The Reflexive Engine XI

[Chapter List]

Fission

The birds chirruped happily in the morning light, flitting from branch to branch and plucking cherries with their bony hands. Cathy lay against the tree's gnarled roots, chewing a straw and watching the activity above.

“What is it, Boyo?” she said, without lowering her gaze.

He approached her, cap in hand. “You should come, Cathy. We're in trouble.”

She considered a flippant response about how they were always in trouble, but something about his tone made her think again. “The egg?”

“Just come see.”

*

Joe stood by their wagon, hands on his hips. From beneath his straw hat, his cold blue eyes fixed on Cathy as she looked in the back.

Her first instinct was that they had been robbed. And then she started to understand. The floor of the wagon was littered with wood: axes without heads, knives without blades, muskets without barrels or locks or triggers. And behind all this, glinting in the light of the low sun, were not one, but two golden eggs.

“Now,” Joe said, running a hand over his grey stubble, “you've done a lot of good for this caravan, so I'll let you make the odd mistake. Fact is, we needed those tools and arms.”

“Right. We should keep metal away from it. I mean, them.”

“Tools are one thing, Cathy. Is it safe?”

“I... Yes, I...”

Joe sighed. “Cathy, here's what we're going to do. We're going to tell everyone you got rid of these eggs. And if you have any sense, we won't be lying.”

He pulled down the brim of his hat and walked away. The other people of the caravan glanced furtively at Cathy, trying not to meet her eye.

Boyo said, “It ate the tools.”

Cathy stared at the two golden eggs. “Right.”

“And made another one,” Boyo went on.

“Yeah. It must have.”

“Can it eat wood?”

Cathy closed up the back of the wagon, hiding the eggs from view. “I really, really hope not.”

The Reflexive Engine X

[Chapter List]

Travelling Salesman

The horse steadily trotted along the overgrown path, Charlie slumped in the saddle, the professor lying on the cart, propped up on a folded blanket. Here and there, the rolling green hills glinted gold.

The professor sat up. “Do you hear hoofbeats?”

She raised her head, just barely. “Yeah.”

“Should we be concerned?”

“Doubt it.”

Another horse crested the hill behind them at a canter, rode up alongside them and slowed. The smart dandy in the saddle doffed his tricorne. “A very good morning to you.”

The professor glanced at the back of Charlie's head, and followed her lead in remaining silent.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” the dandy continued. “My name's Beau. I'm a... travelling salesman. Perhaps I can interest you in some moth-eaten paper?”

From his overcoat pocket, Beau produced several sheets of paper dotted with neat rectangular holes.

Charlie pulled gently on the reins, and her horse slowed to a stop.

Beau leafed through the bundle. “How much do you suppose this would be worth?”

The professor scrambled down from the cart and ran his fingers through his wild hair. “More than you can imagine.”

“An answer I like,” Beau said. And then he looked the older man up and down, taking in his ragged appearance. “How much do you have on you?”

The professor patted his pockets. “Uh...”

“I see. What a shame.”

Beau spurred his horse on, stopping abruptly a moment later at the sabre barring his path.

Charlie said, “How much is your life worth?”

Beau shrugged. “Depends who you ask, really. Regardless, a price you'd be hard pressed to extract.”

Her sabre blurred through where Beau's neck should have been, if he hadn't suddenly been leaning out of his saddle, pressing a pistol to her side. With a blast of smoke and flame he shot her. Still her blade came down, and Beau tumbled from his saddle to avoid it.

As Charlie dismounted and he scrambled to his feet, she said, “You're fast.”

He spread his hands, producing two loaded pistols in the motion. “And you're bulletproof. What are the chances of us meeting like this? I think a hug is in order.”

She swung at him twice more, and each time he stepped aside with preternatural speed and cat-like grace.

“Should I shoot you again?” he asked. “Or shall we both accept that it's futile for us to fight?”

She let a half-smile form on her wind-blasted features and sheathed her sword. “We need that paper.”

The professor crawled out from beneath the cart, clearing his throat. “I thought it best to let you settle this between yourselves. My friend, you can have untold riches. But only after we follow that code to its source.”

Beau beamed. “A treasure map!”

