We are just two days out from October 1st and another newsletter drop. Last week I unveiled the first 500 words of this quarter’s free original fiction, a steampunk piece I started writing during #Smaugust called Like Clockwork.
Today, I’m previewing the first 2300 words!
Already I think you’ll notice some added detail not present in Preview 1, and a few slight changes which I feel are already resulting in a richer, more 3-dimensional story. I’ll continue to finish up revisions tomorrow, getting everything ready to deliver the final piece come Sunday morning. I hope you’ll consider reading the full piece by signing up for my newsletter. Not only does the newsletter contain a new piece of fiction (mostly) every quarter, but it also provides updates on other projects I’m working on, any early release info or sales (NATGB’s birthday is coming up!), and just general insights into my life and writing. Ya know, newsletter stuff.
Anyway, enough of the hard sell, on to the good stuff. Please enjoy this slightly longer preview of my upcoming piece, Like Clockwork.
Every morning The Express arrived in Tidy Town at the exact moment the sun had managed one quarter of its journey across the temperate sky.
The train would appear upon the horizon with a soft trill of its horn, and the whirring rhythm of its great metal wings would set both idlers and commuters alike rushing to clear the runway.
It was during this commotion that Pilf made each day’s bread swiping watches from the pockets of bustling businesswomen, and taking coins from panicked men.
As the stars moved silently in the heavens, so did Pilf move upon the earth, each turning in its way, a part of some giant machine of which the gears cannot know their effect upon the whole.
Pilf smiled to himself as he counted the last coin he’d need to give the baker for a scone and marveled that he’d managed to find such a regular windfall. Since joining Malum Factorem — the Mischief Makers — a few months ago, Pilf’s days had become quite easy indeed. Each morning a train, and each morning a take.
Just like clockwork.
All Pilf need do to keep this bounty coming was show up before the train arrived, and report anything suspicious to one of the older members of the gang working a more lucrative racket aboard the train. Prove himself reliable and maybe he’d get to work the train someday too.
As he moved to gather his earnings, he paused to admire his most gratifying take of the morning, a silver and bronze watch he’d managed to nick off a train attendant exchanging places with her counterpart from the evening shift.
Pilf was even more proud of this accomplishment when he noticed the design etched behind the watch’s hands. Though just a silhouette, it was easy to make out the interaction of gears — their teeth like the battlements of some bronze castle circling an axel tower, or a bearing keep.
Pilf read their placement like a schematic, deriving the hint of a wing here, or the suggestion of a claw there. A whip-like tail and jaws from which spewed forth a flame hotter than any furnace. Ordinary machinery taking an extraordinary shape.
He shuddered as that shape resolved in his mind.
Apparatus Draconis . . .
The clockwork dragons may consist of appliance and machinery, but they were never a part of any larger design. They went their own way, and for their own purpose, and one was never sure whether their appearance was a blessing or curse.
He turned the watch in his hand and found a poem engraved upon the back of the watch’s face:
Round and round my watch will never stop,
to witness each sprouting seed or torch-burned crop
Sometimes I crawl, sometimes I fly, but none will ever reason why.
Ask simply for a change, it’s not a crime, Burden or boon is revealed with time.
Pilf quickly stuffed the watch in his breast pocket, and began searching for a spot to idle near the exit. Soon the train would leave and today’s duty to the Mischief Makers would be done. He would put Tidy Town Station behind him and spend his not-so-hard-earned goods on a decent breakfast.
But the eerie message and design of his new watch was not the only wrench in the gears Pilf encountered that seemingly ordinary morning. While passengers boarded The Express, and Pilf had been counting his earnings, police were lining up en masse at the entrances and exits of the station.
They carried stern looking clubs, and sterner looking faces, which did little more than scowl as they patted down commuters and demanded they empty their pockets for search. They didn’t seem to mind how long the process took, or whether or not a passenger was entering or exiting the station. No one was spared from the search.
Pilf’s usual spot was close enough to an exit that he could hear the two policeman there complaining about the impotence of their strategy:
“If the racket’s on the train,” said the younger of the two, “shouldn’t we have somebody on the train?”
