eSteampunk Vol. 01 No. 03

by Anthology

  “Interesting.” His voice was nearly lost amidst mechanical growls.

  “It is, ain’t it.” This voice was clearer but far less pleasant.

  Sarah rose to see Scabbry coming toward her, his truncheon tapping against his open hand.

  “Well look at this,” he said. “I thought I spied a miscreant creeping round my control room. Can’t be having that. But at least it’s my favourite miscreant. And no bars between us now.” She stepped back as he approached, trying to keep as far from him as she could. Her foot knocked the wrench, and it tumbled into the open hole, clattering away into darkness.

  “Careful,” Sir Reginald called out, oblivious to everything but the machine.

  “Don’t meet many proper ladies out here,” the warder said. “This is quite the opportunity.”

  Sarah’s back was up against the glass, her heart pounding, her hands groping desperately around for anything that might help.

  “What d’you reckon, Hemsworth?” Scabbry called out to the junior guard. “You got the horn?”

  “Um...” Hemsworth stood uncertainly.

  “He would, as well.” Scabbry leaned close and whispered, one hand running up her side, his breath rancid in her face. “He might look innocent, everyone does at the start. But this place don’t leave that for long.”

  Sarah swung her knee up, but Scabbry smacked it aside with his cudgel.

  “Think no-one’s ever fought dirty on me before?” He took a step back, leaving Sarah to clutch her throbbing leg. His leering, greasy face still filled her vision. “Don’t worry,” he continued. “It ain’t gonna be like that.”

  He turned and gestured to Hemsworth, who took an uncertain hold of Sarah’s arm.

  “Not yet, anyway.” Scabbry grinned. “Gonna get you both back into your cells first, along with the rest of the scum.”

  “Possibly not” Sir Reginald raised his head from the hole. He was clutching a handful of cables and grinning like an excited child. “I’ve worked it all out now. Did you know that we could do this?”

  He pulled a lever and tugged one of the cables, and the room lurched, the flooring tipping wildly. Sarah grabbed a rail, even as Hemsworth lost his grip and went tumbling down the room, to end slumped against the wall like an old rag doll. Scabbry staggered backwards, trying to keep his footing as his own bulk carried him down towards the windows. There was a crunch as he hit the glass, fractures forming a white web beneath him.

  “Or this.” Sir Reginald turned a dial, and the room righted itself, flinging Scabbry to the floor. The warder lay still, clutching his head and groaning.

  “Or this.” There was a grinding of gears, and outside the window, one of the walkways swung from its place along the top of the cells, pivoting on its concrete axis until it crashed through the damaged window, scattering glass across Scabbry. Sunlight blazed from each shard.

  Sir Reginald held out an arm. In the chaos of her mind and the vast distance from here to civilisation, it took Sarah a minute to realise what he meant. But after a brief hesitation, she put her arm through his and allowed herself to be led across the room, past the prostrate Scabbry, and out through the hole where the window had been. As they passed she took a vicious delight in grinding her heel into the warder’s back. She almost regretted the cruelty of the gesture.

  Almost.

  The riot was still raging below, though the warders had contained it to one corner of the prison and were moving in, batons raised, squeezing the inmates together until they could barely swing their arms to fight. Sarah and Sir Reginald crossed the walkway to the outer wall of the prison, descended a deserted set of maintenance stairs, passed through an open side door, and emerged into freedom.

  Sarah took a deep breath, fresh with the scents of trees and flowers, not hundreds of angry, sweaty men. Her body tingled with joy to be out of that place.

  “I hope that you don’t mind my asking,” she said, carried to impertinence by her jubilation, “but even after all of this I am still terribly curious. Why did you destroy that boat?”

  “Hm?” Sir Reginald stared at her blankly, lost in his own private world of gears and spindles.

  “The boat?” she said again, wondering if, after everything, he would still keep his secret. “Why destroy it?”

