“I’m tryin’, I’m tryin’” he grumbled as he took aim again and again, missing each time. He emptied the chamber of cartridges and began to reload.
The League of Ornery Bedfellows gained on us as Louise failed to avoid two rather sizable rocks in our path. The steamdriver scraped its side along the rocks allowing them to gain on us terribly. They were nearly on top of us and I could see the Fool taking aim. As they neared, I feared the Fool would finally get his fatal shot on one of us and it looked to be the largest target, The Strongman, still loading his pistol.
Just as we pulled side to side with them, The Strongman slammed the chamber closed, thrust his arm forward, and fired. The bullet tore down the massive barrel of The Fool’s rifle, kicking it from his hands. The Strongman then reached over and clobbered him, knocking him out once more. The Fool fell down onto Sasha nearly causing her to lose control of the vehicle.
The Strongman then swiftly aimed his hand cannon at the desert-driver's steam engine and fired, exploding the fine piece of machinery as they spun out and became engulfed in the storm which seemed to subside behind us and taper off.
The League of Ornery Bedfellows disappeared into the plume of dust and sand and I think we all breathed a sigh of relief. Through the umbrella trees we sped off and away. During our ride through the desert on our way to The Chasm, I told Louise all about our travels thus far. She showed more sympathy than she had before, though the lack of supplies troubled her still.
I looked through my pocket notebook, reading around the hole ripped through the center of it by The Fool’s bullet. We would have to meet a bloke at a tavern in New Haverton; our next contact. I did hope this one hadn’t been compromised. The Strongman sat back, admiring the vastness of the desert, he looked content. Louise kept her eyes set ahead of us.
She had grown into a lovely woman; she was confident and strong. She handled the steamdriver with ease. I felt safe in her hands.
28
My eyes fell into a deep gaze as I looked out across the desert horizon. I considered the war upon The Chasm. I thought of the prolonged absence of word from The Numbers Runners concerning the war. Were the stolen messages somehow related? I couldn’t find a connection to The Chasm. The Insectoid Six didn’t have any reach beyond The Chasm and therefore could be counted out.
The question lingered. Why did The Numbers Runners not see the act of betrayal from their own flesh and blood within the numbers? I believe the closest they came to counting something to that affect was an information disruption, but little else swirled around the concept. To them, it was just another burst of digits. To The Ministry of Communications it was a point of interest. The term ‘information disruption’ doesn’t bode well, but doesn’t seem to mean much, either. The information at hand could be anything. Information alone is just everything or anything; something.
Debates raged whether The Numbers Runners were useful at all. The same could be debated of most politicians, though. The main argument was that they couldn’t foresee the potential for sabotage within their own system. And the problem was, they did. Information disruption was right there in the notes, but those notes, the “information disruption”, were copied and altered to remove that term, among other things still not accounted for.
The notes were copied in triplicate, the copies were filed off-site every night. It wasn’t long after my discovery of compromised tubes that the BureauWorks File Warehouse was set ablaze. No traces of the original notes left. The old Lester brothers were deluged with information constantly, their memories were withered and worn. Young Adamson Bartholemew Lester was cleared of any wrongdoing, although he remained a person of suspicion. Mathildareena Lester never left the clock tower; although investigated, she was never suspected.
The trail of white paint was a loose end of investigation. My paint-filled capsule, sent along the vacuum tube to meet its unfortunate recipient, left its mark. The trail of white pain was first noticed by metro sentry outside of the Davenport Building. It lead into the Davenport and to the stairwell up. The trail of white paint was a splattered mess throughout. It lead to the ninth floor, an empty flat. In this flat, the suspect had removed the wall to reveal the inner workings of the metro as the building shared architecture with a bridge and tube system. Inside the wall was a myriad of tubes and pipes. The white trail lead to the impact site. Little evidence was left behind. In fact, almost none. Aside from a clear silhouette surrounded by white paint on the wall, you wouldn’t have known a person was there.
It was strange occurrences like these that lead people to whisper, “GhostWurks,” on hushed breath. Though no one would dare accuse GhostWurks.
The trail was followed back down the stairs and out of the building. Outside, white footsteps spotted a trail crossing the street and into an alley where they disappeared. But where something is lost, something else is found.
Passed out in a pile of rubbish in that alley was a man, Delroy Devlin. He was a drunkard and a bum, but once a fair magician and sleight-of-hand extraordinaire. And, as witnesses claim, not covered in even a single speck of white paint. Still, he was pulled from his alleyway slumber and questioned extensively, held imprisoned on public drunkenness and a host of other nonsense.
GhostWurks was feared and not to be trifled with, but The Clockwork Foundation had to maintain their image of power and superiority. The story followed that metro sentry chased the tube tamperer into the alley and apprehended him after a terrible fight.
