His voice bubbles like stew. “You do yourself up smartly, peacock, with your velvet overcoat and finery. Perhaps you have Ephemeral Concerns fooled, but not me. Nicholas, is it? Son of Kimball Burberry? Ah yes, what was the charming sobriquet again? Kimball the Orphan-Maker, was it?”
Only two things can take my temper from me as easily as plucking shortbread from a dish. The first is a certain raven-haired hellion in Paris to whom I keep finding my way. The other is any mention of Dad that doesn’t end in a toast. Gripping the head of my stick with chalk-colored knuckles, I suddenly regret the errand for which I was sent here.
The piggy eyes regard me with a squint. “Careful, Burberry,” he sneers, “or another freebooter will have to pop ’round to save me from you.”
I begin pulling my gloves back on, trying not to appear fitful, though I would hardly judge the performance worthy of recognition. “You’d best set a new place at tea,” I mention, mostly to distract the fat man. The gambit works.
“Oh?” it is his turn to say.
I stand. “Give my regards to Sir Garnethold. Had I not arrived, he would have been the one to find your corpse.”
He harrumphs again, dismissing me by returning to the Times with an exaggerated snap of newsprint. He is too shrewd a man by far to dismiss the episode outright, but also to debate it with the likes of me. Doubtless he tosses one last shot at me across the bow of his paper, but as the contingency recalls built into the Apparatus suddenly and rudely whisk me back to Point Zero, I am not present to hear it.
Next time, perhaps.
Occurrence at
Kettle Falls
by
Jessica Augustsson
A woman knelt beside a creek bed in Washington Territory staring into the swirling contents of her gold pan. The sun beat down with a fierce heat and periodically she lifted her hat and wiped her brow on her shirtsleeve. Beside her, a cradle box puffing steam rocked of its own accord and pumped water up from the creek to sluice through the mud and stones and ore the woman had placed in its loader compartment. She stood to put more wood in the box’s small burner that powered the engine before dropping again to her canvas-clad knees in the shallow rivulet. Sloshing the water in the pan in gentle circles, the glitter of fine gold flakes was unmistakable.
Behind her some distance away stood two beweaponed men, one with a mechanical arm and an eyepatch upon which was mounted a lens. The men had been watching the woman for several moments now, and had finally come to some conclusion. They crept closer and installed themselves behind a sizable boulder. The mechanical arm was held out straight, gears adjusted for distance and wind, pins tightened at the elbow to reduce recoil. The revolver aimed. With his free hand, the man twisted the lens on his eye patch one way, then back the other until he was satisfied. The other man, younger, held a shotgun at the ready, waiting for his opportunity, biding his time.
The woman in the creek seemed about twenty-five years of age, her ill-fitting clothing had the look of having previously belonged to a man somewhat larger than she. Probably the garb of whoever staked this claim first. It was not unusual for a friend or family member to take over the working of a claim when needs must. Fate makes provision for creating many kinds of unsavory and terrible events, and no one receives particular exclusion.
His preparations being complete, the mechanical-armed man pulled back the hammer and squeezed the trigger.
Emma Fletcher was from a not terribly well-to-do family, though they had just enough to keep their home above her father’s shop. Her mother had died long ago after the birth of her sister Margaret, and Emma had looked after her and her younger brother George as best she could while their father had spent his days in his clockwork and eyeglasses shop to keep food on the table.
When, in 1858, George heard tell of gold in Idaho and Washington territories, he thought it prudent to go where most others had not, California’s gold-bearing waters having long been overrun. He hoped to be able to find a job with Dalén’s Buoys, Lighthouses and Semaphores, Ltd., building the automatic semaphore system that would bring modern communication to the northwest. And in his free time, he aimed to mine enough gold to provide not just for his own fortune but for his sisters’ as well.
