The Modern Prometheus
Chapter 1: The Bludgeonings of Chance
This is AU, obviously. I would describe the genre as Lovecraftian steampunk, and if you don't know what that means, well, maybe you will by the end of the story. Basically, though, it takes place in a technologially advanced version of Victorian England.
While this story is NOT an entry, anyone who's interested in AUs should check out Kish's Kittie's AU contest on her Free Imagination forum. ( www .fanfiction .net/topic/40530/8242661/1/)
This story mostly uses dub names, because even though they are, by and large, terrible names, they're somewhat more realistic for characters living in Victorian England than the normal Japanese names. However, certain characters kept their original names, if it suited their role in the story. Yes, that's confusing. Here's a guide to the ones I changed, for those of you who don't wish to sully your minds with actually seeing the dub.
Zoey Hanson/Ichigo Momomiya
Corina Buckswort/Mint Aizawa
Bridgette Verdant/Retasu Midorikawa
Elliot Grant/Ryou Shirogane
Mark (?)/Masaya Aoyama
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, but the plot is very much mine, and any historical or scientific facts I twisted for my own nefarious purposes will be explained in footnotes.
Victoria Park, Tower Hamelts, London. 1893.
Zoey Hanson swung her thin legs back and fourth as she waited on a rather decrepit stone park bench. She was supposed to be meeting up with her fiancé at the park that afternoon, after he was finished helping out at the mission, but (like the nervous twit you are, she thought to herself), she had come early, and now, not in view of any clock tower, she couldn't tell if Mark was late or if her worrying was just making time pass like treacle.
o()o
On the other side of the park, across Sewardstone Road and in the private laboratory of Dr. Elliot Grant, Bridgette Verdant pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.
"Yes, sir, but I don't understand the point of the experiment," she opined in her quiet voice. "Even if your difference engine works, where's the practical application of being able to see into other dimensions?" (1)
Elliot guided her gently away from the machine with one gloved hand. "Well, for one, we'll be able to study our own demesne without all the risks and uncertainties of space flight. And besides," the young doctor smiled what he must have thought was a gentle smile, but which looked wolfish to his assistant, and then added jovially, "Peering beyond the dimensional veil has been the work of mediums and spiritualists for too long. Why should those looneys have all the fun, eh?"
As that was at least half a convincing argument, Bridgette nodded. "Well, we've stored up enough electrostatic power to give her a go, Dr. Grant. I suppose I'm ready when you are."
o()o
Zoey was off in her own little world, mind fogged by the pink, anticipatory cloud of her upcoming nuptials. As such, she didn't see the approaching walkers until they were directly in front of her.
"Hmph," sniffed the young woman who was clearly the nucleus of the group. Her blue-black hair was bound into a fancy bun which, coupled with the way her fashionably lacy dress matched her blue eyes, definitely indicated the upper class. Zoey looked up at the prim sniffling noise, then looked down again when she caught the posh young lady's eye.
"It's such a shame, is it not, the way the homeless are taking over this part of the city?" the black-haired girl commented to her retinue, loud enough for Zoey to hear. Zoey blushed hot, but said nothing, just continued to look down at her clean but somewhat threadbare skirt.
"Certainly is, Miss Bucksworth. A veritable blight on our fair city," simpered one of the other young, fashionable women. "Why, I can hardly fathom why you continue to take exercise in this park."
The black-haired girl raised a dainty, gloved hand. "I've told you before, Miss Meghan, calling me Corina will do. Only servants and guttersnipes need be as formal as that," she replied airily, and Zoey had no doubt that that last part was again directed at her.
o()o
Once he and Bridgette had donned the proper safety equipment, Elliot flipped the necessary switches to activate his difference engine. It had taken weeks to store up enough power to do even this simple test run, and if he was going to take the invention public, he'd need some better form of energy than static collected from the air.
Maybe lightning, he mused, although it would be difficult to harness it in the city.
Snapping his attention back to the task at hand, he focused in on the difference engine. It was a bulky, squarish box of a machine, topped by a taut canvas screen and framed by two large mercury recitifiers (2). As he watched, a blurry picture fizzed into being on the screen.
"Mother of God," Bridgette breathed when the image focused. Elliot muttered a profanity or two himself.
There on the screen was him, undoubtedly him, in a futuristic-looking lab. Instead of Bridgette, though, his assistant appeared to be a young man with long, brown hair pulled into a ponytail. The two were looking at a screen, so technologically advanced that Elliot couldn't begin to guess how it worked, and talking amongst themselves.
"What language is that?" Bridgette questioned, leaning in to hear better. "Doesn't sound like English."
"It's not," Elliot replied, eyes fixed on his doppelganger. "I think it's Japanese. They're talking about a science experiment," he said, lips moving in the pauses as he translated. "Something called a… meow meow project?" He shrugged, and his green-haired assistant shrugged back at him. "How're we doing for power?"
"Power's at 80 percent," she told him efficiently once she managed to tear her eyes away from the other Elliot on the canvas.
There was silence for a minute, both sets of eyes glued to the futuristic scene in front of them. Then Elliot burst out, "Something's gone wrong!"
Indeed, the Japanese men were talking more urgently, and unnameably complex things were flashing and wailing in the background of the image. The two futuristic scientists bustled around their lab, trying to set whatever-it-was right, but to no avail. The warning sirens increased, and then there was a blinding flash of white light.
"We've lost it, sir," Bridgette piped up after a moment of staring at the now-blank screen.
"I'd say we've got bigger problems than that, Miss Verdant. Look at these readings!" She did, and then goggled stupidly at the dials.
"I'm shutting it off, Doctor!" she said, her voice rising. Elliot waved a gloved, dismissive hand at her.
"I don't think that would matter now. Just… Run, all right? Take cover. I don't know what this bloody thing will do if it overloads, and I don't want you getting hurt. Run, Girl!" he shouted when she looked about to protest.
Finally taking the hint, Bridgette bolted out the laboratory door, leaving Elliot alone to disable his creation.
o()o
"'M no' gutter trash," Zoey muttered to herself once Corina was safely out of earshot. "Jus' coz we ain't all nobs like you…" Suddenly impatient, propelled by her annoyance at the condescension, she lept off the bench to go find Mark.
o()o
"Perhaps I was a bit hard on the poor little thing," Corina confided. "It's just… What makes her think it's all right to eyeball me like that"
Her friends muttered fluttering reassurances, but the dark-haired girl's conscious remained uneasy.
o()o
Bridgette ran across the street into Victoria Park, her flight earning her glares from various loungers. She thought, briefly, that she should yell, warn the people, but her natural shyness took over and she stayed silent, and ran.
o()o
Back in the lab, Elliot frantically released all the power he could, in hopes of curbing the difference engine's meltdown. Nothing he could think to do was any help, so eventually he took cover behind an overturned workbench, praying that his equipment wouldn't be harmed.
o()o
AND
THE
WORLD
WENT
WHITE.
Footnotes
1. The difference engine was invented by Charles Babbage in 1822. Contrary to this story, it was basically an early calculator.
2. Mercury arc recitifiers were invented by Peter Cooper Hewitt in 1902. They are used to convert alternating current into direct current, and they look like giant lightbulbs.