The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk

by Sean Wallace

  “Huh?”

  “Swerve the car at him when he’s beside us.”

  “How do you know he’s going to do that?”

  “I know.”

  The world outside the Supersuiza was a sonorous chaos formed by wind, motors, horns, and by the roar of the jetpacks, already near the point of appearing in the mirrors on the Flyer’s faces. Nomio saw one of them appear on the passenger side. The gauntlet gun pointed straight at his father. He didn’t falter; he swerved the car into the man, who whirled over his own axis and, in a risky maneuver, dodged over the roof, only to meet up with a motorcycle coming in the opposite direction. Motorcyclist and flyer transformed into a pile of hardware, fuel, and blood on the road.

  The Saint was right again, thought Jeronimo, seeing his son look at him oddly. He was going to say something funny to alleviate the situation, but a hail of bullets came from above and transformed the hood of the Supersuiza into a sieve. The next moment, the second flyer passed them and curved upward until becoming a miniature against the Estação Central clock.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “N-no . . .” muttered Nomio, frightened.

  “He’ll be back,” said Jeronimo, quickly putting more ammunition into the N12 and positioning himself once again in the window.

  But of course he will, he heard the Saint say, with the softest, most enchanting, bitchiest voice in the world.

  The flyer made another curve and descended upon the car. He raised the gauntlet gun and unloaded against the Supersuiza. A line of bullets passed sparking near Jeronimo’s head, but he had cold enough blood to keep the man in the center of the rifle’s sight. In the next instant, he pulled the trigger. The shot disintegrated the flyer’s shoulder. He lost control and tried to charge them. His jetpack drew a flaming arc in the air and he crashed against a building.

  “I thought that thing would blow up,” commented Jeronimo, apparently disappointed.

  They left Avenida Dom Pedro II to avoid the patrol cars that attempted to control the multitude around Estação Central. They took a street that followed beneath an oil pipeline to the edge of the Providência slums. They abandoned the Supersuiza there, where the gyroplane couldn’t see them, and disappeared among the street vendors’ tents.

  First Effects

  Although the assassin contracted by General Vargas had proven more difficult to sweep under than rug than expected, the pursuit he led through downtown wasn’t a complete disaster to the Army’s plans. Actually, it was the opposite. All of the destruction along Avenida Dom Pedro II– conveniently close to Estação Central – ended up being blamed on the ANL or AIB, depending on the ideological orientation of whoever told the story. Two lives had been sacrificed in the process, but in chess and politics some sacrifices were necessary. Chateaubriand would succor the widows.

  In the eyes of the people, communists were hydras ready to step over families with their bread, land, and liberty; seed anarchy; burn good customs; and destroy honorable jobs. In compensation, the integralists and their allies might even have a point, but didn’t hesitate in trying to achieve their objectives with a scary dose of force. The Army saw both types as dogs that barked a lot – which always generated a nice effect – ready to be incited against the weak and necrotic Empire. The ingredients were already in the pot, as they said in the South. Once the boiling began, the country would realize that Dom Pedro III was just a schizophrenic old man on the throne of an anachronism that had lasted too long.

  But there were a few rounds left until checkmate. The next move should be occurring that instant on Guarani Broadcasting. Chateaubriand guaranteed that it would go on the air before the imperial censure had time to act. So it didn’t matter whether or not the participation of the communists in the massacre was true: an environment of civil disorder would have already been established.

