Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium Part 1

Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium.

Robert C. Rodgers.

To my grandfather, the sorriest, surliest b.a.s.t.a.r.d to ever put pen to paper. For every word that follows, blame him.

ACT 1.

"In yet another example of tragically misapplied genius, the mysterious anarchist who calls himself Professor Hemlock has done it again-several of the Eastern Aberwick Bank's calculation engines have been crippled through the irresponsible application of reckless mathematics. The rogue chaotician claimed responsibility for the financial disaster in a letter delivered to the Isle Gazette (see page 9a), citing the company's cutthroat business tactics, support of imperialism, and rude bank tellers as justification.

Authorities continue to investigate the anarchist's activities while urging all citizens to behave no differently during this time of fiscal duress. Meanwhile, one question lingers upon the lips of every man, woman, and child: Who is Professor Hemlock?"

-Front page of the Isle Gazette, 'PROFESSOR HEMLOCK STRIKES AGAIN'

CHAPTER 1: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO OUR TALE OCCURRING 20 YEARS PRIOR, WHEREIN PIGS TAKE FLIGHT, FOOLS TAKE NOTE, AND A GRAND PARTNERs.h.i.+P IS PROPOSED.

"Dear Madame," the letter read. "Although we remain appreciative of your continued attempts to bring a feminine touch to the world of aeronautics, the Royal Society of Aviation regrets to inform you that your design shall fly only once swine have taken to the skies."

The letter was framed and mounted on the dining room wall.

The room had become a workshop. An exquisitely crafted flame maple table that had once been its centerpiece was now pressed against the far wall, its rich and vibrant texture smothered beneath greased tools and blueprints pinned under various bits of silver cutlery. Nuts and bolts were organized by size and dumped into teacups along the table; at its edge sat a battered mechanics book smudged with oiled fingerprints.

The woman who studied the book was fiercely handsome, possessing the allure of an ominous storm. Her dark, thick eyebrows grated against each other like cogs in some vast and terrible engine, trembling beneath the pressure of her thought. A pair of aviator goggles dangled just below her delicate jaw and over her pale throat. It added to the contradictions of her appearance-the grease stains upon her fine evening gown, the grime beneath her well-trimmed nails, and the sweat above her elegant brow.

Abigail Parsley drew her attention away from the tome and turned to the contraption that occupied the middle of her dining room. Its main body was a canoe, with a chair fastened down inside it; a complex knot of ropes, pulleys, levers, and beams connected it to an immense woolen sack that draped over its side and across the floor. Though the machine had been built from spare parts and plundered ideas, its overall design remained her own. She knew every inch of it - every screw, every fastener, and every fold.

Abigail inspects her marvelous contraption.

She took her seat in the cradle of her invention and pulled the goggles up over her eyes. She now found herself facing the letter that had spurred her to action; taking in a slow breath, she read the last line to herself: Your design shall fly only once swine have taken to the skies.

"Very well," she said, and then she turned the machine on.

The frame shuddered. Valves hissed. Wood creaked and sheepskin bags groaned.

"Soar," Abigail whispered.

The woolen sack was soon flushed with gases, rising up over her in a cigar-shaped lump. As it grew bloated and buoyant, Abigail was struck by a peculiar dizziness; the vessel was gradually leaving the earth, its skids sliding across the tiled floor. It bobbed, sluggishly rising toward the dining room's open gla.s.s portal.

Abigail held the controls steady. The edge of the vessel's balloon came precariously close to the opening's squared edges - she instinctively held her breath as she felt a metal corner sc.r.a.pe across the bag, denting the fabric. But in only a moment, the airs.h.i.+p had cleared the gap and floated out into the brisk day's air.

She waited until her estate sank far beneath her feet. Then, biting down on her bottom lip, she twisted the levers and dragged the s.h.i.+p's nose down.

It groaned before lunging into a dive over the fields of the village.

Abigail eased the levers back, allowing the s.h.i.+p time to regain its alt.i.tude. Then, wearing a supremely satisfied grin, she reached up and unraveled the rope that kept the canopy over the balloon in place. When the cover slid off, it exposed her personal touch to the design.

