Lily Marin - three short steampunk stories. Book 2.

plain and average that he blended in perfectly. He was almost invisible. Lily took up her pursuit and followed him along many streets, until he suddenly turned into a narrow side-street.

  The singer first walked past the street, then waited a few seconds and returned to the narrow street from where a loud and massive 'clang' had echoed. Leisurely she walked into the cobblestone street, which was hardly more than an alley with pretences.

  To her right there was one long brick wall with the occasional window high up, to make a burglar's life miserable. To her right there was an equally long brick wall with a single metal door, that made it quite obvious where Ben had gone. There were no windows in this wall.

  Lily listened at the door, amplifying her hearing. Faint voices, too far away to understand, were drowned out by someone hammering. Lily noticed that the hammering was done in a controlled, almost careful way. What was going on behind that door?

  -=-=-

  The local riff-raff would have to be dealt with by the police this night. In the little house, in the middle of a quiet street, the transformation into the Masked Woman was almost complete. She was going to pick up her investigation where the singer in the pretty dress had had to stop: at the steel door in a large building.

  Lily left her house the regular way: through the garden and along the dark path. On her heightened legs she moved through the streets very fast. The few people who saw her knew better than to address her. She would not even acknowledge their presence unless someone made a strange move towards her. And that was something people usually regretted.

  In the narrow street several lights were doing their utmost to make the cobblestones and tiles visible, but many of the lights had given up the struggle. The large building loomed high and dark. Its façade, which was located on the main street, looked uninviting in the dark.

  Lily tried the steel door. It did not move. Even a few good pulls did not do much, except for slightly twisting the handle.

  Applying more force was not a problem for the Masked Woman, but that would cause so much noise and damage to the building that getting inside unseen and unheard would be highly improbable. She looked up to the roof, but the darkness made that hard to discern. Her mask with a light-enhancing glass helped, as usual.

  Lily reached into her pocket and found the brass tube. Her thumb rested lightly on the ruby button that would trigger her jet pack, which she had brought along for just this situation. She estimated how much power she had to release, braced herself and pressed.

  The booster in the backpack responded swiftly and Lily shot upwards. Her guess was reasonable. She overshot the roof by ten feet at best and fell down to it. She landed on her feet as the backpack spluttered just once before it shut off.

  "Alright. Let's see..."

  The Masked Woman slowly moved over the roof, looking for a way into the building. She reached a low lumpy construction. In it were a few windows that looked like large covers, from the dirt they had accumulated, probably over many years. They opened easily, so she put her backpack in the shadow and climbed in. Lily arrived in a narrow corridor where an oppressive smell assaulted her nose. It reeked of metal mixed with a host of scents from obnoxious liquid origins. Lily did not consider herself much of a lady, but this stench was almost too bad.

  The light-enhancing glass revealed the corridor in an shadowy and blurry greenish light, and at the end of it she saw a metal staircase. Carefully she advanced towards it and put a foot on the first step on the way down. Nothing creaked. She stepped down a bit further when all of a sudden she quickly closed her eyes and grabbed for her light-enhancers.

  Someone had flicked a switch and lit a lot of lamps.

  -=-=-

  "Well, well. A visitor."

  Lily had prevented painful eyes through her faster than normal reflexes, but the shock of the voice was at least as painful. Two strong hands grabbed her head from behind, aiming to prevent her from looking at who spoke. An average human would have squealed from surprise and the sudden pressure, so for good measure she did that, hoping she did not exaggerate it.

  "And would you care to tell us who you are?"

  The voice was rather pleasant. Not pushy, not inquisitive, it was just asking a question. It struck Lily that the person speaking was very polite too, and so far no one had attempted to pull her mask off. That was something she wanted to avoid at all cost.

  "I'm the Masked Woman."

  Lily's sensitive hearing picked up an amused sound.

  "That, I dare say, is quite obvious. It seems you value your anonymity. When I ask my associate to let go of you, will you not do anything rash, Miss Masked Woman?" The man's voice still sounded amiable, Lily did not detect any vibration of annoyance in it.

