Free Frankenstein's Legions by John Whitbourn Page A

constabulary whistle signalled suppression was on its way.
    Which meant Frankenstein and friends must be likewise. They left the preacher and his assistants hurriedly packing up their portable pulpit.
    ‘Do not despair, brothers!’ the preacher roared as he worked. ‘We shall overcome!  God will chastise Pharaoh and permit ye into the Promised Land!  God shall feed His flock!’
    ‘With crumbs of comfort...’ thought Frankenstein dismissively, once they’d fled far enough. ‘Stale crumbs.’  Then he realised with a far from delicious shock that his family stood responsible for the terrible hunger they’d just witnessed. Hunger so gnawing that sufferers were willing to feed off crumbs from the Christian banquet they were barred from.
    Julius was furious with himself for his lack of sensitivity (or something). What had he become?  What still worse creature might he become given time?  It was the Frankenstein family curse: first making monsters, then making monsters of themselves. That ancestral legacy followed him everywhere like a cloud; a big black cloud cancelling every holiday from care.
    Anger (like all energy) cannot be destroyed, merely diverted. This particular fiery bolt ricocheted off towards Lady Lovelace. Julius permitted himself a scoff at Ada’s expense, resuming their last serious exchange as though the Duck Island nonsense had never been.
    ‘So, you plan—no, intend—to conquer the deities of chance, do you?  ‘Just as soon as’ is it, madam?  Really?  And when might that be?  And how?’
    Anger aside, up till then they had remained arm-in-arm for cover’s sake. Now Ada dared to disengage and turned to face him. Frankenstein ‘ahemed’ and gestured she should remember who—and what—she was.
    To no avail. There Lady Lovelace stood, hands on scarlet silken hips, regarding him as though he were the king—nay, emperor—of idiots.
    ‘‘When’?’ she shot back. ‘When?  Well, when you’ve got me my spark back, of course.’
     

 
    Chapter 7: DEAD MAN WALKING
     
    ‘Is there anything else you can tell me?  The slightest scrap?’
    France’s Minister of Police had aquatic eyes, cold and watery as a fish. They blinked behind their rimless glasses when no reply came.
    A interrogator brandishing pliers stepped up but the Minster waved him away. That was not the best way with this prisoner: different dogs itched in different places.
    The Minister cleared his throat: polite, almost apologetic, about his persistence in probing.
    ‘It is a matter of some import. Consider this: you are in no fit state to judge what is relevant or not. Moreover, this is a issue for consideration by someone imbued with civic virtue, someone with humanity’s best interests at heart: in short a citizen of the glorious French Republic—which you, of course, no longer are...’
    Touché!  The doomed man awoke from reverie and lifted his head. He looked up at the Minister through a curtain of matted hair.
    ‘There you are wrong, monsieur,’ he said, in gasps. ‘Wrong!  No matter what your tribunal says, I shall be a citizen until my dying breath!’
    He had been harshly treated, both before and after condemnation. His half-healed wound had re-opened, patterning his prison shirt with blood. Only the trial itself (a rushed five minute fiasco) had not presented opportunities for mental and physical violence against him. Now, contesting the verdict of the sacred State took what little reserves the prisoner had left. His chains barely shifted.
    ‘Alas,’ said the Minister, consulting his pocket watch, ‘that ‘breath’ you refer to is mere hours away. Meanwhile, I implore you to ponder, to review recent events: is there not some residual snippet?  Some last service to render to the Republic?’
    Actually, any such service would not be his absolute last. Not from some perspectives. The flow of bodies from Madame Guillotine was too bounteous to commit to the grave. In short order this man must rise