Power Under Pressure (The Society of Steam)

by Andrew P. Mayer

  While Alexander Stanton had little patience for an endless barrage of childish questions, Darby had been glad to talk to her for as long as she wanted.

  And once her father had been willing to leave the old man and the child alone together, she could remember talking to Darby for hours while he worked on one project after another, patiently answering question after question.

  Not only had he responded to them completely and thoughtfully, he’d done so without hesitation or censorship. Far from finding such interrogation annoying, the old professor had seemed to revel in the challenge of facing off against the infinite innocent curiosity of a child.

  And if she didn’t understand one of his answers, or if Darby referenced something she had never heard of, Sarah could simply ask him to explain, and he would, in detail, describe whatever it was she didn’t yet know until he was sure she did. It had been an education like no other, and it had made her the woman she was today. Sadly, Sarah didn’t think she had anywhere near the old man’s endless patience, especially where Viola was concerned.

  “We can,” Sarah said, choosing her words carefully, and trying as much as possible to channel the spirit of her mentor, “simply do the best we know how.”

  “More drivel,” Viola said. “If we have the power to make the world better, then we should use that power.”

  “I haven’t had your life, Viola, and I never will. And I know you’ve suffered, but none of us can change the world alone. And it matters who you do it with.”

  “I expect childishness from you. All of your class think that you have something to offer the poor besides pain, but you can’t ever see yourselves as the cause of the sorrow you pretend to cure. But you, Tom, I think you do understand.”

  “But I will not . . . kill to get what I . . . want.”

  “But you will kill,” Viola said, and Tom gave no reply.

  “It’s still a game for both of you, but it has never been one for me. It has not been one for Emilio since he lost his family.” Viola pulled off her mask, revealing the scars underneath. “You spent your life around machines,” she said to Sarah, “so you think you know so much about the way things work, but you know nothing about the heart and the soul. You don’t know what makes men and women do the things they do when they are hungry, or desperate.”

  Viola looked up at the metal man, and ran her hand across his mask. “Thank you for this, Tom, but I won’t use it to fight in your rich-man’s wars. I have already hurt enough.”

  “Then who will you fight for, Viola?” Sarah truly felt sorry for her. She was no fool, but the girl was also treading into dangerous waters. “You need to trust someone.” She held out her hand. Perhaps if she gave her a gesture of friendship . . . She needed more heroes on her side. There was no way that she could fight Eschaton alone.

  “I do. But not you,” Viola said, replacing her mask. “You have your world, and I have mine. And in between them all we share is my brother. I’m sure you will get him to fight in your wars: he is a dreamer, and I think he loves you very much.” The sadness Sarah saw in Viola’s eyes was heartbreaking. “You will get Emilio, but not me.” Sarah’s hand lingered for a moment. She took it back, untouched.

  “I think,” Sarah said, looking at the costume, “that given time, you would be a great hero.”

  Viola smiled her twisted grin. “That is not what these costumes are about, and that is something you still need to learn. It is all a lie. It is something we all hide the truth behind.” It seemed as if the Italian girl’s madness had subsided for the moment. But Sarah wasn’t completely sure she was comfortable with the woman Viola had become. “And I will let you have Tom as well.”

  The red marks she had smeared across Tom’s face told a different story. “As if you could take him,” Sarah said angrily, wishing that she could recall the words after she had said them.

  Viola’s tone remained surprisingly calm. “He is more of a real man than you give him credit for.”

  Sarah glanced up at Tom for an instant and tried to hide her scowl. There was no doubt if she kept trying to play these jealous games with Viola she was going to lose, as she always did.

  Instead she let her fingers clutch at the rough fabric of her dress. “I’d like to talk to Tom alone now, if you don’t mind.”

  Viola laughed. “So, I’m not the only who’s curious just how much of a man he might be.”

  “Don’t be vulgar,” Sarah said, blushing. “In fact, don’t be here at all.”

