Worldwaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Action Adventure (The Great Iron War, Book 5)

by Dean F. Wilson

 “So you have your own Iron Guard,” the Controller said.

   Brooklyn smiled at her. “I have yours as well.”

   Every switch on her belt flicked off, and the Iron Guard stood still. The red in their eyes faded, and they glanced around the room, and at each other, in bewilderment. Their movements were less mechanical, and when they looked upon the Controller, their anger was real.

   “I made you,” she told them as they advanced on her.

   Brooklyn turned away as they grabbed her, tearing off the silver-edged iron plates of her armour, breaking apart the mask that hid her burnt and disfigured face, the product of the Iron Plague. She was a thin and frail figure beneath the armour, slowly crumbling apart.

   The Iron Guard had lost many years of their lives to her puppetry. Some lost close to a decade. Many lost limbs. Some lost eyes. They suffered torture and misery at her hands, and at the hands of the doctors and surgeons of Project Ironbreath. For all those lost days, they were still there, buried beneath the weight of wires, imprisoned in their own bodies. They knew very well that she made them, and that is why they were driven by an uncontrollable rage to unmake her.

  30 – A LITTLE BIT OF CRAZY

  As Jacob clung to the windscreen, waiting and praying for help, he saw Cala's smiling face inside. She waved at him in an animated way. Though he could not hear her, he could see her mouthing words at him, which looked a little like, “Wave back, honey. Don't you know it's rude not to wave?” She turned to her co-pilots, and mouthed, “We used to date, me and him. Isn't he handsome?”

   Just when Jacob almost felt like letting go, a firm hand gripped his wrist, and Nissi hauled him back up. Cala's shock was evident, and she kicked the windscreen with her boots.

   “Not a great idea to block the pilots' view,” Nissi told him.

   “I'm not known for my great ideas.”

   He held onto her as she fired grappling hooks left and right, swinging across like the queen of the aerial jungle.

   “You make it look so easy,” Jacob told her. He was glad it was easy for her, or he might still be clutching the windscreen.

   The compliment had little effect on Nissi's composure. “When you've done tightrope walking between two hot air balloons at twenty thousand feet, it becomes second nature.”

   “Bit of a thrill-seeker, eh?”

   “You could say that.”

   “Well, I've just seen an old thrill-seeker blast from the past in the cockpit.”

   “Can't wait to meet him.”

   “Her, and I think I can wait.”

   They swung for a moment, back and forth, as Nissi tried to usher them closer to the door.

   “Cosy,” Jacob said, hanging on tight.

   “You sure you're not uncomfortable being rescued by a woman?”

   “No. I could get used to it.”

   “With your poor balance, seems like you might have to.”

   “Ouch.”

   They swung inside, and Nissi rolled on the floor, while Jacob fell face-first. They barely had time enough to feel solid ground beneath them before they saw Cala standing there, swinging a crowbar in Nissi's direction.

   “Come on!” she roared.

   Nissi looked to Jacob. “Is this who you were on about?”

   Cala's eyes widened. “You were talking about me?” She swung the crowbar a little more wildly, and Nissi backed away. “What were you saying?” she asked, shifting from manic smiles to intense frowns. “Huh?”

   “Cala, put the crowbar down,” Jacob said.

   “But I've gotta defend myself,” she replied. “There are people, like her, coming to get me. I'm one of the few who've woken up, y'know, and that makes me a threat. They want to smother me with a pillow. They want to send me back to sleep. But I'm keeping my eyes wide open!” She pulled the eyelids of her left eye as wide apart as she could, as if she was about to use a hallucinogenic eyebox.

   “What if you're wrong?” Jacob asked. “What if it's these people you're with now, this Armageddon Brigade, that has you dreaming. What if they don't want you to wake up to the reality that they're just psychopaths?”

   “I'm not a fool,” Cala said, shaking her head so forcefully that some of her hair came loose from its bobbin. “I'd know if I was being conned.”

   While Jacob spoke, Nissi attempted to sneak up on Cala, but Cala noticed, and threw the crowbar at her. It struck Nissi's arm as she guarded her face from the projectile.

