The Steamworks
You have to be careful in the Steamworks.
It is a belly filled with brass and steam. Towering pipes twist and turn like yarn through brick walls and floors. Concrete walls and iron doors, bars like a prison. The heat, sweltering and pure, scouring your skin free. It is enough to drive you insane.
I thought I was insane, once.
That first day, when I had taken the King’s Shilling and become a City Engineer, I crawled through the hole in the ground down the slim ladder with rungs as thick as bottles. I thought I could feel the heartbeat of the City through the bricks as I descended, deeper and deeper into the pit. I kept my eyes shut, squeezing tightly lest I look down and fall.
When I opened my eyes again, with hot steam kissing my cheek, with sour oil filling my nostrils, I thought myself mad. How could so much metal exist? How deep did the machines go? How far? How tall? How many? It all seemed so impossible. But Cliffside is an impossible place, filled with steam-cars and zeppelins, doctors and merchants going about their days, tipping their silk hats and clapping arms with velvet gloves.
It was our duty, we City Engineers, to keep Cliffside running, ticking steadily along like an old steam-meter.
The old steam-meters, oh! I had only ever seen them in books! Topside, Ventometers were everywhere, with their thin and gleaming cylindrical shapes standing proud where once the loud and thick steam-meters hissed and ticked away the hours. Anyone could read a Ventometer.
The old steam-meters were solid and firm, bolted throughout the Steamworks, five dials whirling about, and each telling a different tale as they measured pressure, temperature, flow, everything. They were connected to pipes, valves, regulators, coolers, and boilers. The ticking was everywhere. The spinning. Round and round, back and forth. A thousand whirlwinds each caught inside another. Even with the roaring blaze of the boilers and the banging of the water, the ticking echoes through the tunnels like a million clocks.
Time passes slowly in the Steamworks, if it passes at all. Age doesn’t matter, nor past nor future. My master for three years was a boy half my age. My apprentice, eight years my senior. If you can do the job, you’re in charge. If you can’t, you help someone who can. The boilers were our masters in the Steamworks. The pressure was our King.
The pressure. You have to keep the pressure high, in the Steamworks. The pressure is always high.
We all had a past, we Engineers. I was named Wetherbee Spikes by a mother who did not survive my birth. When I was young, my father sold me to my eventual mentor and friend, Foreman Humphreys, for drinking money. I lived topside for years, taking what I could and fixing what I couldn’t. Before long, Foreman Humphreys took me to the Academy of Engineers, shoved a wrench into my hand, and shut the brass gate behind him.
I had nothing else to do, so I took the King’s Shilling and wore the leather cap. That was that.
Foreman Humphreys didn’t smile when he saw me in the Steamworks — he never smiled much — but I saw something in his eye that I think was pride.
I worked with Kites, Pullson, Richards, and Peeks. We five were the Lower Runabouts, and we knew every inch of the lower half of the Steamworks. We kept the pipes clean and tight, sealed all the cracks, and knew all the shortcuts so we could get from one side to the other in fifteen minutes flat. We scouted all along the twisting web of pipes, dodging everyone we could. We made a game of it, seeing how many days we could go without anyone seeing us fix the cracks. Foreman Humphreys called us his little spiders.
Of all five of us, I was the smallest of stature at the time, so I was sent down the deepest and narrowest pipes to adjust the valves and regulators in the hollowest bowels. My ears were sharp, and I could find a leaking pipe, seal it off, tighten the bolts, and get back before the pipes had time to cool. We had pride in our work, then, the boys and I. Proud of not being seen. A mystery to even the old workers. A legend of imps and goblins who would keep the pipes clean, as long as you hummed a tune or left out a bottle of gin. We got drunk many a night, we spiders.
But time passed, and as I grew older and could no longer fit down the narrowest of cracks, I would climb the large boilers and thick pressure pipes to seal leaks and keep the pressure high. I left the spiders, the second to do so after Kites fell ill when he was fifteen. He died before the year was out, and so it was just me, Pullson, Richards, and Peeks.
