EV: Steaming up the Thames!

[Aoiroo]

"Hah,"

She gave a light bang on the table,

"Funny, like I can be competin with a whore. The work I seek is nowhere near that glamour. Best be catching rats with my scawny self or mopping up piss off the sidewalk."

Leaning forward she let her head drop onto the counter before looking up,

"Don suppose you would know where a girl like me could get some work huh?"

[Supercape]

GM

"Don't rightly know myself luv" replied the friendly Barman "perhaps some space for a comely young barmaid... but look, I know a few people, let me point you the right way..."

It took a few wrong turns, it took a few drinks. It even took a couple of inappropriate advances, but she got there in the end. Several job offers, from rat catcher to floor scrubber to, yes, lady of nocturnal occupation.

Work, it seems, was rather tight around the Docks, with the Oriental gang cleaning up - they seemed to be able to work at three times the speed of the others, yet do little actual work. Their dock warehouses were rife with furious activity, all day and night, with steam pouring from the chimneys and the sound of metal on metal. Yet nobody knew what was going on inside.

[Aoiroo]

Carrie had heard rumors about it being tightly guarded, but when she got there, tightly didn't do it justice. It was COMPLETELY guarded. The doors, the windows, heck she saw some dudes patrolling the roof of this warehouse. And they were wary too, every passerbyer got the stink eye a few a flashing of a rifle. It was very clear that they didn't want ANYBODY anywhere near this building and were willing to use force to keep them out. Naturally this didn't matter a lick to Carrie.

There was something to say about superpowers at home hers were quaint but useful, here the application was absolutely godly as she literately walked past the guards and through the cracks in the doors. Pretty much bypassing all the locks or little traps or secret words. She was effectively invisible and they couldn't do a thing about it, and as she got in, she moved and looked around at her discression.

[Supercape]

GM

Carrie was not only effectively invisible, but able to creep through the gaps in the door to penetrate the heart of one of the warehouses. There were 4 in all, but the central one was the largest

It was indeed a sight to behold. There was a network of girders above, a possible way of clambering through the warehouse unnoticed?

For there was plenty to notice... big wells of molten iron, foundaries and machines everywhere. A half dozen Chinese men were pounding at steel with hammers or working on machines with hammers and tongs.

And, in the midst of all of this, were a few men - made completely of steel! steam flew out of shoulder nozzles, and a chest piece that looked vaguely like a clock ticked away, showing spinning cogs and bolts that powered the steam-powered robots core.

[Aoiroo]

Wow, send in the clanks.

If there was anything Carrie was expecting from this trip, this was not it. It wasn't a warehouse housing slavelabor, it was a factory, a fully operational factory and it was making an army. She was slick herself, but against robots, well she could take out some but not all and she was DEFINITELY outnumbered here. She needed to tell someone, she needed to get them here to stop this, but mostly she needed proof. Even if they took her word on it, she needed something concrete, and she started looking. She needed something paper, blueprints, lists of parts, a declaration, anything to make this seem at least fesible when she bursts in that a bunch of slummers are building a robot army.

[Supercape]

GM

As Carrie snooped around, she noticed a particular hub of activity, where two Chinese gentlemen were servicing and fine tuning a steam powered robot, hammering it, and adjusting it with spanners and wrenches.

Bingo!

Half-discarded, she saw a slightly crumpled waft of sheets, full of complex technical designs. It didn't take an engineer to recognise the sketches. Blue-prints of the steam powered automatons!

[Aoiroo]

Carrie had to stop from saying anything. It was like they were trying to be caught. Grabbing as many as she could stuff into the pockets of the slightly oversized ratty jacket she started to book it over to the exit. She didn't know how quickly she could get this to M, but this was way to big to take on by herself, and unless something majored happen, these people weren't going anywhere.

[Supercape]

GM

As Carrie was making her way out of the Warehouse, at precisely the wrong moment, the door opened into her face. Perhaps she was a bit distracted, glancing over at the Blueprints to see what they were, or maybe it was just bad fortune.

But it lead to a very burly Chinese gentleman with a bowler hat, grubby vest, and swan off shotgun staring at her eye to eye.

He yelled something in Mandarin, and several other workers, both inside and outside the threshold were Carrie say, turned to see....

[Aoiroo]

Carrie was almost out, just one more door. It was almost too easy, as she skimmed over the blueprints when she walked. She was almost homefree, and than the door swung into her. Squeaking like a mouse she switched forms on a fly and found herself eye to eye with a very made chinese man, his gun, and just about everyone else in the factory.

"Hijo de puta."

