Hot and Steamy

by Jean Rabe

  KINETIC DREAMS

  C.A. Verstraete

  Christine Verstraete is a Wisconsin author who’s written children’s books, short fiction, and nonfiction. A previous story on Alva Edison and her famous brother, Thomas, appeared in Steampunk’d, also from DAW Books. Christine says she wouldn’t mind going back in time to Tudor England, post-plague, of course. Visit her website at www.cverstaete.com.

  Alva Edison woke and gazed in confusion at her surroundings. Gone was the familiar clink-clink tick-tick of the cogs and wheels moving in the kinetic clock at her bedside. In its place, the small bedside clock hummed.

  Gone was the comforting drape of the lace canopy above her. Her heart pounded as she stared at the maroon spread draped over the bed. She slid from beneath the cover and stopped, frozen, at the cool touch on her arm.

  “Another dream?”

  Her heart slowed as recognition poured in. She let out a deep breath, relaxing as her husband, Doctor Pierre LaBonet, caressed her arm and pulled her close. “Yes, yes. For just a second, I thought . . . Never mind. It all seemed so real.”

  “Maybe we have to change your prescription, dear Alva.”

  For a moment her mind floundered. She tried to grasp what he’d said. Per—? Oh, he meant a script. She sighed again. Would this confusion never end?

  “No, no. I’ll be fine. It was just a dream.”

  “All right, but we’ll keep an eye on it. Now how about we forget that for awhile?”

  She welcomed his embrace and the forgetfulness his love offered, if only for a while.

  Alva stood at the bedroom vanity later, marveling at her reflection as she did every time she combed her hair or applied a hint of color to her eyes and lips, an action that still felt a tad scandalous. Everyone knew that only certain women painted their faces. Well, at least that was what she thought in relation to her “other life,” the one she only remembered now in bits and pieces.

  She sighed. So many things had changed. A vibrant, healthy woman in her prime looked back from the mirror, a far cry from the ailing, prematurely old woman she had once been. She glanced at her hands, the knots and crippling gone, and flexed her fingers without pain. Amazing.

  Even though her dear brother, Thomas, explained over and over what had happened six months before, she still had trouble believing him. She knew some things seemed, well, odd and different, and some things she simply could not remember after that nasty fall. Her arthritis had improved almost overnight from the new medications. And the rest? She didn’t want to be mean, but she couldn’t help but laugh when he’d brought up the subject again yesterday when they met for tea.

  “Alva, I know you were pretty battered from the fall, but you still don’t recall how we climbed aboard Mr. Wells’s kinetic flying time machine and ended up here?” he’d asked. “You don’t remember us making the adjustments so it worked properly?”

  “Thomas, I think you’ve been hiding away far too long in that basement working on your projects! You need to get out more. A flying machine? Yes, I’m a whiz at math, but since when do I tinker with machines? How quaint!”

  She shook her head at his crestfallen look. Her dear brother had to be tired from all the late hours he spent with his experiments. She worried about him, especially since he kept coming up with different takes on things that had already been invented. That steam-powered washer, for instance, and the oddly shaped light bulb. Why reinvent the wheel? She vowed to ask Pierre if he knew any charming young nurses they could invite over for dinner to meet her brother. They needed to find someone Thomas could spend time with instead of his being holed away constantly in that workshop.

  The ring of the doorbell interrupted her musing. Finished with her primping, Alva rushed downstairs, wondering if Pierre had come home early. He’d been so thoughtful lately. She opened the door and gasped at sight of her brother, his hair mussed, his face and coat covered with soot and dirt.

  “Thomas, what happened?”

  He pushed his way in, his face worried. “Alva, we have a problem.”

  “We?”

  “I need your help. Something’s wrong with the machine. I’ve tried everything I can think of to fix the failed timing mechanism. I need you to help me make the adjustments.”

  “Machine? What machine?” She looked at him, perplexed. “Thomas, maybe you should talk to Pierre. Perhaps those chemicals you’re breathing in that workshop of yours are making you ill.”

