Free-Wrench Read online

Chapter 1

  Each shift ended with a short but very necessary shower to restore herself to something resembling a human being. That was the most inconvenient part of being part of the female staff. There was but one shower to be had, and modesty forbade sharing it with the men; so when the time came for her to wash up, she had to wait until it was unoccupied and post a sign one of the other workers had made for her stating that the showers were Reserved For Nita until she was through. It was one of the reasons she’d switched to the less popular night shift. Regardless of the wait, though, she always hit the shower. Stewing under a layer of marinated leather while she was in the tunnels was all well and good, but it was not a pleasant way to spend one’s leisure hours. Now her shift was behind her, her sweat rinsed away, and her dark Calderan skin no longer stained darker by grime and soot. Having changed into her simple white dress, she was ready to go home.

  “Good work today, Nita,” said the foreman, a man named Stover. “See you tonight?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” she said, hanging up her gear in her locker. “I’m going to take a few of the coil boxes, all right?”

  Stover gestured vaguely. He was coming off his own shift, and his brain had punched out at the very same moment he had. She likely could have asked if she could borrow his liver and received the same response.

  Just inside the walls of the Hub, at the curb of a cobbled street behind a wrought-iron fence, was a clockwork contraption called a “winder.” Like so many things in the Hub, it was an accumulation of turning gears and spinning rods, with a grid of metal cubbyholes aligned along the front. Each cubby had a lever at its side, and in the back of the empty ones could be seen a hexagonal socket slowly rotating. Most of the cubbies were small, holding palm-sized boxes, but those nearest to the ground were much larger. She pulled the lever on a pair of the largest occupied cubbies, sliding out a bracket and dispensing two boxes, each three inches thick and a foot square with a matching hexagonal shaft on the front and a handle and switch on top.

  “Nita!”

  She turned to see one of her fellow night-shift workers, Drew, rushing over to her. He was in his usual after-work outfit—a collared shirt, rough black pants, and beat-up brown shoes—and he carried a large bag of salt on one shoulder and a canvas messenger bag over the other. Since the steamworks generated its energy by piping seawater into boilers warmed by the volcano’s heat, an inevitable byproduct was a copious amount of brine, which eventually was allowed to dry in the sun to produce sea salt. Workers were free to take as much as they liked, with the remainder being sold.

  “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 w
rinkles 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.

&nbs
p; “Now. Let us not have sour faces around my table, hmm?” said Marissa as she cleared away the emptied dishes. “Josh and Lita have a full day ahead of them, and Nita has a long day behind her.”

  “Yes, off with you, children. The academy wants me to select a lecturer to fill in for me.”

  The family stood to go about their day, but Nita lingered. Her mother had moved unsteadily to the parlor and stood staring at something on the mantle. It was littered with vases, statues, sketches, and paintings, as well as a large handmade clock of Nita’s father’s design. Gloria could have been staring at any one of them, but Nita knew without asking which it was that held her mother’s gaze.

  “Mother?”

  “Oh. Yes, Amanita dear?” she answered, shaken from her reverie.

  “How long has it been?” Nita asked, plucking a small figurine of a deer from the mantle. It was skillfully made from clay, but, unlike the other figurines, it was unglazed and unpainted.

  “Oh… sixteen years now. Oh cruel fate, eh? To take my gift from me before I could paint my final piece.” She paused to settle down to a chair. These days she couldn’t spend more than a few minutes on her feet. “Tell me, dear. What you do at the steamworks, does it make you happy? Does it feed your spirit and nourish your heart?”

  “It is very fulfilling.”

  “Then cherish it, love. You won’t have it forever. And you never know when you might lose it. I think back sometimes. To balls I attended, galas I hosted. I think of all the hours I could have spent with my fingers in the clay or with a chisel in my hand. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to have just one of those hours back again. Just one more day that I could hold a brush and know that the line I paint would stay straight and true.” A tear ran down her cheek. “Oh, but listen to me. No sense talking like that. We look to the future in this family. I can still teach, eh? Off with you. Get some rest. Don’t listen to your silly old mother.”

  Nita lingered for a moment more, looking thoughtfully at the unfinished figurine, then placed it on the mantle and left her mother to rest.