By which you mean, I presume, magic allows things to run much more efficiently than physics should allow, so it's preferred to have fixed-but-efficient trains to flexible-but-grumpy. Which kind of makes sense with the implied loss of technological and engineering knowledge: when you're inherently limited in how many vehicles you can put in service in a period of time, it makes much more sense to squeeze every last drop of performance from what you have.
AND THE THIRD BROUGHT FIRE (Animist Atomic Steampunk)
- Thread starter DragonCobolt
- Start date
- Original Mature Alt. History
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
If this also applies to barges, where the tow is integral to the spirit of the tug, rather than cargo, that puts a serious damper on riverine trade. If it doesn't, then river traffic, especially for bulk goods, is likely even bigger than OTL.
As DC has also made clear, how much love and care you put into 'maintenance' matters a lot, along with avoiding doing things which could damage the spirit/tech. Most technicians seem to only care about themselves, so Nix is probably a rare commodity in the empire.
- Pronouns
- It/Its
That would require marines to be able to tell the skull apart from the femer, or a rock
It would really fit this sort of setting if Nix (or anyone else) actually had to cleanup all the (little) buckets that Weetamo made.
Chapter Six
- Pronouns
- He/Him
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?"
"FDR?" Makhá exclaimed. "No! Teddy!"
"...you knew fuckin' Theodore Roosevelt?" Enterprise asked.
"Yeah!" Makhá said, then scowled. "And like I said! The little parks were not good enough." She shook her head firmly.
"Oh my god," Nix whispered. "She's a natural spirit."
"Natural?" Makhá asked, cocking her head. "What isn't natural?"
Nix felt her head swimming as the full impact of what this meant slammed into her head.
Literally everything the Empire said about spirits seemed to be absolutely wrong.
TO BE CONTINUED
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?"
"FDR?" Makhá exclaimed. "No! Teddy!"
"...you knew fuckin' Theodore Roosevelt?" Enterprise asked.
"Yeah!" Makhá said, then scowled. "And like I said! The little parks were not good enough." She shook her head firmly.
"Oh my god," Nix whispered. "She's a natural spirit."
"Natural?" Makhá asked, cocking her head. "What isn't natural?"
Nix felt her head swimming as the full impact of what this meant slammed into her head.
Literally everything the Empire said about spirits seemed to be absolutely wrong.
TO BE CONTINUED
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
Hell yeah, spirits aren't alchemically correlated with "proper industry" or """civilization""", they're correlated with a great deal of effort and emotion, and even spilled blood, drawing out the contours of a clear space and time, any kind of technological and cultural apparatus (perhaps even social technology?) developing as its own distinct thing in human abstract thought, the thousands and thousands of years of turning what was once slightly fat grass seeds into the maize that, along with potatoes, was the foodstuff that largely fueled the Industrial Revolution, all being just as valid as Lady Colossus manifesting as a WW2 computer.
And further, spirits don't die, not with their bodies, and not even when fading out from this world, a train's spirit is not just the spirit of the train, but more the platonic ideal of that individual train. Thus logically, greater spirits are expanded platonic ideals of American trains in general and such. Big E is the platonic conception of American naval might as laid atop its most iconic expression with the Enterprise, Lady Colossus is the Lady Colossus because of subsuming a great deal of the concept of computation into herself. And so, the theological civilizing mission of the British Empire as the vicegerents of the Trinity and all that, is revealing to be nothing more than the same imperialism that gives the British Navy a leg up on building Zeppelins, having British-aligned spirits taking up and monopolizing the Trinity-shaped hole in the universe the same way that genius American shipbuilders either die completely unrecognized or get picked up working for British firms.
And further, spirits don't die, not with their bodies, and not even when fading out from this world, a train's spirit is not just the spirit of the train, but more the platonic ideal of that individual train. Thus logically, greater spirits are expanded platonic ideals of American trains in general and such. Big E is the platonic conception of American naval might as laid atop its most iconic expression with the Enterprise, Lady Colossus is the Lady Colossus because of subsuming a great deal of the concept of computation into herself. And so, the theological civilizing mission of the British Empire as the vicegerents of the Trinity and all that, is revealing to be nothing more than the same imperialism that gives the British Navy a leg up on building Zeppelins, having British-aligned spirits taking up and monopolizing the Trinity-shaped hole in the universe the same way that genius American shipbuilders either die completely unrecognized or get picked up working for British firms.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
I described this twist to my friend Lu, and she said "that's not a twist, that's obvious" so we'll see how many people called it!
