The Captain's Identity


1954


     The 1954 Conference of the Society for the Investigation into the Nautilus was one of the bleaker scenes I’d ever had the displeasure of witnessing. It was six academics with stuffed noses and petty grievances all re-litigating the same tired disputes for which there had been no new evidence either way for over a decade. Like every other year, I was the only woman in the group. At this stage, I was numb to the foolishness but righteous in my hatreds.
      Despite that, something drove us to come back each year to talk about the godforsaken submarine and the doomed captain and the voyage of the Nautilus. We’d chosen this bit of arcana as our subject, something distantly remembered as an example of now-obsolete technological wizardry. Most of those who knew it, knew it from the account published by Professor Aronnax, in his book, Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It was still a favorite of the boy’s true-life adventure school, but us scholars generally found it lacking in specificity and verifiable detail. By now, real-life submarine technology had long since surpassed much of what the Nautilus was capable of, and what made it so unusual. It was a topic of academic interest, not the popular imagination.
     Imagine finding the five other people in the world who are as obsessed with this, as you. Five other people who have read the same documents, the same books, studied the same evidence, visited the same islands. Stared at the same portraits, hoping to find something new to say. Imagine you’ve all had years to develop your theories and to exchange evidence. And imagine that none of you can agree.
     We had much to argue about, but the most pressing was the real identity of the captain of the Nautilus, Captain Nemo. Even Aronnax in his account recognized it as an obvious alias. “Nemo” means “nobody” in Latin, the same name Odysseus used to trick the Cyclops. Discovering more about Nemo was the biggest mystery left to unravel. Much of his journey had been retraced, and even the ruins of so-called “Atlantis” had been found. The frame of the Nautilus itself had been studied and picked apart for several decades. Between the six of us, we, or our employers, owned a substantial percentage of the extant artifacts.
     There was good evidence for or against any theory about who Nemo really was. Settling on an answer could be done only by a personal, subjective judgment call. This brought out the very worst in us. Looking around the room now, I could identify each person and their preferred theory on sight. All of us could. After having the same arguments for so long, all this was starting to seem distressingly normal.
      To my left was Dr. Jacob Riett, who favored the most popular, and most conventional, theory: Nemo was Wladislaw Mieszenko, a Polish nobleman who was exiled from his country after an uprising against the Tsar. Incensed by this act of imperial chauvinism and the death of his family, he retreated to far shores and, with the help of various loyal vassals, built the Nautilus and sailed the seas as a revolutionary hero. Riett had even dug up a stage magician who became famous, first in Russia and then throughout Europe, in the early part of the twentieth century, who went by the name “Captain Nemo.” Riett was convinced that rather than a coincidence or canny marketing, this figure was his Nemo, Mieszenko, still wandering the Earth years after losing the Nautilus in the Arctic.
      Riett was watching the current speaker closely with a look of bemused disappointment. Dr. Lester Corby was a leading Moriartist — a believer in the eccentric, if surprisingly well-supported, theory that Nemo was the criminal mastermind Prof. James Moriarty, the so-called “Napoleon of Crime.” This theory hinged on some missing time in Moriarty’s otherwise well-documented career. The longest stretch of time between confirmed sightings and arrests, coincidences perfectly with the amount of time Nemo was alleged to have taken to build the Nautilus, and the three-year length of its charted journey.
      That alone isn’t evidence, but it was the first link in a long chain that connected the two figures. Moriarty had military connections and an interest in experimental weaponry, a thirst for vengeance on the world’s authorities, and was a famously talented swimmer, who survived a plunge off of Reichenbach Falls with the noted English consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. Later in his life, Aronnax identified both a portrait and a photograph of Moriarty as Nemo.
      Corby was speaking on the subject now, showing off handwriting samples purporting to indicate the close similarities. Riett turned to his assistant and made a remark under his breath and they both snickered. Rude, but Corby brought it on himself with this weak analysis. The Moriarty theory was one of the more plausible to me, but Corby did it no favors. Most handwriting evidence was pure dross, especially in the case of Nemo, whom we have very few extant samples, and Moriarty, who was famously an expert forger.
      To my right was Dr. Maxwell Schell. He was a scholar of India and brought that expertise to bear on his pet theory: Nemo was Prince Dakkar, who had rebelled against the British and barely escaped with his life. There was much evidence for this, namely, the testimony of multiple members of the crew of the Abraham Lincoln, an American frigate that had been intercepted by the Nautilus and, years later, reunited with it. Shipwrecked, they encountered an elderly Dakkar living on a remote island, with the intact but badly-damaged Nautilus nearby. Dakkar claimed directly that he was Nemo, and died shortly thereafter while in the presence of the Lincoln’s captain and first mate.
      When authorities returned to the island to investigate, Dakkar’s body was indeed found, but the Nautilus, inexplicably, was gone. What had happened in the intervening two years? And where was the Nautilus between 1870, when the remains of the Lincoln crew escaped in a hot air balloon, and 1900, when it was finally discovered, half-frozen in the arctic ice? Discrepancies like this fueled our work. Those who were inclined to submit to the mystery were better off than those of us who cannot help ourselves. The imagination of the researcher delights in the unknown, where eyes adjust to the darkness.
     These were the primary schools of thought. The remaining three of us were the eccentrics: Dr. Mortimer Pelt, who believed that “Nemo” was not one man but an organization, or order, of naval revolutionaries that went back centuries, with several people having claimed the name over the years; Dr. Harold Leaf, a proponent of the idea that Nemo was, in fact, Pierre Aronnax himself, having constructed a false identity and paper trail to hide in plain sight; and finally, least credible of all, was me.
     I can remember when I first saw “Dr. Molly Scoville” in print. Even if I was booed at my graduation, I earned that title. I’m pushing forty now, but I’m still considered “the new kid” in this group. That was the polite version. The more honest version was “that one” or “that awful girl.” I might have been tacitly accepted had I signed on to one of the prevailing theories that my esteemed colleagues had been mulling over for decades. Instead, I approached the evidence and came to a new but inescapable conclusion: Captain Nemo was a woman.
     In private moments I will confess that I first sparked to this notion based on nothing more than a feeling. Aronnax describes witnessing Nemo kneel in front of a portrait of “his” family. In my mind’s eye, a supplicant gesture like this seemed classically feminine. I pictured Nemo gracefully pulling up her coat and sitting in delicate awe of her children as a mother. The image would not leave my mind.
     Imagine my delight when actual research seemed to back me up. When Nemo’s workroom was discovered in the Nautilus wreckage, the unusual proportions of the clothes, chairs, and bed had befuddled researchers who began to speculate that perhaps he had a deformity, or slept in an extreme position befitting his known flexibility and meditative practices. There were also signs that many of the clothes and furniture had been modified over the years, as if Nemo had changed size. Prolonged undersea living putting extra pressure on his bones and compressing him, some speculated.
     But what if Nemo were in fact a woman, and wearing lifts in her shoes to contribute to the illusion that she was a man, convincing enough to fool Pierre Aronnax up close? Her bed was designed with her precise proportions in mind, as she would be in the privacy of her own quarters and thus have no need to hide. The lifts were speculation; it was possible that Aronnax’s contention that Nemo was tall was simply incorrect. She could have been long-limbed and lithe, which could indicate a certain verticality even if she were not particularly tall. Or, Aronnax could have read her as tall because of her confidence. Perception of height was influenced by much more than actual size, as any tall woman who felt herself shrink when company was around could tell you.
     The measurements of the surviving clothes indicate either a startlingly gaunt man, or a woman, in my considered opinion. They were cut and tailored in a way that I instantly recognized from one of my earliest jobs as a seamstress for a theater company in New York before the war. It was still in fashion in that time for women to wear men’s clothes, but you couldn’t just put a beautiful actress or dancer in a suit from Barney’s without her looking ridiculous. Even if the intent was comedic, it had to be altered to hang comfortably on her frame. Hundreds of researchers must have looked at these clothes and never noticed it, but it was inescapable to me.
     Potential objections abound. Perhaps the clothes were a late addition. Maybe Nemo was ill in his later days and had his suits tailored to his new thinner physique. Maybe he’d taken a lover who preferred male dress. It was all possible. But once this frame had been placed around the image, it was all I could see: the great revolutionary defender of the downtrodden everywhere was a woman, whom some say are the most downtrodden of all. At least, they are disadvantaged all over the world, in many societies. Nemo, my Nemo, had solidarity with all women, and all members of the global underclasses. And of course Nemo seemed to appear “out of nowhere.” Women have a gift for blending into the background, doing all the work while men take the credit. Nemo, the greatest ship captain to have ever lived, could have honed all those skills running a household.
     The tiny group in the stifling conference room applauded with tepid enthusiasm for Corby’s presentation once it ended. Now, it was my turn. The first year, some of these men had left the room, turned their backs, or even jeered when I spoke. Now, although they may not take me seriously, they had to listen. I demanded it. Even if it ended in mockery, I would be heard.
     At the front of the room, arrayed behind a once-mighty wooden desk now pockmarked by chips, scuffs, and graffiti, I unveiled my latest findings: testimony from Ned Land, the harpoonist who accompanied Prof. Aronnax during his time on the Nautilus. It was found in a newspaper archive in his native Quebec, where he eventually retired and lived as an eccentric local character and amateur athlete. Because he was known to exaggerate, it’s notable that this interview was conducted in 1890, while he was still of sound mind, not to mention stone sober. The article also contained quotes from a local historian who could back up some of Land’s claims.
     “Not all of his statements are relevant to our work,” I said, attempting to be diplomatic while asserting my status as an equal. “But this paragraph stood out to me instantly.” I showed off my next slide, a copy of French text on newsprint with the translation next to it. I read the English version, which I had translated myself.
     “‘Captain Nemo was quite an intoxicating soul, perhaps more intoxicating even than fine drink. I’ve known my number of drinks, most of which I have forgotten. But I shall never forget Captain Nemo and all we did together. To this day, I dream of that soft and smooth face, so thirsty for vengeance but so lovely like a siren of the sea.’ Like a siren of the sea,” I said, repeating the last line for emphasis.
     “An interesting choice of words from Mr. Land in any event, but possibly just a colorful metaphor. But I direct your attention to a line earlier, about Nemo’s ‘soft and smooth face.’ A direct contradiction of Aronnax’s account that Nemo was bearded. We are all well aware of the problem of Mr. Land’s missing minutes.” In Aronnax’s account, Land is supposed to have spent inordinate amounts of time alone in the guest quarters, doing nothing. In some moments he is restless and eager to fight back or escape, and in others he seems perfectly content to exist in solitude and stasis. A reader might forget he was even there, at times.
      “Why would he speak with such affection for Nemo? And specifically of their face? Let us read between the lines of this interview to discover a possibility, or in my view, a likelihood, of a theory that ties together many of our threads today: The Ned Land of this interview is far from the stoic, resentful man as Aronnax portrayed. He is resolute, affectionate, passionate. He speaks of his interactions with the crew, his learning of Nautilese, his time spent studying the physics of Nemo’s weapons and the tactics of his offense. Aronnax has none of that in his account. We know from some of the crew diary fragments we have managed to find that he was well-liked, far more than Aronnax or Conseil, the other two guest passengers.
      “And here, we have him describing Nemo in contradictory terms, as beautiful, but deadly. As someone he was desperate to escape but now, he misses. I believe that Ned Land is describing not merely his captor, but his lover, long lost to him, but fondly remembered,” I said.
      I’ll admit, some part of me luxuriated in the reaction. The sputtering incoherence of Jacob Riett, the aghast, disgusted faces of Schell and Corby, and the almost audible eye roll from Pelt. Dr. Leaf just looked at me vacantly, like a dog confused by its own reflection.
      “I have a paper here with a variety of further pieces of evidence, if you’ll just allow me to present them, gentlemen!” I said, only to be shouted at further. I waited them out. It was on them to leave, if they found my scholarship so offensive. They didn’t, really. My work was as thorough as any of theirs. We all had to fill in the gaps, work with the available information. There was no correct answer that we had yet found. My answer was just unacceptable, because it suggested that a woman had surpassed male technological and strategic prowess, for decades. It did not fit the narrative.
      I concluded my presentation after the ruckus was quieted down, to mild applause and a variety of under-the-breath murmuring. Dr. Leaf, who was hosting today’s conference at his university, stood at the front of the room, waited for all of the other grumpy, unpleasant mumblers to shut up, and then meekly dismissed us for the day.

