Aetheric Elements: The Rise of a Steampunk Reality

by Travis I. Sivart

Jonathan, Jasper, and Jake crouched in the alley and stared up at the dirigible. Their bulky rocket packs whistled steam as they warmed up and readied for the assent that would make the three brothers rich men. Jasper had designed and built the machines. It had taken the past few months, over three hundred Imperial writs, and dozens of specialty parts. Jonathan had the job of finding the rare items. The other two brothers never learned where the oldest brother had procured the equipment for the flying contraptions, but didn’t care as long as they were able to pull off their caper.

  The tall, lanky brother, Jonathan, never spoke. He had stopped after his thirteenth birthday and the death of their father. The Sherriff couldn’t get any information from the only witness, Jonathan. The blood on the hands of their father, the viscous spray on the sand, and the spatter on Jonathan had pointed to the wound being self-inflicted. One person had witnessed it, had been there, and held the hand of the man he idolized as the blood drained from his slit throat. The slaying had been some sort of ritual, and the constable found signs of dozens of people at the site. No one had ever found out why it happened or who had attended. Though before that time Jonathan would go off on his own, he now just did what he was told. He leaned against the wall, feeling the steam from his pack tickling his neck as the pressure valve released the buildup.

  Jake had just gone over the plan again. He rubbed his hands together as he looked at the rough sketch in the dirt between Jasper and himself. Jasper glared at his own feet, not daring to show irritation to his youngest brother. It had been Jasper that had come up with the plan. It was daring and risky, but worth it all when it is done. Nearly a hundred thousand Imperial writs in gold and tens of thousand writs in good ol’ cash would cover a lot of things. A daytime heist meant a high profile job, but Jake liked the idea of being seen and becoming infamous outlaws. Jasper didn’t, and like everything else, Jonathan was silent on the matter.

  Jasper remembered the days after their father’s death when his brothers would listen to him. In the beginning, the middle brother would come up with plans to raid the other kids’ forts – stealing the best tidbits and a few writs - and later how to rob the old widow McCredie of her savings jar. Jake would tag along and rush out before he was supposed to, or go brag to all the neighbor kids the next day. Things changed as they got older. Jasper couldn’t intellectually bully Jake into behaving. Quite the opposite. Jake would listen to the plan, then make a few small changes and say it was his own. He’d even threaten Jasper anymore, saying that he would turn his brother into the law if he didn’t do it his way. Or worse, he would leave the middle brother out altogether.

  “Ya ready, lil brother?” Jake slapped Jasper on the shoulder as he stood.

  Jasper gritted his teeth, as much from the sting of the words as his younger brother’s hand. He hated that he was called the little brother when he was the older of the two, but he had a plan for that too.

  Jasper smiled as he stood, “Course Jake, our plan is perfect.”

  “My plan, ya mean. Now, fire up your rockets, while I check to make sure the street is clear.”

  Jasper could see most of the block from the stack of crates they hid behind. Jake stepped into the street of the small, dusty town. It was nearly high noon, and he cast a small puddle of a shadow around his feet. Striking a pose, he hooked his thumbs into his gun belt. No one was close enough to notice the trio. The two brothers in the alley began their pre-flight check list, flipping switches and toggling controls. Jake looked up and down the street, his copper and leather rocket pack gleaming in the heat.

  “Good people of this dirt clod town,” Jake drawled in a loud voice, “ya’ll are about to witness history as Jailbreak Jake, the man the law couldn’t hold, does something no man has ever done before! Look away ya’ll, cause if I see ya lookin’, I’ll shoot ya between the eyes from three hundred meters up, while flying at a two hundred kilometers per hour!”

  People were torn between staring at the man or heading into the closest building, hesitating long enough to get a glimpse before running for cover. Heads poked out of stores, alleys, and from behind wagons and stacks of crates. Jasper rolled his eyes. Gripping the hand controls, he nodded to Jonathan. They launched into the air, gaining speed and hurtling towards the airship that was gliding past the western portion of the town. Jake pulled out one gun and fired rounds into the air with a laugh, and then holstered it as he took off with a whoop and spun in a tight circles as he ascended, creating a corkscrew vapor trail.

  Jonathan closed on the vessel as the others followed him. Turning with expert ease, he came around the side of the cupola and let off his thrusters as he neared the door. Reaching out with his long arm, he grabbed the handle outside of the main cabin and spun the wheel that secured the door. As his brothers were arriving, the door swung open, and Jake flew straight in, crashing into the startled steward in his way. Jasper followed with less grace, ricocheting off the doorway.

  The cabin was split into three sections with the cockpit in the front, the cargo hold behind a locked door in the rear, and where the brothers landed in the personnel area in between. It was less than six paces wide and had wooden benches large bolted to the floor. Along the back wall was canvas mesh stopping crates and extra cargo from shifting during the flight. A few crates had been moved to the middle of the floor as seats and a table to allow the guards to play a game of draughts. The front wall held a pantry and cupboard.