  “I wanted to see how this place worked,” Sir Reginald said, gesturing back to the prison, his face lighting up like a child with a new toy. “But no-one would let me see the plans. It seemed like the surest way to get inside.”

  He looked so proud and excited, Sarah found herself stunned. To undo his own work, to risk the lives of others just to scratch an intellectual itch, she could barely believe it. She had worked so hard, laid her life on the line for the cause of millions, and here was a man throwing everything away just for curiosity.

  She could still hear the sounds of violence, the screams and cries and brutal blows, rising up over the prison wall. There were grinding noises too, the malfunctions Sir Reginald had set in motion now tearing this place apart, destroying it as surely as the boat. This whole terrible edifice shattered by Shadow Puma’s scheming and Sir Reginald’s whim. She should have been happy to be free, to see her personal hell destroyed, but it was too futile for words.

  She put a hand into her pocket, felt the worn, familiar nub of a spoon. Maybe there was a way this could have meaning.

  “Do you think that the newspapers will come to see this?” she asked.

  “I suppose so.” Sir Reginald had that quizzical look again, like she was some machine whose workings he could not fathom.

  “Then I shall leave them a note.”

  And one more time, for all the world to see, she scratched her message across the prison’s concrete wall.

  An Empire’s Conception

  Jeffrey A. Ballard

  13 Ventôs, Year X of the French Republic (13 March, 1800)

  Renard couldn’t meet his wife’s eyes over the table in the center of the hovel. Instead, he sat and studied the dust swirling through the light of a solitary window. Now that the moment was here it proved more than he could bear.

  A violent cough from his daughter, Olivie, cracked the silence. There were no good decisions left. No matter the choice he made regrets would follow.

  His wife’s gaze bored into him. “You’re not going.”

  Renard focused on the dust. “I bought two stéres of wood.”

  She slapped him. “Your daughter’s dying, and all you can think of is that infernal machine. While she lies sick, asking where you are, you sit in that shed tinkering with metal tubes. How much time do you think Olivie has?”

  He didn’t answer.

  He needed the wood to drive his invention, a steam powered, self-propelling wagon, into the heart of Paris to the Théâtre National on opening night of a new opéra. The First Consul was rumored to attend.

  If Renard could secure the First Consul’s patronage, they could afford the proper care for Olivie. They could get her out of this dank room that smelled of stale sweat and urine.

  “Out, then,” his wife said. “If that is what you love, then go sleep with it. Out!”

  Renard drifted over to the corner and kissed Olivie’s forehead. Hot, she’s so hot, he thought. He left with tears in his eyes.

  There were no good decisions left.

  * * *

  The next day Renard addressed a crowd from the wagon as it chugged back and forth in front of the Théâtre National. The First Consul had arrived and wandered over with his retinue of officers and advisers, but Renard couldn’t read his expression. The diminutive man just stood there, his right hand threaded between buttons over his stomach, and watched.

  Earlier the crowd had looked amazed, but now they mirrored the First Consul’s aloofness. Renard needed to recapture some of his earlier swag
ger, inject some excitement.

  “What do you know of Watt’s steam engine?” Renard contrived a grin and tried to imagine a twinkle in his eye.

  No one responded. Fifty or so stone faces stared back at him.

  Renard plowed on. “This engine is three times more efficient and three times smaller. The key is to pressurize the steam, not cool it in a condenser to do the work. Leave it to a lazy dog-faced Englishmen to avoid work.”

  Renard forced the only laugh. His face felt worn, stretched from holding a lie. But this was Olivie’s last chance.

  He tried again.

  He addressed the First Consul directly, “Sir, imagine an army that doesn’t need to rely on horses, or feed them, or rest them. An army that can pull twenty guns with four of these, instead of ten guns with five horses.”

  The First Consul might as well be a statue.

  A lone drop of sweat splashed down the inside of Renard’s shirt onto the side of his stomach. It was cold, vivid against the silence of a hundred eyes.

