was silent save for the churnings of the Soul Compression engine.
The creature regarded her thoughtfully. It looked over towards the dead Army soldier, then back to her. There was no malice in its eyes, only sadness. Then it ran off towards the smoking mountain, black blood dripping in the ice.
The mountain filled with Paul’s diabolical machinations was only a few miles away. Looking at her ankle, already black and blue from congested blood, it might as well have been on the other end of the world.
She looked up at the empty carcass of the Iron Soldier, hanging forlornly. Its boiler had gone cold. It would take at least a half hour to warm up again, unless…she looked over at the gleaming container of Essential Rays.
“It will never work. The pressures, the instability…it’s absolutely mad,” she mused to herself, pulling her goggles over her eyes. “I guess that’s why the call it mad science, then.”
Using iron tongs at an arm’s length, she poured the Essential Rays into the coal chute. Light blasted out, reflecting over the snow, until she slammed the door shut. A great rumble and hiss came from the boiler and the Iron Soldier rose again.
Marie climbed into the chest cavity. She gripped the waldoes that controlled the soldier’s legs; put her feet into the boots for the legs. Her ankle moaned in protest, but she was lost in exhilaration. The power! A single nudge and the Iron Soldier strode forward. Soon she was streaking over the snow at a run faster than a locomotive!
Marie followed the dinosaur’s trail of blood to a cave at base of the volcano. The trail lead downward into caverns that became larger and hotter as she descended. The air was close and reeked of sulfur.
Finally Marie reached an opening, a gigantic cavern. A river of lava rolled down the walls and collected into a bubbling pool at the base. An army of dinosaurs roared and rumbled on a shelf of hardened magma, Soul Compression engines churning on their heads.
At the far wall on a raised crevice was an enormous white operating room, blazing with hot light. A Spinosaurus, the largest of all the dinosaurs, was locked into place by enormous iron shackles. Paul D’Lumiere stood on a dais twenty feet in the air, stitching a Soul Compression engine onto its head with one skillful hand.
Standing a few feet away, Marie saw Annie Oakley at the head of an Allosaurus. Annie stared directly into its eyes, and was petting its great head with desperate longing.
“Sitting Bull, it was the only way,” Annie said, hugging the scaly jaw to her chest, “but I had to bring you back to life, no matter the cost.” The dinosaur looked sad.
Marie found herself transfixed by the drama. She thought she would feel revulsion, but all she could feel was…jealousy. Their horrific love was somehow touching. And she found that instead of thinking of her beloved Foucault, her eyes wandered to Paul.
“I am finished,” Paul said. “Spinosaurus is the largest of the dinosaurs, the only fitting vessel for the conquering emperor. Annie, the soul sil vous plait.”
Annie pulled out a glass phial filled with an angry blue and black miasma, and placed it into Paul’s waiting hand.
“To think, they called me mad at the Institute,” Paul mused, tuning the fine knobs of the Soul Compression engine. Then, he popped open the cork and attached the phial to the top of the engine. It’s black pistons started to churn.
“This will truly be my masterpiece, reviving a soul that fell almost a century ago. Welcome back to the world, Napoleon!” Paul said, pushing a button. The shackles of the Spinosaur fell away, and the creature stood to its full monstrous height. Its eyes changed from bestial to malignant.
Napoleon inspected the cavern, eyes catching every detail with terrible intelligence. It looked down over the rows of possessed dinosaurs. Meanwhile, Paul pressed the fingertips of his good hand to the tip of his stump and paced back and forth, his face flush with victory.
“It was only a year ago that I came upon this entrance to the center of the Earth, on my quest to revive my dear Madeline. I descended for weeks, running out of food and eventually water. I sailed across an underground sea that led me to a prehistoric jungle. I barely survived an attack by a Stegosaur. My wound became infected, and I was overcome by the fever, delirious and mad.”
“There Sitting Bull found me. He fed me potions and made me smoke the dried root of the giant mushrooms that surrounded us. As the fever burned through me my visions became divinatory. Among the heat and pressure of the deep Earth, I realized I could compress souls in order to trap them in the mighty dinosaur bodies. Therein lay the key to my greatest plan.”
Paul turned to the waiting dinosaur army, and spread his arms wide.
“Sioux warriors, you have been uprooted from your lands. This is Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest general of all of history. He will lead you to victory over the conquering armies of the United States, and you can once again roam the plains with impunity.”
Napoleon roared such that the volcano’s walls shook.
Marie had heard enough. Her modified Iron Soldier stepped out of the shadows. The pipes connecting the Iron Soldier’s arms and legs to the boiler gleamed with silver light. Inside it’s chest Marie had stripped down to her knickers. Heat had plastered her sweaty hair to her face, but her eyes shone in determination.
Marie stoked the Essential Ray engine, watching the steam pressure gauge needle into the red, and lurched the Iron Soldier forward so she was standing before Paul and the Spinosaur. Marie cranked a lever, and an enormous metal finger stabbed out at D’lumiere.
“Paul, this has gone far enough!”
“Inconceivable!” Paul burst out with a combination of ire and admiration. “Marie Sklodowska, you’ve replaced the boiler with an Essential Ray engine. Brilliant!”
“This is not just about science or ego, Paul. You would start a war as a child plays with toy soldiers. These are people’s lives!”
“Dear Marie, I am merely evening the odds. After all, it was your dear Foucault who provided the Americans with gyroscope technology for their Iron Soldiers.”
Marie gasped. First Annie Oakley, the great American heroine, had betrayed her own country. Then her dear Foucault, selling weapons of mass destruction? Who did she have left to look up to?
“You’d better go, Marie,” Annie said. “You’d be crazy to be a part of this.”