  “This is still my home!” Viola said, the calm veneer of her cool finally cracking slightly, revealing the madwoman still hidden beneath the mask.

  “Please . . . Viola,” Tom said. Sarah could literally hear a note of concern in his voice that echoed through his strings. “Sarah and I have not . . . spoken in a long time.”

  The metal mask on her face shifted as the Italian girl pursed her lips together. “All right.” She pointed a finger at Tom. “I do this for you,” she said, and then swung the accusing digit toward Sarah, “but not for you.”

  Sarah nodded. “Fine.”

  Viola turned and ran back toward the house. Sarah found that she was still staring after her when Tom spoke again. “You don’t need to be . . . angry at Viola.”

  “I know.” Sarah felt a flush coming over her cheeks. It had been ridiculous for her to be jealous of the Italian girl. “She’s in pain.”

  “And it is my . . . fault.”

  “No. Tom, what happened in the theater . . . That wasn’t really you.”

  Tom paused for a long moment, and Sarah was about to try and tell him again when he interrupted her, “I am . . . sorry that I scared you . . . Sarah.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Tom.” She turned back to him and tried to raise up a smile. “That’s all over now. You’re here, and you’re safe.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “This is only just . . . beginning, I am afraid.”

  She couldn’t tell what he was afraid of. “What happened in the theater was an accident, you were confused . . .”

  “I am . . . changed. The Tom you knew . . . before is gone. I am something . . . different. And I am not yet . . . sure if that is . . . better, or worse.”

  Sarah wanted to block out his words and pretend she hadn’t heard them. This was everything she had been afraid to hear—the reason she had avoided talking to him. But she had been responsible for bringing him back, whatever he was. “In the theater, you told me you wanted to live.”

  “I did and I . . . do. But being alive is not . . . the same . . . as being . . . good. The heart of the . . . Pneumatic Colossus is still the same as the one that beats inside of me now.”

  “But you’re different now. You’re Tom again.”

  Tom stepped away from her. As he moved, Sarah could see how true his words were: he was different. “You are . . . right, to some . . . degree.” Where his original body had been deliberate and mechanical, there was now a liveliness in his actions. “My new . . . form is a part of . . . who I am.” Previously he had been urging himself into motion, and now it appeared it took all his will for him to stop. “It was . . . Emilio who suggested that I try to truly . . . re-create myself, rather than simply . . . rebuilding who I was.”

  She marveled again at the intricate weave of wire that covered his body. “You did a marvelous job.” Tom may have rewoven the wire to take ownership of the frame that Emilio had given him, but Sarah wanted to believe that some of Emilio’s goodness had come through in that new body as well. “I can’t imagine that anything dangerous could come from the person who had saved my life.”

  “Sir Dennis once . . . told me that any man could choose to wield a . . . paintbrush or a . . . gun with equal . . . dexterity.”

  “‘And it is only their will that sets them apart,’” Sarah said, completing the saying. It was a phrase he had been fond of repeating to her when she was a young girl. But there had come a point when he had stopped saying it. She wondered what had changed his view of the world.r />
  “Both . . . Viola and you think I am a man because that is the shape that . . . Sir Dennis gave me.”

  “I believe you have a soul, Tom.”

  The metal man stepped closer to Sarah, and she found herself slightly breathless. It came not only from his gleaming attractiveness, but also from the shape of his new body. Now that she had a chance to fully take him in, Sarah realized he was slim and tall, with an attractive curve that travelled down his spine. The tension in the wires that wrapped his frame made them vibrate with every move, giving him a hint of a predator about to strike. She tried not to let her fear show as he closed the space between them. “I have a . . . heart. Anything more than that is . . . conjecture.”

  Sarah looked up at him and put her hand against his chest, exactly the way Viola had. “I know better.” The metal was warm from the sunshine, and she could feel his heart beating beneath it.

  After a moment she reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a handkerchief. Standing up on her toes, she began to wipe the red smudges of paint off his face. “Thank you . . . Sarah.”

