It is the Year of our Lord 2141 and Marion "Nix" Nixon is a technician in the immortal empire of Great Britain and her Colonies. Politics are the last thing on Nix's mind - as a technician, he only wishes to service machines and their spirits. It is a fact known since the days of Christ and her Clockwork that any machine of sufficient complexity can be spoken with, and so, technicians have needed to be skilled with words and hands alike to ensure harmony between man and metal.
However, as much as Nix wishes to stay out of politics...politics are coming for him. For Nix has a secret, a secret that mysterious forces are willing to utilize as a lever to compel him to take terrible actions in the days to come. A war is brewing in the Empire, between man and spirit, between the goddess-queen Colossus and her enemies, between past and present...a war that might shatter all that is and leave nothing but ashes.
St. Daghlian's was a five star hotel, built on the exact spot where the Empire State Building had been burnt to cinders, something that the placard out front was quite delighted to brag about. Nix swore he could still hear the ghosts as he stood at the front desk and looked up at the vast painting of Trinity Chastises her Children. The tiny human figures throwing up their arms were painted in a revival of...Nix was fairly sure it was Realism. He could see the little folds in their suits, despite their small size next to the vast pale titan standing among them, arms stretched out in a pose akin to Christ, head tilted to the side. The other giantess in the painting was Columbia, her arm tossed over her face, her head turned aside, her breasts bared, the old American flag burning beside her.
Nix frowned and took his gaze off the gaudy horror that loomed over his head. There was still no one at the counter. He reached over and dinged the bell again.
Finally, a negro servant exited from the back, looking harried. "Oh!" he said, then smiled and bowed to Nix. "Sorry for making you wait, sir." His voice was crisp and well trained – he sounded more like a mainland Englishman than a Burned York native. "There was a bit of trouble in the back."
"Anything serious?" Nix asked, shifting slightly.
The servant blinked, then saw the gear on his collar. "Oh, uh, nothing technical, sir," he said, smiling slightly. "You must be Technician Marion Nixon?"
Nix nodded and smiled slightly. "I believe that the York Naval Shipyards paid for my room and board?"
"That they have, sir," the servant said, taking out his book. He scribbled in a date: 30/5/42. Next to it, a name: M. Nixon. He lifted his gaze up. "If you don't mind me asking, sir, are you here to see about the Underground?"
"No, I'm afraid it's one of the airships," Nix said. He supposed he should have kept it secret, but for some reason, he doubted that the Chinese or the Reich would be particularly interested in a single Technician – nor that they would be able to infiltrate Burned York. It had never quite recovered since the 20th century, and air shipping had altered the trade routes. "Is something wrong with the Underground?"
"Oh, she's just old and creaky," the servant said, then held out a key that he had plucked from under the desk. "Have a nice stay at St. Daghlian's!"
Nix took it, wiggled the key, tucked it into his pocket, and started towards the elevators.
A bellboy worked the small shrine and the elevator started to clamber upwards. At the back of his mind, Nix could just barely hear and feel the spirit of the elevator – old and creaky and cranky – working the cranks and wires. He closed his eyes and put his palm against the wall. He couldn't quite reach the spirit with his hand, nor was it complex enough to be serviced by him. But it made him feel better, which was what mattered. The elevator opened and he dropped a copper penny in the bellboy's hand.
"Thank you, Mr. Technician, sir!" the boy said, his voice bright and chirping. Nix kept walking down the corridor – along red carpet, past gold gilt and quietly humming electric lights. He came to room 299 and worked the lock with a faint rumble and click.
He opened the door and stepped inside. This was where he was going to be doing his work, so, he needed to make sure everything was exactly so. First, the bed. He made sure the sheets were fresh and the mattress was soft. Next, the decor. The only painting in the room was some bland landscape – not exceptional, but not so awful that he'd need to have it removed. The ice closet in the tiny adjoining room was full of wines that seemed to be a relatively decent age. There were fine glasses. No plates, but he supposed room service would bring it.
He was just about to begin testing the squeakiness of the bed when the telephone in the room rang with an alarming jangle. Nix jerked, his head snapping up.
Who would be calling him?
He frowned, slightly. "It shouldn't be the naval yards…" He walked over, then took the phone's earpiece up and put it against his ear. Grainy, popping and distant sounding, the telephone began to speak to him.
"Mr. Nixon, you have a call from one Josephine Dour. Do you wish to accept it?" she asked.
"Yes, thank you," Nix said, warmth in his voice. He loved getting a call from his niece – she was one of the few people he could talk too frankly.
"...um, and...can I just ask…" The telephone said. He could hear her biting her lip. "Is it true you're a technician?"
Nix chuckled. He could either tell the truth and never have to offer a tithe but, also, never stop getting rung up when the telephone was lonely...or he could lie and have to lay an offering that was twice as weighty to make up for the sin. He extemporized. "Can you please put Jessie...er...Miss Dour on?" He smiled.
"Okay!" The telephone said.
There was a click, then a severe female voice came through. She sounded nothing like Jessie.
"I know what you are," she said.
Nix froze. "Ahem." He coughed. "Who are you and how do you know-"
"We'll be watching your performance tonight."
The phone clicked and the faint humming of the telephone came over the line again. "Oh! She hung up – that was a rather short call. And quite mysterious, are you all right, Mr. Nixon?"
"I'm...fine, thank you," Nix said, then placed the receiver back in the cradle. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small offering, placing it before the telephone.
Coming to Burned York was beginning to seem like a terrible mistake.
***
Sitting in the room, waiting for his next telephone call didn't suit Nix. Instead, he took off his jacket, hung it up, then reached inside. He pulled out his Colt, looking down at the revolver. It glittered brightly in his hand, and the engravings he had etched into the handle felt as familiar as his own hand. He hefted it, whispering softly. "Are you ready for trouble, old girl?"
A Colt wasn't sophisticated enough – being made of only worked and machined metals, without any coal to burn or electricity to run – to really manifest much. Still, Nix was attuned enough to feel the little growl. She wanted to shoot someone.
He smiled. "If we're lucky, I won't even draw you, you know?" He pocketed her and made sure she didn't make too noticeable a bulge. The soft whimpering from his pockets made his smile even more whimsical.
When he entered into the dining hall, he found he wouldn't be alone out there. There were quite a few families and groups sitting around tables – most of them well to do and white. There were a few who were visibly Mormon, their ornate gas masks hanging around their throats. They mostly kept to themselves, quietly speaking in their own language. Nix considered finding his own table, but he saw that there was a table clearly made of several travelers, which had boisterous conversation and...more importantly, pretty ladies.
He walked over and smiled. "Might I beg a seat?" he asked.
"But of course!" A man with a handlebar mustache stood. "Please, take a seat, join the table. I take it you're new in town? We, as it transpires, are all here for the launch of the HMS Indefatigable, though, all for our own reasons."
"Well, I did pick the right table," Nix said, his voice wry. "I'm the technician for her launch."
Soft murmurs of excitement came from everyone. One of the pretty ladies in question – a redhead in a green dress – cooed excitedly. "You're so young! I thought it took many years to become a technician."
"I was apprenticed to Martin Nixon," Nix said. "My father, actually."
"Martin Nixon? The man who saved Boston?" one of the men exclaimed, gesticulating with such shock that he nearly spilled his cup of wine. The women gasped quietly while Nix inclined his head.
"That would be the case."
"Well, that must make you Robert Nixon!" Handlebar said. "No, sorry, I forget myself. Everett Sinclair, I'm from the Occupation Board. This is my associates, Mr. Smith and Mr. Faith."
Mr. Smith inclined his head, while Mr. Faith reached across the table to shake Nix's hand. "My uncle lived in Boston," Mr. Faith said.
"Are you from the Occupation Board as well?" Nix asked, curiously.
"Yes, we handle taxation for the eastern seaboard – I handle New England, while Old Prue here…" Mr. Smith nodded to Mr. Faith. "He is the head of taxation and tithing for Old Washington."
"Have you seen those dreadful old shrines?" Nix asked.
"The only one standing is to the Emancipator, actually," Mr. Faith said. "Quite a man, for an American. And the damage is only minor, there's been some talk among the natives of having her restored, but her Majesty isn't exactly eager to commemorate an elected official." His voice dipped with sarcastic amusement, drawing giggles from the rest of the table.
"And you two?" Nix asked.
"I'm Fiona O'Toole," the redhead said. "My husband is in town because he's writing a travelogue." She made a face. "Apparently, he wants a whole chapter about the Indefatigable and the naval yards."
"I'm Tracy Rhina," the blond said. She was slightly less fulsome than her friend, but her angular face had more intelligence and wit lurking there than Nix had expected on a first glance. "I'm with the Daily Mail."
"You're a newspaper writer?" Nix asked, surprised.
"They hire women sometimes – when they can't get married," Everett said, his mustache bristling with amusement.
"Don't take my lack of a husband as some accident," Miss Rhina said, her voice prim as she started to sip from her cup. Her voice had barbs and Nix found himself smiling despite his better sense. He leaned forward, propping one elbow onto the counter.
"Do you travel much, as a reporter?"
"Here and there," she said. "My most recent trip was the Continent. I don't suppose you read the Mail?"
"I do from time to time – though, it's not exactly a timely publication in the Colonies," Nix said, inclining his head slightly to the side.
"Hmm," Miss Rhina looked a bit put out, like she had been expecting a chance to flaunt. Her fellow female giggled coquettishly and whispered to Nix, leaning forward and using her hand to provide a facsimile of cover for her lips.
"She did this dreadful piece on one of those awful Silent cultists that are rife throughout the Greater German Reich," she whispered.
"The Silent?" Nix asked, a bit curious. He'd never heard of any such thing – though, the less that Nix thought about the Reich, the happier he was sure he'd be. The subject state of the Empire, the puppet for Colossus, had been a suppurated sore in England's side longer than the American west. And unlike the west, it wasn't as simple as a religious conversion to root out the technical heresies and radicalists that sought to perpetually bring war back to Europe.
Miss Rhina sighed and tapped her fork against the side of her plate – a nervous fidget that betrayed her otherwise calm face. "You know of the Three, yes?"
"Oh come now!" Everett spluttered. "He's a bloody technician, not some back country savage. Might as well ask the good sir if he knows the sky is blue."
Nix smiled, and indulged Rhina. "The Three, of course. The first was our Lady Colossus," he said, lifting his finger and counting from the pinkie, using his pointer finger to extend the tiny digit like he was a Swiss army knife. "She brought us Order. The second was our Lady the Fortress, who brought us Victory." His ring finger unfolded. "And the third, well…" He smirked and nodded to the door leading to the entry of St. Daghlian's.
"Brought the Fire," Mr. Smith murmured, quietly.
"I see someone went to Sunday school," Everett said, more amused.
"Very good," Miss Rhina said, her lips thin. "But did you know that there are cults in the back-country of France and Germany who worship a Fourth?"
That brought Nix's eyebrows right up.
"I...haven't," he said. The chill that settled onto him felt entirely inappropriate for the bright, cheerful sunshine that was bathing the dining room and the clink and clatter of silverware and dishes. The waiter came, then, his dark hands cradling several plates that the others had been waiting on. As he set the food down, he inclined his head to Nix.
"Your order, sir?" he asked.
"Oh, uh…" Nix fumbled with the menu and placed an order for a small plate of oysters. Burned York seafood was still better than anything he'd had elsewhere. The waiter inclined his head, then turned and walked off, his coat-tails precise as a penguin. Nix watched him go, while Everett rumbled into the silence.
"It's all poppycock," he said. "No Lady has ever been silent, not since the year of our Lord 1941. A century is a long time for something with the power of a goddess to lay in the ground and not do anything."
"I did actually mention that to one of the cultists I interviewed," Miss Rhina said, her voice wry.
"And what did he have to say about it?" Mr. Faith asked.
"He tried to have me strangled," Miss Rhina said. "So I shot him."
Silence fell again. Miss O'Toole put her hand over her mouth as Miss Rhina, with an ever so slight smile, started to cut into her braised chicken. She lifted the steaming meat. "So, you were saying about the taxation board, Mr. Faith?"
***
After the dinner and the conversation had wound around several times, Nix took his leave and tried to ignore the piercing look that Miss Rhina sent his way. He had just reached the door when one of the hotel serving staff coughed politely, stepping not quite in his way, but enough into his line of sight that Nix could see him.
"Mr. Nixon," the negro said, his voice as smooth as everyone else working here. "There are gentlemen from the Naval Board here to see you. If you would be so kind." He held his left arm out, indicating the way. Nix nodded to him.
"Thank you," he said, a bit distracted still by not just the conversation – the phone call still hung heavy in the back of his mind. He followed after the servant as he was led into the back rooms of the first level of the hotel – to where chambers were set aside for meetings and business, rather than just sleeping.
When the negro servant opened the door for him, Nix saw the Naval Board had sent three men and…
Well.
The first of the three men came to his feet. He was the civilian of the bunch, dressed in his finest suit, his graying mustache trimmed and neat. He took Nix's hand and shook firmly, politely. "A pleasure to meet you, Technician," he said. "I'm Arthur White, head of the York Naval Yards – I personally oversaw the construction of this new airship. This is Colonel Davery." He gestured to a thin, sallow looking gentleman with a radiation burn across his cheek that looked as if it had taken direct intervention from her Lady Trinity to keep from becoming cancerous. "And Captain Shriveman."
Captain Shriveman looked as if he had just stepped off an imperial naval recruitment poster: He was blond, blue eyed, bright and chipper. Handsome too. His red uniform, gold buttons, and commendation medals were all shining and bright, and his black boots clicked as he stood as well, also offering his hand to Nix. Nix took and shook it, giving him a warmer smile than Mr. White got.
"And here is the lady herself, the HMS Indefatigable," Mr. White said, gesturing to the last of the group.
They had really gone all out. Though her skin was gleaming silver-steel, and her eyes looked like miniature lenses capping lighthouse lamps, and her hair was brass wire and her lips were rubber, the spirit of the HMS Indefatigable had been dressed in a flowing evening dress of dark colors that suited the bright contrast of her skin. As was the style for warships, her skin had also been daubed in dark paints in winding, zig-zag patterns that broke up her outline at a distance, but up close looked rather fetchingly garish, like she had been made up to look like a zebra from Africa. She had a modest bust and slender build, as befitted a ship that had seen no battles, nor needed no repairs. The shy smile she gave him was purely virginal – she was already blushing, and he hadn't even said anything.
"H-Hi," she said. "...y-you can call me Indi. T-The lads all do."
"If it ever bothers you, I will have the boatswain tan their hides, my lady," Captain Shriveman said.
"No, it's okay!" Indi said, brightly. "I love having all these young handsome men aboard me, tending to my engines and guns!" She bit her lip, then, hard and looked at Nix with a mixture of hunger and fear. "A-Are you really my Technician?"
"For this evening, yes," Nix said, his voice gentle and warm.
"Oh. I'm very glad to hear that, Mr. Nixon," she whispered, then ducked her gaze.
The older men around her all beamed – clearly, they were happy with how this was gone. Captain Shriveman, though, still looked concerned. He eyed Nix a bit skeptically. "And you say you're thirty?" he asked, slowly.
"Clean shaven, but yes," Nix said. "Spirits tend to find beards…" he paused, wondering how detailed he could get. He figured he could get away with this and smirked. "...ticklish."
"Quite," Mr. White said, while Colonel Davery let out a low, somewhat wheedy chuckle.
"Come now, Captain," he said. "You knew this would be the way of it when you accepted your commission. Why, when I first set to sail, it was in one of those old one atomic turbine pipsqueaks – the Longbow class, those things would need servicing every other week. Indi here…" He clapped his hand to the silvery shoulder of the shy spirit. "She'll only need a touch up every month or two."
"Or three, sir!" Indi said, brightly.
"Or three," Colonel Davery said, nodding. "Now, we have paid her bride price and bought the room for a night and a day. That should be enough to ensure everything is...ahem. Functional."
"We do have several handmaids to make sure that she is truly Christened," Mr. White added.
Captain Shriveman's cheeks were growing heated. Nix, who had been in this exact kind of situation before, knew to step in. Some men simply did not understand that while a Technician was always the one who serviced a spirit, many men didn't like to be reminded of that. He supposed that the captain of an airship would feel it most intensely of all. So, he stepped forward and took Indi's hands in his, helping her to her feet. She stood somewhat unsteadily – she was wearing some kind of fancy shoe and...well, spirits never dressed unless some human made them do it. He wasn't shocked she walked with the ungainly, uncertain movement of a newborn deer.
"I will take excellent care of your lady, Captain Shriveman. You have my promise as a gentleman," Nix said, gently.
Captain Shriveman narrowed his eyes, regarding him. Whatever he saw seemed to sooth him. He nodded, then said: "Very good then."
Nix walked with Indi, his arm around her arm, his other hand on the small of her back. Quietly, he murmured. "Don't worry, you won't need to wear those heels again, ever."
"Oh thank the Lord," she whispered back.
***
When the door to his chambers were closed and locked, Nix began to do his rituals. The first was, of course, to seat the spirit down on the bed. He brushed the sheets flat, and helped her settle. She beamed at him, but her smile was full of nerves. Her cheeks were burning a bright coppery. She was so flushed and nervous. It tickled an excited nerve in the back of Nix's brain – he knew some Technicians who only did this kind of work...and he could understand why. He walked to the curtains, closing them, and spoke quietly. "So, uh, tell me about yourself, Indi."
"Well, I'm a two turbine airship," she said, her voice bright and cheerful. "I have a crew of three hundred and twenty men, I'm approximately-"
"Oh, no, no, not that!" Nix said, chuckling. He looked back and saw she was crestfallen. His smile grew gentle and he tucked his fingers under her chin, lifting her glittering eyes to his. "It's not that I wouldn't dearly love to hear every detail of your gunnery sights and how many berths you have – but it's not really why we're here." His thumb brushed her lips, just for a moment. She let out a little shiver, from her head to her toes.
Nix went back to making sure the curtains were closed. He made sure the doors were locked as well, twice. As he worked, Indi paused, then said: "W-What else is there to tell?"
Nix smiled and walked to the bed. He sat next to her, drawing his legs up so that he could simply perch next to her and admire her. His fingers brushed some brass hair behind one ear. "What do you hope to see in your career? A good airship lasts for decades before she retires – do you want to see any big battles?"
"Oh yes!" Indi said, excitedly. "All the boys on the deck talk about battles. They sound dreadfully exciting." She clapped her hands together. "I want to fight pirates. They seem so beastly and cruel – capturing ships, holding their spirits hostage…" She shook her head a bit. "So, that is one dream. I would like to rescue some poor ships from being used by pirates."
Nix nodded, then leaned in. His lips gently kissed her cheek and she quivered from her head to her toes and let out a soft oh. A faint whirr came from her back – under her dress, she seemed to have a turbine which was spinning up. Nix chuckled.
"Are there any cities you want to see? Cairo? New Salt Lake? Bletchley Park? London?" His hand slid down the back of her neck to the hem of her dress. There, he began to undo a tie here, a clasp there. She considered, seeming distracted enough by his question to not even notice.
"London," she said. "I want to see Her Lady the Fortress. S-She's supposed to be...amazing."
Nix nodded. He hesitated.
He could have taken this young girl's hands and squeezed them. He could have told her that Lady Fortress spent her days weeping on the Cliffs of Dover, looking to the Continent, weeping for crew and men who had died nearly a hundred years ago – butchered in the War of Ascension. Butchered in cartload lots by German flak guns and hissing, snarling Messerschmitts. He could have told her to take herself and run, to flee to the dark corners of the world, to find a crew that would use her as a cargo ship, an explorer. As something that would never seen a primed shell.
Instead, he kissed the nape of her neck and murmured. "I hear that." His hands glided the edges of her dress over her shoulders.
I'm ruining this girl's future, he thought, knowing it was true, and hating how sweet it felt, to taste her silvery skin. He licked the line of dazzle camo that ran from her shoulderblade to the nape of her neck as she drew in a sharp, eager gasp. Nix tried to console himself. It wasn't as if they wouldn't find another technician. And...his fantasies were all foolhardy. Fake. False. A ship couldn't run herself – if they could, why would the navy spend so much money on press gangs and recruitment posters. No…
If this had to happen, then he would make sure at least it was done right.
In which, Mr. Nixon Christens the good ship Indi - but in the process reveals that Mr. Nixon is, in fact, a woman, masquerading as a man as only men are allowed to be technicians. Fortunately, spirits are dear hearts who do not quite understand human beings and, thus, Indi accepts that Miss Nixon is merely a very strange man
His hands skimmed her dress down and Indi let out a soft whimper. "I...I…" she stammered. "D-Do I look pretty, Mr. Nixon?"
"Oh, you are gorgeous," he whispered quietly. Her shoulders smoothly ran down to a gently curving spine – a small turbine vent was set right above her buttocks, and it whirred with excitement. Looking over her shoulder, he could see her small, nubile breasts. They were tipped with hard, silvery-rubber nipples. Her thighs were soaked with glittering arousal, dripping from her soft folds. Slowly, Nix slid his arms around Indi's back, drawing her in and whispering in her ear. "Now, for your part…"
"Yes?"
"Call me Marion," Nix whispered.
"I-Isn't that a girl's name?"
Nix chuckled softly. Some people did notice that. He hadn't corrected the dinner guests – after all, it wasn't well known that his older brother had died in 39, in a train derailment. Correcting them might have sparked a memory of a newspaper article, or some bit of trivia.
Martin Nixon didn't have two sons.
Martin Nixon had a son, Robert.
And a daughter.
"It can be a boy's name," she said, grinning.
"Oh...I see!" Indi whispered.
Nix's hands slipped around and she began to play with Indi's breasts. Her voice was hungry and hot in her ear. "Now, I must let you know, while I can do my technician's duty," she breathed, licking the innocent girl's earlobe and drawing a whimper and a loud whirrr from her turbine. "I did...have an accident in my youth. The surgeons needed to repair my manhood. Fortunately, there are methods around that loss. You will still be deflowered most expertly, my dear."
"Oh...oh, I've heard of these!" Indi exclaimed, then gasped as Nix tugged her nipples, seeking to find exactly how tender and sensitive a several hundred ton warship was.
Quite sensitive it seemed!
"Marion!" She moaned, bucking her hips. "Oh! Yes! Yes!"
Nix grinned. She nibbled on the spirit's earlobe, teasing her, while one of her free hands delved down. She slid her fingers around and around the other woman's cunt, feeling out her sensations, her gasps, her squirms. Indi, at the very least, hadn't been browbeaten about being vocal – some spirits had been before Nix got to them. That was usually a curse that befell those tended to by male Technicians...and what a term that was...but sometimes, even virgin machines had picked it up. Fortunately, Nix was guided by the soft cries of 'oh Mr. Nixon!' and 'Marion! Marion! Yes!' as she found exactly where it was that Indi felt most sensitive.
With her thumb against her gleaming, pearl-bright bead of a clit and two fingers plunging into the other girl's sex, Nix began to work her hand. The wet, slippery sound of her finger-fucking the virgin machine filled the hotel room, almost as voluble as Indi, who bucked her hips and ground back, gasping hungrily. Nix's other hand wasn't idle either: She cupped and squeezed Indi's right breast, then her left, teasing her nipple roughly.
"Oh...God!"
Indi's cry was almost as loud as the whirring of her turbine. Her juices squirted in a fine, perfect arc through the air as Nix drew her hand back and smirked ever so slightly. The puddle that the machine made was a testament to her skills – she knew the cleaning staff would need to be at work, but...well, they could handle it. She licked her fingers as Indi gasped for air, her breasts heaving. Her turbine whirred in fits and starts, her eyes half closed.
"O-Oh wow…" She whispered. "Is that what being serviced is like e-every time?"
"With a good Technician, yes," Nix said, her grin lopsided. "But that's not servicing."
"It's not?" Indi asked, trying to jerk her head around – but she was so wrung out from her orgasm that she couldn't move much. Instead, her arms gave way and she thumped to her side, head falling into Nix's lap. Nix caressed her brassy hair, her grin wicked.
"No, that was a...pre-service check up," Nix said. "This is where the service starts."
Nix began to unbutton her top. She removed her binder, revealing her own breasts. She had always been modestly endowed, and she had yet to meet a machine that saw tits on a man without more than a curious blink and a soft 'oh!' Spirits were dears – they'd serve for years and years without breaking down, purely on the kiss and gentle words of a Technician. But they never really understood people. That sometimes was beautiful, in the accepting and kind way that spirits took in people when they came.
And…
Sometimes…
Nix pushed all the horrors aside as she skimmed her leggings down. Her own sex was quite wet and hot now. Indi whispered softly as she saw it: "Oh my!"
Nix grinned. "The doctors did a remarkable job."
"T-T-There must have been so much damage, for your entire manhood to be gone…" Indi said, quietly.
Nix had met a few who had gone to the Free Cities and had such surgeries done. She didn't understand them – why cast away all the privileges of being a man to be a woman? She'd only ever been brave enough to ask that question once, while traveling from New Canaan to Boston on a train – they had both been drunk and hiding in the caboose. And the strange woman, whose name had never been shared nor asked, had said: The spirit calls out, the body must obey.
It was the fundamental teaching of her father's art. A spirit of a machine, if happy and loyal, could push on through shocking damage and stunning lack of repair. Missing parts, filled in entirely through her adoration and the adoration of her crew and her captain.
Nix shook her head as she reached out and retrieved the only thing she kept closer to herself than her Colt.
She slid the leather straps around her hips as Indi watched. Then the steel and chrome woman gasped, her hand going to her mouth as Nix settled back onto her haunches, letting her admire.
"How c-creative and clever!" Indi said, blushing. "W...Will s-such a...a...device…"
She gestured to the polished device – the cock that was not a cock at all – that jutted from between Nix's thighs. Her cheeks burned brass as she blushed and ducked her head. "Is it as good as your old cock?"
Nix considered. Then she chuckled.
"Better."
"Oh!" Indi lifted her head – then squeaked as Nix leaned forward and kissed her right on the lips.
Indi's lithesome body squirmed – metal being softer than one could imagine, her thighs spreading. Her knee pressed to Nix's hip, grinding and desperate. She was a bit timid. Virginal. She didn't know what to do. Nix felt the warm glow of knowing she was this spirit's first, blooming inside of her. She drew her mouth away from Indi's warm, wet lips, the taste of her rubber on her tongue. She licked her lips and whispered. "Ready, honey?" she whispered.
"Marion…" Indi breathed, hungrily.
Nix reached down, taking hold of her member. She pressed it to the spirit's cunt, grinding the wetness into her strap-on. The sensation was more intense than one might have imagined – the vibrations of contact buzzing through the strap and into Nix's own sex. She bit her lip, her eyes half closed. Watching through those hooded eyes, she admired the slender ship's thighs spreading even wider, her hands reaching up above her head, the brassy halo spreading around her silvery head. Her eyes glowed brightly as her turbine whirred eagerly, buzzing and revving up and down.
"Ready?" Nix whispered again.
"Yeah," Indi said. "Christen me. Make me an airship, Marion."
Nix cupped her hands under the younger woman's knees, lifting her, spreading her just a bit more. She savored the moment on her tongue – then pushed in. There was a flare of pain on Indi's face, one that she buried, biting her lip. She turned her head aside and bit her lip even harder as Nix paused. Just for a moment. Just to let her get used to the stretching sensation of her strap. Then she pushed another few inches into her, and there was a faint tearing deep inside of Indi. Her lips parted and her gasp of pain was sharper now.
"Shh, shh, it's okay. It's okay. It'll be okay…" Nix whispered. She let one leg hang free, and Indi's thigh thumped against the bed, her body quivering as she reached down. Her finger pressed to that gleaming, obvious little clitty. She rubbed and rubbed and rubbed, stirring her false dick inside of Indi – and Indi's gasps shifted tone and tenor. Pain faded, and soon, pleasure started bloom as she gasped and quivered beneath the older woman.
"Oh...oh yes…" Indi moaned, her eyes fluttering shut. Her turbine whirred up and her rubbery cunt clenched on Nix – and for this moment, Nix felt her manhood. It was as if she was one with the strap. The communion was fierce and deep and momentary – the spirit of her strap was too simple and gently sleeping normally to create any such effect. But Nix was trained in feeling this flow of the world. She leaned forward. Her finger kept working Indi's clit as she licked and sucked on her breasts, nibbling at her nipples, making the ship squirm and buck under her. And then, with her body prepared, Nix began to thrust. Her hips drove into Indi again and again and again – her cock pulled back, plunged in, drew back, plunged in.
Indi cried out again and again – and her voice was so desperate, so loud. "Oh Marion! Yes! Yes! Yes! Take me! Ah! Oh my God, you feel so good inside me!" Her thighs went from laying limp to scissoring against Marion – ankle over ankle, hooked above her buttocks as it became clear that Indi wouldn't let her pull out. Not that there was ever a danger of staying deep inside her. Nix lifted her head up, looking into those half-lidded eyes, her own passion growing fierce and hot inside her. She grinned slightly.
"We've only just started, you know?"
Indi's eyes widened. "R-Really?" She squeaked.
"Mmhmm!"
Nix took her on her back and once Indi was wrung out, she pulled from her sopping cunt, then laid upon her back. Once Indi's knees worked again, Nix guided her up. There, the shy, blushing ship mounted up herself. Her buttocks clapped as she rode Nix, bouncing atop her as Nix laid on her back and watched languidly as Indi brought her own pleasure as she rode Nix's body like a bucking bronco. Only once she had started to slow did Nix add her own hips to the motion – driving her cock against the deep places within Indi's needy sex.
Indi came again.
And then Nix…
"A-Are you sure this position is...p-proper?" Indi whispered, squirming as Nix's hands guided her.
"Anything is proper for a fine warship like yourself," Nix purred, gently. Her hands tugged and Indi squeaked – her head hung low against the pillows, her elbows rested on the mattress, and her silvery, dazzle painted ass thrust up into the air. She blushed even more as Nix began to grind against her, teasing her cunt.
"Do you want me again?" Nix purred.
Indi, unable to speak, simply nodded.
And so? Nix took her again – holding her down, mashing Indi into her pillows as her buttocks thrust into the air. Indi blushed furiously, turning her face into the pillow and biting down. She didn't want the world to see her shame at how pleasurable she found this position.
Nix smirked and felt her juices flow, her eyes half shrouded.
Indi lost her battle with modesty. She threw her head back and cried out – voice echoing off the walls.
In the end, even a ship grew tired and lax. With her strap tucked away and her own sex glittering with arousal, Nix laid with Indi beside her. She had lit a cigarette and was smoking on it, simply letting the burn of the smoke ride as a counterpoint to the exhausted pleasure of the moment blazing inside of her. Her eyes were hooded, and gently, Indi was playing her finger around and around her belly button.
"Are you really a man?" Indi murmured.
"More of a man than most Technicians you'll meet," Nix murmured. She was already quietly packing herself away, shifting her attention. She'd need to be him and he again soon – you had to internalize it, to make it a part of yourself, to play the part.
Indi buried her face against her side. "T-Thank you. I was so scared about being Christened. S-Some of the other ships in the yard, they were older than me, they said that Technicians can be brutes too."
Nix hugged her tight and felt his own sense of guilt release – a Gordian knot, severed by a single sword stroke. He relaxed down, holding Indi closer and whispering. "That's why I do my work, my fine HMS Indefatigable. Now close your eyes. Your self needs to feel this mending too." He smiled, gently tucking his knuckles against Indi's cheek, pushing her with an amused chuckle. Indi nodded, then yawned. Her turbine was rumbling with a happy purr as she cuddled even closer, throwing one leg over Nix's thigh. She nuzzled in close – warm and happy.
Nix smoked for a time, considering.
Then he stubbed out his cigarette, dimmed the light, and closed his eyes.
In the naval yard, the self of the spirit – the ship of steel and aluminum, with a heart of atomic fire and vast pistons, armored and armed to bring death to the enemies of the Three – was beginning to come into the final true of a Christening. The happiness and relaxation that filled Indi was being recorded and noted by engineers: Bolts tightening, turbines purring quietly, electrical lights growing just that much brighter.
Nix smiled at the thought, then closed his eyes.
***
Nix shook hands with Captain Shriveman as a well dressed, faintly glowing Indi was taken in charge by Mr. Smith and Colonel Davery.
"I have been informed by my Chief of Engineering that you've done quite a service on her," Captain Shriveman said, his cheeks having two high points of color. "You have my thanks."
"It was my honor to do the service for the Three," Nix said, inclining his head, trying to not sound too smug. The four started off, Indi babbling like a happy brook. Nix could hear her asking her captain about battles to come, pirates to face, wicked Chinese to drive off. He made a face and shook his head, while the doors to the hotel opened and shut. The scent of steam engines and the sound of grumbling automobiles came in, then was shut away as the door shut once more. He rummaged around in his pockets – fingers brushing his Colt for a moment – then turned with a cigarette in his hand. As he patted around for a lighter, he heard a snarl of a match lighting.
"Need a light?"
The wry voice was none other than Miss Rhina, from yesterday's lunch. She had changed to a walking dress of somber, quiet colors, and was wearing black gloves. The match between her fingers glittered, a ruby promise that Nix knew he shouldn't accept.
Spirits were strange and inhuman. Even if one did mention some of his irregularities, no one would believe them.
Miss Rhina, meanwhile, wrote for the Daily Mail.
Still, you can't be a cad, his less sensible half muttered as he walked over, and let her light his cigarette. He puffed, then blew a thin stream out with a sigh. "Ah, thank you," he said.
"How was the Christening? Or is it unladylike to ask?" Miss Rhina asked.
"I don't think being ladylike stopped you from doing anything, Miss Rhina," Nix said.
"Ah, Mr. Nixon?"
They both turned. The negro servant who had signed Nix into the hotel was standing there, patiently. He bowed his head, then said: "A message for you – dropped off right this moment." He held out a small card. Nix took it and looked at it.
It had a strange symbol on it: A small checkerboard pattern beneath a furred cap, with the letters to either side of the pattern: M T. He turned the card over.
Come to the Statue of MacArthur, 12 PM. Sharp.
The clock in the lobby said it was about 11:20. He could make it – there was only one statue of MacArthur in Burned York that it could be. He smiled wryly at Miss Rhina. "It seems the work of a Technician is never done," he said. "Good day, Miss Rhina."
"Might I beg an interview of you later today?" she asked as he turned and started to walk towards the door. He pocketed the card, then glanced over his shoulder at the blond reporter. His grin was wry.
"We'll see how this job offer goes!"
His other hand slid into his pocket – faux casual.
In truth? He was checking, double checking, that his Colt was there.
***
The New Trafalgar Garden sprawled over what had once been Greenwich Village – and the name was oddly appropriate for how verdant and green it was. Apparently, the ash had been remarkable for plant-growth, and trees and bushes had bloomed here, encouraged by gardeners and a rather generous endowment from the home country. The statue of MacArthur was merely one of several commemorative statues thrown up over the past century – and it was one of the more striking. The iconic pipe, still gripped between stone teeth, thrust into the air as the General, done in the style of a Roman Centurion, stood with one boot on a pair of writhing dragons – one furred, one scaled. Though there was no paint, the statues were made of two different stones: One was white marble, another was red stone.
Standing before it, wearing a black coat and a tap cap, was a pale, clean shaven man who was looking at the statue with a wry, amused expression.
"China and Korea," he said, as if to the air.
"Hmm?" Nix asked, brows drawing in.
"The twin dragons – China and Korea," the man turned, his voice amused. "And yet, there should be a bear there. It was the Tzar, Stalin, that MacArthur slew."
"Kind of old history, isn't it?" Nix asked, hands still in his pocket.
He didn't like this man. He didn't like the gloating tone he had. He didn't like the choice of statue.
