There was now a heavy black smoke brimming from the steel mill. A few clockworks had gathered at the bay doors, their heads swiveling back and forth as if sorting out protocols in their geared minds.
Cela gave Kavala a nod and sprinted over the road to the hangar. She pressed her back against the siding with her weapon drawn, and listened.
“Yahto, do you hear anything inside the hangar?”
“No, sergeant,” he beeped from the gyro.
She came to a door and tried the handle. It swung open, and inside was a crude transport just large enough for a crew of three. The rear loading ramp was pulled open, and she ran up through the cargo bay and into the cockpit. There was a gyro-port along the control panel, and she plugged Yahto into the cavity.
“Yahto, close the loading ramp.”
His voice appeared over the com system.
“Yes, sergeant.”
The hydraulics whined from the rear of the transport, and Cela started the duel engines. The engines roared to life, and as Kavala had promised, there was enough fuel to get to Panaka City. But not a drop more.
“Yahto, can you access the hangar doors?”
There was a detonation outside, and the ground shuddered. Smoke from the steel mill wove through the air like a ghostly blanket.
“Yes, sergeant. It is an open frequency.”
The roller assembly on the ceiling began to rumble and sputter, and the bi-fold doors parted over the pebbly ground. Cela throttled the transport toward the opening and out along the taxiway.
“Any reason why we shouldn’t get the hell out of here, Yahto?”
Cela’s fist curled over the throttle, and there was a clacking sound over the com-system.
“Yahto?”
“I do not advise take-off,” said Yahto, finally. “There is an obstruction on the runway.”
Cela squinted out the cockpit window. There was a vehicle sitting on the runway. “I’m sure we can avoid it,” she said.
“It would be ill-advised,” said Yahto. “The obstruction is an anti-aircraft missile battery.”
The color in Cela’s face washed out as if a plug had been pulled from her chin.
“Maybe the same one that shot us down the first time,” she mused.
“It is possible. I will analyze its frequency for similarities.”
She slowed the transport to a crawl. A large form emerged from the missile battery and stepped onto the macadam. The figure was heavily augmented with large pistons that ran the lengths of his arms and legs. A spout of black smoke sputtered from his head into the windless air.
“The Dieselman,” she said.
“Sergeant,” said Yahto. “I am sensing that you are outgunned. I recommend a formal surrender under international norms.”
“I didn’t ask for your recommendation.”
“Sergeant—”
“Just keep the transport idling, Yahto.”
Cela yanked the handle on the port-side door and jumped onto the runway. The Dieselman walked to her, pistons drumming and hissing as he moved. They halted, facing each other, not more than twenty paces apart.
“I couldn’t let you leave my town without saying goodbye,” said the Dieselman.
Cela’s finger traced the trigger guard of the Augsburg six-gun on her belt. The sun was a now a splash of waxmelt in the noon sky.
“I’ll come and go as I please,” she said.
There was a grinding sound, and a plume of black smoke piped from his head.
“I’m sure you’ve seen my public works project—all those decrepit twenty-fivers crisping in the sun like the weak sacks of flesh they were. Twenty-fivers like you, all of them.”
“So you want to add me to your collection, is that it?”
“Certainly,” he said. It looked as though his eyes were the only natural part of him left. They cast a faint blueness around the shiny bevels of his metal brow ridge. “But most of all, I can’t set a precedent of someone like you coming and going so freely. Not on foot, and not over my airspace.”
“So it was you that shot us down?”
Her thumb was now resting on the pistol’s wooden grip.
“Of course it was. With help from your clockwork friend.”
“Yahto?” Cela’s eyes narrowed.
“We share certain sensibilities, he and I. But I’m sure you can guess what they are. You’ve proven yourself capable—for a fleshy.”
“Don’t compliment me,” she said. Her eyes were like shattered screens.
“Umts’a knows and sees all. Twenty-fivers refuse to understand.”
“Umts’a is just a program running on a loop,” she said. “Written by twenty-fivers like me.”
