Wiping cool sweat from a hot brow, broiling inside steaming armor while rain assailed the exterior, Samuel Stockwell focused on the dials to his left to take his mind off the battle. Levers were caked in grease and skin oil. Five separate pressure gauges were registering normal. Yet for some reason, the ticking from the chronometer dials drew his attention the most:

                                                                                    09 - 05 - 1877

                                                                                        01:17 AM

Instead, the date only made him recollect how short a time it had been since this lunacy began. The inventor rubbed his stubble chin, fingered his sweaty blond hair and sighed heavily.

He paused. Outside, a shrill whistle went past him far to the left. One second after, a vibrant explosion rocked the land. His ironclad armor, Steam's Vassal, reverberated slightly. He knew that to be the ninth shell fired from over the ridge. Muddy soil slapped the hull. Damage from number nine was negligible. Intelligent Engine ticked away numbers gathered by the telescopic eye.

There was no way Jansen could have more than ten.

Why had this devil returned? It made no sense. Hours before, he sat in the clock shop of Edwin Seer, surrounded by friends old and new. The Guild of Honor was growing in power and need. Even Mayor Mason Levy had applauded their most recent ventures.

Another whistle sounded. Stockwell returned to the double periscope, but saw only mud stains and darkness. Again, that whirlwind voice could be heard over the wind, blowing metallic and tinny through what must be a tremendous bullhorn:

"ARE YOU STILL THERE SAMUEL STOCKWELL? IS THE GAME IN PLAY?

His powerful mind did the mathematics in a fraction of a second. Intelligent Engine lagged somewhat behind in coming to conclusive data. Pulling two gears, the ironclad ducked and rolled to the right, exactly at the moment the squealing rocket bounced off of its plated shoulder. A deep bang echoed into Stockwell's ear, followed by an even more severe rocking of the armor as the projectile exploded at his rear.

Samuel's ears rang. That's number ten, he thought, time to do some whistling of my own now.

Steam's Vassal took seventeen mighty steps on legs powered by steam pressure forced into the pumps between them, much like a locomotive. Its steps sank five inches into muck with every motion, but the raw power of the ironclad kept it mobile.

Nineteen feet in height by nine feet wide at the shoulders, the raw epitome of technological warfare, a moving humanoid colossus with a Gatling gun on the left arm, five meat hooks at the right. Twelve plates of iron and steel one inch thick apiece guarded the broad torso and shoulder mounts. In the front of the chestpiece, an upside down cow catcher, purely for style. A cylindrical head with a flat top held the double periscope 'eyes'. Two huge smokestacks pumped out black fog into the night.

While the beast moved, the man inside remembered...

"Where did you run off to after the blue light hit?" Lars asked. He looked pale and sickly on sight. "That was four days ago! Mister Seer's been worried half to death!"

"I'm fine, Jansen. You remember the iron battle wagon I've been trying to build for the Army contract?"

"The one you can't figure out, you mean?" Lars snipped.

He punched the tall Jansen in the arm. "That's my point, you dumb ditch digger! The blue light contained some form of mutative properties. I figured out how to make the wagon as soon as I woke up! I need to build a moving man, not some solid ship on land. And, I remember my schoolhouse Latin and Greek without fail, and unraveled a few more things in my sleep. My mind expanded exponentially overnight!"

"I have no idea what you're saying, Sam."

"I'm saying the Blue Silence advanced my thoughts well beyond normal. What do you think it's done to others, to our fellow well diggers who struck its source? What did it do to you, my friend?"

Memories crowded out his consciousness; tactical thinking became harder. He tried to remember when he had last slept, but then opted for trying to remember what sleep felt like. Somewhere in the distance, the wet sloshing of his opponent echoed in the fluid air.

Nearby trees were slain at the start of the turmoil. Only hills, puddles and darkness aided or hindered strategies.

To remain hidden, Sam perspired in the war machine, forsaking the cooling fan that would bring relief - - and noise. He allowed a finger to hover over its control switch, but retracted it.

Samuel's plan to whistle came not from the gun, but along the side of the machine, next to the huge dual stack of steam pipes sat a conical mortar on a swiveling mount.