   “Stay back, sleepwalker!” Cala shouted.

   She raced towards her, but Nissi unleashed one of her grappling hooks, firing the metal claw straight into Cala's face. They could hear the crunch, right before her dreadful scream.

   Cala fell to the ground, clutching her bloodied face. “My nose!” she cried. “You broke my nose!” She rolled about for a bit, shouting and grunting, then started laughing loudly, snorting on the blood as she cackled.

   “Crikey,” Nissi said. “What is wrong with her?”

   Cala sat up and pointed to her buckled nose. “Isn't it obvious?”

   Nissi was caught off guard as Cala suddenly spit blood into her eyes. She lunged at her and tried to claw at her face, then bashed her head against the ground until she passed out. She would have kept bashing and clawing had Jacob not grabbed her and pulled her away.

   “It's a mask she's wearing,” Cala said, struggling with Jacob, “all prettied up for the boys. She's ugly underneath. Let me show you!”

   “Stop this, Cala!” Jacob urged. “We didn't come here to fight you.”

   “I know,” she said, pawing his face with her blood-covered fingers. “I know you came for me.”

   He recoiled from her, and she became more violent, slapping him.

   “What is it?” she pleaded. “Is it her? Huh? Old red-head? What do you see in her? She's nothing. She's no fun. Oh, yes, she runs the fabled Order. Hell, she is Order. But I'm Chaos, and Chaos is a lot more fun, Jakey boy, a lot more! You know that. You know that deep down, down where it counts.” She grinned and ground her body against his. “You can paint yourself up real good, but you're still scum like the rest of us. You ain't no soldier boy, Jake. The uniform's all illusion.” She held her hands out. “It's all a dream.”

   “It's just like you to buy into that,” Jacob said. “You volunteered to work at the nut house.”

   “I know they're crazy,” Cala said, rotating her index finger at her temple. “That's why I'm here. Not because I'm crazy. No, Jakey boy, don't give me that look! They're just ... a lot more fun. A lot more fun than you so-called 'normal' people.” She indicated the quotation marks with her fingers.

   She drew up close, close enough that he could feel her hot breath upon his skin—almost close enough that he could hear her thoughts. “They think this is all a dream, and I kind of like that idea. Y'see, then we can change it into anything we want. It's all formless. It's all fluid.”

   “Then why try to destroy it?” Jacob asked.

   She shrugged. “Maybe I never planned to drop the bomb. Or maybe I just wanted to see what'd happen. Don't you like the idea of being able to change the entire world in an instant? I have that power right now. They made me God.” She tapped her fingers off her chest, her eyes wide with the wonder of it all. “They made me God.”

   “Then have mercy on these people.”

   “Mercy? No … not that God. They made me the Destroyer.”

   “And what will you accomplish with that?”

   She shrugged again. “I don't know. And that's the fun of it. But still ... it got your attention, didn't it? After all those years of ignoring me, here you are. This time you came to me. I didn't have to go chasing you, Jake. You're the one who came running.”

   “But not for you,” he said, and regretted saying it. He realised he probably should have been appeasing her, not making her angry.

   “You're a liar,” she said. “I know, 'cause … yo
u're, you're just a liar. You sensed I was here. I know you did. We've … we've got a connection. You can't deny that, Jakey boy. You can't hide what you feel.”

   Like pity? he thought.

   “You can run away from me,” she continued, “but you can't run away from us.”

   There's no us, he thought. There never was. He could not understand why she did not see that. When they met, they had so many holes, they tried to fill them with thrills. But the thrills kept falling through, so they needed bigger ones to plug the gaps. But the holes grew larger as well. Maybe love could seal them up for good, but he never felt that with her, and he did not think she felt it either. He was just another addiction, an obsession, one she seemed unable to shake. Maybe the Worldwaker was the cure.

  31 – A FABULOUS COPTER

  Rommond had resigned himself to his fate, letting the wind whip him, letting it beat at his eardrums until all other sounds were muted. And yet, there was another sound, and it was not his breath, or his heart, or the hiss of smoke, or the crackle of fire, or the whistle of wind. It was mechanical.