  The integralists took to the streets. The convergence began at the foot of Estação Central. They were no longer satisfied with just marching, calling words of order, and threatening. Now they carried clubs, rocks, knives. Firearms. Explosives. Many used kerchiefs to cover parts of their faces. A woman with a megaphone fired up the crowd, speaking of martyrs for the national cause, of the necessity for a strong leader and, above all, integralism, to take the reins of the country and uproot from it the putridity of the socialists. Shouts against the Empire bubbled up from a sea of people more agitated every moment. And, just like the sea, the multitude crossed Avenida Dom Pedro II as if the police were nothing: paralyzing traffic, assaulting passers-by, depredating stores, cars, monuments. Buses were burned in Catete and Urca, a streetcar was destroyed in Santa Teresa. They set fire to the ANL headquarters. No one was killed, but the blaze lit the mettle of the socialist, communist, and anarchist groups that organized themselves around the Alliance. Neo-Luddites destroyed oil ducts and mechanical arms in a construction site on Rua do Ouvidor. Stalinists and Trotskyists held hands before the symbolic (and, soon after, literal) ashes of their refuge. The alliance column met an integralist legion in the middle of the city. The police were in the middle of the disturbance, but much more than that was needed to stabilize the situation.

  The Empire Tries to Strike Back

  The President of the Ministers’ Council, Baron Artur Bernardes, had never been so tired. The day had been long, every minister and representative calling at the same time. He couldn’t think straight, his thoughts had gone blank as soon as he realized what the images he had just seen on the television meant. He looked to Lima Carvalho, his assistant, then to the Emperor lying in his bed, his head drooping from side to side, an oxygen tank vibrating on a nearby support. Bernardes knew that the solution wouldn’t come from there. The salvation of the Empire and the maintenance of his own status would come from the other Pedro, whose diapers were being changed that moment by his wet nurse. But he needed more time.

  “Summon the National Guard,” he said to Lima Carvalho. His head seemed ready to explode. He didn’t want to invoke that alternative. If things got out of control, they could slide into civil war. Those São Paulo republicans would like that, liberal sons of bitches that they were. However, he had no other option. He was felt like a punching bag and didn’t like it.

  “Colonel Teles Filho doesn’t have the resources to mobilize and equip a force greater than two hundred men in the next hours, sir,” informed Lima Carvalho.

  Bernardes punched the Emperor’s desk. He needed at least two thousand men on the streets, to reinforce the police.

  “They chose now to cry about money?”

  “Exports have fallen considerably, sir. The money that the colonels used to invest in the National Guard is now being used to keep the plantation accounts paid. They’re functioning at a minimum. My suggestion is to let Teles Filho test his toy on the streets today, sir. He’s invested a lot of time and money in it. The name is Cylindroid, I believe. It might work.”

  “Order him to bring what he can.”

  “If he had permission to permanently incapacitate some ten or fifteen . . .”

  “Kill, you mean.”

  “Yes, sir. So that the others see that the Empire isn’t playing around and has the resources at its disposal to quell any attempt at insurrection.”

  Bernardes knew that the gravity of the situation demanded a lot more than mere dispersion. The Empire’s Third Reign had marked an accentuated decline in imperial power. The provinces had revindicated – and won – an increasing autonomy without Dom Pedro or the Cabinet able to slow down the decentralization. The financial crisis had weakened the economy but strengthened groups that preached new forms of government. Killing rioters wouldn’t resolve much more than broken windows.

  “But it will give us some time,” he concluded, thinking aloud.

  “What, sir?”

  “Summon Colonel Teles Filho. Tell him to bring his weapon. And he can permanently incapacitate your ten or fifteen.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Lima Carvalho left to make the call. He returne
d shortly after, his face livid.

  “Sir, Teles Filho’s militia is no longer responding.”

  Bernardes leapt from his chair.

  “What happened?”

  Cylindroid vs Thirteen

  Two hundred men of the Jacarepaguá detachment had been assembled, with extraordinary speed, in a mansion constructed on a round hill. The place was the property of Colonel Fonseca Teles Filho, Baron of Taquara. Standing before the militia in formation, he gave an inflamed speech about honor, duty, and love for one’s country. Shortly before, he had been unraveling all the financial difficulties through which the country was passing, and how those reflected a substantial cut in the budget allocated to the nation’s true guardians. Luckily, every soldier, captain, and colonel had not allowed these times of crises to bring them down. Through their own means, these men had pledged the quantity necessary to complete the first one hundred percent Brazilian mechanized combat unit, designed, modesty aside, by himself.