* * *

     I needed some time alone, and a cigarette. I walked from the university to downtown and found a bar that was empty enough I could sit in and not be bothered. I was just a plain, mousy academic with some unresolved skin issues, but men still buzzed around me like fat little flies. My mother said it was because of my hair, bright red and always visible.
     I tucked myself into a booth, and saw today’s paper. This was the kind of place that would leave a paper or a book on the table for a while for customers to peruse at their leisure. I felt at home. I ordered a coffee and a horse’s neck for now, to keep my hands busy.
     The headline on the paper roared: “ROBURIANS SEIZE TERRITORY ON EDGE OF EUROPE”
     I sighed. Nemo followed me everywhere I went. Robur, the airship captain and self-styled “master of the world” was no successor to Nemo; he was more like his dark mirror, a tyrant and terrorist with nothing but self-serving motives. He called on the legacy of Nemo to give himself purpose, and his clueless followers still seemed to believe in that decades after his original airship had been destroyed. A whole cadre of them had gathered together after the war and formed a new faction on the fringes of world affairs. That alone told you the difference: the legacy of the Nautilus was its amazing electrical engine and other feats of engineering that everyone benefitted from. The legacy of Robur’s airship was paramilitary cultists who thought they would take over the world from the luxury of the skies.
     The rest of the paper was similarly uninspiring. Bad news about the economy, book reviews of utter claptrap, horoscopes, opinion columns from racist jackals, and advertisements. Americans had developed a religious devotion to selling and being sold to. Every inch of space was a new opportunity for market share. The back of the paper proved less than stimulating, but I scanned every page for anything interesting. I noticed a small ad tucked into a corner of a back page, in black and white with block text:

VISIT CAPTAIN NEMO’S
FANTASTICAL TRAVELING CARNIVAL
MAGIC, ODDITIES, MUSIC, ART
IN TOWN FOR ONE WEEK ONLY
HAMILTON FAIRGROUNDS

     I almost laughed. An amusing coincidence, if nothing else. A younger me would have been mad to see Nemo’s name used like this. Now it was just another indignity. The real Nemo’s passion for justice and revolutionary zeal had gone out of fashion. I folded the paper up and slapped it on the table behind me. That cigarette would do about now. The radio was tuned to a jazz station. I ordered a chicken salad sandwich for lunch, and then a beer. Why the hell not.

1955


     Another conference presentation, and another year of disappointments, behind me, I retreated from enemy fire back to my hotel. A single woman traveling alone was treated oddly everywhere she went. I was tired of it all, by now, and I paid for the privilege of being left alone. I’d raided the newsstand the previous night for reading material (Harpers, Popular Electronics, Today’s Woman, all the local newspapers), along with mixed nuts, cigarettes, sweets, and other amusements. The radio was in the room already. I had everything I needed.
     The events of the conference tickled the back of my mind. Dr. Leaf presented some new evidence of his theory that Nemo was a cover identity of a naval revolutionary organization. The documents were compelling primary sources about this secretive group, although the connection to Nemo remained elusive to me. “The Order of Odysseus” was a placeholder name he had proposed based on some of the symbols found during his research. I mulled over the “secret society” theory. Groups like this spawned conspiracy theories, whispered rumors, and folklore. How did the so-called Order of Odysseus avoid any scrutiny over the years? If it were powerful enough to create Nemo, where did they go?
     Secret societies were dueling for the fate of the world, and here I was in upstate New York surrounded by earnest young men in sweaters asking to help me with my bags. I hated male attention, and it still infuriated me to be treated like someone’s sick mother. Somehow, no one ever looked at me the way I wanted. Perhaps the problem was with me.
     I opened the window just a little to be braced by the cold air. The shock should distract me, I thought. The radio sputtered out the sounds of some distinctly flatulent brass instruments. I savored each page of the papers and magazines I’d brought here, wringing out mental stimulation of any kind wherever I could find it. An advertisement in one of the local papers caught my eye, not for its extravagance, but its simplicity:

VISIT CAPTAIN NEMO’S
FANTASTICAL TRAVELING CARNIVAL
MAGIC, ODDITIES, MUSIC, ART
IN TOWN FOR ONE WEEK ONLY
EUREKA FAIRGROUNDS

     The words burned a hole in my brain, cauterizing some dead neurons and violently seizing upon a buried memory. Last year, I saw this exact same ad, in another paper, in another city, during the previous Nemology conference. Once is a coincidence, but twice? I kept staring at it, seeking some kind of answer, but it remained stubbornly quiet. Black text on a white background without even a coffee stain. There was no way to quiet certain voices in the mind of an academic, the ones that shrieked at you to check your work, keep looking, try again, see what you find. To research, to know. All I ever really wanted, was to know.
     I stared out the window at a California street, the very beginnings of a pink sunset hovering overhead. Was it just a coincidence? Was it some cosmic joke? Hell, maybe one of my fellow researchers had run off and joined the circus. I had to know.

