The Incorruptibles (Book One, Frankenstein Vigilante): Frankenstein Vigilante: The Steampunk Series (Frankenstein Vigilante. The Steampunk Series.)

by Peter Lawrence

  The only question now was would The Devil have the power and payload to carry Cerval, Evangeline and Thorsten, in his heavy insulated cryo-casket, from The Smoke to the Frankenstein estate?

  Evangeline Evionne glanced around uneasily as a small steam tractor manoeuvred The Devil into place so that the steam RTP Winder could grip the first of its large paddle-like propellers. It wasn’t just that she hated flying – especially the neck-torquing slingshot effect at take-off – she wasn’t confident that she, Cerval and Thorsten’s cryo-casket had escaped surveillance. There were very few in The Smoke who could not be bought or frightened by the Silencios on behalf of the Commission. If a single pair of eyes had seen them make the transfer from headquarters to the hackney, from the hackney to The Devil, there was still time for their escape to be thwarted.

  Evangeline even wondered about the ground crew, despite the fact that Cerval had paid them a massive bribe. She saw one of the winder techs glance at her as he clamped the winder claws onto the propeller. Was there anything in that look? Or was it just testosterone? She knew the effect she had on men and women. Enjoyed it, in truth, as long as she was the one in control.

  The ground crew commander, a tall, broad-shouldered woman, placed the wheel chocks and tail anchors in place. Both were pressure-powered, pressure provided by steam – what else in this world? The scene was soon wreathed in a light white fog.

  In the cockpit, forward of and one step up from the passenger/cargo bay slung between the two fuselages, Cerval was impatient. He wanted to be away, winging over the wilderness, listening to the slow whoomp-whoomp-whoomp of the paddle-props. He was as nervous as Evangeline though, like her, he didn’t show it. Who knew how long Thorsten could remain frozen-alive? And if the Silencios had wind of his plans, now was the time for them to attack. Were box-shaped thugs searching for them even as the RTP Winder spun the starboard prop-paddles?

  With each turn of the propeller, Cerval could feel tension and torsion building up in the starboard fuselage. This was the point at which, in inferior designs, the massive kinetic potential stored in the rubber bands might break loose, ripping the prop-paddle from the winder and sending the PAV cartwheeling across the aerodock, fatally concertina-ing the fuselage.

  Finally, the starboard prop was fully wound and the commander gave the signal for the tractor to manoeuvre the second fuselage and prop into place, so that the winder claw could be clamped on. Knowing there was nothing he could do while the second set of torsion bands were being wound, Cerval left the helm and went back to the passenger/cargo bay. It was designed for eight passengers but two of the rows of four seats had been taken out and Thorsten’s cryo-casket bolted to their anchor points.

  Despite the efficiency of the casket’s seals, a wisp of icy vapour escaped, hanging in the air till it dispersed. Cerval knew this was quite normal, but glanced anxiously at the thermometer dial atop the casket. It read three points above baseline, perfect for the preservation of blood and tissue. Two or less points above would separate, freeze and crystallize fluids, expanding them so that they would tear the delicate tissues containing them – including brain and neural paths; five or more points above and bacteria would thrive. Thorsten would begin to rot.

  Evangeline appeared in the open fuselage door.

  “How much longer?” she asked.

  “We’re almost ready,” Cerval replied. “Strap in.” She chose the seat nearest the one-place cockpit, settled herself and fiddled with the padded safety straps. She smiled slyly at Cerval. “How’d you feel about being strapped in?”

  An image of Evangeline, strapped, corseted, long legs in sheer silk flashed into Cerval’s head, a pleasure-kick; an instant later he imagined himself strapped and her dominant.

  “Something to think about,” he replied, a little huskily. “One of these days. Assuming we get out of here.” Her expression changed, a sudden sadness.

  “What?” he asked. She indicated Thorsten’s cryo-casket. “What’s the matter with me? How can I even think of anything like that with Thor half dead in there?”

  “They say danger, imminent death, stimulate sexual drive. It’s a rearguard action against mortality.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of any of that,” she said in a small voice. “Just pleasure.”