It was also during this time, while I was in The Chasm, that Delroy Devlin was quietly tried and found guilty of espionage within the span of an afternoon behind closed doors of a corporate office somewhere within the Works’ organizations. Such espionage and treason, such treachery and sabotage, it was all too much. These crimes were so heinous, it was decided, they were to be put under secretive arbitration by order of The Monarch through BureauWorks. Secret arbitration was a method saved for heads of state, the wealthy, the powerful, not for lowly, washed-up magicians determined to die at the bottom of a bottle in the gutter. It was really a method for allowing the elite to punish themselves as they determined. The bizarre method of law had never been used to torture and imprison someone.
Delroy Devlin was a scapegoat, but few knew his name and aside from the general apathy of the masses, there was little anyone could do. His trial was short, his imprisonment would be long. An article appeared in the back pages of The Gazette, overshadowed by a half-page ad for Farmer’s Phentle Fertilizer and next to a quarter-page ad for Winterbaum’s Miracle of Life Elixir (which was deemed to be nothing more than water from a rusty pipe).
Most of The Gazette was centered on The Chasm, cricket scores, RailWorks repair schedules, and other points of metro interest. It was barely known by the public that there was any kind of information disruption. All people were allowed to know of the ‘official’ story was that this particular drunkard disrupted official state business on frequent occasion.
The speediness of the trial and further sentencing was lauded by bureaucrats and politicians to be a triumph of the system. Meanwhile, an innocent man rotted in solitary confinement. This was the tragic start to something wicked yet to come.
29
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30
Louise piloted the desert-driver over the flat and dusty landscape, effortlessly gliding over the crevices in the ground below. There were far less umbrella trees out this way. The desert floor had begun breaking and cracking apart as the tree density opened and withered to reveal The Chasm before us in the far distance. A jagged and zig-zagging line upon the horizon, swelling and stretching to the sky like small, thin spires.
I could make out the faint outlines of windmills mixed into the architecture. While The Chasm metros were able to tap into the natural spring system within the geographical oddity as a source for water to be turned to steam, they also relied on windmill technology, using the charge of the billowing winds of the desert plane. They were also able to make use of the crosswinds within the walls of The Chasm by building wall-to-wall propellers. The propellers caught the crosswinds, which in turn spun the gears which pump air into the compressor which in turn created pressure within the system. There were enough propellers and windmills to contain a constant mounting of pressure. Most of this energy was used to power the pumps that extract water from the springs. Steam was still king.
I counted only three windmills upon the metroscape of Chasm City, “What happened to all the windmills?” I asked Louise, having to raise my voice over the chugging engine and grumble of the ground.
“The Insectoid Six had the others destroyed,” Louise said, her eyes scanning the desert before us. She piloted leftwards, heading for an outcrop of canyons, “Thus our detour.”
“This far out? The Insectoid Six are this organized to have their reach extend this far out?” I was amazed at the numbers they must have amassed to be able to set traps and patrol at this distance into the desert, able to keep supplies and help from making their way to the metro area.
“Getting the last nimbulator out was hard enough, I’m not about to go back in that way,” Louise said. “We’ll dip down into the canyons and crevices, go that way into New Haverton.”
“The canyons aren’t patrolled?” I inquired.
She responded flatly, “I guess we’ll find out.”
We traded the vastness of the open desert for the narrow canyon walls that seemed to be forever closing in. The desert-driver jumped from one narrow canyon floor to the other across crevices enough to become lost in forever. The Strongman was nearly thrown overboard as we took a jump that was rather ill-timed, for we landed the back wheels at the edge of an infinite gaping hole torn into the canyon floor.
“Been piloting long?” The Strongman jeered.
Louise bit back almost immediately, “I’ll have you know most pilots couldn’t make that leap. Especially not while carrying an overgrown beast, such as yourself, in the back just adding onto the weight of an already heavy piece of machinery!”
The Strongman opened his mouth just slightly, a word forming, but retreating as he shut himself up. I couldn’t tell if he thought better of himself or if he had been bested. I smirked. I felt his eyes glaring upon my cheerfulness.
Overhead, our attentions turned upward, a projectile shot through the air, directed and speeding ahead of us. It struck the base of tall, narrow rock up ahead, cracking it and causing it to fall into our path.
“This one might hurt,” Louise said as she cranked a lever feverishly as she continued to pilot the desert-driver. We were headed straight for the toppled rock tower. I looked behind us, there were two smallish steamdrivers pursuing us. Merely thugs under The Insectoid Six leadership. Desert pirates, indeed.
Louise seemed to wait until the last minute, building tension in the launcher through the crank, before she released the hand lever. The desert-driver launched upwards and forwards over the massive stone. We came down in a crushing blow, my bones rattled and shook in the jelly of my skin.
“That should lose them,” Louise smirked. I always find the initial moment of boasting to be plagued by bad tidings. Up high on the canyon walls armed with blasters and pistols and rifles and shotguns and muskets were gads of scuttlers and thugs taking shots at us. Louise gave me her six shooter and told me to to get to work.
The Strongman fired his hand cannon at the canyon wall just beneath a group of scuttlers and ne’er-do-wells. As the massive bullet penetrated the rock wall it shattered and crumbled away, gravity taking its course and bringing the thugs down with it.
