by Unknown
“Better safe than sorry.” Filbery sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. The wealth of the Filbery family wasn’t built on caution, after all. “Besides, the crew are growing restless. There have been half a dozen desertions already. If we don’t change something, we’ll soon have no one to operate your glorious machine.”
“Desertions?” Hywel twisted his cap back and forth in his hands. The situation was increasingly frustrating. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. What’s wrong with them?”
He joined Filbery at the rail, peering out across the factory’s roof. It was like the upper deck of a warship, swarming with machinery and men. They fetched and carried, did maintenance, or basked in the morning sun. All of them now wore matching necklaces, leather cords with triangles of bone dangling at the end. Hywel had never understood gentlemen’s fashion, and though he’d considered that of African labourers more honest and practical, right now, it just seemed macabre.
“They believe we are cursed.” Kagunda joined them at the rail. He, too, was wearing one of the disturbing little totems. “That we have disturbed some dark spirit of the plain, and it now infests the machine.”
Hywel snorted. “This is the nineteenth century, Mr. Kagunda. The world is powered by science and steam, not ancient superstitions and mystification.”
“Mr. Jones is right,” Filbery said. “There are far more plausible explanations. Human error, machine fault, even sabotage. If this superstition is causing us problems, then we should nip it in the bud.”
“You have a Bible in your room, Mr. Filbery?” Kagunda’s voice was rising, his guarded, respectful tone giving way to something more primal. “And you, Mr. Jones? I have heard you singing songs of God as you work.” He made a wide, sweeping gesture with his arm, taking in the whole of the surrounding plains. “This land is my Bible. My songs are of this earth, and those who came before.”
“I say!” Filbery protested, as Kagunda grabbed each of them by an arm and dragged them to the back rail. Hywel knew the foreman was strong, but this was the first time he had felt the intensity of that strength, pulling him about like a rag doll.
“The white.” Kagunda pointed at pale flecks in the broken dirt thirty feet below them. “What is it?”
“Chalk?” Filbery asked.
“Flint?” Hywel murmured, knowing as he said it that the geology was wrong.
“Bone.” Kagunda’s voice tolled like a bell. “Everywhere we go on this plain, bone. Bone of something so vast, or so many, that every step of the way it is with us. We tread on it, dig it up, grind it down for profit. Such a spirit rests heavy, and should not be disturbed.”
Hywel stared down at the white fragments. This was all nonsense, but it was unsettling nonsense. Bones were only bones, but he wanted his left in peace when he died. A base, irrational part of his brain was uneasy at the thought of disturbing others.
Still, people broke machines. Malfunctions broke machines. Invisible spirits did not break machines.
A cry went up from the far rail. One of the labourers ran towards them, jabbering away in the local tongue. Kagunda grabbed him, snapped off a question. His expression, already strained, fell further at the response, the angry energy draining from him.
“Tuwile,” he said. “Something dragged Tuwile into the compactor. He is...” His voice trailed off.
Ice gripped Hywel’s heart. “There must be a mistake. The gaps are too narrow. There’s a safety mesh. There’s nothing even to get dragged by. There must be a mistake.” He looked back at the fragments of bone jutting from the dark earth. “Mustn’t there?”
They hurried across the deck and into the belly of the machine, their footsteps echoing on the iron stairs. Frightened faces watched them silently as they passed. Men stood at their stations —not working, not talking, but waiting, though Hywel didn’t know for what.
Right then, he didn’t feel like he knew much at all. Frustrations chased each other around his head, scrambling his thoughts. It didn’t make sense for the compactor to have trapped someone. It was too safe, too stable, too well designed. This talk of spirits didn’t make sense either. Ghosts didn’t haunt machines, they skulked around graveyards. Except that they didn’t, because they didn’t exist.
As a rational man, he knew that. But how could a rational man not fathom the workings of a machine he had built? He should be able to understand anything it did. And yet the furnace...
