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

by Peter Lawrence

  “They’re Steamers,” he explained.

  “I can see that,” replied Shelley Mary. “But they’re all old crates. I haven’t seen any like them on the road for years.”

  “No, I meant the people working on them. They call themselves Steamers too. They’ve got a mission. They reckon electricidad is the work of the devil, and they want to keep old steam vehicles going as long as they can. They’re just traditionalists I suppose.”

  “What happens when they run out of parts?”

  “They make them.”

  One of the Steamers, a grizzled older man, his hands ingrained with the dirt of years, brought his head up out of the engine bay in which he’d been immersed:

  “Hey, Dalton!” He indicated the machine he’d been working on. “Wanna buy it? It’ll be ready in a couple of days.” Dalton grinned.

  “I don’t think so, Carlo. You know us Chavaliers – we’re even more backward-looking than you.” Carlo took notice of Shelley Mary for the first time. Although she was wearing the Chavalier clothes that Dalton had provided for her, Carlo seemed to sense that she wasn’t a Harlesdon Marshes resident.

  “Decided to slum it for a bit, have you? See how the other half live?” Shelley Mary bristled. “I’m not here because I want to be!”

  “No,” said Dalton mildly, “She’s a murderer. Killed a cop. Or a Silencio. She’s hiding out with us for a while.” Carlo looked at her with new respect. “You’ve burnt your bridges then. No going back to the Higher Ground for you.”

  “I’m not from the Higher Ground,” said Shelley Mary stiffly. “I’m from Brickheath.” Instantly the steamer broke out into a grin that lit his whole face.

  “A Brickie, eh? That’s different. We Brickies have to stick together!” He clapped Shelley Mary on the shoulder with a force that rocked her sideways. “Anything you need in the steamer line, you let me know!” As the old man took up his work again, Dalton and Shelley Mary walked on.

  “It’s quite different from its reputation – the Marshes. Most Smokies think all the Marshians are criminals, bums or druggies.”

  “And whose fault is that then?” Shelley Mary recognized the accusation in his voice.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she retorted hotly.

  “You journalists. If you did your job, the truth would out. Take Carlo, He had a good business. But he was paying so much protection to the Silencios – taxes, they called it - that when his wife fell sick he couldn’t afford the hospital or the drugs. She died. The business failed. He drifted down here. An extreme example, you might think, but you’d surprised how many Marshians have similar stories.”

  Shelley Mary had no answer to that and they walked on. A few more blocks of decay and dereliction, and they found themselves in another quarter. Here almost every surface was decorated. Some designs were figurative. Shelley Mary noticed scurrilously accurate caricatures of several of the society personalities that she used to write about. But most were abstract, creating a brain-frazzling explosion of colour that was in stark contrast to the browns and greys of the rest of the Marshes. This was the artists’ quarter, home of the Daubers. Some were born and bred in the Marshes, but many had immigrated from The Smoke, attracted by the empty buildings and the free-thinking way of life. As with the Steamers, the Daubers seemed to know Dalton.

  Dalton and Shelley Mary approached a slightly-built woman who was moulding an abstract statue in the middle of the street. Dalton shook hands with the artist. “How’s it going Talia? Going to be another Pierpoint?” Talia growled, her deep voice in contrast to her slim, compact body.

  “Don’t talk to me about that sell-out. Artist? Con artist, more like.”

  “Because he went back to The Smoke and became a star?”

  “Among other things.” She nodded towards Shelley Mary. “Who’s your friend?’

  “Killer,” Dalton explained airily. “Staying with me till things cool down.”

  “Does Paulina know?” For the first time since she’d met him, Shelley Mary thought Dalton seemed flustered.

  “Oh, she’ll be fine,” he said, a little too forcefully. “Anyway, I haven’t seen her since the rumpus at the Senate.” Talia laughed:

  “Give her a couple of days. She’ll come back. She always does.”

  “No doubt.” Dalton smiled weakly and Shelley Mary asked herself why, if this Paulina was important to him, was Dalton not trying to find her? But she kept her thoughts to herself.

