INCEPTION FIC, WHAT THE HELL
You guys, you guys, I WROTE SOME FIC.
(You should read it!)
OH GOD HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. /o\ You know what else? THIS IS A WIP. THERE WILL BE MORE CHAPTERS, AND THEN MORE CHAPTERS, UNTIL THERE IS A COMPLETE STORY (I know this because the ending is already written). OH GOD.
I even made a proper fic header. LOOK AT IT.
Title: The Rigs of the Times
Author: fera_festiva
Rating: PG-13 for slight violence.
Pairings: This is mostly gen, with ensemble BFF-ness. The eventual background pairing will be (highlight to reveal): Arthur/Eames, but it won't play a major part in the story.
Summary: Steampunk, magical-powers AU! After the inception caper, Miss Ariadne is resigned to a return to her former existence, until she is recruited into a very great expedition.
Warnings: None, unless it's worth warning for cod-Victorian phrasing and deliberate melodrama?
Notes for this chapter: Massive thanks to lefaym for the extensive beta job. Also, thanks are due to forest_rose for her advice on head injuries and a jot of French. Note that the phrase "chthonic railway" was stolen from His Dark Materials, oops.
Honesty’s all out of fashion
These are the rigs of the times
- Trad
Chapter the First
~ In which our heroine is accosted by an old friend and sees off a foe ~
It was not a season after we had successfully carried out the inception upon Mr Fischer that I found myself invited once again to work with Mr Cobb's band of gentleman thieves.
Mr Cobb himself had retired, of course, and was -- according to the telegram he had sent -- now living a quiet and quite happy life with his children by his side. With that news, I had returned to my schooling, and I confess had rather resigned myself to a life without dream-sharing. I had enjoyed learning the rudiments of space-manipulation, but as I reminded myself, pure architecture was my vocation. For a time, true, I had been afforded the opportunity to soar above the commonplace -- and my subsequent dissatisfaction with the profession was an unfortunate after-effect of that. But this was no reason to abandon a field in which I had invested so much of myself. Furthermore, while it was far from aberrant to desire adventure in one’s life, associating with criminals was surely not the way to achieve it. And so, I told myself, I shall simply have to be good.
Nonetheless, I often found my imagination drifting back towards those days; how long ago they seemed already. It was as if I had wandered -- by accident, or at least by the design of someone unknown and unfathomable -- through a concave looking-glass into a world turned upside-down. Peculiar though it had been, I had fitted into it as neatly as a hand into a kid-glove. I had always known my time in that strange world was limited, and yet I missed it with a powerful longing that ached in my breast like an old pistol-wound.
I found myself troubled, too, by the petty cruelties of my fellow students. Though it was, by then, not unusual for young ladies to be ensconced in academia, there were still members of the old guard who thought it improper that a woman should be empowered to take private tuition -- or any tuition -- from such a well-respected savant as Professor Miles, and who, seeking to abase and humiliate those receiving it, made their opinions known at every opportunity. Perhaps I was allowing nostalgia to colour memory, but as I recalled, in my time with Mr Cobb and his company, I had never been treated as anything less than the equal of a man. Of import were my talents, and only my talents, and no more.
On this particular day, I had, against my better judgement, become quite vexed as I carried out the task set to me by the professor. The task itself should have suited me perfectly, and I ought to have completed it without effort, but every solution that seemed to present itself in my mind ultimately led back to the twisting of space, to disguises and trickery, to the Infernal Device. With every sketch I crumpled and cast aside, I imagined I heard -- perhaps I did hear -- the laughter of those privileged men who so openly mocked me. I left the tutorial feeling quite despondent, and trudged towards the grand entrance of the Academy, intending no more than to return to my lodgings and to spend the evening brooding in silence.
So then, as I rounded the corner and saw, awaiting me in the entrance hall, my dear friend Mr Eames -- oh, how my heart soared! I quite forgot myself; I near ran to him, and it was all I could do not to throw my arms about his neck. In the end, I restrained myself and settled for clasping his hands tightly in my own.
“Mr Eames,” I greeted him, unable to keep myself from beaming like an excited child.
"Miss Ariadne," Eames returned, with a warm smile.
"What a delight it is to see you,” I said. “But whatever brings our paths to cross again?”