Azimuth 39 degrees, six to my left...

An automated gear dropped one shell into the barrel, and soon a boom of destruction had been launched up and over the landscape.

The shell went over the hill as Samuel advanced. He arrived at the hill's summit exactly in synch with the weapon's termination. It missed. But its special incendiary design gave him the necessary light to see dimly the misanthropic shape of Lars Jansen. The thing sat crouched in a ditch, his abdomen and chest glowing like embers beneath a body interwoven with masses of iron in uneven shapes, as if a man had been imprisoned within a moving sculpture. He seemed larger, broader than when they had last met.

The periscope seemed to show Jansen getting closer without moving.

Weight and slick terrain made Steam's Vassal slide down the slope with unnerving speed. Sam cranked levers back with full force to keep the legs beneath the body, to stay upright.

Somewhere in the tumble, he found the release lever. Ten barrels from the Gatling reverberated to life. Round after round rebounded off the ferrous coverings. Seven slipped between cracks, nestling inside Lars' hot flesh.

This thing Samuel's old worker had become tried to smile as it gripped its gut. The face was the same, save for intermittent lines of copper and iron fused to the chin and ears.

"OH, SAM! WHAT IS LOST CAN BE REPLACED! DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT I HAVE BECOME?"

Two levers in reverse! Vassal walked backward in the marsh. The torrent was getting out of hand. Periscope use was becoming near useless, and the thing seemed unfazed by weather and weaponry.

"Lars Jansen was shot through the heart, Edwin! I performed the surgery with Doctor Falk. He showed no signs of negatrite power until the bullet ruptured him. We placed a steamheart drive next to his heart and attached the two. It was a success for the first day. We saved his life! Can you imagine the placing of a prosthetic inside the human body? I still can't believe I performed on a human body. My brain is opening up every day into - -"

"Samuel! What happened to him? What happened to Lars?" the old man in spectacles and perennially straight-back white hair inquired. "He is gone now. Where is he?"

"He was perfectly fine ...but by nightfall, he began screaming, and ran off into the night. The nurse...she claimed his body was smoking..."

The ironclad halted at the hill's base into a sloshing pool cluttered with waterlogged branches. The wet periscope became clear with the flick of a toggle; rubber lids roved across the lenses to give Sam clarity. Even in the dark, even in the cloud of storm and smoking armaments, he clearly viewed the path Jansen walked to reach him.

He has negatrite in his bloodstream, and the steamdrive... oh my. Lars is absorbing solid matter! It's adding to his mass, his density. Where are the weapons from though?

He backed Vassal away while in thought, allowing for two dozen more rounds to let loose from the improved Gatling. Sam was grateful he had improved on the multiple barrels with an improved water-cooled design. He wondered if the Army would cry for this new firearm as well in the days to come. Intelligent Engine's tiny parts moved fast to calculate distance, and to make sure the bullets hit their mark.

Bullets flared out of the barrel, pinging off of Jansen's misshapen corpus. Not a one penetrated on this second volley.

"SEE? I AM NOT THE TINY LARS JANSEN, WELL DIGGER. THIS IS THE INDUSTRIAL MAN YOU FACE, MY FRIEND...MY RENEWED SELF!"

Stockwell didn't know what the last phrase meant, and didn't give a care, either. He backed up farther to a full thirty yards from the monster. Jansen raised his/its left hand, an elephantine glob of glowing metal lacking fingers or a palm. It sizzled like a hot iron skillet as five rivet-like projectiles came Sam's way, searing across the air as it passed through the field of raindrops.

The armor turned sideways, dodging the first rivet to reach him. The second tagged the torso and dug in like a volcanic mole. He reached behind the armor and latched its hooks into the secret defense, and pulled it forward. A shield, modern plated but Roman in its shape, dropped down to stop slugs three through five.

Too many gears to handle in a fight! He thought. Have to rectify that on the next model, if I ever get around to something more than drawings. I need pumps for voluntary and involuntary responses. Wake up!

Shield did its duty; a singular modern phalanx saved Vassal from a forced welding. He increased the steam, thrusting the armor into its best approximation of running. Again the terrain fought his every move. This Industrial Man crept closer, walking on all fours easily thanks to its extended limbs. Pressure.