  “Someone needs to take care of you.” Most of the smudges were coming away, but even after repeated tries there was still an aura of Viola’s lips that remained. She had marked him.

  Tom nodded. “I meant . . . thank you for bringing me back.”

  Sarah smiled and kept cleaning. “I still need your help.”

  “To stop Lord Eschaton.”

  “He’s still looking for you.” The wind suddenly kicked up, and Sarah could feel dirt and sand swirling around her ankles. There was a time, not too long ago, when any breeze that could have penetrated her petticoats would have been shocking; now she was surprised she even noticed that her ankles were bare. “He still wants your heart.”

  “I believe that he needs it to create more . . . fortified steam.”

  “But he already has his smoke. Isn’t that what he needs to bring about his evil plan?”

  “He does not simply want to . . . destroy the world, he wants to . . . transform it.”

  Sarah had removed as much of the remnants of Viola’s kisses as she could without damaging the features underneath. Tom still looked as if he’d been attacked by a painted whore or an actress, but only slightly. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Eschaton was . . . transformed by the smoke and steam. Now he wants to rebuild . . . the world so that there are . . . thousands more, just like . . . him.”

  “And to do that, he needs your heart.”

  “It is the only . . . source. But he could make more, given time.”

  “You don’t think that . . .”

  “I am a machine . . . Sarah. What has been . . . created, can be . . . re-created. He will find a way.”

  Sarah wanted to argue with him, but she was tired of disagreeing with everyone. “We’re running out of time. I need to stop him.”

  “No, Sarah, you need to be safe. I will go to the . . . Paragons. I will convince them to . . . help.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Of course. You were gone. How could you know?”

  Tom cocked his head to the side. She wasn’t sure whether she found his oddly human gestures charming or condescending. “What has . . . happened?”

  “Eschaton has infiltrated the Paragons. They’re gone.”

  “Surely your . . . father . . .”

  Sarah felt an ache across her heart. “My father is dead.”

  “And . . . Nathaniel?”

  “Missing for months. If he’s still alive, that villain has him.”

  Sarah waited for Tom to reply, but he simply stood there, unmoving.

  “Are you all right, Tom?”

  “I will go and . . . fight him.” He rose up taller, as if preparing for battle.

  “Last time you tried he tore you to pieces. And everyone in the city thinks you were behind my father’s murder.”

  Tom slumped forward, his posture of defeat almost comical. “I must . . . protect you, Sarah.”

  “No, Tom. It’s not about me anymore. We must do what Darby created the Paragons to do . . .”

  “To protect those who cannot protect themselves.” He said it cleanly and perfectly, as if it had been burned into him. Thinking about Darby’s handwriting, etched into the walls of Tom’s heart, she wondered if it wasn’t.

  A new thought popped into Sarah’s head. “But now I know we have something that Eschaton doesn’t.”

  “Fortified steam.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, we will re-create the . . . Paragons?”

  Sarah thought about it for a moment. It was tempting to think that they could do what Darby had done. But it seemed as if every time they had tried to rebuild the past it had simply crumbled away. She could no longer stand in the shadow of Darby or her father. Win or fail, there was no turning back. “No.”

  “Then we are . . . the Society of Steam?”

  “Yes.” When she had been a child, pretending to be a hero like her father, she had never wanted to be anything more than a Paragon. But at a young age she had known in her heart that they would never accept a woman in their midst. So instead she had imagined a team of her own; one that wouldn’t turn away girls with an indomitable spirit, or anyone who truly dreamed of being a hero. “And whatever Eschaton’s plans are, we will put an end to them!”

  “It is a good name . . . Sarah.”

  “Of course you’d like it,” she said, slightly embarrassed at indulging her own childish whim.

  The wind blew stronger now, and Sarah could feel dust stinging her eyes. She slipped her arm through Tom’s and pulled him toward her. The limb gave slightly, strings yielding to the pressure she had put on them. “Come on, then, let’s go back to the house. Whoever, or whatever, you are, I need your help, and there’s a great deal of planning to do.”

