Steampunk Crime Fiction

Authors Note: My second attempt at a novel! And while its technically better than the first, I'd still describe this as a failure and learning experience. This time, the lesson is 'exposition isn't interesting'. Should've really been able to figure that one out myself. I can have the most interesting world in the... world, but I can't just vomit explanations and information at the audience. If it isn't obvious, both this and my previous novel attempt were made very early in my writing journey, and for the longest time these adjacent failures put me firmly on the path of compact narratives in short stories. But if I want to expand my writing horizons, I'm going to need to try again! If you can't tell, I'm writing this note before a third novel attempt exists, so I hope I can regale you with how much I learned from those tries as well some day soon. And a little note for future me: Good luck bud!

Anyway, the intro for this is alright. So's the bit with the Noir style dialogue. Shame about the exposition dumping in-between. 

The slow, soft chugging of smoke sent timid echoes throughout the vast spindly alleyways of the Spider’s Nest. A lime glowing lamp sent a streak of sickly fluorescence down through its discreetly curving form, its faint shimmers irking not the only life it found. A single rat, its thickly matted, black-branded fur, emerged from its grotto it formed in a burst pipe. It sniffled at the winds that threw themselves through every crevice of the city of Neo-Oxford. The heat of the rising steam and smog forced the wind higher, which in turn forced flakes of the layer of smog down to be a passenger in the wind. Soon, they would fall faintly, coating the city in a thicker layer of smudging grey. But the rat didn’t care. The rat couldn’t see beyond his alley; beyond the Spider’s Nest.

It searched and sniffed for scavenge; fresh food, or a softer something to add to its nest in the burst pipe. It looked towards the lifeless form that rested against the wall of the tunnel. Its hair was blowing softly in the wind, and the hem of their cloak shifted slightly. All life here stood still, just for a moment. The rat patted forward, hesitance woven to each step, silence thick in the smog, and started scratching off a clump of the cloak to take back to its nest in the burst pipe.

All around, the only sounds were the howling of the wind, and that slow, soft chugging of smoke.

1 – Free Speech

Down in that darkness, there was a brittle scream. It shattered through the passages, and clawed up the ancient, dripping concrete. And then, it fell. Machinery clattered and banged, and under it all, a quiet ticking. Ten minutes later, almost a mile above them, an old man checked his watch. ‘Damn,’ he thought to himself, ‘Late.’ The Sparktrain wasn’t late; it was going to arrive the same time that it always did, but in the rush that comes from having to get to the scene quickly, ex investigator Thomas Warwick had forgotten to check if his watch was accurate. It was running five minutes ahead of everything, but all he saw was a Sparktrain that was five minutes late. Off behind him, a few teenagers were painting metal sheets. Protestors.

“Probably off to pester the Sentinels’s doorstep,” he muttered under his breath.

“Mh?” A voice came off to his right. He turned, and saw a man in his thirties, coated in a tailored suit, the rim of his bowler almost bumping Thomas’s trilby. He was carrying a discreet black briefcase.

“Oh nothing, just muttering to myself,” Thomas responded.

“Oh ok then,” he nodded to himself. “You know, your watch is five minutes late.” The chatty man lifted his tailored sleeve to show him his; a watch that showed a time five minutes earlier than Thomas’s.

“Well how do you know yours isn’t five minutes early?”

He shrugged. “I don’t. I just thought you might have liked to know I had a different time to yours. For all we know, we’re both wrong.”

“I guess that could happen, yes,” Thomas grunted.

“Hmm,” the chatty man mused, nodding to himself. “Anyway, you look a little too old to be working for the Robotics Policing Committee, and there isn’t much of a reason to head down to the Spider’s Nest otherwise.”

“I’ve got a meeting to go to down there.”

