ic Earth Victoriana: The Face of Politics

[trollthumper]

It was not often that Cannonade got to look over a bar and realize that it was not a mater of if, but when it came down to it, he could take them. But still, he had to try and fit in. A good old fashioned bar brawl looked like a regular occurrence at a place like this, but there were likely ways to get on the good side of the Luddites that did not involve punching anyone in the face. He scouted Little Bill, and swiftly realized that while nicknames were often meant to be ironic, there was still a goddamn limit. Guy looks like he could sit on me and that'd be it, he thought. 

 

But his attention soon turned to the men staring at him. He got up from the bar and walked over to them, figuring a direct approach might work best. "So," he said, "dare I ask what's so interesting about me?" 

[Supercape]

GM

 

"I'll be damned if you don't look the spit of that fellow Cannonade" mumbled one. "Y'know, from all the posters" he explained, looking genuinely concerned at Cannonade's glare. 

 

"Don't get me wrong, them posters, those Cannonites, well it's all an urban legend, ain't it. Still, you marchin' in here, bold as you like...into what's everybody know's is the meetings place of the Luddites. Well, its bold as brass, innit. Gotta hand it to you..." he said, almost offering his hand. 

 

His friend, equally grubby and impressed, took over. 

 

"You ain't a regular, that's f'sure. This here is Luddite territory, see? Not just anybody walks in here. Leastways, not if they want to walk out with the same number of teeth. We here are the Luddites, gotta take back the land for the common people, y'see?"

 

"You looking to join?" said the first, a trace of suspicion melded with generosity and admiration for Cannonades apparent bravery. 

[Aoiroo]

Not unsurprisingly, Carrie followed. Not in the same clothes either. There was a benefit to wholey covering outfits, mostly you could put standard wear under it. Though the pants were shorter then normal style, the shirt she just had to roll down the sleeves as she put a newspaper boys cap over her eyes and walked out the adjacent alley next to the gentleman's club. She caught the sight of Pennyworth on the walk and kept a disinterested pace behind him her head down as she did what she did best, be invisible to most everyone else, even in plain sight.

[Supercape]

GM

 

Outside the Sterling...

 

Pennyworth was in fighting spirit, but not form. He staggered slightly, and muttered under his breath how he was going to "sort out those damn plebs", blubbering his cheeks as he did so. An intelligent man, it was far to say his judgement had been robbed by too much fine liquor. 

 

As Carrie followed, she caught sight of them. Six of them, as far as she could see. The streets were not exactly crowded, but not empty either. The gaslights cast a dim light over the streets - you couldn't see far, and certainly not into the dark alleyways. But from what she could make out, there were six of them, three groups of pairs. 

 

Luddites, too, she guessed. Wearing farm clothes and the typical Luddite uniform she had been briefed about, the thick trenchcoat, no doubt covering a stout short club underneath. And they were coming in on Pennyworth - not too fast, but fast enough...

[trollthumper]

Cannonade smiled. "I get that a lot," he said. "Mean, I heard somewhere the real guy doesn't look anything like the posters. The artist must've had a few too many when he started drafting up the likeness." He tried his best to affect the local tongue, and to divert attention from the "stunning resemblance" he shared with himself. He knew he wasn't exactly the best at the spy trade; keeping a low profile never really came well to him. But then again, when subterfuge failed, bluster could do in a pinch.

 

As such, he adjusted his braces and put on his best sullen demeanor. "You're just the guys I'm looking for," he said. "Me and a good chunk of my line have been tossed out thanks to those damn machines. Time to teach the bosses a lesson."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Damn straight!" 

 

"Right on!"

 

"Down with the toffs!"

 

"Smash the gears!"

 

The place nearly broke into applause, but Cannonade had to do with a round of congratulatory pats on the back and fists in the air, and similar sentiments voiced in stock phrases. 

 

"Look, you sound like just the kind of man to join the Luddites! Big, Strong, able to smash up machines, burn down the factories and give work back to the common folk" said one of the men he had been addressing, a fat dirty man with an enormous moustache, went by the name of Slim Jim. 

 

Clearly the Luddites had a sense of humour. Not a very advanced one, but still. 

 

'Ol Slim Jim leaned close and addressed him in a lower voice. 

 

"'Jus so 'appens 'ol Ned himself is upstairs! Hows about you and I go and see him? 'Es always on the lookout for a man with a stout heart and a strong arm?"