“In a way,” the professor said. “But the treasure is a puzzle in itself.”

“Or so you would say,” Beau mused. “To maintain your importance once we know where we're going.”

Charlie said, “We?”

“We three,” Beau clarified.

“Please,” the professor said, extending shaky hands. “Let me see those papers.”

Beau drew a long breath through his lips and then exhaled slowly. “I... suppose. As long as I'm now a part of your little treasure syndicate.”

Charlie's face was unreadable. “Sure.”

“Wonderful! And a chance for us to catch up... sister.”

The professor frowned. “You don't look like-”

“We're not,” Charlie said curtly.

“Family in a very modern sense,” Beau said. “Let's get going. We can talk on the way.”

Charlie grimaced.

The Reflexive Engine IX

[Chapter List]

Thanks for the Horse

Stepping down from the stagecoach, Beau paused to consider the broken tripod as the rising sun glinted on its golden hide, casting strange patterns of reflected light on the thatched roofs of the village.

The driver peered down at Beau from his perch. “Are you sure, sir?”

He waved the man away. “Yes, yes. I'm more than capable of getting in and out of trouble by myself. Scurry back to civilisation.”

Adjusting his tricorne, Beau ducked into the local inn. Empty, as he'd expected. Just a burly innkeeper and a lot of empty seats.

“Good morning!” Beau announced cheerfully.

The innkeeper regarded his good spirits with unconcealed suspicion.

“I'm looking for the Franke brothers. I understand they've been a bit of a nuisance in these parts lately.” He set his hat down on the bar. “Perhaps I can help in that regard. They've just now become a nuisance to me too.”

The innkeeper shrugged. “Too late, friend. We all pitched in - those of us left and able - and paid someone to get rid of them for us.”

“I see. And anything they might have had with them?”

“She took it.”

“And which way did she go?”

Beau's perfect smile moved the man only to shrug again.

“My good man,” Beau said, “she, whoever she is, is much better able to look after herself than you are.” With a flick of his wrists, he held a pistol in each hand.

The innkeeper raised an eyebrow. “East. She took the east road.”

“Excellent,” Beau said, tossing his hat carelessly onto his head. “Oh, and thanks for the horse.”

As Beau turned to leave, the man said, through clenched teeth, “You'd be better off steering clear of her altogether.”

“Oh?” Beau said. “And why is that?”

“In all my years as a professional soldier, I never saw anyone as good with a sword as she is.”

Beau examined the barrel of one pistol. “Your concern for my welfare is touching, but fire beats steel every time. Cheerio.”

Beau strolled jauntily out into the street. A minute later, the innkeeper sighed as a horse galloped into the distance.

The Reflexive Engine VIII

[Chapter List]

The Skysail

They sat on the gently sloping roof of a cottage, one of the many little dwellings that clung to the sides of the valley. A valley currently occupied – dominated, rather, by the massive skysail.

The vessel's wooden hull blotted out the sun for many of the more rickety homes at the valley's bottom, and though its sails were folded along its sides like the wings of a bird, the sound of the wind riffling through sailcloth was inescapable. The smoke from the furnace that kept its envelope heated was just as pervasive.

“It's a beautiful ship,” the woman said. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, she sat girlishly, with her wineglass in one dainty hand. “But you've yet to set foot on deck?”

The man wore the uniform of a Royal Navy lieutenant. His perfect features were not so much young, as untouched by life, swathed in a halo of short golden curls. “I felt like taking in the village first. All work and no play, as they say.”

She giggled and raised her glass. “To play! May you find escape from your worries, however long it lasts.”

He laughed and raised his own glass. As he swigged back the wine, he didn't notice that the woman drank none of her own.

“What was your name again?” the woman said. “Nicholas Weatherly?”

He set down his glass and leaned back on the roof tiles. “That's me.”

“And you're the new second mate of the HMS Cockatrice?”

He nodded and yawned. “Exciting, isn't it? I feel perfectly exhausted.”

She leant across to kiss his temple. “Close your eyes and sleep a while. The night is still young.”

*

The Cockatrice would soon be underway, and the captain oversaw the loading of the last of her passengers and cargo from the quarterdeck. A stocky man, his left cheek proudly bore the scar of some freebooter's cutlass.