  They walked on. Then with no warning, the side of a building flew apart in an explosive blast of light and sound, hurling two men several ahms into the road. Shelley Mary sprang back, but pulled herself together as she saw that Dalton merely waited patiently until the men picked themselves up. They were a little unsteady on their feet, but apparently not seriously harmed. One of them spotted Dalton:

  “Hey, Rhineheart, how’re you doing?” he shouted, deafened by the explosion he had instigated.

  “Still keeping the faith, I see,” replied Dalton. The man shrugged, dusting himself down. As he came towards them, Shelley Mary saw that his eyes were dilated and he jittered as he walked.

  “Developing some new stuff,” he explained loudly. “Fill a matchbox with it, you got enough to bring down a three-storey building. It’s a little unstable though.” Dalton and Shelley Mary regarded the rubble that had been the side of the building.

  “Seems so,” said Dalton and the man walked off trying to disguise a limp. Shelley Mary turned to Dalton. “They blow themselves up?” she asked, astonished.

  “Well, not deliberately. They’re the Dynamistas, the ones who do it deliberately. The same ones did the Senate.” He gave her a cool look. “What?” she asked. “For someone who’s supposed to be a journalist,” he said, “there’s a lot you don’t seem to know.” Shelley Mary bit off the defensive retort she was about to make. He was right.

  “There’s a lot the general Smokie public doesn’t know,” she said quietly. “And – you said it earlier – that’s our failure. Journalists.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself. As they say… ‘What happens in the Marshes stays in the Marshes.’”

  They moved on and Dalton continued his explanation of the strange life in Harlesdon Marshes. “The Dynamista we just spoke to? Well, the Dynamistas are a faction of the Revoltistas. You know what their motto is? ‘Progress through explosives.’ Except they’re always too stoned to get on to the progress part, so the motto doesn’t mean much.”

  “Bonnot Falwell Robertson’s disciples – and what I don’t understand is why the Commission hasn’t shut him down.”

  “Think about it.”

  “You mean… Falwell works with the Commission?” Dalton shrugged. “Useful to have a bunch of lunatics on hand who think they’ll blow themselves straight up into heaven.”

  Dalton had a specific destination in mind – a large building that had once been a busy department store. The remains of the store’s sign still hung crookedly over the entrance, its faded letters proclaiming that it once traded as Derby & Thoms. Outside, Dalton stopped for a moment, looked up at the store’s frontage, still imposing despite decades of weather, arson and neglect. Shelley Mary couldn’t fathom what they were doing there.

  “It’s an old department store, right? Derby & Thoms. I’ve seen pictures of it from the old days. In the archives. It looks as though it’s been completely stripped out.”

  “Yeah, it’s a wreck. Nothing but a home for pigeons and rats. But there’s one little bit left that’s going to help us. Come on.”

  A few minutes later Dalton and Shelley Mary were in a basement room. Its main purpose was clearly some kind of technology, for a large part of it was taken up by a massive piston assembly, from which led a tangled mass of pipes and tubes. Attending the machinery was a Chavalier woman, dark but blue-eyed like Dalton, seated in a wickerwork wheelchair. She had no legs below the knee.

  As Dalton and Shelley Mary approached, she turned to face them, operated controls that sent the ch
air scooting across the floor towards them, silently except for a pffftt of compressed air.

  “Dalton! To what do I owe this pleasure? And who’s your friend?”

  “Just came to see how you’re getting on, Florenza, and introduce you to Shelley Mary.” Shelley Mary was uncomfortable under Florenza’s scrutiny. Everyone she had met with Dalton had regarded her quizzically.

  “She’s going to write our manifesto.” Shelley Mary contained her surprise. It was such a clear-cut statement of something that had only been an idea, she thought. A suggestion. She saw Florenza’s attitude change instantly.

  “Ah, the famous manifesto,” and Shelley Mary realized that Dalton’s urging her to do something on her own, to use her skills, wasn’t a spontaneous suggestion; that he had been thinking about, talking about, a manifesto with his sympathizers. Perhaps for some time. Should she be flattered that he had chosen her to put the words together?

