**********
I know just how she feels, Miss Moneypenny thought. Phileas Fogg had captured Moneypenny's heart the previous day.
Flipping through her Post-It markers, she found the next to be an entry from the Verne journal. With a tissue she wiped the sweat from her fingers and began.
**********
From Jules Verne's private journal.
Fogg has the oratorical gift, especially when he wants something. In this case, my attendance at Shillingworth Christmas festivities. A day ago he went toe-to-toe with my father and won a debate over the callousness of my youthful heart. My father declared, "Monsieur Fogg, I only listen to you for one reason: the help you provided Jules last spring when those idiots at La Sorbonne would have expelled him."
"It was nothing, Monsieur Verne," Fogg replied in his impeccable French. He even managed a Breton inflection. "I understand how close a family such as yours can be, but my cousin and I would be truly devastated if Jules could not attend our Christmas feast. We've become quite fond of him."
Of course, Fogg merely persuaded père and mère that my presence at the Christmas table would be superfluous and père is not an unreasonable man. Paul scolded me for neglecting family traditions, so I assured my favorite brother I would be back next year to decorate our crèche with flowers, attend dawn mass, see Baby Jésus with the little ones and offer our alms for the wise men's search. Paul quite envies my amis élégants. I dare not tell him of our adventures or he would demand to go along.
We fly to Shillingworth Magna now, surrounded by the soft flakes of the first winter storm. It shall be a grand Christmas in the English style. I can hardly wait.
**********
Even considering Moneypenny had chosen this box because of the next entry, she felt uneasy about reading it. Despite the ever-increasing heat of the day, she shivered. She worked up her courage and began.
**********
From Doctor Leo Garridan's League of Darkness medical journal.
Why do babies pick such outrageous times to enter the world? While I cannot speak for all of them, I believe the Fogg bastard chose three o'clock this morning through sheer perversity of will.
I wonder what sort of creature this infant is. I have birthed many for Count Gregory's eugenics project, some of which fit the label of monster right well. This child disturbs me as no other. It appears healthy and normal in all respects, albeit developmentally advanced. I swear it watches me as I write these lines as a baby hours old ought not do. It even seems aware of its mother's suffering as its head often turns toward her bed and it tries to roll in that direction.
About noon yesterday, Cynara's bags of water broke. She and her doula secluded for the rest of the day as her contractions gradually quickened. At nine in the evening I looked in. She screamed at me, "Contorted animal! You brought me to this, birthing Fogg's child and I shall never see him again! I hate him! I hate you! You are as great a monster as Count Gregory! I can feel his mind and he cares nothing for me! I die! I die!"
Women in labor often shriek these outrageous epithets, however Cynara forgot that her special cortical stud shares her thoughts with the Count, who was not pleased to be named monster. Neither am I fond of the label "contorted." I did not choose to be a hunchback; nature and my mother presented me that indignity unasked.
When by midnight the baby had failed to crown, I had Cynara removed to an operating theatre and used a speculum to look at the situation. The Baroness screamed and struggled until I told her that she could harm the child. She instantly quieted. With some difficulty I finally discovered that the baby had made a face presentation. Its head lay just inside the womb and cocked back. I could see open eyes looking down the birth canal at me through a rent in the caul. He seemed self-aware.
Count Gregory watched from his chair a few feet away. He intends to adopt Fogg's bastard and personally supervises every detail of this experimental breeding. "We must perform a Caesarean section on Baroness Bonander," I told him, "or the babe will soon smother."
As I expected, the Count nodded his assent. A moment later his eyes rolled back in his head as another of Cynara's unproductive contractions filtered through the cortical stud. I kept a close watch on him as I prepared diethyl ether to render Cynara quiescent. Her heavy panting under the ether mask sped intake and she went quickly under.
The cortical link broken, the Count's head jerked up. He declared, "The Baroness is of no consequence. Save my son. And be quick about it! Any harm he suffers shall you also!" I am fortunate that the Count does not care if Cynara survives, as she seems unlikely to recover. Her bleeding continues even now. The Count coveted the experience of her death throes until I pointed out he could follow. He ordered her stud disconnected, proving he values that shattered existence he calls life. Although she'll die in a day or two, her will carries her far and even now she awakes and demands the babe to suckle and bless with a mother's kisses.
