The Inventor's Gift

By Ashley J. Bailey

When a forbidden technology becomes a tool for a deranged gang seeking the anarchist dream, a young misfit and her friends will be the vanguards for a city veiled in dysfunction.
Selina Roberts, a teenage 19th century steam engineer, has had a troubled past from her days as a street dwelling gangster. Lingering around her life like an endless haze, Miasma, a lurking gang from the lower streets of Ozark city continues to haunt her. Because of her facilitative actions roughly one year ago, Miasma wishes to apprehend Selina to finish their plot of subjugating the city by whisking control from its leaders. Their method to do this lies with an ancient blueprint to build a war machine from the past.
Back then, Selina was in league with a gang where she met her dear friend, Rosa. Rosa was once her leader and the only person who ever allowed Selina to spread her creative wings. They grew close, but Selina fractured their relationship with her betrayal and selfish need for engineering expanse. Wishing to make amends, Selina will call upon her aid for the sake of protecting the people in her life and the city she grew up in from being dragged down by her past mistakes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ashley J. Bailey
• Release date: Aug 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463063897

Ashley J. Bailey

Ashley J. Bailey specializes in fantasy and science fiction for young adults. A life composed of daydreaming and wonder seeking, adventure was always in their heart. It came natural, being born in the Big Apple after all. However, since they’re too much of a homebody to travel beyond their doorstep, Ashley found fulfillment in books. Their rapacious hunger for words began at the ripe age of eight after reading S. E. Hinton’s ‘Outsiders’; a huge favorite of Ashley’s.Never has Ashley thought they could live the life of a street thug boy from Tulsa with fist flying, family drama and growing pains unlike any other. It was exciting, scary, and heartbreaking. When it was over, they had lived another life so different from their own. That’s what Ashley wishes to do with their own books. That feeling when you get to walk beside another character in another life, maybe even be that character, if only for a moment.The Inventor’s Gift is their first Young Adult novel and is only the beginning of a promising writing adventure.

Book preview

Chapter One: The Ambitious Inventor

Dreams and aspirations dwell in the hearts of assholes too, but I don’t discriminate. It’s important to hold onto those dreams because when you don’t, you die. The thing that made you special turns into a distant memory and you become a drone like the many before you.

I was orphaned at the age of four after being sent far away from my home to the flying city of Ozark. Being here. It gives me a sense of loneliness. Like I’m never home. Like I don’t fit in. But why would I want to? Everyone else is so dull. It’s lonely, but I don’t wish to be simply one shade.

I don’t love this city. I love the city. I love the drive it instills in me just by operating as flawlessly as it does. My body becomes abuzz when the sound of a rotor moves the high city bridges. The sound of interlocking parts and the cranking of gears gives an akin feeling to when a newborn is stimulated from a simple game of peek-a-boo. No matter how many times I experience it, it will always feel like the first time.

Divinity in a machine. That’s this city in a nutshell. It’s what defines the 19th century. Mother nature never saw it coming. Powered by its byproduct—steam. It’s the core of everything we do here.

In this place, people like me are called Steam Junkies. It’s a less reputable way to call out someone who doesn’t practice the use of steam technology in a traditional setting through schooling or under the confines of a professional institute. The people in this town like to label us as gangs looking for trouble, but in truth we’re rather recluse. It seems silly to say, but the ones people tend to assume us all for is a different sect of Steam Junkies. Thugs, if I’m to be frank. We both break the law, but in very different ways.

Despite the complications of the title, I’m actually touched being labeled a Steam Junkie. It’s acknowledgement of what I love and how far I would go to expand that knowledge. They want to shame me, but it only empowers me. I’m usually invisible, but when people take the time to actually call me a Steam Junkie, I thank them. Because I’m devoted to my urge for creation.