   The clouds did not so much as part, but were parted, and what dispersed them was a sight to behold: an odd amalgamation of machinery, with wheels and wings, treads and balloons, and many rotating propellers to match its many bulbous windows. It was a haphazard design, if it could even be called designed, and it was cobbled together as though its owner had not decided if he wanted it to swim or sail, or float or fly, or just crawl across the desert sand.

   It made a tremendous din, with all those rotating parts. It was not just the sound of movement, but the sound of things momentarily breaking down and starting up again. This constant to and fro, stopping and starting, meant the vessel did not really hover, but fell and rose again.

   Rommond merely fell, but the strange copter followed him, dropping sharply, then sending up a plume of steam and smoke as the engines kicked in again. He saw a shaft open, and a large mechanical arm reached out. It grabbed him in its pincers, and the pinch was painful. But Rommond was glad to feel pain, because for a moment there it seemed like he was never going to feel anything again.

   He was pulled inside, and the hatch slammed shut. While his eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness, he heard the pumping of many pistons, the clank of shifting cogs, the whistle of steam escaping through metal flumes, and a constant clang of metal, the music of a smithy. His head still spun, and his eyes still stung, but he could now see the globular chamber he lay in, and the metal scraps and junk around and beneath him.

   A door inside the vessel swung open, and a dim light poured in. In the threshold stood a familiar silhouette, tall and thin, with the most oversized hat ever known to man or woman.

   “Porridge,” Rommond said with a smile.

   Porridge stepped forward, the heels of his pointed leopardskin shoes adding to the percussion of the ship's engineering. He wore a long yellow coat, skin-tight purple trousers, and a blouse of rose-coloured frills. The hat was made of many feathers and many hues, like a peacock's tail, or perhaps even the real thing.

   “Oh!” Porridge cried, in as high a pitch as possible. “My dear boy! Oh! What've they done to you, sweetie?” He rushed over, swinging his arms, prancing over the debris inside the room. He tried to haul Rommond up, but did not have much strength for that. Rommond had to give what little he had left to clamber to his feet.

   “I'm okay,” the general said, but he knew he was not. The fall had taken a lot out of him. The landing would have taken the rest.

   “Let's get you to my quarters, plum,” Porridge said, as Rommond leant heavily upon him. His already rosy cheeks flushed crimson. “Oh! My spinning cogs! To think they could've killed you!” He almost fainted at the notion, which would not have done much good for his efforts to support Rommond.

   “It's lucky you were here,” the general said, each word a labour to pronounce.

   Porridge stumbled with Rommond towards the door, his hat falling off to reveal his golden-brown curls. He leant against the frame for a moment and shouted down the corridor, where several oil lamps threw out a faint glimmer.

   “Bitnickle!” he cried.

   A clockwork contraption rolled down the corridor on one large wheel, at the front, and one smaller wheel at the back. It had a thin metal frame emerging from the larger wheel, with two mechanical arms extending from this, bearing the same kind of pincer claws that Porridge used to haul Rommond inside. The creature had a large torch light for a head, which shone brightly upon the duo now. A radio strapped to its torso turned on and off periodically, the dial rotating seemingly of its own accord, allowing it to speak with snippets of Regime broadcasting.

   “What is it … Emperor?” the clockwork being asked, switching between a feature on what motivates the evil General Rommond, and a news report on the attendance of the Iron Emperor at the Iron Rally.

   “Oh, isn't she a sweetheart?” Porridge said. “Can you get a glass of water for our guest?”

   “... certainly ...” The radio was speaking about the many psychological defects of those attracted to the Resistance movement, with one “expert” stating that they certainly showed all the signs of madness. He recommended heavy dosing, permanent restraints, and constant supervision.

   Bitnickle rolled off, and returned just as swiftly, clutching a half-spilled glass of water. Porridge handed it to Rommond as they sat with their backs against the frame of the door.