  The exchange ended as, through the thin shell of the fuselage – little more than stiffened fabric – they heard the steam winder’s powerful pistons halt and the ground crew commander’s deep voice booming its command:

  “Disengage and prepare to pull.”

  Cerval put a hand on Evangeline’s shoulder – electric! – and moved forward, into the cockpit.

  The winder claws disengaged and the tractor hooked onto The Devil’s tail skid, swinging the craft around so that it faced the runway. At the same time, the ground crew adjusted the anchors holding the twin tails down. Through the windshield, Cerval saw the aerodock swing right to left until he was gazing down the long tar-and-gravel runway.

  “Chocks away!” the commander boomed and Cerval felt the PAV quiver as the command was obeyed, the huge-diameter wheels freed. Now all that held the craft were the twin tail anchors, and their release was the maximum moment of danger. If one let go just a split second after the other, the vehicle would be ripped in two as one side’s power was liberated while the other’s remained constrained.

  The ground crew commander stepped to one side, looking up at Cerval, ensuring that they were in full eye contact. She raised her hands high above her shoulders and waited. Cerval rapidly ran through the take-off procedures in his head and then signaled to her – thumb and little finger circled in the universal set-to-go sign. Slowly, the commander lowered her hands and then aligned herself with the runway so that she was pointed in exactly the same direction as the P.A.V., her perspective exactly what Cerval would see through the windshield if his eyes were not fixed on her.

  She knelt, a slow, steady movement, her arms at her sides. Then, never losing the rhythm of her actions, the reliable, utterly calm and predictable rhythm which made her the most sought-after ground crew commander in the aerodock organization, she thrust both hands forward, pointing down the runway. At that instant, Cerval heaved back on the huge lever which freed both prop-paddles to spin and, a precise beat later, both tail anchors were released.

  Whooop, whoop, whoop!

  The huge props clawed at the air, setting up waves which buffeted Cerval from both sides. The props turned in opposite directions, one clockwise and one counter, in order to neutralize the massive torque of the RTP bands. The Devil accelerated into the mild breeze. With one hand on the helm, maintaining The Devil’s course in the centre of the runway, Cerval switched his attention from the prop brake to the hi-lo lever next to it. At the operative moment, as he felt the tail lift, he hauled back on that lever and The Devil took flight.

  For all the tension of the take-off and the events that had led up to it, Cerval could not stifle the huge grin which split his face. The sheer exhilaration of flight, the knowledge that he was in control, the ability to soar like a bird, to bank away from the filth-enshrouded city, out over the sea and then back around, climbing above the peninsula and heading out over the dense green jungle began at The Smoke’s city limits.

  Though a full four hours’ worth of energy was stored in the rubber torsion bands, the mere fact that they had been released seemed to calm The Devil. It was in its element away from the ground, and Cerval could imagine that, like a living creature, it was happy to be leaving the stink of the The Smoke far behind.

  Four hours of positive kinetic energy should take the Devil some five hundred yoettes, then, as the paddle-props ran out of power and Cerval switched them to freewheel, another three hours of gliding would take it the final two hundred yoettes to the castle.

  Assuming no headwinds. Assuming no sudden electrical storms. Assuming no failures in the flimsy vehicle’s structure.

  Cerval made those assumptions. He had faith in Efrain’s design. And he had faith in his mis
sion. For the first time since the lethal fiasco at the laboratory, he felt confident. He now had a plan and he would take his revenge. Thorsten would take his revenge. Cerval, Thorsten and the Incorruptibles would clean up the city. But, right now, Cerval had a more immediate problem. The craft had begun to list to one side, not a good thing because if the list continued the aircraft would inevitably turn in that direction, a long and lazy curve which would take them off the bearing to the estate.

  For reasons he could not fathom, the P.A.V. was out of trim.

  He spun the yaw wheel and The Devil evened out but only for a moment – and now seemed to be tail heavy! Even Evangeline, not a pilot, noticed his efforts and the craft’s behaviour.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” he replied over his shoulder, trying to balance yaw and pitch controls.