[trollthumper]

Cannonade smiled as easily as he could. He wasn't surprised that he'd been able to win the Luddites over with just a few of the right words - they didn't exactly seem the most cunning of saboteurs. But at the same time, he could feel the disappointment in all of them. The rage. From his first trip to Earth-Victoriana, he knew what they were dealing with. He knew that they'd been turned out and had no way to understand the system around them. And he knew ways that they could try to adjust to the changing landscape, to try and gain some purchase. 

 

But again, they'd just decided it'd be better to smash the machine. Because it was direct, he supposed. And while there was something to be said for direct, in this case, he knew it wouldn't do much. But there was something he could do - figure out how to cut this off at the past. 

 

"Yeah," he said. "Let's go see Ned." 

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Well knock me sideways, if ye ain't the spit of that Cannon-fella!"

 

Ned Ludd was as Cannonade remembered him, the same wild fierce eyes atop a slightly small but brawny body. Perhaps his eyes were fiercer, wilder. The split of the Luddites had only made him wilder and more ferocious. 

 

"I could sure use a fellow like you!" he said, clapping Cannonade on the back. "Y'see, the working man is divided. A few years ago, we were as one, strong, together. Then some fella, a fella looked a lot like you, made some speech, made a fool out of old Ned, and some of us got soft, formed the Cannonites. Lost their vision..." he spat. Literally, he spat, gobbing a muck of phlegm on the floor. 

 

"So, I been planning to discredit them. Jes' like I am doing with the politician traitors. Now, I got my means, but the paste don't last..." he cut him self short, as he had been talking to himself. 

 

"*Ahem* Well, let's just say I got my means. But you, you look like the real deal without any help at all. If you could pretend to be Cannonade, and make a real tomfool of yourself, we could be together as one again!"

 

"The workers! United! Will never be defeated!" he said, raising his fist in the air and chanting the slogan to the assorted muscles and brawn in the room with him. 

 

"So, what say you, sir? Ready to make a fool of yourself for the common man? Are you with us?"

[Aoiroo]

Though not quite fast enough to stop her she supposed. Carrie had something of an unfair advantage to the average working man, mainly that as burly as they were, as likely to get into nightly fights and cavernous brawls, they simply were not used to being attacked by someone they couldn't see. No, sneakiness was beyond them, so the quick hits she gave to each Luddite from just behind their backs, they were rather bulky compared to her, so she didn't even need to shift was enough startling and hard enough to have them buckling and falling to their knees before they registered what was happening. The last one few in the line had a sense to try and turn around to find the source, but Carrie sidestepped them and delivered a knocking out blow before moving to the last one. In the end, it was just her left, standing behind the last crumpling man. In her trousers and hat pulled over her eyes she stepped over the last body and walked towards Pennyworth, her voice set at a lower pitch them normal,

"Evening govener,"
Looking down she put a foot under to look at the face of the nearest one,
"Pretty big blokes these lots, must of been pretty sloshed to fall over like they did, though you don't seem to be looking too straight yourself."
She held out her hand in a friendly gesture,

"Why don't we find you a cab then? No need to go wandering around this time of night, might run into trouble."

[trollthumper]

Cannonade tried very hard to smile without the small problem of gritting his teeth so hard they broke. Hearing these mantras getting recycled and spat out made his blood boil - they were part of him, part of his ethos. And for all the talk of "unity" amongst Ludd, he was going to be just as divisive - it was just a matter of being able to run herd on the people he liked. Still, if he punched the guy somewhere soft and vulnerable right now, then the whole game would be ruined. He needed to run this thing as long as he could, and if it meant spending half his time trying to fight back an aneurysm, well, so be it. 

 

"I'm up for the glorious cause," he said. "For the workers!" 

[Supercape]

GM

 

Outside the Sterling...

 

"Wha...who..." blustered a rather sloshed and rather disorientated Lord Pennyworth. "My word! Those where Luddites! Ruddy Luddites! I'll show them! The Ruddy lot of them! I was head of the reserve Rugby team at the old Etonian's for two years running you know! Pennyworth fighting spirit and all that!" he blurted, raising his fists in a manner that demonstrated the vestiges of basic pugilistic skill drowning in a few decades of lost memories and alcohol impaired reflexes. 

 

"I say, aren't you that impertinent young lady from the club! a lady! what the devil did you do? never saw such a thing! where you fighting them?" he asked, shaking his head. "What did you do? some kind of bartitsu or something?" he asked, rather stunned as his mind soaked in just what Carrie had did. 

 

His slow working brain was beginning to absorb it when a cab arrived. 