[Supercape]

GM

The hatted man, who looked like some kind of gang leader (although he surely was not the brains behind the operation), took a firm, broad gaited stance and an intimidating look. He swung his shotgun into Carries face, pulled the safety, and put his hand on the trigger....

From both inside and the outside the Warehouse came some yells in Mandarin, it seemed the hue and cry had started...

[Aoiroo]

It took about half a second for Carrie to move, and move she did. Ducking the Chinese man she jumped up a couple of boxes up to the second story. Bolting past the several workers and than jumped out the nearest window. The warehouse's were not very far appart, she didn't make to the other roof as well the second floor wasn't level with the roof. She did make it an outside stairwell though. Rolling with the small drop she stopped at the wall pulled herself up and started up the stairs.

[Supercape]

GM

The gang grew in number, but had to thin out as they tried to catch up with and encircle Carrie. The problem was, she was just too damn nimble.

Several of the gang members started to follow her across the roof, but couldn't make the jump. Others had circled round to try and head her off, but her leap to the next building caught them flat footed.

She had gained a significant lead, but, on the other hand, she was running out of warehouse roofs...

[Aoiroo]

The rooftops were noticably vacant, probably no one thought to look up there. She had shaken some of the guards but as she moved around to the end she saw several more awaiting around the grounds and surrounding the area around the warehouse. Taking a quick look around she smiled as she saw a crane not thirty feet away, smiling she started running to build up the momentum as she grabbed on and swung way over the would be attackers heads before letting go and falling down about twenty feet before she made it too the street. Keeping her head down she rolled into the fall and landed with no problem or injury before she bolted down the street.

[Supercape]

GM

The heroic leap and swing took the gang by storm. Carrie whizzed through the air over the heads of some very startled Chinese gentlemen. A few more level headed gang members tried a few pop shots, and whilst Carrie could hear the bang of firearms, and even one or two bullets whizz nearby, none of them had any more than a minute chance of hitting the evasive heroine.

With a further dash, she ended running down Butt lane, eastwards from the Thames. Some gangmembers where on her tail, but most had been left behind, and her persuers were some distance away. Even better, she was out of dockland area, and well clear of the Chinese gang turf.

[Aoiroo]

Carrie had all but lost most of them with her swing, after ducking through a few alleys, running through a few pubs and making her way back to the ferry she finally stopped running enough to catch her breath on the boat ride back. From the ferry to the taxi and than back into the police box she went. She did need a few minutes to remember the combination but when she had it, she was down and sprinted to the first person she found,

"Where's M, because we're in are knee deep in trouble."

[Supercape]

GM

Deep in the Ministry of Extraordinary Affairs...

"Hmmm, so that's their little secret is it?" said M, smoking a cigar and helping himself to a modest glass of what smelled like rather fine Port.

"Damned ingenious, damned ingenious" he added, poring over the blueprints. For all his stiff upper lip, cigar smoking, heavy eating, pen pushing ways, M was bright as a button, and clearly had the kind of mind that could process and analyse streams of data quickly and efficiently. He probably had to have that kind of brain, given his job.

He straightened up.

"A right firecracker we have here. You see nothing technically wrong with using automatons to do the lifting and working. Hellfire, we could use the blue prints ourselves, although from the looks of it we would probably need the engineer who did the work. No no, the problems is what will happen when word gets out. The other gangs for starters, even if it doesn't erupt into a gang war, it will push them into unemployment and crime. And then if the Luddites get wind of this, we will never hear the end of it..."

He paused, and took a big draft on his cigar.

"We need to put a stop to this, *ahem* on the quiet. Not forever, but at least until we can get some semblance of a plan in place. Let the gangs work something out, keep the Luddites out. Ideally, speak to the engineer and the head of the Chinese gang. If it comes to it, a little light sabotage to put them back a few months until we can figure something out..."

[Aoiroo]

Carrie crossed her legs after having changed back into her actual clothing as she put down the roast beef sandwich that the people were nice enough to prepare for her.

"Hope you got someone who speaks Mandarin than, because you're going to have to figure out who the engineer is. It's a needle in a haystack, and they might not be too keen on helping if I make a second visit."

Reaching up she took another bite while she thought over it, there was no law against what they were doing but there was a lot of destructive potiential that much was certian.

[Supercape]

GM

"Not a common language" agreed M, "at least not in this part of the world. But we have a fair number of Chinese in the Empire. And of course, we have Hong Kong. We have a number of agents who can speak it fluently, I can arrange a partnership if you wish. "

"I would suspect most of your gang can speak reasonable English. Its hard to get buy in London, especially at the docks, without it" he said, nabbing one of Carries roast beef sandwiches. The chef at the Ministry was rather good, it seemed.