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
This does raise the question of where all the concept spirits are.
The biggest few are hidden in plain sight, but what about the smaller ones. Are they kept locked up in a warehouse somewhere, like Big E. Are they just convinced that they're regular spirits, like (for example) the spirit of telecommunications being a really fancy telephone?
And is this secret limited to Britain, or are the parts of the world in on it too. Seems like a big conspiracy to keep wrapped up like that.
The biggest few are hidden in plain sight, but what about the smaller ones. Are they kept locked up in a warehouse somewhere, like Big E. Are they just convinced that they're regular spirits, like (for example) the spirit of telecommunications being a really fancy telephone?
And is this secret limited to Britain, or are the parts of the world in on it too. Seems like a big conspiracy to keep wrapped up like that.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Thinking's hard for me sometimes, but it makes sense, even if I didn't guess it.
Avangelion
Princess Astra
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ohhh- oh dang things have manifestations here XD
Badass reporter XD
Oooh- shipgirls, yeah this really hammers it home XD
Fascinating
Ticklish? Wonder what the concern is with age... too young?
Oh, wait- oh, OH
jxnrjff wait- oh my goddess-
Awww~
That was- wheee~
Seems likely to be based in this setting lmao XD
Oh- funsies XD
Ohhh- radiation, right
Oh my goddess these spirits are so precious aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Huh...
The over religious references- wheee funsies, iunno but the details in everything tickles me XD
Oh my goddess the- what's it called, religious kink? Iunno lmao
Ooooh,
DO IT NIX
KISS HER MARION
Goodness these spirits XD
To kill the spirits...
I really do wonder how far you can take spirits of these things... XD
Oh- oh fuck, something like a Gundam/mobile suit or AC- hnjhcngj
Huh, interesting
Ha! Spirits of old XD
Yehehehesssss
- Location
- Minnesota
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Is this a literal… I see what you did there
This is such an amazing setting! Fascinated by how the incarnation of spirits works… so, intentionally ordering the world in a certain way brings forth a spirit representative of the thing. But… how necessarily is sapience to the process? In the sense of humanness or in the sense of 'language' or self awareness on the part of the creator.
For instance, would there be spirits of termite colonies? Or anthills? Or beehives? These are complex structures which have some measure of mechanical complexity… are there bee or hornet spirits out there that embody beehives? What about a spirit of a beaver dam? Are these not quite complex enough to incarnate in the same way as the human made spirits?
What about natural processes? Like, the way that the biosphere of the planet seems to self regulate to maintain the conditions required for its continued existence? Is any process that runs counter to entropy able to incarnate a spirit?
Stars… have a definite structure, and ongoing mechanical processes. A fusion reactor made by a person would presumably have a spirit… and what's the difference between that and a star except scale? If, hypothetically, someone gathered up enough hydrogen to start a fusion reaction naturally, then they would have 'made' a fusion reactor… though mechanical complexity is what gives the spirits their power. But perhaps it's just… that aspect of them?
Like, all the spirits that we see in the story are made by humans, and take on aspects of the process that make them. So expecting the spirit of a star to have a human form and have human traits like agency and cognition doesn't make sense because that's not what went into creating the star. Though, how would that change in the example where some human gathered al the hydrogen? Not a whole lot i suppose cause despite the scale the star itself wouldn't have any of the complexity and intricacy itself…
Now… the biosphere of a planet on the other hand… especially one that's actively reshaping itself… hmm.
I think all the spirits we see get their personalities from their people and theme. I think a spirit of some ordered process that has no organising intelligence would have no real personality, and without that, how would we observe them?
Perhaps if you remove all termites from an area you get some ghostly termite activity for a bit? Or a mature forest remembers that it should have species that fill certain niches, so if you eradicate the leafcutter ants then it will resist that change in it's alien way by finding or manifesting some other creature or creatures it can mould to fit whatever parts of being a leafcutter ant were important to it. Maybe another ant species does it all. Maybe it was the movement of biomass along paths that was important and more leaves or sap drop into queer streams. Maybe the forest wants the clearings back or it wants a multitude of feet to dance upon it.