There was a whine in his left arm, as if something was building with energy.
Cela drew the six-gun and fired, and the Dieselman hobbled back a step.
His left arm raised and he returned fire, strafing the ground in front of her as she rolled to her side on the hot macadam. Columns of dust puffed the air like tiny spirits.
“Nimble as you fleshies are, it always ends the same,” said the Dieselman.
Cela flicked a switch in the Augsburg, and a motor whirred and sputtered inside.
“You were once like me, Dieselman.”
“Never,” he said. There was grit in his voice now. “They replaced my heart in-utero with a pump that rattled in the womb. When I was born, they siphoned my blood and filled me with oil.”
He shot again, and Cela dove to the ground. This time the shot landed and her augment tore at the knee, sending her into an awkward tumble.
“You see how weak you are, sergeant? I will visit your mummified corpse daily.”
“We both have weaknesses,” said Cela. “It must be hard to pay attention with all those gears spinning in your head.”
She saw that the missile battery had been coasting backward during the exchange, and was now repositioned toward the Dieselman from behind.
“What I cannot see, Umts’a reveals to me.”
Cela slumped to her good leg, and leveled the six-gun.
“In that case, give Umts’a my regards.” Her face was like a cold ingot of steel. “Yahto, fire.”
The missile battery hissed and smoked, and a rocket launched from one of the canisters. The Dieselman barely had time to turn before he detonated in a ball of orange flames. Cela shielded her face as debris rained down like stones cast from a tornado. The Dieselman tilted in the pyre, stumbling forward and back and shooting errantly into the sky. Cela emptied the chambers of the Augsburg, and with each diesel-powered shot, the figure fragmented until all that was left was a single piston kicking and circling in the hot gravel.
She stood there for a moment, watching the pieces burn. Then she hobbled to the transport and pulled herself up the loading ramp. Cela sat in the captain’s chair, with her hand palming Yahto’s gyro-sphere.
“I don’t know whether to thank you, or toss you into the dunes at five thousand meters,” she said.
“I have been analyzing many conflicting protocols lately.” said Yahto. “Some nullify each other, some override, and some submit to the other. It can only be described by what you said, a loop.”
“I should have told you sooner, I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” Cela pulled Yahto’s gyro-drive from the console and draped it around her neck. “No offense Yahto, but I’m gonna do this on my own till you sort some things out.”
“I am not offended. I am only resolving conflicting protocols.”
“Good luck.”
She throttled the transport down the runway and launched into the smoggy air above Devil Wells; the smoky plumes below looked like an ink spill on some forgotten desert map. She rolled out and bore north at eight thousand meters, and as she levelled off she noticed something hanging over the chair beside her: a pair of aviator goggles. She grinned and stretched the band over her head and ratcheted the lenses until she could see in the distance those faraway cities beyond the baking, sandy void.
/> C.W. Blackwell was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California where he still lives today with his wife and two children. His passion is to blend poetic narratives with pulp dialogue to create beautiful and rhythmic genre fiction. He writes mostly dark fiction and weird westerns. You can follow him here: https://www.facebook.com/cwalkerblackwell/.
The Fantabulous
Clown Machine of
Roger’s Discount Circus
by
Damon L. Wakes
“Roll up, roll up!” bellowed Sillywig Stevenson, gesturing with his cane. “See the Fantabulous Clown Machine: capable of inflating thirty-eight balloons per min...erm, hour, and with a repertoire of...several theatrically distinct pratfalls.”
“This R-valve’s getting awfully hot!” came a voice from inside the machine.
“New to Roger’s Discount Circus,” he added, with a flourish of his hat, “the Clown Machine will occasionally utter such gems as ‘Ouch, my face!’ and ‘Let me out!’ Guaranteed hilarity! Ah-hah-hah...”
The audience were not impressed.
“Why don’t you give these nice people a wave, Benn...I mean, Clown Machine!”
The Clown Machine’s arm flapped to and fro in a less than fantabulous manner.