They hurried into the compacting hall, a long room lined with vast pistons that pressed smelting by-products into solid bricks. He’d built such efficiency, nothing going to waste. Even now, the compactors were still pounding away, compressing empty air while the men stood, shovels dangling from still hands or lying useless on the floor, as they stared at the gore oozing from the central compactor. With every slam of its steel fist, it vented a cloud of steam while a little more blood bubbled out around the rim.
The worst part was the sound, the squelch of blood each time the piston rose and fell. An innocuous noise turned to horror by its cause.
Filbery gasped and staggered back towards the wall.
“Turn it off,” he said. “Why doesn’t somebody turn it off?”
Hywel stared at the bars and rails around the machine, blood-spattered but intact. No man could fall through that. No part of the piston could drag him inside. In a daze he turned to Filbery.
“It makes no sense,” he said. “What do we do?”
Filbery gazed at him blankly for a long moment. Then something flickered in the manager’s eyes—a look of purpose. He turned and slammed his fist into the emergency stop button. With a howl of venting steam, the compactors slid to a halt.
“First thing, we switch everything off,” he said. “The grinders. The diggers. Even the engines. Everything.”
Striding towards the bloodied compactor, he glared around with grim determination.
“Then we get everyone out. No one but us comes inside until we’re sure it’s safe.” Filbery pressed a hand to his mouth as he stared down at what remained of Tuwile, the compactor man. He reached out with trembling fingers to touch the remains. “We come back when—”
His words were cut short by the sudden hiss of the compactor slamming shut, spattering him with the pulp of his own hand. As the piston pulled up, he cried out, then was dragged forward, bones cracking as he squeezed through an impossible gap. Even as Hywel and Kagunda rushed forward, the piston slammed down again, cutting off Filbery’s cries.
For a moment, Hywel thought he saw something flicker around the dangling ends of Filbery’s legs. He staggered back, numb with incomprehension at the impossible horror of it all, and found himself pressed up against one of the other compactors. At a tug on his arm, he turned to see his hand going into the compactor’s maw. Panicking, he tried to pull it out, but something had hold of him. He flung himself bodily backwards, tumbling across the riveted floor as the machine slammed shut on where he’d just been.
The room filled with the hiss of steam and the clang of metal. All the compactors burst into life, not with the steady rhythm of industry, but with the mad pace of a runaway engine roaring towards destruction. Sounds that days before would have brought comfort to Hywel’s soul became a terrible cacophony.
He staggered to his feet, stomach heaving at the sight of poor Filbery’s remains. A touch on his arm and he jerked away in terror, only to see Kagunda reaching out, hurrying him from the compacting hall.
Around them, men were running, frightened silence replaced by screams and heavy footfalls. The crew scrambled over each other in their rush to get out, the slowest trampled underfoot. Those nearest the machines met an equally brutal fate, pistons and chains snatching them into the maws of grinders or the fiery interior of smelting vats. The smell of blood and charred flesh replaced that of oil and industry.
Kagunda shoved Hywel towards a ladder then followed him upwards with swift, nervous movements. Stunned by the carnage and confusion, Hywel found himself moving like an automaton, limbs worki
ng without thought. Suddenly, he was thirty feet up, pressed against a ceiling hatch, bone-white hand gripping tight to the ladder. He stared down, aghast, at the flailing machines and the screaming faces of men being crushed by his creation.
“How?” he said. “Why?”
“I told you.” Kagunda pushed him out through the hatch, into the smoke-tinged breeze blowing across the roof. “There is something buried here. We dragged it out, ground its body through our machines, swallowed its dust. Now it swallows us back.”
“This is no spirit.” Hywel had not meant to shout, but he could not stop himself. “It’s a machine. My machine.”
The factory shuddered, sending them staggering against a smokestack. Turning its vast wheels, the machine chased a band of soot-stained workers across the plains.
“Now it is a body.” Kagunda’s voice cracked. “An un-killable monster of steel and steam.”