* * *

     By the time my cab dropped me off, the moon was out and the sky was purple. My senses were flooded by rough-hewn art on posters and banners, the roar of a confused, amused, aroused crowd, and the unmistakable smell of cow shit. Music emerged from everywhere: bawdy songs sung off-key, the scratched warble of an old record player, on handmade instruments built from spare parts. The entire place connected by a web of cords carrying electric lights, as if woven by a grand golden spider. I followed the wires as I walked through, imagining the steps to make such an operation work, the constant forward momentum of it all. I thought of the tents being raised, the exhibits being assembled, each piece put in place. Screw by screw and nail by nail. I missed working with my hands.
     There was a food area full of fried treats, a midway with games, a farm tent with live animals, a “ghost train” ride, and an “exhibits” area. I walked by a preacher delivering a kind of fire and brimstone sermon, and just a few feet away was a lecturer on “freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the history of religious movements,” according to his sign. The marketplace of ideas, I thought. Neither speaker had the crowd’s attention. Most of the children were a few feet away, gathered around a squinty-eyed, muscular man in a ragged old-style naval uniform. “Feats of strength and tales of adventures on the high sea!” said the sandwich board by his stage.
     The adults in the crowd were mostly concentrated around a few other exhibits. There was a magician, a clown, a fortune teller, and a singer, cordoned off in their own little sections. I saw a tent with a closed flap and a variety of men, and a few women, eagerly shuffling around it. “Exotic Dancers of the Wider World” I read on the tent as I walked by. Sex sells, I thought.
     I followed a sign that read “Curiosities from Around the World” off the path, down a winding corridor between tents. This was an exhibit more to my liking. I ventured in and found a lantern-lit room packed with knick-knacks and odd objects on nested rows of little shelves. Preserved animals, old weapons, and many othr items of dubious historicity. Bullet casings from Bonnie and Clyde’s final shootout were laid out on a wool pad next to Bat Masterson’s gun. A partially-burned skull mask under glass caught my attention. “The mask of Erik, the ‘Opera Ghost’ of Paris,” said the typewritten label. Next to that, there was a squarish lump of amber resin containing, as far as I could tell, a perfectly preserved bumblebee. Beneath it was a copper nameplate reading, simply: “Michael.” No additional explanation was forthcoming.
     Attached to the side of each case were framed newspapers with historic headlines. The closest one read, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty.” I remembered the story, which was from just a few years ago. She looked as happy in the photo as I remembered.
     The entire left wall was nautical-themed items. An 18th-century ship’s navigation wheel, a flag from a Chinese junk, paintings of seascapes and naval battles. Then, a massive array of brilliantly colored shells, each one attached to cotton backing and labelled. There were pearls of many colors, dried coral — I even recognized one of the specimens, an imperial spiny oyster. A sentence emerged from my memory unbidden:
     No museum in Europe possesses such a collection of the produce of the sea.
     I glanced down at the table beneath the many drawers of the shell display. Made of thick, treated wood, it was the kind of furniture that you needed heavy equipment to move. So why is it here? The more I looked at it, the more my mind grasped at ideas like hands through fog. I had to look closely to see the inscription, carved and burned deep into the grain of the table’s wood.
     “Mobilis in mobili,” it said. Beneath that, a large letter “N.” The fog between my fingers condensed into sticky droplets of dew. The motto of the Nautilus on an expensive antique table, underneath a massive collection of rare shells and fossils from the ocean, at a carnival named after Captain Nemo.
     “That’s quite an interesting piece, wouldn’t you say?” said a voice from my left. I was startled out of my own inward spiral. “Do you know the history of the great ship Nautilus, my dear?” The voice was an elegant purr in a strangely unplaceable accent. Clearly not American nor English, but not recognizably anything I’d ever heard before. I turned to see a short woman with brown skin, green eyes, and white hair. Her broad hips and shoulders suggested a Reubensesque figure. She looked by my estimate to be about sixty, but the kind of sixty where if she didn’t take younger lovers, it was entirely by her choice. She wore an emerald green jacket with gold embroidery and black buttons, with a handful of patches.
     “I actually… how do you have this?” I said, the academic instinct coming back again. I had to know.
     A knowing laugh from my new friend. “I see. You must be a collector,” she said. “I’m afraid this is a one of a kind item we obtained through a close personal connection. Actually, most of our items are. The owner was unable to care for their collection any longer ,and kindly donated it to our traveling show.” Her voice was a strumming vibrato, textured not just by age but use.
     “No, I…” My mind was working too fast and stalling out like a flooded engine. I closed my eyes. “Can I start over? My name is Dr. Molly Scoville, and—“
     “Doctor?” my friend said. She smiled a wickedly satisfied smile. Her skin shimmered like gold for a moment.
     “Yes, I’m an academic… I actually study. Um. Nemology. The study of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus is my specialty. I saw your ad. The name of your business and this, I… it’s strange, don’t you think?”
     “Vivianna Shah,” my friend said, by way of introduction. She held out a hand wearing a black leather glove. I shook it awkwardly. “Strange is the least of it, Dr. Scoville.”
     I didn’t know what to make of that so I just pressed on. “Is this table an original? From the Nautilus?” I said.
     “How do you define ‘original’?” Shah said. “It is old. It was retrieved from the Nautilus. But it wasn’t present on the famous voyage in 1866. The one from the book.”
     “Yes… the book,” I said. “But these shells… it's just like the collection Dr. Aronnax described. Even down to some of the specimens. I knew they looked familiar, but I’ve never actually seen them all in one place with my own eyes. My understanding is, the shell collection was one of many items of interest that was never found. Stolen by pirates and plunderers was the leading guess, last I looked.” I looked over my glasses at Ms. Shah. “Not plundered by you, I hope,” I said.
     She laughed, a husky hawk’s cry of a laugh, and my heart fluttered. “No, my dear, not quite. Do I look the type?”
     I took another, longer look at her, to make an earnest attempt at answering the question. She looked sophisticated, troubled, warm, stern. Maternal, maybe just because of her age. She looked like a wealthy woman who could have an intelligent conversation, or a poor woman with a regal bearing. She was undeniably beautiful, but men would be intimidated. A brown-skinned woman like her must be a target for discrimination in this type of work, or any, I reminded myself. Is that why she’s relegated to this strange little corner? That didn’t seem right. The crowd and the workforce were both integrated, I realized. It was unremarkable to me, but maybe not for this town.
     “No,” I said, finally answering. “You look like… an adventurer, not a pirate.”
     She smiled, softly satisfied. “I like that answer,” she said. “You say you’re a Nemologist? I’ll admit, I do know a bit more about these items than I let on. It’s part of the show, you see.” Her voice was like a staticky radio providing comfort on a lonely night. I wondered if she had ever been a singer, and comforted lonely GIs in their hospital beds, or lonelier nurses on the night shift, waiting to go home and sleep alone.
     “You mean you’re an entertainer, not an academic,” I said. “I don’t know if I’ll believe whatever you tell me. There’s a lot of reasons to be skeptical.”
     “Naturally. That’s a good trait in an academic, but a bad one in a carnival customer,” she said.
     “I can’t turn it off,” I said.
     “Because you’re a good academic,” she said.
     “Or a hopeless one.”
     “Life, my dear, is never hopeless,” she said. “Why don’t you steer this particular vessel — what do you want to ask me?”
     I looked at the table and the shells and let my mind work. “How do you know these are from the Nautilus?” I said.
     “We bought them from a private collector, who had purchased them directly from the Lincoln Island expeditionary team who salvaged it,” she said. “There were explicit instructions to keep the shell collection intact.”
     “And… no offense, but a carnival bought it? Any museum would be thrilled to have this, Nemo connection or no,” I said.
     “The collector… owed me a favor,” she said. “Among other things.”
     “Do you have paperwork to that effect?” I said.
     “I do. But they contain many confidential details I’m not at liberty to disclose. Not to a customer.”
     “To a visiting academic? A colleague?”
     “I’m afraid not. Certain information must remain confidential. Our enemies are ruthless and omnipresent” she said.
     Why did that comment feel odd, intimate, uncomfortable, and thrilling all at once? “Can I ask another question?” I said.
     “Of course,” she said.
     “You have these items. Your carnival is called Captain Nemo’s. You were in Oklahoma last year, in the same city as our Nemology conference. And here you are again,” I said. “It can’t be a coincidence. But I don’t know what it means. What is this?”
     She smiled thoughtfully, her eyes closed in concentration. “You have so many of the answers already. But you’re missing crucial information. Just like your paper on Captain Nemo’s height… your numbers were correct, your conclusions were right, and yet…”
     “You… know my work?” I said. It was starting to seem creepy, now. Like a trap.
     “I so wish to explain everything,” she said. “But I have my reasons not to. For now, I’ll tell you that of course, it is not a coincidence. I’m well-aware of the work you and your colleagues do in this field.”
     “Oh, come on,” I said. “If it’s like that, why the hell won’t you tell me? You left a trail of breadcrumbs and now you’re complaining about mice?”
     Shah folded her hands on the table in front of her. For the first time I noticed her ungloved right hand, and the callouses, the scars, the short-clipped nails. She worked for a living. “Is this how you talk to your colleagues, my dear?”
     “Yes, actually,” I said. “But they all hate me.”
     “I rather like you already,” she said. “If I told you everything, you wouldn’t believe me, anyway.”
     “Convenient,” I said.
     “It certainly is,” she said.
     My face felt flush and red, not just because of my skin condition. “I don’t understand,” I said.
     “The first step to understanding is knowing what questions to ask,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some other customers to attend to.” The arrival of new people in the cramped tent was enough to chasten me, and I retreated.
* * *

