The Sins of the Fathers by Rhianon Jameson April 2009 The boy looked to be about twelve, and was small for his age. He wore a blue sailor suit, which had the unfortunate effect of making him look even younger...   [More]

The Sins of the Fathers
by Rhianon Jameson
April 2009
The boy looked to be about twelve, and was small for his age.
He wore a blue
sailor suit, which had the unfortunate effect of making him look even younger and, sad
to say, less masculine.
A larger, pudgy boy was administering a beating to the smaller
one while three others looked on, cheering the bully.

“Stop it, boys!” I said – sternly, I hoped.
I had no experience with children save
from a safe distance, and had no idea what they responded to.
I aimed for a note of
authority in my voice.

The three audience members looked up at the sound of my voice, but the larger
boy kept hitting and kicking the smaller as though I had not spoken.
Having reached the
group, I saw that the victim was Sammy Thraxon, who lived two blocks from me in the
Downs.
I also recognized the three who preferred to watch rather than participate.
The
bully was not someone I recalled.

I tried again.
“Stop it this instant!” That one worked – eventually.
The bully gave
two more kicks to his victim, now prone and rolled in a tight ball to protect himself, then
backed away.
He looked me in the eye.
For a moment I thought he might decide he could
safely ignore me, and I wondered about the propriety of pulling my Webley on a twelveyear-old.
He decided not to push his luck, sneered at me, and ran off, his acolytes close
behind.

I walked to the boy, who stayed in his protective ball.
He cried softly; it was
unclear to me whether this was out of embarrassment or fear that sobs could lead to even
greater punishment.
I wanted to comfort him, but knew not how.
“There, there, he’s
gone,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder.
The boy – Sammy – flinched at my touch, but
eventually decided I was no immediate threat and uncurled.

“It’s Master Sammy, isn’t it?” The boy nodded.
“What happened? Were those
boys not your friends? Why was the one hitting you?”
He sniffled.
“They was my friends, at least Johnny, Mick, and Pete was, but then
Enoch come and no one’s my friend any more.
”
“Enoch is the larger boy?” He nodded.
I sighed.
I would have to find Enoch’s
parents and fill them in on their son’s activities.
“Well, let us get you home.
” I set off in
the direction of his house, and Sammy trudged dejectedly behind me.

#   [Less]

Smoking Can Be Deadly by Rhianon Jameson October 2008 The messenger pounded on my door early in the morning. I was still abed, and hastily threw on a robe over my night clothes as I stumbled to the doorway and...   [More]

Smoking Can Be Deadly
by Rhianon Jameson
October 2008
The messenger pounded on my door early in the morning.
I was still abed, and
hastily threw on a robe over my night clothes as I stumbled to the doorway and threw
open the door.
“For goodness’ sake, boy, quit that racket!” It had been a long night for
me – all in the name of chasing down a story, mind you – and I was feeling a little fragile.

“Sorry, miss, but I gots a tellergram fer you,” the boy replied.
He was a sootyfaced urchin in hand-me-down clothing.
I felt a little ashamed of myself, as he was
earning his living, and surely was as uninterested in being up at this hour as I was.
“The
guv’ner said there was an extra ten Lindens in it fer me if I got this to yer by haff-pass
six.
”
I took the note.
“As indeed you have.
Thank you very much.
” I pressed some
coins in the boy’s hand.
He tipped his hat and was off.
Sinking into a stuffed chair, I
ripped open the envelope.
Something up your alley.
Come at once.
613 1/2 Border St.

(Signed), Armstrong.
Bob Armstrong was a captain in the Caledonian police, something
closer than an acquaintance and something less than a friend.
I had helped him out
recently, and given him the credit (although I got an exclusive on the story, and sold it for
a handsome sum).
It was hard for me to imagine what police business might be for which
Captain Armstrong could use my presence, much less ask for it.
Border Street was a
walled street along which the train tracks ran, separating the slums of Victoria City,
sarcastically named The Manors, from the nicer area; the wall, it was said, kept the riffraff penned in.
It wasn’t hard to imagine crime on Border Street.