"The past is prologue, Mr. Nixon," the strange man said. "You are Mr. Nixon, yes?"
Nix frowned. "You're not sure?"
"The card," the man said.
Nix frowned even more, then reached slowly into his pocket. The man didn't tense, but Nix swore he felt crosshairs on his head. He withdrew the card, then held it out to the man. The man took it, looked at the card, smirked slightly, then folded it in half and tucked it into his pocket. "Very good, Mr. Nixon," he said. "I am Jeremiah. You've already heard from my associate in the Colonies. You may have surmised that since we know the name of your niece, we know her location."
Nix nodded. "I suppose that makes sense."
"Then I will make it clear to you, Mr. Nixon. If the threat of revealing your dark secret to every paper and tabloid and yellow journalist on three continents isn't enough to get your utter compliance, then my associate is going to arrange a most unfortunate accident for your niece, her family, your mother's new husband…"
"Your point is made," Nix said, frowning. His Colt felt quite heavy in his pocket. "Who are you, Mr. Jeremiah? Who do you work for? What do you want?"
Jeremiah chuckled, quietly. "Who I work for? That will remain a mystery for now – though you've seen at least one clue." He seemed amused, but the amused light didn't quite reach his eyes. They were the eyes of a shark. Some deep water predator. Save that Nix had seen sharks, and sharks didn't come onto land to tear your life apart. Sharks didn't make threats. This was a human evil, which made those elegant black-gloved fingers interlace before Jeremiah's belly as he lounged elaborately against the MacArthur statue. "As for what do I want? There is, right now, a government train that will be reaching Burned York. It has traveled across the west and along the coast to here, the quietest airport in the colonies."
"And you want me to service it?" Nix asked.
"Service it?" Jeremiah chuckled. "Why no, Mr. Nixon. I want you to steal it."
Nix frowned intently. "How the hell am I supposed to do that?"
"This city has quite a few spirits of interesting and complex purview – the Underground, the steam tunnels, the atomic reactor, various airships," Jeremiah said, gesturing wide with one arm. "It's well known that a Technician can get a spirit to do just about anything. You're expected to be anywhere. And you are a commensurate liar, Mr. Nixon. We were in fact not even going to attempt this until we got lucky with our...espionage work."
"How long have you been spying on me?" Nix growled, quietly. He took half a step forward, but Jeremiah lifted a single hand – palm out.
"Quite long enough, Mr. Nixon. My organization has resources, but they're not unlimited – I'm quite happy that we've paid off so well with you," Jeremiah said. "However, we are more than willing to start over again with a different Technician, should you find yourself unable to keep your niece and her family alive."
Nix forced himself to take a step back. "Fine. What's this package? How big is it?"
"Roughly six feet, seven feet tall, four or five feet wide. It is made of solid steel, wheeled, and held under close guard," Jeremiah said. "It has traveled with a full squad of her majesty's finest redguard and several automatons."
Nix considered. "Does it have air holes?"
Jeremiah smirked. That playful tone came back. "Of course not, Mr. Nixon."
"So, it's a spirit," Nix said.
Jeremiah inclined his head – clapping slowly, as if he had seen a particularly well played round of golf.
"You want me to sneak into a military base, past several automatons, and then steal a spirit so valuable she's being transported across the radioactive wasteland of the West?" Nix turned away, rubbing his palms against his face. "Christ and her Clockwork, why don't you shoot Jessie now?"
Jeremiah frowned at him. "You don't think you can do it?"
"Not without help," Nix said, thinking furiously.
Jeremiah considered. His eyes went faintly out of focus, as if he was doing some math. "Then you'll have some. This evening, a train will come in from New England – it should be carrying someone who can assist you. My associate, in fact." He stepped away from the statue and he started to saunter off. "I believe you and her will get along quite famously."
Nix watched him go. Then, under his breath, he muttered: "Fucking thank Christ."
He had been hoping that Jeremiah would pull his associate off watching Jessie – and lo, he had gotten it. Yes, it made him more personally in danger...but...he frowned. Jeremiah had been rather vague about who he worked with. For all Nix knew, he only had himself and this associate. Or he might have half a dozen rough men who could do unspeakable things to Jessie and her family in the time it took Nix to spit. He shook his head quietly, then turned, about to head back to the hotel. He had to collect his luggage, then head to the train station and-
And stepping from behind some trees, looking quite smug, and holding a pair of binoculars that one might use to watch an opera, was Miss Rhina.
"Well, well, well, Mr. Nixon!" she said, cheerfully. "I caught about half that – and every word was positively fascinating."
Her lips skinned back. Her look was as predatory as Jeremiah's had been.
Author's note: There's some heavy petting and nuzzling in this chapter, but no outright sex, so...I don't think I have to spoil it. But if it is too much, tell me and I'll edit this post and you can throw pies at me!
The cafe that Miss Tracy Rhina took Nix too was run by a family – clearly of second native descent, even if their braying American accents were kept as discrete as they could be – and had a table in the corner that a rather tough looking fellow led the two of them to before leaving them with cups of none-too-decent coffee and tea. Nix wished he had sugar to add as he regarded his tea. His voice was soft. "Now how do I know we're not currently being spied on?"
Miss Rhina had taken her coffee with cream. She was stirring it with a small spoon while a phonograph played a scratchy revivalist ditty crooning about a spirit moving within one's heart. She took the spoon out, tapped it gently on the saucer, and set it down before she took a drink from her cup of coffee. When she spoke, it was with amusement. "This establishment happens to be run by a family that is rather...intimately connected with the Redfaces. I have done enough favors for them that they're willing to make sure anyone who shouldn't be here doesn't stick their noses in." She set her coffee down.
Nix's brows drew in. "You have interesting friends," he said.
"I do!" she said, primly. "Now. I believe that you owe me some explanations – I caught only half of your little conversation with that strange man in the park, but I did catch his name. Mr. Jeremiah." She smiled, slightly. "And I did read on his lips that you are to rob a train coming in this evening?"
Nix frowned. "They have a gun to my niece's head," he said, supposing that the other secrets that the mysterious Mr. Jeremiah was holding over his head didn't need to be told to anyone. Doubly so not someone from the Daily Mail, even if he found every new thing her learned about Miss Rhina to be deeply fascinating. She matched wits and crossed blades with cultists on mainland Europe, and was on speaking terms with one of the most entrenched smuggling networks in the Colonies? By this point, Nix wouldn't have been shocked if she had blithely admitted that she regularly went to communist meetings, and could speak Mandarin and Korean.
Miss Rhina drummed her well manicured fingers on the table. "That is quite a sorry situation to be in," she said. "What do you know of this Mr. Jeremiah? Do you think he's a Red?"
Nix considered. His gut said…
"No," he said, shaking his head. "Though, wait. I was given a card…" His fingers patted his pocket – and felt the weight of his Colt. He took his fingers away before threatening to draw it. "I gave it back. But I remember the symbol on it."
"Do tell!"
"A...little hat, drawn over a chessboard, or a checkerboard I suppose. Two letters. M.T."
"Ahh…" Miss Rhina sat back slightly. "Good Lord," she murmured.
"What?" Nix asked, a flicker of hope flashing in his chest.
"It could be merely that they're trading on a famous name, or that they're trying to misdirect you, but…" Miss Rhina cocked her head. "Have you ever heard of the Mechanical Turks?"
"I...have heard of New Byzantine," Nix said, slowly. "That recolonized Ottoman satrapy-"
"No, no, those are actual Turks," Miss Rhina said, waggling her finger from side to side. "I'm speaking of an organization. It's at least a hundred years old – or, maybe, it simply has such an evocative name that it has been recreated by multiple people over the past century, since the War of Ascension and the Burning Times. The records are spotty. However, the very first report on the Mechanical Turks that I recall reading about was in 2077, the Clockwork Bomb Affair."
"They tried to blow up the pneumatic grid in London, right?" Nix asked, remembering it faintly from his days in school. His father had had him read history books, alongside teaching his brother about spirits – Nix had neglected a great deal of the books to instead listen in on those secret, hushed conversations, while taking down notes on every gruff, rambling word his father had said. His heart squeezed. That had been the closest that he'd ever been to his poor brother, and he'd never gotten a chance to get any closer before…
He cast the thought aside, frowning. "So, they're what? Bomb throwing anarchists?"
"Possibly," Miss Rhina said. "The actual motive of the Clockwork Bomb Plot was somewhat obscure. The bombs were meant to explode in the heart of the pneumo-system, to try and slay the actual goddess herself."
"I wouldn't call old Pisty a goddess exactly," Nix said, his technician's instincts ruffled.
"The bigger a spirit-"
"Size isn't everything," Nix said, hurriedly, shifting in his seat. "If size were all took, those pagan temples at Gaza and the Parthenon would have worked, wouldn't they? Complexity is the watchword. Pisty...the spirit of the Pneumatic Tube system of London, she's a bit more complicated than, say, a train or an airship, but she's not nearly sophisticated enough to be even close to our Lady Colossus. The tubes, at the end of the day, don't make decisions, they don't do additions or subtractions-"
"I take your point, Technician," Miss Rhina said, sighing and holding up her hand. "What matters is they were targeting a very highly ranked spirit. Interesting, no?"
"Hurm," Nix said, frowning. His tea was growing cold. "What do you think I should do?"
"Well, of course, you must protect your niece," Miss Rhina said, shrugging one shoulder.
Honestly, Nix hadn't been expecting that response. His mouth opened – but Miss Rhina continued before he could say anything.
"And you should take me along in confidence," Miss Rhina said. "I will keep a record of everything that happens, and then once we've solved the riddle of these Turks, I will take your story to the authorities. They will know you are not to blame and I will break yet another mightily important new story to the Empire. We both win."
Nix frowned, weighing his options. "And what if I have to do…" he paused.
"I've interviewed cultists and demon worshipers," Miss Rhina said. "I assure you, if you do anything even remotely close as bad...I will tell you before you step over the line."
Nix tapped his fingers.
He had never been someone who took long in making decisions – even risky ones. But...damn it all, he wished that Miss Rhina had been a spirit. Spirits didn't hide their thoughts behind demure smiles and little polite words. Still...Miss Rhina, at least offered a ghost of a chance. He nodded. "Agreed," he said. "I have to get to a train station – Mr. Jeremiah said he was sending an agent. One of their associates. I don't know who they are, but Mr. Jeremiah said that she-" Miss Rhina arched an eyebrow. "-will arrive on a train from New England."
"You'd better get to the station then," Miss Rhina said, then stood.
"And you will hire a telephone," Nix said.
"I...I beg your pardon?" Miss Rhina asked. "I don't think that we'll be able to drag around miles of copper cable-"
"Trust me," Nix said. "I'm a Technician."
Miss Rhina frowned. Then she smiled. "I believe this is going to be a very interesting news story, Mr. Nixon."
Nix inclined his head, downed the cold tea, then left.
***
Though time, politics and technology had shifted Burned York off the trade lanes of the sea and the air, one of the few buildings that had survived to the 22nd century had been her Grand Central Station – but the damage had been so extensive that, in the early days of the century, her Lady Colossus had decreed that the whole station would be rebuilt in a grand new style. It was now dominated by a vast brass relief replica of the famous painting St. Turing on His Deathbed. The gaunt professor, his head turned up to heaven, his eyes peering into some impossible infinity, his body clad in the robes and toga of a Grecian philosopher. His arms, spread to his sides as he sprawled on his bed, held in one hand a clipboard, and in the other, a bushel of hemlock. The edges of the relief had been added to – the original painting, which Nix had seen in one of his visits to London, during happier times – had a kind of stark, beautiful realism that contrasted with the ahistoricity of it.
For one thing?
Saint Turing had taken cyanide.
But the edges were all classic Colossus over-emphasis. There were figures representing the five pillars of the Eternal Empire: A soldier, a naval officer, a technician, a scientist, a miner, all of them holding their hands up to ward off dragons, snakes, eagles, roosters and bears. The very tippy top, placed right where Saint Turing was looking, was a fluttering British flag.
The terminal itself was bustling with people and the happy voices of trains.
Nix walked through the glass and brasswork that arched over it all, waving away a puff of steam, and smiled. He loved to watch trains – and he loved them most in Grand Central Station. It was part of why he worked in the Colonies. Well, that and his secrets and his extended family: only in the Colonies could one see such a profusion of trains. There were ancient coal burners with flat faces and primitive boilers, bedecked in tribalistic talismans and daubed in first native war paint. Those trains had their spirits actually instantiated on the smokeboxes on their fronts, with solemn faces carved into steel and iron, with eyes set into sockets made of polished glass and brass, and those spirits still animated the vast blinking eyes, and spoke to passengers and crew as they disembarked. And yet, they ran next to modern atomics that bore the symbols of the Lady Trinity, who had been constructed in an era where it was understood that a fetish wasn't needed to make a spirit animate. Those had their spirits sitting atop their engines, waving cheerfully at people, or walking among the crew, handing out luggage and helping them disembark. And mixed between these two extremes were trains of every other kind and type.
Nix took a moment to look for the trains coming in from New England and saw that he had at least a half hour to wait. And so, he found a bench near an old coal burner from the 19th century, and smiled at the huge face carved into the front. "Hey there, old chugger," he said, warmly. The huge eyes swung around and a cheerful, deep voice came from lips that could just barely move in time with her words.
"Oh! Hello there! Are you to be in my new load? Oh, no, I see, you're a technician! Hah, here to check any of us out?"
"No, sorry," Nix said, smiling. The thing about old fetish-trains was that their expressions did change, but sometimes it felt like you had to look away and look back before the subtle changes actually fixed themselves. "I'm here to pick up a friend whose coming in on the New England line."
"That one's run by my friend, Racing Horse," the train said, happily. "She's such a peppy thing, young too. She was built in, oh…" Those eyes swung up, considering. "1914, I think."
Nix shook his head. Only a spirit could measure time like that…
He passed time in some cheerful conversation – hearing about everything that the old train had seen in her time on the rails – until at last, the train from New England came wheezing into the station. As she came to a stop, Nix stood and walked over to watch people disembark. Every woman he saw was either an Englishwoman in company with men and other women, or a native – usually second native – who looked like she'd rather talk to anyone but him. He waited, and waited, and finally, everyone was off the train, and still there was no sign of his contact. He frowned, then looked for the spirit – but then a voice came rasping out through the bustling station.
"And when first it was found, the sinful Manhattan was tamed by the ax! When the second time came, it was chastised by the holy flame – by her word it was done!"
Nix turned back.
The last passenger had stepped from the train.
He...or she...was taller than Nix was by a full head, and broader too. That effect was made all the more pronounced by the thick black robes that they wore despite the relatively warm day – that swept down to the tips of steel shod boots. Their head was covered by a leather cowl and a broad brimmed black hat, while a beaklike muzzle covered their face, goggles their eyes. Their hands were gloved in leather that creaked as they flexed their arms, then spread them wide.
"I have come to this sinful city to wash away the inequities of our day…" The raspy voice continued – and Nix heard a feminine tenor, despite the tone and the words. The giant of a woman continued to walk towards Nix, boots clomping loudly, accentuating every word she uttered. "In the glorious blazing blue light of our Lady! Trinity, praise her." She bowed her head slightly to Nix, that bird-mask of hers almost touching Nix's cheek. "Do you worship at her feet, Technician?"
Nix frowned. "I do," he said.
"Then...let yourself be purified."
The woman grabbed onto Nix's hand, and before Nix could stop her, the woman had laid across his wrist a pendant. It had a gray-black color, and was warm to the touch – but it brought with it the faint tingle of Trinity's blessing. Nix hissed and jerked backwards, shaking his hand. "Are you insane-" He started.
"You are blessed, Mr. Nixon! In the name of Sainted Daghlian and Sainted Slotin, martyrs to our sacred lady, Trinity. I am pleased to make your acquaintance," she said, her gloved hands taking Nix's hand, squeezing. "I am Sister Vengeance Zimmerman, of the 1st Church of the Lady Trinity and Her Signs Following."
"You're a Radwalker," Nix said, horrified. "That was thorium."
"The blessed stone finds you pure-"
"Put it in a lead box, are you insane!?" Nix spluttered.
Zimmerman placed the radioactive pendant into the same small lead lined box she had withdrawn it from. "I have been informed by my associates that you are in need of a righteous shepherd through the valley of darkness. And lo, I heed the call. I am here."
"I don't quite see how a priest is going to help me-"
Zimmerman walked past him – brushing him aside with a rustle of leather and clink of metal. "I bring not the open palm of a shepherd, but the whip used to chasten Wall Street. Our foes number both in flesh and spirit alike – you!" She turned, pointing her finger at him. "Are Technician, no? The spirits shall be yours to handle. And to me will be the men, and like the Pharaoh's armies, they will find themselves withered by the scourge of God! You merely need step aside."
"They're Christian too, Radwalker," Nix said. "They have Trinity's protection."
"Their Sin ejects them from the holy brotherhood of Christ the Engineer as surly as man is born to Sin and that woman is filled with vice and wickedness, cast from the mold of Eve such as we are," Zimmerman said, with utter certainty. "Thus, I seek my perpetual purification in fire."
Nix did not know what to say to that. He groped for anything – but the only thing that popped out of his mouth was: "How can you be so sure they have sinned?"
Zimmerman turned and started to walk away, her robes swaying with a usually heavy weight – as if the fabric was laced with something more than just stitches and cloth. That weight made Nix's stomach drop as he began to worry and wonder what lurked beneath those folds. What was Zimmerman carrying there?
"I know, Mr Nixon, for God has placed them in my path to die."
Then she was around the train and gone.
***
The evening came sooner than Nix wanted. The time had passed in an uncomfortable quiet, as Sister Zimmerman and he had found a small apartment that Zimmerman had gotten through the simple expedient of being too large and too self assured to stop. Standing in the empty room, watching the military station where the train would be arriving, Nix counted the guards and felt his stomach sinking. Not only were their redguards – their uniforms more for show and terror than for the battlefield, where khaki and camouflage had long since taken precedence. They had the bulky armor that would turn aside some bullets, and automatic rifles that had magazines that could outshoot anything that most people could make, and they were backed up by automatons.
Nix hated automatons.
He hated them.
"Tell me of those metal beasts, the spawn of Satan," Zimmerman said, tapping her finger on the glass on one of the automatons.
"Those aren't spawns of Satan. They're close, though," Nix said, shaking his head. "Take an analytic engine – a piece of clockwork, made to add sums and do some basic maths. They have spirits. Then you coax those spirits into one of those." He nodded to the two limbed, articulated humanoform invention, steam hissing from vents on the back. The heavy machine gun that it carried looked like a Lewis gun, with a feed running into a box of ammo mounted on the back of the automaton's heavy frame. "They can make it go, though it does burn them out fast. But...damn it, analytic engines are so easy to please, they do anything you ask of them!" He made a fist, gently pressing it to the wall in anger.
"Spirits do not harm men. Men harm men," Zimmerman said.
"That's not even close to true, Sister," Nix said, bitterly. "But it's true, an analytic engine wouldn't hurt a fly, if they knew what hurting was. But they're spirits. Their creators tell them that human beings don't mind holes so much. And when we lie down? Why that's just us taking a quick nap, we'll be right as rain."
"Ah," Zimmerman said, her voice gruff behind her mask. "Lambs, in the hands of Wolves."
"I hate them," Nix said, quietly. "but it looks like they only have two. I...can distract them. Maybe even convince them to go home. But there are ten redguards there – with automatic weapons. We have a Colt revolver."
"And God," Zimmerman said, firmly. "And her Lady Trinity."
"I want a better plan than that," Nix said.
"Ye of little faith," Zimmerman said. God, she almost sounded amused.
"Faith and reason are the shoes on our feet," Nix said, quoting his father. "We can go farther on both than we can with just one."
"You are fortunate you are a man," Zimmerman said. "Were you a woman, I would chastise you such that you would not walk for a week. As it is, I mere can ask that you keep that sinful tongue of yours still, and consider upon the nature of God and his will. Now…" She turned back. "I believe I shall open the ceremonies. You will take advantage of my actions to deal with the engines. So long as they do not impede me, I shall be seen through the harrowing."
Nix sighed, slowly.
He was beginning to think that Mr. Jeremiah didn't really see Sister Zimmerman as an associate. "...are you a member of the Mechanical Turks?" he asked.
"Nay," Sister Zimmerman said. "I am merely rendering unto Ceaser."
Then she turned and started towards the door, thumping heavily on wooden floors. Nix rubbed his palm against his face – and then took his revolver out. He checked and made sure that she was loaded. His hand caressed the barrel, gently, and he whispered. "Let us pray we don't have to use you," he whispered.
Then he hurried after the Radwalker, before anything went too completely insane.
The doors to the apartment complex opened as the train pulled into the station. The evening stars were beginning to twinkle as the electric lamps came on with guttering, flickering glows – each one winking one, one after the other as the spirit of the city's electrical grid drew her attention to them individually. Sister Zimmerman strode towards the guarded gate, as if she was meant to be there. "Lo, for she saw the sun bloom on the Mexico sands, and knew she stood before the birth of the Destroyer of Worlds, and saw no evil!" She intoned, with the booming voice of a prophet speaking to the mass. The Redguards and the automatons turned their heads – one of the redguards had pulled his goggles and gas mask aside to start lighting a cigarette.
"What the bloody hell is that?" The other redguard asked, voice muffled.
"She's some Colonial-"
"And lo! Sainted Bainbridge, the fifth Apostle, said to the Prophet Oppenheimer!" She stopped before the completely flummoxed guards. She drew in her breath, then belted out: "We are all sons of bitches!"
The Radwalker reached up, then cast aside her garments. They thumped to the ground with the speed of leaden cloth – and Nix almost dropped his revolver.
Sister Vengeance Zimmerman was pure muscle beneath her robes. Her shoulders where heavy slabs of meat, her back was defined by seams and scars, and a heavy cladding of fat added to her bulk and her mass. The robes had not belled around her – they had cloaked her. Beneath, she wore a cut down habit: Coif and veil worked into the hat and mask, but most of her skin was exposed. And what skin: Ruggedly scarred with knife and brand, she was implanted with small brass boxes that were fitted to her flesh like she was half a machine herself. Each one whirred and clacked, swinging open small panels to reveal hard, gray blue bars of metal – each maybe the size of a pinkie finger, each marked with Latin script. Nix was too distracted by the bizarre and terrible beauty of Sister Zimmerman to read the script – but he had a suspicion.
Gutta Et Vade
Drop.
And run.
"Stand back!" one of the redugards shouted, lifting his rifle and aiming. Zimmerman advanced, chuckling.
"The glorious ionization of her Lady burns through my every fiber of being! My nerves sing with her cancers! Blood wets my gums! My hair falls in sacred stigmata! Repent, mortal! The demon core is upon you!" Zimmerman sounded ecstatic, caught in some religious rapture. And as she spoke, the redguard's comrade dropped his cigarette and, rather than drawing his weapon up, shouted.
"Automatons! Shoot her!"
"Okie dokie!" one of the automatons said, chipper as ever.
"Wait!" Nix called out, reaching out with one hand. "I'm a Technician!"
The two automatons – just as he had expected – immediately pivoted towards him and started to stomp over. It was somewhat alarming to suddenly have two very naive spirits piloting walking suits of armor that were powered by tiny atomic turbines standing about you, but Nix kept his cool and placed his hands on their armored chests, chuckling nervously. "Ladies, ladies, please, keep your calm – I can check you both over at once."
A sharp rat-ta-tat-tat of gunfire snapped his head around.
Zimmerman had gotten close and brought her wrists together. Two of her implants struck and a brilliant flash of blue-white light slammed directly into the eyes of the first Redguard, sending his shots wild. He cried out and stumbled backwards, clutching at his face. The Radwalker then spun and drove her palm into the gas mask of the other – she had to be nearly fifteen stone, and every pound of it was put into sheer force. The gas mask compressed, the goggles shattered as the automatic rifle stuttered. Bullets slammed into the ground, kicking up debris and bits of pavement. Zimmerman laughed. "Chastened! Be chastened by her glory! Look upon her light unbidden, and like St. Paul, be struck blind by the light of heaven!"
The redguard she had hit with the flash was clutching at his face, gasping. "I can't see! I can't-" The Radwalker grabbed onto his head and brought his head down and her knee up. His gas mask wasn't even on to provide the scant protection it would. Bone and blood splattered as his teeth filled the air. The Radwalker sighed out, exulted.
"I am become Death!"
"Shoot her!"
Nix pushed the automatons back. "Wait here!" He shouted, then ran forward as Zimmerman stood in a rapturous stillness while the remaining redguards hurried to positions of cover, taking aim. His shoulder crashed into her back and the two of them flew to the side moments before bullets went whipping and whining past. Hitting Zimmerman had been like smashing into a brick wall – and Nix had no idea if his faith was sufficient to keep himself from sickening in the days to come. Just to be safe, he whispered. "Oh Lady Trinity, watch over your daughter in the shadows of the pedestrian-"
More gunshots – hideously fast as those automatic rifles ripped up the pavement. Zimmerna, though, was standing up, her hat knocked off, her mask canted. She reached up, adjusted it, then slid her hands down to her hips – where a pair of six shooters hung from her hips. She drew the heavy weapons, their silver gleaming, their sights glittering with tiny radium dots. She nodded, then called out. "My raiment! Fetch it, Sinner!"
Nix swore. The robes had been cast aside in the middle of the field of battle. He shook his head, then-
"Automatons! Shoot this way! Please! It'd be so helpful!"
"Okay!" one said, but the other grabbed onto her shoulder.
"W-Wait, aren't we not supposed to fire our guns at our redguards?"
"It's okay, I'm a Technician," Nix said. Then, to salve his stinging conscience, he added. "S-Shoot over their heads, that's okay!"
"True…" The spirit on the left said, while the spirit on the right giggled, swung her Lewis gun around, and opened fire. Bullets hammered into and above the redguard's cover – splintering crates, pinging off metal. Nix dove into the fire, grabbing onto the Radwalker's raiment, and lugged it back. It was heavy. She needed every bit of that muscle to carry it, it seemed – and when he got back to cover, the redguards were shouting.
"Cease fire! Cease fire, automatons!"
The automatons paused.
And the Radwalker stepped out. She had not cast her robes on – but rather, she had folded them, over and over, so that only her chest and belly were covered by a thick swath of heavy leaded material. Nix had felt catches and lumps of metal. Now, he wondered if the raiment was designed to be wadded like that. Then he had no time but to watch as the Radwalker stepped forward, her arms lifted, her muscles flexing – so bicep and forearm touched and blue flashes strobes the redguards, blazing like small stars. They cried out and hesitated.
"Like Hiroshima!" Zimmerman roared – and her revolver belched flame. "Like Nagasaki! Like New York! Like Cincinnati! Like Chattanooga! Like Paris and Taiping and Tokyo and-" She roared out city after city as her revolvers spoke again and again, flashing repeatedly. Then silence, and gunsmoke and blood. That was all. Nix peeked out and saw that the redguard were sprawled, and Zimmerman stood, wreathed in smoke, her revolvers held to her sides. She twitched them and spent shell casings clinked and clattered around her feet.
"...s-should we shoot her?" one of the automatons asked, nervously.
"No, no. Keep your guns down," Nix whispered, holding up his hand.
"Like this?" The automaton asked as Nix stepped forward – and then spotted one redguard, missed by the Sister.
"Zimmerman!" He cried out.
The redguard spun, bringing his rifle to bear.
Nix drew, fired.
Something ripped past his arm and he jerked and fell – and then as he collapsed, he heard a groan. He lifted his head – and saw that his shot had taken the redguard in the chest, but the bullet had been turned by his armor. But then Zimmerman was upon him, grabbing onto his head, smashing it repeatedly against the nearby cargo crate. "Repent! Repent!" she bellowed. "Sinner! You will be baptized in her light!" She bore him down, smashing his head into the ground – thumbs shifting, pressing. She shoved as Nix sat up, wincing. His hand went to his arm – and he hissed. Blood coated his palm.
"Thus to tyrants," Zimmerman hissed, shoving once more – shadows and her bulk hiding the horror. She pulled her hands back and they were caked in red. Nix gulped and clapped his hand to his arm, wincing as he did so. He looked back at the automatons, then, nervously, called to them.
"Go on! Run! Get back to your machines. Everything is fine."
The automatons paused, but then one of them said, hesitantly: "O-Okay. Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. Go!"
They started to thump away. In the distance, a jangling bell was ringing – someone had heard the gunfire and was bringing out the alarm. Nix walked past her, to the train itself, where he saw that a skittish, terrified looking train spirit was hiding and crouched behind a crate. She was a coal burner, but more modern than the old fetish-trains, and squeaked as she saw Nix. Nix smiled, gently, kneeling down across from her. "Hey, hey, it's okay," he said, quietly. "Is your crew okay? Are they keeping their heads down?"
"T-They are," the train said, nervously. "A-Are you going to hurt them. If you are...I can...I can-"
"No, no, we're not here to hurt anyone," Nix said, trying to forget Zimmerman for the moment. "We just need the crate."
"Oh," the train said. She looked torn. Her loyalties were first to her crew...but nearby, she had her concerns for her cargo. Trains loved their cargo – be they passengers or industrial goods. They tended to fawn over them. Nix smiled warmly.
"We're going to take good care of it," he said, nodding. "We have a big warehouse, and stevedores and the cargo is going to help people. It's going to help a girl named Jessie – if she doesn't get this spirit, she's going to be in big trouble." As he spoke, he smiled at the train. She looked more and more attentive as he spoke, and once he was done, the train nodded firmly.
"Okay!" she said. "You can take it. Just...just don't hurt my crew."
Nix smiled. "I won't. Promise."
The cargo was just as Mr. Jeremiah had described it – but it was built into a complex carrying device that actually had its own wheels and a small atomic turbine attached to it and a control mechanism. It was less of a cargo, more of its own transport – and when Nix worked out the controls, he was able to lever it off the train, down the ramp, and before Sister Zimmerman, who had straightened out her robes and cast them around her shoulders. She looked once more like a moving shadow, her beak mask covering her face. She lifted her beak's nose up as she peered at the cargo.
"This is the worldly possession?" she asked.
"Yeah, but...how the hell are we going to hide this?" Nix hissed.
"You are striken," she said, looking at his arm.
"Later," Nix said, then rubbed his chin. "Okay, we ditch the container."
"If you know how to open that lock-"
Nix knelt before the lock. Softly, he whispered the quiet words. The secret words. The words of Daedalus and the Labyrinth, the words Daniel spoke to escape the Lions. Words his father, and his father's father, and his father's father, back to Adam and Antiquity, had passed down, one to the next, to the next, to the next, even as names changed and languages shifted. The words spoke to the spirit of the lock. Too simple to be charmed, too quiet to be heard, but there. Always there.
The lock clicked and then the container swung open with a creak.
The spirit inside...had been chained. Thick fetters of steel and iron wrapped around her arms and her shoulders and her legs – but they didn't touch her skin directly. Instead, she had been covered in a thick wrapping of leather and cloth straps, and bedecked in gears. No. Not gears. Each symbol was, in fact, a broken gear, kept together by being rebuilt with blobby solder, making the shattering clear for all to see. A hood and a cinch around it cut off air, preventing the spirit from speaking. She writhed and jerked on the chains, drawing them taut again and again – thrashing and letting out hissing, grinding, creaking noises.
Nix stepped back. "Christ," he whispered, hand going to his mouth.
"What...demon is this?" Sister Zimmerman whispered, softly. "What foul invention?"
"I don't know," Nix said. "Whatever she is, she's buoyant, though."
He loosed the chain with a whisper, then grabbed onto it. He hauled the spirit out, speaking to her softly. "Honored one, chained one, don't fear, we're rescuing you. You must remain calm, we will unbind you, I swear it."
It didn't help. She kept thrashing.
The two stole into the night, the spirit floating after like a storm cloud – drawing the chains taut, then loose, then taut again.
***
The second apartment of the evening was, if anything, even worse than the first. Here, Zimmerman's costume and her American accent were boon, rather than bane, and she was able to get them a cheap room with peeling walls and no questions asked – despite the fact they were dragging along a chained and bound spirit. Fortunately by then, the spirit had at least stopped thrashing. Nix wasn't sure if it was because she had simply run out of energy, or if some of his whispered words had finally meant something to her.
Either way, he closed the door as Zimmerman sighed in exhalation. "The Lord's work was well done today. Now, your wounds. We must tend to them."
"It's fine, it's not even bleeding that much," Nix said, hurriedly.
Zimmerman, though, turned to face him. She advanced forward, and before Nix could stop her, she had grabbed onto his shirt, tugging it. Nix flailed, yelped, and found that Zimmerman was quite a bit stronger than she looked – and she already looked like a walking mountain. Nix struggled, clapping an arm over his chest, but it was too late: Zimmerman hesitated, then stepped backwards. Her head cocked to the side, her broad hat brim crumpling slightly against one of her shoulders as she held his shirt in her other hand.
"What in the name of-" she dropped the shirt...and then gasped. "Saint preserve me. A woman."
Nix glared at her. "You're a real maniac, you know that? I was skimmed in the arm! Why are you taking my shirt off?"
"To see if you had other wounds- and, it seems, to reveal deviltry at work," Zimmerman said, chuckling quietly. Her hand reached up and she tugged her own glove off. Leather slid against flesh, revealing long, surprisingly delicate fingers. The only thing marring them was the knuckles. They were the knuckles that had met face and wall just a bit too many times. She reached out, and Nix slapped at the hand, pushing it away as she flushed.
"What are you doing?"
"Tending to you, my sister in sin," Zimmerman said, her voice husky. "We women are born of Eve's sin – tainted by her tasting of the apple, in the Garden. Only through the Ladies are we purified by works...oh, and we have done a great work today…"
Nix blushed, hard. The intense look that she was getting from Zimmerman was unnerving her – almost as much as the post adrenaline high was making her feel dizzy and lightheaded. Or maybe that was the blood loss. She snapped. "We killed some redguards and stole a spirit. Which I still need to tend too!" She stepped back – and Zimmerman planted that blazing hot hand of hers on Nix, then pushed back. Nix grunted as her back hit the thin wall, the impact driving some of the air from her lungs. Those goggled-covered eyes glinted as Zimmerman cocked her head. Like a bird.
"We need to tend to your wounds first, oh sinner," she whispered.
"My name is-"
"You claimed to be Mr. Nixon, but we both know that is falsehood. Speak no more." The other glove was coming off and then...her robes slipped around her shoulders. Zimmerman cast them down, standing in her preposterous getup. The smell of her sweat and her...her presence was almost intoxicating. Nix found her nose flaring, drawing in her scent. She gasped as Zimmerman pushed her so her uninjured shoulder was pressed to the wall, then she began to wrap a cloth bandage around her arm. Her voice was soft. "In my abbey, little things like you always needed the most guidance…"
Nix flushed and muttered. "Oh, you felt up all the schoolgirls, huh?"
Zimmerman paused, then chuckled. "Truth from the mouth of babes." Her finger brushed along Nix's cheek, tucking one strand of her dark hair behind her ear. "I was...asked to wander, to seek penance-"
"You-" Nix turned, gobsmacked. "How many girls did you fondle!?"
"Girls? None!" Zimmerman sounded shocked. "I am no pederast, no Grecian philosopher. It was only women of age that...tempted me to sin, and sin again. But I purify myself in deeds, little one." Her hands slid along Nix's sides. Her hands were soft, her fingertips rough. She was so strong too. Nix was fairly sure if she fought back, she'd lose. She lifted her arms, trying to get them out of the Sister's grasp, her cheeks heated. "Oh and you tempt me mightly, oh, you are a new test...put in my way, as God tested Job…"
"You are insane…" Nix whispered, then gasped as those strong hands took hold of her breast wrapping, tugging them down and to the side. The loss of pressure, the freedom, was why her nipples were hard. And the adrenaline. It wasn't the thick scent of the American woman – it wasn't her broad shoulders, it wasn't her utter confidence. It wasn't the fact she was a priest. It wasn't. Her head swam and she tried to think of some words that would stop her.
