After the Arrow

Warehouse like a dockside brothel. Might as well of stayed in the den, for all the light there ain’t. Littered with aeroship parts, a few ranks’a mekavalry pieces. Cablin’ an crates’a who knows wot.

But this horse ain’t gonna fix itself, nor that other bizness neiver, so here she is, up to her elbows in its chest cavity. Threading her fingers neatly between the engine and the foreleg drive pistons. Her fingers know the way, like a mouse behind t’walls. Not that she’s really ’ere to fix t’horse. That being the reason for the light. Or lack of, ravver.

Still, reminds her of her Ma a bit, afore she gone an’ died. Makin’ pastry for pie. Flour and grease all the way to her rolled up sleeves. Woman could make pastry like you wouldn’t believe, raise a water crust that jus’ melt in yer mouth, like butter. Wiry, Ma’d been, just like Ed now. Dextrous hands, even when she was half-gone with t’fever, her colour too high, like you could light a torch from the flames in ’er cheeks.

Not that Ma’d ever lost a week of days an twice tha’ in meals to pipe dreamin’. Not Ma. An’ Ma wouldn’ be in this fix neither. Sneakin’ round, pretending to do wot she ain’t, not really, on account of she needs her next fixins.

Trouble is, mechanics c’n be a right noisy biznuss. Her highfalutin guv York ent thought it through, clear as day. Else, he jus’ don’ know nuffin. Prob’ly that. Likes’a him don’ concern thesselves bout no mechanics, bout how them’s horses an’ airships an’ fact’ries run, jus’ so long’s they do. Same ol’, same ol’.

So here she is, tinkering. An’ sure, the thing needs fixin. Jerkin’ an’ catching when she ran t’engine. All the while keeping ears peeled, knowin’ trouble’ll come through them big warehouse doors any second. An’ she needs to hear every last piece’a that trouble, an’ not get caught at it, neither.

Her fingers find the piston rods, where they join the crosshead. The joints worn down, need replacin’.

The gas lamps flicker, the rumble of the door sliding back on its track, the moanin’ of the wind comin’ up off the docks, bad as her sister Het, every time Het lays eyes on her. Both sounds abruptly cut off, like someone’s wary’a makin’ a noise, attractin’ unwanted attention.

She withdraws her hand from the horse’s chest cavity, eases herself beneath it, close up against its forelegs.

A voice, accusing, on the edge of anger, ‘Where is he then? You said he’d be here.’ Someone used to having their way. She peers through the gloom, trying to get a sighting, confirmation of identity.

‘He will, he will.’ Hand-wringin’ goin’ on in the second voice.

‘And this place, it’s secure?’

’A warehouse of old Ironsides York. Cam assures me he’s still up north. Place’s been disused since Ironsides fell foul of our great leader.’ Sarcasm there, no question.

She could see them now, as far as the waist, as they scrunched across the debris-littered boards, deeper into the gloom. Boots, hardwearing but well made. The one on her right taking the lead. Slight limp on him, favouring his right leg. Looks like a problem in the knee, from where she standing. Or cowering, more like. Any-road, she reckons him for the groveller, the hand-wringer. The fixer. Like her, ha ha, but not.

’Which could well mean the place is watched, you fool.’ Sir Impatient now, hissin’ tween his teeth, like a goose in a temper. Watch out for them geese. Awful aggressive when they get the wind up.

‘No, no,’ Dodgy-Knee placating now, a nursey with a sweety, tryin’ to ward off the kickin’ an’ the screamin’. ‘Old Ironsides is back in the good books. According to his brother.’

’Since when has Cam been privy to... Where is the bloody man, anyway?’

‘Coming, coming, m’lud. Sure,’ and there it was, the giveaway northern twang an’ phrasing, ‘He’s just been caught up in business or detained on the road...’

Whatever else he were gonna say lost to the door grating in its tracks; distant porters’ calls from down the quay; food vendors’ rovin’ cries. Nearer, a rumpus of sailors’ hecklin’, all cussin’ an dockside slang. And back of it all, the restless frettin’ of the wind tween wharfs and airship riggin’, tween old timbers an’ the bustlin’ shipyards, tween cloth an’ skin an’ ears an’ brain.

Cuss it t’the devil, she’d had her fill’a that bedamned wind, she had.

Her stomach gurgled, writhed. The pipe did that. Made you forget. Even hunger, till it came stormin’ back. An’then you had to choose tween spendin’ yer copper on grub, or another spell in the den.

Hell’s bells, if’n she could just get the goods on these goodfornuttin’ three, maybe she good have the both of ’em, for once. Line her stomach an’ the the pipe-bowl too.

‘Grey.’ New voice. An’ it’s Cam awright. High pitched, whiny. His lordship, Cam’s older brother, guv wot’s payin’ her tab, or sposed t’be, said it were allus thus. Said as you could take that boy outa his whelpin’ skirts but ya couldn’ take the skirts outa th’boy. An’ he’s only gone an’ spent the rest of his addlepated life tryin’ t’prove otherwise.

‘Why the hell are you loitering down here, where any halfwit walking can stumble on you, man?’