One evening, when Emma and Margaret sat alone, rereading George’s accounts of the wilderness in Washington Territory and the strange people who dwelt there, Emma’s father came up from the shop, looking pale as death and clutching his left arm. He passed in the night, and Emma knew their only hope now was to fetch back George, who could run the shop. Emma could tinker, she knew, but George was the real inventor. He could turn clockwork into the most magnificent things, such as the little bird that chirped and fluttered its wings that he had made for Margaret’s fifteenth birthday.
Emma prepared for the journey, entrusted Margaret with the keys to the building and the shop—she could at least continue to sell the stock they had—and with a large chunk of savings she bought an airship ticket to Fort Colville. She was fortunate in that the Hudson Bay Company deemed that outpost important enough for the trade of furs, and now gold as well, so that the airships flew there every third day to pick up trade goods and resupply the troops who had been posted to protect miners and trappers from the Indians. Margaret had once wondered aloud who protected the Indians from the miners and trappers, but Emma had no answer. She promised her sister she would ask George when she saw him, and with a kiss placed on Margaret’s forehead and a vow to write as often as she could, she set off.
On arrival in Fort Colville, Emma heard tell at the saloon that her brother and his inventions were quite renowned in these parts. There was eager talk of a self-rocking cradle with a strange electric ferromagnet that sucked magnetic ores up from the dirt in the sluice. When the cradle rocked to one side, it nudged a lever that briefly turned off the ferromagnet, dumping the remains out of the rocker and onto the ground. A clever device that significantly reduced the time it took to separate gold from the soil of the creek. But when she asked where George might be, they gave no indication of knowledge. Emma sent a message via semaphore to her sister, explaining that things were taking longer than expected.
When she went to the supply depot to get paraphernalia for her expedition to George’s claim, she learned other things about her brother as well.
“What do you mean he’s dead?” The breath went out of her.
“Captain Frazer found him, ma’am.” The young army man examined the toes of his boots with a great deal of care. “There’s been a vicious pair of claim jumpers, ma’am. Goin’ around committing the most heinous crimes.”
Emma tried to calm her panicked mind. With a deep inhalation, she collected her thoughts. George would need a funeral. No, she could not dwell on that presently else she would sob and wail in heart-aching sorrow here and now in the depot, and that would simply not do. She had to think of Margaret’s welfare. “Do you think they’ll come back?”
He shook his head. “I don’t rightly know, ma’am. But I do know they leave most everything but the gold behind, so…”
“So I might find whatever tools and contrivances he had there, and I can work the claim myself withal.” She presented the young soldier with the rough map her brother had sketched in a letter. “Can you show me where this is?”
As Emma Fletcher crouched in the water, she heard a sudden crack. Her hat blasted off her head and in shock she jumped upright and scanned the horizon for her assailant. Two men approached and faster than she could think, she whipped the gold pan around her like a Grecian discus and flung it at the head of the revolver-man. It struck him in the temple and he stumbled. Quick as a wink, she bent and plucked a large rock from the creek bed and thrust it with all her might at the man with the shotgun. Lady Luck came to her aid once again, as the projectile thumped the man squarely between the eyes so forcefully that blood welled up and he too went down.
She regarded the running waters of the creek in a daze and squinched her eyes tight. If I can make it to Kettle
Falls, she thought, I can cross the river on the Hudson Bay Company’s pneumatic goods bridge and get away. Then I can run to Fort Colville and catch the airship to Omaha where I can take the train home. She hadn’t yet managed to get enough gold for a ticket on the airship that went all the way to New York where her younger sister awaited her swift return. But this would have to suffice for the nonce. After that, she would get home by fair means or by foul. Doubtless by fair, she admitted to herself. I could never bring myself to become a criminal!
As Emma raced along the creek bed toward Kettle Falls, keen agonies shot through her head. It ached so she could hardly think. Probing fingers came away crimson and she realized the bullet must have grazed her. She did not wish to be shot again. No. I will not. She kept running.