This would be easier if she was a spirit.
Zimmerman's hand slid down along her belly, to her pants. Nix shook her head, then gasped as those fingers pressed between her sex, teasing the folds of her sex through her underclothes. She was infuriated at how wet she was getting. She flushed, then grabbed onto Zimmerman's hand, shoving her wrist away, gasping and whimpering quietly. "F-Fuck!" She gasped. "Don't touch me, you maniac!" She said, then stumbled along the wall, her back thumping against the door and then the far wall. She shook her head frantically, trying to clear it.
Zimmerman chuckled. "You have the dew of sin-"
"Yeah, and I'd have to be half insane from polonium poisoning before I touched you!" Nix snapped. Even if part of her did wonder...how would it feel to lick those broad shoulders? She wondered if exposure to radiation killed brain cells, even with the Lady Trinity's blessings. She shook her head, then snapped. "G-Go! Get me some...sage and votive candles. I need them to calm the spirit."
Zimmerman lifted her head, beak tilted back. "Truly?"
"Yes," Nix lied, panting, her knees trembling.
"Very well, Sinner. But I will lead you to the Light of perdition – the glory of Christ and Trinity and-"
"Get!" Nix pointed at the door.
Zimmerman walked forward, the door opening, then shutting behind her. She had snatched up her vestments too. As she left, Nix slid down the wall, panting. She let her head rest back against the wall. "Fuck," she whimpered. She had seen too much violence, been touched by too much...insanity. Was this what all Americans were like, if you scratched their surface? She tried to picture what kind of world had sculpted someone who implanted radioactives into their body and praised the Demon Core. Even in her scriptures, the Demon Core was…
It was the Demon Core for God's sake!
"By the ladies," Nix whispered. She looked over at the cowled and covered spirit – and paused. She knew precisely how it would go if she unwrapped that girl now. And the thought was so...tempting. Nix closed her eyes. No. She was not Sister Vengeance Zimmerman. She put her palm down, between her thighs. Her knees pressed together, trapping her palm against herself as she pressed her fingers down, rubbing them up and down. A frustrated whimper escaped her lips and she squirmed, then slid her hand up, then down again. Her pants tented as she pressed her fingers against her own needy slit, feeling her juices, her heat. She pressed her fingers in, then crooked and thrust. She hadn't done this since she was a teenager, when her needs had far outstripped her abilities to fill them. Shame burned in her cheeks.
But that didn't stop her.
Her thumb rubbed her own clit, circling it as her breath caught and she thrust those two fingers into herself again and again. In her mind, Zimmerman had her by her neck and whispered her religious insanity into her ear – and she used the strap. Oh God. Nix bit her lip hard to keep herself quiet as she shuddered and quivered, her fingers driving in deep...and then drawing out again. She breathed out a long, slow sigh, looking at her fingertips – glistening. She flicked her tongue along her lips, then hastily started to wipe them away, her cheeks burning.
She was glad she wore dark, dark clothing.
And spirits…
Spirits wouldn't notice. Right?
They wouldn't.
She stood, unsteadily. Her knees quivered and she breathed steadily. Slowly.
Then she walked over to the spirit.
"H-Hey...I'm going to unwrap your covering," Nix whispered. "Please stay calm."
The spirit lifted her head.
Nix reached down and started with the neck wrap. She undid the clasp, loosened it, tugged it off. The spirit drew a breath.
Then, in a thick American accent – drawling and rustic – she said: "You fucking limey bitch, let me out of these goddamn chains!"
"...rude," Nix said, shaking her head. She yanked the cowl off and saw that the spirit had a high femme face with short, stubby hair and a pair of almost antler-like horns emerging from her head, done in steel and glittering aluminum. Her nose was narrow and her eyes were both black camera lenses. Her lips were gray, and her cheeks were black with a red streak painted on them, giving her an almost whiskery look. Nix cocked her head. She recognized the features and nose, those were...clearly an American ship, seagoing. The short hair implied that she didn't produce much steam – maybe a gas burner or a diesel? But...those antlers…
"You'd be rude if some limeys kept you in a box for years," the spirit snapped. She looked away. "Where am I? Where are we?"
"You're in Burned York," Nix said.
"Where?" the spirit asked.
"Uh...New York, you're in New York," Nix said. "What's your name?"
The spirit opened her mouth. Then she closed it. She blushed, making those red lines grow. "I-I don't know," she said. She didn't seem to be lying.
"Hum...memory loss usually means you were pretty badly damaged," Nix said, unlooping chains, tugging down the cloth burlap, revealing her shoulders, her breasts – and good lord she was stacked. Her breasts were full and heavy and her nipples were rubbery gray against her black belly, her sides gray, her back having another red stripe on her. She had white lines painted along her shoulders. Her buttocks was thick and heavy and looked like it would jiggle.
Nix stepped backwards. "You have the lines of an American ironclad," she said, slowly. "But you have the body of a gasburner."
"What else would ships burn?" the spirit asked, scowling.
Nix shook her head slowly. She walked around the spirit, who was now kneeling on the floor, her weight once more returned to her. "Short hair...trim lines, curvy, red paint, Southern accent," Nix whispered, trying to joggle the pieces together. "You don't remember anything?"
"...I was in a war," the spirit said, her voice sullen.
"Against us?" Nix asked.
"I dunno," the spirit shrugged her shoulders. "I think so. No." She frowned. "There were slant eyed bastards. Real tough sons of bitches."
Nix considered. Then she blinked. "Japanese?" she asked.
The spirit jerked her head up. "Yeah," she said, anger flashing in her eyes.
Nix blinked.
The pieces slotted into place. She had the lines of a seagoing ship, she floated like she went on water. She burned gas, not coal. She was American, southern. Newport News. "Holy shit," she whispered. "...you're...the...you're the…" She stumbled backwards, her voice cutting off as she realized the full weight of it. What it meant. The antlers. The short hair.
The white lines.
The flight decks.
The conning tower.
The radio detection systems.
The spirit blinked at her, lifting her head in slow realization.
Nix took a step back so fast her back hit the wall and her heart thundered in her chest.
"You're the goddamn Enterprise," she whispered.
The USS Enterprise blinked at her, slowly – and whispered. "I'm...the Enterprise…" she breathed.
Nix was beginning to regret taking the chains off.
Nix whetted her lips and took a step backwards from Enterprise. The spirit was beginning to stand, and...good god, she was lovely. Nix had noticed it from the moment the burlap and chains had come off, but seeing her gray and red painted form standing in a circle of discarded broken gear charms, her feet resting steadily on the ground – bare and gently arched, with the nimble articulation of ankle joint and knee belying the power that lurked in those muscular, polished metal thighs. The dainty, rubbery folds of her cunt, nestled beneath a flat belly that could launch a full wing of planes that were now legends in their own rights: Marauders, Mustangs, Avengers, Doolittles. And she had...almost too impressive a chest.
Often, tits on a warship's spirit could reflect armor belting, or main guns, or a mixture of both. The actual spiritual classifications was...murky and relied more on gut, intuition, and knacks passed from father to son. Or, unwitting father to eavesdropping daughter in this case. But something in Nix's gut said that while Enterprise had a gorgeous bust, it was also...subtly wrong. She shook her head slightly as Enterprise lifted one hand, flexing her fingers, then curling them into a fist. "How long was I in the dark?" the spirit asked.
"It is the year of our lord 2141," Nix said, automatically. Honesty, she thought, was the best choice for a spirit that had radar. That thing had powers that modern technicians didn't quite remember how to handle – it had been newfangled when the War of Ascension had been young, and long left to molder and rot because of...well…
Humans liked their spirits to be understood. Steam? You could grasp steam and valves and clockwork and copper wire. You could relate to a train, or to a telephone. Radar? Calculating machines? They had a way of making people nervous in the way that they could do things that their creators never intended. And those were just the start. The War, after all, had been named such for a reason. It was the coming of the Lady Trinity…
And after that?
Nothing was the same.
Enterprise snorted. "Yeah, sure, fuckin' pull the other one," she said, her voice somehow combining utter arrogance with drawling Colonial tones that Nix had never heard say a non-servile thing in her life. "Two fucking hundred years?" She walked away from her, to the window, looking out at the skyline. "Where's the fuckin' flying cars then?"
"It has been two centuries since the War of Ascension," Nix said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"The fucking what?" Enterprise asked. "That sure ain't the name for it I got. World War Two? We had to whip the Nazis, you even heard of em? Why the fuck you calling it the War of...whatever." She waved her hand. "Don't tell me they made FDR king or some stupid bullshit."
"Who?" Nix asked.
"Who?" Enterprise's turbines revved and she put her hands on her hair – which did...really quite amazing things to her breasts. Nix was finding her normal Technician savoir faire hard to keep...down around this spirit. It wasn't just that she was gorgeous. Nix had been around gorgeous spirits ever since she had pinned gear to collar. No. It was...it was everything about her. The history. The Yankee accent. The arrogance. Like she was as good as an English spirit. Nix shook her head a bit and tried to focus on Enterprise, frowning a bit. "You don't...he was fucking Franklin Delano goddamn Roosevelt, we only elected him four times."
"Listen, Yankee-"
"I ain't no Yankee!" Enterprise snapped. "My keel was laid in Newport News, Virginia."
Nix frowned, then took a slow breath. She breathed out. "My apologies, Enterprise," she said, inclining her head. "It's been two hundred years and a lot has changed."
Enterprise frowned. "Whose President now?" She asked. "Truman?"
Nix flinched, then held up her hand, shaking her head. "D-Don't. Don't mention Truman around other people. They won't understand." She sighed. "B-But...I suppose I must...cut to the chase…" She hesitated. She was thinking, too much, of how strong a gas burning power plant was. She put it out of her mind. An aircraft carrier was still...almost within the realm of human understanding. It wasn't like she was one of the Ladies, eh? So, Nix continued, her voice gentling. "The Ascension War, what you call the Second World War, was ended when...the Lady Trinity turned her wrath upon America. I'm sorry. The United States is gone."
Enterprise blinked slowly. "Who the fuck is Trinity? S...She some...Jap weapon or-" She sounded frightened. Shocked.
"No," Nix said. "The Lady Trinity was a spirit built by the Thirteen Apostles and the Prophet Oppenheimer. She...she was a spirit more powerful than anything ever built before, powerful enough to scorch the world. She brought fire to the Japanese, then as the War continued on into Korea, she was almost bridled by...President Truman. He sought, in his jealousy, to keep her wrath from Korea and China, and so she turned her fury upon America. In the aftermath, the Empire returned to her colonies to restore order and, for the past two hundred years, have ruled here and abroad under the Lady Colossus."
Enterprise blinked again, her lips parting, then closing, then opening again. "I…" she said, then slowly, she sat down on the ground, thumping down with such shocking suddenness that the floor jarred and her knees pressed to her chest. "Jesus Christ…"
Nix stepped over, then knelt down beside her. The cheap carpeting didn't provide enough cushioning for her knees, but she ignored it. Her arm slid around Enterprise's shoulder, squeezing. "I know it's hard, Enterprise," she whispered. "But the Empire isn't so bad – we've kept the colonies running, and kept the wastelanders off the east coast and-"
Enterprise put her hands over her face. She breathed in, then breathed out. "Shut up."
Nix went quiet.
Enterprise drew her hands away, her eyes haunted. "What the fuck do I...do?" She looked at Nix. "I-I'm a warship. Right? Enterprise is...my body's sunk beneath the goddamn ocean, how the fuck am I supposed to do anything? What good am I?"
"Ships have been re-floated after centuries," Nix said, hurriedly. "There are quite a few sailing ships-"
"Sailing ship spirits are as slow as a hunting hound that got dropped on its head when it was a puppy!" Enterprise snapped. "They're too stupid to know they should sink."
Nix, remembering some childhood hours spent on her father's little windjammer, winced. Harsh, but...not entirely unfair. She shook her head. "Here's what you can do, Enterprise. You can help me. My niece is being held at gunpoint by some very awful gentlemen, and they want you for some...reason. If I don't deliver you to them, then my niece dies. We can at least get to the bottom of their schemes and make sure my Jessie is safe, then, after, we can find something for you to do. I promise." She slid her hand around, taking Enterprise's, squeezing.
Cold gray fingers, slipping between her own. The joint seams caught momentarily against her skin. Enterprise didn't fold her fingers, not at first. Instead, she muttered. "Your sister's a limey too, huh?"
"She did marry a Colonial," Nix said, smiling a bit wryly.
Enterprise sighed. She closed her hand, then squeezed – too firmly. Nix hissed and winced, her voice soft. "C-Careful, careful."
"Hmm? Oh, sorry," Enterprise said. She released Nix's hand, which throbbed gently. Nix shook her hand out then smiled at her. "So, do they let dames be technicians these days?"
"H-Heh, uh, I actually am a man," Nix said, grinning a little bit. She had to start building up her disguise – even if it felt increasingly threadbare, like a blanket held between a man and a rising mushroom cloud.
Enterprise looked at her and arched an eyebrow. "You're most certainty not a man."
Nix flushed, slightly. "Hell," she whispered, looking away.
Enterprise smirked, then shifted around, drawing one foot under herself, waggling a long finger at Nix. "Ohhhh, I know what your deal is, limey. You're one of them broads who dresses up as a man and pretends they've got a stick and berries so they can do a man's job! There were two of 'em in the fleet, I remember them now! You're a woman Technician!"
"Y-Yes, fine!" Nix snapped. "I'm a woman Technician."
"That's not allowed," Enterprise said, grinning.
"Hence my disguise," Nix said. "Most spirits don't notice the difference."
Enterprise snorted. "What, do you just fuck boilers and coal chugging trains?"
"Yes," Nix said, frowning. "They haven't made gas burning ships like you for almost a hundred and ninety years."
Enterprise blinked slightly. "Huh," she said. "So, wait, you're saying, not only am I two hundred years outta time, but I'm not even fucking obsolete?"
"I never said that," Nix said, firmly.
Enterprise grinned, then reached up, cupping Nix's cheek. "You wanna save your fuckin' kid niece?" She leaned in. "Then I want you to do something for me after. I want you to take me to my body, and I want you to help me raise her. No questions asked. Otherwise-"
"I'll do it," Nix said, simply.
Enterprise blinked, her cocky grin faltering slightly. "Just like that?"
Nix chuckled. "You're not obsolete, exactly. But the Empire has a fleet of atomic airships and her Lady Trinity. I don't think a single aircraft carrier is going to make a repeat of the 18th century."
Enterprise snorted. "Ye of little fuckin' faith," she said.
The two of them were quite close, Nix noticed. Enterprise's nose almost touched hers, and her camera-lens eyes glittered as she looked into Nix's. Nix had never had a spirit be quite so...on top as Enterprise was, and the idea excited her as much as it confused her. She opened her mouth, to speak...found no words, closed her lips, then shifted – but if it was to draw away or push in, she didn't know which. Before the decision could crystallize, before the track lever could be thrown and a trolley plunge down one rout or the other, the door burst open and Sister Vengeance Zimmerman entered, carrying a small bag of brown paper stuffed with fragrant scents. She hesitated, her robes clinking, as her goggled eyes peered down the beak nose of her ornate mask.
"Well!" she said, her voice amused. "It seems the votive candles weren't required after all?"
Enterprise was on her feet in a flash, floating in the air between Nix and Zimmerman, her arms held up and her fists clenched.
"Who the fuck are you?" she snapped.
"I am a Sister of-" Zimmerman started.
"She's a friend," Nix said, unsure if that was actually the case. "Her name's Zimmerman. Vengeance Zimmerman."
Enterprise cocked her head, then frowned. "You're...something's fucking wrong with you, Sister."
Zimmerman chuckled. "Naught is wrong with me, my child-spirit," she said. "The fire of Trinity burns within me, and that invigoration is more than enough." She tossed the bag onto the bed, her hands reaching up to take the hat from her head. "Now, Spirit, I had a discussion I wished to hold with Technician Nixon."
"Nixon, huh?" Enterprise glanced back at Nix.
"Marion Nixon," Nix said. "You can call me Nix."
Enterprise nodded.
"I believe we have a holy prayer to say together, Miss Nixon and I," Zimmerman said.
Enterprise narrowed her eyes. "...you wanna munch her carpet is what you fucking mean," she said, bluntly. "God, I get unwrapped for one day, and I'm still fuckin' surrounded by queers." She snorted, slightly. "They were good sailors. But none of em pretended to be some fucked up nun."
Zimmerman was silent for some time. "Astute, for a spirit."
"It's the radar," Nix said, blushing hard. "Enterprise, you mustn't say such things so…" She paused. "Bluntly. And to a nun." She paused, then muttered. "Even if she is a bloody lunatic."
Enterprise snorted. "Listen, I don't give a shit who you fuck, Zims," she said, causing the big, burly woman to tense slightly. "I just don't want you to fuck up my Tech here." She gestured back to Nix. "She's all the chance I got at getting what I want."
Zimmerman chuckled. "I promise to you. I wish only to pray with the child."
Enterprise frowned, then nodded. "She means it," she said, quietly.
Nix had a sinking, uncertain feeling in her belly – and an excited flutter of butterflies to go with it. She knew that Zimmerman was the exact kind of woman who could feel with utter fervor and certainty in her heart that she would not sin, oh yes, right until she was alone in a room with a girl. Then her fingers would be inside her and her hands all over her body. And Nix hated how part of her wanted that. She hadn't been touched by another human woman in...ever...and the idea was as intoxicating as if she had found an oasis in the desert. Just why did it have to be this woman in particular? Even if her shoulders were so broad and her fervor was almost infectious and- no. She wouldn't think along that line anymore.
Enterprise looked back at Zimmerman, clearly unsure about Nix's silence. "I'm Enterprise, by the way."
Zimmerman's breathing stopped. Very quietly, she said: "Ah. How...providential." She said, quietly. "I must pray, long and hard, to Christ for seeing fit to bless us with this glory…"
Nix wasn't a girl to dither.
She was going to tell Zimmerman to go take a cold shower.
She just needed to…
To…
The memory of those warm hands. The feeling of an actual human's skin on her. The scent of her sweat. Fuck.
"...we can pray," she said, quietly.
Damn it, damn it, damn it, this was a mistake.
Enterprise flushed. "Fine. I'll go…" She looked around the room, then spotted the adjoining bathroom. "I'll wait in there. And try and remember more about myself."
"See that you do, spirit, walk in the name of Christ and her Lady Trinity," Zimmerman said, gesturing a little quick cruciform gear shape with her right hand. Enterprise looked faintly baffled, then stepped into the bathroom. The door closed as Nix flushed, then whispered quietly.
"Do you know what it means that she's-"
Zimmerman placed her finger on her lip.
"Shhh. The Lord God is just and kind to his Children," she murmured. "His wisdom is self evident. Now, we must give thanks." She gestured. "Kneel."
In which Nix makes a mistake because crazy is hot
Nix knelt down, her knees complaining slightly. Zimmerman breathed slowly in, placing her gloved finger onto Nix's forehead – then quietly, she whispered. "In the name of Christ…" She slid her finger along Nix's brow, down to her nose, down to her lips. "...you are a tempting apple." She shivered under her robes and pushed her finger into Nix's lips. Nix wanted to think something sarcastic and cutting – that didn't take long – but her only thought was how warm the leather felt against her tongue. She looked up into those goggled eyes, her head swimming. Spirits and humans were different. That's why this felt so very wrong, and oh so very right, all at the same time.
She closed her teeth down and held on fast as Zimmerman drew her hand out. The glove went limp and those strong, calloused fingers pressed into Nix's scalp, sliding through her hair. Her palm covered Nix's nose and Nix let out a soft whimper as she breathed in the heavy sweat of her. The warmth of that covered implant mounted on Zimmerman's wrist shone against her face, making her lips feel almost chapped with it. Zimmerman whispered something that might have been Latin – Nix couldn't quite make it out underneath the mask. Her other hand, though, was lifting her robes up and Nix watched as she saw muscular thighs, the tight underclothes, the broad, slightly chubby belly of the Radwalker nun.
Zimmerman crooned. "Sinner's reward, my little Nix." She dragged her forward, underneath the robes, and in the warmth and the darkness, Nix made a terrible mistake. She breathed in – and her head swam with the scent of the other woman. Zimmerman carried so much weight in metal, it was why her body was seamed with thick slabs of muscle. It meant she sweated and that stink coated the inside of Nix's nose like a drug. Her tongue licked along bared skin and then found leather thong. She nuzzled at it, her hands reaching up. Under the weighty press of leaded robes, under those darkness, she pulled down and felt the warm rasp of Zimmerman, of Vengeance's, pubic hair against her nose and her lips. Her tongue lapped and she tasted her juices, tangy and rich.
"Mmmm," Vengeance crooned. "Those without Sin can walk in the flames of Cherenkov without burning - oh my lady Trinity, show us your blessings…" She flexed muscles all over her body and the tiny clicks and clacks of her implants unfolding rang loud in Nix's ears. Suddenly, the interior of her robes were bathed in an eerie bluish light, warm and hazy, and Nix's eyes filled with a faint smeary blur as her brain buzzed with the warmth and heat of a killing haze of radiation. Her body tingled and she groaned out a desperate prayer, fear and lust burning inside of her as hot as the rads.
"O-Oh my Lady Trini-mmpph!" She moaned as Vengeance pushed forward with hand and hips, burying Nix's needy face against her cunt. Nix licked desperately – and the blessing of Trinity sang in her veins. She was ministering to her daughter, after all? Was that how this worked? Nix didn't know – the sin and the sacrament were mixing and she was so far beyond the pale of normal Technical work...she was entirely at sea. But what she knew was the taste, and the bucking of hips, and the soft groan of the huge woman above her. Those strong, callosed fingers clenched tightly and Nix tilted her head back, craning her neck so she could drive her tongue in deep. Her hands went to the muscular ass of the other woman, squeezing her greedily.
"Ah, blessed be," Vengeance groaned hungrily. Her panting was coming heavily now. "The fires burn in your veins, do they not? Ah, you may be an Englishwoman, but you have the old time religion in you, the proper spirit, moving you! To! Deeds!" She groaned deeper still and pushed herself even harder against Nix. The warm flood of her juices soaked Nix's tongue – and Nix drank and drank and drank, her eyes fluttering shut. Then the snick of closing implants and the sudden end of the warmth left her mewling.
The robes were cast aside with a rustling flare and Nix found herself falling backwards as Vengeance let herself down, her bulk pressing Nix onto her back as she sat upon Nix's face. Nix, a more slender and slight woman by comparison, kicked her legs, struggled. She couldn't quite breathe, and the weight of the other woman was overpowering. But Vengeance didn't seem to care. Her hands planted above Nix's head as she leaned forward, bucking her hips slowly against Nix's face. "Ah yes, lick, lick you little English whore," she growled. "Soak up the sin and afterwards, we shall be purified in pain and fire and blood together."
Nix trembled, then found the other woman's clit. She sucked on her, almost desperately – she didn't want to get crushed. Her hand slid up and under, and she thrust two fingers into the soft folds of her sex. She crooked them, like she was ministering on a spirit. From the hungry moan, muffled only by that thick mask, Nix had a feeling that she had gotten the right target. One of Vengeance's hands grabbed onto her hair, holding her tightly as she bucked again, and again, she came. Nix drank from her, then pushed with one hand, drawing her head back at the same time. Vengeance was slow to respond – but she did lift one knee and let Nix sit up gasping.
"Are you insane?" she asked. "You could have suffocated me!"
"Ah, you are too skinny," Vengeance rumbled. She grabbed onto Nix's arms, hauling her up. Nix squirmed, struggled, but her top came off, revealing her breasts to the worlds. Those breasts were immediately cupped from behind. She choked back her own moan as Vengeance played with her. The long beak-nose of her mask rubbed against Nix's cheek as she leaned over her shoulder. "I like it."
"You like molesting your students, I'm not shocked…" Nix muttered.
"And yet-" Vengeance tugged on her nipples, hard enough to draw a soft mewling gasp from Nix. She was grinning, Nix could hear it. "You are mewling for my touch, little one."
"Fuck you," Nix whispered, then gasped as she was pushed into bed. She landed and, ugh, was already taking off her pants. She shoved them down, revealing her own sex, her own glimmering arousal. Vengeance was not taking clothes off – instead, she was sliding another on. A massive strap-on, glistening with some lubrication she had applied with a swipe of her gloved hand, her ungloved hand tightening the leather straps that wrapped around her thighs. Nix let out a quiet whimper. "Y-You're not serious?"
"Heh," Vengeance crooned. Her hand snaked out, grabbing onto Nix's ankle, yanking her up and spreading her legs. "Praise Mary and Joseph, Trinity and the Holy ghost, this is going to be a nice pussy." She looped one hand under the small of Nix's back, lifting her as if she were nothing but a toy – and with a brutal eagerness that Nix hated and loved in equal measures, she thrust deep into her. Nix turned her head, biting down onto her own wrist to not moan from pure pleasure as her sex spread. She had been the top for so long...but being under Vengeance, being taken by the muscular, powerful woman, it was…
Intoxicating.
Heavy, meaty slaps filled the air as Vengeance's hips drove against Nix's again and again, and Nix took her strap with eager, husky moans, her arm falling away. She couldn't help it, not anymore. She moaned in bliss, in pleasure, in needy want, her back arching as she groaned and came and came and came again, her eyes fluttering half shut as she reached up, playing with the nun's breasts, tugging her nipples, leaning up to kiss and suck on them eagerly as Vengeance moved atop her, holding her down with her bulk. And that was just for when they were on their backs. Later, Vengeance pulled Nix onto her hands and her knees and began to take her from behind, as if she were some animal.
Nix loved it.
She came and clenched so many times she lost count – and her voice grew hoarse. And still, the almost demonic energy of Vengeance Zimmerman went on and on. She kept praying above her as well – whispering out snatches of scripture that Nix recognized, and quasi-religious ramblings that Nix thought she might have been inventing from whole cloth. And through it all, one gloved hand and one ungloved hand roamed over Nix's body, caressing, touching, tugging, squeezing.
At long last, the avalanche wound slowly down, and Nix sprawled next to the muscular nun, both of them panting quietly. Nix trembled, her thighs aching, her legs feeling like they might not be able to close ever again. She squirmed, her eyes half closed, and managed to sit up. In the silence, she looked down at Zimmerman, biting her lip hard. The Radwalker was still half dressed – her mask was still on, though her hat had fallen aside and her head was still covered in a cowl, and she still wore her strap. It glistened, thrusting turgidly into the air, proud as if she really had a dick.
Nix bit her lip.
Slowly, she reached for the mask.
Zimmerman's hand lashed out, grabbing her wrist, squeezing so tightly it was painful.
"My secrets are mine own, Marion Nixon," Zimmerman growled. "Now...ah...we shall pray in the morning…" She slid her arm around Nix's shoulders, then drew her against her side. "Understood?"
Nix frowned. Her voice was soft. "You're a mad, you know?"
"Those that see truth often are. Now be silent, lest I teach you with my palm, rather than my strap."
Nix frowned harder.
This had been a mistake.
So, why had it felt so fucking good?
***
Nix, still aching as the morning light spread over Burned York, stood outside the cheap hotel, tapping her foot and wishing that she could be more sure about Miss Rhina – only to have a playful voice speak from her shoulder.
"You are quite hard to find when you want to be, Mr. Nixon," Miss Rhina said.
Nix turned and forced the she and the her back into the rear of his mind – he was Mr. Nixon now. Mr. Nixon. He smiled and nodded. "Did you find the phone?"
"I did," Miss Rhina said, then gestured with her hand.
The telephone that stepped around the corner was relatively new – her body was mostly blue light, bands of crackling electricity bounded in thick cabling that looked almost like a corset. Nix grinned at her as the telephone squeaked. "O-Oh wow, you were right, Miss Rhina, Mr. Nixon is very handsome! Oh!" She gasped, as Nix took her hand, then gestured with his hand to send Miss Rhina away from the nearby alleyway. There, Nix whispered soft words in the telephone's ear – and his palm cupped between her thighs. He found her clit and rubbed gently, and those soft words became sung in a quiet cadence, tapping into one of the many ancient phrases that had been carried from technician to technician.
When he was done, the telephone was looking quivering and stunned, and Nix was carrying a pair of small glassy beads. He twirled them between his fingers, his voice soft. "These are one of the Technicians closer guarded secrets – the how, at least."
"A portable phone?" Miss Rhina asked, shocked.
"Until she rescinds her gift, or is ordered to by her owner," Nix said, casually, tucking the bead into his ear. "Simple."
"You have a remarkable bundle of tricks, Mr. Nixon," Miss Rhina said. "I was told that making these takes more money than I made in a lifetime."
Nix grinned. "Now, go on, get out of here. My associates are going to be out soon and you do not want to meet her."
"I will be listening in," Miss Rhina said, then bowed.
"Yes, I'm...sure you will," Nix said.
Miss Rhina started off – and soon, she had vanished among the crowd. Nix squared his shoulder, then caught the phone's arm as she wobbled out of the alleyway. "Before you head home," he said, quietly. "If you ever hear someone referring to me as a woman...can you edit that to sound like they're calling me a man?"
"Of course, Mr. Nixon," The telephone said, then blushed. "...for a kiss?"
Nix grinned, then pushed the phone back into the alleyway.
When Nix emerged, Sister Zimmerman stood on the sidewalk, her plague mask angled to the sky, her goggles glinting. "Ah, what a beauteous day to work His will," she said, quietly, arms spreading wide, as if to welcome the sun. "As she Burns in heaven, she burns in us all, does she not, Mr. Nixon?" she asked, her voice emphasizing the Mr. with clear sarcasm. Behind her, Enterprise stepped out into the street, looking utterly humiliated. Getting the proud ship to accept the new shape that she now wore had taken three buckets of paint and an hour of cajoling. It wouldn't fool a technician, but the average passer-by would see her as nothing more than a train spirit, her body daubed in those colors, even if some of the paint lines had run and started to drip.
"This is fucking humiliating," Enterprise grumbled.
"It only has to last until we reach the hand off site," Nix said, nodding.
They started to walk and as they walked, Enterprise muttered in Nix's ear. "What is your plan for that, exactly?"
"Well, once we hand you over, I can get my niece safe," Nix whispered back. "And I will be able to track you. Radio emits a signal that can be tracked by telephone and similar spirits – there's enough overlap, I think I can cajole one into being a hound dog and sniff after you. Then, I just need to rescue you."
"Oh I do not like this plan," Enterprise muttered.
"I will do my best to ensure that any binding rituals they place on you are...not effective," Nix added, hurriedly. "They'll need me to do it, I am the Technician."
Enterprise looked faintly mollified at that.
The trio went down into one of the entrances to the Underground – these places were situated throughout Burned York, though many of them had been left to rot since the 20th century. Many of them opened to streets that had been left to return to parkland, or had been converted to some other purpose. Those that survived and were in the right places had been expanded and improved, with the subway system reconstructed and a new, somewhat smaller and less powerful spirit awakened on the bones of the old.
Heading down into the train station, they were in a rather beautifully lit brass and woodwork decorated area, with an electric system for the train that was run on an atomic boiler located somewhere in the walls. The ceiling was decorated by a large bass relief of Prometheus giving tools to mankind, while stacks of newspapers were racked up by the ticket counter for buying. Lots of people were reading newspapers, while others made conversations. Quite a few glanced at Enterprise, then glanced away. Enterprise was looking around herself slowly, her lips turning down in a frown as she took in this alien world.
Nix paid for the tickets, while the teller frowned over his shoulder. "That a Radwarden?" he asked.
"Yeah, from the wastelands," Nix said. Then, in the biggest lie he had ever told – and that counted the years long deception about his gender – he said: "She's harmless."
The teller frowned, but took his money and then extra for one of the papers. Nix took it and saw the headline – AERIAL BATTLE OVER PACIFIC! - and paused for a moment to skim through the breathless paragraphs. The HMS Hateful and the HMS God's Wounds had clashed with the PLNS Wuhan 12 near Guam. The two smaller British ships had, according to the article, attempted to board and inspect Chinese trade heading for Sanfreska and the Chinese ship had refused to allow it – shots had been exchanged, but neither ship had been downed. The Lords and the House of Commons were both screaming bloody murder, but the Chinese government had refused to apologize. The Lady Colossus was said to be considering her options.
Nix shook his head. "They just can't stop poking them," he muttered. It felt like his entire life had had a low level running gambit of British and Chinese ships dancing around one another when it seemed to him that the Earth was large enough that two great Empires could simply refuse to pay one another much heed. He turned to the next page and saw that the Greater German Reich had had another race riot, and that the opening of Her Eternal Majesty's Clockwork Garden was on the way. He turned another page, while Enterprise glowered at the papers, then blinked.
"Those are blimps," she said.
"Huh?" Nix asked, distracted from spotting a rather lurid looking Cannibals in The Mojave! Sideline.
"Those are fuckin' blimps, do you all fly the goddamn Hindenburg around?" Enterprise asked, using her finger to poke at the grainy photograph of the HMS Hateful. Nix looked at the airship, then shook his head.
"They're zeppelins, actually," he said. "Ridged frame." He grinned. "But no, they're not like your primitive airships. The balloons are more for stability and assistance for the engines, see?" He pointed at the grainy image. "Those propellers keep it aloft almost as much, they run on atomic turbines. A small chunk of radioactive material, boiling water into steam, then then steams run pistons, levers…" He shrugged.
"How do they lug around that much metal?" Enterprise asked, frowning.
"Oh, they don't need that much metal – and you carry far less than if you would carry coal – a single chunk of, say, plutonium lasts for years and years," Nix said. "And the blessing of Trinity means that the radiation isn't much of a worry."
"Why would you worry about radiation?" Enterprise asked as the train came smoothly into the platform and the doors opened. The spirit of the train stepped from one of the doors, wearing a rather cute looking uniform with gold buttons and red braid.
"All aboard!" she called out.
Sister Zimmerman let out a barking laugh and then strode onto the train as Nix weighed whether it was worth trying to explain cancer to a ship with more planes and guns than a small modern fleet. Instead, they stepped onto the train. The short trip let him read up on the cannibals – a wasteland community had been found capturing and eating passers, which was quite horrid, but the free city of Vejas had reaffirmed its promise to bring peace to the lands with the help of Old Dam. The ancient spirit, which had sat in the wastelands for almost fifty years before anyone had come to check on her, always seemed to mean well, but Vejas remained a lawless place from everything Nix had read.
Finally, the train came to its stop and they emerged into the park that he had met Mr. Jeremiah at. And lo, there, standing at the statue of MacArthur, was none other than Mr. Jeremiah and four associates. Three of them were clearly toughs – big burly men who likely had concealed firearms on their persons – but the fourth of them was a woman, slight and slender, her eyes covered with bright, reflective goggles. She wore a rather mannish tophat and a very feminine evening dress, and had a cigarette holder that wafted a thin streamer of smoke into the air. Her hair was dark, and her expression unreadable as Nix, Sister Zimmerman, and Enterprise walked towards them.
Mr. Jeremiah started to clap slowly, his gloved hands slapping together. "Excellent, excellent work! Sister Zimmerman, as efficacious as ever."
Overhead, a shadow cast itself across the park. Looking up, Nix saw that the HMS Indomitable was floating by. His portable phone chirruped in his ear and the soft voice of Miss Rhina spoke in his ear. "I've seen some police wagons go by – but they don't appear to be heading to your park. They are on the search, though."