  He muttered a curse under his breath. “Look, I know how happy you and Pierre have been these past six months. That’s why I’ve left you alone and let you enjoy your home as newlyweds. But I have no choice this time. I need your help.”

  “Dear brother, I’ll help you anyway I can, even if I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about. I know my memory hasn’t been good, but you’re really worrying me with this outlandish talk about flying machines and such. You have to watch what you say; someone might take it the wrong way.”

  “Just come with me. Please? I’ll explain on the way.”

  She took in his disheveled appearance and hesitated but a moment. His eyes pleaded with her. Wetting a finger, she smoothed her brother’s hair, rubbed the dirt from his face, and fixed his coat before grabbing her hat. “All right, I’ll go with you.”

  The two-block walk to the towering brick building her brother called home would’ve been a treat if Thomas weren’t so agitated. The last of the summer pansies smiled from pots in front of the other brick buildings. The streets sparkled after the morning clean-up. Even the sight of the two-seater, black steam-engine cars sitting at the curb that once seemed such a novelty made her smile.

  She nodded in greeting and poked Thomas to tip his hat at the businessman striding by on a stately black Tennessee Walking horse. “Thomas, smile.” He tipped his hat and fell back into his private funk.

  Pausing on the sidewalk, Thomas looked first one way, then another, before leading her to the door on the side of the building. He unlatched the padlock, pushed the door open, and pulled the chain hanging from the ceiling. The fluoresced bulb flicked on with a whoosh.

  Locking them in, he grabbed a handheld torch and led her down the steps. The torch gave a bright, clear ray of light. Flashlight, she corrected herself, a word that still sounded funny on her tongue.

  “This way.”

  She followed him down one long hall and then another. He unlocked and relocked a heavy set of wooden doors, then continued. “It’s in the next room. Are you all right?”

  She sneezed in response. “I’m fine, Thomas, except for the dust.”

  The next set of doors took Thomas longer to open as he hunted through his keys. The trio of locks opened with a click. Alva’s questions about his extreme carefulness, maybe even paranoia, vanished as he gave her the light.

  “Go on while I lock these behind us.”

  The light bounced off the device ahead, creating a golden glow that made Alva gasp and instinctively place her free hand over her womb in protection. Awed, yet curious, she stepped closer, trying to make sense of the majestic machine that loomed before her. It gleamed as if with an inner fire, the dash fitted with a breathtaking array of knobs and dials. Two bronzed arches flowed like liquid across the two seats to the back, where more knobs, levers, and buttons were arranged. The back deck held what looked like a giant fan fronted by a large storage box. Her mouth gaped open as she took it all in.

  “Thomas. . . then, you mean, y–your stories are true?”

  His gaze held hers. “Alva, never would I lie to you, ever. Yes, it’s true.” He directed her to sit while he went to the table in the corner. “I’ll get us some tea and maybe we can figure this out, and hopefully jog your memory.”

  Alva sipped the tea he offered, then set her cup on the table as he reiterated past events. “All you remember when you woke up in the hospital, besides your charming doctor, was that you fell, right?”

  She felt her face warm as she nodded. “I had nightmares for months about falling from the sk
y and landing in a cornfield. The dreams never made sense.”

  “How could they?” he asked. “When you see horse drawn and steam-driven vehicles on the roads, how could I explain that there really is another place in which airships fly powered by kinetics and steam? You already doubted my story of how you helped me adjust this flying machine. I know it’s hard to believe that’s how we came here, that we really do have another life.”

  Alva closed her eyes as the mathematical calculations ran through her mind. “I know the probabilities . . . I just never connected my memory lapses and how things sometimes felt wrong.”

  He nodded and welcomed her to take a closer look, his mood lighter. “I knew at some point I’d get you to see. I knew it!”

  “Yes, I understand, but I still don’t remember it all. I guess that doesn’t really matter.”