   “Didn't think the Clockwork Commune were this friendly,” the general commented after gulping down the fluid. He needed a drink, but water was not what he had in mind.

   Bitnickle hung her lamp-shaped head, shining a spotlight on the oil-stained floor. The stench of oil was thick, but the smell of Porridge's perfume was thicker.

   “She's one of the good ones,” Porridge said, and Bitnickle's head rose again. “Got her from the Coilhunter. He's got one of his own up there in the Wild North.”

   “Sometimes I wish I had his job,” Rommond said.

   Porridge giggled. “And I bet he wishes he had yours, cupcake.”

   “How did you know I was here?”

   “I didn't. I was following that wingship with the bomb for a while, keeping a safe distance. I thought the design looked familiar, but then people've been stealing dear Brooklyn's blueprints for ages now. Oh! My shock when I realised it was you in one of the other wingships! And bless my crumbling heart when I saw you go down. I thought I'd never make it down in time!” He placed the back of his hand against his forehead, and unearthed a multicoloured fan with his other hand to cool himself down.

   “I probably don't say this often enough, my dear chap,” Rommond said, “but thank you.”

   “Oh, it's nothing, really, my dearest dandy. I'm just glad I was there to save the day! Oh, you'll be doing a painting of me now and hanging it in your quarters, won't you, sweetie? Hero of the hour! Who'd have thought, poor delicate flower like me?”

   Rommond smiled. “We're all full of surprises. But maybe you can be hero of a lifetime. There's still a bomb out there in the clouds, and I need your help to stop it going off.”

  32 – ENDING EVERYTHING

  Rommond joined Porridge in the cockpit of his strange copter, which was perhaps still less strange than its driver, who had dubbed the vessel the Dandyman. The whirling blades spun faster, and the vessel ascended into the clouds, exuding enough smoke and steam to add some clouds of its own.

   “Bring us over the cockpit if you can,” Rommond ordered. Perhaps he should have been requesting, asking nicely, or even begging, but he was too used to giving orders, and Porridge was the kind of man who liked to pretend he was submissive.

   “Oooh!” he cried, blushing. “Tell me where to park it, plum.”

   Rommond pointed as he talked. “If you can get me close enough to the hatch on the roof, and maybe put that lever arm of yours into business, I can sort out the pilots inside.”

   “I c
an land on the wingship, and clamp on tight,” Porridge said. “And I'll have that hatch door off before you can say 'butter me for breakfast'!”

   He flew the copter over the Dreamdevil, matching its speed with ease, then descended suddenly, striking the roof of the aeroplane with a screech. Clamps extended from the vessel and latched on tight.

   “Oh, do forgive me, daisy!” Porridge said. “It's always a hard landing.”

   Rommond hurried out onto the roof just as Porridge was tearing off the hatch door with his vessel's mechanical arm.

   The general jumped down into the cockpit, and was immediately confronted by one of the pilots, who knocked Rommond's pistol from his hand. Had he not being weakened by his tumble from the heavens, he would have easily overpowered the pilot, but his muscles were fatigued. They struggled, pushing and pulling, shimmying around the small control room like aggressive dancers.

   The other pilot stayed at his post, but was forced to flinch and duck as the struggle came his way. Rommond shoved his attacker against the controls, and switches were flipped, and dials spun. Then the vessel nose-dived suddenly, and all three of them fell against the windscreen with a thud. Even from that position they could hear the bomb outside striking the underside of the plane, and the nerve-racking groaning of the cables that held it in place.

   The fight was abandoned momentarily as all three men clambered up and tried to right the plane. It was a frantic bashing of buttons as gravity pulled them towards the window, and the plane towards the ground.

   “What's going on down there?” Porridge called down through the shaft, popping his head through.

   The pilots steadied the craft, and the nose swung up suddenly. Porridge tumbled down into the room with a cry, a tangle of lanky limbs and gaudy coat tails.

   The fight started anew, but this time both pilots charged at Rommond. Porridge was dusting himself off when he too was caught in the fray. He shrieked as he was tossed back and forth between the assailants like a weapon.