“And how about a pie?” Stevenson winced at the less than elegant segue into the machine’s next bit.
The clown machine flung the confection more into its shoulder than its face. “Ta-daa,” came the voice from within.
There was a patter of polite but ultimately quite disheartening applause, accompanied by someone muttering “Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.” The small crowd moved on.
Bignose Benny’s head appeared from a hatch in the clown’s posterior. “When’s it going to be my turn?”
“To stand out here exposed? In the open? Where anyone might recognise you from that regrettable incident in London Superior? No no no, my most dear friend. Rest assured, it will never be your turn. I am resigned to accept the slings and arrows of these uncultured...non-Londoners.” He shuddered.
“Hey!” shouted Manny the Bearded Maiden.
“No offence,” added Stevenson.
“But if anyone’s going to recognise anything from that mechanical clown rampage, surely it’s going to be the clown? And...I’m inside it. So it seems like you’ve got the safe job.”
“Of course it seems that way: your job is deceptively safe, mine’s deceptively dangerous.” He spread his arms. “That’s the beauty of it.”
“Yeah, okay.” Benny conceded this was true. “But I really think we should at least do something about this R-valve.”
“Do what, exactly?” Sillywig Stevenson booted the crate of scrap tucked away behind the clown machine. “In case you haven’t noticed, mechanical clownery just doesn’t bring in the same kind of dosh it did two years ago. It’d be hard enough to pay for parts even if we could find them in this godforsaken armpit of a county.”
“Hey!”
“No offence.”
“What?” Manny stroked her beard. “I didn’t say anything.”
Stevenson looked past the bearded maiden, and was dismayed to see a blue policeman’s helmet approaching through the crowd.
The face underneath it did not look pleased. “I’d recognise that clown anywhere!”
“Now now, officer,” Stevenson lifted his hands. “There’s no need for that truncheon, I’m sure.” He turned to Bennie. “Fire up that engine!” he hissed. “Full steam pressure!”
“I really don’t think it’ll take that...”
“Just do it!” He turned to the policeman again. “I’m afraid we’re in the middle of a performance here. This one’s called...HIT IT, BENNIE!” He clambered onto the clown’s shoulders, laughing maniacally.
“Erm...” called Bennie, over the thrashing of the engine. “I really, really think we ought to do something about this R-valve...”
“Hm?” Stevenson peered down through a gap in the clown machine’s neck. “Oh, for fu...”
The explosion was fantabulous.
Nick of Time
by
Jay Knioum
It is now two minutes to three o’clock, last Thursday afternoon. Magneto-astrolabes orient themselves with busy clicks and whirrs as I unbuckle and slide out of the Apparatus. My polished walnut walking stick raps against the hardwood floor of the Undersecretary’s study with more report than I’d normally wish, although this errand carries no Formality of Subtlety.
Downstairs, tea is being poured. I must stop it at all costs.
I beg your pardon, as circumstances do not allow for proper introductions. Suffice it to say that I am Nicholas Oswald Burberry, “Nick” to those lucky few of sufficient familiarity, a freelance chrono-agent of some renown, currently under contract to the Ministry of Ephemeral Concerns. But enough of that.
In the parlor directly underneath my current position, Flavius Corvenstock, Undersecretary of 20th Century Protocol for the Ministry of Stasis, is about to enjoy his afternoon tea and perhaps a cucumber sandwich. The sandwiches do not concern me. The tea, from the moment it touches Corvenstock’s lips, will set in motion a chain of events ultimately leading to all-out war between the Kaaghen Protectorate and the House Chanceforth mercantile alliance. I will refrain from consuming detail, except to say that should events go unchecked, life as we know it as sentient beings will cease to exist in this universe at the beastly hour of quarter-past-five in the morning next Wednesday.
The absence of a Formality indicates that I may employ whatever measures necessary to prevent the Undersecretary from imbibing his tea, from petty larceny on up to the Final Option. I, however, prefer to keep things simple, which is why I am among the most frequently employed freelance agents in the Streams.