Thirty yards widened into seventy. The Gatling fired along the retreat until it had no more to offer. Jansen launched its rivets in rising arcs across the sky, adding a new form of rainfall on the armor. Pings and tangs sounded as the steam man suffered an endless barrage. Samuel looked up through the sweaty glare of his own oval shaped goggles. Tiny red lights formed on the shoulders. Lights turned to lumps, and lumps opened into holes.

"Hull breach! How did they stay so hot through the air and rain?" he screamed.

Water dripped inside. Stockwell grabbed stoppers from bottles he had strewn about the interior. Precious seconds wasted plugging holes, time he needed to gain distance, to plan.

I've got too much junk in this thing for my own good, reminds me of Dad and Norman's house back in Mound City. Yeah, like Dad...

Power and pressure valves were pushed to their maximum. The ironclad turned to the left on a slow rolling waist turret. The grinding of wet metal on worn rubber seals and ball bearings made the inventor place bits of cloth in his ears.

At half turn, Jansen capsized him.

Two mammoth warriors collided and rolled over a newly formed pond that sizzled and steamed at Lars' advance. Stockwell, seated in a rotating stool aligned with a bevy of support straps, flipped head over heels, til he was facing the back of his own machine. His shoulder struck the protruding bolts which held the hatch, causing him to howl in pain.

Time came and went in blurs.

"IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH YOUR CONTRAPTION, SAMUEL?"

No response sounded from inside of Steam's Vassal.

Mrs. Stockwell sobbed, it seemed to little Sam, to be forever.

"I - I don't understand!" she cried out to the crisply dressed major. "Even after the trial I don't see how you could be so cruel, so spiteful!"

"Madam," Major Thurston began, "your husband, Norman, and your oldest son Norman Junior were both Army men. Your husband had a fine service in the war against the Mexicans, but that was several years ago. Stealing from the government is a federal offense."

Sam heard the words spoken only tangentially. He remained focused on his mother's thin hands covering her face. They were pale but wet with tears. Bright blond curls draped around her head and neck.

He had never seen this strong woman cry, even when she took him to see the men of the family. Not even then, when Norman and his namesake were swinging from the hangman's nooses in the fragrant spring Illinois air.

The boy felt wells of red spite boil inside him. He felt his hands touch a pair of scissors on the table, and lunged at the major.

"I hate you! You made my mommy sad! You're a bad man! I'll kill you!"

In his first swing, the hand was caught in midair by an accompanying private. But Sam kept trying to reach his goal, face flush with anger.

"You have a very spirited boy Mrs. Stockwell," the major said with a slight startle. "He has his father's temper."

The major knelt down, and put his face before the boy.

"Be careful, son. One day, your daddy's rage will get you killed if you're not careful."

He awoke slowly, the ice cold of water made him gag. Baited breaths echoed in the armor, as Samuel returned to awareness. His shoulder flared as he turned around in the straps, fighting with the leather belts to untangle his leg and arm. It was apparent he had been pinned in water. Vassal was on its back. Three inches of water penetrated through every crack. Angry as a wolverine in a corner, but Stockwell made mental notes to quell his old weakness.

One, assess hand weapons for close combat.

Two, assign part of thinking to solving problem of designing adequate seals in the next model; can't have water or anything else getting in this easily.

Three, Gatling only needs one barrel. Keep the water cooler. Utilize gases from firing for loading the next round. Increase rate of fire drastically, speed too.

Four, stop putting off plans for negatrite-based steam vessel that can fly. Ignore the naysayers. Get it done.

Five, no more straps!

One-tenth of a second later his tasks were complete. He grabbed rubber gloves that unfurled up to his forearms, checked a gun rack and opted for a double barreled shotgun. Next to the rack, from a welded frame he produced one long knife, and a huge sword coated in rubber.

He gained these items right before shining tendrils lowered into the armor's cavity. Slender slivers of glowing lines popped the wax stoppers and penetrated, the tips moving left and right as if intelligent.

"SAMUEL. ARE YOU AWAKE NOW? I CAN SENSE IT."