  “Is it the weight of the cryo-casket?”

  “I don't think so. We both made the calculations. We can’t both be wrong.” Cerval continued to attempt to balance The Devil’s flight attitude but the machine seemed skittish, unstable where it should by now have settled into level flight.

  “Are you strapped in tight?” Cerval called back to Evangeline.

  “Yes.”

  “Then hold on!

  He made two rapid violent, movements each with yaw wheel and pitch lever and The Devil corkscrewed violently.

  An immediate yell of terror!

  Cerval looked around, surprised that Evangeline should betray fear so blatantly, but it wasn’t Evangeline who had called out. She too was looking around, astonished.

  “It came from in there,” she said to Cerval, pointing to the right fuselage.

  “Take a look! Now!” Cerval commanded, jabbing a thumb at the inspection hatch. There was one on each side of the passenger/cargo compartment, starboard and port.

  Evangeline cautiously unstrapped and moved gingerly to the starboard hatch. She twisted the lever and opened it.

  The open hatch showed the massive RTP bands slowly unspooling but, flattened beneath them, hands clamped to her head, was a woman, clearly terrified that she might get caught up in the bands.

  “Come out! Now!” Evangeline said and the woman started to move – with extreme caution – revealing herself to be the News Of The Smoke’s society reporter, Shelley Mary Ventura.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Evangeline demanded, seizing Shelley Mary by the hair and dragging her out into the cargo/passenger area. Shelley Mary stifled a gasp of pain and kept low and flat, more scared of the bands than of Evangeline. Once she was clear, Evangeline shut the hatch, never letting go of her captive.

  Cerval looked back over his shoulder.

  “I suppose you have a reasonable explanation for this?” he said, but could not keep his attention on the journalist. He had his hands full controlling The Devil.

  “You started this,” Shelley Mary replied defiantly. “You were the one who called me.” Evangeline glanced at Cerval, taken aback. Shelley Mary saw the look.

  “She’s the one I tipped.”

  “A fucking gossip columnist?” Evangeline was incredulous.

  “Think about it. It was a story that would make her career. I wanted someone to take it seriously.”

  “Someone you could fuck, too,” Evangeline smiled and, seeing Cerval’s sheepish look, continued: “I remember her now. She interviewed you for – what was it? – Celebrity Corner? I remember what you said about her.”

  “What did he say?” asked Shelley Mary indignantly but Cerval interrupted: “Strap her into the second seat.” He glanced back, saw that Evangeline was strapping with a vengeance, the belt so tight that Shelley Mary gasped. She didn’t argue or resist, perhaps out of embarrassment.

  “So?” Evangeline demanded grimly, returning to her own seat, slightly ahead and to one side of Shelley Mary’s.

  “I’ll do anything to write this story.” Shelley Mary clung to defiance as a shield against her own apprehension. She was fairly certain she could handle Cerval but his fierce lieutenant scared her. She wasn’t sure why Evangeline seemed so angry.

  “Anything?” said Evangeline.”

  Even as the tension of the unspooling RTP bands abated, another kind of tension was building.

  The Devil’s huge propellers carried Cerval, Evangeline, Shelley Mary and the precious, more dead-than-alive cargo that was Thorsten Laverack, up and away from The Smoke, and out over the seven hundred yoettes of vertiginous jungle that separated the city state from the Frankenstein settlement.

  The Smoke sat on the very tip of a massive peninsula. Where the rest of the landmass rose out of the sea, sheer and brutal, the tip had gentler contours, two estuaries and flatlands in between. Settlers gained a foothold there a few centuries ago, because those gentler contours gave them direct access to the area from the sea, and they could farm there. First on foot, then by mule train and finally powered by wood, charcoal, coal and steam, mankind penetrated the fearsome jungle for a distance of roughly fifty yoettes before the impossible terrain stopped them (a yoette being about a mile and a third by the Alternate Measure System). By the time Cerval founded the Incorruptibles, the total settled area of the Smoke was somewhere around 2,600 raisses (or, by the AMS, about 2500 square yoettes).