The movement and fresh air invigorated her. The tall pines, which usually brought dusk even before sundown, did not seem to be blocking so much light as usual, even though their shadows grew long. Their bracing scent filled her nostrils and the creek bed glittered in the afternoon sunlight. The wildflowers on the bank reminded her of the bright pink blooms of the elephant-eared saxifrage her mother had grown in large planters on the flat roof of their building when Emma was young. She’d called it their own private jungle. Abruptly, Emma tripped over a rock and fell, twisting her ankle. Biting down her shriek and stabbing pain, she looked around angrily for the offending object. It wasn’t a rock at all. She pulled it towards her and was surprised by the rough texture of burlap. Inside was a pouch of leather, and within that… Oh, how it shines! What splendid color! Could this have been left here by George? A joy arose in her chest.
This would give her more than enough for a ticket on the airship, and an ample supply to care for her sister for the rest of their days as well. The trees on the far bank waved their gleaming emerald branches and the scarlet gilia flowers glowed like rubies afire. In the creek before her, a jewel-colored fish swished along. Casting her eyes upward, she saw a semaphore tower, surely one of the ones George had helped build, she decided. He had always been the one with clever ideas, and it was no surprise Daléns had hired him outright. The five lamps flickered on and off, light valves expanding and contracting in the process, relaying a message to someone in the distance. She stared at them for a while, and gradually they seemed to change colors. It was almost as if she could understand the information conveyed. Yes! It warned of two men, one with a mechanical arm. The lights flashed quicker and quicker, piercing her eyes, forcing her to look away. She must get up and get to the pneumatic bridge.
She struggled to her feet and hoisted up the oh-so-marvelously heavy burlap pouch. She took a step and nearly fell again. Blasted ankle. There! Just beside the stream she found a stick about the right length and began again, half-limping half-hopping her way along the creek. Her progress was painfully slow and sluggish. This is never going to work, she thought, when she looked up and spotted an untethered saddled horse in the distance. What good fortune I am having this day! Emma hobbled forward and the horse, clearly pleased to see a presumed friend, trotted to her side and practically presented its stirrup.
She wasted no time in tying the gold to the saddle, and putting her good foot in the stirrup, Emma threw herself up and over the horse’s broad back. “Giddyap,” she urged, remembering the command to persuade a horse to proceed. She turned her mount towards Kettle Falls, and the horse happily obliged.
Without warning, as the light grew ever stranger, the sky opened up. Hail the size of round pinheads began to fall, prickling her skin, stinging the flesh. The sky grew darker now and suddenly a flash of lightning. The horse reared up, knocking her off and depositing her in the creek, air expelled from her lungs. He ran off then, seeking shelter from the storm, gold still tied to the saddle. The hail continued to pierce Emma’s body and she could not move. Her skin was burning up, but the water felt cool on her cheek. And she became aware of something else. Blocking out the thoughts of her sister, the gold, the need to get to Kettle Falls, was a rhythmic sound. Distant at first, it grew louder, like the splashing of waves or the sound of an avalanche rushing through trees. Each crash seemed to get louder and louder, and Emma thought her desperation would burst through her chest once she realized it was the rocker box, steam engine still going strong.
The revolver-man’s bullet knocked off the woman’s hat as it passed through her skull and the gold pan she held was flung into the air. The shotgun blast sent grape shot into her back, arms, shoulders. She fell face-first into the trickling water and never rose again.
Jessica Augustsson is a speculative fiction copy editor, grammar nerd, eclipse chaser, part-time writer, and a bit of a geek. As a spec-fic copy editor, most of her writing can be found nestled among the words of other authors, but she can’t help typing out a few of her own stories now and then. As for spec fic in her own life, she was voted by her Idaho high school class to be the most likely to go live on the moon; when she was 20, she moved to Sweden so she guesses that’s pretty close.