  They surprised the five armed guards. Jake whooped, drew his pistol, and shot two of the guards as Jonathan climbed in the doorway, and Jasper gained his feet. The remaining three guards leapt up and scrambled for their rifles. Before they could bring them to bear, three shots rang out as one, and they crumpled to the floor of the airship. Each brother stood with a pistol drawn, smoke curling from the barrel.

  “Easy as pie!” Jake exclaimed with a grin that showed a golden tooth with a diamond in it. The cockpit door flew open, and the brothers turned in unison, pistols cocked and arms extended towards the surprised young man staring at them. Jake said, “Wanna live, pard’ner?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Then lay down on the floor and you just might make it home.”

  The startled boy, barely out of school, stared at them with wide blue eyes. His complexion was made paler by the blonde hair that was almost white and his wispy mustache. He dropped to his knees and laid face down, centimeters from the expanding pool of blood of the men that had been his friends and teased him about the adventure of the airship gold delivery. Jasper darted past him to secure the pilot, stopping in the door.

  “Jonathan,” he shouted, turning back to his older brother, “he flew!” The quiet man stepped to the door and looked outside. Seeing a parachute opening, he took careful aim, and three gunshots were followed by a long scream. The boy on the floor shuddered, understanding what happened. The oldest brother turned back and nodded at Jasper, before looking at Jake.

  Jake grinned and pushed open the cargo hold. Waiting in the tight wooden hallway were three padlocked compartments on each side. Turning to the last crew member, Jake said, “Ok boy, gimmie that key, or ya get to walk home starting now.”

  “I can’t. I don-don-don’t have it,” the boy stuttered. “I’m just an apprentice pilot, and they got the key at the tower we’re headed to.”

  Jake was like a cat with a mouse and liked to play games with the people he robbed. They knew the key would not be on board. Jonathan stared with no expression as Jasper let out a sigh. There was no telling if Jake would let the boy live to spread the word of their deeds or kill him just for kicks.

  Jasper didn’t mind this so much, but in addition to the marks, rubes, and cons, Jake had been doing it with him also. In their childhood, Jake had followed Jasper around, idolizing him. After their father’s death though - when Jonathan had become silent and withdrawn and would disappear for days - Jake became wild. Like the dam had broken and he was free of any moral constraints. The youngest brother began doing outrageous things. H
e’d get into scraps with other boys, kiss girls behind the church, and even flirt with grown women, including their own mother’s friends.

  By the time Jake turned thirteen and Jasper was sixteen, Jake had taken charge of the gang of boys they had put together. The youngest brother would turn the other boys against his older brother if he objected, and Jasper had no choice but to go along with his schemes.

  Jonathan’s silence didn’t give either brother support. He’d watch and go wherever the group went. He’d been that way since witnessing their father’s suicide. It was an embarrassment to the community. Their father had been a well-known man of means and often away for weeks to grand cities. He owned a hotel and casino, three cattle ranches, and had shares in the railroad and the new railplane line. After his death, all his holdings were disbursed or absorbed by various partners and interests. His wife and children were left with the hotel and a modest stipend paid quarterly. Within two years, their mother sold the hotel and bought a large house that she turned into a boarding house. She told them the hotel was too much work for her, but One night Jasper snuck out onto the veranda and to her window, and in that sweltering summer night and had seen the male visitors go to her room.

  There was a constant parade of surly and dusty characters in the boarding house. Jake took to listening to the yarns spun by the snake-oil salesmen, cowboys, and other malcontents. A man who claimed to be a bounty hunter stayed in the house for almost six weeks. He told the boys tales of hunts and captures. Jonathan always stood in the doorway, as if afraid to come closer to the man while listening to the accounts of his deeds. Jasper was fascinated and followed the man all over town. When the leathered tracker left for a few days, Jasper would sit at the edge of town and wait for him to return.

  Jake teased the middle brother without mercy and called Jasper a puppy and compared him to a swooning woman. Jasper ignored him until the day Jake came around the corner with his gang, and pointing at him, yelled to his cronies, “There he is boys, let’s get our bounty for this bastard!”

  Jasper was beaten by his friends that day. The youngest brother stood over the tussle and watched as the boys pinned his older brother and one time idol. They hit and kicked him in the face, ribs, and stomach. The gang dragged Jasper to an apple tree after the beatings and produced a noose. Jake proceeded to string him up. Jasper wept and begged as the other boys stood him up on a barrel, threw the rope over a branch, and tied it off on a root. Jake proclaimed his crime and sentence and then kicked the barrel out from under his own brother. For a moment Jasper swung, just like the man the old bounty hunter had brought in less than a week ago. The slip knot around the root broke loose, and he crashed to the dusty ground. His vision popped with black spots and colored sparks as he gasped and tore at the rope around his throat. He felt his younger brother’s dank breath on the side of his face. It smelled of licorice.