I dealt with my morning ablutions as quickly as possible, threw on an old frock,
and grabbed fountain pen and paper on my way out the door, ignoring the pounding in
my head as well as my empty stomach.
Traffic was light, almost non-existent at that hour,
so I made good time to Border Street, moving through a gap in the wall into The Manors,
then crossing the tracks.
I found No.
613 with no difficulty, as the tenement had several
police vehicles in front of it, but it took me some time to find the “one-half.
” This turned
out to be in an alley behind No.
613, and was a seedy two-story building that likely began
life as an out-building for the much larger 613 in front, but was now occupied by a halfdozen or more families.
The alley continued for a number of feet behind the smaller
building, eventually connecting with Fulton Street, which ran parallel to Border Street.

Standing in the alley was Captain Armstrong, surrounded by several uniformed
officers.
The Captain was a short but burly man, and his men all had similar builds, as
though their superior was uncertain that tall, thin officers were up to the job.
The police
contingent watched as a medical team crouched low.   [Less]

Suspicious Minds by Rhianon Jameson February 2009 “Suspicion is a thing very few people can entertain without letting the hypothesis turn, in their minds, into fact. ” – David Court, Social Astonishments...   [More]

Suspicious Minds
by Rhianon Jameson
February 2009
“Suspicion is a thing very few people can entertain without letting the hypothesis turn, in
their minds, into fact.
” – David Court, Social Astonishments (1963)
Suspicion is a terrible thing.
It can tear a marriage apart, slowly, silently.
The only
solution to a nagging suspicion that one’s spouse is being unfaithful is to find proof of it.

No, wait.
How can that make any sense? Mr.
B is sitting in his office, stewing
about the possibility that Mrs.
B has taken her affections elsewhere – perhaps at this very
moment, when Mr.
B can do nothing but contemplate the gray filing cabinets to his left
and the window that overlooks a garbage-filled alley to his right – so he decides his best
shot at happiness is to retain a private detective to find out.
Now, this can end in one of
two ways only.
First, the detective finds no evidence of a clandestine lover.
How does
that help the situation? One cannot prove a negative, so the suspicions, perhaps abated
somewhat, remain and smolder.
Second, the detective provides conclusive proof that
Mrs.
B is enjoying the attentions of another man, that she is getting her groove back, as
some uncouth phrase might put it in a time when the English language has been utterly
debased.
Fine, now he knows.
But is he happier?
Still, man is a curious animal, and empirical evidence indicates that the only
intolerable situation is not knowing.
Hence the ever-increasing demand for private
detectives whose stock-in-trade is knowing how to peep into a window without getting
caught.

So it came to pass one day in early February that Mr.
Charles Forsythe found
himself leafing through a directory to hire a man for just such an unsavory job.
Mr.
and
Mrs.
Forsythe had been married a decade, and, to his mind, it had been a generally happy
decade for the two of them.
Perhaps the bloom was somewhat off the rose, perhaps
Charles had gained a few pounds over the years and Theresa was not as firm of body as
once she was, and perhaps the toll of work at the office (for Charles was an accountant at
a moderately successful firm, with offices in Victoria City) and home (for Theresa kept a
lovely home in Mayfair for her husband and two young children, with no help but a parttime housekeeper and a day nanny) made the couple a little more tired in the evening than
had once been the case.
Mr.
Forsythe accepted these facts as part of life, and had thought
his wife did as well.

Several days before, however, he found himself following his wife down the
street at a discreet distance.
What roused his suspicions in the first place he could not say.