  Matias Figueiras, the sergeant chosen to pilot the machine, was sufficiently nervous that the colonel’s entire speech sounded to his ears like a big, senseless verbosity. He didn’t like to be the center of attention. There were at least two hundred guards there whose eyes seemed fixed on him. This number was capable of making him confuse his own legs, not to mention the levers and buttons of a four-meter tall, five-ton machine.

  The applause severed his thoughts. Some officials shook the colonel’s hand. The speech had ended; it was time for a demonstration. At a gesture from Teles Filho, he turned right and marched to the hangar the baron had ordered built in the old slave house. He entered through a lateral door, sweating buckets inside the black coveralls.

  The inside of the hanger was like a big workshop smelling of diesel oil and gunpowder. Tools, gallons of fuel, motor parts, and metal plates spread across the walls, workbenches, and even the ground. But what caught the eye of whoever entered there was the enormous cylinder equipped with machine guns, grenade launchers, and big pincers on the ends of two mechanical arms. It stood on two small, articulated legs, connected to an axel that allowed three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turns. Brazilian technology, designed to the slightest detail by Colonel Teles Filho. His dream was to see the Cylindroid, as it had come to be known, being mass produced and becoming the Empire’s principal weapon. To Figueiras, that contraption looked much more like a barrel with arms and legs than an armored vehicle, and was far from perfect. The armament was efficient, as they had shown the ten cows turned into ground beef by the machine guns and the cars scrapped by the grenades, but there were problems: a) it was too heavy, which forced the reduction of armor at several points; b) the legs were fragile, making them an easy target for any .23; c) it was slow, and would never reach the target without costly aerial or terrestrial transport.

  There was a hatch at the end of a short ladder behind the Cylindroid. Figueiras stuffed himself through it. The cabin was tight, barely large enough for the chair. He made himself as comfortable as he could, put on the helmet, and turned on the engine. Lights lit up on the panel, gauge pointers began to move, a tiny vent began to blow. Something warm dripped on this arm.

  “Oil leak,” he grumbled.

  He buckled the seatbelt. Through the periscope, he watched the hanger door open.

  He set the Cylindroid to walk.

  Figueiras breathed deeply. Stupefied looks fell on him like arrows.

  Teles Filho was beside himself with pride: “I present to you the country’s savior.”

  A round of applause, amplified by the external microphone, almost exploded Figueiras’s eardrums. He pointed the microphone up. He heard a long, shrill whistle. Figueiras turned the periscope skyward.

  “My God.”

  Something that looked like a rocket came in his direction. He tried to scream, but the impact was almost instantaneous.

  Three thousand meters above, on board the American bomber Total Care, the crew celebrated upon seeing on a screen the taxi-missile transform Jacarepaguá mansion and Colonel Teles Filho’s militia into a pile of rubble.

  The shock wave threw the Cylindroid against the hangar like it was made of paper. The electronic brain that managed the gauges announced failure of the principal transistor. Through the periscope, Figueiras saw a wall crumble over him. It trapped him to the ground. He tried to move the appendages of that crummy barrel, in vain. Red lights lit up in the cabin. Without options, he armed the machine guns, hoping that the .50 caliber rounds would destroy the bricks without affecting the Cylindroid’s armor.

  Inside the crater that formed on the patio of the Baron of Taquara’s mansion, the taxi-missile opened. It had been designed to unload, intact, cargos over enemy territory from vast heights. A man appeared. The hat and number thirteen engraved on a star on his chest gave him the air of a cowboy. He wore a dark camouflage uniform that looked more like armor, full of plastic parts, metal, recesses, protuberances, tubes connected to the helmet. There was a rifle secured to a box on his back by cables. He leapt from inside the taxi-missile and pulled two rough pistols from his belt. He crept through the smoking columns and piles of debris, mindful of National Guard militiamen that had survived his arrival. He saw the metallic armored vehicle trying to move underneath a sheet of bricks. He walked over slowly, cocking the pistols.

