eSteampunk Vol. 01 No. 03

by Anthology

  I like the change in pace when the scene dissolves into the drawing of Oscar enveloped in steam, amidst an explosion. Another break, and we see Adam and Lila. The blocking here is brilliant. First we see him shot from the back and her face and then as the dialogue switches, so does the point of view. A close up adds tension as we just aren’t sure how close she should get to Adam. She asks coquettishly, “Did you send the file?” He assures her he did not. She leans in, “Do you swear?” Here is where everything changes. He says, “Problem fair maiden?” The shot pulls back, clearly showing her disdain and repugnancy for him. She backs up. The music stops abruptly, her face changes. The mood changes. We have one final break and this one is longer, adding to the suspense. Lila comes on film pleading for her life. The film fades in and out as if it’s coming off its reel: and we are left with a sense of her desperation and fear.

  The acting is excellent, the characters believable. Ben Whalen is the likeable hero. He’s the expert computer hacker, yet he also manages to be the boy next door. He is smitten by the lovely Lila DeClide, and I found myself rooting for him, hoping he will win her love. We see his dedication as he tries to get the computer running and keep it running. It’s the key to information that will save Lila. Rebecca Lynch plays the fetching prostitute well, the girl who knows how to primp for the camera, thus enticing her clients. She plays this to the hilt in every moment, every movement. We see a glimpse of the real Lila when she is in danger, first when Oscar warns her and then next when she is grabbed and then finally with her plea. Derek Houck’s character strikes me as part clown, part chameleon, mostly charlatan. He’s polished and polite. Maybe too much. Lynch shows us this when she backs away from him. Although what he says to her is proper, even polite, it’s the way he says it that repulses her. Something is very wrong here.

  Despite how much I like the teaser, it does have a few problems. For one thing, I find Oscar’s reaction from smiling at Lila’s image to suddenly being concerned for her, too abrupt. I think a break is needed here, since they were done so effectively elsewhere. Just a brief break would cue us to a change in what Oscar sees. Having seen the first four scripts, I understand exactly what’s happening here. But I have to wonder, will the audience? Also, I could not make out what Lila says in her plea. “To all…something [perhaps “lads” but it was never clearly audible]…” I watched the teaser several times and never did decipher what she said.

  Lastly, the teaser leaves me with a nagging question. Will the viewers understand the significance of the line, “Would you risk your freedom?” Without having read the script, probably not. It needs another visual, something, to make it clear why Oscar’s freedom is at stake. Despite these small matters, it does nothing to deter my need to watch for the web series with great anticipation.

  The teaser does exactly what it should do; it makes me want more. Production is expected to start in the spring, episodes to be released every two weeks. For more information about the series and how you can connect through Facebook and Twitter, and keep abreast of all the Progress news, check out www.progresstheseries.com

  Lisa Finch was given the first four scripts of the Progress and a download of the official teaser for a fair and honest review. Neither she nor eSteampunk was promised anything in return.

  Black Dragon Blues

  Brent Nichols

  Episode Two – Assault in Le Havre

  Yi Lan walked out of the terminal and into the streets of Calais. It was a relief to be out of England. She was better with French, the language of international diplomacy, than English, and the English had been grating on her nerves. But her mission was finally complete, with just one loose end to tidy up.

  Her quarry would be easy to track. A Chinese man in a business suit would stand out on the streets of a French town, even without a dislocated shoulder and a knife wound. She would catch up with him soon and finish what she’d started.

  A sign caught her eye, a picture of a giant finger poised over a telegraph key. She decided she would check in with her European contact. If the hunt went badly, someone would know what had happened.

  She took a minute to encode the key points of her report. The clerk raised his eyebrows when he saw the form, whether because of the mysterious string of characters or because she was Chinese she didn’t know. But he shrugged, took her money, and started transmitting.

  Her next stop was the train station. It was unlikely that the assassin would take such an obvious route, but a wise hunter was thorough. Chen, of course, was nowhere in sight. She set off for the docks but stopped in at the telegraph office to see if there was a reply.

  The clerk’s eyes rolled a bit as he handed her an envelope. She grabbed a pencil stub, put her back to one corner of the room, and set to work decoding the message. Then she blinked in surprise: Cease pursuit travel immediately to Le Havre protect Molly Carter 519 Rue Diberville

  She swore. Chen was a dangerous opponent, and she might never again have him wounded and on the run. However, duty called. She shredded the message and headed back to the train station.

  As the station fell behind, she walked the full length of the train and assured herself that she was the only Asian on board. She sat down and let herself relax, her fingers gently probing her side where Chen had caught her with a lucky kick. She was bruised, but her ribs seemed to be intact. She pushed the pain from her mind.

  In a secret corner of her mind, she was glad Chen would escape. In a strange way she had more in common with him—her mortal enemy—than with the people she was protecting. He was a fellow Chinese, a fellow warrior. Under other circumstances he might have been a good friend.

  She left the train in Le Havre, hopped into a hansom cab, and said, “Rue D’Iberville.” The clopping horse brought her out of the medieval heart of the city and into a newer district of row housing near the waterfront. There were no visible house numbers, so she paid the cab driver and hopped out.