"Whose she?" Nix asked jerking his chin to the woman. She puffed on her cigarette.
"Why, this is Miss Young," Mr. Jeremiah said. "A fellow member of our organization."
"The Mechanical Turks," Nix said, firmly.
"Ah...you have done some reading. Excellent." Mr. Jeremiah's smile was whimsical. "I suppose you're wondering what it is we are about, hmm?"
"I kind of got the feeling from what I read that you hate spirits," Nix said, his arms crossing over his chest. "Which makes me curious why you want this particular spirit." He glanced at Enterprise, who frowned, her brow furrowing slightly.
Mr. Jeremiah chuckled. "Well, since you have done so well, and we are soon to end our partnership Mr. Nixon," he said, spreading his hands. "I may as well be frank. We do not like spirits very much. In fact, one might say that we're the first true Anti-theist organizations in the whole world. We wish to put mankind back in control of his machines – to make the tools given us by God and Creation to serve our interests. Not their own." His grin was cold. "I know that you might find that somewhat...unpalatable."
"It's impossible," Nix said, frowning.
"Since the Prophet saw in the mathematics of the great Einstein the potentiality of splitting the atom, it has been well known that nothing is truly impossible," Mr. Jeremiah said. "Though, some things remain quite improbable-"
Nix tensed. "This is where your toughs shoot me?" He asked.
"Shoot you? In the middle of New Trafalgar Garden?" Mr. Jeremiah said, sounding amused. "No. We're going to give you a considerable sum of money." He gestured and Miss Young reached into her dress. She pulled out a heavy sack that she tossed to Nix. Nix caught it and grunted – it was so full of coins he could feel them clink and clatter. "And then we shall leave you to spend it...while being aware that Sister Zimmerman here is our agent, and if you ever slip up, we know precisely where you and your extended family live." His smile was quite pleased, like a cat. "I think that's more than an effective stick and carrot, eh?"
Nix looked down at the sack of gold, his stomach doing a slow flip. He could just walk away. It wasn't as if you could do anything about spirits. They were a fact of the world as well established as gravity or the sun – you could kill a spirit, or destroy a machine, but...someone would just build a new ones. But the way that Mr. Jeremiah had said it, so blithely and so easily. He gulped, slowly, and then frowned.
"Walk away, Mr. Nixon," Mr. Jeremiah said, then gestured. "Come, Miss Spirit-"
The rattling thump of heavy, leaded clothing hitting the ground caused everyone to jerk their heads around.
"Our fathers scourged them with reeds, oh Lord," Sister Zimmerman said, her muscles bunching as she spread her arms and her metal implants whirred and clicked. One by one, they unfolded, revealing the grayish-blue rods inset into her skin, and the Latin phrases on them. "And we shall scourge them with scorpions. For the yoke of the false King lays heavy on the brow of you Chosen Land and people, my Lord!"
"Zimmerman, what are you doing?" Mr. Jeremiah snapped as she started to walk towards him and his three toughs.
Sister Zimmerman's head tilted down and her goggles flashed, catching the light.
Miss Young didn't hesitate. She stepped forward and drew a small, deadly looking semi-automatic pistol of German make. She leveled it at Zimmerman's chest while Mr. Jeremiah still looked like he didn't understand what was happening.
"As he died to make men holy...you will die to make us free," Zimmerman said, her voice sounding at peace.
Miss Young fired.
Zimmerman was already twisting to the side. Blood exploded from her shoulder, but the shot hadn't hit true muscle. She then got into Miss Young's grip, and caught the slender woman's arm, then brought her elbow smashing down into her forearm. Miss Young's arm snapped almost in half, bending entirely the wrong way, and the goggle wearing woman screamed – then went down as Zimmerman smashed her head into her face. Blood poured down her face as Mr. Zimmerman stumbled backwards, shrieking. "Shoot her! Shoot the American bitch!"
The three toughs hurriedly drew their weapons.
Zimmerman crashed her wrists together. Another criticality event flared, and the toughs cried out, blinded. That was time enough. She slammed one into the wall with her shoulder, smashing him into the statue of MacArthur. He collapsed and his friend stumbled as Zimmerman grabbed into the collar of his jacket, then brought him down with her arm as her knee drove up. Something crunched hideously and he dropped bonelessly, his face entirely caved in. Then the flat of her palm smashed into the throat of the third and he clutched at his neck, choking and gasping.
Mr. Jeremiah tripped over his own feet, stumbling away. "S-Stop! You're our servant! You-"
"I am of the Chosen People, Mr. Jeremiah," Zimmerman said, her voice full of righteous delight. "This land was given to us by God and purified by our Lady Trinity – and you have delivered unto me…" She grabbed onto his scrambling leg, then yanked him back with one brutal twist. "...a sword to strike dead the Empire I so loathe."
"Y-You-" Mr. Jeremiah stammered. "You said-"
Zimmerman's heel smashed down.
Nix turned his head aside, eyes screwed tight.
Choking, wheezing, and another snapping noise rang out. When he looked back, the third tough's head was twisted around and Zimmerman sighed, slowly. And Nix felt the realization of what had happened hit him all at once. "...you…" he whispered. "You...you want Enterprise for yourself."
"She is a good American ship, Mr. Nixon," Zimmerman exulted. "We have laid beneath the English heel for too long and she will-"
Enterprise looked from Zimmerman to Nix to Zimmerman – and Nix, unable to think of anything else, exploded. "What about my niece!?"
"A tragic sacrifice, but-"
"Sacrifice hell!" Nix snarled. He took hold of Enterprise's arm. "We have to get out of here, she's not an American, not like you remember them, she's a maniac, a lunatic, she-"
"With your might, we shall bring ruin to the benighted isle of Albion, oh Enterprise," Zimmerman said, reaching out towards the ship. "Come with me!"
"I-I...I-" Enterprise looked from Zimmerman to Nix to Zimmerman to Nix to Zimmerman. "I...back off!" She shouted, then shoved Zimmerman on the chest. The impact sent Zimmerman shooting backwards, narrowly missing a quite sudden death at the hands of MacArthur – instead, she arced and landed in brush and grass, tumbling over and over and over as she rolled away. Enterprise lowered her hand, then blushed and looked at Nix, her eyes desperate. Nix's brain whirled...and he knew what he had to do.
"Come on! We have to get to the train station," Nix said. "And get out of here before-"
Bang.
Nix felt as if someone had punched him in the back. He blinked, then stumbled a bit – then looked down at his chest. Blood was beginning to seep into his shirt. Enterprise cried out, grabbing onto his arms as he wobbled and half fell.
Propped up, her ruined arm clutched to her chest, Miss Young lowered her pistol, then raised it again – this time, she fired half a dozen times into the sky, the shots ringing out as loudly as alarm bells, calling every police officer in the city.
When Nix opened his eyes again, he found that he was in what appeared to be a rough metal container – the scent of hay and livestock heavy in his nose. He started to sit up, but was arrested by a warm palm against his chest. A face of silver and steel, with red paint daubing her cheeks like whiskers, peered down at him. Enterprise. Her brow was furrowed, and her voice was nervous – turning her Yankee drawl into something sweeter than water for Nix's ears.
"Miss Nixon? Are you okay?"
Nix blinked again, then closed his eyes.
Her eyes.
She was too tired to cling to false maleness. She shifted her head against the softness that she rested against, opened her eyes to look at Enterprise again. Then she closed them.
When she woke a second time, it was with a squeal of brakes and hissing pistons. The chamber she was in rocked and Nix grunted with a faint throb of pain in her back. She jerked her head up, then looked around wildly, panicking. Enterprise was behind her, her head resting against the wall, her eyes closed, her turbines humming softly. She was asleep – in an off watch, it seemed. Nix was able to actually move now, even if her arms felt leaden and heavy. She rolled onto her side, then winced and pushed herself up. She was dressed in her leggings and a wrap around her back and shoulders – gauze stretched taut over her muscles and tight around her breasts. She looked around and saw that there was the bloody ruin of her shirt and her jacket – her jacket had a small hole and a bloodstain, but her shirt had been shredded like a tiger had been at it.
Or surgical scissors.
She rolled her shoulder, felt the twinge of pain, then looked back at Enterprise. The sleeping spirit was utterly beautiful.
The sliding door built into the livestock compartment – for that was what Nix recognized the chamber to be – opened. The spirit of a rather adorable steam burner from the 1900s peeked in. She was a squat and generously curved girl, with bright green paint on her sides and a rather impressively hooked nose – she had to have a pretty hefty cowcatcher. Her shoulders were daubed in first native symbols that Nix didn't recognize, but that meant it was a tribal train, not one of the big concerns that were situated in Boston or Washington.
"W-We're here and my conductor is asking me what got me so nervous and I don't know what to tell him please help!" she said.
"Uh…" Nix said.
Enterprise jerked her head up, shaking her head. "Huh?" She looked around, saw the train, and frowned at her. "Are you whining again?"
The train chewed on her knuckles nervously. "I don't wanna lie to him anymore, but...but you said he was a technician!"
"I am a technician," Nix said, rubbing his back. "Guh. Tell your conductor that I asked for this berth – I'll pay him in trade."
"H-He won't be mad?" she asked.
"He might be a tad annoyed," Nix said, gently. "But more at me than you."
The train relaxed, sighing. "Okay, thanks." She closed the door with a rattling clink, leaving them alone with a bare electrical bulb. Nix sighed, then frowned at the shirt that had been so handily ruined.
"Damn it all."
"Sorry," Enterprise said, her voice soft.
"You cut the shirt off?" Nix asked. "And…" She paused. "You patched me up?"
"Don't sound so fuckin' shocked," Enterprise said, her cheeks flushing so red that her markings almost vanished. "I've got a fully stocked sick bay."
Nix wasn't impressed, precisely. What she felt was a deep, overriding fear. An uneasy awareness of what had happened. Enterprise had, in the panic, dragged Nix onto a train car. There, she had extracted a bullet, stitched the wound up, applied whatever medicines she could. She looked down at her wrist and noticed a small welling of blood. There were old stories – IVs with saline and plasma and other magical reagents that spirits had been able to deliver to their wounded crew. But the thing was, a modern English spirit, arising from an airship, say, could direct such things...from within their hulls. Not drawn from nothingness. Nix forced down the cold creeping dread in her gut as she asked: "How'd you get the train to carry us?"
"Threatened to blow her up," Enterprise said, looking down at her hands. "I was...in a hurry."
Nix sighed, slowly. "Okay," she said. "Could you have done it?"
Enterprise frowned. "I fuckin' don't know."
Silence hung between them. Nix shook her head. "Listen, I need a shirt." She paused. "Got any laundries in you?"
"A big one, actually," Enterprise said.
***
The door opened and the conductor – a first native man of mixed blood and a weathered complexion – stood at the entrance and peered at Nix, who had just finished throwing his jacket on over his brand new white shirt. He had a long rifle with a lever action swung over his back, and a large knife strapped to his ankle. His features were long and horselike and he swept his gaze over Nix slowly. "Huh," he said, quietly. "That big ship of yours was right. You really are in a lot of trouble, aren't you Mister?"
Nix blinked. "I-"
"Do you think my sweetie, Weetamoe, can actually hide a single thing from me? She plays poker with her hands held backwards," the man said, his voice dry. "I'm Johnathan Smith, conductor. You are a technician, yes? And that boat with you, she's an airship?"
"Not quite," Nix said. "I'm Marion Nixon."
"Huh," Johnathan said.
"Where are we, exactly?" Nix asked.
"We took the Old Route out of New England, into the Wasteland," Johnathan said, stepping back and letting Nix hop down. "The Green Lady will keep us safe – and we have a hold full of cattle that needs delivering to towns outside of the Empire. We're near the Chicago Ghostlands."
Nix slowly turned to Enterprise, who was standing at the lip of the car. She looked out, her mouth opened in confusion. The landscape was all dry grass, sweeping towards Lake Chicago, whose sprawling glassy waters glittered in the distance. There were a few odd hills, festooned with narrow trees, which might have once been building. A huge old pier remained, cracked in half and forged in concrete. Marshy wetland clumped here and there, and the old roads were half visible – the grass slowly peeling it apart and crumbling it apart. Enterprise looked around herself, her eyes wide as saucers. "My...a lot of my crew came from here, I…" she whispered.
Jonathan arched an eyebrow.
"You're a smuggler," Nix said.
Jonathan shrugged one shoulder. "You were the one who left Burned York in a tearing hurry with the police running all around with their guns out and an English airship overhead." He sounded as unperturbed as the glassy waters out there. The cold wind blew towards the train. Nix frowned and knelt down. The train was resting on rusted, ruined tracks – bent and warped and left to rot. They weren't joined and every few yards, it seemed like another chunk was missing, or had been knocked aside.
"Your Weetamoe is quite a skilled train, to run on tracks like these," Nix said, impressed.
"Thank you," Johnathan said. "She's a mite faster on proper track, but, the communities out here have enough time to bribe the President." He smiled, slightly. "Now, I let you lie, but I would like to know what precisely it is you've got going on, Mr. Nixon."
Nix sighed. "I've annoyed some very unpleasant characters. I need to get down to New Austin – my niece moved down there and I'm worried they're going to hurt her."
Jonathan considered. "In exchange for labor, and for pitching in at my stops, I can get you to New Austin in a week," he said, firmly.
Nix considered. The run from Burned York to New Austin could be as short as a day, if you were in a fast courier. It could be in under a day if you flew with the Royal Hurricanes. But the Mechanical Turks had to be reeling with the death of Mr. Jeremiah. And who knew what havoc Sister Zimmerman was unleashing on them. Then he slapped his forehead. "Damn! I'm a fool!" he exclaimed, then touched his ear – where his mobile telephone waited.
"Hello? Miss Rhina!" He said, then waited. The tone was scratchy and distant. He didn't know if he was close enough for-
"Ssss- Mr – sss – on? I can...-arely hear you!"
"Miss Rhina! Send a telegraph to Josephine Dour, and make haste to New Austin. I will be heading to New Austin."
"-ssss- Dour and Austin...sss -ot it! Dour and Austin, repeat, I am g-ssss!"
"Capital," Nix said, then took the small pebble from his ear, then stomped on it. "My apologies, dear heart, to spurn your gift, but...they can track that." He lifted his gaze to Johnathan. "I accept your kind offer, Mr. Smith."
Johnathan offered his hand, nodding. "So," he said. "You go by Mr. Nixon, eh?" His eyes flicked up and down Nix's body, slowly, and then he arched an eyebrow.
Nix frowned slightly. In the silence, Weetamoe arrived, humming cheerfully and standing behind her conductor as the silence stretched.
"Only men can be Technicians," Nix finally said, stiffly. "In the Empire."
"Mm. Seems that way," Johnathan said.
Nix sighed. "Don't tell anyone, please?"
"Tell anyone what?" Johnathan asked, his lips quirking in the tiniest of smiles. "You are a Technician after all."
Weetamoe looked between them. Her brow furrowed and she whispered. "I'm confused," she said.
Enterprise sighed. "That ain't a new fuckin' situation, is it?"
"Be nice, Enterprise," Nix said, while Weetamoe blinked up at Enterprise, her eyes filling with unshed tears. Enterprise blushed.
"Shit, I'm sorry," she said. "I just got a bit of a sailor's mouth."
"Yay! We're friends!" Weetamo threw her arms around Enterprise, burying her face against Enterprise's chest, making the other spirit look like she was cycling through invective in the same way her main battery would load armor piercing shells. She closed her eyes, forced them all aside, then patted the train's head.
"Yeah. Guess we are."
***
Johnathan introduced Nix and Enterprise to the rest of the tribe: there were two engineers who spelled one another in shifts, both of them were young men who shared Johnathan narrow, horsey features, four firemen were a mixture of men and women, but they didn't all seem to be directly related. Then there were ten stevedores for loading and handling cargo, and six guards, though Nix did notice that all the party were armed. It was just that the six guards had long rifles, like Johnathan. The total group were all of mixed First and Second native blood, and they regarded Nix with clear curiosity, but not the hostility that he had expected. The train herself was quite a sight when viewed from a distance – a passenger car that had been converted into a family barracks, an adjoining car that was built for relaxation and enjoying life, and then a string of other cars that were all cargo: Livestock and flat topped general purpose. At the stop, the livestock – mostly steers and cattle – were herded off to start grazing in the grass, the guards fanning out to keep watch.
Once he was done seeing everything, Nix said: "You have quite an impressive train," he said. "Very...industrious."
"She's been in the tribe since 1910," Johnathan said, quietly. "Or so the stories go. They say she was once owned by a company, Charleston Coal, but my great great great great grandfather was her conductor, and her true companion. When the Fire came, Charleston Coal went up in smoke." He sounded faintly amused. "Then it was just us, and we...renamed her, painted her, and used her to carry passengers and freight all across the wasteland."
Nix nodded. "Well, I've already figured out what we can do. Enterprise...my spirit friend…"
"The airship?" Johnathan asked.
"Yeah," Nix said. "She can...see far. It's one of her abilities. So, she can warn you if there's dangers. Are there much bandits?"
"Some," Johnathan said. "This land is wild and dangerous...and the Empire's laws make it worse."
Nix frowned. "Well, hey, the Empire's laws don't cover the wasteland."
Johnathan arched an eyebrow, looking at him square on. "And the ombudsman sentence for, say...robbing one of your banks? is" He asked, his voice dry.
Nix shifted. "Exile," he said.
"The Empire has an awful lot of banks and a great many Yankees who don't quite like having to be on the bottom again," Johnathan said. If he was upset by this or pleased by this, it was hard to tell. May be there was a whimsical tilt to his lips. "They come out here, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their guns. And some with more than that too."
"You don't think the Empire is doing it on purpose, do you?" Nix asked.
Johnathan looked at him, then shrugged. He called out in his own language – something beautiful and lilting and alien. His tribesmen started to gather around him, and then got to work laying out cloth and setting up candles and a small shrine. Nix walked over, his hands sliding into his pockets. He wasn't shocked when the small statue of Lady Trinity was placed on it. He joined the tribe, quietly awkward as they shuffled to make room for him. He knelt down and lowered his head, breathing in and whispering his soft prayers to her, to the Prophet Oppenheimer, to Slotin and Daghlian, to the Apostles. He tried to not think of Sister Zimmerman. What would she make of this quiet faith, that had no bombast, no fire, no brimstone. Just a family, asking the greatest spirit in the world for a boon, and offering to her a small fire, in which they threw herbs he didn't know.
Nix felt the blessing of Trinity return to her. And then one of the tribe reached into his backpack and brought out an ancient, clunky looking Counter. It rattled and clicked cheerfully as he swung it up and down each person, nodding slowly. "We're blessed," he said, cheerfully, then swung it back into his backpack.
"You know part of faith involves taking a leap of faith, right?" Nix asked, grinning slightly.
"White men's faith, maybe," the tribesman with the Counter said, his grin bright against his dark features. "You all get things for free, you expect to keep getting it. We have to count everything ourselves."
Nix frowned.
That made sense, honestly.
Enterprise frowned, muttering to him as they walked towards the train, the stevedores moving out to start gently ushering the cattle back onto the train-cars. "So, um, what was that all about?"
"The Lady Trinity's blessing keeps away radiation, remember?" Nix said, shrugging. "You have to refresh that faith every day. She's…" He paused. "Mercurial. Like aluminum one day, like titanium the next."
Enterprise grunted. "So, in short, one of your goddesses is insane?"
Nix paused, and together, he and Enterprise lifted their gaze to the melted lumps that were all that was left of Chicago – though the softened, smoothed edges of those ruins were more a byproduct of rain and greenery than the heat of the Fire. But they had been left to ruin because of the millions who had died and the millions more who had fled into the rural countryside, begging to Trinity for salvation from the bloody vomit and the clumps of hair falling out and the cancers – without people, wilderness had returned.
Johnathan put Nix and Enterprise up on the top of the train, a few cars back from the smokestack. It wouldn't exactly be comfortable, but the pair of them could keep an eye out for things better. Enterprise simply then focused and drifted up into the air, then landed on the roof of the train, causing soft murmurs to come from the tribe as they watched her. One of the younger guards flashed Nix a grin. "Man, you're a lucky fella," he said, jovially. "Technicians get to have all the fun."
"Right," Nix said, his cheeks darkening with embarrassment. "Got a ladder?"
***
The Weetamo made poor time for a train – but better time than a party walking – as they went into the outer edges of the Chicago Ghostlands, then swung out onto a barely visible rail line that cut northwest. Watching the landscape slide by, Nix breathed in the fresh smells and the smoke both, and realized that he had missed this travel in his time in Burned York and Boston. The copse of trees, the small packs of buffalo and wild cattle, the wild profusion of flowers of every type and breed competing with one another in what naturalists called the chaotic ecology of the new frontier. Bees buzzed in vast swarms around what had once been orchards and farms, gone to compete and struggle against one another. Sometimes, the tribesman with the Counter would come by, walking along the roof with a rifle and his Counter, swinging it around.
Click. Click. Click.
"Don't the animals get cancer?" Enterprise asked.
"...I suppose some do," Nix said. "But also, they're just beasts. Who cares about them?"
Enterprise snorted. "I suppose so."
She let her legs dangle over the side, frowning.
"This used to be the fuckin' heart of America," Enterprise said. "It's just...gone. All gone." She was quiet for a long time. "I remember a lot...things that my crew used to tell me. Do you know what...there was an ice cream place, off the side of the road, right there, where the highway used to run." She pointed at one of the crumbling autoducts that were still threaded across the continental America. This one was a jutting, lonely sight – half collapsed and slanted down, an artificial hill of asphalt and concrete. "Do you know what ice cream even fuckin' is?"
"Of course I know what ice cream is!" Nix said, flushing. "The world's not become a barbarous savage age!"
"Coula fuckin' fooled me," Enterprise said, her voice glum. She kicked her legs. "Fuck this is too goddamn depressing. Tell me about yourself, Marion."
Nix grinned. "Uh...call me Nix, please."
"Why? Marion can be a guy's name," Enterprise said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Yeah, I just don't like it," Nix said, leaning in as she let her masculinity drop like a mask.
"Oh," Enterprise said. "Fuck. Sorry."
"You swear so very much, Enterprise," Nix said.
"Fuck, sorry. I. Fuck! Sorry, I-" Enterprise caught herself as Nix snorted quietly.
Nix sighed. "Well! My parents met and married in England, my family's men were all technician since, oh, the 1600s I think. Anyway, they moved over when I was young – the Colonies needed new technicians, since they've been rebuilding so much in the past few years and there's a lot more trade picking up. The Empire's starting up new mines and farms and claiming back area for farming, cattle…" She shook her head slightly. "My auntie moved over a few years later, and she married an American, and they had my niece, Josephine. She married a year or so ago, and moved to New Austin. She didn't marry an American, thank god."
"Hey!" Enterprise snapped.
"N-No offense to Americas, just…" Nix blushed. "It's not like they're going to be able to...I...nevermind."
Enterprise sighed.
"Anyway. My father died back in 38," Nix said, quietly. "There was a hydroelectric dam near Boston – a new one, built in the aftermath of the Fire. The natives had done their best, but, well, they were using flintknapped tools and salvage, so, the dam was starting to collapse, spirit or no spirit. He went to it, and he managed to keep the spirit together long enough for the city to evacuate the at risk neighborhoods, and make levies and dykes. It was twelve hours of the finest technician work that anyone had ever seen – but...the spirit lost focus at the last moment. He...he could have gotten away, but…"
Nix sighed.
"He...wanted to make sure the city was safe. So he stayed by her, and helped her keep focus. She was so heartbroken after, even when they fixed up the dam, that she barely ever showed her face afterwards. Spirits are funny things. They can take a thousand humans passing them by and see it as just natural, or they can tear someone apart with their bare hands and not even know they done it – but sometimes, they see just one man die and they break just as badly as if you hit them with a sledgehammer."
Enterprise nodded.
"I…" She paused. Then she gasped and quivered. "I…" She ducked her head, her eyes closing. "D-Damn!"
"What?" Nix asked, concerned.
"N-Nothing."
"Tell me, Enterprise. It's…" Nix paused. "It's a memory, isn't it?" She slid closer. Her arm snaked around Enterprise's shoulder, squeezing her. "Someone you lost?"
"I...yeah," she whispered. "T-Troy!" She put her hands over her face, sobbing quietly.
Her shoulders shook and she trembled as she ducked her head forward. Nix bit her lip, letting the tidal wave of tears course through Enterprise, her arm drawing her in closer. Enterprise clung to her, sobbing harder, her mouth opening, then closing, then opening again. She mashed her face against Nix's shoulder and Nix realized that...in a time like this, when emotions were highest, the spirit somehow managed to be most human in her strength, in her touch. Nix wished she could reach into her heart, and lift this pain away. But...like with humans, the only thing that could do that was time, and tears.
Human touch just made those slide by, like the wilderness that they were carving through by the moment.
Slowly, the tears lapsed and Enterprise whispered. "H-He wasn't even the chief radioman. He was just one of many, and...he always had time to talk to me and to have a joke and a funny story." She shook her head slowly. "And he wasn't the only one. T-there were all the boys in damage control. And the pilots that never came home. They had their own spirits, their planes, and they flew up with them...and...god, I wished that I was like those planes, you know? If your pilot went down, if your plane went down, you were down too. You...it's not like being a ship. Ships hurt and hurt and hurt, forever."
"Not forever," Nix said, quietly. "I've worked with other ships ships that have lost crew. There are new crew-"
"Not for me!" Enterprise snapped. Her hand shoved Nix's away, making Nix flinch. "T-That's just it!"
"You can't say never," Nix said, fiercely.
"Yes I fuckin' can!" Enterprise floated up, her feet drifting over the train. "Look! America's dead. There's...what? That fucking basket case Zimmerman? People like her?" She shook her head. "You? You're gonna captain me and drive me around and...and see the Caribbean?"
Nix blushed, and bit back her first response. She looked out at the sea of green that they were chugging through. She thought...and wondered what she would do, if some sickness or ailment or just pure simple time meant she couldn't be a technician anymore. Hell, why even go so far. She could be barred from being a technician by the simplest application of sumptuary laws. She sighed, quietly. "...yeah," she said.
"What?" Enterprise asked.
Nix nodded slowly. "I'd captain you. And sail you. And I'd find crew. Hell, we strip the guns off, maybe we can make you a trade ship or something." Her lips quirked slightly. "There's some sea lanes going, and...we keep some of the guns, we can even say that you're safer than any other trade ship afloat."
"That's fuckin' nuts," Enterprise said, but her feet were resting on the train. She grinned, slightly. "How would your Lady Colossus feel about it?"
"You'd be flying under British colors," Nix said, smiling wider now.
Enterprise watched the trees slide by.
"Eh, it's better than nothing," she said, quietly.
"And it's for after we save Jessie," Nix said.
"Yeah," Enterprise said.
She sighed.
"I wonder what that fuckin' freak Zimmerman is doing," Enterprise muttered.
Nix watched the horizon.
"Something ludicrous, no doubt," she said, quietly.
And god, she wished she didn't feel so wistful for broad shoulders and gloved fingers.
***
The first community that Weetamoe arrived at was situated along the ancient, crumbling, nearly invisible rail lines. Constructed out of wood and salvaged metal and stone, it was remarkably homey looking, with a church that rose above the walls, watchtowers with heavy machine guns situated here and there, and several farms that stretched around the walls, tended to by men and women with hand tools. The world's most hideous flag flew above the walls – it was a four square pattern, but two of the squares were themselves subdivided yellow and black in an irregular, almost diagonal checkerboard pattern. The other squares were what appeared to be alternating red and white crosses on alternating red and white fields, making them also checkerboards in checkerboards. It was busy. It was noisy. It was confusing to see from a distance. And it flapped with a proud insolence in the face of the Union Jack that, ostensibly, stretched from sea to shining sea.
According to the Treaty of Anchorage, at least.
Course, that treaty had always been more idea than fact…
Nix shook her head, then focused and tried to bring him into focus, masculinity sliding over him like the jacket he wore, while Enterprise burst out laughing. "Maryland!?" she asked.
"Huh?" Nix asked.
"That's the fuckin' Maryland flag," she said. "What the hell is it doing here? We're in Illinois!"
"Who knows," Nix said. "When the Fire came, a lot of people fled in every direction – it wasn't for at least a year or two that people realized they needed to escape the prevailing winds." He frowned, while Johnathan came up onto the roof of the train.
"Well, you done good work so far," he said. "But my Weetamoe has been running hard on rough tracks. She needs serving. There's a comfortable bed in Maryfort." He nodded to the fortified town. "You get to work."
"You knew that this was coming," Nix said, his voice amused.
"Yeah, but...I…" Enterprise spluttered.
"Are you jealous?" Nix asked.
"Fuck you," Enterprise snapped. "I'm gonna...gonna take a look around! Make sure no one's fuckin' around." She actually floated up into the air, then shot straight up, vanishing into the clouds overhead. Nix and Johnathon blinked up after her.
"I suppose she is an airship…" Johnathan said. "But I've never seen an airship go so fast."
"Neither have I…" Nix said. He wondered if a Royal Hurricane could match that speed – the infamous aerial protectors of the Ladies, the final vanguard of The Fortress, were the only fixed winged aircraft in the world, save for persistent rumors that the Chinese kept hundreds of propeller driven fighters and bombers just waiting for a big war, hidden away in caves like some vast Terracotta army. Nix frowned as she tried to estimate the exact rate he had seen Enterprise going.
She hadn't broken the sound barrier – there had been no rumbling boom.
But she had vanished in a flash.
Nix felt that disquieting sensation that he didn't understand Enterprise. That he didn't know, couldn't know, what she could do. He pushed it out of his mind – focusing instead on Johnathan. "What do you normally do, when you don't have a Technician riding along with you?" he asked, grinning slightly, trying to lighten the mood.
"There's an old fat bastard in Maryfort," Johnathan said. "He does a shit job."
Nix smiled, slightly. "I'll see if I can do one better than him."
He turned and slid down off the top of the roof, using the ladder that Johnathan had used to clamber up. As he climbed down, he paused for one last moment, peering up through the hatch and at the blue sky and clouds overhead.
"hurm," he whispered.
***
The interior of Maryfort was as well tended to as the exterior, but Nix felt the eyes of the people inside on him and Weetamoe – her name no longer holding the resonance of being part and parcle with her body as she put more and more distance between it and herself. Weetamoe, the dear, was utterly unaware of it. Instead, she babbled excitedly. "I do hope my tuneup takes longer than usual, Mr. Blacke is a bit of a bore – he tends to go right to sleep once he's done, and he only pumps a few times and then he fills me up, and I mean, it's not bad exactly, it does tighten my bolts, you know, but I usually have bits of rust leftover that my crew have to deal with, and I'd really prefer that the the Technician handle that and I, oh!" she exclaimed as Nix brought her to a large saloon. A piano was chiming away and a quartet band was singing a crooning song about beaches and loves that lasted forever.
However, standing between them and the door was a tall, broad shouldered man with a scarred face and Second Native features, strong and true.
"...where are you from? You're not part of Weetie's normal crew."
"Hi Sheriff Abernathy!" Weetamoe said, waving excitedly, despite being only five feet away from him.
"My name's Nix," Nix said, his voice casual.
"A Limey," Sheriff Abernathy said, his lips curling downward. "What brings you out here to Maryfort?"
"It's none of your business, and I don't intend to be staying," Nix said, coolly.
"You're in my town. It makes it my business," Sheriff Abernathy said.
Nix frowned. He could feel eyes from the interior of the saloon and from passer's by on him.
"I'm on the run from some nasty customers," he said, simply. "I don't plan to stay long, and if they come by looking for me, you can send them right after me. I won't hold it against you."
Sheriff Abernathy sighed, slowly. "Well, damn," he said. "They likely to come by?"
"If they do, you'll be warned well before they get here," Nix said. "That...did you see that spirit that zipped up, right when we arrived?"
Sheriff Abernathy glanced up. His finger went to the brim of hat and he flicked it back slightly, as if he wanted a wider view of the sky. "I did," he said. "She was awful fast for an airship."
"She's a very powerful spirit, and she's able to see things at long distance," Nix said. "She'll warn us if...hell, even if bandits are coming, if coyotes are coming, she'll sing out."
Sheriff Abernathy frowned, slowly, then nodded. He stepped aside and Nix took Weetamoe's arm, walking with her, arm and arm, into the tavern. He felt the eyes of everyone within on the two of them. Weetamo, cheerfully, said: "I can't wait for you to service me. Oh, I get quite loud. And I hope you don't me being so talkative, Mr. Blacke is very stern about speaking too much. But I say, talking is half the fun, that's why I love arriving in new places. Oh! This room looks nice!"
Weetamo whimpered quietly as the door shut behind Nix – and Nix took a moment to survey where she would work. It wasn't exactly auspicious: The saloon's second story was narrow and creaky, the floor thin and the sound of piano playing and conversation drifted up across the carpeting that had been thrown down higgledy piggledy by some saloon girl during her rounds. The window was glassless and the only light came from a bare, cheap electrical bulb that was threaded to a copper wire that itself vanished into the darkness of the ceiling. Considering the rest of Maryfort, Nix supposed they had an atomic turbine buried somewhere in their small settlement, likely near their chapel. It provided enough power for electricity and maybe some emergency heat during winters, but likely hadn't been tended to in years.
She put the thought out of it out of her mind as she closed the door, latched it, then stepped up behind Weetamo. The slender green train was looking out the window with clear nervousness, her hands touching together over her belly. "I-I've never been serviced by a technician before. Well, okay, I was, but I wasn't Weetamo at the time. See, I was a passenger train, back in the day, but then they had to change the cars, and, well…"
Nix knew quite well. A train wasn't just the engine – even if people had thought so for ages. It was the engine and all the cars attached to it, as well as the linkages, even some of the track that it ran along. Even the brakes. All of it combined to create the spirit of the train. But train cars could be, and often were, changed. Nix had heard it compared to an ancient riddle about the Spirit of Theseus – if every part of the Greek hero's ship had been replaced, part by part, then would her soul be the same by the end of it?
Well, it depended on the parts replaced.
Put a new set of antiaircraft guns on an airship in the place of her old flare batteries, she might get more aggressive and less flighty – over time, as the change seeped into her soul. For trains, it could be quite traumatic to remove every car at once then hitch new ones, so trains changed their outlines slowly, cautiously. Nix didn't blame her for being so disconcerted thinking about it, and she didn't want her to keep thinking about it. Not now. Not in a situation that was meant to be tender.
Gentle.
She stepped up behind Weetamo's back, her arm snaking around her belly. She stroked the sleekness of Weetamo's stomach, feeling the faint seams that let her turn and bend her slender body. Her fingers stroked down and she found the belly button of the train-girl, teasing it with the tip of her middle finger. Her voice was soft. "It's okay, Weetamo...your tribe is never going to let that happen again." She kissed her neck. "And this isn't like changing a car."
"Okay…" Weetamo whispered. She leaned into Nix, relaxing more and more by the moment. "What is it like?"
"I'll show you," Nix said, grinning. She gently led Weetamo to the narrow, thin bed that she had been given. She drew her down and Weetamo sat on it, her eyes wide as Nix sat next to her. She smiled and looked into Weetamo's eyes, her voice soft. "We start off with what makes you comfortable." Her fingers stroked along Weetamo's thighs. "Do you like that?"
The train nodded, blushing furiously. Thin streams of steam were sneaking out of her cheeks – venting into the air and coiling up towards the ceiling.