  “Ya went too far, and this is family,” Jake’s voice growled into Jasper’s ear. “Blood is thicker than water. That’s the only reason I didn’t have them kill ya. That man ain’t our daddy, and ya ain’t going to treat him like he is no more. I’ll be making sure of that. Remember what I said the next time ya see a swinging rope.” The younger boy stood up, “Ya crapped yourself, like a little baby. You’re pathetic.”

  It was a week later that Jasper saw a swinging rope with the bounty hunter at the end. The hired gun returned to town from a successful hunt the previous night. That same night the banker, Mr. Johnson, was shot in his own back yard.

  The banker’s wife Millie, a young beauty that always smiled, told the sheriff that there was a knock at the back door and her husband answered it. He’d greeted someone in a friendly and familiar manner, and stepped outside. As she continued with her needlepoint, she heard a gunshot. She ran to the kitchen but was afraid to open the door. As she stood, terrified, it opened, and a hand holding a gun slid into view. It was a polished silver six-shooter with ornate scrollwork on the stock and ivory inlay on the handle, and her family name in calligraphy along the barrel. The pistol had been given to her husband as a wedding gift from her father. It was to protect Millie during their marriage. She heard a voice yell, “I got another bounty, time to go sleep now!” She said it was deep and mean.

  The sheriff went to the only bounty hunter in town. The stranger was in such a deep sleep that he didn’t wake when they knocked, or when they kicked the door in, or when they dragged him from his bed after finding the Johnson’s pistol on his bedside table. He woke when they were cuffing him in the dirt outside the house, but could barely walk and was dragged to the jail house.

  A lynch mob showed up at the courthouse the next day. Jasper watched as Jake’s gang kept the crowd riled up, shouting for the killer’s blood, forcing the judge to have a trial on the spot. At sundown, Jasper watched the man swing by his neck until dead. Jake smirked as he sauntered close to his brother and patted him on the shoulder. “Welcome back to the family Jasper. I don’t recommend ya leave again.”

  Three months later, Jake began to woo the Widow Johnson shortly after he turned fourteen years old. She thought it was sweet. He told her not to let the men take the bank from her, that women can run a business as well as any man. In time, she spurned his advances. On his fifteenth birthday, he went to visit the Widow Johnson. He told his brothers it was for his birthday celebration. When he home came well past midnight, he had scratches down the side of his face and a bloody lip. When they asked what happened, he smiled his crooked smile and said every bounty has a chase and a fight. The Widow Johnson didn’t come out of her house for ten days. During that time, she sold her rights to the bank. The sale was to take place before the end of the month. A week before the contract was finalized Jake told Jasper to figure out how to rob that bank, claiming that the Johnsons owed him something for catching the man who killed Mr. Johnson.

  With a sour taste in his mouth, Jasper planned the robbery. It was easy when Jake provided him the keys that the Widow Johnson had ‘given’ him. Jasper recognized this was more punishment for him from Jake. Three days before the sale contract was finalized, the bank was robbed. The investors backed out, and the Widow Johnson was financially ruined. The three brothers left town with bags of cash that day, and Jake sent the Widow Johnson a thank you letter. Jasper left a note for their mother. And Jonathan was seen by Jasper coming out of the post office with ink stains on his fingertips. So their life of crime began four years ago when Jasper was eighteen, and Jake was fifteen. They were famous by Jake’s next birthday.

  Jasper refocused on his youngest brother, who cocked his six-shooter and pressed against the temple of the young co-pilot. Glancing at Jonathan, he saw the oldest brother watching the scene with no emotion. Jasper sighed and headed down the narrow hallway to open the locks as Jake played with his quarry. Setting small explosives - which he’d designed and built - on the iron padlocks, Jasper uncoiled the wire and detonated the devices and destroyed the last obstacle between them and their goal. Doors swung open to reveal stacks of gold bars and canvas mail bags full of cash. He grabbed a sack.

  A blast from the main cabin rocked the zeppelin, and the air detonated with a resounding pop, like the sound of a heavy rock hitting still water. Jasper was thrown headfirst to the end of the hallway. Though dazed, he realized steam was leaking from a tear in his jetpack’s brass air tanks. He slid along the floor towards the central room and could tell the nose of the ship was pointing towards the ground. Shrugging off his pack, he stood and drew his pistol with his right hand. He slung the canvas bag over his shoulder and went back to the main room. Aided by the angle of descent as the airship continued its dive, as he balanced himself with a hand on the wall.

  He saw the young co-pilot unconscious across the controls through the door to the cockpit. The altitude levers were pressed forward, causing the downward plunge that would kill them when they hit the cliff or ground. The main cabin showed no damage from the explosion. Jake was unconscious among the dead men, and Jonathan was now
here to be seen. He may have been thrown out the door by the same explosion that had thrown Jasper backwards four meters.

  Through the door, he saw the ground getting closer, and he formed his plan. Jasper jammed his gun into its holster and ran to Jake. Dropping the bag of money, he unbuckled his younger brother’s jetpack and began strapping it onto his own back. Slinging the duffel across his shoulders again, he secured the strap to his harness, leapt out, and fired the jetpack’s rockets at the same time.