“Cutting it a bit fine, lieutenant,” he quipped, as a young man of uncommon delicacy approached and snapped a perfect salute.

“Sorry sir,” the officer replied, removing his bicorne. His long black hair was tied into a neat ponytail. “Lieutenant Weatherly, reporting for duty.”

The captain was about to rebuke the man further when a sailor blundered past, shooting the lieutenant a strange look that was returned with a frown.

“We seem to have picked up a lot of new crewmen at this stop,” the captain sighed. “So many unfamiliar faces.”

The lieutenant suppressed a smile. “Don't worry, sir. I have absolute confidence in their loyalty.”

The Reflexive Engine VII

[Chapter List]

Lakechurch

The sun was only just setting and already the hybrids were abroad, their presence evident from an odd electricity in the air, and howls that were not quite the wind. The wild-haired professor stood anxiously in the doorway of a run-down inn, glancing anxiously down cobbled streets that ran all too quickly past windowless cottages and into open, exposed hills. Half-hidden by the landscape, a massive, golden tripod lay broken on the horizon, weeds warily scaling its armoured hide.

The tall woman rounded a corner and strolled casually towards him.

“Charlie,” he hissed, “come on!”

She maintained the same pace, through the door, with a brief nod to the innkeeper as, musket in hand, he closed and bolted it behind her. “You sure my horse will be safe?” she asked.

The innkeeper let the barrel of his gun rest on his shoulder. The flickering light of the single oil lamp reflected strangely in one of his eyes. “That stable's kept our few draught horses out of harm's way so far, but no, I wouldn't be sure that anyone's safe in this village.”

The two visitors glanced around the empty inn – a few bare tables and only a single barrel behind the bar.

“Why do you even stay here?” the professor asked.

The innkeeper shrugged. “Why does anyone stay anywhere? I'm headed upstairs, where I'll have a better vantage of any trouble.”

They watched him disappear up the stairs, finding his way by memory into sheer darkness.

“It's not straightforward,” the professor said. “Once decoded, the papers will tell us where to go next. Finding them and getting them back will seem trivial compared to the next leg of the journey. We may have to travel over land untouched by humans in decades to reach our goal.”

Charlie peered through cracks in the door, her arms folded. “And then?”

The professor watched her carefully as he said: “And then we have infinite power. And we destroy it before anyone else can have it.”

Her eyes met his briefly. “Huh.”

“Unless,” the professor said slowly, “you want infinite power?”

Perhaps the barest hint of an almost-smile ghosted into existence on her thin lips. She shook her head.

The professor's shoulders slumped. “I'm so tired. It feels like I've been tired for years now.”

She said nothing. Just stood unmoving, leaning against the door frame.

He turned to the stairs. “I'm going to bed. Good night.”

As he began to fumble into the shadows, she said, without turning, “Take the lamp.”

He thanked her, and left her in darkness. After his footsteps had receded, she grabbed a chair and propped it against the wall opposite the door, slouching into it with one hand on the hilt of her sabre.

If she slept, her eyes still flicked open each time claws scratched the cobblestone outside.

The Reflexive Engine VI

[Chapter List]

Parts

Molly wasn't feeling it tonight, sitting in The Freak and Harlot, watching the punters mill in before the sun set and the heavy, reinforced door would have to be barred against the outside world. And then a graceful figure slipped inside, and she sat up straight.

She leant forward over the table, letting her flimsy dress slip from one shoulder. “I knew you couldn't stay away, Beau.”

He twisted his handsome mouth into a smile. “Of course not Molly, you know all the gossip.”

She pursed her lips. “Oh.”

He pulled a chair out from beneath a half-unconscious drunk and slid it over to sit down opposite her. “I hear that someone self-destructed quite spectacularly recently. A learned man, or so they say.”

A look of determination lit her eyes. “Men often meet their ruin in this town. Sometimes even under this very roof.”

“Yes, ruined. He gambled away everything he had. And I've found the chance to help the poor bastard - to return something of his that's come into my possession.”

Her gaze drifted from his striking eyes and across the crowded room. The usual bunch of working men, cheap grafties and cheaper whores. Nothing to compare with the fine young gentleman sat opposite her. “You know I'm one of the girls who gives this place its name? You want to know what's freaky about me? I could leave you speechless.”

