Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection Read online

  Contents

  Steampunk Omnibus

  Preface

  THE COLLECTED BARTLEBY AND JAMES ADVENTURES

  That Damnable Bartleby

  And They Called Her Spider

  Maiden Voyage of the Rio Grande

  On the Trail of the Scissorman

  A Matter of Spirit

  Perhaps it Wasn’t so Bad

  A GENTLEWOMAN'S CHRONICLES

  Sky Pirates Over London

  Tower of Babbage

  Fine Young Turks

  MARCH OF THE COGSMEN

  Invitation

  Chapter 1

  RSVP

  Chapter 2

  Notice of Recovery

  Chapter 3

  Requisiton

  Chapter 4

  Blockade Smashed

  Chapter 5

  Report

  Chapter 6

  Last Kidnapped European Returns Home

  Chapter 7

  Missing Expedition Recovered

  Chapter 8

  Analysis

  Chapter 9

  Refusal

  Epilogue

  DREAMS OF THE DAMNED

  Prelude

  20 September, 1911 - 7:45 am

  20 September, 1911 - 10:15 am

  In Which Alton Bartleby Has a Reunion

  20 September, 1911 - 10:40

  20 September, 1911 - 11:20 am

  20 September, 1911 - 11:45 am

  In Which Alton Bartleby has a Breakthrough

  20 September, 1911 - 12:35 pm

  20 September, 1911 - 1:30 pm

  In Which Alton Bartleby Assists

  20 September, 1911 - 3:00 pm

  20 September, 1911 - 5:45 pm

  In Which Alton Bartleby Cracks the Case

  20 September, 1911 - 9:15 pm

  In Which Alton Bartleby Saves the Day

  21 September, 1911 - 12:15 am

  Want More?

  About the Author

  Steampunk Omnibus

  Galvanic Century Volume 1

  Michael Coorlim

  © 2012-2013 Michael Coorlim

  Pomoconsumption Press

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Preface

  Galvanic Century isn't a typical Victorian Steampunk series. While Queen Victoria is still alive and Prince Edward still, well, a Prince, in 1910 the era is better termed 'Edwardian', at least from our perspective. The technology focuses less on steamtech and more on other forms of early 20th century science -- galvanic energy, N-Rays, difference engines. Aside from the pseudoscience there aren't any "magic" or "supernatural" element to the series. That was an early design decision, and I'm pleased with where that limitation has lead my creative process.

  The genesis for And They Called Her Spider was a piece of digital art created by artist Pol Subanajouy. He generously agreed to allow me to use it as cover art. It inspired the character of the Spider, and from that aesthetic I created a steampunk London. I hadn't initially intended to write a series, but reader response was strong, asking for more from the characters. I focused on the detectives Alton Barlteby and James Wainwright at first, building a steampunk London around them, but it wasn't until I started on Aldora Fiske's Chronicles of a Gentlewoman series that the rest of the world fleshed itself out.

  Aldora Fiske was initially slated for debut in Maiden Voyage of the Rio Grande, but cutting those scenes out and introducing her in On the Trail of the Scissorman tightened things up quite a bit. I'd originally planned four volumes for her stories, but as each novelette grew longer than the last I realized that A Gentlewoman's Chronicles had far exceeded The Collected Bartleby and James Adventures in length. Add that to the fact that the fans were clamoring for novels, and what could I do?

  In 2013 I wrote March of the Cogsmen and Dreams of the Damned, both novellas longer than any of the previous works, and the last Galvanic Century short works. This second edition Steampunk Omnibus is the last major revision with their inclusion, and contains all of the earlier, shorter work written in the series. I hope you enjoy it.

  Michael Coorlim (2014)

  THE COLLECTED BARTLEBY AND JAMES ADVENTURES

  That Damnable Bartleby

  When Alton Bartleby barged into my workshop to inform me that we were to embark upon a career as private detectives, I was neither concerned nor interested. The man has the sort of intellect that is constantly flitting from one interest to the next, a hummingbird supping on hobby and fad, just as quick to speed off to the next bright flower to catch his eye.

  His sudden interest in investigation and private law enforcement was no doubt a result of the bee-keeping symposium he'd dragged me to the week earlier, an earlier interest that had flared and faded with the suddenness of a summer storm. The keynote speaker had been the old man Holmes, retired from public life these five years.

  His speech had been on the culture of Bees, a subject I found to be of passable interest compared to most of what grabbed Bartleby's fancy. As Holmes spoke, I could envision them, cogs in an intricate biological machine of fascinating complexity and fractal in their scope. The remnants of the few entomology classes I'd attended at the Royal Academy of Artificers and Engineers bubbled to the surface of my mind, along with the coalescing of a grand beehive-driven analytical matrix.

  Of course, Bartleby kept interrupting the man with seemingly innocuous questions intended to guide the conversation away from insectile behaviourism and towards irrelevancies like classical logic and abductive reasoning, irritating our host and disrupting my concentration. I can only lament the world's loss of it's potential honey and wax computation device; once a scrap of brilliance slips my mind, it's gone forever. So died the Hymenoptera Engine.