“With the RPC? I can phone them up, tell them you’r-”

“No thank you, I don’t have a meeting with the Sentinel’s string-yankers; I’ve got one with a client of mine.” A whistle cut through the mumbling bustle; signalling the comings in to the station. The teenagers stopped painting and came up adjacent to them. “Anyway, I WOULD suggest calling your boss up. Looks like he’s in for another day of entertaining guests.”

“Yea,” said the chatty man, fondling the handle of his briefcase. The Sparktrain pulled in, and with a cutting hiss pivoted its doors wide in emotionless greetings. The chatty man stood aside for Thomas as he boarded first. He noted the carriages emptiness save a few more teenagers sitting in the left corner. The sign painters came on next, standing near the other teenagers but talking only to each other. The chatty man came on last, glancing left before sitting. He put his briefcase on his lap and opened it, pulling out a large brass receiver.

After a few seconds the Sparktrain pulled away. From his jacket pocket, Thomas pulled out his notebook. He tried to keep as clear a set of notes he could, (his memory wasn’t quite what it used to be,) so he checked the book regularly. He turned to the latest page, and started reading. His notes were something like this: Nine o four, received phone call from woman, gave name Penny Wellington, meet at street F12 of Spiders Nest. Claims found a body - murdered – wanted to call in someone ‘useful’. Seemed collected, agreed to watch scene while I get there. He turned to the next page, checking it was still blank. It was. He pocketed the notebook and got back to waiting.

The Sparktrain slowed as it closed in on Thomas’s stop; one of the cities Pillars. They were the lifts people used to move between the upper city centre – the realm of the rich, and the Spider’s Nest below. It’s a common concept to the people up above that the Pillars testify their new, thriving society; how it was built on the ruins of the old one. In Thomas’s opinion, it just showed stupidity. After all, there’s not much point in a skylight nowadays. The breaks came on in full force, grinding the carriages to a halt. The train hissed violently, and the doors opened.

The teens were out first, with Thomas slowly shuffling along behind them. The Pillar itself was an immense cane of black-stained brass that bore into the city’s core like a pithing needle. It constantly clanked and clunked with the resonance of thousands or more pieces of meshing metal chiming in unison, winding the great springs back. Finishing his phone call, the last passenger exited, walking off to the side weakly to sit on the nearby bench. ‘He probably doesn’t want to risk riding with the picketers,’ Thomas thought to himself. With no such need to fear, he himself boarded and waited.

After the doors jarred shut with a rigid click, the platform began the dissention. There was a clock on the interior, and Thomas noticed it with annoyance. He yanked his jacket’s sleeve aside and glared at his own watch. ‘Five minutes late’ he thought to himself as he adjusted it to the correct time, ‘well I’ll be damned.’ He pulled out his notebook next, turned to the most recent page and wrote Eight fifty nine over top of where he had written nine o four. He calmly put the notebook back in his jacket pocket, the one on the inside, on the right. He took a deep breath, and waited for the immense machine to finish the aching descent into the dark, maze-like webbing of the Spider’s Nest.

The Pillar signalled the end of its journey with the colossal sounds of gears jamming together. An echo of greater magnitude flew out; reflecting off the many tight, packed in walls that marked the lowest level. The vast doors of the Pillar grinded open, letting the limelight of the well-lit interior splatter against the dazed light of the cities bedrock. Ahead, the main path - the one leading to the RPC - was the only lit path down here. The passage forward was about 4 meters wide, pressed between the foundations of colossal works. Drifting away from the lit path, smaller passages meandered off at odd angles, outlining the shapes of the spires above. These paths were not lit, and so it became necessary for people needing to traverse the obscurer corners of the Spider’s Nest to bring a light. Those who don’t, or worse off residents who can’t afford them, struggle to find their way and become lost or abandoned.

Thomas, of course, knew this. He pulled a torch from his pocket and walked out the pillar, immediately passing left down one of the darker passages, his shadow stretching out long ahead of him. The teenagers moved on forward, past the alley, though one of them gave a worried glance towards Thomas as they passed. The dark of the Spider’s Nest wasn’t to be taken lightly.