This child shall receive my exclusive attention in the coming years. The Count suspended the eugenics experiment pending the outcome of the Fogg breeding. If it succeeds, we will copy it by the thousands. A pity we failed to acquire the Verne specimen as well. I shall work with what I have and am investigating growth enhancements.
For a few days, the Count's "son" remains unnamed. He follows some medieval superstition, the forename to be spoken first at the baptismal ceremony for which I am to kidnap a Catholic priest. All these little chores.
**********
There, it's done! Miss Moneypenny thought. I hope this Garridan character gets his soon. I don't know how much more of his trash I can enter.
She hit the "save" key and reached for her water bottle. It had definitely become hotter. She went to the thermostat in the hall. Tweaking it still had no effect, and the temperature had risen to 28 degrees. Moneypenny turned as Elaine (EM15) walked down the hall toward her. "We're closing up," Elaine said. "Half the computers have crashed from the heat, so we've got B's permission to holiday. Better that than data loss."
A devastated Miss Moneypenny nodded understanding and returned to her desk to shut down. As the computer clicked through its closing screens, she hesitated. Regulations forbade removing Service documents from the building. But records 140 years old! If she took them home, she could keep entering on her laptop.
QR5 from Scientific Analysis chose this moment to poke his dark head in her door. "MP3!" he said, "I mean, Moneypenny! How about lunch today? I've brought some really luscious peaches."
Moneypenny shook her head forlornly. Now was not a good time for her to deal with unrequited crushes. She scolded herself. She didn't even know QR5's first name. "What's your name, QR5? I mean the one your friends use."
As this was the first time Moneypenny had asked QR5 an even remotely personal question, he blushed brightly. "It's Quillan." Quillan's long limbs didn't quite know where to be and flailed a bit. Slim fingers ran through a short brush of black hair then fiddled with gold-rimmed glasses and pinched an aquiline nose, all in quick succession.
Moneypenny held out her hand. Having Double-Oh-Seven as a co-worker quite blinded one to other men. She'd been rather manipulative of this perfectly harmless man. Time to make amends. "Everyone calls me Moneypenny, Quillan. Even I can't remember my first name. I suspect it's something I don't like." They laughed together.
To escape the unpleasantly warm main building, Quillan suggested eating in the scientific analysis facilities, located in the basement and always cool. "And I have a private lab of my own," Quillan said, obviously very proud of the prestige that signified in the Service's technology hierarchy.
Besides the fresh peaches, so perfectly ripe they dripped juice with every bite, Quillan had also packed some rather nice ham salad, sodas and chocolate cakes, all in a self-chilling bag. As they ate Moneypenny chatted of her work on the historical documents. QR5's clearance easily covered that level (and several more besides).
"Really?" Quillan said, his interested definitely sparked. "Phileas and Rebecca Fogg? I had no idea we had records other than the official histories." He leaned forward, obviously anxious to learn more.
"I think there may be as many as a hundred missions down there, but BB7 won't let me behind his counter," Moneypenny replied enthusiastically. Now almost embarrassed to impose upon the man's adoration, Moneypenny asked if Quillan had time to test her strange quasi-metal object. He went into what Moneypenny called "techno-wizard mode," asking questions and begging descriptions until she finally said, "Wait here," and ran back up to her office for her box.
"There!" she said, placing the box on the laboratory table and fishing out the object. "This is it. I'm sure some of these documents discuss it. But I haven't reached them yet, and with the LAN shut down . . ."
"Oh, the LAN's not down. The servers are here in the basement. I say, why don't you enter your documents on my terminal while I run preliminary tests? It would be fun to have some company and I know you've got the clearance." Moneypenny could have kissed him. She nodded eagerly and sorted through the papers (she'd fetched them all) while Quillan rebooted for her logon. And oh God, Phileas Fogg's journal came next with an entry dated Christmas Eve. With a much lighter heart (and cooler brow!), Moneypenny sat down at the keyboard and re-opened her database file.