  Holmes, of course, was deeply annoyed. Bartleby may be a social savant whose deft control of the flow of conversation slides past most men, but Holmes is a true genius, and was able to intuit exactly what Alton was doing. He refused to speak with us after the event, and indeed hastened away to the confusion of the symposium's overseers.

  I did not enlighten them.

  Instead I returned to London alone, while Bartleby insisted upon pursuing the Great Detective to Sussex Downs. I have no doubt that Holmes can be a stubborn man, but Bartleby is persistent and persuasive. What transpired is a matter for conjecture, but for my part I was pleased to have the peace of days while Alton was otherwise occupied.

  Until, of course, he returned.

  ***

  "Good news, James," he said. "We are to be detectives."

  I looked up from my workstation, the jeweller's loupe in my eye distorting his otherwise handsome face. "I've no desire to be a detective."

  "That's unfortunate," Bartleby said. "For it's what we're to be."

  I thumbed the ridged edge of the headpiece I was wearing, switching out the jeweller's loupe for a pale turquoise quartz lens and turned back to the gears on my workstation. "I've little time for your games as it is. And would much appreciate you knocking in the future."

  "Little time?" Bartleby stepped back outside my workshop and knocked on its corrugated tin exterior. "Busy repairing broken watches for the idle rich?"

  "Improving them," I said. "Some of us have to work for a living. And no. Your watch isn't ready yet."

  "What about that engine you'd been going on about?" he asked.

  I looked up at him.
"The Hymenoptera Engine?"

  "No, not the one with the bees, and I've already apologised for that. The galvanic one."

  "Oh." I went back to my watches. "That one."

  "Yes. That one." He leaned back against my workshop's wall. It wobbled. He straightened. "The one I gave you quite a large sum of money to develop?"

  I didn't look up. "It's over there, on the shelf."

  He followed my gesture. "Over here? This one?"

  "Is it glowing?"

  "No."

  "Thump it."

  There was a thump. "It's glowing now."

  "That's the one.

  "Why's it glowing?"

  "Conversion of kinetic to galvanic energy."

  "That wasn't... is it supposed to be doing that?"

  I looked up again. Bartleby was eyeing the Galvanic Converter with some distrust. Unusually wise on his part. "Sometimes development takes odd tangents."

  "Is it... will people pay money for it?"

  "I imagine so. You can take it to the patent office, I'm done with it."

  He tucked the device under his arm. "James, you need to take more of an interest in the business of these things."

  "I thought that that was why I'd partnered with you."

  "Yes, but you shouldn't trust me."

  "I don't. Not with unimportant business." I took the ocular array off of my head. "Like money or patents."

  Bartleby shook his head. "Look, can you invent... detective things?"

  I raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

  "I don't know, you're the engineer."

  "I suppose." I didn't see any reason why not. I hadn't studied forensics per se, but it wouldn't take too long to study the available materials and come up with plans to improve upon them.

  "Excellent. I've been out trying to line up some cases for us, so expect movers to be along to collect your things shortly."

  "What?" I turned.

  "Well, you can't expect to run a detective agency out of Spitalfields?" Bartleby chuffed. "We'd never have any clients."

  "I can't just pack up and move because you've got the urge to play detective."

  "This isn't a game, James." He had his serious face on. "This is... it's destiny. I've been at a loose end since, well, since returning to London. Playing the fop. Dandying about society."

  "You quite enjoy dandying about, and don't you bother denying it."

  "It's killing time, James. Like these watches. You don't care about them, just as you don't care about the inventions I've been financing after you've puzzled them out. What you need, what we both need, is a real challenge. A real puzzle."

  "That's what you think, is it?"

  He stepped close, clasping a hand on my shoulder. "It's what I know, James. And I need you with me on this. I need a partner."

  I felt a strange flare of mixed animosity and resignation. He was right, of course. Wasting my hours away in an east-end workshop fixing junked timepieces was a waste of my time, a waste of my life. I didn't know if detective work would be any more fulfilling, but it was bound to be more challenging. And the idea of moving my workshop to somewhere less prone to random street violence was appealing; I was tired of hurting the locals, but I just didn't think they were getting the message that my capacity for mayhem was greater than the value of the copper wire I possessed.

  "Fine," I said. "But when we're settled, you'll respect the sanctity of my workshop. You don't barge in without my leave."

  "Of course!" he said, raising his hands. "Your space is your own."

  And They Called Her Spider

  "She moves, at times, with the fluid grace particular to acrobats and dancers, and at others her motions are sudden and jerky, feral and darting. A birdlike tilt of the head, an abrupt twist of the spine; that's all the warning given before she changes, transforming from entertainer to killer, from elegant to lethal. My pet theory is that when she becomes the perfect assassin she gains a new awareness of time and kinetics, her movements so graceful and quick that the human mind can only process them in sudden still images, like the frames of a zoetrope. Mere words can barely suffice to convey the purity of her motion. I have to think of her in alchemical terms. She's quicksilver."