  Over and above the terrain, two other factors inhibited The Smoke’s growth. One was the absence of any kind of fuel other than wood, which was desperately inefficient. As The Smoke’s coal-and-steam technology advanced, and wood and charcoal became inadequate, all that coal had to be imported, relatively fast and expensively by Steam Air Ship, or slowly and cheaply by Sea Ship (sail at first, and then steam). The waters were treacherous and one in five fuel ships foundered.

  The second factor was the terrible savagery of the Manus and Mancits, who had colonized the area around The Smoke a hundred years before the first settlers arrived. By dint of superior firepower and numbers, the latter finally managed to drive them from the peninsula and into the jungles, which, after a period of adjustment, proved to be a perfect environment for the pitiless headhunters. Even now, from time to time, a Manu or Mancit raiding party slipped through the night and into the poorer suburbs of The Smoke, stealing, raping, mutilating and murdering.

  Sixty yoettes from the airfield from which The Devil had ascended, the peninsula broadened fast, developing into a gigantic and largely unexplored continent. The jungles became even denser and more mountainous. Impassable, with bloodthirsty Mancit and Manu settlements scattered throughout. At an earlier time, The Smoke’s senators had planned to send Steam Air Ships loaded with dynamite bombs to clear the jungles of trees, flatten the mountains and destroy the headhunters. But even the biggest Steam Air Ship’s bomb load proved to be as effective as a child pissing on a wildfire, and this first step in an attempted colonisation was quickly abandoned.

  The Devil soared over the jungles, its serene flight a contrast to the emotions pulsing inside its flimsy fuselage.

  “We should just throw you the fuck out!” said Evangeline angrily. Her words were more or less convincing, but there was some other message in her eyes, roving over Shelley Mary’s strapped-in body.

  “Not here,” Cerval said.

  “If you didn’t think I was going to pursue the story, why did you give me the tip?” said Shelley Mary. Only after she’d spoken did she think about Cerval’s ‘not here.’ What did that mean?

  Now that The Devil was in a perfect pitch/yaw balance and flying at a constant altitude, Cerval could afford to pay less attention to the right-angled spirit levels that indicated the craft’s flight attitude.

  “Why?” asked Shelley Mary. “What was the story you wanted me to write?”

  “The story’s dead now,” said Cerval wryly, “but I had a plan – to expose another Silencio outrage and to come out. To reveal myself to the people I’m trying to help.”

  “Why? Apparently, they don’t give a shit.”

  “Because if we’re ever going to clean up The Smoke we
need them. We have to persuade the average Smokie that it’s all going to be worthwhile.”

  “So… just because they know the Incorruptibles are led by some fuzzy-chinned youth named Cerval Franks, they’re going to rise up and, what, kill their masters?” Evangeline looked as though she was going to say something but then shut her mouth. This was Cerval’s call and, after a long moment, he spoke:

  “My name isn’t Cerval Franks. Well, it is Cerval. But not Franks.”

  “What is it then?”

  “You’ll find out. And by the way, I am not so young. I suspect you are only a few years older than me.”

  “Perhaps.” Shelley Mary wasn’t about to reveal her age. “But still,” she continued, “no one’s told me why you chose me to tell your secret.”

  “You interviewed me. I liked you,” said Cerval. “And you’re just starting out in your chosen career. I thought you would be motivated.” He faced forward and Shelley Mary stared at the back of his head, then switched to the cryo-casket and its misty vapour. Did it really contain the living remains of Thorsten Laverack, or was something else in play, something of which she knew nothing? She returned her attention to Cerval but he was still gazing through the cockpit windshield. Avoiding further talk? Or piloting? She felt Evangeline staring at her intently and, when she turned to face her, tried to hold those intent eyes. Shelley Mary couldn’t read her expression. Testing? Curious? Jealous?

  “Why would I be jealous?” Evangeline asked, amused, and Shelley Mary started. Surely she hadn’t said anything? Just thought it. Could this voluptuous, charismatic woman read her mind?

  “He can fuck you any time he wants. Makes no difference to me.”