 

"I say, I say, there is more to you than meets the eye, hmmm hmmm?" he said, tapping his nose, and missing on one of the three taps. "I could use someone like you, you know! someone who knows a thing or two, hmm hmm! what do you say?"

[Supercape]

GM

 

In the Snooty Fox...

 

"That's the spirit! The workers salute you!" said Ned, saluting Cannonade, with this cronies all following suit almost in unison. 

 

"Now, it so happens that I have just the ticket for a little speech. We have a real toff, a Lord Pennyworth, Tory Minister, making a speech tomorrow in Hyde Park about industry and research, the normal brainwashing propoganda to fool the masses that scientific progress will benefit the common man..hahaha! good thing we know better!" he laughed. 

 

Hisses resounded around the timber of the pub. 

 

Science!

 

Industry!

 

Progress!

 

Punctuated by the not too occasional sound of spitting. 

 

"Anyway, I have a plan! I'm going to make Pennyworth look like a total fool! I have an impersonator, a special trick of mine! and after he makes an ass of himself on stage, you come on, as Cannonade, and make a total botch job too! then, the Luddites come in to sweep up, and bring back honesty and fair play to the people of this fair land!" he said, completely oblivious to his contradictions, his eyes shining with fervour. 

 

"It's all set for Tommorow at noon! if you are in, just drink with us, have the night here, and we set off tomorrow after a slap up breakfast!"

[trollthumper]

This really was one of those situations where all you could do was smile. Preferably, with the force of a vice grip. Because Cannonade was afraid that, were he to open his mouth right now, what would come out would either be hysterical laughter, non-stop swearing, or some unholy mixture of the two. 

 

God. These people were idiots. And the worst part was, he knew where this stuff was coming from. When you were at the bottom of the world, when you were ground down by the gears of everything, there had to be someone else to blame. And instead of finding the real people in charge of gaming the system, you looked for someone, anyone else. The guy with the different skin. The guy who's got an education. They're all bastards, of course. Because it's easier than finding the real asshole. 

 

But for now, all he could do was take another swig and wait for the other shoe to drop. 

[Aoiroo]

"I say we get into the cab,"
Opening the door she held out a hand to help him in,

"And we get you home and some water, otherwise you're going to have a pounding headache when you get up tomorrow."
She looked at the Luddites,

"You can discuss whatever you like on the way, but we should be going, it's not good to be out in the open like this."

Glancing around she looked forward at the cab driver and gave him a once over before she stepped into the cab after Pennyworth.

[Supercape]

GM

 

In the cab...

 

"Hmph" grumbled Lord Pennyworth for the umpteenth time. "Can't believe the nerve of those damn Luddites! don't they know how to treat their betters! the raw cheek of them! I shall be proposing a bill to the house on the matter, just you see, young lady!" he said, stamping his foot. 

 

He frowned and massaged his temples, swaying left to right in a slightly nauseated and intoxicated manner. "I still find it extraordinary that a young lady of your meagre stature gave those plebs a right jolly good seeing to! extraordinary, I say! was I seeing things? have you been to Japan? or Hong Kong? or perhaps you are one of M's spies?" he asked, his intelligence briefly flashing through his haze of booze. 

 

"Never mind, never mind. What say you to a pretty proposal! I have to give a speech tomorrow, at Hyde park, and I have no wish to fight off a mob of raving lunatics. If they want to have their say, they should jolly well go and form their own raving lunatic party, that's what I say!" he belched, ignoring the fact that the luddites had indeed formed their own small and largely unsuccessful political party. 

 

"What say you use those remarkable oriental bartitsu skills to service? nobody will suspect some slip of a girl. How do you fancy being my body guard? I'll pay you two, no three, three sterling for the service!" he said, proudly. 

[Supercape]

GM 

 

The next day....lunchtime...

 

Hyde Park

 

Politics was never popular, but a good sized crowd had formed in Hyde Park, to let the speakers speak. A raised stage, complete with magnificent tent to shield the light drizzle, had been erected. Humming, hissing, iron engines, with all manner of long, elegant brass tubes, flowering to trumpets, had been dragged to the left and the right of the stage - some wonderful type of steam powered loud speakers, clearly only plausible in this strange dimension, where laws of physics had warped ever so slightly. 

 

Lord Pennyworth was preparing for his speech, a whisky in one hand, sheafs of notes in the other. He looked red, and hung over. 

 

"Blast this head! Damn fault of those brutes last night, eh?" he complained to Carrie, ignoring the obvious cause, a forcing some more whisky down his gullet. His head may have stung like hell, but his stomach was clearly made of iron. 

