Jooster Steampunk Drabble

[triedunture]

Title: Where We're Going, Jeeves, We Don't Need a Difference Engine
Rating: G
Length: 600 words

For willdew, who I owed a drabble and requested "Steampunk! Jeeves x Wooster as per euclase's awesome drawing of awesomeness." (Miss Licia, I hope that's okay!)



'Sir?'

Bertie Wooster did not look up from his handiwork: the small cog, clenched in his delicately wrought pincher tool, was almost fitted into its proper place.

'Sir, if I may?' the soft voice floated trough his workroom once more.

'Just a moment, Jeeves.' Bertie poked the tip of his tongue from the corner of his lips, a study in concentration. Nearly there...

The voice was suddenly much closer, and boomed over his shoulder. 'Sir, it will only take a moment of your--'

Bertie jumped, startled. The tiny cog clattered to the floor, where it was lost in a sea of shining bronze bits of machinery and steel instruments. Bertie cursed and threw down his pincher device, glaring up at Jeeves through the many lenses of his magnification goggles.

'Dash it, Jeeves! This Difference Engine isn't going to calculate itself into being, you know.'

'I do apologise, sir.' The trusted manservant coughed into his fist. 'However, Mrs Gregson is in the parlour. She insisted on awaiting your arrival and will not be moved.'

Bertie frowned down at his leather apron, smeared with grease and grime and held about his frame with many buckled straps that afforded him opportunities to store tools. 'I can't let her see me like this, what? She so dislikes my little tinkerings. Probably will insist I marry some horrible girl she's met and settle down into a life of Not Building Things.' He tore the magnification goggles from his eyes and tossed them onto the chaotic floor.

Jeeves pressed a single finger to his lips in thought, then reached over to the coat rack, with had been fashioned out of brass pistons left over from another of Mr Wooster's projects, and retrieved two hats: Bertie's cloth travelling cap, and his own stove-pipe.

'Perhaps, sir, this would be an opportune moment to test the viability of the Time Machine.' He held the cap out to his young master.

Bertie considered for a moment, then jammed the cap on his head and fished two pairs of flight goggles from his work bench. 'You fire up the ignition system. I'll clear a path. If my calculations are correct, we'll need about twenty yards--'

'Bertram!' a voice at the top of the stairs bellowed. 'What are you doing down there?'

'Sorry, Aunt Agatha, I must fly!' Bertie called back. He tossed the second pair of goggles at Jeeves, and both men rushed to the looming shape in the corner, which was covered with a white sheet. Bertie began shoving various half-built contraptions out of the way, and Jeeves ripped the sheet from the machine.

It gleamed like an onyx onion standing on shining brass rails and dotted with steam vents, pressure gauges, exhaust pipes, and orderly golden rivets. Jeeves placed his hand on an ivory handle and pulled, opening the circular door to the inner red-velvet cabin.

Bertie snapped his goggles over his eyes and grabbed his canvas bag from the piston coat rack. This bag held all the necessary implements of adventure: compass, pocketknife, matches, miniaturized automatic abacus for any field calculations, and skins of water. He ran to the Time Machine, which was rumbling and whirring through its start-up sequence; Jeeves was busy flipping switches and pressing buttons.

'Bertram, I am coming down there if you do not show yourself at once!' Aunt Agatha roared.

'Terribly sorry! I just haven't got a spare moment,' Bertie hollered as he shut and sealed the door.

The machine hummed with gaining energy, then with a bang propelled itself exactly nineteen and three-quarter yards before disappearing in a puff of smoke, leaving only a charred line on the workroom floor.

fin.

Comments

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Oh good! I figure, there can't be enough steampunking going around, right?