The Incorruptibles (Book One, Frankenstein Vigilante): Frankenstein Vigilante: The Steampunk Series (Frankenstein Vigilante. The Steampunk Series.)

by Peter Lawrence

  Brutus flew high above the forest and mountain wildernesses that stretched from the Frankenstein estate to the outskirts of The Smoke, an almost unexplored landmass populated only by Manu and Mancit villages. The tribes’ murderous intent towards strangers was only exceeded by their ritual savagery towards each other, manifested in their traditional sport, headball. Following a battle, the winning tribe would decapitate the loser’s leader. Then the remaining warriors would range through the jungle, kicking the decapitated head, until one team or the other managed to get it through the doorway of the opposing tribal chief’s lodge. In recent times, one legendary Manu warrior, Baldibobi, had grown tired of the fact that the kicked-about skull often disintegrated long before it could be rammed through its goal. So that warrior simply picked up the head and ran with it, charging through the forest until he was clubbed unconscious by the opposing team. A long and violent debate followed but, finally, all agreed that there was no reason not to pick up the skull and run.

  Brutus, the smartest, strongest and most experienced of all karriers, made full use of his understanding of the dangerous terrain below his flight path, soaring on thermals then diving for maximum speed as necessary. When he finally arrived at the Incorruptibles’ headquarters in The Smoke, Alaina rushed to embrace him. She saw that the message pod strapped to one leg was marked with the traditional yellow and black lightning bolt that indicated maximum urgency; but she ensured that Brutus was fed and watered, and comfortable in his large coop, before she shared the message with her Babbler twin.

  He reacted to the strain in her expression with a string of stress-induced Babbler obscenities. Alaina let the stream of revolting words wash over her, waiting for calm to descend on her brother. When it did, “How are we supposed to find Efrain?” he asked. “The man’s completely disappeared.”

  “We have contacts Ricardo. I have contacts. I’ll put them on full alert.”

  “What if the Silencios realize they’re not the only people trying to find him? What then?”

  “We’ll just have to be discreet.” And Alaina smiled at the thought of her explosively profane, obscenity spouting Babbler twin being discreet. Ricardo knew what she was thinking and laughed out loud.

  oOo

  18

  ALTHOUGH THE ROOM WAS WINDOWLESS, it wasn’t oppressive. The opposite, in fact, for it was lit by the glow of a dozen candles, and cooled by an air shaft let into the ceiling. The walls, hollowed from rock, were rough-hewn but had been coated with a rich metallic paint, which gave them a glinting, reflective quality. Here and there were artworks, some representing the daily life of the tin miners whose descendants Shelley Mary had fallen among. One picture she recognised as an early Pierpoint, the brown tones and oaty texture a sure giveaway. She reckoned any of The Smoke’s affluenzos would have given a million koronas for it.

  Once underground, the man with the muscular calves had driven through a maze of tunnels until they came to an underground village, dwellings lining each side of a main ‘road’ with businesses dotted among them. Dalton had removed a panel from the side of the chariot so that she could see out, and she’d spotted a blacksmith, a chariot repair place of some kind, and even some food vendors.

  When they’d arrived at his dwelling, Dalton, so far a man of few words, had simply led Shelley Mary to the room where she was now luxuriating in a huge bath, a rock-lined pool filled with warm, bubbling water. She noted with approval that the water immersing her remained totally clear. A thermal spring, she guessed.

  Shelley Mary gingerly washed her face with a sponge, passing carefully over the cuts and scrapes that she’d received in the riot at the Senate. She wiggled her toes in the bubbles emanating from the other end of the pool. If it weren’t for the fact that she'd recently killed a man and would be a marked woman the rest of her life, she’d be enjoying this.

  She leant back, closed her eyes, and would have fallen asleep had she not heard someone discreetly clearing his throat on the other side of the hessian curtain that separated the bathing chamber from the rest of the dwelling. Quickly she slid lower in the and called out:

  “Who is it?”

  “Dalton.”

  “Dalton?”

  “Dalton Trager Rhineheart. The man who stopped you being dragged off by Silencios. The man who brought you here.”

  “Dalton. Nice name.”