The older man looked disgusted by his colleague’s ignorance, but deigned to explain the situation to him anyway. “We DO got someone on the train. A sky marshal or some other such person. Investigating from under cover. He’ll find them, and put a stop to any racket they’re running.”
“Still doesn’t explain why we’re out here patting laps and checking purses.”
The other officer sighed. “We are here to make sure nothing leaves the train before it leaves the station. If the marshal gets made, or any of the thieves get nerves and try to bolt, they’ll still have to pass through us. Besides, you like patting laps I can see it! Probably the most action you’ve got this month.”
Pilf did not hear the older man’s deep and bellied laughter, nor see the younger man’s cheeks redden at such provocation. His thoughts were already taking off, soaring higher than any sky-train or clock-dragon.
He may still be a small cog in the Great Machine, ignorant of the intent behind the drawings of the Universal Schematic, but even he could see the trouble this placed upon the Mischief Makers. That it was for exactly this reason that he was in the station at all.
He must warn the others.
Thankfully, a month of memorization drills and unexpected drop-in meetings with Pilf’s handler, Ancillus Mali, had prepared him for an entire legion of contingencies and unexpected scenarios. Though sky-marshal-investigating-aboard-train had not been explicitly detailed, he felt confident that his next move should be: approach the ticket office and signal with the abort-phrase.
Indeed Pilf was already moving towards the counter before even completing thought.
Only no one was there. A slate board leaned up against the window where the ticket-seller should be, and big chalk letters reading ‘CLOSED’ seemed hastily scrawled.
Pilf scanned what remnants of the crowd remained on the platform. He checked entrances and exits to staff-only areas hoping to catch the sight of someone in ticket-seller’s garb, but the only uniforms he saw there were those of law enforcement.
Ushers dotted the platform helping people load luggage, and stamping tickets. Would one of them know the signal?
He sighed with resignation and considered that there was only one sure way to warn the others before they ran afoul of the law. He would have to board the train.
Buying a ticket was out. The price far exceeded today’s take (and the cost of a scone) and also, if there were anyone available to sell him one, he wouldn’t need it in the first place.
Another soft trill came from The Express warning desultory passengers of the train’s approaching departure. Pilf clutched and released his small purse of stollen goods as he continued to scan the station, hoping a member of Malum Factorem might suddenly appear from a restroom or return from a break and Pilf could go back to the comfort of the scenarios he’d rehearsed.
Another policeman sauntered past, seemingly able to watch every direction while looking straight ahead.
What could he —
Pilf heard a loud huff and an exasperated sigh coming from a man in a top hat, and a slick looking suit. “My ticket?” the man said. “It’s in my luggage. Like it is every morning. The sun will be half-high by the time I fish it out, did you not just hear the second trill?”
The usher made some noncommittal answer which Pilf didn’t hear. He was too busy studying the upset passenger to hear much of anything.
Dark hat, dark pants, darker blazer. Likely a vest underneath with pockets too small to hold anything useful except maybe a pocket watch or handkerchief. Hence no ticket.
Pilf had seen his like before, and was not too proud to admit that he somewhat loathed this class of Tidy Town society. Their dower dress did not signal any kind of mourning or ongoing grief, it was simply to help the bits and bobs of machinery — positioned carefully as to display the utmost knowledge of current fashion — stand out on their person.
Even from Pilf’s distant vantage, he could make out a broach pinned to the left breast of the man’s coat consisting of a series of moving gears cleverly positioned to look like a rose. His sleeves bulged slightly at the cuffs from who knew what sort of contraption, and glints of metal on the heels of his shoes suggested not-so-secret compartments. Still more gears turned at the buckle of the man’s belt, and the brim of his hat, and most egregious of all, the rim of the man’s monocle spun of its own accord.
Most of these contraptions were undoubtedly quite useless, and only served to show the man’s wealth was greater than his character.
“I’ve been riding this train for years,” said the man, “do you mean to tell me you don’t recognize my face? I could make this a very troubling day for you.”
Inevitably, the usher let the man board without showing a ticket, and Tidy Town’s machine kept right on turning. If it was possible to feel smaller in that moment Pilf was not sure how. Those officers would not look the other way for him, not without an expensive broach and haughty demeanor. To think that one’s integrity could be purchased so cheaply and yet Pilf still could not afford even that paltry sum.