Hywel stared at the wheels beneath them, stained with blood and dirt. His pride had crumbled to ash—the bitterness of a man who, against his every intention, found his soul soaked with blood. This was his doing. His machine. His determination to strip these plains bare. The thought of losing his creation was terrible, the reality of it even worse.
“Nothing is un-killable,” he said. “Not to its creator.”
He ran, Kagunda just behind him, both struggling for balance on the heaving floor. The vast bulk of the factory shuddered and swayed as it innards ran wild. Faster and faster it ran, spewing fountains of dirt in its wake. The screams of its gears and its prey united in a chorus of distress.
Hywel reached the rear just as the factory smeared three hapless crewmen against a rocky outcropping. The whole thing jolted into the air, throwing Hywel into empty space. He screamed. Kagunda snagged his wrist, and he swung face first into the steel wall.
Spitting blood, Hywel glanced up, his head spinning with pain and shock. Kagunda grimaced down at him, one hand locked around Hywel’s arm, the other straining at the rail.
“The ladder,” he groaned. “Get onto the ladder.”
Hywel grabbed the smooth rungs, paused a moment to catch his breath. Kagunda had let go of his wrist and was shouting down at him.
“Whatever you are going to do, do it quickly!”
The factory gave another jolt. Boiling steam vented an inch from Hywel’s face, and a release lever smashed him in the elbow. As it pulled back for another strike, he scrambled down and away, pain racing through his arm.
The over-pressure valve was steaming too, venting the excess force of machinery driven to its limits. The boilers were burning so fast and hot that jets of flame shot from the chimneys high above.
Hywel pulled a screwdriver from his pocket and reached for the vent’s screws, wincing as he put his weight on the injured arm. This was the weak spot—the point at which he could attack the machine.
Boiling, acrid steam shot straight at Hywel’s face. He ducked, coughing and blinking, and closed in beneath the jet. Through watering eyes, he looked for the screws.
Again the valve shifted, letting steam roil out in a wide, choking cloud that blotted out breath and vision. Hywel fought the instinct to pull back, fumbling blindly towards the valve. There was no unfastening the screws now, no chance for dexterity. His arm was trembling, his lungs burning for breath.
Slamming the screwdriver beneath the edge of the valve plate, he heaved with all his might. Starved of oxygen and overwhelmed by the heat of the steam he felt the world spin around him. With the last of his strength, he jerked up on the screwdriver again.
The head pinged loose from one corroded screw, then another, and another. The valve plate swung free, creaking as it dangled from its last screw.
Steam spewed forth faster than ever. The boilers would lose some pressure now, but not enough. As long as the engines kept firing, they could shed this power and never slow down.
This needed a backfire.
Hywel pulled all the tools from his pockets, wrapping them up in his cap and belt. Wobbling precariously on the ladder, he yanked off a boot and a tattered shirt sleeve, tugged the valve plate free and bent it in half. Bundling it all together, he reached up towards the over-pressure pipe. Scalding steam stripped the skin from his hand, and he screamed as he jammed the bundle down the pipe until the broken plate caught and the steam stopped coming.
He struggled down the ladder, his seared arm clutched to his chest. Already, the engine was groaning as pressure backed up through the furnaces, straining the seams of boilers and pipes. There was a metallic scream as he dropped to the ground and ran stumbling across the dirt. Ahead of him, Kagunda ran for his life.
Hywel had barely gone a dozen steps when there was a monstrous roar. Something hit the back of his head and the world went black.
* * *
Hywel’s whole body throbbed, from the lump on the back of his head to the skinless ruin of his hand. He rolled over on the charred earth, saw the remaining men lying scattered around him, some weeping, some praying. The plains were littered with chunks of metal.
Where the factory had stood was a smoking crater. Devastation rippled through Hywel. He curled around his scalded hand, weeping with pain and loss—and relief.
Kagunda lifted him up and led him away.
A zebra trotted over to the charred remains of a chimney. It sniffed at the smoking pipe, snorted in disgust, and cantered off across the plains.
Better Left Buried
TC Phillips
“Look out!”