"All right," Nix said, quietly. "You have such beautiful lines, you know. And you've served so well. You can run on track that's barely even there." Her fingers slid up and down, up and down that muscular green thigh. She leaned in, kissing a spot on Weetamo's neck where the paint had chipped, old damage reflected on her throat. "You're a good train. Good little steam burner." She nuzzled against her, then kissed along her throat, up to her jaw, to her ear. Her voice was soft. "You're so hot and wet."
"Y-Yeah," Weetamo whispered.
"And I saw your engine – you've got such a clever little boiler set up. You'll never rupture, not with that design and good maintenance. That's so impressive."
"R-Really?" Weetamo asked, sounding shocked. "I-I always thought it was so...outdated!"
"It's gorgeous," Nix said, grinning at her. She slid her palm up her thigh, then inwards, teasing her fingers against the dampening folds of Weetamo's rubbery cunt. She didn't quite touch her, but she didn't quite not touch her. She left Weetamo tingling between contact and release and Weetamo drew in a sharp gas, her soft chugga-chugga-chugga heartbeat audible through her chest. Her breasts heaved as she arched her back slightly.
"N-Nix!" she moaned, biting her lower lip to silence herself.
"Mmm, let it out. We can't let you get too...under pressure," Nix whispered.
"Oh...ohhhh!" Weetamo whispered as Nix's fingers traced the outline of her sex, teasing her clit as she swept them up and around. Her lips parted and a thin stream of steam ticked along the roof of her mouth, past her nose, curling around her hair. Nix leaned forward, catching the last tiny spurt of warm, moist breath in Weetamo's mouth. Her tongue and the spirit's tongue pressed together, playing one against one another as Weetamo's thighs spread, bumping one against Nix's knees. Her hands bunched, grabbing onto the blankets as the bed creaked. Nix drew back, letting a thin ring of steam escape from Weetamo's mouth.
"Want more?" she whispered, kissing her ear, nibbling the lobe.
"Y-Yes! Yes!" Weetamo gasped. "I-I've never felt like this before. I-"
Nix pressed a finger against the folds of Weetamo's cunt and thrust in. She felt virgin tight, her lips enfolding Nix's finger with vice-eager heat. A blazing warmth flooded around Nix's fingertip, and as she pushed her finger in to the knuckle, Weetamo let out a mewling moan of purest pleasure, her hips bucking as she gasped and whimpered. "Oh my god, oh my god!" she gasped. "M-More, please! I...I…" she quivered and grunted low in her throat as Nix crooked her finger up. She found her G-spot, and through the trembling quiver that rocked through the train, Nix could feel every nut and bolt on her body going limp at once.
"Nix!" She moaned.
Nix grinned.
Then she added a second finger, leaned down, and found the tip of one of Weetamo's deliciously perky breasts. She sucked that bright green nipple into her mouth, teasing her with her teeth as her thumb reached up, rubbing Weetamo's clit, her fingers thrusting faster. She had to get past this part – if she let her tingle and hang too long, she genuinely might explode. And not in the fun was, precisely. The last thing that Nix wanted was to take Weetamo's engine out with a boiler explosion.
So, she finger-fucked her roughly, the knuckles of her finger plapping loudly and lewdly against her metal thighs. Weetamo gasped and moaned, her back arching as she screamed in bliss, her voice causing a momentary pause in the piano playing from downstairs – but as she bucked her hips and squirted around Nix's fingers, Nix heard the unsteady opening of Yankee Doodle Dandy resuming from downstairs – the first few notes hesitating between each tone, like the pianist was looking over his shoulder.
Weetamo drew in deep lungfuls as black smoke roiled from her back, smelling of warmth and lust. Her eyes were half closed and she groaned as Nix drew her fingers from her cunt, licking her glowing juices off her self. "W-Whoa…" she whispered.
"Feel how every nut and bolt on you is tight and true now?" she asked.
"Y-Yeah!" Weetamo said, her eyes widening. She arched her back again – to stretch. She heard something PING inside of her and her palm rubbed the small of her back. She let out a shy giggle. "T-There had been a bolt in there that was out of true a-and...I...I knew it needed to get removed, but I was worried if I asked, they'd just strip the threading out, so, I just kept quiet and now it's straight on and it feels so good! I feel like I could run across the Atlantic!" She giggled. "I-If there were tracks on the Atlantic, I mean. N-Not that there are, I know there isn't!" She added, hurriedly.
Nix, grinning slightly, licked her fingers clean. "I know," she said, her voice amused. "But that's just the easy part."
"Mew?" Weetamo asked.
"We still have your actual boiler to get running smooth – and your brake cables, and any rust."
"Oh!" Weetamo blinked. Then, her cheeks darkening, she stammered. "How, um, how do we, um, do, we...do…" She made a vague gesture, her palm flipping and over end. "Do...do that?"
Nix grinned. "Lets do rust first." She twirled her finger. "On your belly."
"Okay!" Weetamo started to turn to the right – realized this would slam her legs into the wall, blushed, then turned to her left, rolling onto her side, then her belly. As she laid there, she watched Nix stand and begin to strip, revealing her own slender body, her high breasts, her sopping wet cunt. "How do we fix the rust?" she asked as Nix tugged the strap up around her thighs. Her cock thrust into the air and she felt the strange sense that it was truly a cock – not just a device of leather and plastic. She grinned and took the base of the cock in her hand, lifting it up so that Weetamo could see the length, the girth. Then she picked up her bottle of lube from her belt pouch (no technician would leave their home without it.)
A thin stream of lubrication started to soak up the false cock.
"...what do you...how do you fix the rust with that?" Weetamo asked, her eyes widening more and more.
"Well, rust represents waste products and unfortunate buildups," Nix said, walking around behind the belly-sprawled spirit. Her hands cupped Weetamo's truly delicious, heavy ass – she did have quite a hefty caboose, after all – and her lube slick thumbs spread her asscheeks, revealing her pert, cute little asshole. Nix grinned, wickedly. "So, we just need to apply friction to a...symbolically useful area."
"Like where?" Weetamo asked. "I mean, I- hnnn!" Her head jerked back, her eyes widening as Nix began to ease into her.
If anything, Weetamo was even tighter back here. Her fingers dug deep into the sheets and her face mashed against the pillow, her large, hooked nose squishing slightly as she closed her eyes tight and squealed slightly. Steam rushed from her nose – but despite having not had this done in a while, her body clearly remembered. She bucked her hips back, pushing against Nix eagerly as she groaned, lifting herself half off the bed, onto her palms and her knees. Nix was glad for it. Her hands glided along Weetamo's belly, up to her breasts. She played with her nipples, her head leaning down to bury itself into her silvery hair, breathing in the steam and the burning coal of the glorious engine that she was plowing.
Her hips slammed down into Weetamo with the pounding, driving force that a train that carried freight needed: Heavy, eager pumps, to go with some rough tugging on her nipples, stretching her breasts, then letting them go slack. Weetamo groaned in her throat, deep and almost masculine, her eyes rolling back into her head as she bit her lower lip, dragging her lip against her teeth. Her hips rocked against Nix's again and again and again. Nix panted, feeling her own pleasure starting to rise as her strap ground and rose against her own cunt, which dripped with eagerness, moisture sliding between leather and over flesh. She grunted quietly in time with her fucking, whispering softly. "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lets get that rust outta you. Fuck!" She grunted again, throwing her head back and grabbing onto Weetamo's hips.
"Oh yes! Yes! Yes!" Weetamo gasped, her chugga chugga heart racing faster and faster as her ass tightened around the strap filling her. "Oh god! Yes! Yes!" She ducked her head forward. "Oh god!" She arched her spine and glowing juices splashed against Nix's thighs and knees and puddled onto the bed as Weetamo came buckets, her fingers clenching on the sheets. Her hoarse moan was rich with purest joy, and Nix sighed as she felt her own climax – her first climax – rocking through her body. She watched through slitted eyes as Weetamo's green painted hide started to grow glossy and gleaming. New. She reached down, tracing the lines, the patterns.
With each touch, she wicked away sweat, and brought forth lines that were cleaner, more precise. It was the original markings, painted who knows how long ago, by the tribes that had adopted Weetamo when the world had burned and America had fallen to pieces.
Panting quietly, Nix grinned down at her. "So, there's the rust," she murmured. "Ready for the boiler?"
Weetamo panted heavily, her breasts rising and falling. "H-How do we do that?"
A few moments later, Nix was laying comfortably on her back, and watching with no small delight, as Weetamo arched her spine and bounced on her lap. Impaling herself on her strap again and again and again, the eager little train showed she had quite the sensual spirit: Her hands glided along her own belly, to her breasts, squeezing herself, playing with herself to bring more pleasure, more joy to Nix. Nix grinned and let her fingers do the work – she found and rubbed Weetamo's clit, moving her hand up and down with the bouncing, eager train. It was harder and trickier than it looked, keeping finger on clitty and rubbing.
When Weetamo screamed and arched her back, Nix heard the chugging of her engine again – coming into true. Deep inside of her, her boiler's components were shifting, settling, righting themselves. It wasn't like they'd face any explosions – old style boilers simply set the fires beneath tanks of water, and at higher temperatures and pressures, the water that was boiling could go from water to steam with unpredictable speed, turning boilers into bombs. But Weetie, and other trains like her, had pipes that ran water through the furnaces, allowing them to boil elsewhere. It was more complex, but safer. And now those pipes ran true and easy.
Weetie – what a cute name, Nix thought, I think I'll stick with it for now – collapsed atop her, it was with a ragged pant and a giggle. "I...I don't think I ran this good even before 1945!" she said. "Like, I feel like my wheels are in true, my brakes aren't stripped down. Mmmmm! Even my coal scutters are clean and...ah!" She stretched her arms. "I can feel my interior doors opening and closing better – their screws are tight and oiled, my hinges are all smooth. I think you've even replaced some ball bearings that were missing."
Nix, who had been rummaging around in her pockets, but found no cigarettes, instead simply tried to enjoy the simple pleasure of hard work done well. "What can I say? I'm a good technician."
"Good!? You're amazing!" Weetamo said. "I may not remember much since before I was a cargo train, but I do remember technicians back when I ran passenger! All wham! Bam! Thank you ma'am!" She glanced around. "I do miss the cu-"
Bang!
The sound was so akin to a car engine sputtering to life, steam engine burbling, that Nix nearly didn't notice it – save that it was followed by a sudden spate of shocked screaming. She and Weetie jerked their heads to the window, Weetie springing up and off Nix and running to the window without a single care in the world. Being a spirit, she could stick her tits out without anyone even noticing – but Nix had to start to bind her breasts, take off her strap, and toss on her jacket. By the time she had done, the shouting had calmed down – and when she stood by Weetie, she could see who had come to Maryfort.
The sun had dipped down and the whole fort was lit entirely by electrical lamps that dangled from the awnings and poles, hung from strings that made them look almost like lights set out for Mother Christmas. Their harsh light cast stencil perfect shadows in a confused mess against the walls – overlapping and murky. But the center of the street was clear.
There were four men on horseback. Each of them wore what looked like an outdoorsman's clothes, save for a single piece of uniformity: Old brown jackets with big pockets. They weren't long, but they each had a patch on them: eagles heads. One of them wore a genuine hard hat helmet, like he expected combat, but the rest were in bill caps and broad brimmed things that a cowboy might have worn. The bang had come from a cut down carbine that their leader had resting against his shoulder.
Sheriff Abernathy stepped out to stand between the horsemen and the rest of the town, his jacket rustling in the wind.
"Well, well, well! If it ain't Sheriff Abernathy!" the leader said, his voice a drawling Yankee accent. "Sorry to drop in on ya like this."
"We ain't got no problem with the Hundred," Sheriff Abernathy said. "But you ain't going to get paid here. We don't exactly carry the goods you're interested in."
The leader reached up and rubbed his knuckles against his chest, brushing dust away. Nix frowned. The Hundred? She...admitted, she hadn't heard of that one – but there were so many wild west gangs out there that it was impossible to keep them all straight. She took hold of Weetie's hand, tugging her away from the window, then whispered. "Get my belt."
Weetie blinked, then whispered back. "Why?"
"Just do it," Nix hissed.
Weetie nodded, humming as she scampered off.
"We're not here for something. We're here for someone. It's come over the grapevine that there's a limey prick whose got a real big price on his head – freshly put down from her Majesty's government." The Hundred leader said, grinning.
"I didn't know the Hundred ran jobs for the limeys," Abernathy shot back.
"Hey, we all need to eat. His name's Marion Nixon. Technician. Supposed to be running with some crummy beat up old spirit…" The Hundred said.
Weetie came up to Nix, smiling brightly. "Oh!" she said, excitedly. "They want to see you!" She waved out the window. "Hi!"
The Hundred glanced over as Nix jerked back, grabbing onto the Colt revolver that was hanging off his belt. He yanked it free and scowled. "Weetie!"
"What?" Weetie asked, while the Hundred rode forward – moving past the Sheriff, who scowled and stepped aside. The four strangers fanned out before the saloon and the leader called out.
"Mr. Nixon!" The leader waved. "We're here to take you into the custody of the Hundred and One!"
Nix frowned. "I'm afraid I don't know who you are, nor how exactly you're interested in me. Nor how you found me."
"Well, they don't just call us that cause the name's so catchy." The Leader's smile was a big white flash in a scruffy, shadowy face. Despite the lack of light on his features, Nix still had a feeling that the light from that smile wouldn't reach those eyes. There was something in the completely casual tone that made his skin crawl. He frowned and adjusted his grip on the Colt. "We just seem to be the lucky fireteam. Why don't you come down out of there."
"Or else what?" Nix asked.
"Or else we will burn down this saloon," the leader said.
Sheriff Abernathy moved – but one of the Hundred reached into his coat, and swung out a brutal, sleek little weapon: It had a straight magazine, a short barrel, and a wooden stock. A submachine gun. Nix tensed, his jaw tightening. Abernathy remained perfectly still, while the other people started to tense, crying out in shock and alarm.
"We, in fact, will give everyone in this saloon time to leave," the man said. "Then, I will count to ten…"
The door opened downstairs. People went running out, panting as they skidded into the dark, muddy street. The pianist didn't even take the door – he vaulted out through the windows, sending the shutters banging open with a crash.
"One," the leader said. "Two. Three."
Nix frowned. "Weetie," he whispered. "Can you get out of here and tell Enterprise about this?"
"Sure! What exactly is going on? Like...does fire...hurt people? I always forget, since you keep setting them-"
"Weetie!" Nix looked at her.
"Rightie!" Weetie said, nodding, then turning and hurrying off.
"Six! Seven!"
"I'm coming! I'm coming! Christ and her Clockwork!" Nix shouted out the window.
"Ah, ah, ah!" The Hundred's leader said, raising his hand up – the man with the SMG kept it aimed at the Sheriff, but the two others kept their carbines aimed at the window that Nix was standing at. Their horses shifted, restive and twitchy. "Throw down your gun first."
Nix frowned, then tossed out his pistol. It twisted, tumbled, then fell in the mud. The leader looked down at it, nodded. "Colt. Good choice. I always preferred Browning." Nix hurried down the stairs, then emerged – and saw that on the ground, he had a clear line of his belt, which had a heavy Browning 1911 pistol tucked into it. Up close, he could see his features: Sharp jaw, eyes like a shark, and an ever so faint smile on his lips which never threatened to travel up his features. It was like he was perpetually amused by the situation – and the fact the situation involved heavily armed men trying to kill one another made that terrifying. Nix stood on the porch of the saloon. He had to buy Weetie time.
"Might I ask what they say I've done," he said.
"I don't care, particularly," the man said, gesturing with his free hand. The two men with their carbines slung them in holsters on their horses and swung off their mounts. They landed and started to walk towards Nix, moving with confidence. "We're not taking you to Washington."
"You're...not?" Nix asked, then blinked as both men stepped to his either side.
"Nope," the man said. "Tie his hands behind his back, blindfold him."
"Well, wait, wait, wait," Nix said, then yelped as the blindfold was looped over his eyes, then drawn taut. His arms were almost wrenched out of their sockets as the two men manhandled him – then started to wrap rope around his wrists. One muttered in his ear.
"Listen, you limey son of a bitch, just shut the fuck up and do as yer told." He shoved the small of Nix's back, and Nix, stumbling in the dark, fell face first into the mud.
"If you people ever show your faces around here again-" Abernathy's voice came from off to his left.
"You will take our money, won't you?" the leader sounded amused.
"Damn it…" Abernathy's voice came through clenched teeth.
"At least tell me your goddamn name!" Nix gasped out as he was hauled to his feet. He dug in his heels, trying to slow this down by any means that he could. To his surprise, the men pushing him along actually stopped and there was a faint clomping of hooves as a horse shifted. The voice that came above and to the right was the leader's.
"I'm Sergeant Timothy Spiers," he said. "Company D, 3rd Battalion, United States Army Airforce."
"There's no goddamn United States!" Nix exploded. "It burned two hundred years ago."
"Heh. They keep saying that," Spiers said. "Load him up."
Nix struggled. Kicked.
Then heard a voice shouting out in the darkness.
"Let her go!"
She froze, sighing as she realized that Enterprise had shouted that loudly enough for everyone to hear. The man holding her did not let her go – but instead held her tighter. Speirs called out. "Well, well! You're Enterprise."
Cold shot through Nix's spine.
How could he possibly know that.
And then it all became clear. Horrifyingly clear.
Zimmerman.
It was the only possible explanation – Zimmerman was part of a fundamentalist sect of American radwalkers. She had been cast out, yes. But if her sect dwelled in the burned wastelands of the American west, they'd have to have run into people like the Hundred and One, and the more famous of the revaunchests and gangs: those that paid fealty to Lady Dam, Vejas, the free cities of Oregon. They had to have telephones, suborned and used as long range communication – they had to have technicians. Rogue technicians. Her heart sank as she saw, immediately, what Zimmerman had realized.
As he died to make men holy, you will die to make us free.
"They're bloody revolutionaries," she whispered.
"Shut it, Limey!" the man holding her growled.
"How the fuck did you know my name?" Enterprise snapped.
"My commanding officer can explain better than I can," Speirs said, his horse shifting. "But we're American, just like you."
"...that's why you're wearing a fuckin' paratrooper jacket?" Enterprise asked, sounding increasingly annoyed. "Shit, fuck, you're claiming you're in the 101st goddamn airborn? That's fucking stupid. It's been, what, a hundred fucking years?" She spat. "You're dressed up in some fucking natty ass rags like some fucking minstrel ass show, pretending you're real fucking Americans, and you know what? That kinda pisses me the fuck off. Let. Her. Go."
There was a short pause. "Let her go, huh?"
"Nix! Let Nix Go!"
"Do it," Spiers said.
Nix felt hands release her. She breathed out a faint whisper of relief. Then she felt the blindfold get yanked away, the ropes cut away. She looked around and saw that the whole town was gaping at her, and Sheriff Abernathy had stepped to the side, frozen, his eyes flicking from her to Enterprise – who floated down at the entrance to the town, Weetie standing nervously by her side, clutching her hands to her chest. Spiers kept his gaze square on Enterprise, while the man who had bound Nix's wrists now took the ropes off and tossed them into his pack, grumbling under his breath.
"Now we're gonna just fuckin'-" Enterprise started.
Nix took a step forward.
And something cold and iron pressed to the side of her head, coming down at an angle.
Spiers, his arms crooked casually, had his carbine against his chest and the barrel against the top of her head. She froze, but was sure that his finger was around the trigger.
"Now," Spiers said. "I was given orders to get you to my commanding officer. I don't fail orders."
Enterprise remained perfectly still.
"I may not be a technician, but I can tell you care about…" Speirs looked Nix over, slowly. "...her." He looked back at Enterprise. "So, what we're going to do is you are going to come with us, or else I am going to put her into the ground."
"If you-" Enterprise growled.
Speirs didn't say anything. He just looked at her. Enterprise's turbines whirred, her fists clenching tightly. Her eyes sparked as she snapped her gaze from Nix to Speirs to Nix again. Nix mouthed 'surrender' at her. She wasn't sure if Enterprise could read her lips in the shadows cast by the blazing electrical lights.
Enterprise hissed, then spat. "Fuck!" She shouted. "Fuck! Fine! Fuck! Jesus fucking Christ, we'll go with you." She lifted her hands, palms out.
Speirs nodded.
The barrel lifted slightly. His horse shifted.
Enterprise blinked. "No. No no no no!" She whispered.
A sound was coming into the air. Whirring, buzzing noises.
"Fuck! Stop! Stop!" Enterprise shouted, looking around, her eyes wild. Nix frowned, then felt her stomach clench.
"Everyone! Down!" She shouted.
"What the fuck-" One of the Hundreds asked.
From the night, swooping like beasts straight from hell, came stuttering fire. Bullets lashed the ground. Mud gouted into the air. And blood. People ran for cover, screaming, but some dropped to the ground, sprawling into the mud. Enterprise dropped to her knees, her palms over her face, screaming again and again. "Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!"
But whatever she had summoned up in a moment of fury and loss – whatever uncontrolled hell that was coming down, it didn't stop. It got worse. The screaming, gull winged airplanes that came in from the night – their fuselage gaping with holes, their wings peppered with shrapnel, their skeletal pilots still wrapped in cloth and leather, their eyes blazing with daemonic light – swept and fired. Bullets blew in through the roofs of buildings. Something caught fire. Abernathy threw himself atop two screaming children – and blood exploded from his leg as he screamed in pain. The gull winged fighters swept up – and then down came the bombers. They dropped weapons that did not explode, but rather simply crashed through wood, splintering it apart with sheerest weight. One plowed into the ground right before Nix and stuck there.
Her eyes widened.
A propeller?
It felt like it had been an eternity.
It had been less than a minute.
Maryfort burned. The dead and wounded alike littered the ground.
And Enterprise clutched her arms to her chest, her eyes wide.
"Lets get the fuck outta here!" One of the Hundred shouted. His horse lay on the ground, belly slit open by a gunshot. His comrade groaned, leg snapped beneath him. His horse was long gone – having bolted. Speir was nowhere to be seen: Had his horse sprinted off, taking him with it? Was he dead? Had he been riddled with bullets.
Nix looked at Enterprise in horror.
Enterprise looked back. She tensed. "I-I…" she whispered.
She was going to run.
She was going to flee.
Nix sprinted towards her. She dropped to her knees, took hold of her, hissing. "You cannot leave, Enterprise-"
"I- I didn't...I just...I just…" she whispered.
"You can't leave!" Nix hissed. "This town needs you. Focus!"
Enterprise blinked, then closed her eyes.
She nodded.
The care that came after the horror was a slower thing – but almost even more magical. Enterprise moved from body to body. She knelt beside them, and for a moment, ghostly figures could be seen. White smocks, bright red crosses, visible between blinks. Arms were set. Burns were seen too. Bullets removed. Stitches laid. Blood came – flowing not from veins, but in bags of plasma, as ghostly IVs came. Damage control teams seemed to emerge from nowhere, bearing fire extinguishers as easily as the ghostly planes had brought bombs. The strange, oblong bombs that hadn't exploded – that had simply plowed into earth and sat there, buzzing their propellers...they were defused. They were removed.
Enterprise was at the heart of it all.
And watching it, Nix had to say it.
She said it, quietly.
Where no one else could hear her.
"What the fuck am I going to do with her?"
Maryfort did not burn to the ground.
But as dawn broke, six dead were buried. Sheriff Abernathy, his leg still bound and a crutch under his arm, stood by Nix, watching the grieving families standing around the bodies laid in state.
"You're going to have to go," he said.
Nix nodded.
"And tell that...thing…" He shot a glare at Enterprise, who stood at the edge of the ceremony. Haunted.
"She's the USS Enterprise C," Nix hissed. "She's a two hundred year old aircraft carrier – and...and you saw what she can do to help and to harm. That's why we can't let those psychopaths in the Hundred get their hands on her. You saw what she did in a moment of inattention – and what she can do with all her heart. So...damn you! You will call her Enterprise." Nix was shocked at how angry hearing her called a thing made her. Abernathy's lips tightened. He lifted his chin.
"Tell that thing to never come back," he said. "Maryfort doesn't need America. And we don't need her ghosts."
Nix looked away.
When she and Enterprise came back to Weetamoe, the train's tribe watched them guardedly.
"This is gonna be a fun trip, eh?" Jonathan asked, his voice dry.
"Shut up," Enterprise growled at him, then clambered up into the train.
Nix's head rested against the side of the bench that had been reserved for her by the Weetamo clan – her head pillowed against her jacket, folded and folded again. Jonathan Nash was snoring softly in a hanging hammock, and Enterprise laid flat on her back on the floor, having refused bed or any comforts. Her eyes were closed, her arms flat to her sides, her bared breasts rising and falling as she breathed in her sleep. Nix regarded her as she laid on the ground.
She couldn't stop seeing the ghostly planes, swooping from the skies. The machine gun bullets from nowhere. The torpedoes dropped onto homes and houses. The spectral medics and damage control teams.
Now that she had time to think in the quiet of a dark cabin, hurtling through the American wasteland on a train that hummed with her own cheerful energy, Nix was able to pin down the chill in her belly.
It didn't make sense.
She slid from the small bench, stepping gently over Enterprise, then started past the beds and hammocks. She came into the common room, where two of Nash's cousins were playing an old war game. In an example of boundless arrogance, the board showed the entire world and the tiny pieces that were laid out on it had been carved of wood, with tiny blocks and rectangles and circles, representing cannon, horses and infantry. They were regarding the board, and one of them said: "Okay, I'm going to push into France."
"Try it," his cousin said, grinning at him.
The two picked up dice and began to roll them – the rattling gentle in the quiet chugga chugga chugga of the train. Nix crossed her arms over her chest and both glanced at her, then froze.
"You need somethin'?" one asked.
"Are there any, uh, history books here?" she asked. It wasn't so insane a question. The tribe had to educate their people somehow – and while she had heard enough stories to fill her own book, there were going to be textbooks here somewhere. The cousin attacking France pointed back. She saw the bookshelf and whistled – the Weetamo clan had been collecting books for a while. Under the warmth of a buttery smooth electric light hanging overhead, Nix leaned forward and began to read off the books. Some were romances, some were travelogues, but many of them were technical manuals on animism, spirits, mechanics. There was even a big book Nix smiled at fondly: The Mechanical Rubric. It was full of every observed element of every known kind of spirit that existed in the Empire, updated yearly. This one was twenty years out of date, but...well…
Things hadn't changed much.
But there was what she was looking for.
The Ascension War: The Battles and Particulars of the American and British Allies against the Forces of the Axis Powers and the Atheist Comintern by Daniel Lane. It was one of the more common historical books about the era. She tugged it out, picked it up, then opened it to the first page. The introduction was just as she remembered it.
Though what was once known has been lost in the Fire, much effort has been made to collect a true accounting based on verifiable information – information carried by contiguous spirits and surviving records, rather than the unreliable tongues of men. Through the Lady, Colossus, much of this book is made possible and to her, we owe an unending gratitude. It was in her the 20th century was truly born – the advent of technologies so advanced that they bucked the ancient taxonomic identification of animist spirits and awakened the ancient legends of Goddesses, things once consigned to the pages of myth and folklore. While many have heard the tales of Hera and Hestia, of Kali and Jesus Christ, who took the name from her slain son, all knew that such things are not for the modern era...until the dawning of a war that would quake the world…
Nix flipped past the first chapters – laying out the simmering, squabbling skirmish that sputtered in the very earliest days of the 20th century, fought with primitive land-behemoths and machine guns and killing gas. Past the early chapters, describing the rise of Emperor Adolph the First, who sought to forge in the fires of war and industry an empire that would last three thousand years. Past the chapters that saw the First of the Ladies, the Fortress, born in the factories of America, carried to Albion on sinews of vast sailing ships, spirits threading one and into the other to create the deadliest air-force in the history of man. She paused, looking at the few grainy photographs.
Dresden.
Coventry.
Stalingrad.
She paused, drawn in by Lane's lyric descriptions of the Alliance Forged in Hell, between the last great president of the United States and the despotic Atheist-Tzar, Joseph Stalin, then frowned and flipped back to the index. There she found the precise page she was looking for.
Midway.
Enterprise. Yorktown. Hornet. She frowned.
"Three ships," she whispered. "Hundreds of planes."
She looked up at the ceiling, and the gently swaying electric bulb.
"...one sunk."
It didn't make sense.
She closed the book and returned to the sleeping room. She laid down, holding the book in her hands, and tried to figure out how to ask what she wanted to ask – she knew Enterprise already had a volatile, flickering mood after her loss of control. But the question circled around and around in her head, while the pressure of the heavy textbook weighed her chest down. Nix closed her eyes and frowned.
If a spirit can make a plane from nothing – if a spirit can bring forth damage control teams from nothing – if a spirit can drop torpedoes from nothing…
Why bring the Yorktown to sink?
***
Weetamo crept along ancient tracks that had once wound through forests that now grew wildly. Completely out of control maize was spreading between every crack of the forest – competing and beating out other plants to create a confused and cluttered looking forest. The bright sun shone down on the backs of the burliest members of Nash's extended family as they walked ahead of Weetamo's cowcatcher, using machetes to hack away at the overgrowth that had pushed the ruined tracks from usable to unusable. The slowdown was intolerable to Nix, but Nash took it in stride. He lounged on the back of the train, rifle in his lap, sun shining down on his weathered face.
"You white men are always so worried about time," he said, shaking his head. "Cutting it into pieces, selling it off, measuring how much you can do by it." He gestured out around himself. "We have a fine day. Sun shines. Christ in her Heaven, you should at least try and enjoy it."
"My niece's life is on the line based on your time," Nix said, frowning.
Nash frowned and nodded. "True. But we're making better time through the Illotucky wilderness than anyone else. And, uh, we have to run through here." He jerked his chin. Nix craned her head and saw some of the younger kids were picking maize and tossing them into the cargo cabin. "Ever had popcorn?" he asked, curiously.
"Yes, at a carnival once," Nix said, a bit surprised. "But I don't suppose you have butter."
"We have cows. Now, they don't need milking, but…" Nash shrugged.
"I have butter," Enterprise said, then sat up. "Holy fucking shit, I got ice cream!"
"You have ice cream?" Nix asked, feeling that creepy cold dread in her gut again.
"Now that I haven't heard of in a long time," Nash said, grinning. "Had it once, when visiting Vejas. Most expensive half hour of my life, but I sure as hell enjoyed it."
"Well of course it was expensive, you were buying ice cream in a desert," Nix said, grinning at him.
"I was young and stupid," he said, amiably. Then, frowning. "Wait, you got ice cream? But, Weetamo has carried cattle and grain, fruit and veggies, guns and explosives, even some drugs." He cocked his head. "How come she can't pull that outta a hat?"
Nix blinked. She had been trying to think of how to ask Enterprise that, and Johnathan Nash had just brought it up like it was no big deal. Enterprise drew her knees up against her chest, looping her black and red painted arms around her shins. She frowned. "C-Cause I'm more complicated and more powerful n' shit."
Nash nodded his head. "Sure, fine. But Weetamo got stories from way back when, see. Back before the Fire. During the War, we carried a lot of guns and bullets and oil and iron and everything else you could think of, to help the war. Why move all that stuff here and there if a spirit could just whistle it up if it burned gasoline instead of coal?"
Enterprise glowered at him. "Do you want the fucking ice cream or not?" she snapped.
Nash arched an eyebrow. "You're an aircraft carrier. You don't have to be afraid of anything."
"I'm not afraid of shit!" Enterprise exclaimed, springing to her feet. "Fuck you, you goddamn old-"
"Well, now, um, ahem!" Nix said, springing to her feet. She took Enterprise's arm, tugging her gently, but firmly, away from the rather bemused looking Nash. She pulled her down until they were nearly at the caboose. Enterprise was panting, her turbines revving. "Enterprise, are you okay?" she asked. Enterprise glowered back at Nash.
"Fuckin'…" Enterprise fumed.
"Hey, come on, lets sit down." Nix said, gesturing. Enterprise harrumphed, then sat her butt down on the edge of the train, dangling her legs over the side. The warm sun shone along her muscular shoulders and Nix felt a twinge of eagerness – she wanted so badly to...work...on Enterprise, but...not now. That kind of work was delicate. It required care. And Enterprise was so clearly not ready. Nix sat down behind her, tucking her legs under her – her thick dungarees keeping her shins from scorching on the bare metal, which wasn't made to reflect away the sun's heat like the front of the train was. She squeezed Enterprise's shoulders, then began to rub her, thumbs circling along steel muscles and corded tendons made of banded cables.
Enterprise hung her head forward.
"You don't have to be afraid of yourself," Nix said, quietly.
"I'm not-"
"I saw your face, after Maryfort," Nix said, quietly. "You didn't want to hurt those people. And you're scared you might do it again, if you lose control."
Enterprise was quiet. She watched the trees and the wildflowers creep by – slightly slower than a human's walking pace. Her voice was soft. "I just saw you and...I...I remembered everyone I lost. A-All...all of them. So many." She was quiet. "Too many. It wasn't...it couldn't have just been in one battle, I didn't have that much crew…" Her eyes were soft. "It...I could remember something someone said…" She paused. "While eating chocolate...I am saddened by the thought that...I can no longer see my brothers…" She hesitated. "People die, Nix. They die and they go away forever. And we spirits, we...we keep going and going and going. And world keeps getting stranger and stranger."
Nix sighed. "Not many spirits get as...familiar with death as you do." Her hands slid down, around. She cupped her belly, drawing Enterprise into a tight hug. "The Ascension War must have been horrible."
"It was," Enterprise whispered. "The whole world was burning. They invaded China, they invaded Russia, they invaded France and...and fuckin' Belgium. Pearl Harbor got bombed. Everyone was mad about that. And it wasn't like the old wars, everyone said that. It wasn't just man fighting man. It was spirits gone crazy. There was this story that there was some...horrible thing in Poland and Ukraine, gobbling people up left and right, like…a cross between a fuckin' train and an sslaughter house." She shook her head. "We all went fucking insane, Nix. A-And...and...I'm scared…I don't…"
She lapsed into silence.
Nix considered. Then she smiled.
"Lets go sane then, for a bit."
She stood, then called to Nash. "Nash, you don't expect to go much faster for a while?"
"Nope!" He called back.
"Okay!" Nix called out.
She scrambled down the train, then dropped to the slowly moving ground. Enterprise gaped down at her.
Nix grinned. "Come on, Gray Ghost," she said – having looked up some of the spirit's sobriquets while reading the histories. "A walk in the forest would have done your crew well. Maybe it'll help with you."
"I'm a saltwater ship," Enterprise said, her voice wry. She hopped down – not even clambering, just dropping straight down to thump next to Nix.
"Even better. It'll be all new," Nix said, smiling.
***
Sunlight dappled through the trees, catching on some old beat up automobile that had run off the road and been abandoned. It had been stripped and whatever spirit it had had was long gone – dissipated into the world once more. Nix had once spoken to a spirit on that matter, and they didn't see it as dying the same way humans did. She slid her hands into her pockets, stepping over roots and rocks, while Enterprise looked at the trees, her eyes soft and wondering. "They used to make me out of these," she said, quietly.
Nix arched an eyebrow.
"...sorry, just…" Enterprise shook her head.
"Do all ships remember the old sailing ships?" Nix asked.
"Fuck...I can't explain it," Enterprise said. "I don't got the fucking fancy words for this shit. I only know three things: How to fuck up the Japanese, how to launch planes, and how to sail home." She sighed, then crossed her arms over her bare chest. "Sun feels nice on my decks though." She looked quietly off to the side. "My real body's at the bottom of the ocean, isn't it?"
Nix stepped over to the ruined automobile. Her palm brushed along rust, and a huge, thin limbed spider crawled through the back seats, which had split and peeled and rotted so long ago. The movement of the creature was silent and faintly condemnatory. Nix focused, trying to feel the spirit of the car. She felt a strange connection, something deep in her breast. But then it was gone, swept away in the long silence that had come to settle after the Fire.