“I am here for your company, of course,” came the answer, and then, with a slight quirk of the lips: “And, I happily admit, to make you a business proposition. Your talents are required once more, Miss Ariadne. You must forgive me for surprising you here, but time is short and I have been instructed not to waste it. What have you set out for your evening?”
I was a little taken aback, for I had scarcely greeted my old friend, and it was a moment before I could form a coherent answer. “Very little,” I admitted. “Save a journey home on the chthonic railway, a few hours over my books, perhaps. In truth, Mr Eames, it is routine and no more that occupies me these days.”
“Then let us walk,” he said. “It is a lovely evening, and we have much to discuss. Arthur is to meet us at the lodging-house.”
“Arthur is here too?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, and Yusuf arrives tomorrow by airship.”
I could barely contain my joy. Only five minutes ago I had been resigned to boredom, but here, again, was adventure, catching my eye and extending me its hand. I took the arm that Mr Eames offered, and we set off together into the afternoon light.
∞
“Have you heard of the Asclepeion?” Eames asked me, once we had made our way through the throng outside the Academy.
I thought. The name was familiar, though I confess I had allowed my interest in the technological arts to lapse of late. “It’s a new airship, I believe?”
“A dirigible-craft, to be precise, though it’s not like any that has come before it,” he said. “It runs on a synthesised fuel, and uses a new type of difference-engine for navigation. They’ve been rather circumspect with the details, of course. The press have been given enough to whet the appetites of the public, but not so much that an aspiring engineer might be able to build one of his own.”
“Or her own. Would I be right in assuming that this where we have a part to play?”
“Indeed. Our services have been engaged by one Lord Strathmore. He’s a gentleman from -- was it Berkshire? He’s paying well, of course.”
“Hardly the point, to my mind,” I said with a smile.
“Of course. There is a reason we’ve contacted you, Miss Ariadne. The challenge of this adventure is great, and an architect of your calibre is required.”
I did nothing to contain my pride at these words; yes, I was a good architect. Nonetheless, it would not do to offer my involvement too readily, and so I enquired as to the details of the commissioned task.
“The plans are held in three locations, and none of the locations has every piece of the puzzle, so to speak. Lord Strathmore has access to almost all of the blueprints, but he needs information on how the craft flies at all. This, as you have concluded, is where we enter the picture. The Asclepeion is due to be launched in three weeks at the Great Exhibition in London, so we must gather the information before then.”
“And what do you know so far, Mr Eames?”
“We know that the information is being kept close to the ship, in London. I will confess that, for the moment, we do not know whether this will be a phantasmic or a physical extraction. Possibly it will be both.”
“In layman’s terms?”
“If it is the former then you will be in familiar territory -- the information will be in the mind of our subject, and it will fall to us merely to coax it out. You are well-versed in these matters. If it is the latter, and the information is stored not in the mind of an individual but in a physical location, then we shall need to prepare ourselves for the possibility of retrieval through the means of causing a deliberate explosion in a bank vault.”
I laughed at that, and we fell then into a companionable silence. As we strolled, I found myself fondly reminiscing on the first time I had met Mr Eames.
∞
It had been a week or so after I had been introduced to Mr Cobb, who had then travelled alone by electroport to collect a man he referred to as a forgery-master, though he had not elaborated on what he meant by this, and I was intrigued.
Upon his return, when next I had arrived at the offices we had secured, he had ushered me into the parlour and introduced me to a gentleman lounging beside the empty fireplace.
“This is Mr Eames. Like Arthur,” he had said, “he is in possession of an otherworldly gift.” (I have not yet come to the question of Arthur or his particular gift, reader, but I will return to him presently.)
“It’s hardly otherworldly, Cobb,” said the gentleman, rising from his chair and clasping my hand in his own. “Charmed,” he said, this time to me. “Tell me, Miss Ariadne -- have you seen dear Arthur’s talents put to use yet?”
As he said this, he took from the back of his chair a long woollen cloak, which he draped about his shoulders, and the hood of which he raised to cover his face.
“Not yet. Forgive me my boldness,” I ventured (though in truth I felt no remorse; boldness is so often overlooked as a desirable quality in a young lady). “But is your gift, too, one of manipulation of space?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Mr Eames said, and lowered the hood of his cloak again. I gasped, for where Mr Eames had stood only moments before, I now saw Arthur. I turned, only to see that Arthur himself still stood behind me, his arms folded, and the ghost of a smile playing across his features, as if my confusion amused him. I looked back to Mr Eames, and then to Arthur -- the real Arthur? -- and I confess, reader, that my shock at seeing the same face on opposite sides of a room surprised me sufficiently that I quite lost my head, like a small child simultaneously amused and frightened by a parlour-trick. It was a moment before I was able to gather my thoughts.
