Alice's Adventures in Steamland: The Clockwork Goddess

by Wol-vriey

  She also realized the real reason why he’d not killed anyone two nights ago – she’d satisfied him sexually. And why he’d killed two women the night before – she’d angered him.

  “He’s killing women because he’s angry at your wife for going away to Chicago,” Alice told Lord Busybody. “He’s in love with her.”

  “But that’s insane. Jackson wouldn’t . . .”

  “He would. You know that. He’s not exactly the most balanced person, is he?”

  Lord Busybody sat down, cradling his tender ribs in one hand. He stared down at his unconscious nephew with loathing. Alice’s words rang horribly true in his ears.

  It couldn’t be, it couldn’t be true . . . but . . .

  He remembered now that the killings began shortly after he’d had Marie shipped off to Chicago. For the first year they’d occurred once a month, then fortnightly, till about a month ago when the Ripper started murdering prostitutes nightly.

  “What do I do with him?” he asked Alice miserably. “I can’t very well hand him over to the police, and telling Victoria would be even worse; it would devastate her.”

  “We’ll just carry on with the plan, then” Alice said. “Inject Jackie here, same as you did me, and we’ll go kill your sister. Consider him our secret weapon – if all else fails, at least he enjoys killing women. You can tell his mother that he stole your airship and flew off to visit his aunt.”

  Lord Busybody winced, his face contorted with conflicting emotions.

  “No,” he said finally. “I’ll not do it.”

  Alice looked at him stonily. “Oh yes you will, or I’ll leak his identity to the newspapers.” She pointed to Prince Jackson. “His royal ass is coming with us to Texas. His future majesty has butchered almost eighty women in two years. No one gets away with doing that, not even the king.” She smirked at him. “All I did was think about killing you, and look what you did to me!”

  “But I’m paying you, Alice.”

  “True, but you’ve still got me doing this against my will!”

  “Only just in case you changed your mind about helping Marie dispose of me.”

  Alice hadn’t considered that option. She thought he’d not given her the antidote simply out of fear that she’d run off.

  “Still,” she said. “Inject him, and order his ass to come with us, or I’ll spill the beans.”

  “You’ll go to jail, too, for attempted murder.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll spill the beans anyway. The prostitute’s association will run your sister out of the palace.”

  “No, I won’t do it.”

  “Oh yes you will.”

  “ THIS ARGUMENT ISN’T GETTING US ANYWHERE.” Crank said. “MAY I SUGGEST YOU BOTH CONSIDER . . .”

  “Shut up, Crank!” Alice and Lord Busybody cried simultaneously.

  “Now you listen to me . . .”

  “No, you listen to me!”

  Prince Jackson sat up then. “Will both of you please stop yelling? You’re giving me a royal headache . . .”

  “You perverted son-of-a-bitch!” Lord Busybody bellowed at his nephew. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Jackson rubbed the bump on his head and shrugged. “Yes, I killed some worthless whores whom no one will miss, that’s all.”

  His insouciant disregard for the gravity of his crimes was so obvious that all the anger drained from Lord Busybody, as if he were a punctured balloon.

  “Is that all you can say for yourself?” Alice screamed.

  “Who’s this?” Prince Jackson asked, looking to his uncle. “She looks like a young Aunt Marie.”

  “I’m Alice, you bastard!”

  Prince Jackson sighed sadly as misery took over his face. The change in his attitude was so sudden that Alice could only conclude the prince really was a hair-trigger psychotic, his grip on sanity so flimsy that it could apparently break at any moment. “I thought I’d gotten lucky tonight when I saw her. I was sure that if I killed her, I’d be free of this curse for good.”

  He began crying. “I was angry, that’s all. You’ll never understand how angry I was. Aunt Marie’s going away made me angry. She was all I had that made my life worth living. I wanted to travel to Chicago and kill her there, but mother forbade me to leave the city. One night I picked up a prostitute and went to her room, but the evening was a failure and she mocked me, calling me a mummy’s boy. She had no idea who I was. I was enraged and killed her. Afterwards I found I’d gotten over Aunt Marie. That lasted about a month, then the hatred returned, worse than before. I couldn’t stand it so I killed again. That also fixed me for a while. But I had to go on killing in order to stay sane . . .”