She remembered the eyes of Sioux mother looking up at her in terror. Looking to her for answers.
“I’ve done terrible things in the name of progress and science. But this war has no purpose but death. We cannot let the machinations of little men trample the dreams of a great people.”
Napoleon’s eyes gleamed as the Soul compression engine twisted the fallen emperor’s dark soul. It sprang towards Marie, and its great maw clamped down on the Hotchkiss soldier’s body. Its glistening tongue groped across Marie’s passenger cage.
Marie bashed an iron fist against the possessed dinosaur’s skull. It pulled away.
The dinosaur and Marie circled each other. Marie’s back was up against the cliff face, so she had nowhere to retreat to. She cranked up the Essential Ray engine and bared the Soldier’s arms in challenge.
With a swing of its great tail, it swept the Iron Soldier’s legs out. The Soldier toppled and slid down the shale into a magma pool below. Molten stone splashed. Marie’s head slammed against metal and she was dazed. She watched with blurry eyes as the Spinosaur’s head came down towards her body—
The Allosaur that was Sitting Bull slammed into the Spinosaur, knocking its attack off target. The Spinosaur fell on its side and roared. Sitting Bull seemed to be mesmerized for a moment, staring into that fury, when the Spinosaur snapped out, taking out Sitting Bull’s throat in one bite.
For a moment Sitting Bull stood still, air whistling through the gore of his exposed windpipe, lifeblood pumping onto the rock. Then he crashed to the ground.
Marie started to come around. The magma, bubbling only a few inches from her face, breathed scarring heat on her face. She tugged at the straps that held her in, but the buckles were twisted. The walls of the Iron Soldier were heating up quickly.
“Sitting Bull!” Annie shouted, and pulled her deadly pistols. With a single shot she took out one of Napoleon’s eyes. The Spinosaur roared furiously and reared backwards, jelly rolling from his blackened eye socket. She blasted away with both guns, scoring tiny hits against the meaty hide.
Napoleon swung his tail and caught Annie’s head. Her neck snapped and her body fell to the cavern floor, arms and legs jutting at wrong angles, eyes staring sightlessly upward.
The great maw once again leaned over Marie. Her fingers singed as she unsnapped her shoulder harness. Napoleon put one huge foot on the Iron Soldier, trying to push it under the magma.
Using the arm waldoes, Marie reached out, and the Iron Soldier’s arms locked around the Spinosaur’s neck. The great dinosaur spasmed, trying to free itself, but the mechanical power of the Soldier had it locked in mortal embrace.
Meanwhile, magma spilled into the pilot’s compartment. Marie climbed of her control seat, only to be directly in front of the Spinosaur’s face. Napoleon snapped just inches away from her. Flame singed her knickers as she clambered over the dinosaur’s bony back away from the flames.
Locked in a bear hug, the weight of the Iron Soldier dragged the dinosaur into the magma. Napoleon’s ghost roared as robot and dinosaur melted and disappeared among the molten rock.
For a moment there was quiet. Marie lay back on the rock, drenched in sweat, each tortured breath like fire in her lungs. Paul walked up to her and pulled a gleaming revolver from his long coat. They locked eyes.
Marie laid her head back with a sigh.
“Paul, I have already twisted my ankle, been burned by magma, and fought a dinosaur. Shoot me, if only it will not delay tea time. I have come to miss the graciousness of civilization.”
“You think I’ve failed,” Paul said, face cracked with fury. “Certainly, not having Napoleon to lead the dinosaur army is a great loss. Still, the Sioux people have been wronged as I was wronged, and I have given them the means to exact their revenge.”
Paul looked out upon the throng of Soul-trapped dinosaurs, and raised his arms.
“Napoleon and Sitting Bull are gone, but not all is lost,” Paul shouted. “Go forth and dance your Ghost Dance. Lay carnage upon the Americans. Reclaim your land, no matter what the cost!”
The throng hesitated. They looked at Sitting Bull’s corpse, at Annie Oakley. Then they looked at Marie. She clutched a bloody cloth in her hand, the baby blanket of the dead mother from the massacre.
The Ankylosaur shook its head slowly. Marie looked into its eyes, realized that she was looking at Chief Big Foot. The dinosaurs looked amongst themselves, down at the bloodstained blanket that Marie had brought, then at the fallen carcass of the Tyrannosaurus. Then, one by one, they looked up at the wet iron sky.
The Ankylosaur that was Chief Big Foot walked slowly into the lava. When the head was covered, the great Compression engine sputtered and died. Sparks flew up, green and white and gold, ascended through the mouth of the volcano into the sky above.
One by one, the dinosaurs strode into the lava and the Sioux souls were released into the air. Marie looked up at Paul’s beautiful face reflecting the heavenly light of ghosts. A tear formed at his eye.
“You see, only when the soul lets go of pain can it truly be freed,” Marie said.
He let the revolver fall to the ground.
“All of my life I have been ridiculed for my deformities. All of that anger…it had to go somewhere. Now I finally have the greatest achievement of my life.” Paul said, drawing closer. “It was a monstrosity. All this blood, just for my pride. Such a waste.”
Marie drew closer to him, her fingers curling in the fabric of his coat.
“You are truly brilliant, Paul D’lumiere. Your science, together with mine, could help forge a brave new world together. Imagine the good we will do.”
Their lips reached forward, almost touching, breath held in anticipation.
“The good I will do, Marie,” he said.
Marie stepped back in horror.
“I think you misunderstand me. I greatly admire your work. It’s just….you’re simply not my type. I prefer blondes.”
Marie kicked him in the shin viciously. Paul squealed in pain, and hopped on one leg. She kicked the other leg. He fell onto the rock, moaning. With an unladylike snort, she spat an enormous loogie onto his fine coat.
She limped over to Annie Oakley’s broken body, and closed Annie’s sightless eyes. Then she slung on Annie’s jet pack, kicked the starter. She rocketed out of the volcano mouth on a pillar of flame into the sky.