“I'd wish you every luck with that,” he said. “Many have tried.”

“I don't speak in jest. I've got bits you've never seen before.”

He sighed. “Molly, do you know about this professor or not?”

“Give up on him,” she answered, through gritted teeth. “He owes a debt to the Franke brothers. They took him to sell for parts.”

He slumped into his chair. “Really? What an age we live in!”

“Anyhow,” she said, touching her fingers to her lips, “I did you a favour, so...”

He slapped the table with his palm, making her jump. “In the absence of the whole, pieces will have to do. Where are the Franke brothers making themselves unwelcome these days?”

She stammered for a few seconds. “A little village, 'Lakechurch' or something like that, but-”

“What would I do without you, Molly?” He kissed her cheek, pressed a handful of gold pieces into her palm and shoved his way through the crowd to the door.

Adjusting her hair and secreting the coins into her bodice, Molly glanced at the people around her, trying to hide her embarrassment. “He's an absolute darling, that one,” she managed to say, through her forced smile.

The Reflexive Engine V

[Chapter List]

Once Cracksman's Gang

She wafted into the room and threw herself into the high backed chair opposite the corpulent Cracksman. As she kicked her feet casually onto his desk, the two men in the room stared at her pale ankles. The rhythmic cranking of the mill machinery reverberated up through the floor.

“The job's done?” Cracksman asked, trying to keep his gaze level with her eyes.

She smiled. “Of course.”

He grinned in return. “You're the best, Jez.”

She absently drew her dagger and picked at a nail with the point. “I know.”

Cracksman nodded to the other man, a fellow with the tell-tale lop-sided hunch of a badly done graft. A bulging sack of gold coins was dumped onto the desk before her.

Her smile widened. “By the way,” she said. “I've found an opportunity. A distant opportunity.”

Cracksman frowned. “I see. I must say I'll be sorry to see you leave. It can be hard getting things done around here without you.”

“I think it may be a big job,” she added. “I'd need a gang.”

“Well, if you need any advice,” Cracksman said, “you've only to ask.”

“What I need,” she repeated, “is a gang.”

Cracksman glanced at the lop-sided man.

“You have a gang,” she said, slowly.

“We work the town,” he said. “I can't spare anyone for an expedition.”

She slipped her dagger back beneath her overcoat. “What a shame. Especially with your hands on top of the desk, instead of near the carbine you keep strapped beneath it.”

The lop-sided man plunged his hand into his jacket, but she was quicker, a pistol suddenly in each hand.

*

The workers stared at her as she left Cracksman's office. The two gunshots would have been audible even over the rumbling of the mill's water-driven machinery. Those workers larger and less obviously occupied than the others - Cracksman's footpads and thugs - regarded her with special attention.

“Cracksman is dead,” she announced. “I'm in charge now. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

With a bellow of inarticulate rage, a solid slab of a man charged her, fists clenched. And with four quick stabs of her dagger, she pierced each ventricle of his heart.

“Does anyone else have a problem? No? Then we shall be going on a little expedition.”

The Reflexive Engine IV

[Chapter List]

Charlie

She crouched beside an uneven road, sheltering among unkempt trees that bordered neatly tended fields. A tall, broad-shouldered woman, her skin was dusky-toned and her golden-brown hair gathered into a long braid. She wore the white breeches and black coat of some foreign military, a sabre hanging by her side.

Her eyes flicked up at the sound of footsteps and casually - almost lazily - she strode out into the path of three darkly dressed men who led a horse-drawn cart piled high with bric-a-brac.

The foremost of the three removed his tricorn hat and bowed. “Well, hello, Miss. How are you this fine day?”

The other two laughed, hands resting on the butts of holstered pistols.

She stood facing them, feet apart, and spoke quietly. “Turn back.”

The leader looked from one to the other of his lackeys, and all three laughed. “Please,” he said. “The villagers have hired you to protect them, I suppose? They're not worth it, honestly. Take their gold and leave them.”

She placed her hand on the hilt of her sword.