  On closer examination she found the buildings did have numbers, small and obscured by grime. Not for the first time Lan wondered if the wonders of steam were worth the filth deposited by coal. The new infused coal was supposed to be a clean solution, burning hotter so you only needed a fraction as much. People just responded by burning more, creating ever more elaborate machines. The whole world would be coated in soot at this rate.

  She found the number 519, under a small sign that read, “Carter and Wilkinson, Manufacturing and Repairs.” She tugged on the bell pull and waited.

  The door opened to reveal a young woman, just a girl really, certainly less than twenty. She loomed over Lan, as Europeans so often did. Her hair was a tousled mass of cinnamon curls that framed an oval face of palest white. She spoke French with a husky voice and a distinct English accent.

  “Monsieur Wilkinson is in Paris at the moment. Perhaps I can help you?”

  “I’m looking for Molly Carter.”

  The girl smiled. “That’s me. What can I do for you?”

  Where to begin? “It’s complicated,” Lan said.

  Molly shrugged. “Well, then, would you like to come in?”

  She turned her back and led the way deeper into the building. Lan walked behind her, reflecting that, whatever danger the girl was in, she was clearly unaware of it. They passed an office with a couple of dusty desks and a workshop with disassembled gears on benches, and finally arrived at a small, cozy kitchen. Lan frowned, bemused. What interest could the Black Dragon gang have in this perfectly ordinary girl?

  Molly gestured at a stool. “Please sit down. Would you like tea?”

  “No, thank you.” Lan perched on the stool, shifting so she could see the doorway and the window. Molly took another stool and peered at her expectantly.

  “This is difficult to explain.” Lan caught herself fidgeting and made herself stop. “You are in danger, and I don’t know why.”

/>   There was open skepticism on Molly’s face, and Lan sighed. “I’m a member of an ancient organization known as the Granite Palm Brotherhood. We serve the Emperor of China. I was sent to Europe to stop agents of a criminal organization. For some reason they are interested in you.”

  Molly just gazed at her, a little smile on her lips.

  “I know it sounds strange,” Lan admitted, “but it’s why I’m here. I’ve been instructed to protect you. Tell me, have you seen any Chinese people around?”

  Molly’s smile deepened, but she thought about it. “Well, there’s old Mr. Ping. He runs a newspaper shop down the street. I’ve been getting Canadian papers from him for the last six months or so.”

  Lan cursed silently. How difficult would it have been for the Berlin office to send her a little background?

  “Look,” said Molly, “Miss, ah...”

  “Yi Lan,” said Lan.

  “Miss Lan. I don’t know—”

  “It’s Miss Yi,” Lan said absently. “Chinese put the family name first.”

  “Oh. Miss Yi, then. Sorry. I don’t think I’m in any danger, so thank you for your concern, but I won’t be needing your services.”

  “His name is Chen Chang.” Lan could hear the desperation in her own voice, but she had to try. “He’s been training himself, body and mind, for twenty years. He’s a cold-blooded, very efficient killer. I injured him, but it won’t matter. He will come here, he will kill you, and there is nothing you can do about it. I’m the only one who can protect you, and you’re sending me away.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Molly stared at her, wide-eyed, and the moment stretched out. And in the silence Lan heard a tiny sound, a metallic scratch from the back of the building.

  Molly opened her mouth to speak, and Lan interrupted her. “Do you have a back door?”

  “Yes, it’s—”

  Lan rose and darted to the hall, ears straining. It was a tiny sound, commonplace, it could be anything.

  Including a pick turning the tumblers of a lock.

  She stepped into the corridor and moved toward the back of the building. The back door was old, weathered, a solid slab of dark wood warped a bit with age. The lock was similarly ancient, and Lan stared at the door handle. Was it trembling ever so slightly?

  There was a crash of sound behind her, a violent impact of metal and timber that shook the building and brought dust drifting down from the ceiling. Molly gave a small squeal and darted toward the front door.

  There was another impact, and the front door shook, the wood of the door frame splintering. And the lock on the back door gave a final click. Lan watched the bolt slide back and gathered herself. The back door swung open a careful, quiet inch, and she hurled herself forward. Her foot slammed into the door, it crashed open, and she heard the impact of wood on bone.

  The door bounced shut, someone swore in Cantonese, and she re-locked the bolt. Then the house shook with another impact from the front. She turned to see the front door burst inward. Men filled the doorway, hulking forms, the man in front carrying a sledgehammer. They surged in, and Lan darted forward. Molly stood in the hallway, frozen, her mouth ajar, and Lan caught her around the waist and hustled her into the workshop across the hall.

  The workshop door was much flimsier, the lock a token thing that wouldn’t stand up to a good kick. Lan shot the bolt home, then dragged over a work bench and pushed it against the door.

  Molly ran to the far side of the room and out through another door. Lan swore under her breath and followed. It was going to be a tough assignment if her client was prone to panic.

  She found herself in a walled yard filled with the shadowy, hulking shapes of machinery. There was a gate at the back. It looked sturdy enough, but the walls were less than eight feet high. They would be no barrier at all to a man like Chen.