Enterprise sighed. "The sun feels nice," she said.
"Good," Nix said.
"Fuck, man, tell me about something that isn't war," Enterprise whispered. She looked up at the trees, at the ways that the branches shifted in the wind. "Give me something, Nix."
Nix smiled, a little sadly. "In London, there is a pneumatic tube system so complicated that Lady Colossus oversees a large part of it. There's a clockwork garden, crafted by the best technologists and technicians of this era – with birds that move themselves and sing and dance. The spirits of that place are all brass and gold and beautiful and they recline in the shade and tell people stories about every famous person who has visited the place since it opened in the 20s. The previous 20s."
"Three hundred years?" Enterprise asked.
"...the second 20s," Nix said, then chuckled. Enterprise grinned.
"Three 20s," she said, shaking her head. "It's a bitch."
"There are underground railroads in every city, and airships on every trade wind, carrying food and goods around the world. We've rebuilt after the Fire, and...some people say it's even better." Nix shrugged. "There's something called the Apocalypse Clock that the Lady Colossus runs – general war is one, if another one stars, then a second Fire might come. But another is the Carbon Clock. All that coal and gas people burned back in the day started choking out the cities and the people. Well, Colossus has an exacting formulae, down to the littlest T and dotted I to make sure every carbon we put up in a burner is put back in the ground with trees and shrubs." She smirked. "It helps we use atomic steam engines for most things now. I...I like those clocks. They keep us on time, you know?"
Enterprise nodded, then breathed in. She sat down against a tree, skidding down the branches with a creaking crackle, popping some bark off without noticing – metal beat wood. She looked at Nix and said, quietly. "Do you want that ice cream?"
"Yeah, I want some ice cream," Nix said, walking over.
Enterprise reached out and, without fanfare, was holding out a small bowl of ice cream, complete with spoon. It was neapolitan bright and multicolored. Nix grinned and sat on the grass next to Enterprise, near some wildflowers and a single stalk of maize. "You know, I only eat the cherry, right?"
"Oh fuckin' boo hoo," Enterprise said, smirking. "That's how they knew they were beaten, ya know. Cause we had a whole fucking ice cream ship and they didn't have shit."
Nix nodded, then scooped, popping the ice cream into her mouth. She tasted it, savored it, cocked her head. "It's good," she said, smiling. "Thank you."
"Thanks," Enterprise said. She closed her eyes. "Tell me what it tastes like."
"Hmm?"
"We spirits don't eat, and I'm two hundred years old, I get to ask."
Nix considered. "It's...a light flavor, with kind of a sharp edge to it. It started off a little tangy, but the cold mellows that out. Then once it warms up and starts...melting along your tongue, the full flavor unfolds, like...a flower." She paused. Enterprise nodded – as bees buzzed around her, momentarily confused by her bright red landing strip. They zipped off once they had determined she was no flower. Nix drew her knee up, resting her chin on it, and regarded the ship.
"Enterprise," she said, quietly. "I have a question."
"Ask away," Enterprise said.
"Why did they bring the Yorktown to Midway?" she asked.
"Cause we had to fight the Japanese Imperial fuckin' Navy?" Enterprise asked.
"Yeah, but you were able to conjure airplanes out of thin air," Nix said, gently. "You could do it right now. Couldn't you? The ordinance that hit Maryfort was real – those torpedoes were still there after you snapped out of your...state. If you can make ordinance-"
"Fuck, I don't know!" Enterprise exclaimed.
"No memories at all?" Nix asked.
"Shit, I...fuck!" Enterprise stood up. She started pacing. "Okay, you know what? I...I…" She paced faster now, back and forth, back and forth. "...I'm gonna say something and I want you to take it serious. I d-don't want any no 'you're being silly, Enterprise, you're just worrying over nothing', no...no fucking...pets on your head, nothing like that. Cause if I said this shit to a technician back then, they'd…" She trembled.
"They'd try and fix you, even if nothing was broken," Nix said, gently. She stirred her ice cream. Cherry, vanilla and chocolate ran together.
Enterprise nodded.
"You have my promise, Enterprise," Nix said, looking up from the bowl, into her eyes. "I will never touch you without your permission. I don't work for a government or an army. I fix machines because...the world's full of broken things. And I like seeing them whole."
Enterprise nodded, jerkily. "Okay."
Quiet started to fall throughout the forest – the faint tweeting of birds. The buzzing of insects. Off in the distance, just barely visible, the flash of brown and white fur showed a herd of deer, slipping through the forest like ghosts. Enterprise closed her eyes. She breathed in, then out. Her turbines whirred quietly.
"I don't think I'm the Enterprise," she whispered.
Nix frowned, slightly. "Do you think you're the Yorktown?"
"No," she whispered. "I don't think I'm any of the carriers. I think...I...I can make ice cream. I can make fucking ice cream. I have a hospital deck! I have...I have…" She put her hands on her face, rubbing her palms slowly. "I have sonar. I can feel it, bubbling in my fucking head." She hissed through her fingers. "W-What am I!? I'm not a ship or a plane or a-"
Crack.
The sound of a branch snapping jerked Nix and Enterprise – or whoever she was – away from each other and to the sound. Bright, golden-brown eyes peered from the shadows. Enterprise dropped to a crouch, hissing to Nix. "It's not human!"
The two golden blinked, then the figure stepped back and turned to run.
Nix, heart in her throat, swore. "An automaton!" She sprang to her feet, rushing forward. She had to get close to her, to stop her before she got too far – or too high. An automaton might have hooked themselves to a telephone, combining their abilities so that they could communicate to one another. Or they might have a semaphore signal somewhere. Nix ducked around a tree, sprinting as hard as she could while behind her, she heard the woosh of Enterprise taking to the air. The figure she was chasing after dove into shadows – and something about them flashed the back of Nix's brain. Wrong. Something was off.
They were too small.
She put on an extra burst of speed. The figure squeezed between two trees and Nix darted around – and then yelped as she caught her foot on a root. She flipped forward, smashed face first into soft loam, scrambled to her feet, shook her head and then saw the figure sprinting straight down some shadowed hills. She hurried after, hit the hill, skidded down along a cascading wave of leaves.
"Wait!" she shouted. "I'm not angry! I just want to talk!"
The figure darted into some brushes.
Nix ran after.
The brushes opened and she found herself suddenly standing right at the edge of a sharp drop off. There was a circular lake below, bright blue and deep and clear. The lake had a nearly perfect shape to it, and buried deep in the water was the rusted hulks of machinery. Nix flailed her arms wildly, then screamed and fell right over the edge. She plunged towards the water – then grunted as a hand grabbed onto the back of her collar.
"Gotcha!" Enterprise snarled.
Nix dangled over the water, then yelped as Enterprise swung her and dropped her – Nix's feet hit the rough, gravel beach surrounding the lake. She recognized it now. A pit lake. The water filling in a long abandoned mine. She looked around, wildly, and saw the figure peeking over the edge of the cliff, peering down at the two of them. Those bright, bright eyes were full of fear. They started to draw back.
"Wait!" Nix begged, scrambling forward, holding out her hands. "Wait, wait, wait, I'm not angry. I'm not mad. Just please, talk to me." She smiled. "I-I'm a technician. You're a spirit." She licked her lips, dry and cracked. "We can talk."
The golden eyes returned. The voice that called down spoke English with a strange accent – it sounded like she hadn't spoken English as her first or second language, but she had learned it so long ago that most of the fingerprints were worn away. What was left was something lilting and smooth, almost...sing song.
"You aren't supposed to be here!"
"And why is that?" Nix asked. "The Nash clan comes through."
"They stay in the rails...they don't come out here."
"Who build you?" Nix asked, biting her lip. "You're not an automaton, an adding engine, right? Are you...are you the spirit of this mine?"
The golden eyes blinked. "She's long gone, techie."
Nix frowned. "Come out. We don't bite."
"I can bite…" Enterprise muttered.
"Enterprise, don't be mean," Nix said.
The spirit shook her head. "Big rule. Don't be seen. Sorry." She drew back, slowly. Nix frowned, then called out.
"Do you at least have people we can talk too?"
There was a long pause.
Those golden eyes came back. Shyly, she spoke. "Only some. Strong Falcon. Mr. Smith. Miss Wong. You know. The ones that know me. But they say that technicians are all bad and scary. But you don't seem scary. You seemed really nice with that clanker there."
"Clanker!" Enterprise harrumphed.
"Can you tell us where, um, any of these people are?" Nix asked. "I can talk to them, maybe?"
"Do we have too?" Enterprise muttered.
Nix whispered back. "Any allies we can get are good – and this spirit is running wild in the wilderness. That means we might run into her more – who knows how far she roams?"
"Pretty far. M'yup." The spirit called down from the bushes.
"...and she has good hearing," Nix said, her voice wry. "So, maybe lay off the grumbling, Enterprise?"
Enterprise grumbled, even quieter. Her arms crossed over her chest, while Nix looked up at the bushes, shading her eyes. She could just barely see the spirit hiding in the bushes – a slender, female form. But she was definitely muddy or blunted somehow. Even the crudest animate spirit from the creakiest, oldest train would have enough glint and glimmering to catch and reflect sunlight back. She couldn't be all wood and grass, she was too complicated to be a sailing ship or water wheel or something. Nix licked her lips with a nervous thrill.
"So, is that...does that sound good?"
"Mmm...mmmaybe…" The spirit was hesitating. "But last time white folks asked to meet my people, a lot of them...went away." She was quiet for a bit. "You're not like them, right?"
Nix shook her head. "I'm not a cowboy, here to shoot red Indians," she said. "I'm just traveling through."
"They're not Indians! They're Oglala, of the Lakota people. And if you try and shoot any of 'em, I'll sting you to death with a thousand knives!" The spirit sounded downright terrified. Nix held up her hands, placating.
"I promise!" she said.
"Prove it, then." The spirit shifted. "Throw the Colt in the lake."
Nix blinked. "B-But, I...I'm gonna…" she paused, weighing her options. The technician in her was growing more and more fascinated. Quietly, she whispered to Enterprise. "Can you give me a firearm once we're out of here?"
Enterprise grunted.
Nix nodded. "All right," she said.
She reached down, and slowly, gently, pulled her Colt out of the holster, then tossed it into the lake. She winced internally – but she knew that the spirit of her Colt would sleep well in those deep waters, slowly seeping into the surrounding world, returning to where all spirits came from. In the way the spirits saw things, they'd be back. Sooner or later. Somehow. She looked back up at the cliffside. "There, see? Not going to shoot anyone."
"Hmm." The spirit paused. "You travel with Nash?"
"Yes, we do," Nix said.
Those golden eyes narrowed. "Okay. I'm coming down."
The bushes rustled, then crackled. Enterprise tensed, her fists clenching, while Nix smiled, as warmly and politely as she could. The spirit took a switchback down the steep cliff – once used by miners, Nix was sure, and left to molder over the centuries between the Fire and now. The brushes had overgrown so much that all Nix could see was the faint outline of a humanoid shape. Then...a bit of bushes shifted and a bramble peeked out. It was like the spirit was still using leaves as a hat, to cover her head as she peered out at the pair of them. That impression lasted until the spirit stepped fully from around the bushes and Nix's jaw dropped.
The spirit was about as tall as Nix was, but slender as a reed, with smallish breasts, waspish hips, and slightly too long fingers. Her hair was a wild, tight curl and she had the facial features of a spirit that was made of a complex, intricate machine.
But other than that, everything about her was wrong.
Her skin was green. The soft, leaf green of a freshly growing tree, or grass shooting up in a the wild. Her hair was not metal but rather twisted branches and flowering leaves. She trailed petals as she walked. Her feet were covered in a thin layer of bark, and her eyes were so clearly humanoid – not the lenses and gleaming clockwork that Enterprise or Weetamo might use. She smiled slightly as she stood before the pair of them.
"Hello," she said.
Nix shook her head slowly."What...what are you?"
"A spirit," she said, simply.
"B-But spirits are machines," Nix whispered.
The spirit shrugged. She started to do a little skip dance, her voice a soft sing song. "They planted me in the dawn. They tended me in the evening. They sang to me and I flowered. Work the land, work the land, hold my hand…" She stopped, then turned and started to walk towards Enterprise, frowning. "What is she? A clanker? A big old ship? Humm!" She shook her head. "Don't like her."
"Hey!" Enterprise said.
Nix shook her head. "I don't understand," she said.
"The First People made me," she said. "They called me...something…" She frowned. "I want to say...Makhá? But no. No. That's wrong. That's something else. They named me, and made me. I was here, when you came." She frowned. "I gave you everything, and you took my people from me." She crossed her arms over her chest. "And those little gardens Mr. Roosevelt made for me were not good enough!"
Nix took a half step back, then sagged, then dropped onto her buttocks, unable to keep her weight, her knees having turned to water. Makhá, for lack of a better name to call her, cocked her head and leaned forward, peering at Nix curiously. "Is she all right?" she asked.
"I don't get it either," Enterprise said, then frowned. "You knew FDR?"
Standing above the cooling body of Mr. Jeremiah, Sister Zimmerman knew, with utter clarity, that she was right. She turned her gaze from him to Miss Young. The Mechanical Turk, clinging her arm to her chest, had fired several shots into the air, but at least one had been planted in Marion Nixon's back. Enterprise, the spirit that was the future of America, had collected Nixon into her arms. Behind her mask, Zimmerman snarled under her breath. She reached out, to speak.
"Wait-"
But then Enterprise was gone, streaking off at a speed no mortal could take, legs pumping.
As she fled, Zimmerman felt her scared flesh whirring and clicking – retracting and enfolding the holy fire of the Lady Trinity in lead jacketing. The weight of her lead lined robes and the weight of her flesh both had worked together to give Zimmerman the musculature it took to carry them, but she knew that they would also slow her down. She had brute strength and quick, snapping speed. Not the marathon sprint ti would take to catch up with Enterprise. And so, she considered her options, discarded some, and found the thread that would take her to where she needed to go.
She turned to Miss Young and started to stride towards her. But despite her broken arm, the Mechanical Turk had reloaded a single round into her revolver.
"That will not stop my-"
Miss Young planted the barrel to the side of her head. Her eyes, fierce behind her glasses, flashed. "Stop right there," she said, flatly.
Zimmerman stopped.
"I have read the dossier on you, Zimmerman," Miss Young said. "You are a pederast and a lesbian-"
"I have never touched a child!" Zimmerman growled.
"-and while you still cling to your faith, you have been stripped of all but your implants and robes. Furthermore…" She drew back the hammer on her revolver. "You have a weakness for pretty ladies. Now. Either, you can let me leave this place and make good on your escape. Or I can shoot myself and leave my corpse pointing directly to you. The police are coming, and every second you spend weighing the decision is another second that the cordon will catch you."
Zimmerman grunted. "For a limey bitch, you are...well, not clever. But bold. I'll give you that."
Under the cold voice and glasses, those eyes were wild and wide. Miss Young was clearly in a great deal of pain. Zimmerman wasn't sure her threat entirely worked on her...but she did weigh the options and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. She grinned behind her mask.
"I will be seeing you later, Miss Young. You and your Turks."
She stepped back, turned, then ran, her robes fluttering heavily around her.
Miss Young lowered her pistol.
And she shot Zimmerman in the back.
Zimmerman staggered, stumbled, then continued to run – darting around the corner before the second bullet pinged off the masonry.
***
Burned York's air-port was situated near it's sea-port, and both were relatively slow, laid back places. Still, Zimmerman waited until the evening had brought its darkness – and the police overhead had quieted and their searchlights had dimmed. They were still seeking her in the city, she was sure of it, but they were looking for a quite distinctive Radwalker, with robes and mask. They wouldn't be searching for a man in dungarees and a broad tunic. She knew that on close inspection her face wouldn't pass for mannish, and she knew she would need to do penance for breaking the Order's minor vows. But, well...it wasn't as if this had been her first time.
She walked towards the smallish warehouse, ducking into the side alleyway and coming upon a set of stairs that went up the building's wall to its second level. There was a door there and a bored man with a cigarette dangling between his lips. He glanced at her, then did a double take. "Wait-" he started, stepping from the door, but Zimmerman had no time to waste. She castigated the unbeliever – knuckles, hardened by years of effort into iron, drove into his belly. Air gushed from his lungs, his sinful cigarette fell to the grating. Then with a sound no louder than a sparrow fluttering under God's eyes, she drove his head into the wall. He did not die...she was fairly sure. But he did lay still as she put her hand on the knob of the door and tried it.
It was not locked.
Good.
Genevieve remained as arrogant as ever.
When she stepped into the offices of the warehouse, the faint sound of workmen shifting crates and calling out to one another was muted by walls. Instead, the nearest sound was a phonograph playing some European music that Zimmerman neither recognized nor cared about. There were two more guards, both of them in far sharper outfits. It indicated to Zimmerman that Genevieve was busy, likely with something important. No matter. She watched the guards from the shadows, considering her options. They lacked heavy weapons – only pistols, revolver – but she lacked her armoring robes. She could use her implants but...hmm…
Then the door opened and a tall, ruddy faced man emerged, his voice gruff and grumbling. "If my product," he said, in a drawling American accent that marked him from the complacent South and, thus, her enemy. "Cannot move through your people, then we have nothing more to discuss."
"If you really feel that way..." Genevieve's voice was cool and calm. "But I would say that keeping two thirds is better than keeping nothing."
The man half turned, then shook his head. Without even responding, he stormed to the door. One of the two men followed him. One guard was far more approachable. Zimmerman smiled and then moved with the same quiet she had learned in the wilderness of the great, free West. Her shoes were aided by the thick carpeting on the floor and by the guard more intent on watching his alternate leave. She got to him, then slipped past him, closing the door with a quiet click, all before he could glance her way.
Genevieve reminded Zimmerman of an elegant blade: Her cheeks were sharp, her hair cut short and tight around her head, almost man-fashion. Her wrinkles had begun to set in around the corners of her eyes, the edges of her lips. Her neck was long and slender and kissable, and her skin was the milk pale of the truly divine. Her hair had once been black, so the silver shooting through it gave her a gunmetal sheen. Zimmerman remained in the doorway, simply admiring her, as a painter admires the natural world of God.
"Yes, Burke, what-" Genevieve lifted her head. She froze, and those pale brown eyes transfixed Zimmerman. Confusion. Then recognition.
Then fury.
"You," she hissed.
Zimmerman inclined her head. "Miss Chapel," she said.
Genevieve sprang to her feet. "Guards!"
The door opened and a muffled oath came from behind Zimmerman. A gun pressed to her back.
"Miss Chapel, I only came to beg of you a favor," Zimmerman said, her hands raised.
"You?" Genevieve asked. "You came to beg of me a favor, Zimmerman?" Her teeth snarled. "After what you did?"
"God asks us all to carry burdens that-"
"You fucked my daughter!" Genevieve slammed her palms into the desk. "You fucked her! For two years at that damn convent! I sent her there to keep her safe and you dyke bitch, you fucked her!"
Zimmerman whispered. "I did protect her, too."
"Oh my-" Genevieve put her hand over her face, rubbing her palm. "Shoot her now."
"Wait, wait, wait," Zimmerman said, her voice firm. "I know that you may never forgive me – I was led astray by…" She cut off her voice just in time. She was going to explain how things were from her perspective – how Mary Chapel had been such a pure, sweet girl. At eighteen, she had been luminous, angellike. She had struck Zimmerman the instant she had arrived – awakening in her a burning fire as hot as the Trinity tests – and Zimmerman had done all she could. She had prayed, thrown herself into liturgical studies. She had even volunteered for missions beyond the convent, but every time she would come home and...Mary would fascinate her still. She had then promised, after their first time together, that she would not touch her again, only to come back again and again, addicted.
Instead, she focused on the here and now. On what might convince this dangerous woman – a woman that Zimmerman only knew through the shadows she had cast on the convent's maps, on the lips of the Sister Superior, on the face of her own daughter.
"...I was led astray by my base lusts," Zimmerman lied. "Sin and vice weigh heavy on my soul. That is why I went to the Sisterhood. But I don't come to make excuses for myself, Miss Chapel. I come to tell you of something of vital importance."
"Oh?" Genevieve asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"The police search. It was for me."
Genevieve's smile grew slowly sharper. "Was it now."
"And for a spirit," Zimmerman continued.
Genevieve's brow furrowed. That, it seemed, was not where she expected the conversation to go. She leaned forward. "What kind of spirit?"
Zimmerman knew, then, that she and her Holy Land, blessed by the Virgin and Jefferson both, had been Saved. She smiled and leaned back in her seat. Genevieve watched her through hooded eyes, her pointer fingers tapping against one another again and again. Zimmerman did notice that she had long, fashionable fingernails – save for two on her right hand, her pointer and middle finger. Her lips quirked slightly. So, it seemed...hmm..
Later. Later.
Zimmerman began from the beginning. "The Mechanical Turks hired me as an agent – being without funds and a place to stay since my Order cast me out. They needed muscle. I have plenty." She lifted an arm and flexed. Genevieve shifted in her seat, her thighs pressing together under the table. "As your organization wasn't likely to hire me after the...incident…at the Order, well, I did not have many choices. The English do not take kindly to Radwalkers."
"These Mechanical Turks, I've never heard of them," Genevieve said, frowning. "They're not a criminal organization. They're not a gentleman's club are they?" Her voice dripped into a mocking Limey accent, turning gentleman's club into an oath stronger than anything Zimmerman might have used.
"They paid well, that was all that mattered at the time," Zimmerman said. "I soon saw they were decidedly connected to the Empire, but I wasn't sure how. Then they had me and this little stripling of a technician, Marion Nixon-" That got an eyebrow twitch from the other woman "-capture a Spirit. But it was no mere...adding machine or train." She leaned forward on the armrests of her chair. Her voice grew husky. "Have you ever heard the name of Enterprise?"
Genevieve's eyebrows shot up. "The Gray Ghost?" she whispered.
Zimmerman nodded. "There with Sherman, Doolittle, Trinity herself – legends from when God's Kingdom ruled the earth, and not the sinful pagantry that is practiced in the Empire, not this...Anglican mockery that was formed to make divorce not a sin and to spit in the eye of God. They might as well be fucking Catholics!" She shook her head. "But...no. It was Enterprise. I saw it with my own eyes. Her power, she could fly, Genevieve. Fly like the Imperial Guard's own prop planes. She could see things no mortal or spirit could see – radar, Marion Nixon called it. She was like...she was…" Words failed Zimmerman as she recalled the curvaceous form of the spiritess...even calling her a spirit felt close to sacrilege. Were she strong enough to do all that, was she not closer to a Lady true? Zimmerman closed her eyes, then sagged back into her seat.
"Good god," Genevieve whispered. "Good god. Where is she? What did the Turks do-" She came up short. "The shootout in New Trafalgar Park, that was you wasn't it?"
Zimmerman opened her eyes and smirked a bit. "The Spirit moved through me, Miss Chapel. Alas, Enterprise fled – but she did not flee in the arms of our oppressors, thank God."
Genevieve tapped those fingers together again. "This changes everything," she said, softly. "I'll have my men in the Colonial Affairs board start checking on what the Imperials know…" She frowned. "But do you know where Enterprise has gone?"
"I have an inkling," Zimmerman said. "Marion Nixon was being controlled by his niece. Find her, and you find where he will be fleeing."
Genevieve frowned. "And now, I have one question. Why should I not have you shot? You've given me the information – why keep a mad dog bitch like you around?" Her lips curled as she sneered at Zimmerman. "It's not as if anyone would miss you."
Zimmerman sat in stillness. She smiled, warmly, truly. "Then I will die, Miss Chapel, having brought salvation to the Holy Land, America, to a woman most well suited to ensure the victory and freedom of God's Chosen people from the heathen British."
Genevieve snorted. She reached into the desk, then pulled out a small revolver. She aimed it directly at Zimmerman's head. Her thumb played along the revolver's hammer, her finger resting on the trigger. Zimmerman did not move.
"I always wondered...do you actually believe that bullshit you spit out?" the older woman asked. "How could you when you're dyking it up with every teenager you can get your hands on at that convent? Diddling them…" Her tongue slid along her lips slowly. "Are you a hypocrite, or are you a liar?"
"We all exist in a state of sin. Only God knows if we are in Grace – and only through her will might we find it. I can but pray that I die in such a state," Zimmerman said. But she put her hands on the armrests, and slowly stood. "However, if you are going to shoot me dead, I would prefer it be while I stand. I wouldn't wish to seem lazy for such a beautiful, dignified woman."
"The sheer fucking gall of you," Genevieve whispered, the pistol aimed at Zimmerman's chest now, rather than her head. "You're flirting with me?"
Zimmerman chuckled. "Liar and hypocrite? Mmm, maybe. But a sin I know I definitely have in abundance is vainglory. But God has not seen fit to cut me down for it yet – and so…"
Genevieve lowered her pistol, frowning. "She still writes of you, you know?"
Zimmerman managed, through great effort of will, to not smirk.
"Get out of my sight," Genevieve said, the barrel of her pistol resting on the felt green spread of her desk. "If I see you again-"
"You will praise God, for I will be here to bring wrath upon the heads of your enemies, Miss Chapel," Zimmerman said, bowing her head to the other woman. "I am sure you would not be so foolish as to turn aside my righteous fury before setting out on this field of battle."
Silence.
"Sheer fucking gall," Genevieve whispered. Then, louder. "Burke. Put this lunatic in the room farthest from everyone. Near the Trinity shrine." Burke stepped into the room behind Zimmerman, taking her arm with a frown. "She's hot."
"...hot, boss?" Burke asked.
"Radioactive," Genevieve spelled it out. Burke released Zimmerman immediately and shuffled away.
***
Zimmerman knelt in her room, head bowed, and prayed. Despite the words bandied about downstairs, she did not pray halfheartedly, nor mock God in her mind. God had brought forth Trinity by showing the divine visions to the Prophet Oppenheimer. He had spoken the holy words and his apostles had seen them made. Sainted Kenneth Bainbridge had said the words: Now, we're all sons of bitches.
And those words rang true, deep in Zimmerman's chest.
She was sinful. She was vile. She was tempted by feminine flesh. She betrayed her oaths to keep pure those under her charge. She killed. She hurt. And she still bore the blessing of Trinity – but why? Why had Christ given her this power and this burden? She didn't know.
And so, she prayed.
And like it so often did, her prayers – once finished – shifted. In her mind's eye, she could see the barrel of that revolver aimed right at her head, held by the gloriously beautiful Genevieve. She could hear her speaking: So, you fucked my daughter, hmm?
And oh...oh...oh…
Oh Zimmerman could remember the taste of Mary Chapel. She had tempted Zimmerman from the moment her autocarriage had arrived at the Convent and she had been put through her baptism and rebirth, casting aside her ties to the outer world. It was only a temporary oath, just until the danger looming over her head had passed as the daughter of the head of the American Mafia. But she took her duties seriously and been so warm. She had seen Zimmerman's scars during the communal bathing and asked her of them. She had wanted to see her implants. Zimmerman could remember those dainty, unblemished fingers, tracing the wires and circuitry of her body.
In her mind's eyes, she could see the echoes of mother and daughter – and the revolver barrel pressed to her lips. She parted them, licking the barrel.
I can blow your brains out right now…
Zimmerman groaned aloud. Her hands tightened against her thighs. The urge to reach between her legs, to find the blazing furnace of her lust and stoke it, stoke it, stoke it – she shook her head, opening her eyes. The vision scattered and she whispered. "Amen, my Lord God."
She went to bed, then laid down upon it. She could only sleep on her back, as her arm implants worried at her fiercely. She had once loved sleeping on her side. Now, she closed her eyes, clasped her palms over her belly, and closed her eyes. She breathed, slowly…and wondered: Who was Genevieve calling? She had to be using her telephones and her suborned spirits to reach out to other people. Even now, she could imagine the patchwork alliance of Americans that were made criminals in their own homes were now rushing hither and thon, preparing to-
The door opened.
Zimmerman did not rouse. She opened a single eye, to a thin slit.
A slender, willowy figure stood in the doorway, watching her. She was silhouetted by the electric light outside, though the bar of illumination fell only on Zimmerman's ankles. She reached up and the light clicked off, plunging room and doorway into shadow. Slowly, Zimmerman's eyes adapted to what thin moonlight and starlight crept in through the equally small window of the cheap, crappy room. The willowy figure was surely Genevieve. She had no pistol, at least. No knife to slit Zimmerman's throat.
Then, quietly.
"Do you know what unholy Hell you've unleashed on us all?"
Zimmerman sat up. "What is it?"
The door shut and Genevieve walked over to the bed. She thrust something crinkling into Zimmerman's chest, then yanked on the bare electric bulb the room had for light. Zimmerman winced, then read the paper she had been given. It was a short missive, sent by telegram, and had the perfect shape of a Spirit written word.
CONFIRMED DESTINATION, LONDON STOP
SIGNAL SENT ON CABLE 1 END
"Cable 1," Zimmerman said.
"That's the cable that runs to Colossus directly!" Genevieve hissed, furiously. "You stupid cow-bitch!" She grabbed onto Zimmerman's arm, shaking her. "The Mechanical Turks work for the Lady Colossus herself! They have the power of a goddamn Goddess on their side! You're lucky if we can keep our heads down!"
Zimmerman grabbed her wrist, sitting up more, glaring into those fearful, beautiful eyes. Her wrist was slender under her rough palm. Genevieve worked her will through men and machines – not with her arm. Zimmerman demonstrated. She stood and pushed Genevieve away from her, the bulb swaying overhead. Her back pressed to the wall and her arm pinned over her head – her eyes widening in shock. Zimmerman grunted. "It's been a while since you've been under a threat that can touch you, huh?" She asked.
"You idiot," Genevieve breathed. "I have two guards outside with tommy guns."
"And I did not bring this Hell to you, no more than General Groves did," Zimmerman hissed. "Do you cower at the first sign of danger, Gen?"
"Gen!" Genevieve spat. "Next, you might ask me to call you Zim!"
"Ven would be more appropriate," Zimmerman said, smirking.
Genevieve shook her head, then actually laughed. "Fine! Ven! You think we can just brazen our way out against a goddess that can think the future into being?"
"Yes," Zimmerman said, flatly. "For God is on our side."
Genevieve's nose was flaring. She was breathing in Zimmerman's scent, Zimmerman could tell it. "Let me go," she said, quietly. "And we can discuss how we're going to handle this."
"No," Zimmerman said, smirking down at her.
"No?" She asked.
Thy sin is vainglory, Zimmerman thought as her mouth found Genevieve's. The older woman struggled against her grip, her wrist pushing against Zimmerman's palm. Her other hand grabbed onto Zimmerman's hip, pushing, but her tongue and her mouth, oh they were more welcoming. She tilted her head, then...she bit down on Zimmerman's lip. Pain flared, as glorious as a scourge. The spark-hot pressure of her teeth released Zimmerman and she drew back. Red shimmered on Genevieve's lips and she panted, raggedly. "Fucking gall," she hissed. "I can have you shot."
"You keep saying that, but you haven't spoken above a whisper." Zimmerman snaked an arm around the other woman's back, releasing her wrist so that her palm could cradled her hair, fingers working through her silvery, gunmetal-gray frizz. She cupped the back of the other woman's head, then leaned forward. This time, when Genevieve bit her, it was with a gentleness, a quiet moan. Her hands grabbed onto Zimmerman's hips, and when they drew apart, panting, Genevieve was clinging to Zimmerman, her knees quivering.
"Fuck you…" she whispered.
"Mmm," Zimmerman chuckled. God, had once more, shown her the way to sin. She should spurn the softness of her flesh, focus herself on prayer. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed her again.
Genevieve makes an extremely poor decision, vias via her hirelings
When they broke apart, the only word on Genevieve's lips…
"Ven…" She tilted her head back as Zimmerman kissed her throat, licked the thundering beat of her pulse. She nipped her, then kissed down her collar as the older woman arched her back, pressing her chest against Zimmerman's chin and cheek as she bent herself almost in half. Those big rough hands of hers had trouble with buttons. They always did...and for a moment, Zimmerman wasn't holding Genevieve, or even her daughter, Mary. No. She was holding that dark eyed beauty, contemptuous and British. Her elegant voice, sneering, contemptuous. Her body, concealed beneath men's clothing...
Nix.
Zimmerman tugged and a button or two went skittering along the wood paneled floor.
"This shirt costs more than you make in a year you-" Genevieve hissed. More buttons popped. With intention. As her shirt slithered over her narrow, bony shoulders, Genevieve panted quietly, then gasped as Zimmerman caught her breasts. Her palms were large enough that she could cradle them fully, rolling those hard, jutting nipples. She was wrinkled, dignified with age. She had survived so much – there was a puckered bullethole here, there. She hadn't always been behind a desk. As Zimmerman tugged those nipples, Genevieve put her hand over her mouth, capturing her moan and hiding it away from a world that couldn't understand her.
Zimmerman could understand it. She leaned forward and kissed her neck. Her breasts. Her nipples. As she sucked on one, then the other, Genevieve shook her head, whispering. "N-Not here, not...not like...ah, d-damn it, you brute, I'm not young enough for these gymnastics!"
Ah.
Yes.
Zimmerman swept her arms underneath the slender woman. She laid her upon the bed. The floorboards creaked and Genevieve worked quickly. She kicked her stockings off, her shoes. She pushed her skirts aside, revealing her dainty panties. Her sopping wet cunt kissed the fabric – which clung to her. Laying down, the pressure that gravity and struggle had had on her body was lessened. For a moment, in the harshness of the light and the glimmering lust of Zimmerman's eyes...she was like her daughter. She tugged her own shirt up and over her head.
"...did those hurt?" Genevieve asked.
Her voice was cold and cutting, where Mary's had been gentle. Still, the echoing words made Zimmerman grin slightly.
"IF they didn't hurt." Her hand slid along the heavy brass inset into her flesh, touching where scar met metal. "Then they would not function, Gen."
"God, you are a brute of a woman…" Genevieve murmured. "Your parents named you well. Vengeance. Brutal and- mmph!" She gasped as Zimmerman placed her palm on her cheek, thrust her thumb into her mouth. Genevieve sucked gently on her, her eyes half closed.
"You talk too much, Genevieve," Zimmerman crooned. "More than your daughter did."
The bite didn't even hurt too much. Her flashing, furious eyes drew Zimmerman like a lodestone. She leaned forward, and she kissed her, then kissed her throat, then kissed her breasts, then kissed the belly – where Mary had come from, after all – then kissed the inside of her thigh. The wild snarl of grayish pubic hair and the scent of her cunt drew Zimmerman down. Her tongue thrust into her and Genevieve gasped, her hips bucking. Her back arched and one leg looped around the back of Zimmerman's head, cradling her with her calf. She groaned and whispered. "G-Goddamn...ah...you eat carpet better than half the silly little sluts my boys bring me…" She panted.
Zimmerman kissed her clit, then drew back. "And you called me a predator-"
"Shut up, bitch," Genevieve snapped, grabbing onto Zimmerman's hair, shoving her down. Zimmerman obliged, thrusting her tongue deep into the older woman's cunt, tasting the gush of flavor that tickled down her tongue. Genevieve panted and gasped, bucking her hips again and again, making the bed springs squeal and squeak. The guards outside, Zimmerman was sure, were practicing a sudden and quite remarkable deafness.
Still, Genevieve bit the back of her wrist, quivering as her climax rushed towards her, coaxed along not just by Zimmerman's tongue and her lips, but by two of her fingers, thrusting deep into her cunt, crooking up, rubbing. A warm flood of her juice splashed onto Zimmerman's tongue, her cheeks, her chin. She drank and drank deeply.