  Dalton explained the system which would distribute the manifesto: “You know when you go into a store in The Smoke, you buy something, the clerk takes your money, puts it into that little cylinder and fires it off to the accounts department? Your change comes back in the same cylinder?”

  “The pneumo? Sure. Runs on compressed air, right?”

  “Exactly,” said Florenza.

  “Well,” continued Dalton, “imagine if along with your change and the receipt you got a copy of the manifesto. Headline? Something like STOP CONSUMING, START THINKING! I don’t know. You’ll think of the right words. Something that would shock you. Open your eyes. Make you read on.”

  “Except that I’d’ve already consumed,” Shelley Mary observed wryly.

  “But I’d bet you would read on. You’d find a call to arms. The Smoke dream exposed. The illusion of trickle down. Here are the facts. Wealth and privilege are self-perpetuating. A closed club. There is no equality of opportunity. Citizens of The Smoke, rise up, throw off your shackles. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

  “That’s it?” asked Shelley Mary dubiously. “I don’t think that’s going to stir anyone’s blood.”

  “That’s why we need a writer, someone who can make ideas come alive! Write it your way! Make it different! Make it credible! Every revolution in history begins with words. Theory. Debate. Information. Inflammation! Put the words together!”

  Despite herself, Shelley Mary was excited. This was exactly the kind of challenge she had hoped she might face at The News Of The Smoke. Dalton slapped the big cylinder again.

  “This was the heart of the original pneumo. Invented by H.W. Derby. Derby & Thoms was the first store to use it. Of course, all the other big stores wanted it too and the system spread throughout The Smoke. Then they all connected to one another. Smoke-wide communications that didn’t get caught up in traffic, didn’t need runners. It’s one of the few Smoke systems that actually works, even if the SuperOxygenators are lobbying to have it shut down. Anyway, as Harlesdon Marches declined, Derby & Thoms went belly up, but while all the other stores go on using the compressed-air tube, the heart of the system, the original, here in this building, still exists. And all the original tubes are still in place. It hasn’t been used for years but it’s still connected to every store in The Smoke.” He turned to the woman in the wheelchair. “Florenza’s our resident genius. She’s been renovating and adapting the pneumo system. Thanks to her, anything we upload here can end up in every single retail outlet in The Smoke. How’s that for distribution?”

  Shelley Mary was impressed. “That’s quite something.” Florenza smiled. “Compared to developing a compressed-air system to power wheelchairs, it was a piece of cake.”

  oOo

  21

  RUPERT GILCHRIST BASS’S BOWELS were in a turmoil, partly the result of a questionable mutton stew that his wife had served up the night before. She wasn’t a great cook at the best of times, and for a while Rupert had suspected that she was trying to poison him meal by meal. But he couldn’t prove it and meanwhile he was trying to work out how he could get to the lavatory without passing Carly Matsudaira’s desk.

  Ever since what he had now come to think of as ‘the incident,’ he’d been avoiding her, coming in to the office before her and leaving after her. She’d left a single copy of his penis imprint on his desk, but as far as he knew she hadn’t distributed any others. Of course, if she did, he’d deny the image had anything to do with him, but he really didn’t want to get into a prolonged feud with Carly.

  Christ, she was strong!

  Although he had only hazy memories of the night in question, he knew that she’d flung him across the room as if he’d been a scrunched-up piece of paper rather than a large and heavy man. As he thought about it, Rupert found himself becoming aroused, which was bad news because his entire scrotal region was still deeply bruised and swollen. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, tried distracting himself, but still felt his member stirring. Inevitably he then started to think about Shelley Mary.

  That bitch!

  Coming up to his office in that sexy outfit and leading him on! Not to mention crushing his balls in the very desk at which he was now sitting. And now she’d gone and killed someone. An undercover cop, they said, though Bass doubted that. More likely a Silencio contract thug.