“An illusion?” I asked -- though I saw no other explanation. “I call that otherworldly, if I may.”
Mr Eames had laughed at that, and thanked me as he shifted seamlessly back into his own skin. “It’s taken a great deal of work,” he explained, with only a morsel of conceit. “I fancy that all our lives would be easier if such abilities were born and not made. As it is, I’ve had to learn it.”
I had almost wished to dislike Mr Eames, for despite his expensive clothing and evident skill, I sensed a roughness to his character. And hadn’t my mother, when she found the time to hand out life advice in between expeditions, warned me against deceptive men?
But there is, after all, honour amongst thieves, and I knew that in being shown these secrets, I had been accepted as a thief in my turn. I could not dislike any of my new acquaintances. I had known then that I had a place here, stood on the brink of a new and thrilling adventure.
∞
“Have you run short of things to say already?” Mr Eames said, shaking me out of my reverie. We had strolled as far as the middle of le Pont d'Ingénierie, and there we lingered; Eames leaned back, his elbows on the railing, and I gazed out at the sky-ships on the horizon and admired the golden gleam of the sunlight catching on their sails. The crowds milled around us with a pleasant hum.
“I do apologise,” I offered, grinning.
“Miss Ariadne, while it is a pleasure and a delight to walk with you, I think it in our best interests to journey onwards separately,” Eames said suddenly, and I fancy that I saw in his eyes a hint of alarm. “I believe we’ve been followed.”
In that moment I felt fear and exhilaration both. I endeavoured to show neither on my face.
Eames looked down and pressed a strip of paper into my hand. “This is the address of the premises we have secured. I will see you there in perhaps twenty minutes. I suggest you hail an aerostat; it will be faster.”
He turned to face the river, and lifted the hood of his cloak over his head -- and though I had witnessed this trick before, I still felt a shiver as his face changed beneath it -- then, the illusion complete, turned on his heel and strode off, concealing himself at the back of a group of chattering sightseers.
I had no intention of doing as he suggested, and contrary to his suggestion of hailing a cab or slipping back to the main street and into the crowd, I allowed him a running-start of perhaps half a minute before walking in the same direction as briskly as decorum and discretion would allow. When he reached the end of the bridge, I held back, the better to watch him as he slipped into a narrow alleyway off the main avenue. This was wonderful fortune; I knew these lanes well, for I had studied their intriguing twists and bends extensively, and I knew instinctively a way I could, while remaining hidden, help to prevent disaster. I lifted my skirts enough that I might run, and did so as soon as I entered the maze of passageways.
Presently, I found myself in a particularly narrow lane, high tenements either side of me and a corner at each end; in this way, I was hidden, and serendipitously found that I could hear little of the busy main roads. An iron scaffold served as an outdoor staircase for the inhabitants of the building, and skirts bundled in my fist, I climbed its first few flights that I might be afforded a better view of the street below. I pressed my back to the wall and waited.
Within moments, Mr Eames rounded the corner, and sure enough, he had been followed, for what good is a changed face when one’s clothes have been committed to memory already? From my hiding-place, I surveyed the man following him, memorising his appearance as best I could. He was a tall fellow, and much of his face was obscured by a rather meagre beard; though the afternoon was bright and his complexion pale, I was reminded of a shadow. He was dressed for colder climes, in a scarf and woollen cape -- and as the fabric of his cape shifted, I gasped, for there beneath it was a holster, and in the holster an aether-gun. I had had little opportunity to fire one myself, the technology being so new that they were a rarity outside of the pages of the newspapers, but I recognised it instantly by the vessel of bright blue gas clipped neatly into its barrel. And I did not need to have fired one to know their discharge was a deadly one.
“Delighted to have your company, but I must know who you are,” I heard then, and saw that Mr Eames had confronted his pursuer, and I knew too that he had not seen the gun. I wished there was a way I could communicate the danger to him, but knew that I could not without worsening matters to a great degree.