  “It’ll come. Right now, I need your help. There’s something I haven’t told you.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve been back and forth, several times.”

  Her eyes widened. “Now, brother, this is going too far.” It was like when they were children, him always trying to take advantage of her gullibility. Her anger rose. “Thomas, I’m not a child any more. Don’t do this to me.”

  “I’m not lying. Here.”

  Her eyes fell on the colorful newspaper he held out. So unlike the black and white papers here with their flat, monochrome images. Headlines and colors screamed for attention.

  “So different,” she murmured. “So modern, but. . . “The feeling of familiarity faded when she spotted the headline:

  Defore Jailed by Puritans; Charged with Witchery.

  Thomas cleared his throat and explained, “There’s the problem. Do you recall the huge change when the Inventors gained power over the Puritans? We were finally able to invent freely again?”

  She shrugged. “No, but it sounds interesting.”

  “Defore tried to take over while I was here. He made the mistake of talking about my time travel and got caught up in a wave of witch-hunting hysteria. It’s pushed all the inventors back underground. I was going back to help; then this happened.”

  Alva rose and eyed the machine, now noticing the pockmarks and punched-in sections of the metal for the first time. Black scorch marks wriggled around the dials like snakes.

  “Smoke poured out when I started the machine up again. I’ve checked everything.” His gaze held hers. “Alva, I know, you haven’t been yourself, but your abilities are still there, just a little rusty. Will you take a look? Please?”

  Despite her uneasiness, she couldn’t resist inspecting the gleaming machine. Thomas opened the toolbox stuffed with bulbs, wires, and tools. She studied the dials and opened the compartment doors, her mind on autopilot as she tested wires and changed fuses. She realigned a cog here, tightened a wheel there, making adjustments without knowing why she did them, but instinctively knowing they were right. A few minutes later, she nodded and stepped aside.

  “Okay, try it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She stared at him, hands on hips. “Now you doubt me?”

  He smiled and pushed the button on the dash. The dials spun and lights sprang to life. The machine rattled and then steadied, the machination humming, the cogs falling into place with a click, a clack, and a high-pitched ting.

  He let the machine run while he pulled over a leather bag, the sides bulging at the seams. “Alva, I’m afraid I have something else to tell you. The reason the machine went out of adjustment was that I accidently bumped the lever in mid-flight. It got stuck and sent me somewhere else, six months in the future.”

  A cold feeling settled over her. “Whose future, where?”

  “Mine—and yours.”

  “Six months from now, you visited?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t tell me—”

  “I tried to tell you before . . . before you got smitten with the doctor. Tried to tell you before you married him. But you were so happy and—”

  The feeling of dread threatened to choke her as she decided whether to take the paper he held out. “B–but that doesn’t mean something has to happen, or that it will happen, right? This paper from the future . . . it might not mean anything.”

  A shrug was the only answer he could offer. “I don’t know that it will happen, any more than I know that this machine won’t misfire and go hurtling into an unknown dimension. But it’s still worth considering, isn’t it?”

  With a nod, she took the paper, unfolded it, and gasped at the black-and-white image before her. She read the headline, Doctor and Family Found Dead After Break-In. She didn’t believe it—couldn’t—yet it still struck fear in her heart. She folded the paper, not daring to read further, not wanting to learn things that she had no business knowing yet.

  The sound of footsteps made her jump, and she thrust the paper at her brother. “Here, take this. Hide it.”

  “There’s no need,” the man said.

  Alva gasped, stunned to see her husband come toward her. “Pierre? What are you doing here? How did you know?”

  He wore a heavy black overcoat, his doctor’s bag in one hand, their large trunk trailing behind. He set everything down and hugged her close.

  “I hope you’re not upset. Your brother told me everything. Of course, I didn’t believe him, not until he showed me the machine.”

  She stepped back, her arms crossed in anger. “Y–you knew, yet you let me continue to wonder if I was losing my mind?”

