Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection

by Michael Coorlim

  "Oh yes. It's astoundingly complex. Babbage built a machine that can predict the outcome of almost any human action, given accurate variables."

  "What does Sarsosa want with it? He seems more a man of action than computations and fortune-telling."

  Mr. Kelly seemed uncomfortable. "Well, the original purpose of the device was to predict the effects of human endeavour. The Commander wants me to alter it so that you can start from a desired outcome and work out the steps necessary to get to that point."

  Aldora gasped. "Is that... possible?"

  "Sarsosa believes so. And it is. In theory. But I'm just one man... it'll take months, if not years, to make the changes he wants."

  The door opened with a scraping sound, and all three of the prisoners froze.

  Rough hands shoved Penny through the doorway, and the young girl stumbled, almost falling.

  Aldora was next to her in an instant. "Are you alright?"

  "Scuffed up a bit," Penny said. "Lead the guards on a merry chase around and through the clockworks, I did. Hello, Mr. Girnwood. Is my father here?"

  Girnwood's face fell and he sagged against the wall. "Ahem. Well. Penelope. You see..."

  Aldora knelt next to the girl, eyes glassy, hand on her arm and shoulder.

  ***

  Later, when the crying had stopped, the two girls sat in the cell's corner. Aldora had asked the guards for, and received, a stiff bristled brush that she was using to try and de-tangle Penny's auburn hair. Her own hand strayed intermittently to touch her own scarlet locks, bound back in a bun the best she could manage.

  "Father always said that he'd be gone some day," Penny said softly, breaking the silence. "That I had to be ready."

  "He was a brave man who frequently put himself in dangerous circumstances."

  "He did his best to keep me safe."

  "I know, child."

  "But it isn't a safe world, is it, Miss Fiske?"

  Aldora didn't answer right away, and the gentle rasping of the brush through Penny's hair filled the room.

  "What do you know of your mother?"

  "Most of the time father said that she died in childbirth." Penny's voice was flat, emotionless. "But sometimes, when he was well in his cups, he'd say that she'd left us instead. I think he said that she died to spare my feelings."

  "Perhaps."

  "That's silly though," Penny said. "How can you have feelings about someone you've never known? The woman who birthed me... she's nothing more than a bedtime story."

  "Some say the bond between a mother and child extends beyond simple association."

  "Do you think so?"

  Aldora brushed silently before answering. "Not in my experience. I've seen stronger bonds between adoptive parents and children than I ever felt for my own."

  "I'm sorry you didn't at least have a father like mine."

  "No one had a father like yours," Aldora said. "We'll not see the likes of Henry Robinson again, and the world is poorer for it."

  "What will become of me?" Penny said. "If we escape, that is. I don't have godparents."

  "We will get through this."

  Penny sighed. "It doesn't seem likely."

  Aldora turned the girl so that they were facing one another. "Penelope Robinson, I give you my word as a Lady that we will get through this. We will escape. And when we return to London, I will take you into my household as if... as if you were my own."

  "You will?" Penny's voice sounded very small.

  "I... owed your father. I owed him much, and now that he has passed, it is a debt that I will never be able to repay. Raising his daughter is the best way I can respect his memory."

  "Thank you, Miss Fiske."

  "We've been risking our lives together, Penny. Please, call me Aldora."

  The girl threw her arms around the slender woman, who, after her initial surprise, returned the embrace.

  Behind them Mr. Girnwood cleared his throat noisily. Aldora levelled a cool gaze in his direction, not yet letting go of the girl.

  "That's a touching display of affection and I for one am very moved," the director said. "If only I had my camera. Such emotion."

  "What do you want, Mr. Girnwood?"

  He seemed hesitant. "It seems to me that it would be far easier to simply let ourselves be ransomed. Safer, at any rate, and I'm sure that you'd rather not risk the girl in an escape attempt."

  "As I am sure you recall, Penelope's father was murdered." Aldora let Penny go and shifted in her seat to face the man. "He was a good friend of mine for many years. This is not a wrong I can let go unavenged."

  "Me neither," Penny said.