Which is why I’m up early in the morning after pulling an all-nighter which is quite common for me. You know the thrill. To fall in love with every aspect of what you’re working on. Unable to rest until you pass out. Working tirelessly twenty-four hours a day and still feeling like you didn’t do enough. That’s passion. That’s drive. That’s love.

In Ozark, I’m surrounded by that passion at every turn, even at the family shop. Well, not my immediate family, but yeah, close enough. They keep me in the attic. Not as a means to inflict abuse. It’s for my safety. Let’s just say I’ve done things that aren’t good for my future.

It’s not all bad. It affords me a safe place to work out my pent up inventor urges. My workstation’s right next to the attic’s boiler, a prime place to siphon quality steam. Once you turn off the valves and unhook the flexible copper tubing from the ports leading inside the wall, you can hook it to anything relative in tube size.

Living in constant stimulus of this beating mechanical heart, how could I not be obsessed? Every one of my senses are filled to the brim with satisfaction at every waking moment.

My eyes, witnessing the turning gears of a finely wound mechanism. The smell. As steam, hot grease, and burning metals pass through my nose and enters my pleasure zones. The taste of rust and vapor hitting my tongue after licking the debris off my lips. The feeling of my fingers caressing every hilly, smooth, and even sharp curvature of its autonomous perfection. And the tunes. Hearing this prized creation take life by force when its parts clank and clatter from within.

No words… Just motion.

My heart swells in my chest like a boy confessing their feelings to me for the first time using words you would never express about yourself. It gives a floaty sensation that triggers all your senses simultaneously. As if to be spiritually pulled from your body and taken for a ride as the you in reality stands motionless. It’s quite embarrassing really.

This is why I hardly sleep. Sometimes I get so immersed and excited that I feel like the machines and I are working on one wavelength. Like a soulful melody, and I its conductor. When I disassemble one of these finely crafted embers of erudition, I make a permanent connection. And I never forget what I learned from its parts.

But it’s never more sensual than when I birth a work of my own. Your blueprint is in my mind. Your shape, your power. Your undefined purpose lies in my mind as I put you together piece by piece.

Creation. It’s not like having a child. Uncultured and inelegant. No. A machine has elegance, and it has no need for culture. It exists outside bias and societal expectations. It has responsibility. To its creator and itself. From the moment it takes first rev, and the steam pours into its vessel. Machines… they don’t cry. They all say the same first two words with raw veracity.

I live.

I live. Is there any better form of self-expression than standing at the highest point of the world’s center than this? Exist in the now. Live for the moment.

Chapter Two: Welcome to Ozark

After tightening the bolts and screws on my newest invention, I knew I should take a break. My hands were cramping and so was my neck. But it has never been like me to stop when aches and pains arise. As beads of sweat near my bold brows, I wipe my grease stained forearm across my forehead and down the bridge of my freckled nose. I sometimes forget my foggy window can be opened.

So humid. Temperatures like this can leave a girl musky and wet. This is why I end up with more smudge marks on my body than my gadgets. When you prioritizes your work over food and hygiene you know you’re on to something. Grungy three-day old tank top? Who cares!? You’re in your youth! Discolored tar stained trousers that will never be clean? Go for broke! You only live once! You’d be surprised how long I wear the same bra. Personally, I don’t keep with appearances. My money is for my inventions.

I’m usually out and about in the same clothes for days on end with no real variety, even when I do change my wardrobe. A white tank top and cheap brown, sandy, or gray trousers in the darkest shades. That’s it. I’m not trying to win a beauty pageant. But I love a good boot. I tend to have plenty of those in different variations and colors.

Through a slow rise, the sun hits my glistening bronze skin and brightens my room, leaving me in a haze after hurricane moi. Glancing over at my oak leaf clock on my wall, I huff in fatigue at the mechanical sea on my wood floor of tools and scattered about machine parts. It’s a wonder how I ever get anything done in this swampy mess.

Sitting behind the door near the boiler, I meekly look around the attic with my eyes rolling down the descending ceiling reaching the farthest wall. I'm only five six and it becomes a bit annoying that I have to hunch and crawl like a cave troll once I'm half across the attic.

