The Ballad of James McKenna

Day Seven: Unique

Day Seven
         Unique
Word Count: 1169

Nate had broken his audichronicler.

"If you didn't use it to stub out your cigarettes, maybe this wouldn't happen." Jimmy looked up at his partner, goggles magnifying the world around him until he felt almost as if he were staring at a painting from so close that the colors had begun to melt together. Nate snorted, so it was quite likely that he looked rather ridiculous himself. "It's not funny. These things could cost you a month's salary if Chicago found out."

Nate shrugged. "Well, then, it's a good thing I've got the renowned mechanical man, James McKenna, by my side, isn't it?"

Jimmy shot his partner an annoyed look, lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed just slightly, before returning to the piece of copper before him. An audichronicler was quite delicate, consisting almost entirely of copper ribbons cut so fine that it often tore apart or bent out of place. In this case, it was the hammering apparatus, which punched patterns into the ribbon so fine that, when run through a audigraph, they resolved themselves into a surprisingly clear copy of whatever it had been set to record. They were easily one of Jimmy's favorite tools to tinker with.

"You've really managed to mess it up this time, Nate," Jimmy muttered, just loud enough that he was sure the Virginian would hear him. They were alone in the room they shared, Nate sitting on his bed and Jimmy at the desk, having commandeered every gas lamp in the room. He wished the Occidental were a more modernized hotel; electric lights were far more efficient and smelled a great deal less. "Somehow you've jammed the hammer beneath the coil. I don't know how you've done that, but somehow you've managed to do it. And I am not a renowned mechanicler and you know it."

Nate coughed to cover his laughter. "Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. You were recruited at sixteen because Jeremiah Leary saw you in action at Petersburg. If I recall correctly, you repaired each of the steam cannons and even retrofitted a Gatling to shoot multiple electrical charges. If that doesn't make you renowned, I don't know what does."

Jimmy shook his head, disbelieving. "I'm just good with machines. Lots of people are. If I were so good, Chicago would keep me on as a full-time mechanicler and not put me out in the field so much." Beneath him, a cog popped free of the gadget and spun its way across the desk. With a gracefulness surprising even to him, Jimmy reached out and caught it just as it rolled over the edge and toward the floor. Mechanicals spoke to him; they told him what to do, where they were broken, where their song skipped a beat and had to be put back on track. And he could feel that song, could conduct it, could make it do what he willed. It was easy for him. It was what he loved to do.

"Chicago doesn't keep mechaniclers and you know it. Hell, if you took any money for all those repairs you do when we're in Chicago, your mother and sisters could be kept in silks and you in the finest wool. Imagine the husbands they could find. And you wouldn't be forced to spend all your time with me when we're there." Nate smiled as Jimmy looked up at him, affronted that he might have offended his friend. "Not that I mind having you. It was just me and the housekeeper most of the time before you joined the agency. But still...Mr. Pinkerton doesn't give too many new recruits a brand new mechanicler kit."

Jimmy smiled and picked up a tiny metal screwdriver. It was true. Pinkerton was notoriously hard to please, but he'd been delighted upon realizing that Jimmy had single-handedly repaired every piece of equipment in the building. "I suppose. But I'm nothing to my dad. He taught me everything I know. Worked for Colt back when they were working on steam guns and learned a ton from old Samuel himself. My grandfather back in Scotland apparently was known as an inventor himself. It runs in the family, of which I am last and least."

"False modesty hardly suits you, Jimmy. If you're good at something, you should own up to it." Nate moved closer to the light of the lamps and opened up a newspaper. It was the New York Times. One of the ones Horatio Moody didn't own, so that was good. "You don't see Pinkerton blushing every time someone mentions how he saved Lincoln. Old man can't shut up about it. But look what owning up to the action got him. He was Lincoln's personal body guard during the war."

Jimmy pushed the cog back into its place and screwed it in tight. With just the end of two lock picks, he pushed at the hammer and watched it spring back into place. Flipping the switch, Jimmy held the device up to his mouth and spoke into it. "Hello. Well then, Mr. Price, what is your talent, if not to push cigarette buts into expensive pieces of technology?" Holding out his hand, Jimmy pointed to the audigraph in his bag. "Get that for me, will you?"

"I'll have you know that I was a renowned orator. I went to UVA for law and graduated top of my class. If the South had won the war, I'd be a statesman right now. But we lost and I could see which way the wind blew, so now I work in investigating. There's a reason I write all of our reports, you know." Nate pressed the audigraph into Jimmy's hand and watched as Jimmy connected it to the audichronicler before throwing the switch on both. A few moments of empty scratching and then Jimmy's voice poured out of the machine, sounding slightly tinny and distant. "See? Who cares if I use it to put out cigarettes? You're always there to fix it."

"I do wish I could make it sound clearer. But I never have enough time to tinker around with one of these things while we're on the case and we have to turn them in when we get back to Chicago. I'm tempted to just filch one one day, just so I can take a look at it. The technology is sound, but I believe it can be vastly improved. Perhaps chemically treating the copper..."

Nate rolled his eyes and picked the paper back up. "Oh Lord. You've started talking mechanicals. Do please make sure you're done by supper. I would like to imbibe something besides fish stew while staying at this place. You know, for a hotel that has supposedly stood since Washington waved the British out of town, it certainly doesn't take its cuisine seriously."

"Ah, yes. Your other great skill..." Jimmy pulled the goggles off of his head and screwed the audichronicler closed before grinning at his partner. "Thinking with your stomach. And I'll be damned if you don't do that well."