  Fifty caliber machine guns roared. Dust and debris flew, pulverized by luminous projectiles that flashed in the night. The Cylindroid stood, its metallic joints grating. Inside, still dizzy, Figueiras tried to adjust the periscope.

  “Damn,” he said.

  Bullets ricocheted from his armor. He pulled the lever to raise the machine gun. Once he did, Thirteen was no longer there.

  The periscope quickly traversed the ruins. A blur appeared suddenly and shattered the lenses. Visual contact disappeared completely. The Cylindroid had barely entered into action and was already operating blind and at half strength. Figueiras had no idea what was happening. He pulled levers, turned dials, and checked gauges in hope of keeping the thing working.

  He felt the impact of more shots reverberating on the lower part of the Cylindroid. Whoever that guy was, he had already noticed the weak legs and was trying to destroy them. A sudden jerk to the left, more shots, a drop to the right, and many, many curses. The armor lost its support and fell heavily to the ground. Figueiras checked the ammunition in his revolver and prepared to abandon the pile of tin.

  “That thing’s not gonna bother anybody,” said the Controller, hundreds of meters above, watching the scene through the cameras installed in Thirteen’s eyes. He sent a series of commands to him with one hand, while the other ably dunked doughnuts into a mug of coffee. “Let’s get this over with. The Brazilians are waiting to give us a lift to the king’s house.”

  With effort, Figueiras managed to push open the hatch. He had just unlatched the seatbelt when two grenades entered through the opening. One fell on his chest, the other under the seat. The last thing he thought was how much he hated that barrel.

  Conversation in the Club

  The officials spoke in whispers when Protasio Vargas entered, slamming the door. Flesh and blood officials divided the table with conference screens where the austere faces of generals based in other provinces could be seen. Expensive equipment, donated by their communication magnate allies, interested in the opportunities of the coming new order.

  “I’ve learned that disturbances are occurring in other capitals, General,” shot out Colonel Gois Monteiro, folding a newspaper. “Will we be able to control them?”

  Vargas took a chair.

  “Good evening to you too, Monteiro. As a matter of fact, a good night for the Brazilian Army. To answer your question: yes, we’re going to control the disturbances. We destroy one side and financially strangle the other. And if that doesn’t work, the USS Rogers isn’t far from here. The American marines are prepared to guarantee our revolution. But it won’t come to that. We’ll accomplish our agenda with a minimum of external interference. For now, I’d
like you all to approve this draft of the note we’re going to divulge in the next few hours.

  A young lieutenant came forward with a document in hand. Vargas gave the signal for him to begin reading.

  The High Command of the Brazilian Army declares that, starting at midnight, the Monarchy is abolished as a form of government in Brazil. Pedro Augusto Bragança of Saxe-Coburg is considered deposed and exiled, as are any and all of his relatives to the third degree. A military junta is provisionally assuming command, to ensure the liberty of the democratic institutions. At this same time, the National Guard, assemblies, and Cabinet of Ministers are dissolved, and these shall be detained until it is certified that they present no threat to the new Republic. God save Brazil.

  A murmur ran through the room. The officials were darkened silhouettes, whose medals and insignia occasionally reflected the light of the image tubes.

  “That is the message that will circulate through the media and official departments. It must be short, succinct. To speak to the people we must adopt a different rhetoric. We have to sound like zealous parents. I’m already drafting an appropriate speech, don’t worry. After our pronouncement, the President of the United States will recognize the new regime. Most Western governments will follow the same path. It will be a domino effect. With that, we can deflate the Empire’s only play to achieve any support from the population, which would be to announce the crown prince and appeal to the sentimentalism of tradition.”

  “That thing isn’t human,” said one of the military on screen, the voice full of static. “It was produced by the Emperor’s eugenicists. It’s an insult to any Christian who values God’s law.”

  “And that is what the vast majority of parents will think,” laughed Vargas. “The people fear Science. The Empire is finished.”