The leader let the reins of the horse fall from his hand. All three men now stood ready to draw their pistols. “There are three of us,” the leader said. “You don't stand a chance.”

A strong breeze whispered across the fields, hissed through the leaves of the trees, and scattered gravel across the road. The woman drew her sword.

Before the foremost man could fire, his arm was severed at the elbow. A split second passed and the tip of the woman's sabre protruded from the back of the man to his left.

The third man fired his pistol with a blast of smoke. A moment later his head was at his feet, his body toppling awkwardly over it.

Clutching his stump, the only man left alive fell to his knees. “He... shot you!”

“Yes,” the woman said. “He did.”

With a flash of silver, all three of the footpads lay dead at her feet.

She approached the horse, and the animal reared up - the whites of its eyes showing, the scent of blood in its nostrils. She caught its reins with a firm, but gentle hand and patted its haunches reassuringly, before turning to the laden cart it was harnessed to.

Something in the pile of bric-a-brac groaned.

With a clatter of displaced trifles, the woman threw back a sheet to reveal an elderly man: wild-haired, gagged and bound. With a few flicks of her sword she cut him free.

“Thank you,” the man gasped, sliding off the cart and rubbing his wrists. “Thank you. Things have been going from bad to worse for me, and I thought they were about to wind up as bad as they could get, if you know what I mean. I can't tell you- Wait, where are you going?”

The woman stopped in her tracks and looked back at him.

“You can handle trouble, right?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“I've lost something,” the man said. “Sheets of paper with holes in them. They don't look like much, but they're worth more than you can imagine.”

“Code?” the woman asked.

“Something like that.”

The woman nodded again and, sabre sheathed, began to walk down the road, drawing the horse along by its reins. The elderly man followed quickly after.

The Reflexive Engine III

[Chapter List]

Beau

The windows were shuttered against the daylight, absolute silence prevailing within. Half a dozen men sat around the table, brooding over their cards.

“Your deal, Beau,” said the man with the pointed goatee.

Beau smiled. Unnaturally beautiful, immaculately dressed and, to see the pile of coins in front of him, improbably lucky. He gathered the cards with his perfect hands and began to shuffle.

“Wait,” Goatee said, holding out a hand. “You're quick. I'll give you that.”

Beau tried to look puzzled. “What do you mean?”

The other men at the table glanced at one another. Hands began to slide quietly towards belts that held pistols and daggers.

“I know what you are,” Goatee continued. He tapped a finger to the side of one eye. “I am too. I'd see what you were doing even if you weren't always winning when you dealt the hand.”

“A cheater?” one of the other players snarled.

“We have something very special in store for cheaters,” another added.

“I don't want any trouble,” Beau said, setting down the cards and holding out his hands.

The largest man at the table threw back his chair and leapt to his feet, towering over the others. “Well, you've got it anyway.”

With a sudden jerk of his arms, Beau held a small pistol in each hand. Firing both at the same time, he dispatched two of his opponents in one blast of gunpowder, sliding down from his chair and beneath the table just as the giant's fist ploughed through the space previously occupied by his handsome face.

The next blow overturned the table, clearing the line of fire for the two pistols he had pulled from the back of his belt, one bullet smashing the giant's lantern jaw, the other sending Goatee tumbling through the shuttered window.

The last two men raised their weapons. A fellow with a jagged scar across his face aimed his pistol and fired, only for his target to roll forward at the last moment, dodging the bullet and pulling another pair of pistols from his expensive shoes. As the scarred man wrestled with the pouches of shot and powder in his jacket, the only other man standing was shot through the heart in the act of throwing his knife.

Beau got to his feet and dusted down his breeches, watching the scarred man struggle to reload. “I still have a pistol I haven't fired, you know.”

The scarred man dropped his gun and held up his hands. “Take the money. I won't stop you.”

“Of course I'll take the money,” Beau said. “But I can't get a reputation as a cheater, however deserved it might be. One can only cheat the ignorant, don't you agree?”

The scarred man nodded frantically. “I won't tell anyone.”

Beau sighed and waved his pistol back and forth. “But I'm far too trusting. It's my chief flaw. I really should shoot you.”

“I have something else,” the scarred man said, reaching a trembling hand into his waistcoat.