  Remembering the fly-covered Cheshire Cat-head in his bedroom, Alice shuddered at Prince Jackson’s definition of sane.

  “. . . and then Aunt Marie came back and I was okay for a day, but then she left again and . . .”

  “You’re sick Jackson,” Lord Busybody declared. “You should be in an asylum. Alice, you’re right – I’m sending him with you. Crank, hold him down while I get the serum.”

  “ YES, SIR.”

  “Please, stop uncle,” Jackson said. “I’ll go willingly.”

  Lord Busybody stopped. “Willingly?”

  Jackson nodded vigorously. “This expedition to Texas sounds like fun. And I haven’t seen Aunt Anna in nineteen years.”

  “Jackie, you’re being sent to kill her.”

  Prince Jackson smiled an insane smile. “Is it okay if I use my sickle?”

  Alice shivered before his lunatic gaze. “Yeah, I guess so. You’re seriously coming in on this? If not, I’ll shop your ass to the entire country.”

  The crown prince looked pained that she doubted his sincerity.

  “He’s serious all right,” his uncle replied for him. “I’d recognize that mad look in his eye any day.”

  ***

  Lord Busybody called Alice aside. “I don't get it – what is his obsession with Marie? He doesn’t intend on murdering her too, does he?”

  Alice partially leveled with him. “Your wife may be the only woman in New York safe from her insane nephew. Don’t mention this to either of them or her majesty, but . . . they’re both plotting to kill her . . . I mean your sister, the queen.”

  Lord Busybody goggled at her in disbelief. “But that’s insane!”

  Alice shrugged. “No offense milord, but insanity seems to run in your family. For the queen’s sake, I’ll simply suggest you attend mass regularly and pray fervently that your nephew doesn’t make it back from Texas alive.”

  Both of them shaking their heads, Alice and Lord Busybody returned to finalize their plans with Prince Jackson and Crank.

  Book Two: Alice Across America

  Part One: Traveling Lighter and Heavier than Air

  Chapter 1

  Alice discovered that she rather liked flying. The states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois drifted past languidly in the shadow of Lord Busybody’s airship.

  ***

  Tired of staring down at cornfields through the porthole, Alice walked over to sit by Crank in the cockpit. She was dressed in a sky-blue frock and black, knee-length boots that laced up the front.

  “America seems to extend forever . . .” she marveled aloud.

  “ IT’S A NICE FEELING, THE WORLD SO FAR BELOW US,” Crank replied. “VERY UNCOMPLICATED.”

  Alice listened carefully to his voice now. She’d discovered that when it was almost time to wind him back up, his speech developed slight tell-tale flutters, easy to notice if you paid attention.

  Just then, Cheshire Cat appeared above the ship’s main control panel – rows of buttons and gauges regulating steam and helium pressure, and other technicalities that Alice was content to let Crank worry about.

  “Lord Busybody sends his greetings to you all, and hopes that the crown prince isn’t making a nuisance.”

  “He’s fine,” Alice laughed. She felt good.
It may have been the calm before the storm, but it was a nice calm all the same.

  She had told the truth about Prince Jackson. Since they’d taken to the skies in New York, he seemed much less manic, as though his physically leaving Marie Busybody behind translated into his emotional abandonment of her as well.

  “Very well then,” said Cheshire Cat, before poofing off.

  Alice later saw it prowling the lower decks for mice to eat.

  ***

  Lord Busybody’s airship was a fifty-meter luxury liner. Its oblong envelope contained eight gas cells, each of which could be inflated/deflated independent of the others.

  Its twenty-meter gondola had two floors. It was packed with basic supplies as well as many luxuries, and was spacious enough for those onboard to avoid each other’s company entirely, if they so chose.

  Like New York’s military airships, this one was well armed. It possessed a sizeable gun turret, housed within the middle section of its lower floor, designed to deploy and retract as needed. The turret’s four rocket tubes were attached in pairs to two rotating shafts built into its underside, which could pivot in full circles. There was space for two gunners, each controlling one set of rocket tubes, to mount a multi-pronged attack/defense if necessary.