  A vision of Shelley Mary wielding a silvographa as a murder weapon came into Rupert’s mind, segueing into a vision of her in the dress with the gauzy transparent panel. Then he found himself filled with alternating visions of Shelley Mary’s silken thighs and Carly’s massive biceps, and the remaining Viper Agua in his system started to live up to its super-strength claims.

  R. G. began to panic. Not only was he desperate to empty his bowels, he was now going to have to relieve the other pressure as well. All right, a plan, that’s what he needed, a plan. He was going to have to face Carly at some point, and he was her boss, for fuck’s sake. He’d just march past her, look the other way. After all, what could she do?

  No sooner had Rupert made his decision than his bowels erupted in a coruscating, multi-toned fart. Frowning, Caramba Dusseldorp glanced in through the glass panel that separated his office from her desk. Rupert busied himself shuffling some papers. He’d got to go or he’d bust.

  Carefully – still erect – Rupert got up; and at that moment his secret AvCom rang.

  Not now for fuck’s sake!

  Rupert hesitated, wondering whether he should ignore the machine’s muted trilling. But this was his hotline. Any call on this AvCom was going to be important. Using his considerable girth to conceal his actions from Caramba, he unlocked the private drawer, pulled out the instrument and muttered into it:

  “Yes?”

  The voice on the line was low, guttural. “You know who I am.”

  “Yes. Is everything all right?” Rupert asked nervously. He’d done everything they asked.

  “No. Everything’s fucking wrong. The girl you sent to cover the bombing killed one of ours.’”

  “Well, yes, she did, but that’s not my fault. I didn’t know she was going to do that. And besides,” Rupert cupped his hand around the AvCom’s mouthpiece and lowered his voice, “do I have to remind you that the whole point of the bomb was to create outrage?”

  “Shut it, lardgut. All you arsewipe papers, you were supposed to report this like a bunch of terrorists was responsible.”

  “I did! We did! Didn’t you see the ‘ANARCHIST BOMBERS MURDER INNOCENTS’ headline?”

  “Yeah, but no one’s talking about that. They’re talking about the girl from your rag. Making out she’s a hero. So my bosses, they’re thinking maybe The News isn't a reliable paper. Maybe it’s not for us.”

  “But we are for you! One hundred percent! And I can’t help what – ”

  “Where’s the girl?”

  “The girl?”

  “The reporter, fuckwit.”

  “How’m I supposed to know?”

  “You’re the editor. She works for you.”

  “But some guy on a horse
got her out of there.”

  “Then find the guy on a horse.”

  “How? How? How’m I supposed…”

  “You’re an investigative reporter, aren’t you?”

  “No, no, no! Was! I was an investigative reporter but now I’m just a… managing editor.”

  “Then you better manage your arse all around this town till you find the bitch. Otherwise they’re going to find another starfish on The Wall in Battersby Park. A great big fuckin’ fat starfish.”

  The line went dead, and Rupert shuddered. On the word ‘starfish’ his erection had instantly shrunk to peanut size. Pale, sweating, he groped for another dose of VitaBeena.

  “So who the fuck is this?”

  The speaker was a tall, rangy female. She wore brown suede buckled boots and buckskin breeches, silver threads stitching the seams. A brown suede bodice made the most of her breasts and emphasized a narrow waist. A short, blood-stained sword hung from a studded belt. She carried a Ximan in one hand and two bandoliers of ammunition hung criss-crossed from her shoulders. One was half-empty. Her entire outfit was blood- and mud-smeared and her face was cut, the blood barely cleaned. Strangely, her thick, dirty-blonde hair was immaculate.

  She glared at Shelley Mary so disdainfully that Shelley Mary lost her cool.

  “Who the fuck am I? Who the fuck are you?” The bloodied warrior woman let one hand drop to her sword but Dalton stepped between them.

  “Shelley Mary Ventura, meet Paulina Ellamova.” The women glared at each other like jungle creatures competing for the same territory. Dalton turned to Shelley Mary. “Paulina is our best woman warrior.” Pause. Deadpan. “Actually, our best warrior. Full stop.”