Clockwheel Cities - Chapter 1: It All Starts in Paris

I won't tell you what awaits, but I will tell you at least something: this world is not an exact copy of ours. Some things happened earlier. Some things happened later. Some things did not happened at all and a few things happened that you have no way of remembering from history lessons.

Chapter 1

It All Starts in Paris

Paris was a city that still had all life in it, and Deinne only really began to realize it now, walking on the Pont d'léna, a bridge leading almost to the Eiffel Tower.

She remembered who Eiffel was - like almost every mechanic in France, he showed up at one of her father's estates from time to time. They were magnificent and vast buildings which he liked to leave to the Order of Mechanics for their quarterly meetings.

When Deinne was little, she was always interested in what they talked about during those meetings. Mechanics would arrive in the early evening and get out of steam-powered carriages or early automobiles to discuss things that sounded fascinating. Both men and women wore tailored suits and tall top hats, which Deinna liked. At that time, the old-fashioned belief that women of the upper classes should not wear trousers still prevailed. But the boom in technology in Paris - which in the meantime somehow became the second capital of mechanics - led to the need to be able to quickly jump out of the way, which made long and layered skirts an impractical snobby outfit.

Deinne appreciated this as she herself was a lover of Manchester trousers and tailored suits. Especially the expensive ones, for which her father had to spend bizzare amount of money on.  At least he's finally aware of my existence, Deinne thought, the corner of her mouth curling into a grimace.

She grew up in a family of mechanical parts dealers who had no idea about mechanics. The Louvres always had quite a decent fortune, as the largest workshops knew them as high-quality and reliable traders who knew how to negotiate a price. However, she was never present in the business itself. She had five older brothers who had to share work, bureaucracy and many other complications that came with running a company. Deinna was forgotten, so she always did what she wanted.

Like right now, for example.

Most Parisians headed to the Mechanics' Fair, where the latest inventions, craziest ideas, and bold (or foolish) predictions of the future were to be presented. Deinne had heard rumors that the organizers - the Order of Mechanics, who else - wanted to outdo even their counterparts from London, the heart of Europe's mechanical future.

But Deinne wasn't headed to the fair. For weeks she listened to nothing else at the headquarters of the Order. Fair this, fair that, fair blah blah blah. She had a strong feeling that if she would hear the word fair again, she would break someone's nose for the second time this week. That minor incident on Monday convinced her that she has good both the fly and the strength. And the grinning faces of the puffed-up rich Parisians who thought they could afford everything were asking for a punch between the eyes. So she didn't go to the fair for the sake of her own nerves and idiot´s noses.

After all, if you spend most of your life moving between mechanical parts, oil and steam, it's hard to impress a few larger-than-life toys. The most interesting things happen in London anyway, she thought. Therefore, at a certain moment, she discreetly separated herself from the crowd and ran into the intricate streets of the city. She was also in a hurry for an important meeting.

Her shoes tapped lightly on the stone tiles and the sound carried throughout the alley. Dusk was falling on the city and the streets were deserted - everyone was heading to the fair. When she walked there in the morning, the tables in front of cafes and bakeries were occupied. But now Paris resembled a ghost town.

The bakery she was passing by was still open and the smell of fresh baked goods was really tempting... but somehow she didn't want to explain to the clerk what exactly she wanted. And also, she had an important meeting to rush to.

So she continued further and further into the winding streets of the older districts of Paris. If you didn't know it here, you'd be lost for good even during the day, let alone at dusk. But Deinne spent her entire childhood in this maze of crooked, narrow streets. She recognized it here. She knew that if she entered the neglected-looking tunnel, she would find herself in the middle of a small square where fruit sellers used to gather. She knew that the abandoned building that looked like it was about to fall down had once been a hotel, and she also knew that the roof of the former church had a view of all of Paris.

It was so strange to think of the differences between her now, in an expensive suit, with a top hat on her head and a mechanic's license in her pocket, and her younger self. Her mother liked to remind her of the most obvious differences during each of the few meetings.

Mother kept saying how pretty she looked in the flowery dress and with braided dark hair. So when Deinne left for university, the first thing she did was donate all her clothes to charity and cut her long hair into short, curly hairstyle. It was almost boyish, disheveled and extremely modern, and her mother hated it wholeheartly, which gave Deinna a dose of satisfaction every time she looked in the mirror.

Although something told her that the real difference was somewhere else entirely. As a fifteen-year-old girl who just got a job in a mechanical workshop, a new and wild world suddenly opened up in front of her, powered only by the power of mechanics, physics and imagination. All of Paris was suddenly her kingdom.

But now she had to admit that she would rather get rid of it all. Not mechanics (she seriously doubted that there was anything in the world that would really disgust her the only thing her life revolved around for years) - but Paris. And its smog. And tourists. And conceited nobility. And gardens with fountains. And the local Order of Mechanics. And that, despite everything, she will probably be late for one of the most important meetings in her life.

"Well, you won't even say hello to a poor old friend?"

Deinne was one hundred percent sure she was having a heart attack at that moment. What a stupid way to die for someone not even twenty-one years old, she thought. But when she subsequently tilted her head, she saw above her just a smile full of too white teeth. 

"Surprise!" Alexej Nowak, her colleague from the workshop, her best friend and the person she currently wanted to punch from the wall he was standing on, grimaced. He tilted his head curiously and declared with smirk: "Surprised you, didn't I?"

With the grace of a sack of potatoes, he jumped right in front of her and she had to grin involuntarily. Thanks to his penchant for colorful and patterned clothes, red hair that looked as if someone had thrown a bomb into it, a figure like a pencil and a face covered in too many freckles, Alexej looked more like a crazy artist who escaped from an asylum and joined the circus on the way, and not as a member esteemed company.

"Keep dreaming," she quickly cooled him down.

"Huh. It sounded like I had just interrupted the most important train of thought in your life, rather than giving you some special news!” His mouth spread into a familiar smirk again.

Deinne quickly checked her pocket watch. It was a nice piece, one of those that she was quite proud of and that's why she kept it. They did get stuck from time to time, but that was to be expected from her first proper mechanical statement. She always learned something interesting from them, and it was at that moment that she learned from them that she was epically late.

"You'll tell me when I get back to the workshop," she said to Alexej and quickly continued on her way, not waiting for his answer.

"Deinne!" he shouted after her, and for a moment she thought that maybe it really was something serious. "Deinna, you should know this!" 

He had an urgent tone in his voice that definitely didn't fit in. Alexej was a comical oddball, always ready to lighten the situation with a silly joke and generally living his chaotic life to the fullest. But in more than ten years of their friendship, she had only heard him use that tone a few times.

So instead of rushing to that hellishly important meeting, she simply turned on her heel, waiting.

"We have an hour. Then our train leaves for London."