Theresa had been acting strangely for some time, and several times he had come home
for lunch only to find Theresa gone, and the nanny could not vouch for the whereabouts
  [Less]

A Steampunk Christmas by Rhianon Jameson December 2008 1: Frosty, the Steam Man The day broke clear and cold. A fresh blanket of snow lay on the ground, covering the soot-covered walkways and streets, and making...   [More]

A Steampunk Christmas
by Rhianon Jameson
December 2008
1: Frosty, the Steam Man
The day broke clear and cold.
A fresh blanket of snow lay on the ground,
covering the soot-covered walkways and streets, and making everything look new again.

By the time Kathy found her way to my house to help me prepare for a Christmas Eve
dinner, the sun was well up in the sky.

She greeted me as I opened the door, “Hello, sister.
Did you know there was a
metal man in your front yard?”
I looked beyond Kathy and, indeed, a brass man stood in my yard.
The new
snowfall had accumulated around his feet, and some remained on his shoulders and head.

A small puff of steam would occasionally emanate from his head, which helped to melt
any local accumulation.
“Well, that’s something one doesn’t see every day,” I observed.

“What do you plan to do about it?”
“It’s not clear there is anything to do about it.
I suppose some scientist misplaced
his creation, and will eventually be by to collect it.
In the meanwhile,…” I opened a
closet door and found an old top had left behind by my absent-minded Uncle Roland.

Throwing a cloak around my shoulders and pulling on a pair of wellies, I walked outside.

“Rhianon, what are you planning to do?”
“Until someone collects him, he can be our snowman.
He just needs this top hat to
make the look complete.
”
I placed the hat on his head.
Before my hand had completely left the hat, the
smoke started coming out of the machine at a more rapid rate, and I heard gears start up.

“Uh-oh,” Kathy said.

The eyes of the mechanical man opened.
“Hello, madam.
My sensors indicate that
you are not my mistress.
I am not programmed to obey your instructions.
My previous
programming overrides any new instructions.
Destination: North Pole.
” With that, he
started walking at a measured pace.
A few moments took him out of my yard, and a short
time later he had vanished from my sight.

“I hope Roland wasn’t terribly attached to that hat.
”
2: The Evil Tiny Kitty Who Stole Christmas
We went back inside, and set about preparing the house for dinner.
With two sets
of hands, the work went quickly, and we finished earlier than we had anticipated.
“We
have plenty of time before Roland arrives,” I said.
“Shall we go sing some carols in
Glengarry? Miss Poppy and Mr.
Margulis have decorated for the holiday and invited
everyone.
We can just make it.
”
  [Less]

The Soul Camera by Rhianon Jameson October 2008 “Have you ever wondered what your soul looks like, Roland?” With that question, Uncle Roland and I became embroiled in a fantastical adventure. The scene was...   [More]

The Soul Camera
by Rhianon Jameson
October 2008
“Have you ever wondered what your soul looks like, Roland?” With that question,
Uncle Roland and I became embroiled in a fantastical adventure.

The scene was the Prop Spinner’s pub in Steam Sky City, where the eccentric
inventors and mad scientists of Caledon would occasionally gather to discuss their latest
triumphs and failures over a pint of ale and, no doubt, conjure up some tall tales and
wishful thinking as well.
The interlocutor was Professor Diggory Foster, a plump man of
about fifty, with long hair in the back compensating for the thinning of the crop up front,
whose work in electromechanics had lately been superseded by an interest in
metaphysics; and his victim was Dr.
Roland Luminos, a somewhat elderly, decidedly
eccentric inventor-of-all-trades, notoriously scatterbrained, and a close friend of mine,
though no biological relation.

“Pish.
No such thing, old man.
” Roland did not like to drink; he merely liked the
social atmosphere of the pub.
Consequently, he looked at his nearly-full pint as though
the conversation had never occurred.
Several people around him were busy with their
drinks, and the bartender was working feverishly to keep up with demands for refills.