New York City, January 17th, 1891

In the waters of the Delta, a great cloaked female figure awaited, her metal arm raised three hundred feet into the sky. Plank scaffolding still clung to her side. Soon the Statue of Liberty would be unleashed on the harbor, a bright warrior, a guardian of the New World.
Marie waited at the port of Brooklyn for her ship to depart. She wore a rough cotton shirt, leather leggings, and a sullen expression that could kill gulls mid-flight. The other first class passengers, dressed in their finest for this auspicious occasion, looked at her askew.
A telegram fluttered in her hand fluttered in the salty breeze.
GOOD WORK IN AMERICA. STOP. BUT VILLIANY NEVER RESTS. STOP. GIANT ALIEN STATUES UNEARTHED ON EASTER ISLAND. STOP. TERRIBLE THREAT TO MANKIND. STOP. MEET ME IN CAPETOWN WE WILL PROCEED BY POWERED BATHYSPHERE. STOP. ALWAYS FOUCAULT.
The dwarf had risen again from the dead again, as he was wont to do, and beckoned her to join his reckless travels. The same man who had sold his gyroscope technology to the American military to destroy their native peoples, in the name of progress. She let the telegraph catch the breeze. It lay against the water, rising and falling on the breath of the ocean.
Enough. She had enough of chasing men. The Statue of Liberty did not need a man by her side, why did she? Let the world save itself for once.
The Captain, a smooth-cheeked man dangling medals from his vest, leaned over the rail beside her. He held his crooked arm out for Marie to take.
“Madame Sklodowska, your fame precedes you. Surely your journey has been long and arduous. I would be honored if you would join me in the Captain’s quarters for the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty.”
“Sadly it’s unveiling was delayed to repair the damage done by Doctor Terrible. Such villains must learn that nothing can stop the wheels of democracy from turning.”
“Nor the relentless grindstone of capitalism and progress, I’m afraid,” Marie said sullenly. She pulled out a box of snuff, tapped out a wad on the back of her hand, and snorted it.
“Disgusting!” the Captain said in contempt, withdrawing the offered arm. “Surely, that is no habit for a young lady.”
Marie turned away from the Captain. Being a proper young lady had never served her in this life, and she was tired of it. Instead, she watched the sun setting across the southern tip of island of Manhattan.
For a single moment, the rays of the setting sun turned emerald green. As soon as it happened, they had gone back to thick gold.
“Did you see it? What is that phenomena?” she asked the Captain.
“Oh, the green flash? Oh, that’s what happens when a sailor’s soul goes to heaven,” he said dismissingly.
Marie’s eyes suddenly lit with delight.
“Hogwash and poppycock! We shall learn the true reason. Cast away from the dock, Captain, and to sea we go! There is science to be done!”

-e2k9

Raven's Loft

GHOST DANCE written by Eric Schultz illustrated by Tiffany Kamerman

Welcome to California!

THE BLASPHEMIST

VIP Sketchy's

Tribute to Travis Louie Dr. Sketchy's

Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles Dr. Sketchy's

Another Dr. Sketchy's

Dr. Sketchy's and the Olympics

Return to Dr. Sketchy's!

Mad Scientist Madness!!

SEVEN DAYS Intro written by Eric Schultz drawn by Tiffany Kamerman

THE SECRET TO ETERNAL LIFE written by Eric Schultz drawn by Tiffany Kamerman

Dr. Sketchy's with Amber Ray & Machine Dazzle

Dr. Sketchy's with Pandora & Nik Sin

Dr. Sketchy's at San Diego Comic-Con

First Dr. Sketchy's

Early summer sketches