The shadowy man narrowed his eyes, and said, “I am so sorry that you have seen me, for now I must eliminate you,” and were it not for the presence of the aether-gun, I would have laughed at that. For it was clear that this man had taken his cue from the villains one saw in the pictures or at the magic lantern shows, and -- other than being possessed of a quite deadly weapon -- was of no threat. As it was, I saw nothing to laugh about, and knew that now was the time that I must draw on what little skill I had in the manipulative arts.
Below me, on the ground, the shadowy man drew his pistol.
My nerves were aflame, for how long it seemed since I had bent space, and to do so outside of a dream, without the benefit of the unrealities of that mysterious state, was something I had attempted only a few times and with only moderate success.
But I reached ahead of me, and took a fistful of thin air, and feeling it in my hand as in my mind, took hold of a cracked, incomplete but nonetheless solid stone corbel from the roof. I felt the air between my fingers, thick and smoky, and the corbel shook, and I cursed inwardly as I pulled, for at first it would not come loose -- until it did, and I pulled it as far out into thin air as I could, and let it go.
And as I did, the shadowy man fired his pistol, and the stone fell, glancing off a pipe in the wall to knock him on the head, and he fell in his turn to the ground. But still the pistol was fired, and Eames was a moment too late in his reaction, and the bolt skimmed his forearm. I ran then, gathering my skirts once more to leap three-at-a-time down the scaffold and to Eames, now rather pale and leaning back against the wall.
“This is a novel route for a cab to take,” he said, and I refused to answer that, for it would have struck me as asinine at the best of times. But I winced in sympathy at the sight of his arm, for though the wound was neither deep nor wide, it was inflamed and ugly. The aether-bolt had all but cauterised the centre of the wound even as it happened, but in turn this had scorched the skin, and the raw edges were blistered, and there was some blood too, seeping from the corners faster than one might expect.
I looked around for something to soak up the bleeding, my skirts far too grimy from my run through the lanes to be of any use. Eventually, nothing more suitable being available, I settled for a music-hall advertisement banner, its corners already coming loose from the brick wall beside me. I tore at it, and half of it came away in my hand, and I pressed this insufficient dressing against the wound. It would do, if nothing else, to hide the laceration from prying eyes.
And as I thought this, I marvelled at how quickly I had slipped back into the mindset of the criminal. Perhaps I was not destined to be good, after all.
(You should read it!)
OH GOD HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. /o\ You know what else? THIS IS A WIP. THERE WILL BE MORE CHAPTERS, AND THEN MORE CHAPTERS, UNTIL THERE IS A COMPLETE STORY (I know this because the ending is already written). OH GOD.
I even made a proper fic header. LOOK AT IT.
Title: The Rigs of the Times
Author: fera_festiva
Rating: PG-13 for slight violence.
Pairings: This is mostly gen, with ensemble BFF-ness. The eventual background pairing will be (highlight to reveal): Arthur/Eames, but it won't play a major part in the story.
Summary: Steampunk, magical-powers AU! After the inception caper, Miss Ariadne is resigned to a return to her former existence, until she is recruited into a very great expedition.
Warnings: None, unless it's worth warning for cod-Victorian phrasing and deliberate melodrama?
Notes for this chapter: Massive thanks to lefaym for the extensive beta job. Also, thanks are due to forest_rose for her advice on head injuries and a jot of French. Note that the phrase "chthonic railway" was stolen from His Dark Materials, oops.
Honesty’s all out of fashion
These are the rigs of the times
- Trad
Chapter the First
~ In which our heroine is accosted by an old friend and sees off a foe ~
It was not a season after we had successfully carried out the inception upon Mr Fischer that I found myself invited once again to work with Mr Cobb's band of gentleman thieves.
Mr Cobb himself had retired, of course, and was -- according to the telegram he had sent -- now living a quiet and quite happy life with his children by his side. With that news, I had returned to my schooling, and I confess had rather resigned myself to a life without dream-sharing. I had enjoyed learning the rudiments of space-manipulation, but as I reminded myself, pure architecture was my vocation. For a time, true, I had been afforded the opportunity to soar above the commonplace -- and my subsequent dissatisfaction with the profession was an unfortunate after-effect of that. But this was no reason to abandon a field in which I had invested so much of myself. Furthermore, while it was far from aberrant to desire adventure in one’s life, associating with criminals was surely not the way to achieve it. And so, I told myself, I shall simply have to be good.