I left the spiders, became one of the Diamond Engineers then; fitting new valves and adding new threads in the ever widening web of pipes. My muscles grew strong from lifting large spanners, and hoisting giant brass pipes into place with my fellows. We sang songs as we worked, filling the pipes with our voices. We drank and ate together, and called each other ‘brother,’ men and women alike. We hit things with our wrenches, just to hear them sound like bells.
Then, one day, Foreman Humphreys died.
I remember everything about that day. I remember which junction I was at, and which old steam-meter I was replacing. I remember exactly where the cracks and chips were on the old brass piping that snaked in and out of the wall. I remember where my hands were, and which tools were on my belt when I heard the long sharp cry of the whistle.
The whistle!
The whistle means everything in the Steamworks. It is our work’s breath, our master’s lash. The whistle means it is time to eat, or time to rest. It means there is danger, or someone is hurt. I means there is an emergency and everyone must work twice as hard. It means someone has been burned by the web of pipes. It means someone has cut their heads on the sharp sealing bolts. Sometimes it is a meeting, or a request, or a command.
Sometimes it is a funeral.
His face was as red as it had always been, but his skin was thin and waxy from the glowing lights, not bright and vibrant as we remembered him. His fingers, never still, now lay dead on his chest.
We removed our hats as he passed on the doctor’s cart, tears in our eyes. None of us said a word, because there was nothing to say.
But as he passed, I heard, for the first time, it seemed, of the sound in the Steamworks.
It is never quiet in the Steamworks. The pressure bangs and claps against the piping, while cooling vapors and dripping water ticks and taps against the brickwork. The steam-meters tick, while the fires roar, and the boiling water pops and fizzes in the gorged belly of the City.
And the whistle would blow.
They said it was an accident. Who? The officers. There are no kings in the Steamworks, nor masters nor generals. Oh, there’s a Queen o’ the Works, aye, but she was old and wise, and there was no one better at keeping us working smooth. All together, as a team.
There’s them that knows, and them that learns, and them that knows said it was an accident.
But them that knows other things, we suspected murder most foul. See, we knew the Foreman. Humphrys was not a man who made mistakes. He knew the Steamworks like his own soul, he did. If he slipped, it was because someone put the grease there.
It was never proven.
The funeral was in shifts, because the Steamworks never stopped. After the funeral, it was Sir Walter Finneius Pike who took the name Foreman. He was a harsh man, thick of stomach and sharp of tongue. He had a bright gold ring that glittered in the dim red light. When he spoke, he barked like a dog, his spittle flicking about to sizzle on the burning hot brass. “Keep up the pressure!” he would yell, pointing a chubby finger with the ring glinting in the gaslight. “It’s the blood of the City! The heart of Cliffside!”
And so we would, running to and fro, keeping the pressure high.
When I was twenty nine, I was moved from the pipes. Foreman Pike said it was to make room for new blood. Besides, he needed a new man to work the Boiler.
There are thousands of boilers in the Steamworks. All of them filled with thick bubbling liquid; some with the rough salt-water of the sea, others with clean fresh water mixed with Areos Vitae. They were all fickle things, needing constant tending to keep the heat steady and the pressure high. They pumped the lifeblood of the City to every nook and cranny — but these were mere homonculi, vague mockeries of the one true Boiler.
It squatted at the center of the City like a great brass oak-tree, its thick form spouting thousands of little pipes, all branching off into one of a thousand cantons throughout the city. It took twenty men to man the Boiler. They tended the fire, spread the coals, lowered the flatarm, and measured the recipe for the water itself.
The recipe was precise. The exact right amount of Areos Vitae must be mixed with the exact right amount of water to give the steam a thick and billowy texture when it boils. Without the Areos Vitae, the steam is thin and weak; it couldn’t lift a handkerchief. There would be no way to power the entire city with mere water and heat alone, so they say. Foreman Humphrys, he told me a story once, when he was alive, that the Steamworks existed long before they had invented Areos Vitae. What did they use then, I used to wonder? I still don’t know. Maybe things were different then.
The most important part of the Boiler is the Master Pressure Gage. If the pressure’s too low, the balance gets off and the fire cools. The cooling air sinks back down and pushes what fire is left into the base. The whole room heats up like an oven and burns off everyone’s flesh. You have to wait half a day for the air to cool off enough to even walk into the room, and even then it’s hard to breathe. If the pressure’s too high, the casing can crack. Then it’s just a matter of seconds before the whole thing explodes.