The cry from the window overhead came a fraction of a second before the contents of last night’s chamber pot rained down onto the sidewalk. Ethan Carto cursed, barely escaping the shower of filth as he jumped backward into the street.
Opening his mouth to unleash a veritable flood of profanity, Ethan’s tirade was cut short by the sudden appearance of a familiar figure. Immaculately dressed in well-tailored suit and matching bowler, the young man’s spirit stood motionless in the middle of the morning’s bustling traffic as people and carriages alike moved around, and through, his spectral form.
The mysterious spirit had been appearing for nearly three weeks now, long enough to earn himself a nickname in Ethan’s head—the Banker. It was a name he had selected for no other reason than the quality of the specter’s clothes and self-confident bearing; Ethan had not yet had any opportunity to learn much at all about the mysterious figure, let alone determine what occupation the young man may have once held in life. Despite numerous attempts to communicate with the spirit, it would always vanish before he even had the chance to speak.
The Banker was proving to be a curious puzzle, and Ethan still had to discover why the young man’s spirit had attached itself to him in the first place. Yet the suited man disappeared only moments after Ethan noticed his presence, much as it had in all their previous encounters.
“Get out of the way!”
A quickly moving hansom cab nearly knocked Ethan to the ground, pushing all thoughts of the Banker aside. The cab’s driver leant down from his roof-mounted bench and launched his own string of invectives, drawing both Ethan’s intelligence and parentage into question.
By the time Ethan had thought of his own retort, the cab was well on the way down the street and the driver far out of earshot. Growling in frustration, he recovered his wits and was about to continue on his way when he felt a gentle brush against his coat pocket.
The thief was good—but not good enough to avoid his notice.
Ethan reflexively grabbed hold of the young pickpocket’s wrist and twisted hard.
“Ow! Let me go!”
Ethan smiled and twisted again, liberating his leather pouch from the young thief’s hand. “You need more practice, lad. Clumsy fingers like yours will end up getting broken. Or worse.”
The pickpocket began to squirm in his grip, lashing out with a series of wild kicks. One lucky strike caught Ethan’s shin, and the sudden pain caused him to lose his hold on the boy. With one final kick, the lad escaped, but Eth
an had no real desire to make chase. His pouch was firmly back in hand, and no doubt the thief’s younger legs would easily outpace his own.
Milborough! Only in this fetid, misbegotten city could one be robbed, nearly trampled to death, and covered in excrement all in the space of a few moments. Filthy and overcrowded, the burgeoning capital of New Harfolk had quickly become a haven for the colony’s least desirable citizens—of which there were many. Thieves and miscreants, gamblers and confidence trickers all infested the narrow streets and lanes, like a swarm of money-hungry fleas sucking the very lifeblood from the colony’s last few honest folk.
Thankfully, at least to Ethan’s way of thinking, the infestation hadn’t gotten so bad as to drive all of the honest folk away just yet. After all, there were still more than enough unsuspecting dupes out there with coins in their pockets just waiting to be fleeced.
And Ethan was more than happy to oblige them all, counting himself among the best of the colony’s confidence men.
The remaining walk was blessedly uneventful, and Ethan soon spotted the door he was looking for. Belonging to a simple townhouse, the humble dwelling was nearly identical to the dozens of others which lined the surrounding streets.
Preparing himself for the performance ahead, Ethan opened the leather pouch he had almost lost moments earlier and plucked out his most recent treasure. The brooch he held was clearly a beloved heirloom—a reminder of a time when the family it belonged to enjoyed a far more affluent standing than they currently did.
“Should have charged more to find it,” he murmured as he pocketed the brooch once more and reached out to rap the brass door knocker.
Ethan knew quite a number of confidence tricksters who claimed to be able to speak to their victims’ departed loved ones. It was a common enough scam, and those who were good at it could easily string together a decent tale capable of liberating the bereaved of their hard-earned cash. Emotional victims were easy victims, their better judgement often clouded by their loss and the desperate need to cling to their memories of the deceased.
