Clockwork Moon

Clockwork Moon (1)

Chuff……………Chuff……………

“Valve one, thirty degrees clockwise.”

“Got it. Thirty clockwise.”

“Valve two, twelve degrees counter-clockwise.”

“Twelve counter.”

“Valve three at… never mind. Three is good. Four is blocked, however. Open it, watch for the steam.”

“Roger.” Below the dimly lit catwalk, a hatch clacked open, and a gout of superheated steam hissed out. It slowed, and the hatch was closed.

“Good. Nineteen degrees clockwise now. Let’s hope it works this time, I think we’ve got it.”

“Me too. Nineteen, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed.” A pause punctuated only by the clicking of a small calibration tool. “Good. Numbers are good. Water intake is clear, dials are… bugger. Piston eight is slowing…Releasing pressure, stand clear.” The brown Earth Pony pulled a lever on the control panel in front of him. All four valves clacked open in perfect synchronization, releasing yet more steam and bringing the temperature higher, climbing uncomfortably. The brown Pony reached over; pulling a rope attached to the top of the metal tube. The ceiling slid open, revealing its true form as that of shutters. Below, the valves returned to their previous state.

“It’s still stopped.”

“I can see that, Niles.” Retreating from his hiding place behind a sheet of Aluminum (A hasty, badly smelted addition after a particularly bad scalding) a yellow Earth Pony, ostensibly Niles, looked above at the irksome component. It was housed inside a glass tube, and the whole assembly was roughly a foot in diameter. The piston had dragged against the glass, displacing it so that the piston couldn’t continue to churn.

The brown Earth Pony above brushed a strand of orange hair out of the way of his goggles. He began to walk around the circular steam engine, his hooves clanking upon the metal mesh of the catwalk. His right hind leg, in comparison, clanged loudly and obnoxiously with every step he took, the gears and cogs whirring to move his leg in a facsimile of a normal canter. Broken bone and torn tendons had been replaced with shining clockwork, well-oiled and always making such alluring clicking sounds.

He moved to the catwalk above piston number eight, and crouched low to release the latch. Finding it, he pulled the metal grating up and out of the way on its hinges. The piston now revealed, he balanced on his metal leg and kicked it with the other. Now realigned, the piston began pumping back and forth inside the tube, generating power like the other seven.

He grinned. “Heh, if I couldn’t fix that, I don’t deserve the name of Tinkertoy.” He replaced the cover, and it clanged back into place. He quickly resumed his position at the main control panel.

Chuff…Chuff…Chuff…

“That did it. Dials are still in the green; numbers are good…Output is still dropping… Niles! Check the coal!”

Back below Tinkertoy’s catwalk, Niles grumbled and clopped downstairs, hooves meeting mesh. The bottom level of the three was placed against the ground, with not even a piece of carpet between them and the cobbles of the alley behind their workshop. The center of the level was a round tube, a meter thick and made of good-quality iron. Below the stairs sat a large pile of coal, and a shovel sticking out of that.

Still grumbling, Niles pulled the shovel out before slamming it back in to pick up some of the lumps. The action was mainly to relieve anger, as he replaced the shovel before turning to face the hopper. He grabbed a nearby winch, and began turning the handle evenly in a counter-clockwise direction. Before him, the four iron heat shields surrounding the coal hopper began retracting downwards. He ducked as a wave of intense heat rolled over him, followed by a cloud of smoke. He coughed lightly, glad for the ventilation. The passing cloud stained his green hair (A genetic throwback from his ancestors) slightly, giving it the appearance of a burned plant.

As soon as the shield was fully retracted, Niles went back to the pile, once again grabbing a shovelful of coarse black rocks. He dumped the load into the hopper; the coal briefly obscuring the fire before the fire curled and consumed it instead. Satisfied, he winched the shield back up and denied the inferno any escape. He quickly clambered back up the stairs to his control panel. Above, the pistons began working faster and faster to charge the large battery at the very top of the tower. Were someone to look at it from a distance, they would have mistaken it for an armored water tower, surrounded by strips of shoddy aluminum to protect it from the elements.

Chuff. Chuff. Chuff. Chuff.

“Output is climbing! Stored power at five percent and climbing…Six … I think we’ve got it, by Jove, I think we’ve got it!” Below, the fine filters inside the valves were becoming clogged. They should have been opened periodically; not to mention cleaned between uses. But they hadn’t, and that would cost the two. Clogged with ash, and then soaked with steam, the result in nature would have been called “Basalt”. Here, however, it was called a “Mechanical failure.”

Chuff Chuff Chuff Chuff Chuff…

“What in Luna’s mane…?” Tinkertoy started, but was interrupted by Niles from below.

“Buck! Tinkertoy! The filters have clogged, and the valves are locked! We need plan B, now!”

“The valves were our Plan B, it wasn’t supposed to get this bad! They were our fallback!”

“…BUCK!”

Tinkertoy started pulling levers and pressing buttons, hoping to rediscover a fail-safe he’d forgotten. Hooves clacking against the control panel, hoping against hope that at least he’d had the foresight to install a main shutoff switch, or some other way to release pressure that had slipped his mind. But there was nothing. The dials were vibrating violently, bouncing inside their casing and spinning wildly, bouncing occasionally into the red, then more often, before it stopped leaving the little red area at all.

