The World Of Steam

11

The man paced up and down the dark alleyway slowly, waiting for his friend to meet up with him. Parting his mouth slightly, he blew out a long stream of smoke from his cigarette. Many people were dying from lung cancer thanks to this accursed city, so a bit of tobacco smoke was going to make no difference. For all he knew, tomorrow could have been his last day. He had no fear. Most people were inside at night, so it was the perfect time to break the news. There would be no one else snooping about to overhear the plan. Maybe a vagrant or two would stumble upon them, but what were they going to do? The night shift police were all stuck inside behind their desks, not bothered about patrolling the streets, so there was no fear of being caught. The time to come up with a plan was now. Hearing footsteps, he looked up and saw a man in a grey trench coat walk up to him. Taking his roll of tobacco out of his mouth, he dropped it, crushing it underneath his foot and looked up at him.

"This has to be some sort of a joke." The man's friend instantly said as he stopped in front of him.

"No joke." He said. "I saw the gas masked detective, with a briefcase, take out a large test tube."

"And you're saying that's the cure?"

"Almost certainly. Somehow he managed to find one. Maybe all those scientists aren't so dead after all."

"How are you so certain?"

"That man only needs one poison, he doesn't need another. I could see how interested he was in it. If it was something else, he would have just thrown it away. He needs it. Hence, I'm thinking that it is most likely the cure."

The man's friend shrugged, frowning. "So? Let him take care of it. If he cures London, great, if he doesn't, so what? We just keep living in this country, dominated by steam. Why is it our problem all of a sudden?"

He sighed, quickly becoming irritated. "You're not getting this, are you? Do you not understand what we can do with this cure?"

The man's friend shrugged once more. "Use it to cure London?"

"Jesus Christ, are you this thick? I'm not thinking about using it, I'm thinking about selling it."

"To who?"

The man shrugged. "Anyone willing to pay the highest price for it."

"Ohh." He slowly said, his eyes widening at the revelation.

"Now you're finally getting it."

"When do we start?"

"Immediately."

Suddenly, the telephone on the desk rang and a man picked it up. "Yes?" He said, taking the thin cigar out of his mouth. He suddenly frowned as he listened to what the caller had to say. "Are you sure about that? You're not joking?" He listened some more. "How much will something like that go for? You're joking. Okay, get some people together, we're going on a scavenger hunt." He put the phone down and stood up from his desk. He turned around and looked outside the office window, down at the smoky city. Putting the cigar back into his mouth, he fixed up his sleeves and cufflinks and simply smiled.

"Remind me again how much something like that will go for?" A woman asked her friend who sat across from her at the small cafe table.

"However much you want it to." He said to her and sipped on his tiny cup of espresso.

"So...the hundreds of thousands then?"

The man scoffed, chuckling lightly. He put the cup down onto its saucer. "I'm talking millions. It is only the goddamn cure to the entire of England. We take it, we sell it to the highest bidder. It's that simple."

The woman crossed her legs and then interlaced her fingers together, pondering. "So how do we take it for ourselves?"

"I doubt that many people in this city wear trench coats, fedoras and gas masks. This guy stands a mile out, we'll find him."

"But we are talking about a detective here. And not just any ordinary detective. Need I remind you that this man is armed with arsenic darts? I once saw him kill one man with it, and believe me, it wasn't a pretty sight. That man has zero morals and will kill anyone who gets in his way."

The man shrugged, like the threat of an agonising death meant nothing to him. "Well, there is still The Black Mark to count on."

They both looked at each other and then smiled, started laughing maniacally.

Smelting plants were in full swing. The red hot sparks flew about, illuminating the dim factories like a fiery disco. Everyone worked through the night, knowing that there was no time to waste. Something big was coming and they had to be ready. The workers shovelled coal into the furnaces, heating up the flames to unbelievable temperatures. Others drove forklifts, loading in huge scrap engines into the furnaces to be melted down. One worker broke apart some clumped up sand with his shovel, clearing the debris, allowing the scalding molten metal to flow down the sluice. Smelters hammered away at refined metals with sledgehammers, destroying the impurities. Machines were inspected, making sure that they were primed and ready for use.