  "I shan't," she said. A moment later the strong hands let go of her head.

  At the bottom of the staircase she saw a man in a very remarkable wheelchair. It looked... wrong. Lily knew not much of wheelchairs, but this one definitely had too many pipes, tubes and levers. The man occupying it had long white hair, down to his shoulders. A short white beard hung beneath a kind, smiling face from which two dark eyes took her in with painstaking care. The man wore a high-buttoned dark blue housecoat. The rest of him, as far as Lily could see, where legs in black trousers and black, polished shoes.

  "If you would care to step down, Miss Masked Woman," the man nodded, "that would save me staring up at you. Although you are quite the sight to behold, I have to say."

  The Masked Woman walked down the stairs, keeping an eye on the surroundings. Jumping would have been just as easy, but there was no reason to show these people what she could do.

  "Pray tell, how did you get onto the roof, Miss Masked Woman? The walls did not report anyone climbing up," the man with the white hair asked. "And forgive me for being so rude, allow me to introduce me. Doctor Calgori." He extended a thin, pale hand.

  The name hit Lily, even when she knew that this building had to do with him. A man who used things that Master Wilfred made should not be sitting in a wheelchair. She wondered for a moment if she should take off her glove before shaking the hand. She looked back, up the stairs. The man who had held her head was a big man. But he was still up there, not behind her. This gave her a strange feeling of security. She took off her right glove, shook the man's hand shortly and slipped the glove back on. "Doctor? What kind of doctor are you?" she asked suspiciously.

  Doctor Calgori smiled. "Remarkable hand." He slowly rubbed the tips of thumb and index finger together, as his eye focus seemed to slip away. Then he looked at Lily. "I am a Doctor of Mechanisations. Mechanisations and other inventions. I hope that one day you are willing to tell me what happened to you, Miss Masked Woman. For now, let me welcome you to my workplace. I apologise for its current state, as we had an unfortunate burglary recently."

  Lily stepped a bit away from the man in the wheelchair, out of habit. It was hardly conceivable that he would jump up and rip off her mask, but still. Then she looked around the large open space where by now all lamps had ignited and spread their light.

  Several bizarre contraptions adorned the floor, and some hung from long and heavy chains. Most of the things looked half-finished, plenty of them not even close to that stage. The one thing that they shared was their size. They were big. Most of them would fit a grown person inside them without a problem.

  "You made those?" Lily pointed at the assembly of metal objects.

  "I invent them," the Doctor nodded. "Since my legs are refusing proper service I need to rely on other people to assemble and test my creations. And one of them was stolen a few days ago."

  "Someone came in here and... stole one of those things." Lily was stunned. How had the thieves done that? And what would they do with such a stack of metal in the first place?

  Lily turned around quickly as she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. It was the man who'd held her. He wore heavy shoes, dark brown breeches and a colourful chequered shirt that was unbuttoned far, showing a massive chest covered in a l
ot of hair. The man's face fitted his physique. Wide and strong.

  Doctor Calgori smiled again. "You are entirely remarkable, Miss Masked Woman, not only your hand. I cannot deny feeling most intrigued by you."

  As Lily glanced at him in wonder, he elaborated: "Malcolm' footwear enables him to walk without being heard. Yet you heard him. And you react quite a lot faster than the average human."

  Malcolm, the big man, calmly sat down on one of the lower steps of the stairs. "We did not feel the need to mention the Masked Woman to you, sir," he spoke with a voice far too gentle for such a small giant. "There have been numerous rumours about her, one even where she is accused of breaking into the archaeology museum."

  "I didn't do that," Lily said, immediately regretting that. But she'd said it. "It was someone else. A woman. I've seen her."

  "No one in this building is accusing you of anything, Miss Masked Woman." The Doctor's voice remained calm and friendly. "Consider this space to be outside the normal world."

  That sounded mysterious, Lily thought, but as long as they were not prying, she was content.

  In the far