Steampunk flash fiction
Prompt: 500 words or less steampunk |
Ignoring the children making faces and blowing raspberries on the tempered glass, I peered through the viewing pane, hoping to catch a glance at my new home. Blueness stretched into dull indigo; the only relief, the bubbles streaming up from under the manta’s wings. I shifted uncomfortably, waiting for the stomach twisting moment the engines switched from low rumble to sternum-shaking shudder. And, as the faint lights of Port Amabell’s undersea dock came into view, the manta’s engines let out a roar of pressurized aether and the entire ray shook as the captain prepared her for docking. I grabbed a beam for support and willed my face not to blanche. I have travel by ray before (albeit never in the intercontinental manta class), but the lurching and pitching as they lock-on still turns my stomach in a way land and air travel never does. Needless to say, when the manta popped her hatches, I was one of the first passengers to disembark. Scuttling through the narrow passageways to customs, I fussed and fiddled, clutching my papers and praying there would be no hiccup with luggage reclaim on the other side. Soldiers armed with aether-goggles and sniffer dogs patrolled the customs foyer; the whirling and clacking of the dogs’ gears faint over the hubris. Mechanics are just one area the Derowish mainland supersedes the Archipelago, but I still found it strange when seemingly random passengers where pulled aside on nothing more than a twitch of a dog’s clockwork head. They made me nervous and did nothing to abate the general anxiety that persisted until I reached the other side of the customs barrier and was reunited with my trunk. “Mikael Carther? Detective Mikael Carther?” I looked up from the un-tampered lock on my luggage. A pair of unfashionably thin legs blocked my view. I continued looking up. And up. Towering high above me was a brown-black beard fastidiously knotted and plated in the Derowish manner, an aquiline nose, and hooded dark eyes. I swallowed. “Inspector Nurhonen?” I hazarded. A curt nod and a sharp glance at my trunk. Hands thrust deep in long coat pockets, Nurhonen walked away. In ground-consuming strides. Even without my luggage dragging behind me, I would have struggled to keep up with him. Not waiting for me, Nurhonen threaded his way through the crowd and I would have lost him had he not stood a head taller than any of the seamen, soldiers, or miscellaneous caravanserais there. A paperboy jostled me, offered a newssheet; only to be shooed aside in turn by a modish ladies-maid, her corsets loose to suggest a stylishly plump figure. I tore my eyes away and hurried after Nurhonen. Time enough to admire, and hopefully sample, the local cuisine after I had established myself in my new barracks. The Derowish policia was hardly going to take all my time, now was it? I straighten my face into forced nonchalance and, luggage still in clumsy tow, plunged back into the bustle of the street. |