He lashed out at the cords with the knife, cutting two without difficulty. The third, fourth and fifth were more cunning adversaries. One took hold of his leg, another injected itself deep inside Stockwell's neck. The invasion gave a heated welcome like morphine in the veins. He lurched and gurgled, the whole of Samuel's body tossed about by involuntary fits. The last tendril touched his temple softly.

"THERE WE ARE! YOU AND I CAN EVOLVE AS ONE! NO MORE WARFARE! NO MORE FRAGILITY!"

He collapsed, or so he thought. At once Samuel Gamaliel Stockwell was in his armor, and back on Black Sand Hill, watching a wide hole going nowhere in a vapid enterprise to find precious black oil.

It was September the fifth, 1877. It was July the twenty ninth, 1877.

Lars Jansen had activated the unreliable Stockwell drill. Another tip on, another ten feet down to nothing, and the goal of Edwin Seer to gain riches and remove debt was still far from realized. Ninety feet into the earth had yielded naught. Lars again complained about the drill bits. A small argument ensued while old man Seer and his aide, Alexander Mitchell Amberson, looked down into this pit. Who dug a hole so wide to mine oil? No one professional, it seemed.

But these were novices trying to help their friend and mentor, a fellow of the Guild of Truth, the Rail's little known debate society.

The water got colder. He rose up in the armor, gripping the straps around him in shock. The tendrils returned him to Wonderland.

"DEEP SAMUEL, LET US GO DEEPER..."

"Samuel! I'd like to introduce you to Lars Jansen," Edwin Seer announced over the din of workers. "He'll make a fine drill operator for us."

"NO," Industrial Man whispered menacingly into the inventor's mind. "EVEN DEEPER. EVEN FURTHER."

1855..."You're an awfully dour boy, Sammy," Uncle Ross stated. His stomach giggled beneath his vest with every step of the finely dressed man's thick legs.

"I can't get it out of my mind," Sam sighed. "You don't know how degrading it is to be the son and brother of thieves and liars!" He made fists with his hands, fingernails digging deep into the flesh.

"I understand, son. After all, your father was my brother. He could simply have asked me for money. After all, the shipping business is going well. It's quite a family scandal. But do you think I brought you to Paris to grieve? Good God, boy! Look around! We're in the Crystal Palace, and this Exposition hosts the greatest accomplishments of mankind, but you walk with a pouty face!"

"But Uncle - -"

"But nothing! Look over there! That's the Scheutz Difference Engine! They built one after the designs of Mister Babbage!"

Samuel and his tall, robust uncle stood before the machine and its ticking mechanisms. Samuel indeed was impressed. His mouth nearly hit the floor. But his hands remained clenched.

A large hand covered his bleeding fists. It offered a comforting feel, humble warmth.

"You're nineteen, Sammy," Uncle Ross whispered. "You are a man now. A man must learn to subdue his passions. Hold it down lad, and observe. Use your logical mind. Watch this machine, and tell me how you think it functions."

The inventor screamed, decades of angst poured from vocal chords until the strain broke them. Again he saw a confinement of straps, and fought viciously to be free. One strap was unbuckled, another cut by knife blade. Two tendrils he found in his body were snatched out without thought.

They left with a loud pop, taking much of his energy. Stockwell's body shivered in water. Steam's Vassal was now a deathtrap.

Freed from two prisons, he manipulated gears and the greasy levers with nervous digits. The steam engine was mired in muddy water, purring like a dying cat. With all the speed of a newborn caterpillar, the armor turned to one side, and sat up.

Samuel leaped from the swinging chair, wiped off his goggles on a piece of his rolled up sleeves that remained dry, and moved for his tools. A hard tug at the back of his head stopped him just short of grabbing the wrench.

"What the - -?" he yelled with a hurtful rasp.

He leaned over to the right of the main controls, a small case attached to the inner chest. There a circular mirror rested, somehow impervious to the ravages of the fight. Stockwell looked into it, and gasped.

Nine gilded strands hung loosely from the base of his skull, trailing up and out of the armor.

He tugged at the locks. They held fast. Samuel pulled harder, but the only result was pain behind his eyes.

He's literally in my brain, he thought in a panic. If I cut them, what happens to me?