Perhaps if you remove all termites from an area you get some ghostly termite activity for a bit? Or a mature forest remembers that it should have species that fill certain niches, so if you eradicate the leafcutter ants then it will resist that change in it's alien way by finding or manifesting some other creature or creatures it can mould to fit whatever parts of being a leafcutter ant were important to it. Maybe another ant species does it all. Maybe it was the movement of biomass along paths that was important and more leaves or sap drop into queer streams. Maybe the forest wants the clearings back or it wants a multitude of feet to dance upon it.
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I think it's that belief creates a weight, and more specifically, that the Empire is not wholecloth creating these spirits, they're just taking stuff from the past and fooling it into thinking it's their creation. Tons of cultures believed in nature deities and world deities, but over time humans have fought eachother, enslaved eachother, etc. And they do the same to the spirits too, trying to control something they can reach but can't quite grasp. So 'Enterprise', I suspect, is somehow connected to American Exceptionalism, which suggests she's the spirit of of American Empire, which means her perview is all forces, materials etc of that empire, which includes the disembodied spirits/weapons/creations etc of that empire. There's probably more I'm not getting, but it probably has to do w/ Trinity, what she did, and what happens to humans and animals in this world after they die.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
With the latest chapter in mind, we can reconsider this fragment as well.
Are we so certain those temples didn't work?
Or is it just that the British definition of working (the creation of singular, powerful yet controllable spirits) doesn't fit particularly well on ancient religions. After all, those were usually rather fractious, with every city state having it's own interpretation of these common gods and godesses.
Are we so certain those temples didn't work?
Or is it just that the British definition of working (the creation of singular, powerful yet controllable spirits) doesn't fit particularly well on ancient religions. After all, those were usually rather fractious, with every city state having it's own interpretation of these common gods and godesses.
Well, they didn't exactly create a spirit like Fortress or Colossus (or Trinity perhaps), ones with a computer brain, so of course they'd be different.
Twei
I have a face!
- Location
- the land where they write things
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I thought I remembered Spirit Christ! That's been there for a while, in plain sight! It's not even like they forgot that non mechanical spirits existed (though the nuclear war surely helped), the British seem to have collectively decided that machine spirits are the only valid modern spirits because ???
Maybe Colossus, as a spirit of Empire, is suppressing or cannibalizing spirits on Imperial soil??? Otherwise you'd imagine there would be some quite annoyed old spirits out there. But if no one believes they're real or relevant , maybe not ....
Also, thinking about it, I suspect that DC is going to start referencing Solomon in relation to spirits/daemons.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Hold up.
Forget the animist atomic-turbine steampunk, I want to know about the history of Christianity because this is a whole host of butterflies. Over two thousand years of doctrine, shifted. (Still probably has Nicholas of Myrna decking a heretic on the church steps)
Huh, so north of the Kentucky and east of Old Muddy, still pretty big.
I get the feeling Weetamo never carried machinery for making ice cream in industrial quantities.
And what of oceangoeing and river-going ships? Everyone always overlooks those, but for some reason I don't think coal or ore gets shipped on airships.
'course she can, she's based on carriers, and those did have ice-cream making machines, as did battleships. Led to a whole thing with captains paying bounties in ice cream for rescuing downed pilots.
It's pretty clear that spirits are technology. Now the most common form that takes is machinery, yes, but surely there must be a spirit of the Haber process?
I don't think Makhá is the Three Sisters, or just the Three Sisters, but "woodscraft" feels a bit too vague to have a spirit...
Imagine growing, carefully planning out exactly, and putting blood/sweat/tears into how the wilderness of a continent would be and then have someone not call that technology.
Jane Dough
(She/Her)
- Location
- Occupied Cascadia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Quite a few folk throughout the world and history (and the present) don't have to imagine, sadly.
Chapter Seven
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Some time before…
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.
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.
"Good," she said.
The bolt clacked shut.
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.
"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.
"Good," she said.
The bolt clacked shut.