     Far outside the maze of carnival tents, where the grass turned to mud, the ground was carved with wagon and tire tracks. Many of them were filled with water, like tiny reservoirs. Tracing them back lead to a rail yard where an engine and numerous train cars were parked. I could see another painted sign on the side of the car, advertising the carnival. They travelled by train, I thought. A cigarette hung from my lips and I realized I left my matches at the hotel. Why did I come here again?
     “Need a light? Sorry, I couldn’t help noticing,” said a voice from behind me. It was a short woman, shorter than me, in a brown tweed suit with short pants and a hat. She wouldn’t have caught me off guard in the city, where women’s fashions were always evolving, but at an off-the-path carnival like this, she stood out. She presented her lighter to me, a nice one.
     “Sure,” I said. Against all odds, the cigarette tasted good, even with notes of pine tar and axel grease lingering in the air. “That’s a nice ensemble.” I gestured to her clothes.
     “Thank you,” she said. “It was my brother’s, actually. Some of our costume people here took it in for me. This was his, too.” She showed me the lighter again. At this angle, I could see it was engraved. “Light Your Own Fuses — PR” it said. Another mystery, or just an untold story.
     “You work for the carnival?” I said.
     “I sure do. My name’s Cricket, Cricket Beane. I’m sort of a catch-all agent of the trade, you might say,” she said. She smiled proudly after that one.
     “I’m not familiar with your trade, sadly. What do you do?”
     “I think on paper, I work in promotions. Advance men, we’re called. A term of art,” she said, a little laugh at our shared reality as women. “I travel ahead of the carnival and make sure things are sorted out on that end. That our rail lines are clear, we can park our train and engine, unload our equipment, and so on. Plus, I get advertisements in the papers and keep the local authorities on our good side. I also solve mysteries.”
     “Mysteries? Like a detective?” I said, skeptical.
     “Part-time,” Cricket said. “A carnival runs into strange characters and stranger situations. We haven’t had a murder here on site, thank the good Lord, but you never know. I’ve had to solve a few conundrums. My family always had an adventurous streak, and I guess I’ve taken that on myself.”
     “So you ran away and joined the circus?”
     “I didn’t have to run away, actually. My brother died just after the war. All I had left was a trunk full of his things. I begged for a job and I slept in that trunk for a few years. Uh, slept with the lid open, I mean,” she said. She looked to be the type whose size made her more of a scrapper, like a little dog that barked big and mean.
     “You like working here?”
     “I sure do, ma’am,” Cricket said. “It’s not to everyone’s taste, but it keeps me free. On the move, on the road, always a new adventure. But there’s plenty of routine as well. We unload the trains and wagons the same way every time. We’ve got our meals, our breaks. Everything’s set up like a machine. ‘Wheels within wheels,’ as Captain Shah always says.”
     My eyebrows nudged closer together. “‘Captain Shah’?” I said.
     “Oh, sorry, that’s what we call her. The big boss, Mrs. Shah. Well, she goes by ‘Captain Nemo’ occasionally, but that’s more of—“ Cricket said.
     “Wait, wait. Captain Nemo is Vivianna Shah? The one the carnival is named after I mean, not— she’s your boss?” I said.
     “Of course, ma’am. You won’t find a finer person running a carnival in these United States,” Cricket said, sincerely.
     “I saw her in the Curiosities tent. Spoke to her,” I said, softly, confused, running through information in my head like I was scanning an overflowing stock ticker.
     “Oh! Well, you already have a sense of it. We’re pretty loyal around here. I’m not sure how many are here are in for the whole journey… uh, well, some of us are more like true believers, you might say,” Cricket said.
     “Why is she called ‘Captain Nemo’?” I said.
     “Oh, she used to do a magic act under that name. Every so often she’ll break out one of the old tricks. I heard she did it all over Europe in the twenties… St. Petersburg and so on,” Cricket said.
     “And how long has this carnival existed?”
     “Eight years,” she said. “It was still new when I joined.”
     “Thank you,” I said. Wheels within wheels, I thought. Motion, in motion. Mobilis in mobili. “I”m going to need to speak to your Captain Shah again.”
     “I don’t think she’d mind that. She, ah, enjoys the company of women,” Cricket said. “You’ll find her in the medical oddities tent, I believe.”
     “Thank you, Cricket,” she said. “Give my regards to PR for the light.”
     “I will,” Cricket said, with a sincere smile. A pretty girl in a tailored suit who just wanted an adventurous life made me think of missed opportunities. Now there was one dangling in front of me that I would grab with both hands.
     I walked across the carnival, trying to make sense of this information. My path was fertile ground for clues. An integrated crew that worked together like a well-oiled machine, spoke in their own dialect, with a collection of artifacts and experts rivaling the great museums, like a landlocked Nautilus. Improbably, it almost made sense. On the midway, I made my way to the performers again. They gestured for my attention and money. They had a genuine quality, and looked like they truly believed in their art.
     I stopped and looked at a few acts. The strongman all the children had been crowded around was still at it. He was effortlessly hoisting a full-sized barrel in the air with a hand, then with three fingers, and then two. It was as much balance as it was strength, I thought. Then, with a snap of his wrist and excellent timing, he tossed it in the air over his head, and began to juggle. I wondered if he’d break out an accordion any second now.
     While he performed, I read the sandwich board with his information: “Rocky De Mello - from a family of naval adventurers - the strongest man in the world - and nice, too.” A sweet sentiment, to be sure. After adding a few more items to his juggling routine, he caught them all — three with his hands, one with his feet, and one with his head. The crowd of children once again expressed their excitement in the unbridled way only kids could. I noticed the sweat pooling down the back of his neck for the first time.
     “Okie, kids, ol’ Rock is gonna need a break for a whiles,” he said, trying to keep up his enthusiasm for the sake of the children. I could see he was short of breath, too. “Come back in fifteen minutes!” He disappeared behind his stage’s curtain with what looked like one simple movement.
     The more I learned about this place, the more questions I had. I shouldn’t have, but after a minute of waffling, I made the decision to slip back behind the stages to see if Mr. De Mello might want to talk. He didn’t notice me until I was relatively close. He was splashing himself and drinking water from a small wooden barrel in the back of his stage.
     “Um, hi, Mr.—“
     “You’s gotta wait, kiddos— oh, evening, ma’am,” he said, snapping to a more respectable posture. “I hopes I didn’t offend ya or nothin, it’s just a show, ya see—“
     “No, no, I’m… I know I shouldn’t be back here, I just had a question. I’m here doing a little. Research,” I said.
     That caught his attention. “Reeshurch, huh? That’s perty un-usual, specially for a dame. No offense,” he said.
     “None taken. I saw your sign said you’re from a family of naval adventurers… I study Captain Nemo, and I was wondering if there was any connection,” I said.
     “Ohh! Well, not before me joining this here sideshow,” he said. “Me family has a long history of adventure on the sea! Me pop was— ya ever hear of Enzo De Mello?”
     The name rang the vaguest bell. I’d heard about so many nautical adventurer types in my work. They all had a Nemo story, it seemed. “A… sailor, of some renown…?”
     Rocky laughed, a loud, trilling, gooselike laugh. “A pirate, ya know! One of the most famous on this partickaller blue marble, indeed,” he said. “He sailed with a crew of misfits and orphans and declared war on the world’s governments. Just a few dozen men and women on the high seas who gave the world a helluva scare!” Another laugh.
     “Men and women… that, I like. Even for a pirate,” I said.
     “Pirates could get away with it,” Rocky said. “And my grandpap, he was a criminal hisself. A ruthless, bloodthirsty terror, who made enough enemies for three or four lifetimes. I still runs into ‘em from time ta time.” He nodded seriously to emphasize that. “And great-grandpap, well, irony a ironies, he was a Navy man—“
     I put my hands up. “Honestly, this is all incredibly fascinating, but—“
     The laugh again. “Come by me show sometime, lass. I’ll give ya the uncensored version a me great sea tales,” he said. “I should take me meal, in any case. Nice knowin’ ya, girlie.”
     “Indeed,” I said, and meant it.
     I walked to where I was headed slowly. It was a worthy place to savor. Interesting people, who care about their jobs. I thought about everyone who had to explain to their parents that they ran away with a carnival. How many people would say, why couldn’t you have gone to college, and gotten a degree? Look where it got me, I thought. Were the people here happier, better off, smarter than me? Could I really say otherwise?
     The back of the midway was interesting to see. I tried not to snoop, but I enjoyed the chance to see the inner workings, the business side of things. I passed by a girl in clown makeup, juggling three colorful balls. Her makeup was starting to streak, but she looked impeccable anyway. She was very cute, innocent-looking. She smiled as we made eye contact, and I wondered why I couldn’t react that way to a stranger.
     “Hiya!” she said, as I passed. “Normally if I see somebody new back here, I ask if they’re lost. But you’re a lady who knows where she’s going, I can tell!”
     “The… medical oddities tent. Sorry for taking the back way,” I said.
     “Oh, it’s okay! We don’t have anything to hide!” she said. “I’m Melody, by the way. You should come watch me juggle! I do knives, too!” I’d never heard the word “knives” said with such joy and exuberance.
     “Oh… um, I will!” I said, promising, for some reason. “Everyone here is… so talented, and so supportive of one another. It seems that way.”
     “It is that way, um… I never got your name,” Melody said.
     “Molly. Dr. Molly Scoville,” I said.
     “Doctor?!” Melody said, with a gasp. “Oh my gosh. That’s amazing!”
     “Thanks. Maybe not as much as you think. I-- thank you. Thank you,” I said. I waved and went on my way. These interactions were nice, but I had business to attend to.

* * *

     The medical oddities tent was clean and antiseptic, filled with tubes and jars of specimens both familiar and exotic. Mostly animals, there were some human skulls and other items in the back in their own section. Row after row of preserved bodies, hanging in formaldehyde, in jars that glowed like lanterns. I walked through deliberately, avoiding other customers, until I saw Shah, her leather gloved hand resting on a particularly large canister. Inside was a fetal whale, with two heads. It was enormous, and just barely fit in the barrel-sized glass container it was in.
     I was about to say something, anything, just to demand some kind of answer, when I saw that Captain Shah — the title fit her like a glove, I realized — was deep in thought, eyes closed, hand pressed against the glass as if in some kind of prayer.
     “Captain?” I said, hesitant and unsure of what kind of reaction she’d have.
     She opened her eyes and looked at me with what felt like warm relief. “Dr. Scoville. I thought you might have left us,” she said.
     “I had to know,” I said.
     “You did. Have you made a discovery already? Quick work,” she said.
     “Not a discovery, just… an inference,” I said. “I remembered something. A stage magician who was popular in St. Petersburg in the 1920s. Wore a mask and performed under the name ‘Captain Nemo.’ I would think it just canny marketing or a coincidence, except… the so-called ‘Russian Nemo’ is known to have met Pierre Aronnax, not to mention Moriarty and a few others who are wrapped up in all this. He had Indian associates, including his assistants. What if, say, he had a daughter with one of his assistants. Who grew up in the trade. Learned magic, showmanship, management skills. And, her father delighted in the connection with the original Nemo. A connection that might enable his daughter, years later, to get incredibly rare artifacts for her traveling carnival…”
     I was nearly out of breath from making so many leaps in logic, but it almost felt right. The pieces fell into place too easily, without secure purchase. The story made sense, but it didn’t move. It lacked an engine, the spark of truth.
     “That would be truly incredible. But… I think I’m a tad too old to be the daughter of ‘Russian Nemo’ and one of his assistants. Their earliest documented performance was in 1919. I’m many things, but below forty isn’t one of them,” she said.
     I tried not to visibly deflate. “I had thought of that, but… we don’t know Russian Nemo’s private life. Perhaps he had a large family that we don’t know about,” I said.
     Shah’s eyes narrowed. “I very much doubt it,” she said. Her tone was like ice. She wasn’t assuming. She knew. Why did she know? I was wrong, but she knew Russian Nemo? That really was the connection? My head throbbed in silent panic.
     “What do you think of this creature, Dr. Scoville?” Captain Shah said, gesturing to the fetal whale. I looked at the big alien eyes, two on each head for a total of four. I felt very little, but I could tell that wasn’t the answer she was looking for.
     “I think it never had a chance. It was mutated… it wouldn’t have survived,” I said. “It’s fascinating what nature is capable of. What the sea produces.”
     She looked at the jar and then back to me. “You’ve made more progress in a few hours here than you have for years in conventional research,” she said. “Nature, your nature, is capable of that.”
     I just blinked, trying to prime my eyes to see whatever she was showing me, and I couldn’t manage it. “Is there an answer?” I said. “Is there something that will demonstrate to me that I’m right, or wrong, or… will I ever know?”
     “Will you know? I have no idea. But there is an answer,” Captain Shah said. “It was… gratifying, to talk to you, doctor. I have to attend to my own work, now. But please, enjoy the carnival. And if I miss you… maybe I’ll see you next year.”