ENJOY YOUR MINUTES OF FREEDOM? the Industrial Man asked from within. I PREFER TO MIX A SPOONFUL OF LIBERTY INTO YOUR CUP OF BONDAGE.

Samuel Stockwell fought the oncoming seizure. The seizure claimed victory.

1861...

"It's Stockwell, right?" the man huffing on the corncob pipe asked without looking at him.

"Yes sir. I was sent here by Mr. Gatling to work on the Cairo-class gunboat," the hearty blond man said with confidence. However, his eyes looked down at the sawdust covered floor.

"Richard Gatling, you mean?"

"Yes sir. I worked with him for a few months, on some ideas for medical applications I had. He had a lot to say about war and the violence of men, and became quite a role model for me! He left a reference with his signature in my folder."

The man perused the flimsy amount of papers in the file. "Says here your mechanical skills and knowledge need improvement, but your best attributes are speed and determination."

"Improvement?" Stockwell asked in a high pitch. "But, he always said great things about my work to me! Maybe it's a mistake."

"No, it's his paper and his signature, like you said. Maybe he didn't want to deter your learning. Some men can't take direct criticism, you know?"

Samuel clenched his fists, and knuckles snapped like firecrackers. They were huge fists made large by manual labor and late night brawls. The man saw those fists, and stepped back casually.

"Yes...sir," Stockwell said through his teeth.

"Why does your name sound so familiar? Let's see now, Stockwell. You got family in these parts?"

The young inventor's face flushed with rage.

"Well, do you?" asked the man, his fists on his hips.

"Yes," Samuel answered. "The Jansens, I mean, the Stockwells live here in Mound City."

"You got Jansens in your family too?"

"No sir. I - - don't know why I said that."

SAMUEL YOU POOR THING! said the Lars voice. SUCH POOR TASTE IN HEROES! DIDN'T YOU KNOW GATLING WAS IN THE ORDER OF AMERICAN KNIGHTS, AS I? HE CATERED TO THE SAME CONFEDERATES YOU SO DEARLY DESPISED...

1864...

"Mound City is off in the Red River," Samuel whispered to his dear grandmother as she clutched his arm. The black suit he wore was too big, and the banded collar dug into his neck.

"Is that where you're going, Lars?" she asked in wheezing breaths. "You love that ship so much, like a woman loves a child."

"I'd like to, Mom Mom," he said with a sigh. "But there are other gunboats to repair, and more things to do. If we could design a walking version, I truly believe that would end the war sooner."

She patted his arm as they walked away from the cemetery, away from his mother's grave.

"Wait," Samuel suddenly said. He looked down at his grandmother's pale face and gray eyes.

"Did you call me Lars?"

1865...

"It's been sold! Why would the government sell the Mound City?" Stockwell yelled. All the men toiling at the Illinois factory raised their heads in his direction.

"Wake up, Sam! The war's over and the nation's in debt! We have to go from war machine to  profit machine. What will it take to get you to understand money? You think the industrial might of America runs on hopes and dreams?" the man asked as his pipe barely clung to his bottom lip.

"Then why can't we convert the gunboat to an armored hospital ship? Send it to nations in need, ones less advanced than our own?"

The man stepped up to Stockwell's face, waving a hand to his men to return to their duties. "Hot dang, are you on the Chinese pipe? Listen, boy. Your dreams are fine, if a bit farcical. But they don't pay the bills!"

1866...

"I now pronounce Mister Samuel L. Stockwell, and Miss Martha Fume Stockwell, husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

"'L'? What's the 'L' mean?"

1867...

"It's a boy, Sam," Martha said to him weakly. Her round face smiled so beautifully in Samuel's eyes. He wiped sweat from her brow with a damp rag, and nodded to the midwife to leave the bedroom.

"He's amazing, Mart!" Stockwell gasped. "A perfect creation!"

"Let's name him Virgil, after my father?" she asked. "Virgil Jansen has a lovely ring, doesn't it?"

"Yes it does," he answered with some doubt. "It seems right, and yet, it doesn't."

1869...

"Lars, why are we moving to Railroad City?" Martha asked impatiently, pushing little Virgil and Simon forward along the platform to meet the incoming train.