  "Surely the authorities--"

  "Commander Sarsosa is constructing a powerful analytic engine capable of crafting plans with inhuman precision," Aldora said. "If it's as effective as Mr. Kelly indicates, then once it's complete it'll account for the efforts of the authorities."

  "Yes, but--"

  "Have you spoken to the Commander, Mr. Girnwood?"

  "You know I have."

  "What is your impression of the man?"

  "He's a hard man. Cruel, perhaps."

  "Ambitious. Ruthless. But what struck me was something he said, something about strife and conflict bringing out the best in mankind. Tell me, if you had the almost godlike omniscience of this Babbage Tower, what would you do with it, Mr. Girnwood?"

  "Oh, well, I suppose I'd use it to make the world a better place?"

  "You would. Most people would. But your ideal world is not mine, and Commander Sarsosa's ideal world, I would hazard, is not anyone's."

  The director fell silent.

  "We must remove him from power by what means we can, for after he completes his machine, he will be a god, and no one can oppose him."

  "Mr. Kelly can simply refuse--"

  "I will!"

  "Mr. Kelly can refuse, be executed, and be replaced by engineers more amicable to serving a monster like Sarsosa. There are, no doubt, plenty in the guild."

  "There are," Mr. Kelly agreed.

  "But why does it fall to us?" the director whined.

  "Because we can. Because we're here, at the right time, in the right place. We will be the last random variable in the engine's calculations, Mr. Girnwood. Humanity's last chance to evade the controlling grasp of a megalomaniac. We will stop him, because we must."

  "And because the bastard killed my father," Penny said.

  "Penelope!"

  "I said 'dastard'."

  "You were correct the first time," Aldora said.

  "Well and good," the director said. "I defer to your superior logic, and your need to see Henry avenged. But how do you propose we go about wreaking such vengeance, stuck in this cell as we are?"

  "Maybe I could fake an illness and we could lure the guards in?" Mr. Kelly suggested.

  "You've been reading a few too many penny dreadfuls." Girnwood frowned.

  "Penny Dreadfuls. Ooh, I like that," Penny said. "And I'm the dreadful one with the key, aren't I?"

  She opened her hand, revealing a small iron key.

  "Wherever did you get that?" the engineer asked.

  "Nicked it when they pinched me."

  Aldora took the key from Penny's hand. "It's a skeleton key."

  She walked to the cell door, stooping to look through the keyhole. "It looks like it'll fit. And I don't see any guards in the hall."

  "They're probably at the evening meal," Mr. Kelly said. "Every night Sarsosa gathers his men and has a small religious service."

  "Mercenaries with religion, what next?" Girnwood shook his head.

  "It doesn't last long."

  "Then we need to move quickly." Aldora unlocked the door, wincing at its loud click.

  She handed the key back to Penny. "Head back to the cell where the others are being kept and bring them to the escape tunnel.

  Penny handed the key to Mr. Kelly. "No, I want to go with you."

  "Do as I say. I can handle Father Sarsosa, but not if I'm worrying ab
out you."

  A small sad smile spread across the girl's face. "You sound like father."

  Aldora paused, then held the girl close again. "He will not go unavenged."

  "Come with us," Girnwood said, pausing in the doorway as he left, following Kelly. "Forget vengeance and Sarsosa."

  "This isn't just about revenge," Aldora said, nudging Penny gently after the men. "You've heard what this Babbage tower can do. I can't let it stay in the hands of an opportunistic dictator like that. He'll set the world aflame and think himself a saint for it."

  Girnwood backed away, out the open door, followed shortly by Mr. Kelley.

  "Go, Penny. Be safe. I'll come for you."

  Penny bit her lip and nodded, slipping out after the director.

  ***

  It didn't take Aldora long to find the makeshift chapel where Father Jago Sarsosa was preaching to his men. She followed the booming tenor of his voice to the large pavilion tent.

  She daren't approach the tent itself, but through the candlelit shadows she could clearly see the mercenary commander making broad sweeping gestures near his makeshift altar, the silhouettes of his men in rows of folding chairs watching his every motion.