When she pulled away, Genevieve panted raggedly. "Goddamn…" she whispered.
Zimmerman smirked at her.
"So, next-"
"Mmm...there is no next," Genevieve said.
Zimmerman blinked.
The other woman swung her legs over the bed, planting them down. She did not risk a fall by standing. Instead, she lifted her head, licking her lips. "I am going to get dressed and I am going to sleep in my bed and you are going to stay like a good dog. Or I will put you down."
Zimmerman listened to her – and with her cuntjuice on her tongue, she had a thought…
A feeling…
Genevieve was deadly serious.
Zimmerman tensed. Her voice was a low growl. "You're just going to leave me?"
"Yes," Genevieve said, looking down at her wrist. There was already a bruise beginning to form on her wrist, where her teeth had muffled her own moan. She let out a quiet tsk. "If we're going to weather this storm, I suppose I will need a maniac like you. But I know what you did to...that..Jeremiah Stone fellow. I know what happens when you think you are in charge." She looked at Zimmerman. "You eat my cunt, dog. You lick my cunt. You do not give orders. Understood?"
Zimmerman opened her mouth, then closed it.
She felt a furious urge to pin this bitch down and show her what she could do with these muscles and fists and fingers and...and...she didn't have her strap. She could improvise. The image of Genevieve, broken as much by pleasure as by strength, was intoxicating. But...the image of her own body riddled with bullet holes was quite a bit stronger. She let out a little snort.
"Understood," she said.
"Good, Ven," Genevieve said, freighting Zimmerman's given name with...a strange mixture of emotions. AN alchemy of derision and lust, scorn and fear. She stood, now, finally able to get her knees underneath her. "Kiss my ass, Ven."
Zimmerman blinked. Genevieve was looking over her shoulder, and her smirk was cold.
"Prove you can follow all my orders, and I won't have you shot," she said. "Besides. I think you'd enjoy it, you little western pervert."
Zimmerman grunted. She leaned forward and planted a kiss upon one of Genevieve's buttocks. She nuzzled her skin. Still downy soft, with only a few wrinkles here and there, adding character. There was a narrow, pale scar above her ass, where she had been quite literally stabbed in the back. Zimmerman pulled away as Genevieve grabbed onto her discarded clothing – bending down without too much effort. Zimmerman took note of that.
She tugged on her shirt, tugged up her skirts, and tossed her stockings over her shoulder. She stepped to the door, then paused there.
Quietly.
"...did you love my daughter, or did you just fuck her?"
Zimmerman pursed her lips. "I don't know," she said, her voice feeling heavy in the room.
Genevieve nodded, slightly. "A better answer than I expected. Brute."
She closed the door after her.
The next morning, the Hundred and First were hired at great expense by Genevieve Chapel. And, wearing thick robes and a broad brimmed hat, her face unmasked by all save for a pair of thick sunglasses, Vengeance Zimmerman came to a dock where a motorboat waited, with extra fuel and a chipper, smiling spirit on the prow with the same bright white coloration as the motorboat. The steam engine ticked quietly as the crew watched Zimmerman step aboard. One of them tossed her a Thompson and she took it.
"We're gonna be cutting through a lot of pirates along the way," one said. "The Gulf might as well be flying the jolly roger."
Zimmerman drew back the bolt on her Thompson, to check the gleaming bullets inside.
She smirked.
She could still taste cunt on her lips – from Genevieve sitting on her face as she spoke calmly into her telephone and gave her orders.
The dockside port of Burned York was small compared to the ancient bustle from before the Fire – but small was not small in any human sense when you were actually there. Zimmerman walked past the bobbing fishing boats, her boots thumping on the wooden slats – pausing occasionally at the ominous creak. She was suddenly aware of the extra weight of her implants and her sacrament, and wondered how much of Genevieve's desire to have her sent by boat was for her secrecy...and how much of it was in the hope she might be pulled under the water by robes, brass and plutonium. She pushed the thought aside as she came to one of the intersections of pier that gridded this area. Around the nose of a fishing trawler, she could see two figures in the blue and black of York police officers, their caps on and their torches in their hands.
She remained in the shadows – and heard one of them grumbling. "I've seen neither hide nor hair of this Radwalker we're supposed to be keeping an eye out for."
"Quit your bitching," the other said. Their accents were American – but their colors were British and their hearts were traitorous. Zimmerman pursed her lips behind her mask, then stepped back. She rapped twice on the side of the boat that floated near her. The reverberations were just loud enough – she could hear the scuffing of shoes.
"Who goes there?" one man asked, and he started towards the corner. He came close…
Zimmerman sprang out. She grabbed onto the chest of his shirt, bunching it in her fist. His eyes widened, mustache bristling wildly, as she shoved him back towards his comrade who was fumbling – torch clattering to the wooden slats of the pier as he reached down for the revolver at his hip. They crashed together and she bore them down onto the ground. Her free hand drove down – knuckles cracking into nose, jaw, the side of the head. None of the blows were overly damaging, but they were oh so satisfying, the crunching sound of them reverberating through her arm, into her bones. It left both men stunned as she took her robes off and slung them over them.
Their struggles were more pointed now – but she moved quickly.
"This guise no longer serves the Lord, and so, shall be your whale," she said, her voice pitched low.
Zimmerman used her boot and rolled both men over the side of the pier. Wrapped in her leaded robes, they plunged in with a splash. She stood, tugging her mask off and tossing it down with them. While she felt the pain of losing her vestments, she knew...she was still walking with God now. She knew it in the depth of her being, a bright core of certainty. After all, had she not, she would never have been given the clothing she wore now underneath. Genevieve had made sure to have her sent out with a long sleeved white shirt that now mostly covered her implants. The lack of leading made it feel as if she wore nothing at all – and she made sure that she would pray extra.
Trinity would keep those around her safe, she was sure of it.
It took another few minuets before she found the boat in question. It was a modern motorboat – a small steam engine was tucked into the back, and the ship's spirit was sitting on the prow, kicking her legs and humming quietly. There were three crew members waiting: Two burly men who Zimmerman surmised she could handily dispatch if need be, and a stripling blond boy with a furrowed scar along his cheek. Zimmerman was about to speak to the men, but the boy piped up first.
"You Ven?" he asked – his voice high and unbroken.
"Yes, boy," Zimmerman said. "You can-"
"I'm not a boy, Ven," the blond boy – no, the blond girl said. "The name's Rudi Cut Nuts, I'm in charge around here. Miss Chapel said, if you even think of goin' screwy, I'm to make sure you don't get anywhere. Got it?"
Zimmerman frowned at her. "Your name is Cut Nuts?"
"Cause I cut the balls off the last man who touched me without my permission," Rudi said, smirking slightly.
"She did," one of the men said.
Zimmerman was not sure if Genevieve was trying to keep her happy with a treat, tossed to her like she was some rabid dog, or if Genevieve had wildly miscalculated in choosing her agent for this mission. No. She tightened her jaw. She had sinned once, far too recently. She wouldn't...be tempted to sin again. Even if, as she watched, Rudi turned to start snapping orders to the men and the evening twilight sparkled along her pale throat and her short, short cropped blond hair and-
"So, Venny," Rudi said. "Is it true you're a big carpet munching dyke?"
Zimmerman blinked, then snorted. "I am a servant of the Lord," she said, firmly. "And the Lady."
Rudi spat. "Well, I don't know about the Lady. The only Lady we care about here, is Sparky. Innit that right, Sparky?"
The spirit at the front of the ship jerked her head around. "Heya!" she said, waving. Her body was slim and wooden, with steely-gray along her back and shoulder blades. Her eyes glowed with an inner light, as if they were coals themselves. "Oh, dang, she looks heavy. Make sure you stay right in the middle of me – don't wanna capsize!" She giggled. "...seriously, though, if we capsize, we're in serious trouble. Restarting my boiler is not easy."
"Listen to her," Rudi said, narrowing her eyes at Zimmerman. "Come on."
Zimmerman followed the slender girl – how old was she? Twenty? - and found that the interior of the motorboat was as cramped as it had looked: A narrow corridor led down into the guts of the ship, where a cargo hold was stuffed with huge crates. They were marked with no labels and Zimmerman couldn't smell anything. Zimmerman made a face, while Rudi scowled at her. "Officially, we're pulling over the bits and bobs you turn into telephones and radio – consumer electronics, they calls it." She smirked, slightly. "Unofficially, it's guns. Even more unofficially, it's you."
Zimmerman grunted. "How are we going to make it to New Austin? Through the rivers?"
"Nah," Rudi said. "With the number of locks and checkpoints, plus the bribes, it'd be longer, more expensive, riskier. We're going down the coast, around Florida, and into the Gulf."
"And the pirates?" Zimmerman asked, frowning slightly.
Rudi led her back up to the deck. She whistled. "Sparky! Show her the thing."
Sparky giggled, then twitched her nose from side to side and wiggled her rump. Zimmerman had to admit, watching a nubile spirit wiggle around like that was pleasant – but before she could remark on it, the prow of the boat swung a panel around, revealing a pair of heavy water cooled machine guns. They swung back shut again a moment later. Rudi grinned at Zimmerman. "We got teeth, Venny."
"And you have me," Zimmerman pointed out.
"Mmm, no offense," Rudi said, then slapped her shoulder – yanking gently on the cybernetic prosthesis hidden right beneath her filmy white shirt. "The last thing I want is you going overboard."
Zimmerman snorted.
***
Sparky sat at the head of the ship, humming along with the buzzing, puttering noise of the high speed boiler in the back of the ship that shared her namesake. The prow of the ship hit every wave that was coming their way and sent them skimming smoothly over it – or, at least, that was how it felt to Zimmerman. As a woman used to trains and to airships, the sudden realization that vehicles could rock and sway this much was...unpleasent. She gritted her teeth, kneeling above the john in the back of the ship, her head ducked forward near the metal rim of the bowl. She wouldn't vomit. But...if she was going to vomit, she'd at least be in the right place. She put her hand on her belly, her eyes half closed as she breathed slow. Shallowly.
"Some big badass you are, eh?" Rudi asked from around the doorway.
Zimmerman lifted her head to glower.
The first two days of travel passed in that misery – her stomach perpetually on the verge of rebelling, her legs stumbling under her with every jounce, every bounce. Despite her misery, though, Sparky cut along the coastline of North America. Glittering cities were rarities and towns were sparkled but thinly between the wilderness that stretched along New England. The further south one got, the more one could see settlement, as the Empire had been quite eager to rebuild land that had once produced the most valuable crops in the world. With the Fire long behind and the Empire bringing in fresh colonists and tenet laborers, those crops flowed again – but in the sky now. Zimmerman and Rudi both watched the immense cargo airships drifting by overhead as they skimmed down the coast.
Like immense, pregnant whales, they bobbed through the air, their holds stuffed with cotton, tobacco, coffee, sugar, all of it flowing towards Albion – a vile heart beating at the center of an empire of debautchery. Zimmerman's lips curled and she muttered. "How I wish I had thee, Midway…"
"What was that?" Rudi asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Nothing, nothing. Just thinking to myself," Zimmerman said – but she didn't convince the young girl. But still, images of what Midway could do up there. The flight of a hundred fixed wing airplanes, diesel burning, pulled from the ether like God splitting the fishes and loaves in the hands of Christ's Son. The idea of it blazed in her mind – the ships burning, their spirits crying out in lamentation and fear, as Britain began to starve without her imports. Her lips curled up in a fierce smile.
The Sparky stopped several times on its journey. The boiler could be pushed till it ran on fumes by the eager spirit that served it, but she could not burn nothing at all. When they stopped between towns, the two burly men sprang off the ship with hatchets and downed small trees, then chopped them into pieces as quick as they could. Here, Zimmerman turned her brawn to the skill, carving up wood and branches with the same eagerness. The chips were fed into the boiler – and despite not being as good or easy to burn as coal, the Sparky was able to once more move again.
They stopped in a village here and there. Tiny, no-name places that had grown up after the Fire, when people had fled smoldering cities and blasted ruins to try and find security. Their English was as queer and strangely accented as any of the free cities of the Wastelands – but rather than flying a patchwork quilt of state flags and local flags, each had a flapping Union Jack, like a slap in the face of the Founders and their sacrifices. Zimmerman remained aboard ship, watching as Rudi handed over silver and copper for coal and other odds and ends.
But after the first three days, the trip ran into its first danger.
They were nearing what had once been Savannah – if Zimmerman didn't miss her guess – and swinging wide away from the rebuild city. Even from a distance, Zimmerman could see the British airships hanging over the city had a different character and design than the cargo ships from earlier: These were sleek, dark, and deadly. Warships. Zimmerman watched them with such a fierce glower, she almost forgot that she was sea sick.
"Oh shit," Rudi muttered.
"What is it?" Zimmerman asked, drawing her eyes away...and there she saw it.
A fisher trawler was coming their way.
Rudi had navigated carefully – dipping close to land near wilderness, even pulling them up a river from time to time, whenever it seemed they would get close to fishing ships. It would just take one to mistake them for a pirate or smuggler...or...well, to accurately determine they were a smuggler…
"Turn aside!" Zimmerman snapped.
"And go where, you galoot!?" Rudi snapped, her eyes flashing, her scar pulling her scowl into an almost smirk. "We're in open fucking ocean!"
The fishing trawler turned aside. Zimmerman could see the crew – mostly American natives like herself from their build and postures and clothing – peering over at them. The captain and the spirit of the fishing trawler stood nearest to the back of the ship, and as it slowed, the captain eyed them curiously. He was a burly looking, red faced man with a thick beard, while his spirit was even smaller and slighter than Sparky – she had the kind of simple smile of a spirit from something just on the edge of awareness. It made sense – their trawler had complex fishing machinery, and a steam engine within, but it was otherwise simplicity itself.
The captain had a pipe clasped in his mouth. He pulled it free, tapping it with his finger. "You there!" he called down. "What ship be that?"
"I'm the Sparky!" Sparky said, waving. "Hi!"
"Hello!" the fishing trawler spirit – she came up to her captain's chest and had to stand up onto her toes to wave back. "Hi! I'm a boat!"
"I know, I'm a boat too!" Sparky said.
"Well, they get along at least," Zimmerman rumbled, while Rudi put a big smile on her face.
"We're from Chatagone, up north – taking a load of their pottery to New Miami," she said, casually.
"Chatagone, eh?" the captain asked. "Never knew they could afford such a nice little ship. Yer spirit looks almost like an airship."
"Thanks!" Sparky said.
"We just, uh, paint her real good to be honest," Rudi said, chuckling.
"Hey!" Sparky pouted. Zimmerman leaned in, whispering in her ear.
"Be good," she said.
"You're not my mechanic, you can't make me do anything I don't wanna," Sparky said, wriggling in her grasp. Zimmerman gripped her tighter, while Rudi hurriedly continued.
"Still, we're just heading along-"
"I was just wondering," the other Captain started at the same time.
"Lemmi go!" Sparky whined. Zimmerman wished she knew how Nix had done what she did. Machines were so...finnicky. She shook her slightly, hoping that joggling her would get Sparky to be quiet. Instead, Sparky started to whine louder. "Let me go, you big radioactive...galoot!"
"Did she say radioactive?" The other Captain asked, his brow drawing together.
"Uh…" Rudi snapped her head around to glare at Zimmerman.
Zimmerman released Sparky. Sparky harrumphed, then turned to the captain. "Yup, she's really radioactive. She's got cybernetics too."
The other Captain's brow's drew in even harder while Zimmerman frowned intently at Sparky. Rudi groaned, then shouted. "Sparky! Fast! We go fast! Now! Now! Now!"
Sparky nodded, then the boat leaped forward with a roar of propellers. The fishing trawler started to recede behind them and Zimmerman grabbed onto the railing, watching them fade moment by moment. She spoke hurriedly. "At least they didn't seem to be complicated enough to have a telephone, or a mobile telephone. Maybe-"
Something whistled up from the ship. It flared bright red overhead – a flare.
"Fuck!" Rudi hissed under her breath. "Ven, put those muscles to work. Miss Chapel said to me that if we were gonna get caught, we dump the fucking guns. So, dump the fucking guns!"
Zimmerman grunted, then turned and started down the stairs. Her legs had more surety than she expected – she took the steps easily, coming down to the cargo hold. She drove the knife of her forearm into one of the locks on the chests, shattering the metal with a clang against her hardened muscle and the edge of her cybernetics, hidden under her shirt. Then she yanked the chest up – having judged that she didn't have the time to lug them out of the stairs, if that were even possible. The entire roof of the cargo hold opened normally. The guns within were mostly the sacred Thompson, but there were also the glorious Browning, and even bouquets of grenades. It was enough American weaponry to make her heart sing – and then sink when she knew what she had to do.
Zimmerman crammed guns under her arms and hurried up the stairs. She threw them overboard, splashing into the water. When she turned back, she saw that the men were going down below as well.
Sparky was humming a song she did not recognize. She was clearly having fun at least.
They had gotten the cargo hold half emptied – and the ship was noticeably faster – when Zimmerman saw the airship heading their way.
"Hell, hell, hell, hell!" Rudi was swearing again and again as Zimmerman came to the wheel. "That's a fast destroyer – a pirate hunter. They're going to swoop over us, drop surface charges, and then threaten to blow us out of the water with the guns…"
"Can we get into shore, head to ground?"
"Not before it reaches us," Rudi said.
"We can make it," Zimmerman said. "They will not know where to shoot us."
"Oh, and you can just make it rain? Plunge is into night? You're nuttier than I thought!" Rudi snapped.
"Simply head inland. The Lord shall provide the rest," Zimmerman said, her voice firm.
Rudi shook her head, clicked her tongue, then swung the wheel.
The next few minuets were eerily calm. They were cutting with the waves, rather than against them – things smoothed out and the Sparky ran as fast as Zimmerman had ever seen her. Sitting on the prow, leaning forward into the wind like a dog at a train window, her spirit beamed and let her glittering, silvery hair tumble into the wind behind her. And all the while, the fast destroyer drew closer and closer, running along a perpendicular route to their own travel. The ship was a sleek knife of a craft, black armored with a pair of engines running off an atomic steam engine that could get it around the world ten times before she'd ever need to stop and rest. She had two heavy cannons mounted on the belly, arranged so that they could fire in a hemisphere around and to the sides of the ship, while her armored balloon was protected by a pair of heavy machine guns mounted on sleek towers. She had a pair of lifeboats attached to her aft sides – tiny gliders that could be brought down to ocean or land, to float or to scrape to a stop.
Her name?
The HMS Speedy.
"How appropriate," Zimmerman said, her voice wry.
"Oh ha ha so funny," Rudi grumbled, her hand brushing her sweat soaked hair slick to her head.
They were getting closer and closer to the coastline – and there was a large river running inland, though Zimmerman didn't know how deep it went before it became too narrow for their ship to traverse.
One of those cannons spoke. A roar of white water bloomed ahead and to the left of the Sparky, shooting froth upwards like a fountain. The other cannon tracked them and Rudi snarled to Zimmerman. "That's English for shut the fuck down or we blow you- what are you doing!?"
Zimmerman had started to unbutton her shirt.
"Now is not the time!" Rudi said, her cheeks flushing as Zimmerman exposed her broad, muscular shoulders, her pale skin, her scars, her cybernetic implants, her breasts. Her eyes widened even more as Zimmerman rolled her shoulders and cricked her neck – and as she tightened her muscles, let them ripple under her skin, the plutonium implants whirred and clacked, lead lining sliding back to reveal dull gray and the Latin inscriptions upon them. Rudi's jaw dropped. "W-Wha...what the fuck are you doing you maniac?"
"Providing a miracle, Rudi," Zimmerman said, smirking.
She grabbed onto one of the many ropes the ship had, one fastened firmly to the aft mooring point, stepped up, then dropped into the Atlantic ocean.
Oh Lady, thy Fire brings warmth to the world – thy touch spares all from the curse of thy anger. The burn of radiation is a balm to the faithful. Thy shall see we never suffer the cancer, the rot of gums, the withering of hair… Zimmerman focused on the prayer as she felt scalding hot water flare and hiss and froth around her arms, her shoulders, her back. Then the rope drew taut and dragged her forward. She could hear the thrumming propeller – and she knew not how close her head was to it. Instead, she dragged herself up the line – pushing her head above the water. She drew in a sharp breath, but that breath was rich with steam and hissing froth. When she opened her eyes, they near scalded. She was in the midst of brilliant white vapor.
The cannons roared again...then again and again, but while she felt a distant hammering against her skin, Zimmerman felt no killing shockwave, no ripping shrapnel.
The long hell of sizzling and frothing continued – and through it all, she prayed…
And then the rope drew taut and she was hauled up. The two burly men heaved, their muscles straining, their teeths clenching. They sagged and dropped as Zimmmerman used her arms to clamber the rest of the way onto the ship. Her body smoldered with thin wisps of smoke, and while the blessing of the Lady Trinity were mighty, even she could not entirely still the fury of boiling water. Bright red blisters gleamed here and there on her body where the protection had faded, and pain ached her from her head to her toes. Zimmerman stood tall despite that, her breasts gleaming with moisture as she looked down at the gaping Rudi. They were under trees – and behind them, a vast curtain of mist still hung over the Atlantic.
The cannons roared once, twice more.
"Enough of a miracle, Rudi?" Zimmerman asked.
"Y...You're insane," Rudi whispered.
Zimmerman smirked.
Then she, much to her shame, passed out.
***
When Zimmerman woke, it was with a groan, her eyes fluttering open. She was still at sea, more the pity. She was laying back in the narrow cot in the larger room that was reserved for Rudi, who Rudi had quite pointedly disallowed her from entering. When she sat up, she saw that her body had been touched all over with ointments and tinctures. The burns had started to heal, though she was still heavily bandaged. Zimmerman grunted quietly, then blinked as the door opened and Rudi entered, scowling as she did so. She was holding a tray with some simple hardtack and water – all that Zimmerman had been able to keep down.
"You may be a maniac," Rudi said. "But at least you're our maniac."
She thrust the tray at Zimmerman. Zimmerman took it, one handed. She paused, then said: "What happened?"
"We hid upland in a cove. They dropped some marines to search the bushes, but Sparky can bring us in closer and ride lower than most people expect. Doubly so when she feels so bad about getting you hurt." Rudi smirked slightly. "She practically did Mechanic's work for you, Ven. Once the marines were far enough away and night had fallen, we slipped back out, went along the coast...I don't think they're going to find us. Bragg is up at the wheel, we should be hitting the Gulf soon. Then New Austin after that."
Zimmerman grunted. She took a bite of the hardtack. To her surprise, she didn't feel the urge to wretch it up immediately.
Rudi looked away, then said. "...so, you're always hot?"
"The Lady protects me and mine," Zimmerman said, her voice firm. "Radiation is no danger." She smirked. "My attractiveness is the real threat to my virtue."
Rudi's cheeks flushed. "I'm not a...fucking carpet munching bitch like you," she snapped.
Zimmerman's hand lashed out. She caught Rudi's slender wrist and her voice grew soft. "Do not call me a bitch or a dyke or a carpet muncher again," she growled. "I may prefer the touch of women. I may have been cast from my order. I may, even, sin from...time to time…" Her eyes flashed. 'But I have my limits, even for girls as pretty as you."
"Pretty as me!?" Rudi squeaked, tugging – weakly, oh so weakly – against Zimmerman's hand. "Do you think I...I'd be insane enough to...to...mmmph!" She gasped as Zimmerman pulled her in close with a jerk, mashing her mouth to hers. The scarred blond squirmed. So Zimmerman caught her by the hair, pulled her in close, forcing her tongue into her mouth. Rudi squirmed and made muffled noises...first of protest. Then of eagerness. Her head tilted and her mouth opened and Zimmerman tasted her with a quiet rumble of pleasure. She ignored the pain of her healing burns, the tug of her bandages, and pulled Rudi into the tight confines of the cot. Rudi's body squirmed against her and Zimmerman rolled around, so that she was on her back.
Rudi panted, softly, her eyes wide, shocked. "W-What are you doing!?" She hissed. "Miss Chapel will skin me alive if I...if we...she warned me about you."
"Did she tell you that I fucked her too?" Zimmerman crooned.
Zimmerman takes Rudi in a womanly fashion
Rudi's eyes bugged. Her shocked protest was lost as Zimmerman leaned down. She kissed her mouth. Her jaw. Her throat. Her teeth teased her throat and Rudi bit her own lip almost hard enough to draw blood. Zimmerman drove her hand down, questing. She pushed Rudi's pants down, just enough to slide her fingers along her cunt. She had a wild mane down there – but damp, eager dew. Zimmerman thrust her fingers into her and Rudi's arms gripped at her shoulders. She squeezed with a desperate eagerness, her own hips bucking. Her eyes were wide. Shocked.
"W-What are...you...hnn!" Rudi gasped as her cunt clenched around the fingers filling her. Zimmerman's thumb found her clit, rubbing. "What are you doing?" Rudi gasped.
"This is how women make love," Zimmerman chuckled. "I take it you've only ever had a man putting his prick in you." She smirked fiercely. "They don't know what they're doing." She rubbed more intently, adding a second finger. Her fingers, scarred and calloused as they were, remained gentle as she quested out for Rudi's center of pleasure. She found it, she knew she had found it, thanks to the mewling gasp that escaped Rudi. She squirmed and her hips bucked up against Zimmerman's hand. She was seeking her release...so Zimmerman eased off, drawing her thumb away from her clit.
Rudi whined, low in her throat. "Oh come the fuck on!"
"I'm getting my money's worth from you," Zimmerman said, grinning. She leaned forward, and used her teeth. One by one, she unhooked button after button, exposed Rudi's flat chest. She had more scars here than just on her face: A jagged chunk from her shoulder, which Zimmerman kissed, then licked. Two puckered bullet wounds, narrowly missing vital organs. She kissed each, planting a warm pair of lips against wound after wound. This all led her down, down, down, to where she could pull Rudi's pants down. This left her half off the bed, her legs scrunched up against the wall. She didn't care. She grabbed onto Rudi's hips as the slender girl gasped, whimpered, even mewled.
She didn't stop her, though.
Zimmerman thrust her tongue into her cunt. She feasted on her, far more eagerly than she had on hard tack. Her tongue swept up, down, up. She sucked on her clit.
And as Rudi started to clap her hand over her mouth, Zimmerman felt a warm pleasure – maybe the rest of the voyage wouldn't be so bad? She grinned, drawing her mouth back, glistening with Rudi's juices as gleaming tears beaded in Rudi's eyes, unshed tears of pure bliss. As she quivered, Zimmerman got ready to lean in and start licking her...but then a rapping noise came at the door.
"Captain!" One of the men called through – Zimmerman wasn't sure which. She wasn't even quite sure what their names were. "We're gonna be heading near the pirate lanes soon – just thought I should warn you."
Rudi drew her hand away from her mouth. She breathed in, slowly. Trying to keep herself calm. Controlled. She spoke, evenly. "V-Very good, Grant. Just keep on!" Her voice grew sharper as, smirking, Zimmerman leaned forward and started to suck on her clit again.
"You okay cap?" the man asked, whatever his name was.
"Fine!" Rudi gasped out.
Her hips bucked and her juices flooded Zimmerman's mouth. And Zimmerman drank and drank well. Her eyes half closed and she licked her lips smugly as footsteps started to ring along the ground – fading away as the man left. Rudi gasped and panted, her cheeks flushed. "Y-You bitch," she whispered. "You fucking bitch, I...I can't let the crew know!" She wriggled, squirmed, then managed to get to her feet. She wobbled against the wall, panting, as Zimmerman crawled onto the bed. She was feeling the aches of her wounds.
She didn't care.
"Where are you going?" She murmured.
"I am...I have to-"
Rudi squeaked as Zimmerman's arm looped out. She was drawn back into the bed, a slip of a girl pressed against Zimmerman's chest. Her arms locked around her and Rudi squirmed – but not very hard. Oh no. Not very hard at all. Zimmerman's croon was hot in her ear.
"Miss Chappel could give me orders. But you're mine."
By the time the little speedboat had reached the docks of New Austin, Zimmerman was almost ready to face the world again – despite the ferocious burns she had received.
It had helped that in that time, she had been able to grab onto Rudi and drag the young, scarred girl into the cramped, tight confines of the officer's bedroom and have her way with her whenever she had wanted. Zimmerman knew, in an abstract sense, that she was falling into bad habits. The same habits that had gotten her exiled from the sisterhood and sent to walk the wastelands of America. She knew it was a sin, before God and Christ and the Lady Trinity, to find female flesh so deliciously appealing. She wished every evening, kneeling before the small shrine in the back of the motorboat's cargo hold, that the Lady Trinity might excise this sin from her, as her radiation could excise a cancer.
Then she would fuck Rudi again.
So, it was with a mixed sense of relief and longing that she saw New Austin approaching – and heard Rudi mutter under her breath. "Finally."
The Sparky had taken them around the edge of Florida and into the Gulf proper. There, they had had three close run-ins with pirates running old style steamships, but no matter how fast a paddlwheel spun, it couldn't match a modern ship like the Sparky. They still had a few hairy moments when a steamship flying the jolly roger had gotten within long-gun range and shells had crashed into the water to either side of their ship. Sparky, being a spirit, responded to being shot at by sticking out her tongue and shouting rude words at the slower, simpler spirit of the distant steamship while Rudi swore every oath and curse that Zimmerman had heard in English before switching to heathen tongues and languages she was fairly sure were deader than French.
The other two run-ins hadn't involved any shooting, but they had stressed the speedboat's fuel reserves and required a several hour layover in the wilderness coast, trekking into marshy wetlands to cut down trees to feed into the boiler. By then, Zimmerman's burns were nearly completely healed, and Rudi was making grumbling comments about not being able to carry on like a 'dyke alley-cat' and so the extra physical exercise was enough to sooth some of her sin.
Some.
"I won't say I'm going to miss you," Rudi said as she slowed the Sparky's engine as they approached the docks. There was an open berth, but before they had even arrived, several Imperial customs officials were waiting. The Union Jack still flew over New Austin, much as it made Zimmerman grit her teeth. Rudi frowned, then shook her head. "Shit we don't even have anything to fucking smuggle…" She frowned. "Don't be too weird about them, Ven." She glanced at Zimmerman. "Those are ours."
Zimmerman blinked as the ropes on the Sparky were tossed to the docks by the two other members of the crew. Sparky herself sat on the prow, arching her back to demonstrate her slight curves and glittering silver and wood paneled body to all the dockworkers and fellow travelers. The other boats in the docks were mostly sailboats – none of them had spirits animate enough to be walking about, so she did draw more than her normal share of looks, admiring whistles, and a few calls from wags: "I'd love to service you, honey!"
"Only mechanics!" Rudi shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth – while one of the Imperial officials stepped up and planted his boot on one of the pylons of the dock, grinning down at them thanks to his exalted position – Zimmerman stood a bit taller and was smug that even with the docks, she still came up to his stomach.
"Well, well, well, looks like Chappel's sent her best little ship out," he said, casually – his accent American, despite the blue and gold uniform.
"Little!?" Sparky harrumphed, her arms crossing over her petite breasts.
"I did say best too," the 'official' said, chuckling.
"Come on, lets make this quick," his friend said.
"Aight, we need to make a show of searching your ship," the first 'official' said. "Then we pass off your cargo as being right and proper and you can enjoy this wonderful day in New Austin."
Zimmerman grunted.
"Not very talkative is he," the 'official said.
Zimmerman scowled. "He?" she asked.
"Oh holy shit you're a woman?" the first 'official asked.
The second sighed, then dropped down onto the speedboat. He headed to the cargo hold, stomping down. Rudi gulped and shifted from foot to foot, glancing at Zimmerman. "So, uh, Vee, these fellows work for Don Miguel," she murmured, quietly.
"Miguel isn't an American name," Zimmerman muttered.
"No, he's Cubano," Rudi whispered back. "They hate the Limeys as much as we do, don't get all 20th century on us."
Zimmerman frowned. It was an article of faith to her that no one could hate the English more than the Americans. But she supposed that the Cubanos and Mexicans had their own reasons to dislike the Empire and her eternal ruler – even if the Fire hadn't touched their lands quite so fiercely. She saw Rudi was chewing her knuckle now, worry twisting her scar up. "What's wrong with that?" she asked.
"Well, the guns weren't just to make Miss Chappel money – they were to get us into New Austin without a problem," Rudi said.
"...ah," Zimmerman said.
The first 'official' came stomping up. "Rudi," he said, his voice flat. "Where the fuck are the guns?"
"We had to dump some of them," Rudi said, holding up her hands. "Only some, though."
"Half! Half the fucking guns are gone!" The official thrust back with his palm towards the cargo hold, leaning in so close he almost touched his nose to Rudi's. Zimmerman grabbed onto the back of his shirt and yanked him back, frowning at him.
"Don't threaten Rudi," she said, her voice firm. She shifted her grip around, grabbing the front of his navy blue jacket with one bunched up palm.
"Or what?" the official sneered at her. "I'm an official customs inspector of the Empire. You're...you're...uh…"
His eyes, crossing together, peered down at the imprecisely muscled arm that had him in its grasp – and as her sleeve rolled down, he could see the gleaming brasswork implanted into her forearm, including the leaded shielding for her blessings. His eyes widened and he started to raise his hands. His comrade reached down towards a pistol hanging from his belt.
"W-Whoa, uh, we don't want any trouble here, Radwalker," the man said.
Zimmerman smiled the smile of a shark. Finally, someone recognized what she was. She was worried losing the vestments would ruin the intimidation factor – a lot of people in the Southern and Western wastelands knew to recognize the heavy leaded apron and plague doctor's mask of the Radwalkers. Fewer could recognize them from the implants alone. She pitched her voice low. "Do you know what Sainted Slotin saw, when the Lady revealed herself to him before his martyrdom?"
"N-No?" the lowly scum stammered.
"The flash of light when the Demon Core reached her blessed criticality...it was radiation striking the water in his eyes…" Zimmerman leaned forward. Her voice was quiet. "If you see that flash, scum...you are already dead. Now. Do you wish to see eternity?"
His head shook so fast that it nearly started to rotate.
"Then you will take the guns we have brought." She released him and he stumbled backwards, almost knocking into his friend. "And you will tell Don Miguel to be happy with what he gets. Understood?"
The 'official' nodded. He reached into his vest, pulled out some official looking documentations, signed it using a clipboard hung from his belt, then threw it at Rudi and ran so quickly that she nearly dropped the whole pile. His less cowardly comrade remained behind to glower at Zimmerman. "We'll remember you, Radwalker," he said, levelly.
"My name is Sister Vengeance Zimmerman," Zimmerman shot back. "Yours needs only be remembered by the Lord – for only he will care when I send your soul to him with my bare hands."
The less cowardly 'official' left hurriedly. But he did only walk – even if it was as quickly as he could.
Rudi stood stalk still beside Zimmerman. Under her breath, she muttered. "T-This doesn't mean I have to like you."
Concealed by Rudi's slender body and the rocking of the boat, Zimmerman's palm reached down and squeezed her ass. Rudi bit her lip so hard it nearly bled. Zimmerman's smirk was akin to a tiger's.
***
The city of New Austin had accreted over the years after the Fire – and it looked it. Refugees from Houston and Austin had fled towards the coastline, burned and burning, while radioactive fallout had drifted from from the skies. Many of them had died there, but enough had managed to survive to build and then rebuild the ruined towns that clustered along the beach. Bit by bit, as the East was recolonized by the British Empire, New Austin grew by trading with Vejas and other Free Cities. The ramshackle buildings had never quite been replaced. Instead, they had been expanded and added too. The outer edges of the city grew in straight lines and orderly patterns, while the innermost sprawl was made of tall buildings of cinderblock, metal and wood that looked nearly grown, interspersed with the newer buildings that grew up in the place of old ones that came crashing down – either on schedule, or in a random flurry of death and destruction.
