Smoke and Steam: A Steampunk Anthology

by Karen Garvin

  ***

  Night came, and Hubert and Mary made the short trek to the storehouse. They were both as scared as they could be. Never in all of her flights had she felt such fear as when she crouched outside the low fence that marked the secure area. Mary didn't see any patrols or anything like that, but she knew they had to be there.

  The two of them waited for what seemed an eternity before making their move. They climbed over the fence, and dropped down the other side, pausing again to listen. When no alarm was raised, they made their way as stealthily as two 14-year-olds could. Mary tripped over an exposed root and cursed as she banged her knee.

  Hubert turned and hissed at her to be quiet. Mary swore his hiss was as loud, if not louder, than the noise she had made. She picked herself up and they continued on. She could feel the thumping in her chest. It truly felt like her heart was going to explode at any moment.

  They made it to the door and tried the knob. Of course, it was locked. They had expected it to be, but still they had to try. There were a few high windows around the other side of the building: those were the target.

  Around the building they went. The windows were higher than Mary could reach. Hubert got on his hands and knees, making a nice platform for her to crawl up on. Mary reached the windows then.

  She placed her hands on either side of the window and gave an experimental push upward. She saw the chain connected to the window, but not in time. The chain was connected to a pin on the window, and when the window raised the pin dropped out. She tried to grab the chain before it snaked away up the window sill.

  A loud ringing bell sounded inside. Mary pushed the window all the way up and pulled herself in, searching for the bell. It was mounted at the top of one wall, just out of her reach. She noticed the chain that had been released, slowly feeding itself into the bell as it rang. She grabbed the chain and held it in place and the ringing stopped. One problem down, but Mary wondered who had heard the racket. This time of night she hoped that everyone around had been in deep sleep. She wrapped the chain around an exposed nail beside the window to hold it in place.

  Mary peeked out the window and saw Hubert trying to jump up to grab at the window sill. She grabbed his hand on the next attempt and helped him shimmy his way up.

  After Hubert was in the building with her, he went in search of the canisters as Mary watched for any sign they had been heard. She didn't see anything that signaled they’d been heard.

  Deep inside the building Mary heard a clanging and a short string of curse words.

  "Quiet," Mary hissed.

  "You be quiet."

  There was more clanging and then Hubert appeared at her side with two canisters.

  "What was all that noise?"

  Hubert shrugged. "I knocked over a couple canisters. Empties I think."

  "Did you pick them up?"

  "No time," Hubert said, pointing out the window.

  Across the narrow street Mary saw a light come on in one of the houses. She knew right then they had to get the heck out of there. She jumped out the window and waited as Hubert dropped the canisters down to her. Once they were both out, they ran across the small yard and over the fence.

  The pair ran all the way back to Hubert's house, ditching the canisters in the shed before sneaking back in so they didn't wake his parents up. Once they got to his room, they both collapsed on the bed, exhausted from the run.

  "I can't believe we just did that," Hubert panted.

  Mary sat up, still shaking, finally able to catch her breath after the long run. "Fun huh?"

  "You have a warped sense of what fun is."

  Mary smiled at him and then things got weird. Hubert got this weird look in his eyes and before she knew what happened, he leaned forward and kissed her. Right on the lips.

  Mary pushed him back. "Eww, what are you doing?"

  "I'm sorry," Hubert said, scracmbling back to the end of the bed. "I just thought that..."

  "What did you think?"

  Hubert started to say something else, but apparently thought better of it. "Never mind."

  "Come on," Mary said, pulling some blankets from his closet onto the floor to make a pallet for herself. "Let's just get some sleep, OK?"

  Hubert nodded, happy to be off the hook for whatever that was.

  Mary curled up on the floor while he took the bed. She started to think about how she could modify the canisters, and her first test flight as she drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It took a bit of work, but Mary managed to get the canisters back home with little trouble Keeping them hidden from Roland and Alice was the biggest trick. She had a small workshop out behind the house that she used for minor tinkering. It was one thing she got from working with Melvin in the tinker shop.

  On her days off from her duties as a messenger, she sequestered herself away in the workshop. The big dumb dog kept a close watch, barking when someone would come close. Usually.

  It took less time than expected to sort out the solutions to her canister problems. A bit of measuring here, drilling there, and some well-placed nuts or bolts did the trick. Or, rather, they did the trick enough. It would do for a test flight.

  Still, she knew she wouldn't get another chance at a test again. Unless, of course, she could convince Hubert to steal her some more canisters. But she figured they would be watching the place pretty closely now. Mary attached the canisters to the wings and headed up to the launch pad. Mary was going to go to Pulltree Island to be with Hubert. He risked a lot getting the canisters with her, so she figured she would let him be there for the test.

  ***

  Mary managed to make it to the distant island with no one noticing the canisters mounted to the wings. In hindsight, she figured she could have probably carried the canisters in her messenger bag like she had the morning she’d returned from her heist.

  Hubert followed Mary up to the launch pad. He was silent, trudging behind her with worry.

  "It's going to be OK," Mary told Hubert. "What could go wrong?"