  "Some of you come from our native Spain," he said, preaching in English. "Others joined us after our liberation in Cuba, or after, when we travelled to Columbia. Some have asked me, Father Sarsosa, why did you delay and extend the conflict in Columbia? Why did you use your position as a trusted revolutionary to stymie the cause of freedom and drag things on further?

  "I will say to you all, that my cause, that God's cause, is not freedom. What the revolutionaries call 'freedom' is just a lack of discipline. I have always preached more discipline, and no institution better impresses discipline upon a people than a strong military, and when is a military at its strongest?"

  "WAR!" The reply from his guards was so sudden, so forceful, that Aldora had to steel herself against bolting.

  "War!" Sarsosa continued. "War brings out the best in men. It creates circumstances where superior men rise to the top, and weak leaders are cast down to shatter on the Earth.

  "It was for this reason that we accepted the Cartel's contract to bring war to Russia. I do not care for the Russian people, they are not my people, but they, too, are deserving of war.

  "It was in St. Petersburg that I learnt my lesson that one does not need to pitch battle to incite war. It was Hernandez -- stand, Hernandez -- it was one round from Hernandez's rifle that turned protest and riot into rebellion on the steps of the palace. One man died, and what was born from the blood that Hernandez spilt?"

  "WAR!"

  "And now, while we hid in the jungles, asked by the Cartel to do the same for Mexico, what has God brought us? This machine. With this machine we can accomplish our great task, our holy feat, the ignition of a world-wide perpetual conflict that will sweep across Europe. This machine will tell us whose death will ignite this eternal flame, and how we can best position ourselves to benefit from it. This will be a great war. An unending war. The last war to end all wars. One shot will ring out, and then what will we have?"

  "WAR!" came the echoed chorus. "WAR! WAR! WAR!"

  Sickened, Aldora retreated back into the ruins.

  Things were more dire than she had feared. Sarsosa's motives were not selfish. He didn't want to enrich himself.

  He was the worst sort of idealist, one convinced that bloodshed would elevate humanity, and his charisma had allowed him to sway his men to a similar fanaticism. He'd blended his authoritarian militarism with the trappings of religion into a perfect nightmare fusion of theocratic fascism.

  She crept to the foot of the clockwork tower, stopping to gather up a pair of 8 lb. kegs of cordite, one under each arm.

  Unlike Mr. Kelly she was no engineer, and knew nothing of the device's workings or its structural integrity, and she was no military demolitions expert either. Still, she did the best she could, secreting kegs of artillery powder around the tower's base in out of the way places, small trails of black grit leading back to its centre, where a thicker trail lead away from the base.

  The Mayans and Mr. Babbage had left human-sized passages through the workings so that engineers could reach the machine's innermost guts, and Aldora wove powder trails to kegs hidden deep within.

  "Stop her!"

  Aldora had just placed her eighth keg when Sarsosa and his men returned to the central chamber. At the priest's cry, one of his men took a knee, shouldered his rifle, and fired in one smooth motion, the heat from the round's passage caressing the side of her neck. She ducked aside, back into the shelter of the clockwork mechanism.

  "Idiota!" Sarsosa pulled his pistol and shot the kneeling mercenary in the temple. "Don't risk the tower. Kill the woman if you must, but preserve the mechanism!"

  The soldiers swarmed towards the tower, leaving their dead comrade by Sarsosa's feet.

  Aldora retreated to the centre of the machine and began climbing, using its brass pipes and steel rods as hand-holds. The soldiers ran up the scaffolding, entering the tower above and below her, some with machetes or knives in hand.

  A grasping hand reached through the network of pipes towards her, and she grabbed it by the fingers, twisting them until they broke with a loud snap. Their owner fell screaming.

  Down below another mercenary, climbing up after her, swiped at her ankle with his machete, missing by mere inches. She let her grip go and dropped half-a-foot to plant her heel squarely between his eyes; he fell with a yell to collide with the man below him as she continued her ascent.

  Aldora climbed until she was level with the highest scaffolding at the peak of the tower.