This beating heart of American industry was not independent. Not anymore. As fisheries rebounded and piracy was turned into a double edged sword by the free-wheeling Majes of New Austin, it looked for a time that the city would be the nexus of a new power, something that could stand against the Empire that was taking Washington and Burned York and Georgia.
Then, several years before, British airships had arrived. They had not needed to fire a shot – their cigar shaped, grayish bodies had simply taken up position above the city proper and their demands had been sent down to the last Maje and she had quietly surrendered the city to them. Now the docks were full of English ships, and the airship pylons took their places up in the highlands of the city. Imperial ships and trade airships were moored there, casting shadows down in sharp, defined circles that stretched over the sprawl.
Zimmerman's lip curled as she looked it over from the side of the dock. Rudi stood beside her, her arms on her backpack straps.
"So, we need to avoid the Don now," Rudi muttered under her breath. "The original plan, mind you, was to actually get him to help us. Or are you going to search a city of a hundred thousand people by your-" She saw Zimmerman was already walking along. Rudi grumbled, then hurried after her. When she had caught up with the long-legged woman's stride, she continued. "Oh yeah, just search a city of a hundred thousand people by yourself! What a genius plan, Ven."
"Quiet," Zimmerman said, flashing her a grin. "I have a plan."
"If this plan isn't to depend on dumb luck…" Rudi muttered.
They walked through the streets – where tall trees were planted to provide their shade, where water was piped through narrow brass tubes that ran over and under the streets. They sprayed out water to feed hungry plants, and they ran into boilers that used focused mirrors to use the sun's heat rather than coal to create steam. Steam powered compression pumps seemed to run on every building, and when the doors opened to let out customers or residents, Zimmerman felt a cool breeze on her face from within. Finally, though, she found her destination.
"Town hall?" Rudi asked, panting. "I suppose the Don won't think to look for us here…"
She followed after as Zimmerman stepped inside. Here, too, the sun ran steam that, itself, ran compressors. The air was shockingly cold and soon, Zimmerman felt gooseflesh rising along her forearms as she came to the front desk of WATER, STEAM AND RECORDS. The woman who came to the front was no human – she was a brass faced, gear-jointed, camera-eyed spirit. She started when she saw Zimmerman, her eyes widening as her head whirred and clicked slightly. "O-Oh, uh, hello," she said. "I'm the spirit of the punch-card system of New Austin's Department of Water, Steam and Records. You may call me Punchie!" She spread her arms and took a pose, then blushed and hurriedly tried to look professional. "How can I assist you today, ma'am?"
Zimmerman smiled. "My name is Marion Nixon, and I am looking for my niece, Josephine Dour. Where does she live?"
"D-Don't you already know?" Punchie asked.
"I live out of town," Zimmerman said.
"W-Well, um, I will need some evidence of your personage," Punchie said. "Date of birth, identification code…"
Zimmerman reached into her pockets, then clicked her tongue. "Ah, I forgot my wallet back home."
"O-Oh," Punchie said. "I suppose I should ask my manager."
"Well, do you really want to bother him?" Zimmerman asked, her voice firm as she tried to sound like Nix. The little minx had always been gentle and calming with the spirits. So, she just had to sound that. She pitched her voice like she was trying to spread the thighs of a newly arrived sister at the nunnery. "It's just an address I need – why bother him?"
Punchie bit her lower lip, teeth sinking into rubbery flesh. "...okay," she said. "But only cause you asked so nice, hehe!" She giggled and then closed her eyes. Whirring and clicking came from her head. She smiled. "She lives in a home in Surfside Beach, 981 Seawide Avenue. Do you need a map?"
Zimmerman's smile was predatory. "Not at all, Punchie."
"Okay!" Punchie said, beaming.
Zimmerman and Rudi left.
Punchie remained still for a few more moments, then glanced left and right. She blushed, then turned and hurried back, her hips rolling as she came to a closet. She opened it. Her mechanic was tied up, his mouth gagged, and the horrible gun still pressed against his temple. Punchie stammered. "Z-Zimmerman arrived! I think! She was j-just as big as you said, now, c-can you please not...not not…" She wrung her hands, buzzing nervously, her eyes close to tears.
Miss Young's ice-cold smile did not reach her eyes. She kept the pistol aimed at the side of the mechanic's head.
"Was she alone?" she asked – and drew the hammer back on the bound mechanic.
Punchie shook her head hurriedly.
"Tell me everything," Miss Young said, quietly, shifting slightly to show the gleaming metal arm that attached to her stump. The claws built into it clicked in eagerness as Punchie gulped, then started to tell her every detail about the companion of Miss Zimmerman.
***
"...and then...you came here…"
Jessie was holding a tea cup in the proper style for an English gentlewoman, sitting in the air conditioned parlor of her home, and looking owlishly at her young auntie, Marion Nixon, as if she had never seen anything quite so remarkable. In her defense, she might not have. Marion Nixon was dressed in a short jacket, a broad brimmed hat that still had the dust from the trail, denim and boots. At her left was a robed spirit, hood thrown back to reveal the gleaming metal of an airship or navy going ship. At her right was another robed spirit, who was busily reaching out to pluck up some of the sliced ham that Jessie had laid out for her aunt.
The other spirit's hand was green and she smelled faintly of wildflowers, even through the robe.
"I didn't exactly have a choice, Jessie," Nix said, sighing as she slouched back in her chair. "They're coming to hurt you."
"I...I need to talk to Ed," Jessie said, then set down the tea cup. "Can I call him on the telephone?"
"Yes, it'll...wait," Nix said, then stood. She walked to the kitchen, where a telephone was hung to the wall. She took it down, then put the earpice to her ear. She waited, and when she heard a shy 'hello?' from the telephone, she spoke. "Hi, honey, I'm Nix...I'm a Technician. Do you trust me?" She smiled, slightly, cocking her head a bit to the side. "...yeah, my hair's dark, why do you ask cutie? Heh, you do? Well, maybe we can meet up later. But right now, I just want you to make sure no one hears what's about to get sent along your lines, can you do that for me?" She nodded. "Two taps, huh?" She frowned, slightly, but kept her voice sugary sweet for her. "Thanks for telling me, honey. Now, uh...here." She held the earpiece out to her niece, who took it and shook her head, frowning intently.
Nix stepped over to Enterprise and Makhá, her voice pitched low. "She's taking it well so far."
"Why is your niece almost the same age as you?" Enterprise muttered back.
"The family was a bit spread out," Nix muttered. "And my sister got married young."
"I'd say," Enterprise grumbled.
Jessie returned, frowning. "Ed's on his way back from the docks – but what are we supposed to do? We can't just...pick up and move out of town because of this."
Nix sighed. "You might have too."
"We have family here," Jessie said. "We're trying for children."
"I know, but...these people are serious, Jessie," Nix said.
"I can't believe this," Jessie said. She rubbed her palms against her face. "I always thought you were amazing, Nix. You ran off, you broke all those laws. Sumptuary laws, guild laws, even decency laws, just to...to be a technician." She slid her hands away from her face. "I'm not that brave."
"Well, you'll-"
Enterprise lifted her hand, frowning.
"Something's coming."
Nix gestured for Jessie to move away from the broad windows that looked out on the sun bleached streets of the suburbs. She put her own back against the wall, sighing softly. Ever since the meeting with Makhá, ever since Nix had realized that Enterprise wasn't Enterprise...there had been a question lingering in the air. If Enterprise wasn't the ship, Enterprise...then what was she? Nix wasn't sure. She had some ideas on how to find out – but the threat to Jessie loomed over it all. So, they had focused on getting here.
Now that they were here, Nix felt a cold chill run along her spine that had nothing to do with the air conditioning: What if Enterprise loses control again?
She didn't want to imagine ghostly planes over this bustling city.
When she peeked out, her brows furrowed...and she whispered. "You have to be bloody kidding me."
"Her?" Enterprise asked.
"Oh my, who brought the mountain and the wolf?" Makhá asked, whistling quietly.
"Who is that?" Jessie whispered, peeking out with Nix, her hands gripping the curtains.
"Vengeance Zimmerman," Nix growled.
The burly woman wasn't as easy to recognize as Nix would have liked. She had discarded her leather lined habit and her crow-mask. In its place, she wore a tunic and leggings that left her muscular arms exposed, her brasswork cybernetics wrapped by the thinnest camouflage of a working woman's bindings. Her face, Nix saw, was as beautiful as ever: Broad, with generous lips, an arched nose, and dark, brooding eyes. She had a face Nix could easily find herself wanting to kiss – if only it wasn't placed before a head filled with lunatic nonsense. At her right and slightly behind, fidgeting with every step, was a slip of a girl with an impressive scar on her cheek.
Nix reached down to where her colt would have rested. She made a face. Enterprise, subtly, reached out under the windowsill. She held out a wood paneled pistol – a 1911 – which she took and hefted. It felt real. It felt as real as Enterprise's ice cream tasted.
The front door rattled with a heavy knock.
"Should I...answer it?" Jessie whispered to Nix. Nix imagined what Zimmerman might say upon seeing her twenty year old niece – young, newly married, beautiful and untouched. She shuddered.
"Wait here," she said, then stepped around and headed for the door. She opened it and aimed at Zimmerman's chest, keeping her hand low and close to her side – so anyone walking by wouldn't see it. She glared at her. "Give me one good reason to not shoot you?"
"We are allies in the struggle against perfidious Albion," Zimmerman said, without missing a beat.
Nix scowled at her. "I am not seeking to overthrow the bloody Empire, you lunatic."
Zimmerman pursed those kissable lips, her palms spreading as she shrugged broad, muscular shoulders. "Then we are allies in keeping Enterprise safe."
"You want to use her as a weapon," Nix snapped.
"At the right time," Zimmerman said, her voice gentle.
"Can we fuckin' come in already?" the scarred girl snapped. "They're letting out all the hot air. You can fucking shoot us inside, okay?" She fidgeted, looking back over her shoulder.
"Why so nervous?" Nix snapped.
"Cause the Don's mad at us," Rudi muttered.
"The Don?" Nix's eyes widened. "How the fuck did you piss off a Don, Zimmerman? Fuck their daughter?"
"No, she's only done that once," Rudi grumbled.
"I was joking," Nix grabbed the door – but before she could shut it, Zimmerman shoved past her, throwing Nix's arm wide. Rudi ducked in after her and Zimmerman slammed the door shut. Nix, seriously tempted to shoot the other woman, scowled...but then, through the small window pane on the door, she saw why Zimmerman had moved. A pair of sleek steam automobiles had driven down the street. Both of them parked across the road. Jessie, peering out the window, turned back to look at her aunt.
"Auntie Marion," she whispered.
"Who the hell are these people?" Nix mashed her face against the window. The car doors opened and several men – swarthy but well dressed with sleek suits that they wore despite the intense heat – stepped from the backs. They were openly carrying Thompson sub-machine guns with sleek box magazines. They fanned out, approaching the house in a half-circle. As they walked forward, another man stepped out. He was a bit shorter than the others, with a bright white suit, a youthful face, and a cigar that he held in his hand.
"Rudi, Rudi, Rudi!" He called out. "I'm Donald Miguel Junior. My father…" He tapped at the cigar, sending bits of ashes drifting down. "He's not a happy man, Rudi."
"Ah shit," Rudi whispered.
Makhá pick up a piece of ham and started chewing it. Her eyes widened. "Oh that's some good spices."
Nix opened the door a crack. She called out. "Who the bloody hell is Rudi?"
"She's the scarred dame that went into this house," Miguel Junior called back. "We're not stupid, Mr. Nixon."
Nix froze. "How do you know my name?"
"Lets say...Rudi! All will be forgiven if you just give us the Enterprise," Miguel Junior said, taking his cigar to his lips. He started puffing on it. "You give us the spirit, we all go our separate ways. No one gets hurt."
Nix swore that for one, dizzying second, she could see the lines running from the gangsters back to…
What had the other Mechanical Turk been called?
Miss Young.
"Giving you to a count of ten," Miguel Junior called out.
"Send her out!" Jessie hissed, grabbing onto Nix's arm.
"We will not send the Enterprise out to these criminals," Zimmerman growled.
Nix hated how much she agreed with Zimmerman right then and there. Enterprise herself was looking concerned – her brows drawing in, her lips turning down. She looked half ready to get up and go, to walk out immediately. Jessie, frantic, shook her head. "No, no, no!" she breathed, her eyes widening as she mashed her face against the same window Nix was peering out of – pushing her auntie out of the way. Nix blinked, and saw that the situation had just gotten far, far worse.
A tall, broad shouldered, red cheeked blond man was walking down the sidewalk. He was wearing a set of suspenders, a broad straw hat, and a big smile. He slowed down as he came to his home – then he froze as he saw the guns.
"What the bloody hell is going on?" he asked.
Jessie grabbed at the door. She flung it open, shouting. "Don't shoot him!"
Two gangsters had half turned to aim their guns at Ed.
Nix felt the situation sliding from her fingers – like a plate, too hot in the oven.
Zimmerman yanked Jessie back, yanking her out of the way and leaping out in the same motion. She landed on the stoop and brought her wrists smashing together with a crash. The brilliant blue-white flash of a criticality event hit the gangsters looking her way like the rising second dawn of a atomic bomb. Two recoiled. One opened fire – bullets stitched their way into the wall, blowing through thin plaster. Nix slammed her shoulder into the wall, aimed, and fired. Her pistol leaped in her hands and one of the half-blinded men sprawled backwards. She shouted over her shoulder. "Get down! Get down! Get down!"
Ed flung himself into some shrubberies. Rudi scrambled at her belt behind Nix in the corridor. Jessie flung herself flat with a scream, her shoulders bumping into Nix's shins. Rudi got out a revolver – then grunted. She stumbled backwards, blood blooming on her white shirt as bullets whipped past Nix's thin cover. She dropped onto her back, blood frothing and bubbling around her mouth. Nix fired a few more wild shots, but the gangsters were rushing for cover – some used a tree that grew in the front yard, others drew back towards the cars, pulling Miguel Junior between them like a shocked child.
Zimmerman was...well, Zimmerman. She had taken advantage of the flash to get her hands around one of the gangsters – snapping his neck with a single brutal twist. Then she had kicked his tommy gun into her hands and was spraying down the retreating gangsters, bullets kicking up off the ground and splintering bark. Two were downed – one clutching his arm, one laying completely still, his hat knocked off his head, a bloody exclamation point between his eyes. Zimmerman's tommy gun went empty almost immediately and she hurled it directly at a gangster that stepped out to open fire on her. The wooden butt of the sub-machine gun crashed into the man's nose, causing him to stumble backwards.
Nix plugged him with two quick shots, her heart hammering in her chest. One hit his knee, the other his shoulder – the recoil on this damn gun! - and he went down.
The two cars started to pull back. A gangster leaned out of one and opened fire with his tommy gun – bullets slamming into the walls and shattering the glass. The cars squealed and pulled away as Zimmerman sprinted back towards the front door. She stood there, looking fiercely around.
"You are well, Marion?" she asked.
"Rudi's down," Nix snapped.
Zimmerman's face grew ashen. Nix hadn't thought that Zimmerman could look so concerned. She dropped to her knees and took hold of Rudi's hand, squeezing her intently. Her eyes were wide. "N-No, no, you're too young!" she whispered. "The bullets should have found me – they should have found me, damn it!"
Rudi was trying to breathe. Every sound she made was an agony. But as Zimmerman squeezed her tightly, Nix felt a bump against her back. She glanced over her shoulder – and she saw that Enterprise was moving up behind her. She knelt down and Nix stepped out of her way, her eyes wide. She had never seen this before. Ed came jogging over, panting.
"What in the blue blazes is going on here!?" he said. "I...I...Christ…"
Jessie was watching, her eyes wide as saucers.
Enterprise had her hands raised above Rudi. Her eyes were closed...and the space they were in felt as if it had grown more crowded still. Ghostly figures shimmered from the walls – greenish witchfire outlining masked figures, stern men who leaned over. An outline of a wheeled gurney appeared beneath her, raising up, and the ghosts pushed her away. Men in broad, Atlantic and southern accents spoke – catechisms of a time gone by. Their voices came not to the ear, but deep inside of the mind, echoing and reverberating.
She's lost a lot of blood…
Get some plasma in her!
Lets start working on getting the bullets out!
Scalpel.
Bullets came free – solid objects, suspended between flickering, flame-outlined forceps. They clattered into a bowl that wasn't a bowl. Compresses and stitches were laid on with the ferocious speed of men that had been dead for two hundred years – men who had once needed to patch up crew at war. Nix watched with wide eyes, unable to tear her eyes from the ghostly shapes, to ignore the echoes and whispers. When they faded away, Rudi slowly drifted down towards the ground – the gurney vanishing into green sparks. She was left on the ground, her chest bandaged and her breathing slow and steady, her eyes closed. She was not dead. But she also didn't look as if she would be on her feet any time soon.
Zimmerman crossed herself. "By Christ and her Clockwork," she breathed. "Deus Ex Machina."
Jessie and Ed, who had moved to cling to one another in uncomprehending awe, walked forward. In the distance, police sirens started to wail. Nix's hands shook as she reached down, then squeezed Enterprise's shoulder.
"She was aboard the Comfort…" Enterprise whispered, her eyes half closed. "The best doctors and surgeons, the most advanced ship. How did I get her there? How?"
"It was a miracle," Zimmerman whispered.
"Well, yeah, she's not a boat," Makhá said, nodding.
Everyone looked at her. Even Nix.
"There are spirits of things," Makhá said, smiling. "Then there are spirits of people. People are stronger than things – many hands make mountains. She is a spirit of people."
"...who is she?" Ed whispered.
"Quiet," Zimmerman snapped. She was looking at Makhá like she had never seen a woman before, like she had never seen a spirit before. And, in her defense, Makhá was nothing like any spirit that had ever lived before...or...or was she? Nix felt as if she was standing on a precipice again. And then…
She took the plunge.
"She's Midway," Nix whispered.
Everyone looked at Nix now. "Is that a ship?" Jessie asked.
"Three carriers, dozens of smaller ships, hundreds of planes, an island with hundreds more planes," Nix said, the words spilling from her mouth. "The hospital ships. The ice cream carrying ships. The logistics, the organization, the...the technology it takes to get tens of thousands of men into a single place on the Pacific and to use those men and those machines all to destroy their enemies in a single battle, one of the most lopsided victories in all of the Ascension Wars...all in three days." The words felt like a pure, ringing bell of truth in her mind. She looked into the spirit's eyes, and she saw the truth burning there as well.
"You're Midway," Nix whispered.
"I'm...Midway…" Midway breathed.
"And we need to go," Zimmerman growled. "Or do you think the police will not be commanded by that Miss Young?"
Nix frowned.
It seemed she was going to have to put up with Zimmerman again.
For some reason, she didn't hate this as much as she thought she should have.
The spirit of a telephone rested in Miss Young's ear as she listened to the dispatch reports. Shots fired. Multiple casualties. Reports that the local mafia – some Cubano branch that had snaked into mainland America under the nose of the Imperial Navy – had gotten involved. She pursed her lips.
Things were not going to go quietly.
She turned to one of the calculating machines that she had been given, her prosthetic fingers clicking quietly against her hip as she thought. "Dispatch the following orders to the naval airbase," she said, her voice quiet.
"Yes ma'am!" The calculating machine said – working through the cipher system that encoded all communications. She hummed quietly, then started to tap at the telegraph station.
Miss Young frowned as she waited.
Her superiors were not going to be happy about this. But…
"She's beginning to actualize," she murmured, quietly. "We need…we need…" She paused, then looked over at the other calculating machine, which had been compiling the reports that their various spies and agents had been gathering over the past few days. She snapped her metal fingers, pointing at the curvier, slightly bulkier spirit. "Give me the report on Maryfort again."
"Okie dokie!" The calculator hummed and flipped through various pages. She picked up one and handed it to Miss Young. She read through it – the transcript of the Hundred and First that had been sending information to the Empire for the past three years, the reports he had gathered from his comrades who had no idea that he was an informer, the additional context put in by technicians who were loyal and had been given the data and given a chance to think and theorize about what it meant. She grinned, slowly.
"Begin a new ciphered order," she said, turning to the other machine. "And remind me, is Captain Horne still in the local airspace?"
"Y...Yes, ma'am!" the spirit said, smiling. "He's not being returned to London for his court-martial until the end of the week."
"Countermand that and put him in charge of the…" Miss Young considered her options. "...the Indefatigable."
"Um, ma'am, the Indefatigable is currently captained by Captain Shriveman," the calculating machine said, sounding confused. "What, um, uh, what rational should I send for his removal?"
"Send it under the following cipher code and you won't need a rational," Miss Young snapped.
The calculating machine wilted slightly under her tone. "Okie dokie…" she said, sounding quite frightened as she turned back to her telegraph. She started to tap away.
***
Nix walked after Zimmerman, her hand on Enterprise...no...on Midway's shoulder, keeping the robed spirit at her side and at pace, despite Midway's shocked expression. "We need to get out of the city," Nix said, her voice firm. "But the trolley stations are going to be watched and then- what are you doing?"
Zimmerman was advancing towards a signifier of just how nice this neighborhood was; A small steam automobile, parked in front of a house that was even nicer and larger than Nix's niece. Nix's stomach knotted. She was still not sure if leaving her niece, her niece's husband, and Rudi behind had been the right decision – they could still be used as hostages, they could be threatened...but Rudi had been hurt, Jessie had been completely unwilling to leave her home, Ed had been totally confused about what had been going on. Leaving them behind to declaim Nix as a traitor and criminal and, thus, be rendered irrelevant to the schemes of the Mechanical Turks all had seemed quite rational at the time, but...but…
Zimmerman hadn't responded.
"I said-" Nix started.
Zimmerman punched the glass window of the car in and reached in to begin opening the door.
"Oh great," Nix muttered.
The front door of the house burst open and a wood paneled, black rubber and fierce little spirit came springing out, furiously hissing and spitting. "What the freaking heck are you doing!?" she roared, her voice shockingly deep for her short stature.
"Nix, deal with her," Zimmerman snapped.
"Oh my god," Nix groaned as Midway shook her head from side to side in slow shock. The spirit of the automobile stalked forward, glowering at the large, broad shouldered form of Zimmerman. Before she could start laying into her verbally – or physically for that matter – Nix stepped between the two. Her voice was soft. "Hey, hey, hey, I'm sorry about the window. She's such a brute…" She slid her hand along the rubbery-smooth cheek of the spirit. Her voice was soft. "I've never met an automobile as sleek and smart as you. Are you a new model?"
The automobile, like most high performance machines that didn't require a crew, had an ego to boot. She puffed up her slender little chest as if she was a tire being pumped up and beamed. "I sure am!" She said. "I'm a Bucephalus brand Chariot II, one of the best new steam powered automobiles ever. I was taught to mostly eat corn-oil too, I can run all around town on a thimble. Also, I have airbags." She smirked. "And anti-theft devices. I know telephones, and they'll listen if I scream really loud…"
"Amazing," Nix murmured, softly. Her eyes glittered and she smiled. "how long has it been since you've been serviced?"
"Pff, I don't need to be serviced yet, I'm only a few days off the production line – I'm basically perfect!" Chariot II said, her voice dripping with absolutely adorable arrogance.
"Did you now?" Nix asked. "Well, I can still do some little checks, right?" Her hand slid along Chariot II's belly. The automobile squirmed and bit her lip.
Nix "unlocks" the car using her quick fingers
"You're trying to distract me from the fact your dumb jerk...friend is...she…" The spirit gasped as Nix's fingers found the sopping wet folds of her cunt. Just being this close to a Technician could have that effect on spirits. She thrust her fingers in and crooked slightly, finding the center of the little car's pleasure. Her mouth opened and the spirit's head rolled back as she moaned, bucking her hips slightly. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" She moaned, quivering as her hips bucked against Nix's questing, thrusting fingers. Nix knew she had limited time. She had to work fast. She leaned forward, kissing the spirit's hard, rubbery nipples, sucking one, then the other as her thumb found the clit and rubbed it. Touching it caused the physical engine on the car to sputter and hiss, then finally start to buzz and click as the rapid boiler-piston system caught and engaged. Zimmerman grunted and nodded while Nix thrust two more fingers, deep inside of Chariot II.
That was enough. The spirit cried out a single note of pure, wordless pleasure and went limp against the garage door. Nix gently lowered her rump to the pavement, kissing her on the forehead and drawing her cum-slick fingers from the spirit's snatch. She smiled. "Thanks, honey," she purred.
"Mmmhm…" the spirit mumbled sleepily as Nix jogged to shotgun, opening the door with her clean hand, absently licking her fingers clean with a quick swipe of her tongue.
"Good work," Zimmerman harrumphed.
"Jealous?" Nix asked, smirking slightly, letting her British accent get just a bit thicker – she had picked up quite a lot of the Yankee's tones in her time in America, but she knew that the more educated tones of her youth would irritate the bigger woman. Zimmerman shot her a glower that made Nix think she might have made a mistake – that glower had a certain...edge to it…
Then Zimmerman almost drove the car into its own spirit. The engine sputtered and the vehicle lurched forward a few inches before stopping. The transmission snarled and gnashed.
"Christ and her Clockwork, what are you doing!?" Nix snapped.
"Don't you know how to drive?" Midway snapped.
"I...it seemed so simple in the old books," Zimmerman said, flushing as she looked down at the large lever and the clutch and the several peddles down below.
"Get the bloody hell out of the driver's seat!" Nix snapped. Zimmerman shifted her bulk – fortunately, she had brushed the shattered glass out of the way. Nix scrambled over the controls, sat down, and Zimmerman got into the passenger's seat. As she did so, she held her hand back.
"Thompson," she said.
Midway reached into her robes and withdrew one of the Thompson sub-machine guns that they had snagged from the mobsters. Zimmerman took it and checked the bolt, clacking it back and letting it slide back into place with the magazine firmly seated.
"Please, don't shoot unless we absolutely have too," Nix said, throwing the Chariot II into reverse.
The car puttered out, down the road, around the corner – and a shadow fell across it. Nix craned her head, her brow furrowing...and swore.
"Oh hell!" she said.
Zimmerman frowned down at her Thompson, then out the window...at the HMS Indefatigable. The massive bulk of the airship loomed overhead – and she was just as powerful, just as deadly, just as modern as Nix remembered from Burned York. They must have gone through a patrol along the coast...and now they were down here. As she watched, the airship shifted its engines and started to skim ahead of them with a low rumbling noise. The nadir turrets aimed down at them – at the city. Nix's eyes widened and she slammed down on the brakes. The car stopped with a squeal of rubber on the road and Makhá smiled cheerfully – amiably, even.
"Why are we stopped?"
Nix frowned. "They're aiming naval guns at us."
"They wouldn't open fire on downtown New Austin," Zimmerman said, her voice confident. "They lack my purpose. They lack my clarity of vision."
Nix slowly turned her head to glower at her. "Zimmerman, can you stop being insane for five seconds?" she snapped.
The belly of the Indefatigable opened and a set of parachutists dropped from it. The lightly armored but heavily armed men in bright red and green sailed down and landed with a series of soft thumps, their chutes blowing away as their auto-release catches snapped off and they were able to fan out around the vehicle. Royal Marines were some of the best trained soldiers in the world – and they had weapons to prove it: They carried sleek, deadly automatic rifles that looked as if they had come from the latter days of the Ascension War, rather than modern bolt action weaponry, and their faces were concealed behind gas masks and goggles. Three of them went around to the back, and two aimed at the front, and all of them started shouting.
"Throw the gun out! Hands up! Hands up! Hands up!"
Zimmerman tensed. But Nix hissed at her. "Do it!" Zimmerman clenched her jaw. "Do it!"
"Midway shall see them slain," Zimmerman whispered.
She dropped the Thompson and lifted her hands. One of the marines snatched the door open, grabbed the sub-machine gun and tossed it away with a brusque movement. "Hands behind your head! Behind your head!" He shouted. Zimmerman put her hands behind her head, Nix doing likewise.
Makhá looked concerned. "Should we?" she asked.
"I…" Midway looked from the masked marine to Nix. Nix shook her head subtly.
Zimmerman though, spoke firmly as two marines reached in and began to haul her out of the chair. "You face not merely the wrath of a Radwarden, but also, the terrible power of Midway herself. The finest moment of America on the high seas shall burn your ship to the keel."
"Shut up," the marine snapped.
Zimmerman was forced to her knees.
Nix was forced to her knees.
Midway stood in the center of the marines. They treated her as most non-technicians treated machines. They didn't see her as a threat, but they didn't see her as a person. They just let her and Makhá stand beside the stolen car. Makhá's hood kept her concealed – and Nix was fairly sure that if the Mechanical Turks saw her, they would immediately steal her away, to study. To learn. But her eyes were only on Midway. Midway was looking from her...to the marines...to the surrounding buildings. Her eyes were wide.
Nix tore her gaze from Midway.
For a moment, she saw them too.
A young child, face mashed against the glass.
Two women – a wife and her visiting friend – gaping on the porch.
A newsboy, caught in the blazing heat of the sun, who had hit his bike's brakes and was goggling at the display.
Midway saw them all.
And she saw Maryfort, burning.
She dropped to her knees and put her hands behind her head, bowing it down low.
Nix felt a quiet sense of relief – she wasn't sure if they would survive this. But scripture said that even spirits had souls – and she didn't want Midway to carry any more weight on hers.
Zimmerman snarled and started to stand.
A hammer blow from the butt of a rifle cracked into her head and, like a toppling redwood, she smashed to the pavement.
***
"You're not required here."
The female voice was familiar. Cold. Cruel. Nix could hear it through the hood thrown over her head, even with her arms tied behind her back. She squirmed a bit as she was held fast by two royal marines – they stood as still as statues. Then she cocked her head – she could hear faint ticking sounds. Those weren't marines.
"I am the Captain of this vessel," a sneering voice spoke, his voice the kind of arrogant received pronunciation that made Nix think of either posh or would-be-posh. She wasn't sure which was worse. "I have every right to view the prisoners." He humphed. "This spirit is rather the worse for wear. A rather old rust bucket of an airship, hmm? What ship are you?"
"Fuck you, limey," Midway snapped.
"Take it off," the female voice said.
The bag swept off Nix's head.
Miss Young stood across from her – but her ruined arm had been replaced with a gleaming prosthetic, glittering and fantastical. She tapped her metallic fingers together, the soft tock tick tick of them loud in the small receiving chamber. The floor shifted under Nix's feet and the faint rumble of engines all combined to make her sure she was on the Indefatigable. But the captain wasn't...who had the captain been? Nix had met him, but so much had happened, she couldn't remember his name. Shives? Shine? Something with an Sh sound...she shook her head and glanced around the room again – and there she was. The zebra-striped spirit of the ship stood behind and to the left of him, looking rather concerned, but she was still showing deference to him. Her eyes and Nix's eyes met.
"Well, she's a Yank spirit, I see," the Captain said.
Something about him was familiar. She had seen his face somewhere. Nix frowned at him.
"Captain Horne, you are dismissed," Miss Young said, her voice quiet.
"Captain Horne?" Nix asked, her brow furrowing. "Not Jonathan Horne?" she asked. "I read about him in the papers."
"Baseless slander, I assure you," he said, his voice dripping with smug condescension.
"Leave. Now." Miss Young said, her voice flat. She turned and her eyes and the Captain's eyes met. The Captain's lip curled – but he didn't respond. Instead he turned and walked out, leaving Nix alone with...she craned her head left and right and saw the men holding her shoulders were actually automatons. The calculating engines that wore the heavy armor that made them so strong and deadly had their faces covered with thick metal masks – dehumanizing them to make it harder for, say, a technician to sweet talk them. She gulped as Miss Young walked over, looking Midway up and down.
She nodded.
"You know her name," she sai1d, turning to face Nix.
"Midway," Nix said. "She's the Battle of Midway."
"There are others like her – sleeping out there. Kursk. Stalingrad. Normandy. Many of them have been destroyed or dismantled or even plain forgotten about. But Midway...Midway, Midway, Midway is special." She smiled, turning and touching Midway's cheek with her clawed finger. "The total triumph of airpower. The first naval battle in human history where not a single ship on either side saw the other. A logistic train stretching around the world…" She licked her lips. "Do you know what we can do with Midway?"
"Kill Colossus?" Nix asked. "Destroy the Fortress? I don't think even Midway can stand up to the Lady Trinity…"
Miss Young chuckled quietly. "I...hmm…" She cocked her head a bit to the side. "You know, I always thought that Mr. Jeremiah talked too much. He loved to give speeches and to brag and strut around. That's how that carpet-munching nun got the drop on him." She smiled, slightly. "And so, right now, I have this burning urge to explain it to you. Cause it's...it's quite fascinating. A remarkable fusion of theology, machinery, and the goals of our master." She smiled, slightly. "Instead, I am going to have you killed."
Nix gulped. "If I'm going to die-"
"If you lay a hand on her head," Midway growled. "I will rip this airship apart with my bare fucking hands."
Nix blinked.
"We're not over New Austin anymore," Midway said, her voice even. Furious.
"...you can do it, too," Miss Young said. "Just as we hoped. Very well. Throw her in the brig."
"Midway, whatever-" Nix started, but then a bag thumped over her head. She felt the unfeeling hands of the machines dragging her away. She was dragged back through the ship, through a doorway. Her heels kicked and she struggled, trying to move. But then she was brought to a stop.
The hood came off her head again and she saw that the two automatons were both holding her by a door.
It did not lead to the brig.
"Oh bloody hell," Nix whispered.
"W-we're sorry," one of the spirits said, her voice muffled behind the mask. "That's the code word that Miss Young uses."
"What's her plan? What's she doing?" Nix whispered.
"Well...we can't tell you!" the other calculating machine said.
"I'm a bloody technician!" Nix almost sobbed. "Please, just, just…" She closed her eyes. She wished she had the telephone that Miss Rhina had given her. She wondered what, if anything, the journalist had learned from her distant observations. She felt like she would never get to learn now. "Just tell me. I don't want to die like this."
"Well, we know that we're going to Poland after this," the first calculating machine said. "To some town called-"
"We can't tell her that!" the second machine said.
"Please, please, you're nice spirits, I know that much," Nix said. She knew she was begging, pathetically. But she couldn't think of anything else but how strong their steel hands were. Their gripping strength. The fact that they didn't quite understand what death was. She gulped, and looked left and right between the two machines.
The first said. "It's called Warsaw!"
"No, that's the first stop," the other said.
Warsaw. The biggest city in Poland under the Reich. Nix wasn't sure why clinging to that knowledge made her feel more at ease. More like she had a say in what happened next. Because she didn't. She didn't have a say in anything at all. She gulped as she heard footsteps. The spirits both hurriedly stood more at attention as Miss Young arrived, her smirk cold.
"Strip her," she said. "We can use articles of clothing as proof she's still around."
The two spirits got to work. One of them took off Nix's wrist bindings...and when Nix's shirt came off, and her leggings were tugged down, Nix noticed that the spirit didn't put the bindings back on. She wasn't sure how much that would matter. She didn't even know if it was intentional, or of it was an oversight. She didn't know. But she clung to hope.
Miss Young shook her head slowly. "I genuinely do not know how the hell you've serviced machines for so long as this." She said. "A woman. Touching other women." Her lip curled in disgust.
One of the calculating engines opened the side hatch. The howling wind outside bit deep and Nix shouted over the din.
"It's because at least I, unlike the male technicians, can find the-"