Despite this, Thomas had worked as an investigator for decades, and knew his way well. He started counting the off-shooting passages as he tramped past, the hard verdant-shaded beam his circle of vision. Off in the abyss beyond his sight, soft scuttling presaged the escape of lesser creatures. These sounds didn’t worry him, in fact he was carrying an expression of slight boredom. He had frequented too often to be fearful, and despite his being no longer permitted to carry his revolver – being a regular citizen – he carried it regardless. Off down passages he passed, faint lights could occasionally be seen; secluded marks of the lives people live in the smaller houses nestled in foundation.

After a few more turns, Thomas ended up at the threshold of F12. Due to the sheer number of streets down here, they were officially numbered in hexadecimal. The people who lived down here gave them other names, but Thomas didn’t know them. His older legs protested, but Thomas began down F12 anyway. The calm bend of the path sent him the rumour of the ones waiting for him ahead; the echoes of footsteps pacing, and a softer ticking. The Spiders Nest carried sounds far, but Thomas’s footsteps were not carried; he had learned to wear padded shoes. Because of this, it wasn’t until the dim green light of his torch reached her that the woman who calls herself Penny noticed him.

Thomas regarded her. She was about five feet seven, with light brown hair and darker brown eyes. Opal cufflinks rejected the lamplight; nightly globes pegged in a bespoke suit of proper business attire. She clutched a suitcase similar to that of the chatty man, which he recognised as the portable phone she used to contact him, and she seemed to be in her mid-forties. Behind her stood the source of that ticking. It stood six foot six exactly, its thick steel arms reaching down to its pseudo-kneecaps. Its torso was nearly as tall as Thomas, a massive crate of living cogs and dials and boilers. It didn’t have a head; instead, a single blazing yellow eye fitted to the front of its chest regarded him with emotionless indifference. A Sentinel.

Thomas chuckled.

“Huh, on the phone I thought you said you wanted someone useful. I do hope you were talking about me and not that” he said, his voice ricocheting off down into the dark. “I was under the impression I would be taking this case alone.”

 “Your impressions were correct, Mr Warwick-“

“Call me Tommy.” there was a slight pause.

“Very well. This is my bodyguard, you see; you can’t really expect someone to go for a walk in the lower levels without one, do you?” She spoke with a slight accent, though Thomas couldn’t place it.

“Indeed. You have a sentinel with you, and a portable phone, but you called me instead. I’d say you’re some company spokesperson come here to meet with the RPC. You went for a walk after or before business was done - after I’m guessing, since you chose to wait for me - and found the body you called me about: not the Sentinels because you don’t care for them as anything but guards, but there’s something missing.” Thomas condensed. He was old, yes, but still had a brilliant mind when he cared for it. “People die down here - all the time in fact, so why call and even pay a private investigator to look at one corpse?”

“I would appreciate it if you stopped investigating me,” Penny said, a slight annoyance hinted at in her tone. “And as for why I called you here, look for yourself,” she promptly stepped aside, and Thomas saw for the first time the darkened shadow resting against the stained concrete. He stepped forward, and brought his torch up. A thin brown cloak coated the form almost in its entirety, but a stray unclothed leg escaping the mass gave credence to its mortis. Thomas walked round, and noticed singing on its left side. With effort, he knelt down to get a better look, and thought to himself. ‘This isn’t fire damage, this must’ve been one of those new energy weapons. He glanced over his shoulder at the Sentinel, who stood stoically unmoving behind his owner. Specifically, at his left hand which, like all other Sentinels, was equipped with the new weaponry standard; a non-automatic energy cannon.

“I take it you think the same thing I did?” Penny piped up

“A Sentinel. Standard procedure is to arrest criminals, not gun them down.”

“Is it possible she tried to resist arrest?”