Down a flight, and ah! There he sits, his spinster daughter Claudette placing the service before him as he pores over the Times. A well-meaning woman of saintly heart, but woefully nearsighted, Claudette is tragically unaware that she is pouring Gilentian black into her father’s cup instead of his customary Darjeeling.
I swoop in like an owl upon a lemming, scooping up the cup closest to the Undersecretary’s large fingers, and seat myself like an uncle down for the holidays. “My dear, you anticipated my visit!” I beam to Claudette, as she blinks startled eyes at me, causing the thick spectacles resting forgotten upon her head to bob up and down. “How delightful! A cup of Gilenti suits me perfectly, and where better to enjoy it than among friends? Do be a dear and see to Master Corvenstock’s habitual brand, though? I would never expect his allergies to tolerate my less-than-refined tastes.”
Claudette’s surprise at my materialization slowly disappears, as she sniffs in confusion at the pot in her hands. “Now how did that happen?” she mumbles, her fastidious nature eclipsing any curiosity at the admittedly dapper wraith that has joined her father.
I sip. “Oh, that is divine! I would love to see the brand!” I ooze, silently chiding myself for laying it on so thickly. Still confused, Claudette shuffles off to the kitchen, while I endure the dreadful offworld concoction and smile my best to the Undersecretary, who sits regarding me with his piggish eyes over the top edge of his newspaper. This morning’s edition, predictably. I had perused it days ago. He folds it crisply, drops it upon the table, and rolls his immense arms into a fold over his ample gut.
“Since when,” he harrumphs, “does Ephemeral Concerns claim jurisdiction over my afternoon tea?”
I smile more widely, and remove my hat, letting it fall upon the grotesque floral pattern of the settee. “You still consult Dr. Czernovog, I presume?” I ask with as much innocence as I can summon.
The piggy eyes narrow. I tug my gloves off at the fingers, dropping them into my hat as I continue, “You may wish to reconsider the choice, as the good doctor has failed to notify you of a rather severe reaction to a particular type of extraterrestrial black tea. A rather severe, and...decisive reaction.”
The piggy eyes fall from mine to the cup in my hand, then up again.
I can see the conflict, there. The Ministry of Stasis exists in precise opposition to those authorities under which I conduct my peculiar errands. Indeed, my employment as a freelancer has remained possible by the failure of an initiative that Corvenstock, among others, brought before Parliament just this year. Yet for all his suspicions and a Luddite’s obstinacy against the possibilities of licensed chronomancy, old Flavius is a shrewd man, and allows no emotion to cross his face without due process.
“I cannot believe that your employers would shed a tear over my demise,” he rumbles, “so I suppose you’re going to tell me that my brand of tea is instrumental to some catastrophe or other? Shall I now clear the color of my socks with the Ministry of Ephemeral Concerns before dressing myself in the morning?”
Such was the point of contention of Corvenstock and those of like mind. Since they reject the chronomantic arts entirely, and therefore it is impossible for them to grasp the enormity of disasters prevented by its use. There would be no war now, I consider, as I finish the cup. He would never appreciate the complex transfer of minute interactions rippling from his bulky corpse and a box of tea originating from an obscure, quasi-legitimate offworld trading company several degrees of ownership away from a House Chanceforth concern, in violation of a number of delicate treaties. Nor would he see the deeper meaning inherent in Claudette’s burgeoning romance with a middle-aged clerk in the employ of the Khaagen Embassy, who carries just enough security clearance to endanger those with just a little more clearance than he.
“Your socks? Ridiculous,” I chuckle. “You might, however, seek their approval of your choice of ties. I believe the last civilized society that saw such colors employed in unison ended up swallowed by the sea.”
Flavius replies to my wit by issuing a bullfroggish belch. The room smells vaguely of cucumber. He’s squinting at me, as if considering whether I’m worth eating. “I know you, pirate,” he finally says.
“Oh?” I ask, genuinely curious, “I have certainly been called pirate before, and worse, but never over crumpets and fine china.”
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