  Olivie — for her, he would dare. “Is that not an advantage France would want, First Consul?”

  The crowd held its collective breath, watching the First Consul for his response.

  Nothing. The man remained impassive.

  Renard couldn’t breathe. Colors began to dim.

  Finally, the First Consul came to life. He strode forward to address Renard and the crowd. “Tell me, can this travel through mountain passes? Up hills? Through forests?”

  Renard managed to shake his head no.

  The First Consul continued, but his words seemed to float without meaning, “Instead of hauling feed, I need to haul wood? Can my soldiers eat wood? Eat this metal beast if necessary?” He smiled at the crowd, and they laughed. “I thought not.” He didn’t even wait for a response, but turned on his heel toward the théâtre.

  Renard staggered into a sitting position on the edge of the wagon, trying to catch his breath.

  “Please!” Renard struggled to form the words. “My daughter’s dying... I–I need patronage.”

  The First Consul’s boots echoed sharply on cobble stone amidst the shuffle of the dispersing crowd. The piercing clacks didn’t even slow.

  * * *

  Renard held Olivie’s hand as her little body spasmed and fought. The healer had said one, possibly two days. He couldn’t even afford the herbs to ease her transition.

  Regrets were all he had.

  His unfocused eyes rested on the packed bag of his wife’s belongings. She had packed it in silent accusation in front of him. He had become a ghost in a room that had ceased to be home.

  Someone knocked on the door. Probably the healer again for his payment, Renard thought. He stayed at Olivie’s side. There was no money left.

  His wife opened the door.

  “Is the engineer Renard Fournier here?”

  Renard turned to see a French army officer at the door and recognized him from the First Consul’s retinue.

  “Yes,” Renard said. He stood and walked over. “I am he.”

  The officer entered and closed the door behind him. “First Consul Bonaparte wishes to engage your services for the French Army.”

  Renard licked his lips. “My daughter—”

  “An army surgeon has been assigned to your daughter.”

  Renard’s wife clutched his arm.

  The officer continued, “The surgeon will be sent once you agree.”

  “I agree.” Renard nodded, surprised.

  “Your appointment is to be kept secret. This is why the First Consul was gruff with you. Don’t expect an apology. He would like you to see this.” The officer handed him a long parchment.

  Renard unfurled it. The name Jean Baptiste Marie Meunsier and date Quatre Floréal, Year I, was scrawled along the top, next to the word “Dirigible.” Plans for a giant airship greeted him.

  The soldier asked, “Can you make an engine for this?”

  Renard rested his hand over his wife’s and smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

  A Review of

  The Wizard of OZ:

  a Steampunk Adventure

  Mandy Alyss Brown

  What S.D. Stuart didn’t know when he sent me an advance reader copy of his book, The Wizard of OZ: a Steampunk Adventure, was that I cannot stand “The Wizard of Oz.” That’s right. Call me a party pooper, but after having my mother play it once a week to keep us kids quiet and after singing “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” in elementary school every year in programs over and over again, I became rather burnt out on the whole munchkin and wizard world. So when I opened Stuart’s book on my Kindle, I wasn’t sure I’d read it all the way through. I was ready to put it down at the mere mention of a yellow brick road or a dog named Toto. But that moment never came.

  In The Wizard of OZ: a Steampunk Adventure, Dorothy Gale becomes an orphan, losing her mother to a gunfight and her father to a kidnapping. She trains while living on Uncle Henry and Aunt Em’s Farm for Displaced Children, waiting for the day when she knows where to look for her father. That day arrives when a transmission comes in from the Outcast Zone (OZ), the Australis Penal Colony where undesirables are sent from good society. Dorothy travels to OZ only to get mixed up in the backstabbing politics of Marshal power. Dorothy must use her wits and allies (if such thing exists in OZ) to keep herself alive, find her father, and get out of the Outcast Zone.