  “No.” He reached out and took her hand. “I only learned of the machine two days ago, but I couldn’t say anything yet. Not until everything was arranged. I went to the bank, withdrew some money for us and packed what we needed. I brought your jewels, the pictures of your parents, and your box of mementos. We have a couple changes of clothing and my medical supplies. It’s enough for us to start over. I’m hoping that however this works, we’ll be able to get the bonds and extra cash I left in our safe deposit box.”

  Alva staggered over to the chair, plopped down, and held out the paper. “You read this?”

  He nodded.

  “Then–then it must be true!” she cried. “It must be real or why else would you be here? We’re doomed.”

  He came to her side and tenderly held her hand. “Alva darling, listen to me. That doesn’t mean it will happen. As a man of science, I still have trouble totally believing all this—flying and time travel and what-not.” He paused, waving a hand at the machine, “But I also can’t doubt what my eyes are seeing. We have no choice. We have to take the chance that we can change the future. We must leave.”

  Her resistance died as he pulled the heavy cloak from the trunk and wrapped her in it, his hand pausing to caress the babe resting in her womb. “You’ll need this. Thomas told me how cold it was his last trip.”

  Alva huddled next to him wanting, no, needing to ask the one thing she yearned to know most. “Pierre, the baby? Will it be okay? Please tell me.”

  “Yes, everything will be fine. You didn’t read the story?”

  She shook her head. “No. I–I couldn’t. I want you to tell me.”

  Her face glowed as he whispered in her ear. Minutes later, Thomas took their trunk and bags, set them inside the storage box, and locked it. “Are we ready?”

  Alva’s hand tightened in her husband’s strong grasp as they buckled themselves in, she sitting on Pierre’s lap while her brother fastened two large belts around both of them.

  That done, Thomas made one last adjustment to the meters and checked the notches on the time indicator before he fastened himself in.” I don’t know how everything with Defore will be resolved, but I’ve set the timer many months past the year we first left and beyond the time of the events in that newspaper, so we should be safe.”

  Alva leaned against her husband, her heart fluttering as flashes of that first ride returned. This time the stakes were so much higher. “Pierre, maybe we shouldn’t. . .” Her words were swallowed in a
plume of thick, black smoke and an ear-shattering explosion as the machine roared to life and disappeared.

  A smile of contentment lit Alva’s face as she helped her eight-month-old son, Benjamin, finish his lunch. “Eat your carrots, Benny, then we’ll go see your daddy and uncle. You want to do that?”

  The little boy gave a big gap-toothed grin, his face smeared with orange. “See Da, Unc!”

  After wiping the boy’s mouth, she picked up the intercom phone and called the nanny upstairs. “Anna, please bring down Benny’s sailor suit. We’ll be going to the president’s office.”

  She set down the receiver, still amazed at the recent turn of events. Some things remained a blur, but the yells of Thomas’s rival Defore after he was sentenced to death for plotting to assassinate President Thomas Edison and Vice President Pierre LaBonet still rang in her ears.

  The Inventor’s Party was again in power and new developments like the arthritis medicine she took daily not only improved her life, but offered relief to thousands of other sufferers.

  The incredible new steam-powered, kinetic land vehicles Thomas designed had caught the public’s imagination and were being built from his plans. His kinetic talking machine was also being reviewed for global use.

  Alva caressed her ballooning stomach hidden beneath the flowing Victorian gown’s folds and smiled. She anxiously awaited the impending birth of her second child, a daughter. Life was good.

  FOR THE LOVE OF COPPER

  Marc Tassin

  Marc Tassin was enthralled by books from a very early age, and he often considered trying his hand at writing. Then, a few years back, Marc started attending the Gen Con Writer’s Symposiums. Inspired by the advice and support offered by the panelists, Marc stopped thinking about writing and started actually writing. Since then, Marc has published numerous short stories, articles, and game materials and has loved every minute of it. Marc lives in a small town just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife Tanya and their two children.