“If you thought that was possible, you probably wouldn’t have bothered calling me.” He pushed his hand against the cold stone and forced himself up. His left knee clicked slightly, and he clutched at it, freezing for a second. He finished getting up. “Anyway, you seem like a busy woman. I need to ask you a few questions, and then you’re free to go on your merry way. I’ll need your number too, so I have someone to call when my jobs done.”

“Indeed,” she muttered, passing Thomas a small paper slip. He regarded it, seeing she had prepared her number in advance. He reached into his left pocket, and found it empty. He patted it worriedly for a second. Sighing, he took the notebook out of his inner right pocket, and wrote down the number.

“When did you arrive on scene?” he asked, slipping into the typical neutral tone of an interviewer.

“I don’t know exactly. It was an early morning meeting, so I would’ve left the RPC at around eight.”

“What about you, metal box?” Thomas said, turning to the Sentinel that loomed over them both. “You bucket of bolts have in-built clocks, right? When exactly did you two come across the body?”

“They have in-built clocks?” Penny said. Thomas gave her a quick glance and a nod before turning his attention back to the bodyguard. Its eye revealed no emotion, but it did glance at its charge before the speaker below its eye crackled to life.

“EIGHT. FIFTY. SEVEN. WE LEFT THE ROBOTICS POLICING COMITTEE AT. EIGHT. THIRTY. EIGHT.” It spoke with an inhuman slur, like radio interference given will of its own. The sound reverberated out in the tight space, off into the unknown. Thomas scribbled down the times quickly and moved on, turning back to face Penny.

“Right. After you called me, no event happened between then and when I arrived. Is this correct?”

“It is indeed. I haven’t seen any lamps pass by; just rats.” Thomas figured that made sense. He heard the sentinels ticking before his lamp was visible, and anyone not wanting to be found would’ve heard it before stumbling blindly here. Sentinels still patrolled the Spiders Nest occasionally, so it wouldn’t be too far-fetched for the average citizen down here to recognise their tell and head elsewhere. Thomas noted it anyway.

“Do you know the victim in any way?”

“No, Mr Warwi-“ she paused herself. “No, Tommy, I do not. I only shifted her cloak slightly when I got here, and that’s all I’ve seen.”

“In that case, what DO you know about the victim?” Penny frowned.

“Why does it matter what I know? I called you here to investigate her, not me.”

“The reason why I ask, maam, is because I need as clear a picture as possible of what occurred here. Any information could help me, so I get all the information I can get. If that’s a problem, get another drone in here; they’ll scan the corpse, conclude she was just some criminal and ship out.” Now it was Thomas’s turn to frown, but he did it subtly. He realised something. Meanwhile, Penny lost hers, going back to her neutral expression.

“My apologies, Mr Warwich, I will answer your questions. I know that she is likely a resident of the Spiders Nest, that she is a female of age about 15-20, and that she seemingly sustained a single blast from an energy weapon to her side, towards her back.”

“Is that everything?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. So I suppose you DO care for Sentinels as more than just guards then.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Earlier, I said you called me and not a Sentinel because you didn’t care much for them as anything but guards. I guess I was wrong on that one; you called me here because you think this woman was outside protesting the RPC and ended up getting gunned down. You think the RPC is silencing the small bit of free speech the average citizen has right to, which is something they could be brought to court over. You want me to get enough evidence for you to wave in front of their faces and secure The Pylon a bargaining chip for the table; perhaps even netting yourself a promotion in the process.

“Mr Warwich-”

“And that’s why you didn’t have your Sentinel scan the body either – else you would know more about her; it’d automatically upload that record to the RPC database, giving them time to cover their trail.” Penny stayed silent. “Still, I suppose that doesn’t matter. Murder is murder, and I’ll investigate it because I’m an investigator. You are excused now, Mrs Wellington, thanks for your cooperation.”

A pause.