  Chapter 2

  Slowly they drifted over prairie land speckled with cattle, which from their height resembled brass tacks on green paper, or buttons on a green shirt.

  Crank steered the airship to follow the Springfield - St. Louis rail line. Tracing this south past St. Louis would take them all the way to Little Rock, the Arkansan capital.

  For several hours they floated above a cattle train ferrying cows to the west. The livestock lowed up at them from their cattle cars far below. The guards all waved, glad to have the friendly company. The engine huffed and puffed, belching streams of smoke that trailed its carriages like a black bridal train.

  ***

  “,” Crank said. “WE’VE JUST ENTERED MISSOURI AIRSPACE.”

  Shortly afterwards, they found themselves floating over the city of St. Louis. Homesickness now filled Alice like it was water and she a mug. It took her a while to get over it, the feeling clinging to her soul long after her hometown’s buildings shrank as small as distant matchboxes.

  Hopefully, this adventure of theirs would soon be over, and she’d return to her dear mother once again.

  ***

  It was Jackson who first noticed the trouble approaching from the southwest.

  “What are those things?”

  Alice squinted. “Dunno, they look like giant statues.”

  Crank peered at the three figures. “ THEY’RE MECHANICAL MEN,” he said, after a moment’s inspection. “VERY LARGE ONES, TOO, AND THEY’RE HEADED OUR WAY. ANTICIPATE INTERCEPTION WITH RAIL LINE IN LESS THAN THIRTY MILES.”

  At first the distant robots appeared as rather small objects on the horizon, but they soon grew much larger, their long, thunderous strides adding menace to their already fearsome countenances. Finally they were close enough for Alice and Prince Jackson to see their features more clearly.

  The mechanical men were easily forty meters tall, and apart from the massive boiler compartments in their torsos, mostly hollow – their bodies being built of stacked metal containers. Smoke billowed from the huge chimneys that served as their ‘ears’. All three machines bore the Texan emblem of a cow skull on their chests.

  “Cheshire!” Jackson yelled. “Where the hell are you!?”

  Cheshire Cat’s head duly appeared above the control panel, its endless grin affixed in place. “Yes, milord?”

  He pointed at the approaching metal men. “I want you to perform a detailed survey of those things, and then go ask Uncle Dudley just what in the hell they are.”

  The cat head peered at the robots as directed, goggled so hard its eyes almost popped from their sockets, and a moment later ‘poofed’ out of sight.

  “ THEY MAY BE DANGEROUS,” Crank said. “THE TRAIN GUARDS ARE MOVING THEIR GUNS INTO DEFENSIVE POSITIONS AS WE SPEAK.”

  Alice and Jackson looked down to watch the steam cannons on the guard carriages swing round by degrees.

  Cheshire Cat then ‘poofed’ back into the cockpit with its report. “His lordship thinks they’re Texan cattle rustlers,” it said. “He urges you to stay as far away from them as you possibly can.”

  ***

  The three of them held a quick war counsel.

  “The question isn’t whether we can fight them,” Prince Jackson said, “but rather, can we actually beat them?”

  Alice agreed. “It’s useless trying to save the train unless we can save it.”

  The rustler mechs had by now reached the rail line just three miles up ahead. One of them placed its giant foot across the tracks, splintering the wooden ties like matchsticks. The other two stood close at hand in support positions.

  The train bellowed steam as the engineer put on the brakes. The guards manning its gun stations placed their fingers upon their triggers, feeling the tension as they waited to get within firing range of the robots.

  “ WE WILL FOLLOW LORD BUSYBODY’S ADVICE AND FLEE THIS BATTLE BEFORE IT STARTS,” Crank said.

  “I’m head of this mission, and I say when we leave!” Alice declared. “However, I fear that leaving may be our best course of action – this could be out of our league . . .”

  “I outrank you both,” Prince Jackson interrupted. “We stay and fight – We’ll look like cowards if we cut and run now.”

  “ NEITHER OF YOU POSSESS ANY AUTHORUTY OVER THIS VESSEL,” Crank said. “I AM CAPTAIN – HENCE MY WORD IS LAW. I SHALL MAKE THE FINAL DECISION.”