Beau tutted. “It had better not be a pistol. I really have the advantage here.”

But the scarred man produced several folded sheets of paper and handed them, shakily, to the man holding him at gunpoint.

“Blank,” Beau said. “And full of holes. You have a most peculiar sense of humour.”

“I was playing against a professor of some sort, really down on his luck. He lost everything, and this was all he had to put on the table to try and win it back. He said it was worth a fortune.”

Beau raised a slender eyebrow. “Really? Maybe you're the one who's too trusting. Look, toddle off. And we'll both forget we ever knew one another.”

The scarred man blinked, and then took off like a rocket.

Beau dropped the blank sheets of paper on the floor and righted the table, before sweeping his ill-gotten gains into a large purse. One by one he returned his pistols to his belt, sleeves and shoes.

He sighed. Reloading them all would be such a chore.

About to leave, he stooped down on a whim and picked up the blank pages, holding them up to the light that poured in through the broken shutters. The holes in the pages were neat and orderly: some square, some rectangular.

“A fortune,” he mused.

He half made to throw the pages down again, then stuffed them into his riding coat and strolled outside, pockets jangling.

The Reflexive Engine II

[Chapter List]

Jezebel

In shirtsleeves and waistcoats, the two men pored over tattered maps and yellowed books. Little outside their immediate thoughts bothered them. The housemaid thought to open the curtains, letting light in through the ornate, baroque windows, and they noticed only that the words flowed more easily from the page, that their scribbles on the wall-mounted blackboard accumulated more quickly and legibly. The tea she proffered slipped down their throats almost by reflex, and the plates of breakfast were ignored. She stoked the fire, and they merely loosened their collars.

When the stranger entered - a tall woman: pale, dark-haired and dark-eyed - she too went unnoticed. She thanked the housemaid for escorting her in, waiting for the younger woman to leave before removing her bonnet. She watched the two men for a minute or so, observing their frantic work and the way it revolved around the chattering machine in the corner.

And then she reached into the dark overcoat she wore over her loose, high-waisted dress, and retrieved a flintlock pistol, discharging it into the nearest man with a thunderous crack. He spun round, eyes wide, and fell to the floor, dead. The other man stared open-mouthed at the stranger, his train of thought finally derailed.

The stranger drew a second pistol and pulled back the hammer. She glanced suddenly back towards the entrance, expressionless and unreadable. After a split-second's thought, she fired through the door, leaving a neat hole just below the keyhole.

The surviving man lunged for the fireplace, grabbing the poker, but with a flash of metal he had dropped it, and the woman was beside him, the point of a long dagger at his throat.

As she pressed forward, he squeezed back against a wall of books. He spoke quickly, trying to spit out the words before it was too late. “Cracksman sent you, didn't he?”

Still stony-faced, she said, “Of course.”

“There's nothing of value here. Kill me and my debts will never be honoured.”

“Unfortunately for you,” she said, pushing the dagger forward, drawing blood. “I still get paid.”

“I know where to find a massive fortune!” he gasped.

“Shame you couldn't have found it sooner.”

“It only just revealed itself. Let me live, and you can have it. Actually, I can have it too. That's its value.”

She extended a manicured, short-nailed hand and skilfully buttoned up his collar, dagger held steadily all the while. “That noisy machine has something to do with it, doesn't it?”

Perhaps relieved to still be alive, he actually smiled. “Yes, yes it does.”

Her impassive mask cracked, and she smiled back. “Then I don't need you.”

With a jerk of her wrist, blood sprayed over the bookshelves, and the man's body hit the floor.

With a glance at the clattering machine, the stranger strode to the door and opened it. Outside, the housemaid lay gasping on the floor, a hand to her stomach, blood spilling out between her fingers. “I told you to go to into the village and post my letter,” the stranger said. “No good comes of listening at keyholes.”

The girl sobbed with pain. “The letter was blank.”

The stranger sighed. “Of course, the kettle. No good comes of steaming open letters either.” She crouched down beside the girl. “It hurts doesn't it?”

The housemaid nodded, eyes screwed tight.

The stranger slid an arm around her shoulder, drawing her close, kissing her forehead. “Shush. Just bear it a second longer.”