“Thank you, Mr Warwich. I will take my leave, call me when you find something.” Business concluded, she turned on her heel and walked calmly off. There was no hint of anger, no faint image of shock. Years of working in corporate relations had honed her skills of emotional control. The sentinel swiftly followed her, exactly 2 paces behind, sending off loud clatters with every ‘step’. Thomas waited patiently for the echoes to get out of earshot before continuing.

 

2 –

Twenty minutes later, Thomas found himself at the gates of the RPC building. A large crowd had gathered at its main entrance, picket signs and banners in hand, back a few meters from the line of Sentinels opposing them. While the former were a bustle and roar of shouted objections; the Sentinels held their line in entrenched silence, arms crossing those beside them, making the building itself unassailable. The RPC was positioned where once a park had supposedly been back before the times of Pillars and Soot; allowing it a healthy clearing at its front. The main complex was once a building at the parks northern border; though now it’s just the pedestal of some unknown residence far, far above. Thomas noticed a familiar face off against a nearby wall, with a familiar bowler hat atop an unfamiliar grimace; the man he had spoken to earlier at the Sparktrain station.

“Seems your phone call did at least a little good, it seems” Thomas said on approach as greetings. The man started slightly when he saw someone approaching him, but recognised Thomas and relaxed again slightly, going back to anxiously tapping his fingers on his briefcase.

Here's my Notes:

Thomas gains access to and investigates the RPC using a friend who works there; one of Thomas’s old colleagues back before the Sentinels. They both disagree on the sentinels’ current role, but DID both become investigators way back when for a reason.

 

(note: the time between the body discovery and Thomas being called was only 2 minutes; as if the number was at hand easily)

### notes If I use this for coursework and need stuff for a commentary: The rat itself here is acting as a metaphor or example of the themes of a steampunk setting in general. The act of scavenging the wreck of something unknowable or larger than it, the lack of understanding of a world too big or vast for it to possibly understand (the wind). Even the home in the burst pipe; reusing what is seen as broken or rubbish by others. The corpse is also an example of this grim recycling; and also serves as a dehumanising factor. Gone from being alive to the scavenge of something else. This is the essence of steampunk.

Some notes on the piece go here:

I want to try and make a steampunk setting work; so may as well try it here. Details of settings:

-          The spiders nest. A series of tight alleyways formed between the towering inner-neo-oxford buildings. It’s named after how it resembles a web when viewed from above.

-          Geology. The sky itself has been stained a dim red by constant coal burning, and the once fluffy white clouds are replaced by a thick layer of soot that swirls above the cities. Close to the cities centre; it’s rare to even see the sky; instead leaving the land in a constant dim twilight

o   Soot storms. When the heat from the factories causes high winds from the heat rising; it causes the soot held aloft by the constant heat to be forced down; falling like snow, but with those high winds it acts like a snowstorm. Some of the older citizens might call this black snow instead, as that was the original term for it.

o   The city lights. Across the city; bright green lights illuminate the streets and more used thoroughfares. This leaves the ‘webbing’ of the spiders nest a darkened hovel in which crimes can swell. They are patrolled by sentinels, but they only come around once every few days due to the sheer scale of the city and the lack of care from the richer populace. The green lights reflect off of the otherwise black sky, leaving it a shade of dark green. The colour is due to how it’s the easiest shade of light to see in a sootstorm.

-          Sentinels. The sentinels are machines used in place of a police force due to their ‘inability to be corrupted’. In reality, they are just puppets used by the richer populace to deal with opposition. They seemingly carry out actual police work as well, but the ignorance of the rich leads to understaffing and a built up stigma of unreliability. They all stand six foot six; have a single yellow glowing eye, a crackly radio speaker, and no head. Their limbs are longer than average with the tips of their fingers (or the energy cannon they have on their left hand) against their pseudo-kneecaps.

-          Central pylon. The central pylon is positioned at the cities centre and has become a bit of a magnet for the rich to build and live around. It’s where the cities power is made through the first nuclear reactor; but coal was still heavily used and was still blackening the sky.