So, when the Master Pressure Gauge starts dropping, the waterman opens the valves that connect to the outer channels, pulling water into the deep belly of the reservoir. Then, the recipe-man adds the Areos Vitae through a trough hanging over his head and pumps the reservoir into the center of the Boiler. Then he blows his whistle, and the men who tend the fire shovel more coal into the deep crucible that nests the Boiler.
“Little black eggs,” Foreman Pike used to say. “Our boiler hen needs heat to hatch them little black eggs, men. Keep shoveling! Keep the pressure high!”
The firemen have their own thermometers and watch the heat of the crucible like hawks. If one side gets too cold, or two hot, the Areos Vitae could explode inside the Boiler. The steam would escape, tearing the Steamworks apart, and the City would grind to a halt. And nobody knew what would happen then.
I think a whistle would blow.
The first time I saw the Boiler, I made the same mistake every new man does — I looked up. I dared to look into the face of my God. The Boiler rose so tall and the pipes twisted so beautifully, I looked deep into the rising heights as far as I could. It was so high! I remember feeling like I was transformed, magicked into an ant or worm, insignificant under the shadow of so massive a contraption. It towered over me like a colossus, reducing me to nothingness.
Then, I felt my world turn and I was suddenly craning my neck to look down a massive hole, filled with copper tubes and ticking meters. The infinite depths of the earth yawned beneath me, and like a timid fly I clung by my toes on the ceiling of the world. The next thing I knew, the man next to me had grabbed me and pulled me back before I fell into the crucible. I learned a valuable lesson that day — the Boiler showed no mercy and would devour you if you let it.
Alas, it was not a lesson I was taught kindly. The Boiler was a cruel and dangerous master, demanding coal and water like we needed air. We were consistently running about the monstrosity, adjusting levels, releasing valves, and always, always, maintaining pressure.
The constant pressure. The incessant ticking.
My life became the Boiler. When I worked the pipes, there would be jokes, and songs, and stories. We would talk with each other, sharing what time we could together, as friends and co-workers. On the Boiler, there was no speaking. There was no time to talk, and the air burned your lungs. All you had was your shovel, the coal, the thermometers, and the ticking to keep you company. The best firemen didn’t even need the thermometers — they could feel the differences in heat just by walking around the room. I was a good fireman.
One day, I heard the waterman open the valve to the Channel. Perhaps it sounded different? I don’t know what it was that made me stop and watch the water flow into the reservoir. It was rare that I ever took my gaze from the glowing red coals that nested under the Boiler — perhaps it was providence. We both stared as the water that flowed into the cistern. It flowed thickly, like jam, and was tainted red. Barely a moment passed before the waterman reached above his head, and pulled the whistle.
The whistle!
I had heard the whistle thousands of times every day of my life. I had come to love that sound, to depend on it like a brother. But the cry that leapt from the whistle’s lips that day was like nothing I had ever heard before. It was pain and despair. I could hear the sharp edges cutting their way through the sound, struggling to restrain the harsh echoing cry. The shriek filled my brain as it echoed throughout the room, racing throughout the catacombs, bouncing off the pipes as it sought the ears of Foreman Pike.
We fireman, we never panic. Even in the face of death, for it was death we faced with that blood in the water. Blood burns differently, and when mixed with the water in the boiler, the heat would become unbalanced. Cool spots, warm spots, rough and lumpy heat like poorly kneaded dough. It would cause cracks in the pipes, pops in the fire, and suddenly the whole Steamworks could explode.
We worked like demons, measuring and balancing the heat as best we could while two of our fellows pulled as much of the bloody water out of the cistern as they could. I could smell their hair and flesh burning as they worked through the heat.
We didn’t see Foreman Pike when he came, followed by seven men with heavy spanners. He ordered the channel cleaned, and the seven men dove into the channel like dolphins. We didn’t hear anything for hours, but when the whistle called a shift change, I heard from a waterboy that a dead body had been removed from the intake and handed over to the police. A young man, with a claw-hammer through his chest. A bricklayer, they thought, with crusty shirt and pants that even the Channel could not have cleaned. Some fool run afoul of the Dockers, perhaps, or a band of cutthroats looking for a few coins.