Abigail laughed and steered the first unpowered dirigible towards the sun.

Some considerable distance away, the author of the missive that spurred Abigail to action was enjoying his afternoon tea with friends among the ivy-drenched gardens of the Royal Society of Aviation's chapter-house. The setting was splendid, with lush foliage weaving its way through the ivory lattice fences and the friendly shade of a tall willow tree supplying respite from the afternoon heat.

"The very premise is preposterous," said Mr. Twine.

"Preposterous!" He would often shout this at the slightest provocation; it was a word that suited him well. Mr. Twine's mind suffered from a surplus of opinions in much in the same way that a person's looks might suffer from a surplus of face; all but the mightiest features disappeared beneath the tyrannical enormity of the whole.

"Of course, of course," agreed Mr. Elle, who was p.r.o.ne to getting lost in city streets as a result of following strangers who looked as if they might know the way. "Absolutely. Ah, but I do not think Mr. Cork heard you when you said exactly which part of the premise was so preposterous. Might you explain it, merely for his sake?"

"A letter that arrived at our fine establishment only a month ago. Penned by a woman, its very premise was preposterous.

Preposterous!"

"Preposterous, you say?" said Mr. Cork, a rotund dirigible pilot who had been responsible for so many airs.h.i.+p disasters that his name now appeared on the government's annual military budget. He had just awoken from a brief nap, and sleepily joined the conversation. "Howso?"

"Why, the whole thing!" Mr. Twine said. "A navigable unpowered dirigible? One which sails the skies much like a s.h.i.+p sails the seas? Ridiculous. Everyone knows that an engine is required for any true degree of control."

"And a skilled navigator," Mr. Cork lazily added.

"And a skilled navigator," Mr. Twine agreed. "But just imagine-some fussy filly thinking she could understand the nuanced complexities of flight."

"Er," Mr. Elle said, looking up. "Did it suddenly get a bit cloudier?"

"So, of course, I told her that we were quite sorry, but penmans.h.i.+p does not count..."

"Er," Mr. Cork said, following Mr. Elle's gaze. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Twine."

"-and that her invention would fly-"

"Mr. Twine!" Mr. Elle and Mr. Cork spoke in unison.

"-only once swine took to flight. What?" Mr. Twine snapped, scowling.

"Look up."

Mr. Twine did.

And stared with slack-jawed shock.

The dirigible had been painted into the likeness of a pig, with gaily colored wings drawn upon either of its sides; its front wore the visage of a cheerful porcine grin, complete with stubby nose. Sitting in the gondola tucked beneath it was a young comely woman wearing a formal dress, a scarf, goggles, and an aviator's cap.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen." Abigail said, wrenching the controls forward to bring the dirigible down gracefully in the center of the chapter-house's garden. "Are you having tea? How delightful. Might I join you?"

Exhausted and exhilarated after a day spent making her peers look like fools, Abigail returned home to find two men of dubious character waiting for her in the smoking lounge.

Both were young and well dressed, but after that, all comparisons between the two failed. One was dark and calm, sitting in a comfortable arm-chair as he enjoyed a freshly lit pipe; the other was blond and fidgety, wearing down her expensive carpet with the soles of his expensive shoes. Abigail's eyes flashed with fury at these two men and their unannounced intrusion.

"I do not know who you two are," she told them, retrieving the fire poker from her hearth. "But as I remember telling the servants to allow no one in, I can only a.s.sume you have arrived through some means of mischief-"

"Mischief," the dark haired one said, laughing. "Yes, you could certainly make that claim, Miss Parsley."

At once, the other turned to her, glaring at the poker in her grip. "I still think this is a mistake, Nigel."

"Oh, quiet down. She's exactly what we're looking for."

"Explain yourselves at once, or I will send someone to fetch the constable," Abigail said, pointing the poker at the blond.

"We apologize for our crude manner," Nigel replied, moving to stand and bow. "We gained entry by convincing your servants that this is a matter of the utmost importance. Do not think poorly of them; we are quite persuasive when we wish to be. I am Professor Arcanum, and this is my a.s.sociate, Mr. Daffodil."

The iron poker wavered in her grip, its tip beginning to sink toward the carpet. "Arcanum? Daffodil?"