  A nearly out-of-breath Russian mercenary was thundering up the ramp towards her, serrated knife in hand, twisted grimace on his scarred face. She pulled a wooden rod from the scaffold just in time to parry a vicious swipe, returning a clumsy riposte that impacted sharply with the man's breastbone. She adjusted her grip to account for the stick's weight and balance.

  When the man next slashed his blade at her face she struck his wrist with the side of the rod, shattering the joint, then jabbed the end of it into his throat.

  The Russian fell to his knees, gasping and holding his trachea. Aldora calmly retrieved the pistol from his hip-holster, then shoved him off the top of the tower with the pad of her foot, watching with quiet satisfaction as he tumbled to the stone floor below.

  More mercenaries climbed, converging to trap her at the top.

  Aldora picked up the Russian's dropped knife and used it to quickly cut the twine binding the long vertical pole from the scaffolding nearest her, then swung down to wrap her arms and legs around its length. Her momentum carried it away from the tower, twine further down its length snapping as the weight strained it. She rode the falling pole until it lodged against the far wall, the impact almost jarring the strength from her limbs.

  "Get her!" Sarsosa cried. "She's away from the machine -- shoot her!"

  Aldora hung by her knees from the pole, hem of her tunic trapped between her thighs, bending backwards at the waist until she was fully inverted, aiming the Russian's pistol at one of the gunpowder kegs near the tower's base.

  Mercenaries braced their rifles against the tower's pipes, rods, and levers, taking aim and firing, their deadly rounds impacting the limestone blocks around Aldora. She shut out the danger, shut out the distraction, closed one eye, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

  ***

  Explosion.

  Falling.

  Impact.

  Pain.

  Black.

  Get up.

  Get up.

  ***

  Aldora had only blacked out for a moment.

  When her senses returned she was deaf save for a powerful ringing in her ears, and at first the blackness made her fear blindness as well.

  Bereft of her two primary senses, Aldora stumbled through a dark abyss, feeling only the pain of what was probably a broken arm and smelling the potent mix
ture of spent cordite, scorched brass, and burning flesh. Her good arm extended its hand to help her navigate as she crawled over ruined debris.

  As her eyes adjusted she noted a dim glow from small pockets of burning refuse, providing enough light to see by. The concussive force of the explosion had damaged the temple's structure and it was in danger of collapse. Many of the tunnels leading away from the central chamber had already crumbled, including the one leading outside.

  She turned from it, making her way towards the passage leading to the Mayan escape tunnel.

  Her sense of hearing began to return slowly, first with a hollow echoing that eventually resolved itself into a single shouted word.

  "FISKE!"

  It was Jago Sarsosa. Somehow he had survived the explosion.

  "FISKE!"

  He sounded maddened, whether from the pain or from the rage at being thwarted.

  There was a low bass boom followed by a crack. Sarsosa was shooting at her.

  Aldora looked over her shoulder to see the fallen priest shambling in pursuit. His face looked masked in crimson, his hair jagged with stiffening blood, one eye bright with anger, the other gone dark. He was limping, but not exactly slowly, one shaking hand levelling a pistol in her direction.

  He fired again, missing by inches only because of his loss of depth perception. He was adjusting quickly.

  Aldora turned and crawled over the debris as fast as her broken arm allowed. Her legs were uninjured but she found it hard to focus, hard to move quickly.

  "I am concussed," she said conversationally, her voice distant and cloudy in her ears.

  She staggered sideways down the corridor leading to the ancient escape tunnel, a bullet impacting where her head had been moments before.

  Aldora reached the ladder down, slowly but carefully navigating it one-handed, her balance still off. She misjudged one of the middle rungs and fell to the ground below, jarring her shattered shoulder and giving out an involuntary cry.

  Sarsosa leapt down from above, sturdy boots landing next to her, pistol in hand. His left knee buckled but he did not fall, a grimace distorting his lips, blood dripping from his ruined eye, down his cheek, to fall upon his waistcoat. What she could make out through the dull light filtering from above was horrific.