Free-Wrench, no. 1 (2 page)

“You’re looking excited, Drew.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” he said, stepping close
to add in a conspiratorial whisper, “The airship is coming in
tomorrow. I thought I’d swing down and see what they’ve got to
offer. Did I show you what they sold me last time?”

“I don’t think so.”

He glanced around in a way that did more to
make it obvious he was hiding something than it did to keep it
hidden, then pulled a leather portfolio from the messenger bag.
Nita took it and flipped it open. A passel of thick pieces of paper
lay inside, each bearing a grainy black-and-white image. They
weren’t drawings, or at least not any sort of drawing she had ever
seen. As she flipped through them, she came to notice a theme in
what the images depicted. They were all pictures of women, each one
wearing lacy clothing, and often very little of it.

“Drew, really?” Nita said with a disapproving
smirk. “You shouldn’t be buying anything from those black marketers
from the mainland, and certainly not something as crass as
this.”

“It isn’t crass.”

“Oh no?” she asked, plucking out an image of
a woman wearing a corset that had nothing to do with supporting her
back and everything to do with the more common task of accentuating
certain other assets for display.

He snatched the image away and tucked it back
into the portfolio, which he then dropped into his bag again. “I
was admiring the
fashion
. My sister is a seamstress after
all. I thought she might find some inspiration. Besides, have you
ever
seen
such things? They call them pho-to-graphs.
Apparently you needn’t be an artist to create them. They use
something called a cam-er-a.” He said the unfamiliar words syllable
by syllable, as though they were in some alien language. “A push of
a button and a puff of smoke, and you’ve got one of these. If it is
that
easy, I might finally find something of mine hanging in
a gallery. I’d need only find the proper things to point the
cam-er-a at. I’m hoping they will have one for sale. I imagine
there are any number of models who would jump at the chance to be
among the first to stand in front of my cam-er-a.”

“And no doubt you would ask them to display
this wonderful new ‘fashion’ while they did so?”

“Who knows? One must go where one’s muse
leads!” He winked at her, then turned to leave. “See you later,
Nita.”

She waved and carried the coil boxes over to
a spindly vehicle near the gate. It looked like a horse-drawn
carriage—if someone had been challenged to design one using as
little material as possible, and the first thing on the chopping
block had been the horse itself. The frame and chassis were little
more than thick wire. The wheels were hoops half her height with
thin spokes and narrow treads. She opened a container between the
rear wheels and slotted one of the coil boxes inside. Once she had
flipped the switch on top, she climbed into the seat and twiddled
the levers a bit. Gears clicked and spun, and the vehicle rolled
quietly into the street, powered by the unwinding spring inside the
coil box.

Amanita still lived on the Graus family
estate, on the far side of the town nearest to the steamworks.
Since the Hub was considered something of an eyesore by the locals,
even the closest towns were a fair distance away, but she didn’t
mind. It gave her a chance each day to take in the scenery of the
breathtaking Tellahn countryside. The islands were fortunate enough
to enjoy temperate weather through most of the year, and the local
flora was lush and tropical. This came at the price of a vicious
storm season each year, but that was well behind them for now, and
she was free to enjoy the morning breeze and fresh air.

For one who had never visited Caldera, the
splendor of even the lesser cities was a sight to behold. Dell
Harbor was anything but small and shone as one of the brightest
jewels in Tellahn’s crown. Even Amanita, who had spent her life
here, was frequently struck by the beauty of the place. The
Calderans valued inspiration and creation above all else, and it
showed in everything they did. Elegant columns and intricate
statuary adorned even modest homes. The streetlights were cast and
polished with the same care as a set of fine silverware and gleamed
in the sun.

She passed through the flowered trellis of
her family’s tastefully landscaped front garden just as the family
was gathering around the breakfast table. As they did every
morning, her mother and siblings took their breakfast on the
family’s sun porch where they could enjoy the sights and aromas of
their front garden in the warmth of the rising sun. Amanita quickly
took a seat. Already at the table were her fraternal twin sister,
Analita, and her younger brother, Joshua. Both were dressed in
their pajamas, more accustomed to starting their day with the
sunrise than finishing it, as Nita did.