  The robot pointed ahead to the waiting machines. “ WHILE TAKING FLIGHT MAY BE MOST EXPEDIENT TO OUR MAIN OBJECTIVE, I MUST ADD THAT, DESPITE THEIR INTIMIDATING SIZE, THESE RUSTLERS DO NOT APPEAR TO BE ARMED. THUS I SEE NO HARM IN RENDERING ASSISTANCE.”

  “We’re seriously going to regret this . . .” Alice said. “Crank, Lord Busybody built both you and this ship, and he orders you to get us out of here right now!”

  “ NOT ‘ORDERS’. CHESHIRE REPORTED ‘URGES’. EQUATES TO ‘SUGGESTION’.”

  Alice tried one last scheme of persuasion. “Crank, do you honestly believe that this cow train would be carrying such heavy artillery if the rustlers weren’t dangerous?”

  Crank looked at her, its eye dials flickering as it processed its thoughts. “ AN EXCELLENT OBSERVATION, MISS SIN. INITIATING EVASIVE MANEUVERS.”

  The train came skidding to a halt a mere hundred meters from the giant metal foot laid across the tracks. The foot was thrice the size of the train engine and studded with metal spikes.

  “Let’s go,” Alice insisted. “Before yesterday, even!”

  “Too late for that now,” Prince Jackson said gleefully, as the noise of bombardment shattered the late afternoon silence. “The battle’s already begun . . .”

  He turned to run for the gun turret as streams of black smoke and orange flame painted the sky. “Lower the cage and put up the gas shields, or they’ll sink us, metalhead!”

  “ YOU WERE RIGHT, ALICE,” Crank said. “THESE RUSTLERS WERE ARMED AFTER ALL.”

  The robot pushed up two levers – the yellow one sliding the gondola’s hidden shields over the airship’s envelope, and the red one deploying its guns.

  Their vessel shuddered as they deflected the first volley. As the cattle train returned fire, the sky was filled with crisscrossing metal balls of destruction. With each rocket Prince Jackson fired at the monster mechs, the recoil only added to the tumult.

  “You know,” Alice told Crank. “I’m really tempted to never wind you up again!”

  “ NOW NOW, YOU DON’T MEAN THAT ALICE.”

  She abruptly ran after Jackson to help man the turrets.

  ***

  As it turned out, the rustlers had guns built into their very hands. And the finger-cannons were deadly eff
ective – within just a few volleys, the train’s remaining occupants were rendered one mangled mass of meat and metal.

  Luckily, all but the guards had fled the train immediately after it stopped moving. Viewed from the airship, they looked just like ants spread out upon green linoleum flooring.

  Its primary target defeated, one of the rustlers now engaged the airship in battle. Another began picking up the train carriages one by one, emptying their bovine contents into the cages comprising its body.

  The third rustler, which had placed its foot over the tracks, began swiveling left and right. Prince Jackson had blown holes through both its boiler and oil reservoir. With neither steam to turn its gears nor hydraulic power to move its limbs, the machine was now worse than useless.

  Jackson fired another salvo at the rustler’s metal frame, hoping to finish it off. After a single direct hit, the robot’s head blew apart, leaving its neck furiously smoking. White rabbits wearing brown leather Stetsons spurted forth, climbing down emergency rope ladders flung over the sides of the foundering giant. Others hopped down the interconnecting stairwells leading throughout its limbs.

  “Yee-haa!” the crown prince screamed. “Eat that, you Texan scum!”

  ***

  Alice climbed into the gun turret and quickly belted herself into the second gunner’s chair.

  Grinning like the Cheshire Cat who stole the queen’s milkshake, the crown prince turned from shooting momentarily to give her the thumbs up.

  Alice nodded back, vexed by his enthusiasm.

  Prince Jackson returned his attention to the battle at hand.

  Alice hunched down over her rocket controls, setting her sights on the rustler they were presently flying toward.

  ***

  Crank pushed the engines to full thrust and spun the steering wheel hard to the left, dodging around of the machine as it rushed forward to attack.