I glance at the furthest corner where the ceiling reaches its lowest point, feeling a slight urge to lie down with my raggedy blankets and my wooden plaque hanging over my bedding. It wasn’t time for bed. And it wasn’t time to dream. You sleep when your body shuts down. You dream when you need to refuel your aspiration.

It’s the mindset. Sometimes I stare up at the gold plate on my plaque just to take in the powerful words once spoken by Luann Price, the first woman to make startling profound breakthroughs in the fields of engineering. I have great admiration for her works and achievements. I one day hope I can leave a name behind much like she has.

And this is my ticket. This barrel shaped aircraft resting before me under my green work quilt may very well be the greatest thing I’ve ever done. If I could just get it to work.

With burden, footsteps are heard coming up toward my door. I desperately cover my machine up before the door’s quickly opened as Mr. Roberts gave me his stern dad look. He was dressed for the day, wearing his pinstriped trousers and tightly fastened overcoat. I can see he was angry because his brown muttonchops bulge when he clenches his jaw to hold back something he shouldn’t say.

Up all night but can’t show up for work on time, Mr. Roberts judged.

I lost track. I stood up and grabbed my bronze dark lens goggles off the quilt. And my—

Selina, if you tell me your back hurts one more morning I’m going to beat you with a wrench. He stared at me like he already had it on his person. He may, so I never test it. Besides, as long as I hear that line, I know he isn’t one hundred percent angry with me. You promised you’d fix the steam press days ago, remember? That was your job for the day. You’re costing me business. People have garments that need pressing and I have to remain relevant in this neighborhood.

Sorry.

With a rapid succession of impatient knocks, Today, now!

Despite being scrawny, he loudly stomped down the narrow curve of stairs leading from the attic while I stared down at my baby who still remained sleeping despite it all. With a warm smile I take the white hair tie out of my ponytail to let my dark auburn, cotton-candy curls hang to my shoulders. Reaching under the tail end of my machine, I unhook the two copper tubes and reattach them to the boiler. I proudly exhaled before giving a loving pat on his rear, leaving him to rest.

Gliding my hand along the bubbly textured steel sheeted walls down to the main floor, Mrs. Roberts was sewing up a torn jacket in her chair behind the counter. I can tell at first glance and the uptight manner she’s sewing, it was one of those problem fabrics for her. Though it lays in a frustrated pile in her lap, it was definitely lyocell. It’s one of the few fabrics with such a rich red.

Mister and Misses Roberts are my guardians. They were the ones who took me in after I arrived here. Though they never had children of their own, I don’t think they wanted any. You don’t reach your late forties childless by mistake. Regardless, they’ve been good to me. Mrs. Roberts has an ongoing loving nature while Mr. Roberts is… Well, I’m not sure if he loves me sometimes, but I know he doesn’t hate me. He never does things to me in order to hurt me. He tries to care but he chooses to be a hardass. At least that’s what Mrs. Roberts says in not so many words. I just say he’s an ass.

Though they are my guardians, I do not call them my parents. Because they’re not. I have no parents. The fate of my real parents is unknown to me. I just happened to be put in their hands. Circumstance. Don’t get me wrong, I care about them. I just can’t see myself calling them mom and dad. The concept is foreign to me, much like our relationship.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs, glancing out the window near the front door and to my right where customers usually sit and wait to be served, I watched Mrs. Roberts’ tight lips shift as she worked attentively in her red wine Victorian dress. Her old-lady hairdo was wrapped tightly, similar in color and style of an oak tree’s acorn. Seeming quite absorbed in her sewing, I decided to make my leave.

He’s losing patience with you again. Just as I was about to leave the store, I’m stopped by her strict glance. You understand, right? He’s running a business. He’s put a great deal of effort to finally have his own shop and Lean Linen is going to be his legacy. He just doesn’t want to lose it.