The light from the baroque windows flashed briefly on the blade of her dagger.

*

As she wandered back into the room of the two learned gentlemen, cleaning her dagger with a handkerchief, a bird began to plaintively sing outside.

She sheathed her blade, and laid out her two empty pistols on a writing table, running her fingers contemptuously through the garbled notes laid out upon it. All the while, the chattering machine vomited out a long strip of paper, punching it through with holes.

Her cold, eagle eyes followed the strip's coiling path, watching for patterns.

The Reflexive Engine

Just trying another little series. I'm going to try and keep each chapter relatively short (I'm aiming for 500 words), and I'm also going to maintain this post as a contents page of sorts.

I: The Golden Egg
II: Jezebel
III: Beau
IV: Charlie
V: Once Cracksman's Gang
VI: Parts
VII: Lakechurch
VIII: The Skysail
IX: Thanks for the Horse
X: Travelling Salesman
XI: Fission

The Reflexive Engine I

The Golden Egg

They clambered up streets strewn with rubble, weaving between the wild plants that spilled out between uneven cobblestones. Ahead, the ragged skyline stretched across the horizon, ruined buildings reaching broken limbs towards the storm clouds above. And either side were the neoclassical façades of long-deserted embassies and galleries, windows broken and door frames empty.

She stopped suddenly, and her brother stumbled clumsily into her back, almost dropping his musket.

“This one,” she said.

He looked the building up and down, trying to catch his breath. He was a big lad - powerful, but too clumsy to keep pace with his lean sister on ground like this. “Are you sure?”

She looked back over her shoulder at him, hair cropped short, almost sexless in her breeches and overcoat. Like the others, he had long since grown used to her once scandalous antics.

“Trust me,” she said, and led him through broken double doors.

Within, weeds broke up through a marble floor scattered with rotting detritus and massive bones. The grey light of the overcast sky broke in through shattered windows and cracks in the ceiling.

“Did there really used to be creatures this huge?” he asked, looking at the bones piled on a nearby pedestal.

She nodded and looked around at the markings on the walls. “Of course. But they were too big to ride. People would have always used horses for that. Come on, this way.”

He followed after her, down a shadowed hallway. It wasn't a thing he could understand - why she could read, or how she did it. But it made her useful. Made the others shut up about her many oddities.

He tripped over something, and looked down, recoiling from the golden arm that lay severed on the ground. “Cathy!”

She whirled around, a hand on the the pistol tucked into her belt. “Boyo,” she sighed, a note of disappointment in her voice that made him flush with shame. “You have to get over this fear. The clockwork men don't move anymore. And they never will.”

She turned and went on. And he followed after, still red, still clutching his musket tight in both hands.

The corridor opened into a room with an arched roof. An overgrown tree pushed in through the window, clouds of dust dancing in the thin beams of light that made it through its branches.

“A dead end?” she asked, surprised.

He looked around. Two golden figures lay together in the far corner, slumped against the wall - clinging to one another. “I don't like this, Cathy. Let's go.”

She looked at the markings on the walls, ran a finger through the years of accumulated dust that covered them. “Wait.”

Her fingers slipped through the dust, and then through the wall - no, not a wall: a thin curtain, hidden in the dust and shadows, closing off an alcove. Brazenly, without caution or care, she yanked it open.

He gasped. His sister fell back, landing on her backside with a thump and throwing up a thick cloud of dust. The room lit up, bright rays shining out from the alcove. From the great golden egg that sat on its pedestal, as large as a person curled up into a ball.

They could both only stare.

“What is it?” he asked, eventually.

“I don't know,” she said. And then: “Valuable.”

He was reluctant to approach it. “It looks heavy. We'll never carry it back.”

She got to her feet, unable to take her eyes off the perfect, radiant shell. “Go back to the caravan, Boyo. Bring a shire horse.”

He stared dumbfounded at the egg, and then tore his eyes away, running back down the corridor, musket slung over his shoulder. His feet clattered and scraped against the marble floor, drumming an irregular rhythm as he passed a closed off room, its door obscured by shadow.

Inside the room, the autotelegram stirred from its decade of slumber and began to quietly tap out a message.

Back to the contents page.