 

Meanwhile

 

Ned and and his heavies walked through the crowd, using elbows in a generous and violent manner to clear the path. 

 

"This is the scene, my friend!" said Ned, clapping Cannonade on the back. 

 

"Now, we just need to get Pennyworth out of the way, and then...well, you shall see!" he said with a wink. "Pennyworth might be a handful, however. I have word that he has a new bodyguard! dropped some of my men last night, single handed too! So, I hope you have your wits about you, and your hands are strong. We may be needing your arm and fist!"

[trollthumper]

Joe stood stewing, waiting for it all to pass. The booze had managed to help get him through the parade of back pats and complete BS that had made up most of last night - he hadn't had enough to loosen his lips, but just enough to make Ludd's paranoid ramblings not sound like someone was taking a potato peeler to the inside of his skull. Still, he couldn't wait to see the look on Ludd's face when the tables turned. Maybe, once he was done with all of this, he could find some of the Cannonites. Hopefully they'd actually learned something...

 

"I'm ready to go," Joe said. "Just give me the signal, and I'll take that stage." 

[Supercape]

GM

 

A little later...

 

Lord Pennyworth took to the stage and a mixed crowd, full of jeers and cheers, and gave a cheery way. He was oblivious to the former, and lapped up the latter. 

 

For all his bluster and heavy drinking, he was a good orator, able to fudge detail and inspire hope. He did so without reference to notes and nursing a moderate sized hangover, which was to his credit. 

 

Ned Ludd sneered at the various comments, before pulling Cannonade to the side, and backstage. Security was present, but not tight. A few bobbies with copper plated stun sticks. Nedd and his three cronies could have caused a serious ruckus to the half dozen "coppers". But he had something more subtle in mind. 

 

A fourth crony was dressed in clothing similar to Lord Pennyworth. As he turned round, Cannonade could see why. His face was identical to Pennyworths. 

 

Ned gave Cannonade a hearty pat on the back. 

 

"My secret weapon!" he explained. "Its a kind of glue, or putty. We call it facecream. One application and you can mold it took almost exactly how you want. I have a girl back at base, an artist, who does the painting, so to speak..."

 

The cream was very good, unnaturally good. The Crony wearing Pennyworths face gave an evil  grin.

 

"So, we just do the switch backstage, and then my man here makes the worst speech possible!" he laughed. "The crowd will see the face of politics!"

 

"No comes the tricky part...the switch!" he said, concerned once more. He had spied Carrie hovering out Pennyworth. 

 

"Especially with his new bodyguard! We might need your arms and knuckles, my friend!" he said, giving Cannonade a wink. 

[Aoiroo]

Carrie stood at attention by Pennyworth. She wasn't dressed in the more common industrial outfit, she was essentually in this era's version of a suit at that point. It was, as streamlined as fashionably possible though. Her hair was pulled back and tucked under a newsboy cap, though her gender was clear her face was partially covered. She had spent the morning keeping an eye on Pennyworth, whom she was sure was the one she met last night if only because it's kind of hard to fake a hangover and boy did it hit him in the morning. Only several glasses of water and some strong coffee got him up to the still somewhat miserable state he was at now. It'd been a nice morning otherwise, good breakfast, not terribly cold, and no trouble so far. Which of course meant Carrie was on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

She didn't even have to hear the clatter as she saw the group approaching from the corner of her eye. Joe was there, and it looked like a duplicate. Huh, well that explained things, though she knew it wasn't Pennyworth, he was far to steady, but anybody else. It would be troublesome, so that's when she made her decision, and behind a curtain, disappeared.

 

It wasn't hard to find, since there was a quill nearby. Popping the cap on the ink well she circled around the group quietly only to tap the fake Pennyworth on the shoulder. When he turned she splashed the entire contents of the inkwell onto his face and clothes. Which was really something, she didn't think they'd be quite that much, but she knew ink. She was an art student afterall, so it'd take nothing short of a firehose to get it all out which made the difference very distinct in case someone tried to do a switch.

[Supercape]

GM

 

"And I say to you, my Countrymen, that I can promise a new age of industry, prosperity and...What the devil!" said Lord Pennyworth, spying Carrie in the corner of his eye.

 

He was used to her being a rapscallion of sorts, but the sight of a ink well sailing in a parabola across the stage was one to raise his magnificently bushy eyebrows, even in mid speech as he was. 

 

The aim was true, and the putty-faced mimic caught the ink square on his nose, a splattering covering his face, with a few blobs hitting Ned, his cronies, and Cannonade for effect. 