1957


     The first thing I did when I got to Cincinnati Union Terminal was buy a paper, a few papers, and scan the back pages. There, clear as day, was the same ad for Captain Nemo’s carnival. The one I’d first noticed three years ago, that I’d investigated two years ago, and that had haunted me since then. To come so close to an answer — to something — only to lose it, like sunken treasure beneath shifting sands, had filled me with purpose. The spirit of academic cooperation compelled me to share my findings each year, but good god damn did I hate spoon-feeding incredible research to these fossils.
     At least year’s conference, I declared that my research was going to focus on the “false Nemos” of the world, those who had taken on his identity, claimed to be him, or were otherwise persons of interest despite not, most likely, being the real, historical Nemo. I was especially interested, of course, in the “Russian Nemo,” the popular illusionist who first performed in Russia, and Vivianna Shah, carnival proprietress, magician, showwoman. The connection between the two of them was one of the mysteries left to solve. Last year, Dr. Leaf had begun to call me “midway girl,” for my insistence on focusing on this as an area of study. Some of the others were relieved that my ideas weren’t encroaching on their own spheres. We were little Nemo fiefdoms surrounded by stone walls, just hoping none of the neighbors got too close.
     I presented my work at the conference in a rush, speeding through details I knew would be unnoticed. I only really cared about how Captain Shah would react. She hadn’t accepted my offer of exchanging letters throughout the year, so this was the only time I would have to speak with her. I felt such a rush to return to her presence. Sometimes I wondered if, say I presented her with the correct answer, she would actually confirm the truth of it. She was starting to trust me more: Last year, I got genuine stories about performing in France and London. They were dinner party anecdotes, nothing serious, but the details taught me more of what she used to be like, impressions of a world I only knew through documents and ledgers.
     This was only my third visit here, but I was starting to feel like — what, one of the family? The idea was silly, and all the sillier for being true. My own family was distant and uninterested in my work. Here, my ideas were admired, not mocked. I learned that the company of employees rarely rotated, so I saw the same people year after year. They remembered me. It was like exchanging letters at Christmas, I imagined.
     The carnival had just opened. A paint-drip sunset hung in the sky as the first guests were let in. I made what were now my usual stops. First, I saw Rocky De Mello, strongman, sailor, and adventurer, as he was hoisting around multiple children on his muscular arms.
     “Were you really a sailor, mister?” said one of the kids, voice more in awe of this idea than the superhuman strength that was currently lifting him off the ground with no effort.
     “Ya think I’s a cowboy?” Rocky said, in his distinctive trilling voice. His accent was a strange combination of working class brogues from all over the world. “They don’t gives a ta-ttoo like this’n to just anyones, ya know?” He swung his other arm, and three children hanging off it, around to show off a sizable anchor tattoo. He laughed a laugh that came from deep in his throat.
     He turned my way and brightened up, squinty eyes opening up just enough that I could tell he recognized me. “Here kids. You wanna meet Perfesser Molly? She’s one of the smartest broads you’ll ever meet!” The kids didn’t seem interested.
     “That’s okay, Mr. De Mello— Rocky,” I said. He had insisted I use his first name, last year. I still didn’t know if that was his birth name or just what he went by.
     “I’s glad to see ya back,” he said. He looked at my attache case and grinned, showing off a few missing teeth. “Ya got more genius stuff for the captain, do ya’s?”
     “Something like that,” I said. “How have things been?”
     “Bizness is good, the kids is smilin’, what more could ya want?” he said. I was envious of his contentment.
     “Well, sounds like they’re getting the ride of their life,” I said.
     “That’s me career fer now,” he said, and gestured with his chin. “OK, kids. Who wants to help light me pipe?” The kids cheered.
     Further down the road, I saw my friend Cricket, the promotional officer and problem-solver for the carnival I’d met on my first trip. She was tending to a slightly older woman with long, messy black hair, in a heavy coat.
     “Just eat,” Cricket said, and sighed. When she saw me, she was clearly lost in thought. “Molly!” she said.
     “Cricket,” I said. We touched hands gently. I turned to her companion. “Glad you’re still with us, Peregrine.” The woman looked up at me and forced a smile, but didn’t speak. Peregrine Rockford was an old friend of Cricket’s who had fallen deep into alcoholism and other abuses. Now, she was under Cricket’s care full-time. She seemed like an impressive woman, who had flown planes during the war as part of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots program. I met her last year, to the extent that you could “meet” someone who rarely spoke. Cricket had already returned to tending to Peregrine.
     “Nice to see you both,” I said, and took my time walking away. All the way down the midway, the “Curiosities from Around the World” sign pointed to my destination. I could socialize later, I thought. I walked past the dancer’s tent, the clowns — “See Melody, America’s most famous girl clown!” announced a sign — and past the fortune teller. It did make me happy to see so many familiar faces, but there was only one I needed to see.
     The curiosities tent was fully assembled, but the exhibits were still being arranged. The captain’s delicate touch and sense of organization made this little carnival tent feel almost like a real museum, even with a dirt floor. When I first saw her again, from behind, I felt it in my stomach.
     “Captain—“ I said, startling myself with how loud my voice sounded.
     She turned around. “Dr. Scoville,” she said. “Molly.” She came and grasped my hands, and I felt safe.
     “I take it you have something to show me, my dear?” she said. Her voice was warm and her smile was kind.
* * *