  "Do you want a list? Least of all is being caught with the stolen canisters," Hubert complained, but still carried the wings up to the launch pad for her.

  Mary was used to carrying the wings now, but still she let him help all the same. He needed to feel like he was doing something. She could see the nervousness on his face. She couldn't really blame him; she was nervous too.

  Mary strapped the wings into the harness on her back and grabbed the wire that would deploy the canisters, attaching it to the gloves she wore. She checked the brass altimeter on her wrist, gave it a slight tap to make sure the needle moved freely.

  "Ready?" Mary asked him.

  Hubert shrugged. "I'm just watching. Are you ready' is the question."

  Mary had to admit, she was more than a bit nervous; she was scared. She didn't know what was going to happen. Anything? Nothing? Well, nothing ventured nothing gained.

  Mary leaned in and gave Hubert a quick kiss on the cheek.

  "That's for luck, nothing more," Mary told him firmly. "Don't read anything into it. It was just for luck."

  "Sure, sure." The way he smiled though, Mary was sure he was already planning their future together.

  Mary stood on the edge of the platform and stuck her hand out to feel the thermals. She closed her eyes and let her fingers sense the ebb and flow of the warm drafts. In the short time she had been flying she had learned much about them. Roland told her once that he thought she could read the thermals better than anyone, even him. It was almost like she could see the air somehow, know how it was going to behave.

  Mary stepped from the platform and dropped a few feet before the thermal caught the underside of the wings and held her steady. She started a spiral pattern, rising up higher and higher.She was, perhaps, a thousand feet up when the thermal gave out. No time like the present. Mary angled the wings up a tad and set the outer sheets stiff to catch as much lift as she could. She pushed a plunger, releasing the canister lock
.

  The blast propelled her forward much faster than Mary had anticipated. She nearly lost control of the wings, fighting to keep them stabilized. She had never flown so fast, not even in a controlled dive. The wind tore at her eyes, making them water. Goggles. She need goggles.

  Mary kept the angle of the wings steep as she climbed, timing the burn of the canister. The canisters gave out at just over sixty seconds. She chanced a look down.

  The island was a tiny speck. It was hard to breath. Mary had to work her lungs extra hard just to get small breaths in and she was getting dizzy. When she glanced at the altimeter on her wrist, it read at nearly 10,000 feet. At first Mary thought it was the height but then she realized that the air was thinner up there, like the time she and Roland climbed the mountain. By the time they had reached the summit, both of them were having trouble breathing.

  Mary still rose as the last of the canisters blew themselves out. Her vision blurred and it felt like she was going to pass out. She lost control of the muscles in her arms and they began to hurt. The wings wobbled and started to tilt downward.

  Mary struggled to regain control. At the rate she fell, it would be mere seconds before she hit the ground. She had never moved so fast before. She twitched the muscles in her back, trying to deploy the braking flaps, but at this speed they wouldn't open. She managed to tilt the nose up some, hoping she could use friction to slow her pace, but that only managed to catch too much air.

  The nose of the wings caught at the air and tossed Mary over onto her back. Her arms and legs flailed, trying to right herself. She had never been upside down either, though she had seen others do it. The wings started a free-fall tumble and she knew she was in trouble. Before anything, she had to gain control of her body. Mary had to right herself or she was just going to slam into the ground at terminal velocity.

  Mary twisted her back, hoping to ease the wing tips around to catch the air. It didn't work, instead setting her in a faster tumble. As her view alternated between sky and quickly approaching ground, another idea hit her.

  Mary worked her back muscles and the ailerons to get the nose of the wings pointed straight down. She had to squint into the air as her speed increased even more from the streamlined position she was in.

  Slowly Mary tried to move the nose up a bit, hoping to catch just a small bit of air at a time, not to slow her decent, but to give her a shot at arcing downward rather than straight down. Just a bit of arc would save her.

  Through teary eyes Mary saw the ground closer than she would like, making her work the wings harder still, pulling a muscle in her back. Slowly, though, the nose of the wings tilted and caught the air just as she hoped, less than a hundred feet from the ground. She angled herself toward the mountain and glided down the sloped face, giving herself more run-out room.

  The tree line approached, but Mary was able to sweep the wings forward and catch the air once again, flying over the top of the canopy. She could hear Hubert whooping below as she flew over.

  Mary still wasn't sure how she managed to pull herself out of it, but somehow, she did. Once her feet touched the ground near where Hubert stood, she stripped the wings from her back and collapsed onto the ground, nearly kissing it.

  Hubert came running up to her. "What were you thinking? Don't ever do that again!"

  "It was an accident. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to act. Didn't help I got dizzy while I was up there."

  "Dizzy?" Hubert looked at her with concern.

  "The higher up you go, the less air there is. I guess I went a bit too high." This was a problem that she needed to figure a solution to.

  "So that's it then," Hubert said. "You can't make it back to the mainland like that."

  Mary shrugged. There had to be a solution. Maybe she could use one of the canisters and pack it with air instead of the fire-extinguishing fluid.

  "There is a way, I just need to work it out."

  "So how far do you think you can glide once you get to maximum height?" Hubert picked the wings up off the ground and folded them.