I know. I’ll do more than fix the steam press today. Promise. Holding her stare, Mrs. Roberts taps the skin below her eyes between her nose while handing me a cloth. Cluelessly, I take it and lightly dab my cheek, seeing the oil smudge. Oomph, thanks! quickly scrubbing to reveal the rest of my freckles. But it will be done.

Mrs. Roberts smiles into the jacket to resume sewing. I’m not worried, sweetie. Just get back here before dinner. You didn’t eat the last time.

Just like the undercover mother hen she is. Always making sure I’m okay and that the balance is good between the three of us.

No need to eat. I always stay full from the steam of Ozark.

Selina. She stops sewing, looking at me with a soft expression of reason. You’re still taller than your age. It’s what I love about you. But with your head so high in the sky I think you forget to enjoy the little things. Like a home cooked meal. We’re closed today. I’ve got the time. Dinner, tonight. Please?

Okay, okay. I’ll come with a loaf of pumpernickel. I pull my black goggle strap around my neck and let my goggles dangle below my chin with the brass plated lens frames lightly rubbing my collarbone. Just save me a warm plate.

I shut the door and walk backwards out onto the large cobblestone streets near the corner of avenue A-44 East beside the main road, one of the 89 avenue numbers descending from the hilltops. Smiling up at the wooden store sign is a soft way to start my morning. Not just because it’s where my guardians house me, but it’s where my fragmented visions lie. A vision for more than a flying city in the sky.

Luckily in this overlapping hilly city, it’s easy to get from place to place if you’re willing to take less than conventional roads. I turned around to face the edge of the street until I realized I had forgotten my leather hip pouch. Can’t go anywhere without it. I was about to run back inside until the brown pouch comes from above and hits me in the stomach. I keeled over a bit. Didn’t hurt as much as it surprised me.

Now, Selina! Mr. Roberts beckoned from the attic window before shutting it.

I picked up my pouch and fastened it around my waist to the left of my hip. Standing at the edge of the street, I could see down into the steam clouds where many of the lower housing and businesses are.

With an uncontrollable smile, I put on my goggles, pulling down the little lever that lifts my loupe lens up. Looking high to my right, I wait as Ozark’s gold plated clock tower, the tallest building in the high hills of Ozark, nears the end of the hour. This all has to be timed just right. You know. For my own amusement.

Looking down from avenue forty-four to forty-five is quite a distance. The main road, the largest support road of the city, is the primary path that connects these two locations while the other roads are more like bridges that overlap in a ring around parts of the city. I suspect if the main road was no more it would be like dropping a comet on the city. I do find that mildly amusing. Such bad architecture.

Slipping into my pouch, I feel around for a few seconds before bringing my hand up before me. All five of my fingers were covered in layered metal plates with a thinly woven metal webbing covering my palm. At the back of my hand was a large silver ring socket with small gold links attaching to five gold rings along each of my fingers. This glove was not easy to make. To actually weave the metal netting on the palm so thin out of gold and copper was timeless… Timeless joy! Doing so was a fruitful effort to provide freedom of movement with my hand.

Digging around in my back pocket, I pull out a medallion shaped magnet, the strongest available for its size. It has a dial almost the same size as the magnet with four light indicators of power ranging from yellow, green, orange, and red. I place it at the back of my hand into the ring socket, turning its surface dial to green, activating the magnetic field. With the metals at my fingertips unlayering upward to cover my digits, my arm trembles to remain straight as I feel it’s pull searching for metals.

I glanced at the clock tower again, lightly doing a short breathed exhale before bouncing myself like a boxer readying for a fight. Faintly, I count down from five with my smile growing bit by bit. At the start of the hour, Ozark’s clock sounds with a single hit of a bell and the loud once a day exhaust of Ozark’s floating city expelling enough steam to whiten the skies surrounding us.

That’s my queue… to jump.