     At the far end of the curiosities tent, Captain Shah and I sat at a small card table. I laid out the evidence as efficiently as I could. It required a few documents. First, there were the maps. I had studied the “Russian Nemo”’s touring and performance schedule as well as scanned countless archives looking for information on them. There were more than a few letters from people who had met them available, but finding them was the result of hours, days, of research, combing through document after document until I found anything relevant. With those, I had created a map of Russian Nemo’s travels.
     The most interesting result of this research was finding that almost every one of their stops, after their initial fame in Russia, corresponded with some bit of Nemo lore. Visits to the town where Pierre Aronnax enjoyed his retirement were a known quantity, but it turned out there were several. Russian Nemo visited India, China, Japan, and Scotland, among others. Each corresponded with some element of the Nautilus — in India, Russian Nemo ended up at the ruins of Prince Dakkar’s estate, he visited the docks in Shanghai and met with commercial fishermen who were known to have served with Nemo, and so on. My most exciting find was letters from a young noblewoman who was at Glengorm Castle in Scotland in the gloomy summer of 1921, the same time as not only Russian Nemo — described in the letters as an “angelic-faced creature of delight” — but as James Moriarty, the notorious criminal. If Russian Nemo were the Nemo, that would be a fatal blow to the “they’re never seen in the same room at the same time” defense. But a big “if,” even I had to admit.
     “All of this… most of it, I suppose, could be a coincidence,” I said, as I allowed the Captain to look through my papers for herself. “I’m not sure I’m being a good academic about it, but…”
     “Why do you say that?” she said.
     “Because my imagination takes flight. I see these coincidences and a narrative builds in my mind. It chugs along like a train, going and going no matter my desired outcome. I want to do it right… I can do the work, as you can see, but… I don’t know if my mind is as open to the evidence as it ought to be,” I said.
     “Your colleagues aren’t so different,” Captain Shah said. “And you already know you’re closer to the truth than they will be.”
     “Maybe so… but how close is ‘closer’?” I said. I looked down at the table and then at my own hands, with their red, overworked fingertips.
     “Here’s where my imagination has brought me,” I said. I pulled out two additional maps. First, the map of the charted journey of the Nautilus, from about 1864 to 1870. Then, Russian Nemo’s travels from 1890 to 1922. Then, a map of North America, with circuitous lines running across the continent.
     “This is the map of your carnival, Captain Shah. Based on newspaper ads, train travel records, and a few other sources. We’re missing the thirty years before the Nautilus was recovered in the Arctic. Besides that, we have an unbroken chain of travel where the end of one segues seamlessly into the other.” I took out more versions of the three maps, drawn onto thin paper, and used a projector to show more of what I meant.
     “I have no idea what happened to the Nautilus before it was found. But assuming that it was piloted there deliberately and left — a reasonable assumption, because no human remains were found on board — we at least have an approximate end date. The analysis of the wreck estimated it had been there less than five years, possibly less than three. So somewhere between 1895 to 1897, Nemo, whoever that was, left their ship…”
     I pulled out the next sheet of paper to demonstrate my next point. “And in 1903, we have the first recorded mention of ‘Captain Nemo,’ the magician. A few years later, a newspaper article would describe them as a penniless St. Petersburg street performer who worked his way up to the biggest theaters in Russia. And I’ve followed his tours, performances, his social travels, everything else, on the map I showed you…”
     “The last one is in Canada. Newfoundland in 1928, specifically. I don’t need to tell you, the home of Ned Land, whose… unusual testimony, about Nemo, is crucial to my research and dear to my heart,” I said. “Russian Nemo drops off the map. Nothing more in the record. But… that’s when you appear. Out of ‘nowhere’. A performer, an entrepreneur, a small-time carnival owner. In 1929, the very first Captain Nemo’s Fantastical Carnival pops up just outside of Waterbury, Connecticut. Within a few years, you take the unusual step of purchasing a locomotive outright from the American Car and Foundry Company. You own your own locomotive, your own train, your carnival. You staff it with soldiers, sailors, adventurers, geniuses, outsiders, misfits, rebels. Every year, you visit the same city as the Nemology conference me and my colleagues attend.”
     I paused and stepped away from my projector. “There’s an answer here that would be perfect, if only it made any sense at all. Looking at the information like this… I know some of these could be coincidences, but all I can see is the path of one person. One… man, or woman, whose lifework never stopped. Started over, perhaps, but never ended. A play with second, third, and fourth acts. The most logical explanation, to me, is that you, Captain Shah, are the Russian Nemo… and the original Nemo. But in that case you’d be—“
     “One hundred and fifty years old, give or take a decade,” she said, satisfied.
     “Yes. Which is… impossible,” I said. Did I want her to contradict me or not? She didn’t respond for a moment, just sitting with that enigmatic smile on her face. Finally, after a lifetime, she stood up and gestured to me.
     “I’d like to show you something, Molly,” she said. “Would you come with me?” The sound of her accent speaking my name so kindly melted me.
     “Oh, uh… yes,” I said. I gathered my papers together and took them with me, not risking my work being misplaced.
     We walked out of the tent and to the far back of the fairgrounds. As usual, they were near an old rail yard where the train cars and locomotive were parked. For the first time, Captain Shah invited me into her private car. The rest of the train was folded like a sleeping snake, compressed into as small an area as was possible before the train would be packed and loaded again for their next stop at the end of the week.
     The interior of the car was beautiful. Wooden furniture, porthole windows, maps and portraits on the wall. One end was all musical instruments. They looked like pianos or accordions, but oddly shaped and with additional keys. On the other, there was a bookshelf and a chair and a reading light. I desperately wanted to scan every spine and discover what the dear captain was reading in her leisure time. I half-wondered if my old monograph from college was buried somewhere in there. She followed the Nemo literature more than most, after all.
     In the middle of the car was a folded-away dining table and chairs against one wall, and stacks of locked chests and trunks of various sizes. They were old and ornate, finished wood and brass fittings. None of what I’d seen so far made me think she was less likely to be Captain Nemo, if that was her intent. She pulled up a small chest, about the size of a toolbox, and placed it on top of the larger trunk in front of us.
     She pulled a keyring from an interior pocket in her long jacket and unlocked it. The mechanical sounds of the lock were smooth and elegant. Like everything she possessed, it was kept in perfect working order. It opened to reveal what I recognized as a medical kit. There were syringes, tubing, ligatures, even a sewing needle and thread. There were also jars, each placed in a well designed for its exact size, filled with substances unknown or unrecognizable to me.
     “This is… your medicine?” I said. She’d spoken in passing before of her experimental treatments. I didn’t inquire further because it was none of my business, and I doubted I’d be able to understand if she did explain it to me.
     “Indeed,” she said. She gestured to each jar in turn. “This is extract from hydroponically grown seaweed. This is a natural supplement for iron, fiber, and other nutrients. And this… is a hormone cocktail that I devised myself, with the help of my European doctors. I can explain it in more detail if you like, but, essentially, it brings my body, more in harmony with my mind. They were at conflict for so long, I never knew anything else. This changed me.” She tapped the jar again. It was filled with a thick yellowish solution that looked like brine or chicken broth.
     “You… inject it?” I said, cautiously. I wasn’t sure what information I should have been deriving from this exchange, fascinating as it was.
     “Yes, indeed,” she said. “It’s an experimental treatment method… I’ve worked with doctors, studied methods of my own. I’m showing this all to you, because…”
     “Because…?” I said, hesitant.
     “If it were possible,” she said. “It might be true. I cannot tell you how badly I want you to know. How much I trust you. But…”
     “If it were… wait, what do you mean— this medicine…” I said, stumbling over the words. “If you wanted me to know, you’d tell me. How much more of this game is there? Now you’re trying to… you want me to think that you are Captain Nemo? You are the Russian Nemo? That this medicine, hormones, whatever, has made you what, immortal? Is this all just some trick? You befriend me for years, and then tell me the most obvious bullshit story in the world, and make me believe it, so I— what, so you can discredit my work? Because Nemo was your grandmother or something but you don’t want anyone to know—“
     “No, Molly, I…” she said, unconvincingly.
     “God damn it. God damn you! Damn all this! I tried. I tried to play along, and here we are, and the best you can do is show me some magic jars that balance your humors?” I said.
     “If I tell you, I can’t let you leave,” she said. “This is so much bigger than you realize, Molly.”
     “Oh, of course it is. It’s too big for me to understand. My little girl brain can’t take it. I would think you would know better, but it’s the same shit. I can tell what’s going on even if you say it in a train car instead of a dean’s office.”
     She looked at me sad and sympathetic and I wanted to be so much angrier than I was. I wanted to be furious. I wanted to storm out and never come back.
     “What does it do. Specifically,” I said. “The medicine.”
     “It balances the hormones in my body. The sex hormones. It increases estrogen, and blocks production of testosterone. My body was imbalanced, in a state of dysfunction, for most of my life. I had to hide my breasts and fill in a beard with false hair. I disguised myself as a man one day, then a woman the next. When I ended up in Russia, I considered living life as a woman, but I was afraid. This treatment… made it make sense to me, again. Made my body feel whole, real, correct. Functioning,” she said.
     “Your body… wait, I’m confused. I don’t mean to be rude, but what… when you were born, I mean,” I said. “Were you a boy or a girl?”
     She looked up at the ceiling and then down to the floor. “I was born with a penis and testicles. I was a boy as far as anyone knew. In puberty, I grew breasts. The term they’re using in research circles is ‘intersex’. Characteristics of both sexes, or unique ones altogether. Sex, gender, it’s far more complicated than most people want to believe. I felt like a little boy until puberty. Then, I changed. I became something new. I was born, and I had to shape myself into my ideal form. Build it. And so I have. What you see here… it took a lifetime. Actually, it took three lifetimes.”
     “Okay, hormone treatments…” I said. I remembered the Christine Jorgensen newspaper on display in the museum tent. “I don’t think that makes you live for hundreds of years. You don’t look older than sixty…”
     “I’ve been trying medicines, compounds, whatever I can find, for so long, and at some point, I realized how much more slowly I was aging. Not just how I look, everything about my body,” she said. “It’s a gift I’ve been blessed with, I suppose. I’ve done research, I’ve tried to share it. Synthesize it. It hasn’t worked, so far.”
     “Not immortal, then,” I said.
     “No. Just with a little extra time. If the timetable holds, I could have another sixty years or so,” she said.
     “When were you born? How old are you?” I said.
     “Molly, I can’t—“
     “Why not? You’re telling me all this! You told me everything from the beginning, practically! You wanted me to know. You lured me here, you kept putting smelling salts in front of my nose and propped me up so I could walk, walk, walk! And then, when I’m on the threshold you can’t pull me in? What do I have to do to prove to you that you can trust me—“
     “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that this is much bigger than academic curiosity, or a traveling carnival, or Nemo,” she said. “If I tell you, you’ll know. You’ll be in danger… and so will my project. I cannot risk it. I said the same to Pierre and Ned aboard the Nautilus, I—“ She stopped herself, realizing what she had said.
     “You can tell me, but you can’t tell me,” I said. “Because of your project. I thought you cared about me. I thought I had found what I was searching for my whole life. Not just the answer, not just Nemo, but someone who respected me enough as an intellectual, to care about my work. To value my input. But you’re just another manipulator, aren’t you? And maybe you always were. Might as well be Moriarty.” I wanted to spit on the floor, but the carpet was actually rather nice.
     “I don’t know what to say anymore. I should wash my hands of all of it,” I said. I waited for a rebuttal, a rejoinder, something, and she said nothing. She just sat down and looked like the tension in her forehead might burst. I should have said something. Made a scene, provoked a reaction. Instead, I walked out the door and stomped back to the fairgrounds.