  "Dozens of miles at least without any thermals at all." That was a problem as well. Mary knew the mainland was at least a couple hundred miles away. She was going to need more canisters, and a lot of luck.

  They started the short trip back to the launch-pad. Mary needed to get back to her little workshop and start on the modifications she would need.

  "I still don't think this is a good idea." Hubert was shaking his head the whole time. "You have no way of knowing if you can make it or not."

  "Maybe, but I have to try. Beatrice can't be without any family. She needs me."`

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mary cracked her eyes open and groaned. Today of all days Mary did not want to get out of bed. Alice had other ideas though. She bounded into the room. How did this woman have such energy so early in the morning?

  "Come on sleepy-head," Alice said. "You can't sleep the whole day away. It's your birthday, or did you forget?"

  Mary didn't forget, she just chose not to accept it.

  "You're fifteen now, and you have work."

  "There isn't anything special about being fifteen." Mary pulled the blankets up over her head again. The woman had to go away or Mary was going to kill her. Unfortunately, Roland had other ideas as well. She heard his heavy footsteps enter the room.

  "Nothing special," he said. "Humph. You can compete in the games now. I'd say that is pretty special."

  Mary reluctantly got out of bed, stubbing her toe as she shuffled across the room to grab her fluffy robe. For early August, it was a bit chilly.

  "True, but do you really think anyone is going to let me?"

  "Why wouldn't they?" Roland sat on the edge of her bed.

  "Umm, because I'm a girl. Or have you forgotten that?"

  "No rules against girls competing."

  "No precedent for it happening, either. No one seemed to like it too much when I joined the messengers. I bet they really won't like me joining the games."

  Roland shrugged.

  It had been an uphill battle since that day. No one could legally have Mary stripped of her duties, but that didn't mean she would always have work. Some of the older people still refused to allow her to carry messages for them. Mary didn't really care, it gave her a chance to practice her flying or work on the canister problem.

  "Scared, are you? Afraid the big bad boys will beat you in the games?" Roland smiled at her. He knew Mary was one of the best pilots around. Not that he would admit it, but she often saw it in his eyes.

  Mary shrugged, perhaps the games would be fun. They were still several months away though. Plenty of time to practice. And she didn't have to put her name in the hat until the end of February.

  "Maybe I will give it a try, just for laughs." Mary bunched her hair up in a ponytail and walked out of the room, leaving Roland sitting there.

  "That's my girl," he bellowed out the room and then followed her to the table, his heavy feet clomping. His limp had almost disappeared, but still he wouldn't be able to fly. It was up to Mary to uphold the “family honor“ as it were.

  Mary ate quickly and dressed as usual. She still had deliveries to do, even if it was her birthday.

  "I'm off to get some flying time in."

  Mary grabbed her wings from the carrier and hiked the short distance up to the pad. Eric Dane was there, joking with some of his friends. His face soured when he saw her.

  "What are you doing here?" Eric demanded.

  "Work," Mary shrugged back. Since breaking his nose, the pair had barely spoken more than a few words at a time to each other. That suited Mary just fine. Eric was an arrogant bastard. Everyone knew it, even his friends, but his family controlled a large portion of the resources on the island, so everyone kissed his ass. That wasn't something Mary wanted to do.

  Mary slid her wings up into the harness and tied them off, getting ready to step out into the thermal. Eric pushed her aside with a laugh and she jarred her knee sideways. She swor
e out loud and turned to face him, but he stepped out onto the thermal with his own wings, and her messenger bag.

  Mary took off after him. That bag had her notebook with all of her drawings about the wing modifications. She couldn't let him have it.

  Mary could hear him laughing as he dropped from the thermal and screamed downward to the island floor.

  Mary kept her height and shadowed him from above, watching. She knew the thermals better than he, and could almost tell where he was going to have to turn.

  Mary watched and waited, and when he had boxed himself into a single flight-path, she dove, quickly gaining on him. She flew with the sun at her back, so he never saw her coming.

  Since her little test flight with the canisters, Mary had been practicing certain moves that she thought would come in handy. She closed in on him and twisted around until she flew upside down.

  Mary timed it perfect and scraped right under his belly before he even knew she was there. She grabbed her messenger bag and gave it a tug, trying to dislodge it from his grasp. Her actions threw Eric off balance and he dropped suddenly, trying to regain control.

  Mary knew he was in trouble then. There were no thermals here to help him out. If he couldn't gain control he was going to crash. She just hoped he could keep his speed down.

  Eric clipped a tree on his decent and it spun him around until he crashed down into a hedge. It wasn't a rough landing, but Mary knew he was going to be sore after it.

  Mary wasn't sure what to do, so she aimed for a clearing close enough to land in. Eric wasn't hurt, but she knew he was going to be upset. She landed and plopped the wings from her back and rushed through the tight trees, looking for him. Mary heard him cursing long before she got to him.

  "Are you OK?"

  Eric stood there glowering at her and shaking. He slid the wings off his back and that's when Mary saw the bend in the center spine of them.

  "The guild is going to hear about this, the magistrate too."

  "It was an accident. Why did you take my bag anyway?"