Foster looked hurt.
“Not pish at all! Look here, don’t you believe you have a
soul?”
“The jury is still out.
”
“Well, allow me to assert that you have one, whether you like it or not.
If so, why
would it not be possible, in principle, to view the soul? Not the way one would view an
ordinary object, of course, but if one could develop a mechanism to convert the particular
‘form’ of the soul into light waves in the frequency that the human eye can decipher, one
would have what is, to all purposes, a daguerreotype of the soul.
”
Roland replied haughtily, “Sounds tautological, old chap.
If it exists, you can see
it.
Possibly see it.
True enough.
”
Now Foster looked exasperated.
“All right, then.
See for yourself.
” He reached
into his satchel and brought forth a series of daguerreotypes.
Roland peered at them.
Each
had a series of lines that swirled and tapered off, dancing across the print in an apparently
random set of sequences.
The backgrounds ranged from pale to nearly inky black, with
the latter rendering the darker whorls nearly invisible.

“These are souls?”
  [Less]

Fever Dream by Rhianon Jameson October 2008 In another life I must have been bad In another life I must have been real bad Stripped down, break my pride Straight through the other side Rip through my memory...   [More]

Fever Dream
by Rhianon Jameson
October 2008
In another life I must have been bad
In another life I must have been real bad
Stripped down, break my pride
Straight through the other side
Rip through my memory
Nothing that I want to see
I love the way you punish me
In another life I must have done wrong
In another life I must have done wrong
Don t tell me what I ve done
Don t see what I ve become
Ravish me, tear me down
Stub my life into the ground
I love the way you punish me
(Steve Wynn, “The Way You Punish Me”)
The day was unusually warm for late September.
I discretely blotted my brow
with my handkerchief – at least, I hoped the action was discrete – as I leaned back in my
chair.
Mr.
Donald Chisholm and I were having a cup of tea at Steamperk and I was
wondering why I felt feverish while, simultaneously, I attempted to keep up with his
explanation of how he planned to make a great deal of money in a falling real estate
market.
I was failing at both tasks.

Mr.
Chisholm was a land speculator, and had graciously agreed to give me an
hour of his time to explain his business to me for a newspaper article.
He was in his early
fifties, with a full head of hair, albeit mostly gray, and a handlebar moustache that was
inexplicably nearly jet black.
He was dressed as one might imagine a land baron to be
dressed, in a new suit from Mako Magellan’s and an ivory walking stick with a gold
knob.
Except for the moustache, which made him look a little like a theatrical villain (and
whose color was both vain and silly), he was a handsome man with an athletic build.

Although I felt I was reasonably clever with figures, his dazzling manipulation of
borrowed money, tax dodges, depreciation, ruthless foreclosures, and sheer speculation
on a further decline in the market was quite beyond me.
I took notes and nodded at what I
hoped were appropriate times.
In truth, the interview was a coup for me, as Mr.
Chisholm
preferred to operate privately and fairly anonymously.
I wondered why he would grant
  [Less]

The Duchess and the Diamonds by Rhianon Jameson July 2008 I was late to the ball, and the music had already started when the coachman let me out at the marbled steps in front of the Duchess’s residence....   [More]

The Duchess and the Diamonds
by Rhianon Jameson
July 2008
I was late to the ball, and the music had already started when the coachman let me
out at the marbled steps in front of the Duchess’s residence.
Gathering my skirts and
summoning my courage, I walked past the stone lions, chipped and weathered with age,
up the steps, and to the doorway, where Bartholomew, the butler, waited to greet me.

My late arrival was not because of habitual tardiness on my part.
Rather, I was
new to Caledonian society – or, here, Society – and spent far too long ensuring my hair
and makeup were just right before slipping into the ball gown I could scarcely afford and
leaving my cottage for the waiting coach.
I had no lady’s maid of my own, being a
humble scrivener, so I had to apply the powders and unguents myself, then act as my own
critic.
Knowing I was running very late for the ball, my first important social invitation,
made my hand unsteady, lengthening the process still further.