* * *

     I should have just called for a cab, but as I walked, the sounds and smells of the food stalls called to me. Buttered popcorn, cold beer, sour candy, and fried dough all tasted like salvation. Each stall was another new friend to meet, it seemed. Even if I was angry at Captain Shah (Captain Nemo?) right now, I knew she had excellent taste in employees.
     I started with food and escalated, rather quickly, to drink. There was no wine at a carnival, but there was beer. Big, frothy, watered-down mugs of beer, amber gold, that were just as good warm as they were cold. I’d heard that’s how they took it in England, and so I got hammered in the English style. It wasn’t considered proper for a lady to drink to excess, or to sing drinking songs that quickly segued into sea shanties. Even impaired by alcohol, I was excited to hear men and women joined together by the rhythms of the ocean. I sat there, and I thought, of course, so many of these carny folk are sea people. Captain Nemo returned to land by necessity, and has been waiting for a chance to melt into seafoam yet again. To return to her home, like a siren of the sea. Rowdy sailors and pirates and shipwrights were her people, the people of the ocean. For a minute, they were my people too.
     “Enjoying yourself mighty fine, I see, Miss Molly,” said Cricket, emerging out of nowhere with her hands in her pockets.
     “Cricket! Do you know you’re a beautiful girl?” I said. I couldn’t stop the laughter that followed. Not derisive, not nervous, just embarrassed. She was oh so pretty, all the more so for wearing her brother’s clothes. They suited her just perfectly. I thought about taking her on my arm. From a distance, nobody would know we were two girls.
     “So I’ve heard, ma’am,” she said, with a warm smile. For someone younger than me, she had such an air of maturity, perhaps because I’d drunk myself into a childlike stupor. “I don’t mind at all you having fun, but I wanted to make sure you got home safe. A single woman after a few drinks can be put in a precarious position, after all.”
     “Home? You want me to leave?” I said. I wanted to be belligerent, but I was just sad. What was there for me at home, or anywhere, for that matter?
     “No, nothing like that. It’s just we’re going to start closing things up soon. Some of the tents and exhibits are already done for the night. I’m used to the caretaker role, and I thought you could use someone to take a little care,” she said. She put a hand on my shoulder.
     “A little care goes a long way,” I said. Cricket just touched me gently. “Your captain isn’t very nice to me. All I want to do is to— to know her, um. Her story. And she slams the door in my face!”
     “Did she do that?” Cricket said.
     “It’s a metaphor, stupid! Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry. You’re not— Cricket, I’m sorry,” I said.
     “It’s okay. I’m a little stupid. Touched in the head, I’ve heard. But maybe if you want to avoid saying anything you regret, you should switch to water,” Cricket said.
     I nodded, looking at the ground. I’d only been drunk a few times before, and I was remembering one of the reasons why. “I should just go. There’s nothing for me here,” I said. “Everyone has been nice, but I don’t belong. And where do I? Nowhere, I guess. Alone.”
     “Oh, come now. You just haven’t found the right place. You know something? Before you go, I have an idea…”
     After drinking a few cupfuls of water to clear my head, I followed Cricket over to one of the tents on the other side of the midway. Outside it was inconspicuous. Inside was a dark blue curtain with a moon and stars design. I sat down on the wooden chair in front of the single table. Cricket stood behind me, facing away. A sort of privacy.
     Through the back of the curtain emerged a beautiful woman in a silk robe. I must have met her before, but not for long, or I would have remembered better. I would have remembered her long wavy black hair, her freckled skin, and her eyes. They looked purple, but maybe it was just the light. Actually, I could only see one. Her hair was swept over half of her face, like Veronica Lake.
     “Molly,” she said, looking at me. “We did meet, I think last year, but only briefly. I’m usually working the entire night. And you’re never here this late.” Her voice was so soft and smooth and wonderful in every way. I could feel my future hangover delaying its arrival. “At work, I go by Madame Argenta. But my friends call me Kiyoko. I’d like if we could be friends, Molly.”
     “Friends… yes. That would be nice. Sorry, my mind is a little…” I said.
     “I know, darling,” she said. She took my hand, gentle and delicate, and ran a finger over it. She kissed the back of it, right where she had touched. Melting, again. I remembered when I was younger and all my girl friends would swoon over Ronald Colman or Errol Flynn, and I wondered when I would understand that feeling for myself.
     “Relax, and breathe slowly, for me. In, and then out,” Kiyoko said. I tried to do it as best I could. Relaxing with these two women around me made me feel like Dorothy, serene and adrift in the poppy field. I could fall asleep and live in this moment forever.
     “That’s good. You’re doing wonderfully. Molly, do you think I could show you something? Do you know about tarot cards?” she said. I saw her glance behind me at Cricket and smile, and I wondered if they were playing a joke on me. But it was such a warm smile, kind and inviting and calming, that I trusted her.
     “I’ve heard about them. I read about Aleister Crowley when I was doing research on secret societies,” I said. “And I read the Maughm book, but that was a while ago.”
     “Of course. They have a rich history that I would love to talk about, but the best way to explain tarot is to do a reading. You don’t need to believe the cards, or I, have supernatural properties. We’re using them as a symbolic tool to comb through recurring patterns and images in our collective unconscious, in the stories people tell. It’s a way of exercising the interpretative abilities of the human mind,” Kiyoko said.
     “I think I understand. Just don’t ask me to talk about my personal life. I don’t have one,” I said. Kiyoko’s hands went over mine again. It felt so nice to be touched.
     “You don’t need to say a thing, darling. All you have to do is listen, and look,” she said. I decided to stop moping and look up. The eye contact sent an ecstatic chill through my entire body like cold bathwater on a hot day. I ached when she took her hands away to draw from her tarot deck. Each card had an elegant black and gold design on the back. After a few seconds of squinting, I realized it was a squid. April 20th, 1867, I thought, and smiled.
     She explained some of the mechanics of the tarot draw, how she would pull three cards from the deck that represented my past, present, and future. The present was all I wanted to focus on.
     She turned a card over. “The Six of Pentacles, reversed. It represents injustice and exploitation. You’ve been treated unfairly, abused possibly. That darkness in your past informs so much of who you are now, Molly.” I studied the card art, a display of six star emblems on top of an illustration of a coral reef.
     “Now, the present,” Kiyoko said. She turned over the next card. It was an illustration of a lighthouse on a seascape, with a small figure on the shore looking out into the ocean.
     “The Tower,” she said. “This card represents higher knowledge, cataclysm… death and rebirth, perhaps. For you, I would say it’s a question: where do you want your life to go? You’re at a moment where everything could change. Put simply… what does your heart tell you to do?”
     I made a sour face. “My heart is foolish, impulsive, weak. Most of the time,” I said.
     “It guided you here. To this moment. Is that such a bad thing? We should cherish it,” she said.
     “It is,” I said. We just looked at each other.      “What about the future?” Kiyoko said.
     “Let’s see it,” I said.
     The last card was turned over. Three ceramic mugs on a wooden table. “The Three of Cups. Collective energy, teamwork, cooperation. Being part of something bigger. Living a life of social meaning.”
     “That’s my future?” I said.
     “The cards never lie, but we might not always hear their whole message,” Kiyoko said. “Is it a future you want?”
     Tears stung my eyes again. “Yes, it is,” I said. “I’ve wanted to be a part of something my whole life. Being an outsider isn’t something I asked for. It was forced on me.”
     She touched my hand, and the tears came loose. “I felt the same way, for so long. Until I got this job, in fact. That’s when things changed for me,” she said.
     “Thank you for the reading, Madame Argenta. Kiyoko,” I said.
     “You’re welcome, love,” she said. “I hope it’s not the last one.”
     I was so tired. The night was an out-of-focus film projected onto a pockmarked wall. The specifics were lost to me, and I ended up in a long cab ride back to my hotel. It wasn’t until the next morning I saw the note written on a receipt in my purse: “If you ever need to contact us, send your mail to P.O. Box 27443, Clearwater, Florida. With love, Cricket.” I tucked it away for safekeeping, and resolved to avoid thinking about anything at all.

1960


     I sat behind Dr. Riett and fiddled with a pencil while Dr. Leaf gave his presentation. At this point, I had no real opinion on the quality of their work. The scholarship was usually sound, just irrelevant. They were all, every one of them, wrong. I knew that Captain Nemo was Russian Nemo was Vivianna Shah, the owner of a traveling carnival. Nemo wasn’t a relic of the forgotten past, but still, improbably, alive, and working on a secret project.
     It should have been humiliating to have been demoted to research assistant, surrounded by all the same people who I used to work with. I just didn’t care anymore. They had already lost all respect for me when I didn’t show in ’58, after leaving the university. That was all it took for them to declare victory, and be rid of “that girl” forever. Now that I was back, I was declared a non-entity. I wasn’t sure Dr. Corby even recognized me, and almost no one had spoken to me. Only Dr. Leaf said hello, with kindness in his voice.
     I thought I would never come back. I went back to my old line as a seamstress, mostly working on theater costumes. After a few weeks of trying to quell the voices in my head, I returned to my work. I’d started writing a manuscript detailing everything I knew about the real history of Captain Nemo. It might never be finished, published, or read, but it would exist. Writing down the truth was purpose enough. Last year, I loaned Dr. Riett some of the papers in my archive, and he asked if I might come on as a research assistant. The pay wasn’t very good, but I was doing the work anyway, and some of it actually went to worthwhile pursuits.
     The manuscript was taking shape. I was proud of it. I was missing a lot of information about her early life, but I had a clearer view of the journey of the Nautilus and the subsequent years. A few months ago, I’d dropped a copy of the unfinished book into the P.O. Box that Cricket had given me. I wanted Captain Nemo to read it. What did the most interesting woman in the world think of my book?