Nonetheless, I often found my imagination drifting back towards those days; how long ago they seemed already. It was as if I had wandered -- by accident, or at least by the design of someone unknown and unfathomable -- through a concave looking-glass into a world turned upside-down. Peculiar though it had been, I had fitted into it as neatly as a hand into a kid-glove. I had always known my time in that strange world was limited, and yet I missed it with a powerful longing that ached in my breast like an old pistol-wound.
I found myself troubled, too, by the petty cruelties of my fellow students. Though it was, by then, not unusual for young ladies to be ensconced in academia, there were still members of the old guard who thought it improper that a woman should be empowered to take private tuition -- or any tuition -- from such a well-respected savant as Professor Miles, and who, seeking to abase and humiliate those receiving it, made their opinions known at every opportunity. Perhaps I was allowing nostalgia to colour memory, but as I recalled, in my time with Mr Cobb and his company, I had never been treated as anything less than the equal of a man. Of import were my talents, and only my talents, and no more.
On this particular day, I had, against my better judgement, become quite vexed as I carried out the task set to me by the professor. The task itself should have suited me perfectly, and I ought to have completed it without effort, but every solution that seemed to present itself in my mind ultimately led back to the twisting of space, to disguises and trickery, to the Infernal Device. With every sketch I crumpled and cast aside, I imagined I heard -- perhaps I did hear -- the laughter of those privileged men who so openly mocked me. I left the tutorial feeling quite despondent, and trudged towards the grand entrance of the Academy, intending no more than to return to my lodgings and to spend the evening brooding in silence.
So then, as I rounded the corner and saw, awaiting me in the entrance hall, my dear friend Mr Eames -- oh, how my heart soared! I quite forgot myself; I near ran to him, and it was all I could do not to throw my arms about his neck. In the end, I restrained myself and settled for clasping his hands tightly in my own.
“Mr Eames,” I greeted him, unable to keep myself from beaming like an excited child.
"Miss Ariadne," Eames returned, with a warm smile.
"What a delight it is to see you,” I said. “But whatever brings our paths to cross again?”
“I am here for your company, of course,” came the answer, and then, with a slight quirk of the lips: “And, I happily admit, to make you a business proposition. Your talents are required once more, Miss Ariadne. You must forgive me for surprising you here, but time is short and I have been instructed not to waste it. What have you set out for your evening?”
I was a little taken aback, for I had scarcely greeted my old friend, and it was a moment before I could form a coherent answer. “Very little,” I admitted. “Save a journey home on the chthonic railway, a few hours over my books, perhaps. In truth, Mr Eames, it is routine and no more that occupies me these days.”
“Then let us walk,” he said. “It is a lovely evening, and we have much to discuss. Arthur is to meet us at the lodging-house.”
“Arthur is here too?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, and Yusuf arrives tomorrow by airship.”
I could barely contain my joy. Only five minutes ago I had been resigned to boredom, but here, again, was adventure, catching my eye and extending me its hand. I took the arm that Mr Eames offered, and we set off together into the afternoon light.
∞
“Have you heard of the Asclepeion?” Eames asked me, once we had made our way through the throng outside the Academy.
I thought. The name was familiar, though I confess I had allowed my interest in the technological arts to lapse of late. “It’s a new airship, I believe?”
“A dirigible-craft, to be precise, though it’s not like any that has come before it,” he said. “It runs on a synthesised fuel, and uses a new type of difference-engine for navigation. They’ve been rather circumspect with the details, of course. The press have been given enough to whet the appetites of the public, but not so much that an aspiring engineer might be able to build one of his own.”
“Or her own. Would I be right in assuming that this where we have a part to play?”
“Indeed. Our services have been engaged by one Lord Strathmore. He’s a gentleman from -- was it Berkshire? He’s paying well, of course.”
“Hardly the point, to my mind,” I said with a smile.
“Of course. There is a reason we’ve contacted you, Miss Ariadne. The challenge of this adventure is great, and an architect of your calibre is required.”
I did nothing to contain my pride at these words; yes, I was a good architect. Nonetheless, it would not do to offer my involvement too readily, and so I enquired as to the details of the commissioned task.
“The plans are held in three locations, and none of the locations has every piece of the puzzle, so to speak. Lord Strathmore has access to almost all of the blueprints, but he needs information on how the craft flies at all. This, as you have concluded, is where we enter the picture. The Asclepeion is due to be launched in three weeks at the Great Exhibition in London, so we must gather the information before then.”