  “I’ve brought you some towels. I’ll leave them on the bed.” Shelley Mary heard Dalton move across the room, and made a quick decision. She leapt out of the bath, wincing slightly as her sore muscles were forced into action again, and positioned herself by the curtain. Wrapping it around herself like a toga, she peeked out, and saw Dalton laying the towels on the large bed. Dalton turned, saw Shelley, her outline soft in the candlelight, her face no less lovely for the scratches and bruises that crisscrossed it.

  “The thing is,” Shelley Mary said, embarrassing herself but unable to stop, “I need one of those towels now. Could you…?” Dalton looked at her, his face serious, the hint of a smile dancing around his eyes.

  “I could.” He picked up the largest of the towels he’d just placed on the bed, and strode across to Shelley Mary. He proffered her the towel. Still holding the curtain with one hand, with the other she took it. For a moment it looked as though Dalton was going to turn away, but he was held by Shelley Mary’s eyes, their pupils dilating.

  Then Shelley Mary let go of the curtain. It fell away, revealing the smooth flesh, the combination of soft curves and firm muscle that both men and women loved. Dalton’s breath was taken away and he almost stumbled. But he caught himself, and then caught Shelley Mary, one arm under her shoulder blades, the other under her thighs. She leaned into him as he lifted her up and took her back across the short space to the bed, gently laying her on the fur coverlet.

  Somewhere at the back of her mind, Shelley Mary just had time to wonder how this charismatic caveman had access to fluffy towels and fur bedclothes before Dalton was on her, hands rough, tongue smooth, pulling off clothes, pressing himself against her as if willing every inch of his body to blend into every inch of hers. Shelley arched her back, responding in kind, working his clothes until he too was naked, his dark skin a stark contrast to her soft, pale curves.

  When he entered her it was easy and welcome. She gasped and within seconds achieved climax, the first of many. It was good, so good, but in the tension and release of the moment, she was amazed to find herself thinking of Cerval... then Evangeline... then Dalton... then Evangeline... then Dalton... then Evangeline again.

  A healthy libido’s one thing, she thought, but am I out of control? It wasn’t a question of morality. The Smoke was sexually open. What was beginning to concern her was her self-control. On the other hand, she consoled herself, near-death experiences stimulate sexual desire, the need to continue the species in the face of danger… These desires were perfectly natural. And very welcome.

  Shelley Mary gingerly tasted the amber-coloured liquid. It was dry, with a musty aftertaste. She took a swallow and in a few seconds felt a warm glow pervade her body.

  “It’s good. What is it?”

  “Mushka. We make it here. From mushrooms among other things.” Dalton took a sip from his own goblet.

  Shelley Mary and Dalton sat opposite each other, each in a chair made from what appeared to be railway sleepers. Dalton wore his breeches, Shelley a towel knotted above her breasts. The rest of Dalton’s clothes were strewn around the floor. Shelley had noticed that the torn and bloodstained clothes in which she’d arrived had been taken away, and that there was a neat little pile of freshly pressed clothes on the ottoman at the end of the bed. How did these cave-dwellers achieve that?

  Shelley tilted her goblet to look at the contents.

  “Mushka? So it does still exist.” In The Smoke, the hallucinogenic drink had been banned for years. “I’ve always heard that you could get it if you knew the right people.” Dalton grinned. “Well, the right people would be me. If I wanted to sell it, th
at is. But I don’t. We don’t. It’s part of our culture, a part that they haven’t taken away from us. Yet.” Shelley Mary drank again, more deeply this time.

  “So what culture is that?”

  “Chavalier culture.”

  “Chavaliers. A Marshian UnderGrunt subclass.” Shelley Mary recited the words as if reading from a social commentary. Dalton barely inclined his head. He seemed amused and Shelley Mary felt patronized. She continued. “Chavaliers, Steamers, Daubers, they’re just names. Meaningless to most Smokies because most Smokies think all Marshians are trash, whatever they’re called.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “My mother used to say to me ‘work hard at school, or you’ll end up in Harlesdon Marshes.’” Dalton grinned again. “And yet you have.”

