Free For the Love of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 3) by Ichabod Temperance

stories into the air, it extends for almost a hundred yards.
    “Let’s duck in here.” I attempt to communicate to Miss Plumtartt, but the racket caused by the furious pace of the plant is overwhelming. I resort to hand signals to convey my intentions.
    The interior of this building is more chaotic than the artificial storm raging outside. This is the blowing engine building. Good grief, these engines are enormous! One after another, eight mammoth steam engines fill this hall from end to end. Towering above us, they stand forty feet tall. The colossal steam engines extend an equal distance into the Earth. Pistons big enough to sit four people to dinner send their compressed air to force heat to the furnaces, but they were never built to be pushed to this fantastic fury! The giant, thirty foot wheels that flank the sides of each Titan spin at incomprehensible speeds. The howling of these steam beasts is intolerable! The behemoths scream to be released from their torture. The whole engine house feels as if it is going to fly apart! The concrete floor beneath our feet is in such a vibration that we scarcely make contact. The atmosphere pulsates with the uncanny amount of energy and movement being exerted. It is terrifying to be so close to the hyper-active, steel hurricanes, but tangles of rattling, hot pipe force us to make our way along a narrow, metal grate, directly next to the living machinery. We hurry as best we can through this hall of unbound leviathans and exit through the opposite side.
    Piles of ore and detritus of production now provide cover for movement. The maelstrom of ash, soot, smoke, and heavier detritus is as dense as any fog, but a lot more painful.
    “Miss Plumtartt, look out!” I cry, but it is too late. The jaws of a merciless monster gape over our heads!
    “Tut, tut, Mr. Temperance, ‘tis but an abandoned steam-shovel. Though the bucket, with its hinged jaw swinging open, does convey the image of a Paleolithic creature, for all intents and purposes, this monster bodes us no harm.”
    “Yikes! It’s the Martian war machine! We have walked right up on it!”
    “Not to worry sir, you mistake this four legged water tower for our thrice limbed foe.”
    “Oh, yes, Ma’am. Say, now I see the real three-legged mechanical walker, Miss Plumtartt. I think the man from Mars is over yonder, around the other side of the blast furnace. Let’s just ease around this material conveying tower and see if we don’t get a look at him.”
    “Of course, Mr. Temperance, lead on, sir.”
    “Yes, Ma’am. Oh, there he is! I’ll move back so you can sneak a peek, Miss Plumtartt.”
    “I say, what a peculiar fellow he is. The three legs and three arms work with a freakish synchronicity; Yes, he is just as you described him; however, you did not mention the gentleman’s unfortunate growth along his back, eh hem?”
    “Hunh, he is sorely hunchbacked, ain’t he? Well, I reckon I didn’t mention it on account of it not being there last night when he chased me around the legs of his walker with that blaster of his.”
    “Indeed, I find that observation worth noting, Mr. Temperance.”
    “Yes, Ma’am.”
    “My word. Look there! We have company, Mr. Temperance. Indeed, so it would seem, for from our position of concealment, I am able to make out the silhouette of a large man. He surreptitiously creeps among the gigantic steel apparatus and brick buildings of the Sloss Furnace complexities to observe the Martian, much as we are doing, it would seem, eh hem?”
    “Yes Ma’am, and since he is human, and sneaking around trying not to be seen by the Martian, I think it’s reasonable to assume that he is an ally. I’ll just slip over and say hello.”
    “Exercise caution, Mr. Temperance. He is a burly fellow, and visibly tense. He clasps an inordinately large, heavy wrench and is giving every indication of being at a heightened state of readiness in anticipation of its use.”
    “Yes, Ma’am.”
    My fellow