“And what do you know so far, Mr Eames?”
“We know that the information is being kept close to the ship, in London. I will confess that, for the moment, we do not know whether this will be a phantasmic or a physical extraction. Possibly it will be both.”
“In layman’s terms?”
“If it is the former then you will be in familiar territory -- the information will be in the mind of our subject, and it will fall to us merely to coax it out. You are well-versed in these matters. If it is the latter, and the information is stored not in the mind of an individual but in a physical location, then we shall need to prepare ourselves for the possibility of retrieval through the means of causing a deliberate explosion in a bank vault.”
I laughed at that, and we fell then into a companionable silence. As we strolled, I found myself fondly reminiscing on the first time I had met Mr Eames.
∞
It had been a week or so after I had been introduced to Mr Cobb, who had then travelled alone by electroport to collect a man he referred to as a forgery-master, though he had not elaborated on what he meant by this, and I was intrigued.
Upon his return, when next I had arrived at the offices we had secured, he had ushered me into the parlour and introduced me to a gentleman lounging beside the empty fireplace.
“This is Mr Eames. Like Arthur,” he had said, “he is in possession of an otherworldly gift.” (I have not yet come to the question of Arthur or his particular gift, reader, but I will return to him presently.)
“It’s hardly otherworldly, Cobb,” said the gentleman, rising from his chair and clasping my hand in his own. “Charmed,” he said, this time to me. “Tell me, Miss Ariadne -- have you seen dear Arthur’s talents put to use yet?”
As he said this, he took from the back of his chair a long woollen cloak, which he draped about his shoulders, and the hood of which he raised to cover his face.
“Not yet. Forgive me my boldness,” I ventured (though in truth I felt no remorse; boldness is so often overlooked as a desirable quality in a young lady). “But is your gift, too, one of manipulation of space?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Mr Eames said, and lowered the hood of his cloak again. I gasped, for where Mr Eames had stood only moments before, I now saw Arthur. I turned, only to see that Arthur himself still stood behind me, his arms folded, and the ghost of a smile playing across his features, as if my confusion amused him. I looked back to Mr Eames, and then to Arthur -- the real Arthur? -- and I confess, reader, that my shock at seeing the same face on opposite sides of a room surprised me sufficiently that I quite lost my head, like a small child simultaneously amused and frightened by a parlour-trick. It was a moment before I was able to gather my thoughts.
“An illusion?” I asked -- though I saw no other explanation. “I call that otherworldly, if I may.”
Mr Eames had laughed at that, and thanked me as he shifted seamlessly back into his own skin. “It’s taken a great deal of work,” he explained, with only a morsel of conceit. “I fancy that all our lives would be easier if such abilities were born and not made. As it is, I’ve had to learn it.”
I had almost wished to dislike Mr Eames, for despite his expensive clothing and evident skill, I sensed a roughness to his character. And hadn’t my mother, when she found the time to hand out life advice in between expeditions, warned me against deceptive men?
But there is, after all, honour amongst thieves, and I knew that in being shown these secrets, I had been accepted as a thief in my turn. I could not dislike any of my new acquaintances. I had known then that I had a place here, stood on the brink of a new and thrilling adventure.
∞
“Have you run short of things to say already?” Mr Eames said, shaking me out of my reverie. We had strolled as far as the middle of le Pont d'Ingénierie, and there we lingered; Eames leaned back, his elbows on the railing, and I gazed out at the sky-ships on the horizon and admired the golden gleam of the sunlight catching on their sails. The crowds milled around us with a pleasant hum.
“I do apologise,” I offered, grinning.
“Miss Ariadne, while it is a pleasure and a delight to walk with you, I think it in our best interests to journey onwards separately,” Eames said suddenly, and I fancy that I saw in his eyes a hint of alarm. “I believe we’ve been followed.”
In that moment I felt fear and exhilaration both. I endeavoured to show neither on my face.
Eames looked down and pressed a strip of paper into my hand. “This is the address of the premises we have secured. I will see you there in perhaps twenty minutes. I suggest you hail an aerostat; it will be faster.”
He turned to face the river, and lifted the hood of his cloak over his head -- and though I had witnessed this trick before, I still felt a shiver as his face changed beneath it -- then, the illusion complete, turned on his heel and strode off, concealing himself at the back of a group of chattering sightseers.