  “Looks like it.” Shelley Mary forced herself to think like the newspaperwoman she aspired to be. “Which brings me to my next question – why me? I mean, there were dozens of people in trouble at that demo, and you could have rescued any of them. And yet you took me.” Dalton leaned forward, a hank of his long hair failing over his cheek. Shelley Mary felt her heart lurch. She was pretty sure it wasn’t just the mushka, though that was having a palpable effect.

  “I didn’t just pick you out at random. I recognised you.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Your picture. Your column in The News Of The Smoke.”

  “You read the social column of The News?” said Shelley Mary incredulously. “You live in a cave, you ride in a horse-drawn chariot, yet you follow the doings of a bunch of timewasters who just happen to have money?” Dalton grimaced.

  “Not only money. Power. They’ve carved everything up between them. And they’ve convinced Smokies that if we rock the boat, it will get a lot worse.”

  Shelley blinked and focussed. She agreed with Dalton but the mushka glow was distracting, spreading to every part of her body. She said: “You sound like Cerval and Evangeline.”

  “Who are Cerval and Evangeline?” And before she could stop herself, Shelley Mary betrayed them: “Incorruptibles.” Dalton gave a short, sharp bark of laughter.

  “Those dilettantes!”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Shelley Mary retorted, hot. “Dilettantes? So fucking dilettante that they took on the Silencios head on, and Thorsten Laverack’s more dead than alive.” She cut herself short as she understood the enormity of her betrayal. She had made a promise to Cerval and Evangeline to protect their anonymity, and she had so easily broken it. Now Dalton held their lives in his hands.

  Fuck this mushka!

  “Thorsten Laverack?”

  “I should have kept my mouth shut.”

  “No, no, go on. I’m intrigued.”

  “You patronizing arsehole. How dare you judge the Incorruptibles! What the fuck do you know about them?”

  “I know they’re idealists.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “You tell me. Seriously. If I’ve misjudged them, I’ll admit it.” Shelley Mary calmed herself, tried to think through the mushka haze.

  “They were founded by an affluenzo – a Topper, in fact – who’d seen though the life he was born to, and dedicated himself to cleaning up crime and corruption in The Smoke. He believes that’s the first step to re-ordering society.”

  “And that’s not a hopeless ideal?”

  “I said it before. You’re a patronizing arsehole, Dalton. What fucking good are you doing? And Evangeline… and Thorsten… they’re as different from affluenzos as you.”

  “I have a simpler, less grandiose agenda. A Chavalier agenda. To get what’s rightfully ours. Somewhere decent and safe to live. A chance to make a living. A future for our children.”

  “Then you and the Incorruptibles are on the shame... same… side.”

  “Maybe. But we live in an abandoned tin mine. Where do they live?”

  Touché, thought Shelley Mary but she was damned if she’d betray the estate. She looked around at the room. The flickering candlelight, soft shadows dancing on the walls, the inviting fur-covered bed. She knew she was entering a mushka-fuelled dream state. Her limbs felt fuzzy down to their extremities, and the contours of the room rippled as though she was under water.

  Dalton leaned forward again, concerned. Had she misjudged him? Shelley Mary noticed how white his teeth were. They too rippled, like the walls.

  “Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

  “I feel... I feel...” Shelley Mary stood up, swaying slightly. The towel fall to the ground. Dalton sprang to his feet and caught her as she was following the towel. He

  led her gently to the bed and was arranging the fur cover around her when she grasped his hand, pulled him down to her.

  It all started again, and this time Shelley Mary saw only Dalton’s face before her.

  oOo

  19

  “SO THE SILENCIOS were responsible for the bombing? It was the work of an agent provocateur?”

  It had been twenty four hours since Dalton brought Shelley Mary to his underground hideout, and since then they had made love many times. Now they both felt the need to talk. To eat and drink. They sat at a massive table, like the chairs constructed from railway sleepers that took up a corner of the cavern-room. On it were spread a variety of Chavalier specialities: a horsemeat roast – the Chavaliers weren’t sentimental about what they ate and when a pit pony passed its useful working life it took on another use, just as vital; mushroom tortillas and vol-au-vents, herb-flavoured fungus dumplings and a bowl of the wild raspberries that thrived in the dirt of the dump above the underground headquarters.

