Sigmund Shaw: A Steampunk Adventure (23 page)

He headed off in the same direction as the guard, hoping to extend the time between his next round. At the corner of the front of the building, Sigmund could see the main gate and the guard booth next to it. He hoped the guards would keep their attention on the road leading to the factory and not the road inside.

The front of the factory had two massive iron doors that were on runners. They each slid apart, like sideways eyelids, to allow giant cargo to enter or exit. There were also two human sized entrances, one on either side of the giant iron doors. Sigmund went up to the closest door and was surprised to find it unlocked. Quickly stepping inside, he closed the door and took in his new surroundings. To his right, there was a many storied wall that reached from floor to ceiling about thirty feet in length that ended at a corner. There was a metal platform that surrounded the wall about every ten feet up – there must be stairs to the platforms around the corner. A door and a window could be seen on each level, including the ground floor. These were the offices for the operation. To Sigmund’s left was the vastness of the warehouse turned factory. It somehow looked even bigger from the inside. There were hanging lights that gave the place a brownish tint but allowed Sigmund to see some of the machines that were housed here.

Despite Sigmund’s need to hide, he stood transfixed by the sights in front of him. Sutton hadn’t gone into any details about his designs so Sigmund was not prepared. The closest one to him, near the large entrance doors, was at least two-stories tall, made of iron, and had the general shape of a man, with two legs, a torso, arms, and a head. Sigmund had never seen its equal. There were also tubes that protruded from the body, on the back and arms, which were presumably some kinds of weapon. As Sigmund forced his eyes away from this creation, he could see that there were others behind it. Unable to view them all from his current spot, plus needing to get out of the light, Sigmund decided to move and check the door nearest him in the towering office section. He crept up to the ground floor door, looked through the window beside it and could see that the room behind was dark, but light enough to tell that it was empty of people. He tried the door but found it locked. Reaching into his bag he pulled out his lock picks and went to work on the handle. A minute later the door unlocked and Sigmund went inside. The room he found himself in was some sort of chemical lab, the only light coming in through the window. The smell of chemicals was unpleasant and burned his nose. Holding a handkerchief to his face to help with the smell, he searched through his bag for a device that Sutton had given him. Finding it by feel, he pulled it out and clicked the switch. A soft red light turned on – Sutton told him that red light was much harder to see from a distance than white light. Sigmund took his word for it and used the handheld electric torch to search the room. What he saw made him feel excited.
Could he be that fortunate?
Was this the exact room he was looking for – where they created the amalgam cubes?

Along the far wall, opposite the door, Sigmund saw some apparatuses that looked very similar to what he saw the Germans using prior to when the bomb went off. He walked to the work table and saw that along with the apparatuses there were other items, wires, glass containers, tubes, and something that stood out – a dark wooden box, much the shape of a cigar box. Sigmund lifted the lid and found that the inside was covered in soft dark fabric and that there were cubes in a neat little row resting on the fabric. The cubes were about the size of four sugar cubes stacked together.

Sigmund looked about the room to verify that he was alone. Assured that no one was around, he took one of the cubes and was about to place it in his bag but stopped, he had to try one. Looking at the apparatuses he chose one that looked like it was used regularly – near the front of the table and not pushed behind objects. There was a receptacle on top of three small metal legs with wires that led to a silver box – must be an electric storage device. Sigmund placed the cube into the receptacle and attached the wires to the silver box. Immediately he felt a great heat that made him look away. Leaning as far away from the device as he could, he reached over and disconnected the wires.
Incredible!
he thought. How could something so small produce so great an energy? Although he had always worried about the cube being in the wrong hands, it was at this moment that he understood the true reality of it all. It was now tangible, which made it all the more terrible.

Placing the cube in his bag Sigmund decided to take the apparatus and the battery too. He considered doing more, maybe setting a fire and trying to destroy the lab, but he knew he wasn’t equipped for that. Having proof was the most important thing right now, proof that he now had in his bag. He turned his attention away from vandalism and focused on escape.

Sigmund went back to the window and searched the immediate surroundings for a guard. Still nothing. Turning his light off and putting it back in his bag, he opened the door and stepped outside the office. He quietly closed the lab door and took a step towards the front exit but then froze when he heard a sound. He looked behind him and he could hear footsteps very near him, coming around the corner of the offices.  Sigmund was about to run when a man turned around the corner.  He was in full view of Sigmund and the other way around.

The man wore a brown double vested jacket and brown pants, a pair of goggles that shone an unique emerald green in the light – and had a thick club in his hand. The man looked puzzled for a moment while he stared at Sigmund, then nodded, turned, and walked away out of view back around the corner.

Sigmund didn’t know what just happened. Had this man mistaken him for someone else? He must have as the man had Sigmund dead to rights. Not wanting to waste any more time, especially if the man changed his mind, Sigmund headed for the front door and paused for just a moment as he cracked the door to see if anyone was outside. It looked clear and Sigmund crept out and immediately looked for a place to hide. He figured that he would wait for the outside guard to make his rounds and then Sigmund would head for the rope.

Just around the front of the building, heading down the side where the rope was, there were a few crates that were stacked close to the building But they looked like they had just enough room to fit a person behind them. Sigmund dashed over, sucked in his breath, and squeezed into the space between the crates and the building. The waiting felt like forever, but was probably only five minutes, until the guard came down the side of the building. Sigmund held his breath as the guard walked by, hearing his steps on the dry earth. Once around the front of the building and out of earshot, Sigmund squeezed back out from behind the crates and moved quickly to his rope. As he got close, he could see that it was still there and let out a sigh of relief. Climbing the wall, he didn’t pause at the top but immediately descended the other side. Once on the ground outside the wall, it took a few moments to get the grappling hook undone, but he was able to retrieve it. It would be best if no one knew he had been there. Of course the inside guard knew that someone was there. So strange.