“Late again, Miss Amanita. Trouble at the
steamworks?” asked Marissa, the cook. She was a matronly older
woman with a frizz of silver hair barely tamed by a white bonnet.
In her hand she held a basket of freshly baked rolls, which she
added to a table already set with fine china and an assortment of
fruits, pastries, and hot cereal.

“Nothing much. A chunk of scale from boiler
three broke free and jammed one of the secondary manifolds. The
whole thing nearly blew its top, but a few of us managed to release
the pressure. Just got a bit messy is all,” Nita explained as she
buttered herself a roll.

“Nothing much,” said her mother, Gloria, with
a cluck of her tongue. “It sounds awfully dangerous to me.”

The matriarch of the Graus clan, Gloria Graus
looked very much the part. Time had done little to fade her beauty
over the years. What few lines and wrinkles had found their way
into her features served only to underscore her elegance. She fixed
her hair, striped with its first strands of silver, pulled back
into a tight bun, and even at the breakfast table she wore a gown,
petticoat, and satin gloves. There was a telling weariness to her,
though, a bone-deep fatigue that was out of place so early in the
morning.

“Don’t worry so much, Mother. It isn’t
anything we haven’t been trained for. I just had to put the old
monkey-toe to use.”

“You know, Miss Barken from the art academy
was just talking about opening their doors again. I could have your
father talk to her about reserving a spot for you.”

“Mother, we’ve been through this…”

“I just feel that you deserve a chance to
have a calling in life that is a bit more—”

Nita rolled her eyes and completed the
sentence: “Proper? Ladylike? Acceptable?”

“I was going to say artistic.”

Amanita’s mother had never truly approved of
her daughter’s decision to take a job at the steamworks. It was
only right, in the eyes of most Calderans, to devote one’s life to
the creation of objects of beauty. No one held this view closer to
their hearts than the Graus clan. Over the generations, Nita’s
family had produced some of the finest sculptors, musicians, and
painters in all of Caldera. That tradition continued to this day.
Each of Nita’s siblings had found a suitably creative calling.

Analita was a dancer and artist’s model.
Though she shared a birthday with Nita, the pair were anything but
identical. Nita, quite lovely in her own right, seemed terribly
plain beside Lita. Beside Lita a
goddess
would be plain.
Tall and slim with dancer’s legs, Lita had a flawless face and a
rhythmic grace that showed in her every motion. Her eyes were ice
blue, a match for her mother’s, and she took the time each morning
to paint her fingernails, color her lips, pull up her hair, and
otherwise put an artist’s touch to her delicate features. Nita
wasn’t quite as tall, wasn’t quite as well proportioned, and wasn’t
quite as graceful. Her eyes were her father’s brown, her hair a
deep brown rather than her sister’s glorious black. In short, she
wasn’t quite Lita. In her youth it had been a point of great envy,
but such childish feelings had been left behind… for the most
part.

Joshua was eighteen years old, two years
younger than his sisters. He was the spitting image of his father:
a strong, stout build, deep brown eyes, short brown hair, and a
head taller than Nita. Though just finishing his schooling, he had
already made a name for himself as both a sculptor and a musician.
A part of that, perhaps, was having Lita as a model and dancer for
his compositions, but his original works earned no less renown. The
two of them had become precisely what the rest of Tellahn had
expected them to be; fine artists and worthy inheritors of the
Graus name.

When Nita became a steamworker, many viewed
it as an admission of defeat. Those who found a place in a more
utilitarian role weren’t precisely looked down upon in Calderan
society, but they were universally viewed as those who had failed
to find a way to contribute to the beauty of their land. In a way,
this was true of Nita. As a child she’d tried her very best to
follow in the family tradition. Alas, she didn’t have the legs for
dance, nor the ear for music. Though her hands were steady enough,
she didn’t have the eye for painting or sculpture. It wasn’t until
she tried her hand at constructing the intricate clockwork music
boxes that had brought her father his fortune that she found her
true talent. She was a tinkerer, and something in the building of a
mechanism ignited her passion. Perhaps she could have continued
with the clockwork sculptures and music boxes and earned the
position her countrymen viewed as her birthright, but what held her
fascination wasn’t the beauty of the machines, but the way they
worked. It was thus only a matter of time before she found her way
into the steamworks, the grandest mechanism in all of Caldera.