  Shelley Mary picked a shred of meat from between her teeth. She’d said she was hungry enough to eat a horse, and had wondered why Dalton grinned. She had to admit it was good.

  “My boss knew it was going to happen in advance and the Silencios were there. Or one of them, anyway. He was one of the assassins that ambushed the Incorruptibles at Efrain’s lab. But what I need to know is, why? What was the point of the bombing?”

  “They’re ruthless, the Commission,” Dalton replied. He sounded admiring. “Random street violence, bombings, crime – they keep fear alive and fear is the Commission’s franchise.”

  “There has to be more to it than that,” Shelley Mary said then, as the details of the explosion came back to her: “Poor Jerry. I wish I hadn’t asked him along ”

  “It was his job,” replied Dalton unsympathetically. “And, anyway, it’s not all bad.” She gave him a hard look and was going to object but he continued quickly: “It shows the kind of bastards we’re up against. And if we can get that across to everyone in The Smoke, maybe we can wake them up.” Shelley Mary shook her head.

  “Is that what you want? To wake up The Smoke? To change the status quo? Because if it is, you should be working with Cerval.” Shr gave his a chance to reply but he remained silent, so she continued: “But I don’t believe that. I think you’re Chavalier first and foremost and the Smokies can go hang.”

  “Friends and family first,” Dalton shrugged, not rising to the bait. “Anyway, if you feel so strongly about it, you don’t need Cerval Frankenstein and you don’t need me. Do something about it yourself.”

  “On my own?”

  “Maybe you have to start on your own. We all do.”

  “Sounds like you have it all worked out.”

  “What I know is this: the Commission – probably every politician in The Smoke – they all work on the assumption that the general population is stupid and perhaps en masse, it is. Certainly acts that way. But, if you’re a hopeful type, you might think that’s only because Smokies are ill-informed. For a long time, they’ve been peddled a con – the Affluenzo Dream: you can make it if you really try. Luckily for the Commission, one in a million of the dreamers flukes it and suddenly everyone believes he or she can be that one. The truth is, it’s a lie! Every day the rich are getting richer. Not just richer – nothing wrong with that – but obscenely r
icher and at the cost of everyone else. It’s not enough for them to have a major share. They want everything and for the rest to have nothing. That’s the truth the Commission hides – but you’re a writer. You can work to expose the lie. You can write a call to arms. A manifesto. Instead of trading barbs with me, do something! Write something that illuminates the truth, that will inspire hope and a belief that The Smoke can be changed!”

  Shelley Mary looked down at her feet. How similar his idea was to Cerval’s belief that she could write the story of the Incorruptibles, reveal his true identity, his burning desire for justice – and that story might begin to inspire change.

  So far, she’d failed miserably at everything except her own sexual pleasure.

  “Right,” she said gloomily. “I’m a gossip columnist without a column, I’m on the run for murder. I can’t ever go home. I’ve betrayed Cerval and his Incorruptibles. Even if I could write your manifesto, I can’t get it out there. It’ll be words fired into a void.”

  “No! I know exactly how you can get it out there.”

  She saw the fire in his eyes, heard the fervor in his voice and her heart lifted. If she could be a motive force in the revolution which these two very different men hoped for, she would die happy.

  oOo

  20

  DALTON AND SHELLEY MARY strolled hand in hand along what was once the main street of Harlesdon Marshes. Shelley noticed that they weren’t being bothered even by the most desperate-looking derelicts. Clearly Dalton was known around these parts, and anyone accompanying him was accorded safe passage.

  As they walked, they passed through various different streetscapes; what appeared to be a totally derelict block would suddenly lead into an area where dwellings, however decrepit, were occupied and businesses were operating. They rounded one corner and had to move to one side to avoid dozens of decades-old steamers, in various stages of decomposition, their rusty hulks spread out across the road. Several shop fronts were festooned with oily steamer parts, and here and there men and women worked on the machines, themselves covered in so much filth and grease that at a distance they seemed to be wearing war paint. Dalton saw Shelley Mary looking askance.