Down I went, bypassing stone streets with my athletically slim body slipping between the sunless roads leading further below. Before fully passing through, I untensed my arm and opened my palm to let the glove’s magnetic pull cling close to the walls while keeping my hand as steady as possible. I slowed my fall greatly, but not enough to stop as I reached the end of the walls and freefall into the expanse of Ozark.

This—is my peek-a-boo moment. You cannot see the town’s overall beauty any other way. The pillowy smoke from the chimneys, the brick colored hip roofs layered like casino chips. The ethereal view of the citizens moving in incidental coordination like ants. Only at this elevation where your senses are at their peak can you truly fathom the glory of man. The way the rainbow colored sunbeams bounce off every corner of Ozark, illuminating each descending building all the while brazen winds batter your body like a fluttering loincloth.

Though it’s brief, the small window of time you spend perfectly frozen in the sky fills your soul with a boundless sensation. Freedom. It feels as if there is nothing in this world that can hold you back. No woman or child is bound by society’s pressures because seeing the world like this revitalizes my right to soar. This feeling… will dwell within my heart for days.

I raised my glove before me and was immediately pulled toward a house with a copper chimney. The fast pull brings my glove near the chimney, slowing me a bit without physically touching before releasing me over two roads roughly fifty feet below me.

All of these dangerous aero dynamics are possible because of the city’s structure. Most of the city’s built upon rich metals which grant me such dexterous exploits with my glove. Even the walls and the stone streets themselves have significant traces of metal.

As I move toward the houses ahead with arms up reaching, I bring my glove before me to pull myself closer before I quickly twist the dial to off, leaving me to fall perfectly between the house and the road’s edge. As soon as my eyes passed the street’s horizon, I turned the dial to orange. Being so close between the wall and the house’s pipelines caused me to reach equilibrium and not be pulled in either direction before quickly being brought to a levitating stop in between.

I turned myself while my arm remained locked by the glove’s magnetism. Placing my feet on the wall, I pushed off and twisted the dial simultaneously to green in order to hug the gutter pipes to the house.

Much like a fireman, I slide down until the pipes bend into the house. I hang still, murmuring a count down from seven before letting go to land on the balcony. Alert, I looked through the balcony’s window, seeing the woman inside going to the bathroom while combing her hair. Once she was gone, I hop over the balcony and drop to the ground.

Running around the corner and onto the main road, I bolt down the hill toward the district shopping center. I glanced at the clock tower’s black hands and began to run faster, smiling and panting like a jackal. Nearing the intersection where our roads for vehicle transport is wider, the red double-decker public transport bus comes from around the corner driving straight by.

I jumped up and turned the dial on my glove to have myself pulled to the street light, leaving me less than a meter from the bus. I release the magnetic field and continue running toward the bus, closing the distance a bit before reactivating the glove to draw me toward it. In midair I turned my body so my back slams up against the rear of the bus as my glove keeps me attached to it.

As I’m illegally taking my free ride downhill, people watch me with judgmental expressions.

This is the snooty class for you. I’ve only descended three avenues and they still stick their nose up at me. I suppose it doesn’t help I don’t wear traditional Victorian attire like they do. They even shout at me sometimes for being a crummy dirty girl. I find it funny. Like, really funny. One guy just spat on the floor in disgust. Like, what the fuck is that suppose to mean!? It’s hilarious! It makes me laugh because I feel so free while they have to spend hours per day looking their best and still follow someone else’s rules. Don’t be mad you can’t ride like me!

The double-decker bus, the red ones specifically, run express from avenues forty-four, all the way to avenues eighty. It’s a crazy expensive ride, but as you descend into Ozark the distance between avenues get smaller. Roughly three to five average blocks after avenues forty. Despite this being illegal and risky since the higher you are the more likely police will come for you, this ride is the safest part of my journey.

Once pass avenues seventy, I begin silently moving my lips to count down. Almost halfway through