Engineer's Empire

Engineer's Empire: Aether and Abyss: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The the low whir of airship propellers could be heard overhead. Another blimp topped sky-frigate passed overhead, four massive propellers on its sides and bottom moving it lazily through the evening sky. Slade pushed open the vent grate in the side of the clock tower to watch the ship swirl the passing clouds through its rotors, leaving trails of fog curling behind as it cut through the lavender clouds of the setting sun. Slade found the sound of those airship propellers to be the most soothing noise in the world. He wanted to know what it was like to soar through the clouds. He hoped to see one up close one day. He wanted to work on one of those immense, wondrous machines. He wanted to fly away from his current life and live in the dreams inside his mind.

He stared off into the Wastes, only visible from the height of the clock tower. An empty, blackened wasteland that seemed to stretch on forever. A place of so much legend and rumor, but a place that the Empire seemed to try to forget. Slade shook his head, forcing himself to stay awake. The dust and cold wind blowing in from the west stung his eyes and the shivering helped wake him some.

The vent creaked as he pulled the rusted hinges shut and ducked back inside to face the task before him. He looked back into the giant gears of the Governor's clock, to work, to his real life. It was time. Or rather, it needed to be. On time. Again. Normally Slade would be working alongside the comforting rhythm of the tick, tick, tick of the giant clock. Tonight, it was silent.

Slade shook his head, trying to remember where he had been in his work. Working from sun up till dark had, as it did so many days, left his mind worn. He tried to blink away the headache from not having eaten since breakfast. He turned the wrench, focusing on the work. The work was the one thing he felt he had control of.

The endless labor heaped upon him by the State always left him exhausted, his thought process dulled. His head hurt from lack of sleep, his stomach hurt from lack of food, his back and hands ached from constant work. He was lucky to get half a night's sleep most evenings. Tonight would be no different. The public works master, Beadle Lumen, wanted the children working as much as possible. If Slade managed to sneak some study or schooling in, that was up to him, according to Lumen.

Slade frowned and leaned against a cold, dusty steel beam. Grease and dust clung to his shirt, but he needed to relax for a moment while he puzzled over the clock. He always found the faithful ticking of the great Central Clock to be soothing in its low, steady rhythm. Its constant ticking echoed against the dry, aging woodwork of the tower. Amidst all the other chores and work heaped upon him by the public works master, this was the one assignment he had that brought him joy. Although he would never tell Lumen this, he felt like the clock was his. His time spent maintaining the clock never felt like work. His tired mind and aching hands could feel at ease inside the clock tower. Hearing all the gears turning and clicking had lent him a sense of peace during even the most hectic days. Tonight he had come to find the clock silent. How he yearned for that sound right now as he pulled against a metal gear that refused to turn. Frustrated, he whacked the metal beam with his wrench.

The clang of metal on metal reverberated throughout the hollow chambers inside the clock tower. He froze in horror as the wrench vibrated in his hands from the blow. If Beadle Lumen saw him hitting city property, he'd have him beaten for sure. He looked around the insides of the clock, following the echoing sound with his eyes, willing to undo his moment of anger and will the sound back into the surrounding metal. After a few moments, he looked from side to side to make sure that Lumen was not skulking about with clipboard in hand searching for the next instance to be displeased about. Once relieved that his doom was not at hand, he stared back over the inner workings of the massive clock. It was the most beautiful machine he had ever seen up close. Still, he could not figure out why it was not working now. He puffed out his cheeks and let the air out slowly, like a balloon with a leak in it. This was something Slade did when he ran into a problem he could see no immediate solution for.