She c’n see the bottom of his coat, folds of leather falling round stick-thin legs, like he’s standing on a pair’a jointed toothpicks. Somethin’ wicked this way comes, as the sayin’ goes, an’ gonna pass right close.

‘There’s an office further in.’ Closer and closer come the feet, the legs. Her view up to the waist now, the chest. The first two men broader’n Cam, no surprises there. Man needs steps just to mount his Horse. ‘Follow me.’

She crunches in as tight to the machine’s forelegs as she can, and still get a skinned eye on their faces. York’d wanted more’n just reportin’, had been arter a camera daguerreotype whotsit, but shed said not on yer mother, not on yer life, an’ talked him down, an’ outa that foolish notion. Them things make a thundercrack’a noise, an’ no way would she be gettin’ outa here still with a breath in her iffin she tried some ploy the likes’a that. An York, well, he may not give a fig fer her, he don’t, but he wants this all tied up wi’ parcel string and delivered into King ‘Aerono Tic’ Hal’s lily whites.

She brung it though. The skilamalink camera fing. What’s one more clinking bit’a kit to a grease monkey like ‘er? An’ now she’s got her an I.D.E.A.

‘So, the reason you’ve dragged me all the way out here, all cloak and dagger would be?’

They’re almost level with her now. She prays her stomach don’t kick up no rumpus, the way it’s gone all hollow, she can feel its hollow fingers reachin’ up he throat. She peers up from the shadow of the horse. Sees what she needs to see. Cam she knows. To look at, not like they’re bosom pals or nuttin’, but he’s round scroungin’ off his brother any time he runs short on pocket change. Bliddy peacock he is.

’Surely Grey told you. There is a feeling among certain parties that this... fight Aerono ’Tic’ Hal seems intent on picking may not be in our best interests.’

The limping one, hoverin’ at Cam’s far shoulder, he’ll be Grey. She can just make out his Comms badge now, on the right side of his chest, wiltin’ a bit from its pin.

An’ the one passin’ closest to her, well, if that ain’t a turn-up for the books! Only bloody CoD, he is!

The scrunching turns to stair-tread groans as they head up to the inner sanctum. An’ that coulda been a problem. Those creaks would give her away for sure, an’ clappin’ eyes on the Sneak Trio’s only a fraction’a the job. She’s gotta get the lowdown too, find out what they gotta say that’s so hush hush.

But for now her luck’s in. She taps the floor with a soundless knuckle. Touch wood. She knows this place better’n a bunch a’ Comp’ny Dummies could hope to. Not that they’d even admit t’a passing acquaintance wiv the likes of it here, the up-country toffs. An’ more the fool them.

Warehouse equipped with both internal and external pulley system? Jobs’a gooddun. First time she ever saw a monkey, she recognised somethin’ in it. More’n she recognised any’a herself in her old Pa, say.

External winch’ll bring her up’t’level’a them office windows, an’ the won’ hear nuttin, not wi’all the ruckus onna dock. An’ place her in prime position t’play wi’ Old Man York’s bliddy toy afters. When they come out, like.

Last trickle’a conversation reachin’ her from away up them stairs, as she begins to inch and beetle outa hidin’, towards a side entrance, deep in the shadows’a the far wall:

’...Treaty of ’42 bad enough already, and now he wants to...’

But she’d slid out the door then, lost track to the wind and dockside hubbub. Even in the lee of the hulkin’ warehouse, the flamin’ wind snatches at her hair. Her nose begins to run; she swipes it with her cuff; can’t afford to be gettin’ her hands all snot-slimy round about now. She peers round t’corner of the buildin’ . Night comin’ on fast now, last light drainin’ out into the bowl of the city at her back, the black waters lappin’ at algae-rich stones and ship plankin’ in the pool.

Not a watchman in sight. Good. None of your porters or stevedores in the vicin’ty. Better’n’better. Warmin’ their cockles in the alehouses hereabouts. Settlin’ down to pipes’n heavy drinkin’.

Twenny-somefin’ years back, this place nivver slept. She c’n remember it all a-jostle, her a wee mite clingin’ on her Pa’s gnarly hand, an’ him right puffed wi’pride t’show her. Like he were the king’a the lotta’it. An’ now look. Could mek a person weep t’see it. Since ships took t’the skies, seems like all the life here jus’ shrivelled’n died. As fer Pa, less said an’alla that. Got her better thin’s t’do, an’ she won’ be gettin’ so much’s a lick’a her own preferred kinda pipe til them thin’s is sewn up tighter’n’a airship’s envelope.

For the now, she has her a diff’rent kinda pipe to be gettin’ to grips with. Spanners’n what have you swinging in their holsters, knockin’ ‘gainst her hips, she clamps onto the closer support of the goods hoist, walks her feet up the wall. Hand over hand, another step, another. All but horizontal, she scales right up the damn front wall. Right in plain sight, but she’s a mechanic, an’ behaviour as in yer normal chump might seem strange suddenly becomes acceptable when yer attach a hammer an a couple’a screwdrivers t’it.

Until she reaches the hoist platform, a kinda hangman’s drop, an’ she can’t help but admire the irony. Climbin’ up to a hangman’s stage t’set these three jokers up for the fall.