Taking a deep breath, he ran from the wall back to the hiding spot he was at earlier. Once there, he looked around, watching and listening for any signs of alarm. They never came. Not wanting to risk another trip on the water, considering how nerve racking it was the first time, he decided to walk to Vauxhall station and catch a train to London Bridge. He planned to return to Sutton’s office, show him the cube, and plan their next steps.

* * *

Jeremiah Maxwell absently wondered how many loops he made around the factory on any given night. To get this guard position took some doing and money, but now that he had it, he would use it to the full advantage. He probably could have gotten it quicker but he needed to be careful not to draw too much attention to himself. If it was found out who his real employer was – the Coal Union – his life would likely be over.

It was a precarious situation to be sure but not an unfamiliar one for Jeremiah. While in the army he had faced life and death situations on multiple occasions and always came out unscathed. He was a talented soldier, but after escaping unharmed time and again he couldn’t help but feel a bit indestructible. Things always seemed to go his way. After his service in the army he found himself back in London without proper employment. His peers wanted him to do something respectable, like a clerk or a factory foreman, but Jeremiah couldn’t stand the tedium that those jobs entailed. He only thought about those careers if he had trouble falling asleep at night. It was a friend of his who directed him to the Coal Union, or really, the other way around. The Coal Union had its public face, its owners, stakeholders, lawyers, and so forth; but it also had a private side, a side that made things happen that needed to happen. This was the type of job that Jeremiah was well suited for. Not only was he a proven fighter but he also had the uncanny ability to fit in wherever he was. He was equally comfortable, and welcomed, at a dark riverside bar, or at tea with aristocrats. Circumstances never got the better of Jeremiah. It was this talent that helped him survive as an orphan, being able to talk his way out of situations as often as he had to fight. Not an enviable childhood by any stretch of the imagination but one that led him to a life that he now quite enjoyed.

His current assignment was to find out all he could about the amalgam cubes and Grimkraken’s plans. The Coal Union was desperate, these cubes could mean the end of the need for coal. So far, Jeremiah had considered his results mildly successful. He was able to get ahold of some of the designs for the machines and pass them to his contacts, but the cube process itself still eluded him. Even after the time he had spent here he still wasn’t sure where the process was even kept. But the nighttime watch shift helped him to be able to look around without being watched himself.

A couple more circuits and then he would start searching again for the hidden process documents. As Jeremiah walked down one of the dim paths, surrounded by crates and various tools, he looked up at the large war machines and couldn’t help but think about how quickly one became unimpressed. When these machines were first built he couldn’t imagine a more remarkable vehicle. Now as he passed them, he hardly looked their way. The briefly extraordinary had quickly become ordinary. And these were nothing compared to what was in the back of the factory which also lost its luster. The only items that hadn’t lost their ability to impress – or inspire fear – were four large crates carefully segregated from the rest of the factory contents. If operational –

His thoughts were interrupted by a noise. Probably a mouse, as the factory had its fair share of critters. The sound reached his ears again – this time it sounded like a door. He approached the corner of the office section and as he turned he caught sight of someone standing near the lab entrance. Many ideas ran through his mind in the second or two that they stared at each other. His first thought was that the outside watchman, Henry, had come inside for some reason, but that couldn’t be right, this man was not in uniform. One of the scientists? No, that wasn’t right either, the entire work crew had left a while earlier. Was it Grimkraken himself? He was known to stop in at all hours for who knows what reasons, but no, this person wasn’t Grimkraken either. The last thought he had was that this was an outsider – maybe police, maybe military – it didn’t matter to Jeremiah, it was almost certainly someone not working for Grimkraken. In the back of his mind he knew that Grimkraken had more opposition than just the Coal Union, but he hadn’t really prepared himself to run in to one of them. Thinking quickly, he decided that the Coal Union could use all the help they could get. If this man was working for someone who was against Grimkraken then he was welcome to whatever he wanted.

Without a word, Jeremiah nodded at the man, turned, and walked back the way he came letting the visitor go free.

* * *

Sigmund entered the back of the Academy and quickly went to Richard Sutton’s office. As expected, Sutton was still there waiting for any word of whether Sigmund was successful or not. When Sigmund arrived he was visibly relieved. Zachary ran across the room and jumped onto Sigmund’s chest and climbed to his shoulder.

“It’s nice to see you too, Zachary.” Sigmund said with a smile.

Sutton asked how it had gone and Sigmund told him the whole adventure, even about the interior guard who saw him and then let him go. Sutton thought the same thing as Sigmund, that it must have been a case of mistaken identity in Sigmund’s favor.

Opening his bag Sigmund pulled out the apparatus that he’d taken and the cube. He set it up on a work table along the wall and then demonstrated the device. Sutton’s eyes grew wide and once the device was deactivated, he started to pace the room in a state of near hysteria. Sutton exclaimed, “This can’t be happening! This is the greatest invention of our time and it is going to be hidden away and used to slaughter. Absolutely intolerable!”

Evidently the actual experience of the device had as strong an effect on Sutton as it did on Sigmund. Sigmund stated, “I believe we have enough proof to go forward.”