“You shouldn’t have to toil away in that
place.”

“I
like
to ‘toil away in that place,’
Mother. I do important work there, and I do it well. Foreman Stover
says the system-wide pressure losses have been down four notches
since I was made a free-wrench.”

Gloria gave her daughter a gentle smile of
encouragement that betrayed a complete lack of understanding of
anything Nita had said, save that it seemed to be a point of pride.
“Well, that’s lovely, dear.”

“Where is father this morning?” Joshua asked,
spooning out a serving of the steamy pot of oatmeal set on the
table.

“Your father had to leave early, I’m afraid.
He’s to discuss matters with the council in Drummer’s Valley again
today.”

“The council? About what?”

“That’s your father’s business, dear.
Something about the perimeter battery, I imagine. No doubt they
want to request another contribution to be sure the guns are
greased and ready.”

“They certainly have been discussing the guns
an awful lot lately,” Lita said, selecting a peach from the fruit
bowl.

“I hear the folks from the west have been
making airships that can go even higher. We’ve got to improve our
guns or they might be out of range, now.”

“It still seems silly to me,” Lita said. “As
far as I can remember we’ve never even
fired
those guns
except to test them, and at the annual memorial celebrations.
Surely if the outsiders had wanted to invade, they would have done
so by now. Better to dismantle the ugly things. Make room for a
magnificent lighthouse or two. Or perhaps a really grand statue
like they have at the mouth of Meristis Straight. That titan could
really use a bride.”

“Oh, I’m sure the outsiders would
love
that. You know what a mess the rest of the world is. Foul air.
People floating about in those ugly machines. Keeping them out is
the only thing that has kept us safe from the same fate,” Joshua
said. “They are completely lawless out there…”

Nita filled her dish as her brother spouted
the same tired speech she’d been hearing her entire life. Caldera
had indeed closed its borders to the outside many decades ago, long
before she or even her parents were born. These days the only time
people were likely to get a glimpse of a foreigner was during one
of the few authorized trade visits, or else by sneaking off and
trading with black marketers as Drew did. Everything she knew about
the outside was based on hearsay and rumor. It was said that their
technology was far beyond that of Caldera, with swift airships that
could cross the sea in days instead of weeks and mechanisms that
made the coil carriage look primitive by comparison. Of course,
she’d also heard they were enslaved by a legion of ghoulish fiends
and their favorite food was boiled rat. Like most things, Nita took
the tales of their exploits with a grain of salt.

“I hear they even throw their own airmen into
the sea for the most minor offenses, and…”

“Mother, is something wrong?” Lita said.

Nita looked up to see her mother slowly
lowering her teacup to the table. Her hand shook visibly,
threatening to spill it.

“It is nothing, dear. Put it out of your
mind,” she said, rubbing her fingers with her other hand.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Nita
said.

“It’s
nothing
. I… just didn’t get very
much sleep, dear. I’m tired.”

“Have the treatments been helping?” Nita
asked.

“Yes, yes, dear, of course. It will pass,”
she said, holding out her hand as the tremor began to subside.
“There, you see? Nothing to worry about.”

In her day, Gloria Graus had been the finest
sculptor in Caldera, if not the world. Shortly after her children
were born, however, she noticed an unsteadiness in her hands. To
her and the family’s horror, she was found to be suffering Gannt’s
Disease. It was rare, no more than three cases had been recorded in
the history of Caldera, but the prognosis was well-known. Shakiness
was just the first symptom, but it had already robbed her of the
precision necessary to honor her muse. For a lifelong artist, that
was almost worse than the disease’s ultimate result: early death.
The family tried not to discuss it, as what little could be done
had been done. Yet if the tremors were back, it meant the end could
be very near.