  Chapter 10: Up the River

  CHAPTER 10

  UP THE RIVER

  “Come up hewe Gwüssew. I want you to see ze night, she is so bewutifuw, and it is about to be ze dawn.” The old man’s commanding voice echoed down from above, his particularly nasal tone ringing off the ship’s hull.

  The Submersible’s craft sat low in the water as they chugged along the East River, puffs of steam and smoke coming out from the tall tubes at its tail.

  Grüsser grabbed the rungs of the ladder and hauled himself up and out of the boat, crawling through the hatch to reach the main deck. He felt slightly dizzy, his breathing heavy as he pulled in a breath through the tight collar of his Chronal Suit.

  The old man didn’t bother to extend a hand to help him as he pulled himself up through the hatch. The first rays of dawn were streaking through the sky. It wouldn’t be long before the sun broke over the horizon. “It is very gut.”

  “But youw ship, my fat fweind, she is not vewy good.”

  “Zen ist gut that der ship ist nicht mine, now,” Grüsser mumbled to himself as he got to his feet. The insane Frenchman had stolen it away from him, and then, adding insult to injury, Grüsser had been forced to assist le Voyageur in turning it into something else.

  “You awe aways compwainig, awen’t you, weetle pig?” The Frenchman looked over his shoulder at him, squinting in the way that he always did when he was looking for something else to criticize Grüsser for.

  And recently the old man had plenty of time to needle him. They had spent the last few days driving the boat up and down the coastline looking for the rumored junkyard hideout of the man who had been with Sarah Stanton when the Automaton had made its deadly reappearance at the theater.

  Grüsser had been shocked to learn not only that Alexander Stanton’s daughter was still alive, but that she had managed to successfully bring the metal Paragon back to life.

  He had seen the shredded remains of metal man’s body in the park, and he would have thought any kind of restoration of the Automaton was impossible, but if there was a single trait that had defined both Sarah and her father, it was tenacity.

  Grüsser cer
tainly wouldn’t have suspected that a society girl would be able to survive and thrive in the streets of New York. Even so, the rumors were that she had taken up with a man, so it was likely that her honor was no longer intact. He supposed that was the price that a woman paid for trying to ignore her duty.

  But she was Stanton’s girl, and he was sworn to protect her from threats such as the Children of Eschaton, and here he was hunting her down. He could only marvel at how quickly he had fallen so low, and yet his capacity for self-loathing had yet to be satiated. And that made him sicker still.

  “Is thewe a pwobwem?”

  “Nein.” Grüsser shook his head and swallowed his pride.

  “Good, my soft Pwussian.” The Frenchman’s tone was utterly patronizing. “We have much work weft to do.”

  Le Voyageur gave the metal wheel a hard spin to the right, and the engine’s roar rose in pitch as the ship steered toward the other side of the river, navigating around a steamship anchored in the harbor.

  “Not bad, eh? This wittle ship is now so much more nimbew than it was when it had simpwy been Dawby’s cwunky invention.” Grüsser couldn’t disagree more. The Submersible had been an elegant ship, capable of sliding beneath the water with only a ripple on the surface above. Darby had even equipped the latest iteration to travel without any external oxygen for an hour or more.

  The old engineer had sacrificed all of that for an “improvement” in speed and handling that was hardly worth the effort. Now the ship was a disaster—filled with machinery he barely understood—a victim of le Voyageur’s endless quest for power and speed. What had once been spacious and simple was now a spider web of pumps and pistons. It was Grüsser’s firm belief that the Frenchman’s most basic goal had been to deface Darby’s work.

  “And we wiww make it bettew stiwe.” As if in protest to le Voyageur’s boast, there was a loud bang, and flame spat out from the pipe in the rear of the boat. A second later the engine groaned, and dark smoke began to leak out from a tube at the back of the ship.