  I enjoyed finding a story very different from its namesake. Stuart makes a nod to several of the American classic’s icons; Dorothy’s gang includes a robot she calls Scarecrow, a Lion named Caleb, and another robot called Woodsman who she asks to “have a heart” at one point in the novel. The Witches are Marshals in Stuart’s world, and Toto is nonexistent, though there are attack dogs. Stuart’s references are tasteful without overbearing his story, which was refreshing. I kept waiting for a reference to ruby slippers that never came, but because the ending leaves room for a sequel, I may not be disappointed.

  Some plot twists felt forced within the narrative, and other times there seemed to be factual discrepancies. When Dorothy first met Caleb, the lion of the story, it is briefly before she knows she has to go to OZ. He later shows up in OZ and claims he has been there his entire life. While I was distracted by what looked like discrepancies, Stuart explains himself within a couple of chapters, using the seeming errors to the plot’s advantage.

  Punctuation fanatics, such as myself, will be a bit bugged by some run-ons and awkwardly long sentences. The second sentence of the first chapter (not a run-on) is a whole forty-two words long, and there were a few more long sentences that stuck out to me as being unnecessarily wordy. While I usually have an inward flinch for run-ons, they stopped bugging me as I progressed through the adventure with Dorothy and took off my editor cap to just enjoy the story.

  Overall I enjoyed the story and look forward to reading more of Stuart’s work soon. Maybe I’ll even grow to like “The Wizard of Oz” again. S. D. Stuart’s new twist on the American classic, The Wizard of OZ: a Steampunk Adventure, is available on Amazon’s Kindle for $4.99 and in paperback for $14.99.

  Mandy Brown was given an advance reader copy of this book for a fair and honest review. Neither she nor eSteampunk was promised anything in return.

  The Important Blueprints and the Boy Detective

  J. Woolston Carr

  The tiny balloon ship landed with a thud, skidding and bouncing before it bumped upright against the stony outcrop. The basket tilted precariously and righted itself so that it avoided tumbling over the side of the cliff. The balloon wobbled overhead and then steadied. It was operated by a young boy, who had enough room in the wicker basket for himself and a reinforced cage large enough to hold another person. With the steam burner, fuel box and pipes and hoses, there wasn’t much space lef
t for him to do much but stand and fly the airship. Yet it offered the most efficient means of transportation in America in 1875.

  The boy bounded out of the basket and moored it to the thick branch of a sturdy leafless tree. He was followed by the clank of four metal paws and the huff of steam as something rattled on to the ground next to him. The iron creature was shaped like a basset hound, its snout gleaming bronze while a pair of glass eyes seemed to look disapprovingly at the boy.

  “That was a poor landing, Mr. Worthy,” it said in a piping metallic voice.

  “Don’t call me Mr. Worthy. That’s my Dad’s name. It’s Trust to my friends and Trouble to my enemies.”

  “Speechifying won’t impress me, you know. And you don’t have any enemies.”

  “Nothing impresses you. You’re just a Metalliferous Hound. Besides, after today, I will have enemies. Can you sniff him out from here?” asked Trust.

  “Of course. That is one of my abilities.” His bronze snout lay on the ground, and puffs of steam issued from the cavities that were his nostrils. He had a tubular body, stubs of legs that nevertheless propelled him at great speeds and a retractable tail. His long ears flopped and clinked as he moved, but they stood straight up when he needed to hear something in the distance.

  Romeo Worthy, who preferred the name Trust, sighed. Not for the first time did he wonder how he hooked up with the most criticizing fusspot of a metal hound to help him. Every Pinkerton Agent had a Metalliferous Hound that aided in tracking quarries and a Roundabout Airship Balloon for pursuing and confining their quarry. Bucephalus, or Beau as he called him, did have his uses. And considering the circumstances of his situation as a Pinkerton Detective, Trust felt he was lucky to be partnered with one.