The reservoir was cleaned and the water flowed quickly again, but something in the valves must have remained because every time I looked, the water flowed a deep purplish crimson. And every time I heard the whistle after that, a dead man’s face rose to my mind, breaking through the fog like a ship in the night. I thought about the blood leaking into the water, and the claw-hammer growing rusty in his chest.
It was not the last time blood poured down the channel. Once a week, it seemed, blood poured from the channel into the boiler. I burned my own self many a time, pulling as much blood out as I could before we all died.
As the years wore on, the faces and images began to fade, but the whistle continued to terrify me. As the days grew in length, I would grow more and more anxious. I began to fear our meals, and our scheduled sleep time. I worked harder and faster, hoping to drive myself into exhaustion, so perhaps I could forget that terrible sound. So perhaps I could drown out the terrible ticking with the sound of rushing blood in my ears.
Time became my enemy — an unavoidable march towards the next hissing scream. Every burst of steam, every echoing clang shivered in my soul. My body pulsed with the rhythm of the Steamworks — It was not the ticking of valves or Steam Meters, like I thought it was. I heard the heartbeat. I realized it was not the three-fourths valve in the center of the meter turning over and clicking into place next to the curing hammer, but a steady pulse of life, following the flow of the steam through the veins of the City. I saw the Steamworks true face: not a maze of pipes and tubes and valves and industry, but a giant web of veins and arteries fueled by the massive spider at the center of it all.
I could the pressure in my bones. The weight of the million tonnes of City pressing down on the pipes and wheels and cogs of the machine, all struggling to contain the furious flames hidden in the Boiler. I could hear the blood dripping into the gears, oiling the machine like a divine offering. I could feel the pipes bulging, desperate to burst and release their struggling charge. The smell of the crucible began to intoxicate me — the burning coal stinging my lungs like needles, as the air around me grasped at my neck with burning fingers, eager to crush the life from my throat. And still I worked harder, throwing more and more coal into the crucible. I was like a madman, running about the room, doing the work of three.
They tell me it was Peeks who stopped me from throwing the barrel of water on the coals — I have no memory of that day. The difference in temperature could have caused the Boiler to explode, and we all would have had our flesh melted off in the raging torrent of steam. I heard the Foreman honoring Peeks as a hero as I was led away. I do not, for I hear the whistle.
The whistle! The foul whistle shrieking again and again, and I know that what I hear when the pipes shriek and bang is not mere boiled water, pushing against the metal. I know the Web like my home, and I know what it contains.
Such a pretty picture we tell ourselves about the way of the world. We say the glory of our civilization is paid for by oil and steam, wood and steel; but this is not the only fuel that our cities need. We pay in sweat and blood. We sacrifice our children to craft idols and temples to brass gods, in hopes that our life will remain comfortable. We work our whole lives in the machine — and we cannot stop. Jugs of wine and rolls of silk float across the seas, while people march across the land like ants, exploring, exploiting, conquering, and above all, moving. Like any machine, if we stop we are useless. The wheels of progress must keep moving, or everything will fall apart. Industry will collapse, food will rot in warehouses, while clothing will be eaten away by moths.
And so we work, plot, sweat, fight, drink, and never ever stop, to keep the engine running. And our masters, they keep the pressure high to make us move faster, fueling the insatiable hunger of Civilization. And it is not just the Areos Vitae that mixes with the water to fuel the City. It is not just our blood and sweat that greases the wheels of the engine. It must claim our souls as well. We who die here, among the gears and boilers of the Steamworks, as our souls take flight to the hereafter they must be caught in the spider’s web. The swirling Aether that fills our blood and bones becomes trapped, bottled, and sealed tightly in an inescapable pit of fire, boiling and fueling the lives of the millions who live above us. We will never leave the Steamworks — can never leave. We are here, forever and eternal.
And when the whistle screams, it is not the reed quivering in the flow of fierce steam, but the last scream you shall ever give, mingled with the screams of those who died before you. A final cry of pain and helplessness to the world you left long ago, mistaken by the remaining living slaves as a call to eat.