"Yes," Jeremiah said. "We're very important people, you know."

"Yes, yes. I recognize your names," Abigail replied. "I know you, Nigel-the famous naturalist and mathematician. And you," she added, glaring at Jeremiah, "the equally infamous mad scientist and administrator of the Steamwork. I read that last paper of yours."

"Oh?" Jeremiah asked, the scowl melting into something cheerful and bright. "Did you?"

"Yes," she said. "Absolute rubbish. You had no clue what you were babbling about."

Jeremiah blanched.

Nigel laughed. "Oh yes," he said. "You are most certainly what we need."

"I've read your work as well," she told Nigel. "You, at least, seem to have some fundamental grasp over your field." She now held the iron poker out in front of her as if it were a sword, still watching the men warily. "Nevertheless, I fail to understand what matter requires you to intrude in my home at such a late hour without so much as sending a letter of introduction first."

"Secrecy, Miss Parsley." Nigel said, then tapped the bell of his pipe to spill the loose ash into a tray. "We require your a.s.sistance. Jeremiah and I are working on a remarkable project."

"A project?" Abigail's eyes narrowed. "Oh yes, let me guess. You are working on some sort of ground-breaking research; some immensely important and grand experiment. But just one problem-you have yet to find some means to fund your wondrous project."

"Well," Nigel said, "Funding is always a problem, yes-"

"And so you've read a little bit about me, found out that I'm a very rich and unmarried woman who is very keen about matters of mathematics and engineering?"

"Well, yes, something like that-"

"And so you think, 'Oh, of course she'll sponsor our wonderful experiment!'," Abigail finished. She swept the poker up and pointed to the exit. "Out."

"You've got it all wrong," Jeremiah began, but Nigel cut him off.

"Of course. We shall leave at once," he told her. "We apologize for bothering you with this trifling matter. Would you care to perhaps show us to the door?"

Abigail glared. "The faster you are out of my home, the better." She gestured for the gentlemen to follow; it was then that she noticed both were carrying umbrellas with peculiar stylized hilts. "Are you daft? There isn't a cloud in the sky."

"Isn't there?" Nigel asked, then shrugged.

This gave Abigail pause, but she was quick to brush it aside. She led them both to the exit, opening the door and stepping aside to let them leave. Before she could slam the door shut, both had turned to face her.

"Mr. Daffodil?" Nigel said. "Time, please."

Jeremiah removed a gold pocket watch from his coat, checking it. "Forty five seconds."

"Madame, if I may just mention, before we go-one of the reasons we came to you was because of a paper you wrote. 'The Impossibility of Weather Prediction', I believe."

Abigail's hand rested against the doork.n.o.b. "Yes? What of it?"

"Even my compatriot acknowledged it as a brilliant summary of what makes accurate weather prediction absurd,"

Nigel said. "You describe the difficulties of understanding incredibly complex systems elegantly. We were particularly smitten with your example of how, over time and through a chain of countless events, the stroke of a sparrow's wings can change the course of a hurricane."

"Yes, yes," Abigail said irritably, although she flushed beneath the presence of the compliment. "Well, then, I'll bid you both a good night."

"Time, Mr. Daffodil?"

"Twenty seconds."

"You were correct, of course. Predicting weather with our standard model of mathematics is impossible," Nigel said. "The best we can do is attempt a somewhat educated guess."

"I'm aware," she snapped. "I wrote the paper. Now, as I was saying, good night-"

"Mark," said Jeremiah.

Both gentlemen lifted their umbrellas skyward and opened them with a pop. At that exact instant, thunder roared over their heads. A shower of rain dropped down over Abigail's estate like a curtain on the stage.

Abigail stared up into the sky with an expression of bewilderment.

"Well, then," Nigel said, turning back to the road. "I suppose we'll bid you a good night as well, Madame. Again, we apologize for bothering you with this insignificant matter." He and Jeremiah began to walk away, umbrellas held high.

It took Abigail a moment to find her voice. When she at last did, it was burdened with a hoa.r.s.e croak: "W-wait."

Jeremiah and Nigel stopped, looking over their shoulders.