  Bartleby strode the perimeter of my workshop as he spoke, quartz knob on the end of his walking stick clacking a steady metronome beat against brass fittings set into the walls. He did it to irritate me, of that I'm sure; both the tapping and the purple-prose drenched answer to the simple question I'd put to him.

  "That's all well and good. But who is she?" I asked.

  He turned away, cane rattling along the baluster of the staircase leading up to the rest of our townhouse. "I swear, James, if you'd spend less time down here and more at the club with me, you'd know what was going on in London. The social season doesn't last forever, you know, and people find you odd enough as it is."

  "I've little regard for the opinions of toffs or the clubs they inhabit."

  "But they're so useful, James!"

  "Then save your patter for the swells. Just tell me who this 'Spider' woman is."

  "Nobody knows, and that's the thrill of it. She comes out of nowhere, a flash of red and black fabric, powdered white face, the tinkling of bells, drawing near in that sinuous way she has, mesmerising and captivating even those with the presence of mind to recognise her as a threat. What else is one to do but watch when presented with a beautiful spectre of death? When I saw her, at first it was the sheer oddness of the sight that stayed my hand: a small girl, slender of frame and fine of feature, dressed as a jester. She entered the airship impossibly, through a port window a thousand feet up--"

  "A thousand? Airships cruise at four or five-hundred, maximum."

  "--a thousand feet up, to dance and pirouette through the crowd with precision and aplomb, and then someone was dead."

  "So what you're saying is that this woman killed someone while you stood and stared, slack jawed?"

  I hefted a long slender blade, a weapon purported to belong to the assassin herself. It -- along with the rest of the artifacts littering my workbench -- made up the sum product of Scotland Yard's investigations thus far. With the Queen's Platinum Jubilee but days away, they'd resorted to commissioning our services as consulting detectives. There were older agencies, larger ones, and many with a better reputation, but in the short year since we'd begun this detective business Bartleby and I had accrued some small name for handling the more outlandish and sensitive matters.

  "That's not what I'm saying at all," Bartleby stopped, settling into a relaxed stance. "She danced, and then the American industrialist sponsoring the gallery flight was dead. I was watching... we were all watching her, but she barely approached the man. She went from her smooth acrobatic dancing to a jerkier sort of movement. She... I swear... seemed to flicker for a moment, and her target collapsed."

  "You didn't actually see her cut him."

  "Nobody did. Just like her prior victim and the ones before that. When we landed the airfield physician gave the same diagnosis -- poor bastard had been neatly eviscerated."

  I later learnt that it had been the cleanliness of her cuts that had given cause to the broadsheet's efforts to link her to the Ripper, one even going so far as to label her "Jack's Daughter" before some other publication started calling her "The Spider." Lord only knew why that name stuck when the half-dozen others put forth fell by the wayside.

  "I'm honestly just grateful for the opportunity to have seen her in the flesh," Bartleby said. He ran his delicate hands over the rest of the evidence the Met had given us: shattered glass, scraps of fabric, a smear of greasepaint from a curtain she'd brushed against. While ignorant eyes might have seen nothing but bored fiddling in his actions, I knew Alton Bartleby well enough to know that his mind was working, collating the data it perceived, categorising it and making inexorable progress towards an inevitable solution. His method was as singular as the Old Man's but sprang from a different genesis.

  Bartleby was a true savant, and
while the Great Detective had always made his deductions look easy and natural, in my partner's case they truly were. Building conclusions from disparate scraps of data was easy for him as deciding what to have for lunch would be for you and me.

  Deciding what to have for lunch -- now that he found challenging.

  "And if enchantment she wove, then the death she delivered was the key to breaking it. Not that it mattered. In the chaos that followed she escaped, somersaulting through the doors from gallery to galley, and from there? God only knows. Back out the window, perhaps; gone before a single hand could be raised against her."

  For months, the Spider had been the terror and scourge of London, an assassin without equal, a perfect murderess against whom no precaution was adequate. None could speculate at what hand it was that moved her across the board, and she seemed to strike out without prejudice against all targets, her daggers finding ready homes in the innards of Anglican bishops, Turkish ambassadors, union agitators, French statesmen, Royal Academy lecturers, and visiting American plutocrats alike. The only thread weaving together her web of victims was the exemplary security with which they protected themselves; her partners in this danse macabre were the men no other killer could reach.

  "You're fond of her enough," I said.

  "She's news. She's scandal. She's morbid entertainment for peerage and hoi polloi alike, a penny dreadful come to wicked life. I'm honestly surprised that you haven't heard of her before now, James."

  "You know how it is," I replied. "When I'm working the rest of the world fades into an annoying niggle which I can safely ignore."

  "That hardly sounds healthy."

  "The isolation helps me think."

  Truth be told, while I don't care for most people I didn't even like Bartleby descending into my workshop. He felt wrong there, out of place, a grain of sand in my oyster; company in my working place was always an intrusion. He knew how I felt, and most of the time respected that, sending down meals in the dumbwaiter, or calling from the top of the stairs if matters were important. This was perhaps the third time he'd been down in my workshop since I'd moved from Spitalfields. It probably wasn't quite fair, considering that his wealth had paid for it.