ChuffChuffChuffChuffChuffChuff…

“I’m going to shatter the pistons!” yelled Niles from below, wielding a sledgehammer they kept around for an emergency.

“No! You fool! When the steam releases, it’ll boil us alive!”

“Steam rises! It’ll buy us enough time to escape before it blows!” Hurriedly, he tried to open the door, only to find it jammed by the heat, expanding at a microscopic level to render the lock worthless. Around them, the thin aluminum groaned and whined as only metal could around them. It began to hum threateningly with the strain.

:”That’s it! Quickly toss me that sledgehammer!” Niles looked at him like he was mad, but within Tinkertoy’s eyes, there was a spark of inspiration… He slung the heavy tool up to him. Between them both, but under the catwalks, the pistons were moving at a rate unmatched by many Pegasi, whirring, and visible only as a blur to the naked eye. Tinkertoy caught the Sledge, and bent to unbuckle piston number three’s section of protective catwalk.

Piston #3 was pointed at the direct center of one of the sheets of Aluminum that made up the outside shell, and therefore a weak point. Tinkertoy took a deep breath, considering how much he really wanted to do this. Niles watched from below, wondering what Tinkertoy’s plan was. The piston inside the tube whirred, no longer a piston but a metallic-grey blur.

CHUFFCHUFFCHUFFCHUFFCHUFFCHUFFCHUFF-

The Sledgehammer slammed into the end of the glass tube, not rupturing the transparent material but merely knocking it askew. At lower speeds, the piston would simply stop. Now, however, it was long past that point, and the glass was merely an obstacle in the way of its repeated motion.

It launched the tube, smacking it into the wall at a velocity that caused it to shatter upon impact, denting the wall and bending it outwards. A nanosecond later, the piston detached from its moorings, loosened by the impact. It too, was launched like a missile, and the easily thirty pound weight not only collided with the wall, it crumpled it, and it sheared from the side like a piece of paper hit by a baseball. Sam followed it outwards, missing the superheated cloud of steam by mere inches as he landed on the cobblestone pavement.

Niles ran past him, vertical as Tinkertoy had managed to land on his metal leg, twisting in such a way that he ended up with his hooves sprawled and lying upon his back. Niles left his field of view as quickly as he entered, presumably running for cover from the explosion of glass and various metal odds and ends that had been damaged in the escape. Tinkertoy didn’t care. Some spun through the air, shining and whirling beautifully through the air. A few bounced off him, causing discomfort only vaguely noticeable, as though happening miles away.

When the pieces had ceased their glowing dance, he stared at the night sky beyond. It looked… fake, somehow. It was, in every way, a night sky. But it still seemed wrong, copied without any imagination. There was no creativity in it, like art done without inspiration or music done without soul, merely a rhythmic beat without anything beyond. He strained, and he could swear he could hear said beat, but echoing and uncertain.

It took him a second to realize he could, in fact, hear a steady thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, and he recognized it as his heartbeat. Listening even closer, he could hear the grand machine he and Niles had built running out of fuel and shutting down completely. The chuff of the remaining pistons dwindled and eventually ceased. Without it, he started losing track of time. He might have lain there for minutes, hours, or even millennia and he couldn’t tell. He stared at the Moon. Was it always that dim?

It, too, seemed like it had lost all of its will to shine, and had given up on the concept past a required presence. Around it, the stars seemed to have lost their luster, unable to twinkle any longer. They looked more like holes poked in a sheet of paper now. They were nothing like that beautiful night, that wonderful sky he had seen a year ago. He could remember that, ironically, as clear as day. He still swore to anyone who would listen that he saw Princess Luna and her Sister dancing and playing among the stars, hiding among the constellations and racing each other around the Milky Way…

His daydream (A misnomer was never more apparent) was rudely interrupted, however, when Niles reappeared at the top of his field of vision. “Tinkertoy, wake up. There’s a constable here who’d like to speak with us. And a medical wagon.”

“Why would a Constable want to speak with us?”

“I’d assume because of the explosion.”

“We prevented the explosion.”

“Semantics.”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but I’d also like to see what licenses you may have for this. Both a’ you.” A gruff voice interjected itself into the banter. Without getting up, but merely bending his neck backwards, Tinkertoy sized up the copper.

The… Officer, he respectfully corrected for himself, was much, much larger than he was. Were it not extremely unlikely, he would have doubted his dubious claim to be a pony. Maybe a malformed Diamond Dog or a particularly well disguised Griffin. He stared at the blue uniform, the gold shield that defined his job for the particularly hard-headed, and the ridiculous tiny blue hat attached by a piece of elastic. Yes, he mused to himself. This was somepony not to insult. He decided to be a little snide anyway.

“Licenses for what?”

“Dangerous handlin’ o’ materials. An’ litterin.”

Tinkertoy quoted Niles. “Semantics.” Raising his head slightly for a better look, he noticed a very nervous-looking white unicorn behind him. Underneath his well trimmed lime green hair, he looked somewhat nervous. Tinkertoy pondered why, and briefly wondered whether the… Officer had gotten him, the Medic had gotten the Officer, or they had both arrived at about the same time. Behind them both, a small wagon with a stack of stretchers sat, waiting to be used.

Tinkertoy chose his next words very carefully, and yet not carefully enough.

“This may seem a mite tangential, but does the sky seem a little… off tonight?”