"My name is not Lars, woman!" he hollered. "I'm Samuel! Samuel Stockwell, and you think you'd know my name by now! I have a contract with the new fort there, someone who will grant some money for my steam wagon to get built!"

"They say that place is a rat's nest of chinks and harlots! You expect me to raise our boys there? I come from a fine family, a family with a name in Illinois politics. You expect us to graze in the wild like cattle, Lars?" Mrs. Stockwell berated him, waving her short finger in his face as the platform filled with sooty smoke.

He lunged at her, as the boys clutched their mother's skirt. "I'm trying to find my place in the world and make the money you and everyone else keeps reminded me is so maddeningly important! Take your hand out of my face or so help me...!"

YOU ARE A STRONG ONE, SAM. GIVE IN. IT'S BETTER THAT WAY. GIVE IN...

1874...

"This foundry of yours in the middle of the woods hasn't produced much of anything," Colonel Thurston raged. "Nearly five years of broken wheels, busted metal and battered bank accounts!"

"The wagon I built you performed well," Stockwell retorted.

DID IT? Lars voice asked.

"YES!" Samuel screamed into the ceiling of his barn-shaped factory.

"Sam, do you need help?" asked Mrs. Stockwell, shotgun in hand aimed confidently in the soldier's direction. She had surprisingly adapted to the country quite well.

"No, dear. Thank you for the assistance."

She backed out of the foundry, eyes on target.

"Who are you yelling at?" the colonel asked, looking around. "Is God going to build the wagon for you?"

Samuel slowly looked down, then up in realization.

"It's not God I'm yelling at. It's a devil. You are in my mind, Lars, but am I in yours as well? Let's find out..."

DO YOU REALLY - - WAIT SAM! NO!

1877...

"Yes, I fully support Theodore Thunderchild for supervisory work on the wagon," Samuel said to the throng of men, pulling down his derby on his head. "He's the next best thing to me."

"You don't find it a contradiction to put an Indian on board a project to build a machine to fight Indians?" the reporter asked.

"Nonsense! He's been with me from the start. We're like brothers."

The reporters and soldiers were startled by his words.

"In fact," he said with a grimace, "our wagon had already caught a savage!"

Stockwell pulled away a red silk curtain, revealing a stagecoach with twin smokestacks and many levels of iron plate. Through a narrow slit, the throng could see a pair of hazel eyes watching them.

"See folks! The savage Industrial Man! Caught by the new Stockwell War Naught! The name is still in the works, mind you. Who wants to start bidding?"

NO SAM! HOW DID YOU- -? HOW COULD YOU - -?

Sam rose out of freezing water once more, watching the nine tendrils slither away. He was chilled to the bone, tired like never before, and his neck felt like it was caught in a vise.

But the Industrial Man was angry now. He would be quick to display it.

The inventor leaped once more, but instead of fumbling to make Steam's Vassal mobile again, he snatched weapons and pressed  green-tinted goggles tightly over his eyes. Combing wet blond hair back with his fingers, Sam kicked open the escape hatch, and tumbled into a black wetland.

Rain made the pond into a deep, dark world all its own. The inventor dove into it, allowing icy water to awaken him from confounding assaults. He headed for the part where the pond glowed red hot, the beating chest of a man no longer human. That gigantic form sat still, as if in torpor.

A rubber coated sword through the chest woke up Lars Jansen with a passion.

"Are you ready for the third round?" Stockwell yelled sorely.

Jansen reared back and stood, with Samuel dangling from the sword stuck out of the thing's ribcage. Lars' howl sounded vaguely like that of a wolf, tinny and hollow as if strained through a phonograph. Stockwell found metallic spots on the body to plant his feet, and pushed the sword in at an angle.

"You don't like my taste in heroes? How about some John Brown, Jansen?" He forced himself to speak. Soaked to the bone he was, hunched over the sword and weary beyond pain. But the anger was finally set free. He turned the blade left while the Industrial Man made stuttered motions.

The hot glow dimmed for a minute, long enough for the world's smartest man to excise his steamheart drive from the chest of Lars Jansen. He ripped it out in a vicious eruption of red, rain and something akin to magma which clotted the wound.