The Gearmaster
by
Ariel Ptak
When my uncle told me a friend of his was looking for an apprentice—not an assistant or an employee, but an actual apprentice—and sent me to meet him with a letter of recommendation in hand, I have to admit I made certain assumptions. I guessed that I would be meeting a tinkerer with a shed somewhere behind his home or a small ground-floor room set aside as a workshop. I supposed that this would be an old-fashioned master of clockwork, the sort who spent months hand-crafting a single pocketwatch using ancient tools, techniques, and materials, with no room to experiment or improve.
I went, I have to say, with the expectation that once he discovered that Alex was short for Alexandria and not Alexander, he’d show me the door.
Long hair and skirts tend to have that effect, I’ve found.
To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I was shown through a comfortable house to a back-yard laboratory almost as large as the main building itself, and for a moment I could barely breathe, let alone stand. The walls were lined with shelves and worktables, cable coiled on hooks and lathes bolted down on tables. I could see a small forge in the farthest corner, smell the coal and hot iron even from the doorway. Skylights let the afternoon sun stream in and illuminate tangles of metal, racks of leather, tools and devices both familiar and bizarre.
The skeletal framework of an eight-headed monster rigged with mirrors and gears and a central cockpit stood just to my left. I could see the creativity, the insane innovation in the lines of the machine, and I knew I wanted to work here.
But just one apprentice? Surely this man needed half a dozen at least!
A door opened opposite the corner forge and a wiry man with a salted beard tottered through, arms trailing copper cable. A couple of brass gears fell from the mess and bounced across the floor.
“Oh Ssssss—” he caught sight of me— “sssalutations? Pardon me, pardon my mess, I wasn’t expecting…?”
I brought up my head, took a deep breath, and held the letter out to him.
“Dr. Bartholomew? I’m Alexandria Benton; my uncle, Roderick Selby, sent me.”
“Alexa…oh, Alex, of course!”
He dumped his armload on a convenient table and crossed the room with more honest enthusiasm than I had expected.
“I’m so sorry, I had completely forgotten you were coming today. Is that a letter from Rod? Here, I’ll read that later – for now, I’ve something to show you…”
“But…wait, I thought I was sent to interview for an apprenticeship?”
“Interview? If you’re Alex Benton then the interview is a formality. Your uncle showed me samples of your work and told me…well. I suppose there may be some questions and answers involved regardless. Very well, we’ll talk as we walk.”
All the while he ushered me towards that back door. I could see a faint blue glow emanating from the room beyond, a glow that reminded me at once of the smell of lightning and the sound of gears and the deep thrill o
f throwing the final lever and seeing your work come alive for the first time.
“Tell me, Alexandria,” the doctor said, throwing the door wide and revealing a starscape of humming lights, a beehive of metal come to life at the wave of his hand, pieces slotting together, tools punching rivets and sewing leather and turning screws…
“Do you believe in magic?”
The Hearing Aid
by
Charlotte Frankel
“…And so I told him you would settle the bill on Monday, dear,” bellowed Mrs. Constantine down the amplifying horn.
At the other end of the long tube, Mr. Constantine winced and adjusted his earpiece.
Mrs. Constantine smiled apologetically. “Too loud?”
“A trifle, dearest.” Mr. Constantine sighed. “However, it is the distortion that is causing me the most distress.”
He took out the earpiece, shook it and replaced it. “There surely must be a better solution for my failing hearing.”
“You should make the attempt yourself!” declared Mrs. Constantine, lowering her voice from bellowing to yelling. “You have always said your dream was to be an inventor.”
“You know, my love...” Mr. Constantine looked thoughtful. “Perhaps I shall.”
A few months later Mr. Constantine proudly presented his work.
“It’s a clockwork-powered hearing aid!”
Carrying a substantial box in his arms, he staggered over to the armchair opposite his wife and sat down.
He beamed at her. “It amplifies far more proficiently, and it is able to concentrate fully on what people are saying.”
“Astonishing!” cried Mrs. Constantine, her eyes wide. “How does it work, dear?”
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