“Nice shooting, muscles,” Louise quipped.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” The Strongman fired away.
“What road?” Louise snapped back.
It had been some time since I had last fired a gun. I pulled the hammer back and took careful aim. I could hear The Strongman’s gun going off, one gunshot followed by another. How did he aim so well on this bumpy road, I wondered. I tried closing one eye and taking aim, but just couldn’t land my eye where I wanted. Perhaps I should try the other eye, I thought, as I switched to my right eye. And by now, my target was behind us and not a threat. I moved on to another target and that’s when Louise yelled at me, “Shoot the bloody gun, Monocle!”
I was taken off guard and humbled quite so. I aimed the gun, just barely, and took a shot knocking down a scuttler holding a rifle in his hands, “Oh,” I took myself by surprise, “I shot that man!”
“He was going to shoot you, Doc,” The Strongman said, “now keep firing and don’t stop until you run outta bullets!”
I aimed again and fired off another shot. And another. And I felt a bullet stream by my ear as it struck the seat behind me. This was terribly harrowing. Seated in that rickety steamdriver, aiming a weapon that has the kick of a horse, firing shots off into nowhere. I was about as useful a mop in a situation like this. I didn’t have time to retrieve and affix a monocle to assist me in the endeavor of attempting to aim in a precisely accurate manner.
Louise grabbed the gun from me, “Oh, bloody hell.” She managed to pilot the vehicle while taking four shots, each shot hitting its target. “Reload this,” she said as she handed me the gun which I grabbed by the barrel mistakenly. I immediately dropped the revolver which bounced from the steamdriver down into the canyon. Louise looked at me with a terrible glare of disappointment. I deserved worse.
The Strongman fired off a few more rounds and we seemed to be free and clear of any interference.
I think I apologized the entire way to New Haverton. Promised her I’d buy her the revolver of her choice, no matter the amount of coin it cost. I offered to replace it with a Royal ArmamentWorks Revolver Special. To which she responded, “Oh, dear, Dr. Monocle, you surely know how to woo a woman.”
The Strongman laughed about it the entire way. Louise teased me, asking if there was anything else belonging to her that I wished to throw down into the canyon before we entered back into the vast desert plains. No one seemed to be concerned about my burnt fingers.
It wasn’t much longer to our destination within The Chasm. We rolled over the desert ground with pure ease. Bushes of dead and brittle thistle shattered upon collision with the desert-driver’s dense front-end. Desert rocks crumbled beneath the wide and heavy wheels. Eventually we would disappear beneath the ground, into a labyrinth of carved rock, and into just a portion of the underground world of New Haverton.
Louise steered and veered and careened through the outer New Haverton stone narrows. Deep beneath the ground she navigated the streets built and carved from the stone, an incredible engineering feat. There wasn’t much room down there for a steamdriver, but Louise managed. From level to level, kicking up dust, she piloted her craft with ease, although like any contraption held together by bolts I worried that the vehicle would fall to pieces on a turn taken too quickly.
I found it difficult to see with what little light shown in from grates in the rock ceiling, but we entered a distant area of the narrows (which indeed seemed to be narrowing even further) that felt hidd
en. The last time I had visited any part of The Chasm, the stone narrows of both Chasm City and New Haverton had yet started to even be constructed. It certainly seemed as though we had reached an area of nothing but construction. Louise piloted the steamdriver into a carriage house built into the stone wall.
I had to admit, once again, I felt more at ease and comfortable traveling with a genuine WingedMan, in this case WingGrrl. Louise reminded me of her father a great deal the more time we spent together. They were both steadfast and take-charge type of people. I’ve found that in my travels, these were the best kinds of people to have accompany you in dire times. (Conversely, I’ve found the indecisive and those apt to panic to be the types who fall into trouble quite easily.)
Upon exiting the parked steamdriver, Louise escorted us through a labyrinth of stone-cut alleyways and walkways and crossways, up steps and through archways and over bridges. Before we knew it, we were looking down into The Chasm’s abyss from far above. New Haverton sprawled vertically into a darkness as the upper levels bathed in the late afternoon sunlight. The sun’s rays reflected brightly from the stone surface of the metro, seemingly glowing. The complexity of it all was staggering. Stacks and levels and platforms of metro connected by bridges and walkways of all different heights. The natural colors ranged from dark red to pale white. There were many hints scattered about of a yellow and blue motif, modeled after the colors of the official flag.
From the upper walkway I marveled upon the vast, but crowded metro and the abyss within the center of it all.
We entered a WingedMen’s nest, as they referred to it, a post from which they could base their patrol. It was a cramped area made up of four or five small rooms. There was some WingedMen equipment scattered about, parts from a wingpack, tools, flight goggles. And there waiting for us, sitting in a chair, leaning back against the wall, WingedMan Edwynn Fantastyk. As we entered the room, he sat right up and stood to embrace his sister, Louise. “Where in the bloody hell have you been?” Edwynn snapped as he held her close.
Spectacular Moments of Wonder with Dr. Monocle: That Certain Gentleman Page 28
