The Past Sucks by Tim C. Taylor

Author:Tim C. Taylor [Taylor, Tim C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Human Legion Publications
Published: 2024-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

I fled through Brussels.

Again.

With one hand holding down my top hat and the other gripping my gentleman’s cane, this time was different because I was flying across the cobbled square of the Grand-Place in well-shod feet. It was nighttime too, the market having disappeared at dusk to be replaced by a modest throng of early-evening revelers.

I took a different exit route this time, heading northeast along Rue de la Colline to the herb market and then zigzagging away along a narrow lane.

I careered into people along the way, winning jeers and laughter. Most were angry at me, but they thought I was drunk or mad.

That gave me an idea.

I slowed down below the threshold where walking doesn’t quite become a jog and continued to bump into people. Deliberately, this time.

The crowds grew angrier. Man, those Belgians knew how to curse, the Flemish even saltier than the French. I laughed, enjoying the reaction while my language upgrade still functioned. I didn’t care that I was annoying the locals. What mattered were the purses and wallets I was liberating from the victims I had ‘accidentally’ bumped into.

A career as a pickpocket was a rite of passage when I was growing up. People didn’t carry coins and banknotes about them in my day, of course, but everyone has something valuable they like to keep close to hand.

I was stealing this money on instinct, but I quickly formed a plan.

First off, I told myself not to waste time wondering what the Devil had happened back in De Swaene. That could come later, if I got out of town.

Rose had explained in my briefing refresher that in writing the Communist Manifesto, Marx had largely taken ideas prominent at the time but put his own unique spin on them, adding crucial details.

I thought it funny when I realized that Marx had now done the same for me. I’d already thought of using the train to bug out, but the big communist cheese had added the idea of then taking the steamboat all the way to London.

No doubt they spoke a weird form of English in 19th-century England, but it was based on the same language I’d used all my life. Even I ought to be able to fit in there.

* * *

Marx’s enthusiasm for the railroads had been infectious.

As the Gare du Nord station came into sight, I could see why.

The place was new. It was proud and fearless, bullishly pushing into a steam-powered machine future, opening up possibilities people hadn’t dreamed of even a decade before.

Nor had they yet to dream nightmares of pollution and longer-term environmental impacts. Screw all that. None of that future angst was known to the uniformed station employees proud of the new technology.

Even the men and their horses waiting for fares in the taxi carriages seemed eager to be a part of this brave future, plumes of horse breath steaming into the night air.

I liked this steam train future. I wanted to be a part of it.

I hurried to

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