* * *

     Captain Nemo’s Fantastical Traveling Carnival had not diminished in the past three years, but grown more elaborate and spectacular. There were now four rides, mechanical wonders of a scale that one rarely saw outside of Disneyland. The lights were vibrant, and even the temporary tents were of an architectural scale. The beer tent had an elaborate setup of pipes and valves and brass fittings. Everywhere I looked, there was something new. I walked in, unsure of what was waiting for me. Maybe no one would remember the awkward girl with her strange obsessions. The rest of the world had moved on from me in the past three years. Why did I think it would be any different here?
     “Molly?” I heard a voice say from behind me. I turned and saw Cricket Beane, in a blue suit with short pants and copper buttons.
     “Hi, Cricket,” I said shyly. The other woman moved with rarely-seen swiftness, and gave me a hug.
     “Are you… back?” she said.
     “I’m here… let’s not assign too much significance to it,” I said.
     “You can say that, but I know it’s very significant,” Cricket said. “We got your package in the mail, you know.”
     “Has she read it?” I said. I pinched my eyes closed. “No, don’t tell me that—“
     “She has it, I can’t say more than that,” Cricket said. “There’s been some changes around here.”
     “I’ve noticed,” I said.
     “We’ve gotten up to all manner of mischief,” she said. “And then some. Things are humming right along."
     “Most carnivals don’t find quite so much to do,” I said.
     “We’re a little different. You already knew that,” she said.
     I spent as much time as possible just enjoying the carnival and catching up with people. I saw Kiyoko again and felt a shiver when she looked at me. The people here had more love and affection for me, after three years away, than anyone in my life. I wondered why I deserved it. Time wound down and the crowd thinned and I saw her, walking with a cane over dry Earth, toward me.
     “Captain,” I said, quiet and unsure.
     “Dr. Scoville,” she said to me, more confident than me, but not very.
     “I wondered if I might avoid you,” I said.
     “Many have wondered just that,” she said.
     “For a long time,” I said.
     “Indeed. Would you like to come to my car for a private conversation?” she said.
     “No, not really,” I said.
     “I see,” she said. “Is this goodbye? Or the end of our professional relationship?”
     “Do we have that?” I said.
     “Is it a personal relationship?” she said.
     “That might have been better,” I said. “Did you read my book?”
     “I did. It’s quite good. The writing is captivating. The facts are… accurate,” she said.
     That was one of the more significant admissions I’d ever gotten from her.
     “Broadly, or only in the particulars?” I said.
     “Both,” she said.
     “Could we have that private conversation?” I said.
     Even the train had been upgraded, I noticed when I saw it up-close. Many of the cars looked new. Steel-reinforced hulls — were they called hulls on a train? — were the most visible. When I looked closer, I saw all manner of wires and tubing running over and between the cars.
     Inside the Captain’s car, we sat down and shared some tea. It was distinct from any tea blend I’d ever had before, and I wondered if it was prepared with ingredient from the ocean, like so many of Nemo’s creations. She unlocked a wooden cabinet with an ornate key and placed a copper pipe on the table.
     “This was from my original organ. It’s long been dismantled… much of it was destroyed before we abandoned the Nautilus at the North Pole,” she said.
     “You’re going to talk like nothing is amiss? I don’t need to know all the secrets. I want to know why you couldn’t tell me,” I said. “Hardly anyone would believe my story, even if I had broadcast it on all frequencies.”
     “I couldn’t risk it. The project was too delicate,” she said. “My personal feelings can’t get in the way.”
     “There’s that ‘project’ again,” I said.
     “Yes. I can tell you what you want to know. Two truths, one you know, and one you don’t. But you’ll have to accept that it’s possible, likely even, that no one will ever know that you were right. That perhaps no one will ever believe you,” she said.
     “They already don’t,” I said.
     She unscrewed the end of the copper pipe and pulled out a set of blueprints. I had to take a long look at it to understand what I was seeing: a submarine, impressively scaled with many chambers and labels to indicate weapons and other tools.
     “This, Molly, is my project. The Ammonite. Bigger and better than the Nautilus ever was. Stronger defenses, stronger weapons, more living space. I’ve been working my way up to this for fifty years. The train we’re sitting on is the primary basis for it. The locomotive will be our engine in the water as well as on land. This car, my stateroom. My carnival, the crew,” she said. “I did it once. And I shall do it again. I built the Nautilus, piece by piece, step by step. And now the Ammonite is nearly here. And it will be glorious. I’ve been gifted this long life, and I’ll use it all. The world of the surface is not my home. I long to be submerged, and to never return.”
     I just stared. “This is… this is what you kept from me,” I said. “Because I was a risk to it.”
     “Frankly, yes. I trusted you on a personal level, but there was no way for me to know if you were working for my enemies, consciously or otherwise,” she said. “I’ve dealt with saboteurs before.”
     I just nodded. “So now what? You do trust me? Maybe this isn’t the smart thing to say, but I’m not sure why. All I’ve shown is that my… obsession, keeps driving me.”
     “I can relate,” she said. That got a smile out of both of us. “I’ve decided to tell you because the book proves to me that you are capable of understanding this project. And I will let you go, if you wish. It’s against my better judgment to do so. If you publish this book before the launch of the Ammonite, I will do everything in my not-inconsiderable power to discredit you. I apologize for being so harsh, but it’s necessary. After the launch… the world will know when they know,” she said.
     “You’ll let me go if I wish… as opposed to what?” I said.
     She put a gloved hand on mine. “Stay with us. Join our crew. The outsiders, misfits, and rebels here are kindred spirits of yours. You would fit right in. Travel with us for a few years, learn to understand our project in more detail, contribute. You can eat, drink, love with these people, like you never have before. You can be part of something so much bigger, Molly. And then, you can serve on the Ammonite, and change the world,” she said.
     “Destroy my already-damaged academic career, or join a traveling carnival that’s actually a cover for the launch of a high-tech submarine that will travel the sea on a mission of worldwide revolution,” I said. “Nothing in my life prepared me to make decisions like this.”
     “You needn’t decide today, but... why wait?” Captain Nemo said.
     “You’ve softened in your old age,” I said.
     “Oh? What makes you say that?” she said.
     “You never would have let Pierre Aronnax and Ned Land leave,” I said, and she laughed.

1965


     March 31st was a cloudy day off the rocky coast of Maine. The outcropping was the perfect shape for a secret submarine launch, hidden from view on almost all sides. You could just barely see the Ammonite in a cave from where we were standing. Any further away and it would blend in seamlessly. The launch was one of the riskiest parts of the mission, but you wouldn’t know it from the prideful and carefree smiles on our faces. The senior staff and much of the crew was assembled here, for a last breath of fresh air and a final goodbye to our old lives. For me, that had ended years ago when I decided to join with Captain Nemo. She had defined my whole professional life before, and since. We’d had this date together forever.
     Near me was first mate Cricket, helmswoman Peregrine, weapons officer Kiyoko, navigator Melody, tactical officer Rocky De Mello, and more, all of them now in crucial positions to the operation of the most advanced submarine on Earth. It was almost one hundred years since the launch of the Nautilus, and we were its living legacy. A new sub, a new mission, and a new chance at life.
     I looked at my personal effects in the duffel bag by my feet. We’d already filled our cabins and staterooms. These items could very well be the last things I would be allowed to bring with me from the surface world. It was only some new clothes, for my off-hours, and a few books and magazines — including the new book from my old boss, Dr. Riett. It had become a bit of a sensation in the academic world. The Nemo Revolution: The Secret History of the World asserted, with some evidence, that his old theory about Nemo had been correct all along. It had convinced quite a few — one of Dr. Corby’s proteges had made a big public stink about leaving behind the Moriartist school of thought for good. It was amusing to see all the hubbub just before we were about to leave. I’d given Dr. Riett all my research, everything I’d ever written down, and he missed the real story, again. Some people could never see the contributions of women, even when they were staring them in the face. Still, I was looking forward to reading the book. I needed to have my counter-arguments ready, whenever my own work saw the light of day.
     “I can’t even complain about the weather,” Cricket said. “I want to enjoy it while we have it!”
     “We’ll have plenty of fresh air. Stopping in every island port…” Peregrine said, next to her. She was without a flask or liquor bottle in her hand, for once.
     “Getting yer refills of Irish whishkey and all the rest?” Rocky said.
     “I hope not,” Cricket said. “We’ve at least got her on wine, for now.”
     “Once we set sail, you’ll only be thirsty for adventure!” Melody said, typically guileless, kind, and innocent.
     “Melody, if you keep up a tenth of that attitude, this will be a joy,” Kiyoko said.
     “We’ll all have to keep our spirits up,” I said.
     “Doctor, I know you can manage that,” Cricket said. “You’ve seen yourself through dark times and then some. This is… it’s like Melody said. An adventure. It’s a wonderful thing.”
     “There’ll be dark and stormy times ahead for us still,” I said. “I’ve read the literature. There’s no such thing as a stress-free ocean journey for revolutionary adventurers.”
     “Us revoltin’ venturers are the backbone o’ the world, ladies,” Rocky said. “I believe that in my heart a hearts.”
     “You heard the man,” Captain Nemo said, and we all snapped to attention. “What we’re doing here matters. May I?” We all nodded, politely. She pulled out a megaphone to speak into, to ensure she was heard over the crashing waves and whipping wind.
     “This is the day that history changes, again. Today, we launch the Ammonite. We declare war on injustice, oppression, and exploitation, all over the world! Wherever they may come from! Neither country nor capital is immune to our efforts! The Ammonite is just one ship, but our movement and our message will ring out on every shore: we are here not just to fight back, but to announce to those who are oppressed, mistreated, marginalized… you are not alone. Someone is fighting for you. I’ve assembled the finest crew I can imagine, for the most important mission of my life,” she said. The applause sounded to me like a thunderstorm on the open ocean.

© Jess Umbra, 2026
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