"As for the Engineer, its probably a big needle in a small haystack, but I agree it won't be easy. From what you said, the central warehouse is the one where all the automaton repair, maintenance, and even construction goes on. He probably spends a fair amount of time there. Possibly lives there!" he shrugged.

[Aoiroo]

"Well yeah, English is the base language where I'm from. I don't think I know anyone who speaks Chinese myself, and I know Lockwood doesn't otherwise I wouldn't of had to fight a freaking statue."

She leaned back into her chair a bit,

"I'll be honest, I'm not really part of a 'gang'. The people I worked with last time here were both independants, and before that one was an independant while the other two were parts of two different organizations sort of like what you got here. I do know one particular scientist who would love to come over and take a look at your world."

Letting the chair rock before it landed forward she let out a sigh,

"Anyway, those guys were really rather hostile about my appearance, I mean we can try and sound official, and of course approach them by being as civil as possible but you're going to want to have some serious muscle when you go back there because they've got the numbers."

[Supercape]

GM

"Anyway, those guys were really rather hostile about my appearance, I mean we can try and sound official, and of course approach them by being as civil as possible but you're going to want to have some serious muscle when you go back there because they've got the numbers."

"Official was not quite what I had in mind" replied M. "The Ministry of Extraordinary Affairs is, you will be unsurprised to know, allowed reasonable discretion in performing extraordinary operations. Provided they are vital for the interests of the empire, of course. We aren't immune to legal process, but we do have considerable...flexibility..."

M actually looked slightly embarrassed.

"I appreciate this is a tricky one. But if we were able to put back there operations, covertly, by a month or two, we would have enough time to come to some arrangement. Whilst preserving our good name. To be honest, you, as an external agent would be the perfect solution. I understand if you are not comfortable with this - you have already done us a great service. But I know London, and this is going to erupt into a bloodbath between the gangs, and maybe the Luddites, if we are not careful. And it would be a shame to lose the designer of the automatons to a crowbar in a riot. "

[Aoiroo]

"The Luddites are still going? Huh, wonder how the Cannonites are doing? I'm sure Cannonade would want to hear about that."

Finishing her sandwich she got up and dusted off the crumbs before stretching a bit and looking like M.

"So you want me to put wretch, make things hard so production slows down. I'm sure I can manage that in the least. I can probably do it without hurting anybody too. Actually that one might probably be for the best, if they do recognize me they might expect me jumping of a roof and swinging on the end of a crane rope again and than my whole escape plan would be totally shot."

She let out a chuckle at the short joke before walking over to her purse and fishing out the disposible camera.

[Supercape]

GM

"The Luddites are still going? Huh, wonder how the Cannonites are doing? I'm sure Cannonade would want to hear about that."

"The Cannonites are just as strong. All the moderates have left to form the Cannonites. Whist this is a good thing overall, severely weakening the Luddites, it has meant that those still loyal to Ned Ludd and his brutes are more extreme than ever" said M.

"So you want me to put wretch, make things hard so production slows down. I'm sure I can manage that in the least. I can probably do it without hurting anybody too. Actually that one might probably be for the best, if they do recognize me they might expect me jumping of a roof and swinging on the end of a crane rope again and than my whole escape plan would be totally shot."

"A spanner in the works would be a good idea. And if possible, try and speak to, and recruit, whatever engineering genius is behind this. I can offer him a good job. "

M stubbed out the remainder of his cigar.

[Aoiroo]

"So everyone with sense left the group leaving the muscleheaded brutes. That makes things infinitely easily if and when I have to face them."

Stretching she headed to the door before looking back,

"No disguise this time, it doesn't matter since I already know where there are and I really don't need a bunch of make up to sneak around and break something."

[Supercape]

GM

"No disguise then" replied M "although it does seem a shame to waste Madam Redpowder's work. Quite an asset to the ministry that lady. "

He stood up, pressing his fingertips together deep in thought. "Nonetheless, its important to avoid turning this into a blood bath. Word hasn't got out yet about the automatons, and the Chinese are probably going to try and keep it that way, silencing you if possible. How to get in there undetected? it sounds difficult, at best..."

[Aoiroo]

"Don't think to much on it, if I don't want to be found I'm usually not, this last time was a fluke. Anyway, the whole silencing thing, well honestly better people than them have tried, worse people too and I'm still talking peoples ears off."

Walking out she made her way down and exited via Police Box. She used pretty much the same route, except the fact that no one saw her once she got off the ferry. No one saw her once she walked to the factory, and much like before, no one saw her slip through the cracks. After all, she was a shadow on the wall and it didn't matter which dimension she was in, she was dang good at sneaking around.