Or could he?
Hadn’t he just been lifting these expensive and useless odds and ends off of passengers all morning. He hid the items within his purse and his pockets because they did not belong to him, and he did not want their owners to recognize them. Besides keeping a low profile, a silent but moving force upon the cosmos, had kept him out of trouble so far, but what if that were no longer true?
Again, Pilf began to move among the crowd, arcing vaguely towards the station’s washroom, but making a few acquisitions along the way to help perfect his costume. He nudged a gentleman into a young woman and as the man’s shock recovered to polite regard, he doffed his hat and held it behind his back just as propriety dictated. Luckily she was quite pretty and showed no indication she minded the nudge. The two were so enthralled at their chance meeting that neither noticed the hat slip from the man’s grasp until he moved to place it back on his head some minutes later.
By that time, Pilf was already in the washroom adding a small wheel from a nearby baby carriage, and several gear shaped buttons from the sleeves of brushed coats and jostled shoulders to his stash. Mere moments later, Pilf had arranged all the shining bits into the most correct and gaudy places. With one last look in the washroom mirror, Pilf set his shoulders square and assumed his most entitled posture before making his way to queue for the train.
As he went, he passed an officer writing lazily in his notebook while a man exclaimed “It didn’t just disappear man! Someone must have taken it! While my back was turned.”
The woman with the carriage stood on the officer’s other shoulder but Pilf could not make out what she was saying. From the helpless expression on the policeman’s face, nor could he.
Pilf clenched the now empty purse as he waited in the queue. Everything he had taken was on display somewhere. Even the uncanny watch he’d shuddered to even look at earlier in the morning was strapped around his wrist. If any passengers still waiting to board — or even any already on the train — glanced his way and noticed their valuables upon his person, there would be nowhere to run.
The line was moving too slowly and it was all Pilf could do not to stare at the usher or glance back at the policeman too often. To make the time pass faster, he rehearsed in his mind what he would say when finally he was asked for a ticket.
He glanced one more time back at the officer only this time was one time too many. The cop’s disinterested scowl seemed to snap into focus when his eyes met Pilf’s. Or rather, when they met the spinning wheel of the woman’s baby carriage which Pilf had fastened to the man’s hat.
Pilf quickly turned away only to come face to face with the usher holding his hand out for the ticket. Every disgusted grimace, or over confident laugh which Pilf had imagined might carry him through this moment fled from his mind.
With the vague notion of the policeman heading towards him from behind, and the expectant gaze from the usher in front, Pilf stood frozen like a statue, unable to move or speak. Pilf could see understanding beginning to dawn as the usher raised one brow.
But then, a miracle. A third and final note trilled aloud, causing Pilf and the usher to both cringe slightly because of their proximity to the noise. When Pilf finally recovered, the usher was waving him onward. “She’ll leave any second now, you’d better hurry on.”
Pilf wasted no time with shock or his blatant disbelief. He hurried onto the train and into the first open seat he could find. From the window he watched as the policeman reached the end of the platform but did not attempt to board. The train was already moving, gusts of wind beating upon the station floor as its giant metal wings took Pilf higher and higher into the air.
The officer stared up at them from the end of the platform and seemed to be looking right at Pilf as the train left Tidy Town Station. Pilf couldn’t tell whether the cop was actually following him with his gaze or not, but he did not allow himself a sigh of relief until the officer was a tiny blue spec far, far below . . .
Will Pilf manage to warn the Mischief Makers in time? Can he discover the identity of the sky-marshal? What of this strange watch with its uncanny imagery and cryptic poetry? And what role will the mysterious clockwork dragon play in it all?
All will be revealed in the final release of Like Clockwork, exclusively for newsletter subscribers on October first 2023!
Ok I’m having too much fun. But if you’re at all interested in finding out what happens next, go ahead and sign up for the newsletter, and have the answers delivered straight to your inbox.
If you’ve got any feedback you’d like to share right now, I’d love to hear it in the comments.
Until next time . . .
alligators and aneurysms! 