“What can you tell me about Her Grace, the Duchess of Loch Wright?” I asked
Willig, the driver of the phaeton.
Although I could have hired one of the new horseless
carriages and reached my destination sooner, I had wanted to keep my gown as free as
possible from coal dust, which the steam-powered vehicles produced in abundance.

Furthermore, pulling up in a phaeton seemed so much more elegant and befitting the
occasion.

Willig and I knew one another slightly, as he was one of my sources of
information both for activities of the wealthy, whom he chauffeured, and the poor in
Cheapside, where he and his wife lived.
Willig clearly disapproved of me, firmly
believing that women, regardless of class, had no business in a profession.
A grown
woman should marry, raise children, and, if wealthy, set an example for the nation
through Good Deeds.
I had explained to him this would never be my lot in life.
He would
grumble, take my money, and provide me with information.
Despite his complaints, he
was a good-hearted man who wanted a better life for his wife and children, and assumed
one day I would come around to his point of view.

“Well, Miss, ’er Grace comes from an old Caledonian family.
They’ve owned that
slab of rock on Loch Wright ever since it rose from the sea, or so it’s been said.
” He took
off his cap with one hand, scratched his head, and replaced the cap, all the while keeping
a steady hand on the reins with the other hand.
“ ’Er ’usband, rest ’is soul, perished
  [Less]

Ray Guns at Dawn! by Rhianon Jameson September 2008 This is the tale of how Uncle Roland stopped driving. The other day, walking in the Moors, Mr. Peter Pettifog encountered Dr. Roland Luminos while the latter...   [More]

Ray Guns at Dawn!
by Rhianon Jameson
September 2008
This is the tale of how Uncle Roland stopped driving.

The other day, walking in the Moors, Mr.
Peter Pettifog encountered Dr.
Roland Luminos
while the latter was en route to Victoria City.
The two were acquainted, and Mr.
Pettifog
greeted the other with a hearty, “Hello, Luminos! Where have you been hiding, you
scalawag?”
Dr.
Luminos is an eminent scientist – you may recall some of his experiments, such as
the anti-gravity belt (not entirely successful; most believe the test pig is still accelerating
away from Earth, though long since dead, of course), or the zombie re-animation elixir
(sadly, the newly alive remained psychotic; the Home Guard killed six or seven before
the Guv made Dr.
Luminos stop experimenting).
However, he is also somewhat elderly,
and suffers from hearing loss, though he refuses to admit it.
He simply does the best he
can with what he does hear.

“I say, it’s Pettifog! Good day, old chap.
Haven’t seen you in elephants’ years.
Been
chiding an old hag, have you? Not very sporting, eh?”
His interlocutor looked confused.
“Hag? No, I said…never mind.
Where are you bound?”
“Victoria City.
I’m told I need to seek to retrieve my automobile driver’s license.
Had a
bit of a smash-up the other day, and the bobby said, ‘What-ho, Luminos? Third time this
month.
Better have a look-see to the licensing people, check your eyes, give you a little
test, that sort of thing.
’ I bristled a little because, of course, none of those mishaps were
my doing, but no arguing with John Bull, eh? So off to VC for me to explain to the good
folk that my driving skills are as good as ever.
” That last claim was likely true.

Unfortunately, Dr.
Luminos was always a terrible driver.
He would think of an answer to
a problem that had been vexing him and then forget he was driving.
His mechanic limited
the top speed of the doctor’s vehicle to ten miles per hour in an altruistic gesture to
enhance public safety; Dr.
L.
never noticed the performance drop and, ever since, his
accidents have involved less damage.

“Ah, yes.
Good luck with that, Luminos.
Do well on your test.
”
Now it was the scientist’s turn to look confused.
“You’re challenging me to a duel? I
can’t imagine how I offended you, old bean, but not my call to make, eh? Well, never let
it be said a Luminos shrinks from duty.
I accept!”
  [Less]