Breaking Babbage: An Excerpt

((Yeah, I write shitty fiction from time to time. This is an excerpt from a disgusting Steampunk story I am currently working on. The working title is "Breaking Babbage." The main character, Resh, is an aether dealer, and a hot mess. Setting is an alternate 1899 London.))


It wasn’t the first time Resh had awoken to a rat chewing on her toes.

She lay still a moment, not quite ready or alive enough to shake off the beast. Sometimes Harald would stop gnawing of his own accord. More often than not he wasn’t hungry, just lonely. His remaining teeth weren’t even sharp. But occasionally the rat, due to some rodent form of dementia, would forget what he was doing and Resh would have to punt him across the dingy garret.

Harald seemed to be in a fog today.

Joints cracking as she curled forward to rub her chafed toes, Resh ignored Harald’s aggravated squeaks and instead tried to focus on clearing her head of the night’s bats and booze. She crawled across the grimy sawdust floor and pried ajar a cracked windowpane. Scooping up a handful of rainwater from a bucket she had rigged on a line across the narrow alleyway, the gaunt woman slathered and slapped her face a few times.

Damned withdrawal.

Ignoring the siren call of her lumpy cot in the corner of the attic, Resh stumbled into a patched blouse and worn suede breeches before clipping a harness across her chest. She didn’t bother with the discarded corset, mumbling, “lacing requires hands that work,” and once she was shod in a stompy pair of boots she fought her way into an oversized trench coat. She fished Harald out of the coat’s pocket and replaced him with her kit before deciding she might need him later, but the rat had already scampered away with a squeak that sounded to her like “Piss off.”

The Byzantine lock system on the garret door kept Resh busy for a solid eight minutes, but the fuss was worth keeping scrowsy prigs away from her stash.

She stumbled out the door without bothering to lock it. She had her valuables on her and didn’t worry about someone trying to kidnap Harald. That rat bastard could take care of himself.

Resting a hand on the banister, Resh descended the worn, carpeted stairs, running her bare fingers along the greasy splintered wood in an effort to ground herself. It didn’t work, as the unfelt shard of oak in her index finger attested, but it usually took a full stomach to cope with coming down anyway.

Emerging onto the street like a hermit crab evacuating a shell stinking of opium, Resh blinked owlishly as her pupils adjusted to daylight. If the bit of hazy light blearing through London’s smoggy miasma could be called “daylight.” The stench of guttershit and fish from the nearby wharf played an expert assault upon Resh’s nostrils, and a lone inhale was enough to make her retch.

Holding back her greenish hair, spitting a bit of bile from between her teeth, Resh knelt in the gutter. She spotted a glimmer of metal amongst a filthy pile of linen strips and fished out a penny. It gleamed dully in her palm. Even covered in grime the queen was a classy dame.

“The gods of shit and needles want me to eat. Can’t disappoint them.”

It was a short walk to The Torn Sheet, Resh’s favorite pub (well, the only one that still allowed her patronage), but in her state it took twenty minutes to round the corner. She tripped directly into pedestrians twice.

A rush of warm air that smelled of ale and stale tobacco greeted Resh as she pulled open the door to The Torn Sheet, heavy and mangled by years of service and the odd burglary attempt. Resh slouched into a bar stool, shedding her fingerless gloves but keeping her trench coat on in spite of the heat afforded by a sooty hearth.

“You need to hire a sweep, Meggy.”

Meg Quickly slid a mug of lukewarm coffee beneath Resh’s red, cracked nose. Resh eyed the raw 

egg bobbing among the coffee’s head. She flinched when it eyed her back.

“Drink it, poppet, I ain’t havin’ you puke on my clean sawdust again,” Meg warned, flicking a dingy rag in Resh’s direction. The shivering woman fumbled with the mug, sloshing a bit of coffee on the counter. Sighing in exasperation, Mistress Quickly smacked her rag into the mug she was buffing and came around the counter to assist her fidgeting regular. It wasn’t unusual for Ereshkigal to fight off a bender in The Torn Sheet—Meg had rather her do it here than alone—but she was getting worried by the frequency of the pale young woman’s episodes.

“Hardly twenty-eight and less prospects than a poxy debtor,” the ruddy woman sighed, steadying Resh’s chin with one hand and tilting coffee into her mouth with the other. Resh nearly gagged on the egg but made it through with a hard swallow. Meg clapped her on the back with a wash-pruned hand before returning to her mug and rag on the opposite side of the bar counter. Resh, a bit steadier, tipped the dregs of coffee into her mouth, rinsing away the taste of egg and lingering bile.

“I’ll reimburse you for all those eggs one day,” Resh licked her teeth. Quickly rolled her eyes.

“On the house, I always tell you. Not everyone would do what ye did for my husband. I owe you.”

Resh shrugged, scraping between her teeth with her pinky nail. “Nah. Plenty as wanted to take care of him, I was just the only one with strychnine on hand.” She lowered her voice as the door at the end of the room was pried open, but it was only Garrow who came sauntering up to the bar. The bristly man in his patched uniform lit upon a stool a couple of seats down from Resh and hailed Mistress Quickly.

“A new day, a new offer, Margaret Quickly. Will ye accept it or do I have to try again tomorrow?”

Quickly tossed her damp rag full into the man’s graying face. “I ain’t marrying you, stop asking.”

Garrow peeled the limpid cloth from his face and leaned toward Resh conspiratorially.

“I think she’ll crack any day now.”

“More like crack your bones, my friend,” remarked Resh drily, digging her penny out of a deep pocket in her coat. She spat on it, buffed the grime away against her breast, then slid it across the sawdust to Mistress Quickly.

“Offal today, Margaret. The piss kind, Margaret. There’s a good hostess, Margaret.”

Quickly slapped the coin into her apron with a glare.

“Keep calling me Margaret and you’ll be chewing on your own guts, Ereshkigal Loup.”

The kidney was just as perfect as Resh had imagined it. She spooned the clotted blood from the willowpatterned dish and skewered the organ with a fork, grinning at the tang of ammonia that greeted her tastebuds. Garrow pretended not to register that his breakfast companion was devouring the inner organs of beasts and fowl with relish. He poured a bit of coffee into his porridge and soaked up the mixture with a slice of stale bread.

“So, Resh, any expectations for the business today?” he garbled through a mouthful of oats.

“Never any expectations but great ones, Constable Truppet. An’ you? Which streets should I avoid on this fine morning?”

Garrow slurped his lukewarm coffee. “Flaxton is patrolling between Fleet and Picadilly today, if you were wanting to hit up tourists you might want to lay off. I’d steer clear of Saint Clemens as well, thanks to that attempted arson by suffragists last week there is a bit o’ a presence there as well. Keep to the west an’ ye should make a killing near the farmers’ market.”

Resh stifled a belch with her gloved fist. Having some vittles in her gut was making her feel less like a corpse. “A killing. That’s what I like to hear. Well,” she shoved her empty, bloodied plate across the bar and swiveled off the stool, “time to do business with the public.” She clapped Garrow on the shoulder and tossed a wink to Meg, who waved her away with her dingy rag.

Daylight, that eye-piercing thing of evil, greeted Resh in a torrent as she heaved the pub door inward and crawled around it, disappearing into the mid-morning throng.

*****

((So, if you suffered through that, let me know what you think and whether or not you'd read more.))