-          The pillars. The pillars were the lifts that separated the Spiders Nest from the upper city centre where the rich lived. They function using two colossal springs that push against each other. A gear-based mechanism pulls them out of equilibrium, allowing it to be used as a lift.

­

Cut Stuff L

Brass plating on the walls shimmered with recent polish, and were framed with engravings of cogs and springs that paid homage to the cities lifeblood.

Out the window, rumours of black snow began to fall. Thomas remembered the name the soot had been ceded when he was a child; and the city hadn’t seen actual snow for its last seventy years. These days, the average city-goer didn’t even know what snow was anymore, appropriating terms like ‘soot rain’ or ‘soot storm’.

The carriage dimmed just for a moment as it passed between a few taller buildings. Down in the lower levels of the Spider’s Nest it was practically impossible to see the sky just due to how far in the clouds buildings had risen: how they had been forgotten. The higher classes had all tried to move as close to the central pylon – which marked the cities centre - as possible to lower commute times, but after that they wanted to use their wealth to make their homes more liveable. They couldn’t expand outwards; the city centre was already too packed in for that, so they build upwards instead. Now, living in a building below 50 storeys was seen as a mark of shame.

And also: the plan I once had to improve this story before I dropped novel writing for a while:

The slow, soft chugging of smoke sent timid echoes throughout the vast spindly alleyways of the Spider’s Nest. A lime glowing lamp sent a streak of sickly fluorescence down through its discreetly curving form, its faint shimmers irking not the only life it found. A single rat, its thickly matted, black-branded fur, emerged from its grotto it formed in a burst pipe. It sniffled at the winds that threw themselves through every crevice of the city of Neo-Oxford. The heat of the rising steam and smog forced the wind higher, which in turn forced flakes of the layer of smog down to be a passenger in the wind. Soon, they would fall faintly, coating the city in a thicker layer of smudging grey. But the rat didn’t care. The rat couldn’t see beyond his alley; beyond the Spider’s Nest.

It searched and sniffed for scavenge; fresh food, or a softer something to add to its nest in the burst pipe. It looked towards the lifeless form that rested against the wall of the tunnel. Its hair was blowing softly in the wind, and the hem of their cloak shifted slightly. All life here stood still, just for a moment. The rat patted forward, hesitance woven to each step, silence thick in the smog, and started scratching off a clump of the cloak to take back to its nest in the burst pipe.

All around, the only sounds were the howling of the wind, and that slow, soft chugging of smoke.

 

 

Ideas for a direction to go with this:

Have the entire story be before this moment – in fact, this could be how the story ends. The readers knowledge that the character is going to die even though the character themselves doesn’t would be something interesting to play or mess around with

In order to fit with the theme of reusing and recycling, perhaps I should scatter quotes or snippets of the first paragraphs throughout the text, both to remind the reader constantly of the main characters fate, but also to hammer home that theme of reuse and recycling what has been us.

In this world, the two main classes are defined by the idea of ownership. Those of the upper class sare capable of ownership, settling in lavish apartments in the upper levels of the brass towers. Those who are not deemed in this class are forced to scavenge down in the Spider’s Nest – the ruins of the old city the new one was built on. Ownership is officially tracked by the government and enforced by the sentinels.

The upper class cast down their refuse into the Spider’s Nest, where it is scavenged by the lower class

In this system, the idea of soot would work as a representation of stagnation – the upper city would be coated in the layers of black because nothing ever changed, whereas the Spider’s Nest would ironically be the one place free of the cursed stain, showing the frenetic and chaos of it all.

As the rubbish piled up in the Spider’s Nest, everything would be very slowly buried and forgotten eventually, which would hook back in to the idea of dehumanisation – for eventually you too would be buried and forgotten.

Because they are incapable of ownership, the lower class would be incapable of making a mark or change – they would live, die, and be forgotten, remembered by no-one as they were never able to accomplish.

The MC could be motivated by this idea of trying to make a mark