  Wood splintered behind her, and Lan whirled. The doorway into the workshop was in pieces, and men were swarming in, clambering over the work bench. They were rough-looking men in the clothing of French laborers. Chen had hired local toughs to help with his dirty work.

  She itched to tackle them. There were fewer than half a dozen, no match for someone with her training. But Chen might come over the wall and kill Molly. Lan pushed the door shut instead. It opened outward, she saw with relief. A battered old chair stood nearby, and she wedged it under the doorknob.

  The door started to shake immediately. The sledgehammer would make short work of it. Lan turned her back on the door, though, and made herself scan the yard. If Chen wasn’t in the yard already, it would only be a matter of moments.

  Movement caught her eye, but it wasn’t Chen. It was something bigger, a vast metal shape that made Lan gape, her jaw slack in disbelief. She glimpsed Molly, eyes bright with excitement, watching her from inside a steel contraption like a rice bowl five feet wide. The steel bowl was rising, higher and higher, on steel legs powered by pistons in brass cylinders. When the bowl was a dozen feet or more in the air, the whole thing came toward Lan in a lurching walk.

  Lan stood, frozen in astonishment, wondering if she should run, and the contraption hissed and came to a stop. There were two toboggan-sized feet on piston-activated ankles, two long, spindly legs, and a cluster of machinery just below the bowl. Clouds of steam came billowing from the joints, and the bowl descended until the rim was just above Lan’s head.

  Molly was wearing clear goggles and a leather helmet, along with an ear-to-ear grin. “Come on, Lan,” she cried. “Let’s go!”

  A shadow moved in the corner of Lan’s eye as Chen, nimble as a cat, came over the back wall. At the same time the chair under the doorknob shattered, the door flew open, and a man with a sledgehammer stumbled into the yard.

  That was all the encouragement Lan needed. She ignored Molly’s outstretched hand, grabbed the rim of the bowl, and sprang inside.

  Instantly Molly pulled a lever, and the bowl rose into the air. The contraption had clearly been designed for one person, and Lan found herself wedged awkwardly between Molly and the back of the bowl. She clutched the edge of the bowl and hung on for dear life while Molly, her voice unconscionably cheerful, shouted, “Here we go!”

  She added a completely unnecessary “Hang on!” as the machine lurched toward the back wall. There was a clang from below as the thug with the sledgehammer took a swing at their metal legs, but the machine didn’t slow down. Lan needed all of her mental training to keep from closing her eyes as one leg rose up impossibly high and they stepped over the back wall.

  A moment later the other leg was over, and Molly took them trotting down the street. The machine swayed and swung, and Lan fought to keep her stomach from rising.

  There was quite a racket, from the wheeze of hydraulics to the clatter of gears to the scuff and thud of the machine’s metal feet on the alley below. They rounded a corner and trotted onto Rue D’Iberville, and the noise grew worse as the metal feet struck cobbles.

  “It’s called Steam Trousers,” Molly shouted as she worked the controls, tugging the levers that made the legs rise and fall. “I don’t think the man who designed it is entirely right in the head. They aren’t very practical, but they sure came in handy today.”

  Men poured out of the alley behind them. The steam trousers took huge steps, but a running man could keep up, and the man in the lead still had his sledgehammer. Even more worrisome, there was no sign of Chen.

  “Can this thing go any faster?” Lan shouted.

  “Nope. That’s just one of its problems.”

  Lan’s eyebrows rose. “Just one? What else is wrong with it?”

  “Well, the knees come apart sometimes. That’s why the owner brought it in. I think we have that fixed, though.”

  She sounded less than certain, and Lan leaned out, trying to look at the piston-powered knees. A bigger-than-us
ual lurch nearly sent her flying from the bowl, and she shrank down, holding the rim in a white-knuckled grip.

  “It needs a lot of room to turn corners,” Molly continued, “and it doesn’t handle hills or uneven ground very well.”

  Lan ran through what she had seen so far of Le Havre. Narrow, winding streets, steep hills, and sudden switchbacks to allow the streets to climb the hills.

  “On the brighter side,” Molly added with insufferable cheerfulness, “we can see across the rooftops, so we can plan our route.”

  For the first time Lan lifted her gaze from the street and looked out at eye level. The expanse of rooftops filled her with vertigo, and she quickly dropped her gaze. Suddenly the thought of being cornered by their pursuers didn’t seem so bad. It would be a desperate battle, but at least they would be on the ground.

  She looked ahead and saw a blank expanse of row houses. They were coming to a hairpin curve, and Molly frowned in concentration as she worked the controls. The steam trousers made a wide, looping turn. By the end of it Lan could have reached out and brushed the walls of the row houses beside them, if she hadn’t been holding on with both hands. The running men below nearly caught up, and the leader even took a swing with his hammer, missing by several inches.

  Then the trousers were around the curve, plodding along at the same tireless, unhurried pace. The street climbed, and the men running behind them started to pant and stumble.

  “How long can this thing keep going?” Lan asked.