I had no intention of doing as he suggested, and contrary to his suggestion of hailing a cab or slipping back to the main street and into the crowd, I allowed him a running-start of perhaps half a minute before walking in the same direction as briskly as decorum and discretion would allow. When he reached the end of the bridge, I held back, the better to watch him as he slipped into a narrow alleyway off the main avenue. This was wonderful fortune; I knew these lanes well, for I had studied their intriguing twists and bends extensively, and I knew instinctively a way I could, while remaining hidden, help to prevent disaster. I lifted my skirts enough that I might run, and did so as soon as I entered the maze of passageways.
Presently, I found myself in a particularly narrow lane, high tenements either side of me and a corner at each end; in this way, I was hidden, and serendipitously found that I could hear little of the busy main roads. An iron scaffold served as an outdoor staircase for the inhabitants of the building, and skirts bundled in my fist, I climbed its first few flights that I might be afforded a better view of the street below. I pressed my back to the wall and waited.
Within moments, Mr Eames rounded the corner, and sure enough, he had been followed, for what good is a changed face when one’s clothes have been committed to memory already? From my hiding-place, I surveyed the man following him, memorising his appearance as best I could. He was a tall fellow, and much of his face was obscured by a rather meagre beard; though the afternoon was bright and his complexion pale, I was reminded of a shadow. He was dressed for colder climes, in a scarf and woollen cape -- and as the fabric of his cape shifted, I gasped, for there beneath it was a holster, and in the holster an aether-gun. I had had little opportunity to fire one myself, the technology being so new that they were a rarity outside of the pages of the newspapers, but I recognised it instantly by the vessel of bright blue gas clipped neatly into its barrel. And I did not need to have fired one to know their discharge was a deadly one.
“Delighted to have your company, but I must know who you are,” I heard then, and saw that Mr Eames had confronted his pursuer, and I knew too that he had not seen the gun. I wished there was a way I could communicate the danger to him, but knew that I could not without worsening matters to a great degree.
The shadowy man narrowed his eyes, and said, “I am so sorry that you have seen me, for now I must eliminate you,” and were it not for the presence of the aether-gun, I would have laughed at that. For it was clear that this man had taken his cue from the villains one saw in the pictures or at the magic lantern shows, and -- other than being possessed of a quite deadly weapon -- was of no threat. As it was, I saw nothing to laugh about, and knew that now was the time that I must draw on what little skill I had in the manipulative arts.
Below me, on the ground, the shadowy man drew his pistol.
My nerves were aflame, for how long it seemed since I had bent space, and to do so outside of a dream, without the benefit of the unrealities of that mysterious state, was something I had attempted only a few times and with only moderate success.
But I reached ahead of me, and took a fistful of thin air, and feeling it in my hand as in my mind, took hold of a cracked, incomplete but nonetheless solid stone corbel from the roof. I felt the air between my fingers, thick and smoky, and the corbel shook, and I cursed inwardly as I pulled, for at first it would not come loose -- until it did, and I pulled it as far out into thin air as I could, and let it go.
And as I did, the shadowy man fired his pistol, and the stone fell, glancing off a pipe in the wall to knock him on the head, and he fell in his turn to the ground. But still the pistol was fired, and Eames was a moment too late in his reaction, and the bolt skimmed his forearm. I ran then, gathering my skirts once more to leap three-at-a-time down the scaffold and to Eames, now rather pale and leaning back against the wall.
“This is a novel route for a cab to take,” he said, and I refused to answer that, for it would have struck me as asinine at the best of times. But I winced in sympathy at the sight of his arm, for though the wound was neither deep nor wide, it was inflamed and ugly. The aether-bolt had all but cauterised the centre of the wound even as it happened, but in turn this had scorched the skin, and the raw edges were blistered, and there was some blood too, seeping from the corners faster than one might expect.
I looked around for something to soak up the bleeding, my skirts far too grimy from my run through the lanes to be of any use. Eventually, nothing more suitable being available, I settled for a music-hall advertisement banner, its corners already coming loose from the brick wall beside me. I tore at it, and half of it came away in my hand, and I pressed this insufficient dressing against the wound. It would do, if nothing else, to hide the laceration from prying eyes.
And as I thought this, I marvelled at how quickly I had slipped back into the mindset of the criminal. Perhaps I was not destined to be good, after all.