 

"What the devil!" roared a furious Ned, scarsely believing his eyes. 

 

"That blasted girl! I'll have her guts for garters!"

[trollthumper]

The plan, as Joe had conceived it, was to let "Pennyworth" dig his own grave. He'd wait backstage, let Ludd and his crew of goons get their jeers in, then - just when the impostor hit rock bottom in his terrible speech - storm the stage, rip the mask off, and tell everyone what was going on. That, of course, had been before Silhouette had thrown a pot of ink right in the impostor's face. Odds were there was some sort of solvent in there that might just play hell with the impostor's makeup, meaning the dramatic reveal would take care of itself. Which left one immensely satisfying option...

 

He brought his foot down on Ludd's, then drove an elbow into his stomach. "Sorry, Ned," he said. "The drinks were good last night, but mainly because they made listening to your horse**** a lot less painful." He spun around to face the Luddites. "What's it they say? 'Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.'" 

[Aoiroo]

Carrie closed the distance between them as Pennyworth stumbled from the display and Joe made his intent known. She smiled at him as she wrapped an arm around the fake ink covered Pennyworth and hauled him across the strange,

"Uncanny isn't it."
She propped an arm under his chin and held him in front of him in a half nelson,

"If I didn't arrive with him, I'd say this was Pennyworth covered in ink."
She looked around the face,

"This isn't latex, I've seen latex and it's not quite this good. Not to mention a stretch over facial features. A whole another layer this is. But I guess they were gonna replace you with this person. Though I do wonder how'd they manage the voice. Maybe say it was a cold or something."
She glanced around at the crowd,

"So, please, ask yourselves, if this person could replace Mr. Pennyworth here, how many other people may of been replaced."
Carrie glanced passed the curtain to the side,

"And by who?"

[trollthumper]

Joe could feel Ludd's men rearing to strike, like a gigantic tide of flesh and misplaced anger. He took a step away from the crowd, getting enough distance that they might not surge and wrestle him to the ground - and to pull off his little trick. 

 

"You know, Ned," he said, "I bet you like to think you're some sort of revolutionary. That you're going to make things better for everyone, if only you take care of those people. You know how many times I've heard that one? Too goddamn many. And most of the time, you're left either punching down, punching sideways, or punching at the wrong goddamn thing." He smiled. "But, hey. I'll give you a target."

 

He brought his hands together, sending a gigantic wave of force rushing over Ludd and his men. 

 

"You've just gotta get to me first." 

[Supercape]

GM

 

Ned was a tough old boot, but Cannonade was a jackhammer on steroids. The blow caught him square on, and Ned sailed through the air, his limbs floppy as his vision dimmed. 

 

"What? You were meant to help us - impersonate...oh...." the penny dropped as he sailed in a parabola over the park. Ned was often blinded by his ambition, but he wasn't stupid. The real Cannonade had returned. 

 

Meanwhile..

 

"Now then madam, let the gent go...and no more ink throwing, if you please!" said three Coppers who triangulated Silhouette. They were reasonably capable men, but no match for the power of Silhouette - she knew she could drop them at a stroke. Still, the"Coppers" of this dimension were not armed with plain truncheons. Theirs were bound tightly with copper wiring, and a ratchet system. By rotating the handle for a minute, the "Copper" built up a nasty electric charge that could stun and incapacitate. Hence, Coppers got their name. 

 

"Ere'! Get your bleedin' hands off!" shouted one of the other three Coppers who approached Cannonade. As they approached, the three putty men started to melt into the crowd. 

 

"I saw that! What are yer? Some kinda Russian Strongman?" asked the second. "Yer cant just punch people in the face here, my lad! this is England!" he finished, branding his copper bravely. 

[Aoiroo]

Carrie shifted her stance and pushed the man with ink to the ground where she held him with her knee as she pulled the badge from her coat pocket holding the ministry badge towards the coppers,

"I'm sorry if this was a bit more grandoise then what you're used too. But we are here on official business."
She pulled up the putty mans face, though ink covered,

"Pennyworth if you could come over her for a comparison, this could clear up. Even under the ink, it's clear this is a fairly decent doppleganger of our seatholder on stage."
She motioned for the coppers to take a look, and for the crowd as well,

"In fact, more then decent, an exact replica, great worksmanship. But the truth is, this isn't a twin,"
She grabbed a flask out from her belt. If the cops complained she didn't wait. Instead she poured the contents onto the man's face,

"Now lets see what's under the mask."