"How- -? How - -?" was all the beast could say, its jaw hung open in shock, collecting more rainfall than speech.

Samuel waded through the water to his mechanical shell, sitting up in the pond like some monument to sadness. He clutched the still beating drive in his hands, a wonderful device the size of a human heart, and very much like one save for the steel and copper. Its tiny sliver of negatrite turned water into steam into water with every pump, patent pending.

"You should have spent more time subduing the logical side of the brain, you dumb ditch digger. Messing with my emotional side, well, that's a bad idea."

Stockwell reached Vassal, and climbed inside. Suddenly the pain returned to welcome him as he ascended the busted hatch. The machine was cold inside. Water sloshed around. He attached the steamheart to an unused slot near the front of the armor, right below the mass of levers. It installed perfectly. He lifted the latch with great strain and locked himself in, before staring at what remained of the support straps.

Stockwell sat in the roving chair without restraints, and pulled down a battered receiver from over his head.

Noisy screeches sounded. A scratchy voice amplified out into the night.

"IF YOU HADN'T RUN OFF, YOU WOULD HAVE FOUND OUT VULCANIZED RUBBER HAS AN INTIMIDATING EFFECT ON PARANORMAL ABILITIES. EVEN I'M NOT SURE WHY, THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS. ENJOY THE SWORD."

He prayed fervently and flicked five levers. The steamheart pumped faster, warmed his face from a distance. He used that warmth to jump start the soggy steam engine at the rear, and to warm his chilled hands. The armor groaned, but never budged.

"We could have made the most ...beautiful machine together," the Industrial Man uttered.

Samuel lowered the periscope. He could barely see Jansen, now a man of near normal height floating in a dark sea of debris. Stockwell flicked a switch above his head, and a sparking arc light shone blinding white into Lars' face. The man had the dimmest orange light. The blade was in the process of melding with Jansen in a painful way.

Behind Stockwell, warmth could be felt slowly growing. The steam engine bellowed to life. His fatigued mind hit on a memory, and he bent down to the floor, straining to turn a large cap. On the third attempt, he turned it. Water began to swirl clockwise as it left the machine's base. Samuel transformed into a storm of energy, setting levers to their original positions and watching pressure gauges. Zero pressure rose to fifty pounds per square inch, and then one hundred. A test of the pull string released a puff of smoke from the two stacks.

"Sam, don't leave me to die," the Industrial Man yelled weakly.

Pressure rose to six-hundred pounds per square inch. Samuel pulled down on the main switch. The ironclad rocked and whined and whistled like a flock of dying birds. The calamity placed him in a rare state of uncertainty as to his work.

He was sure Lars kept talking, but the boom of machinery drowned out his enemy's cries.

Steam's Vassal stood again. It rose up out of the mud to stand undaunted, this pile of hastily welded spare parts. Ammunition was reduced to nothing. A folding bayonet under the left armature was too caked in mud to extend. One lens of the periscope cracked. Flaws and damage were visible in every part. But she lived and moved with a heart of power.

The armor waded past the helpless Jansen, turning its cylindrical head in some futile attempt at looking down.

"THANKS FOR THE WAR. YOU SEEM TO HAVE ENOUGH POWER EVEN AFTER THE RUBBER'S EFFECT TO STAY ALIVE. THE RAIL IS TWO MILES TO THE SOUTHWEST. TAKE IT SLOW."

The fallen giant looked up at the hull of its adversary. Jansen offered a weak smile.

"Such a wonderful device you've concocted from garbage. We could have been a perfect melding. Then, how much better would it have been? Can't...you...see it?"

The armor waded four steps further before stopping again.

"NO, BECAUSE YOU'RE AN IDIOT. HAVE A GOOD NIGHT."

The ironclad strove forward, lurching and creaking between huffs of condensed steam. It walked and climbed the hill until Samuel Stockwell could see the dim candles, the luminous lantern lights of Railroad City. He was leaning now on the largest gears, setting Intelligent Engine to calculate the distance home and enact the perfect amount of pressure automatically to do the necessary work.

Only then did the inventor allow himself to fall back in the armor, to curl up on the damp floor while the Intelligent Engine ticked away in flawless harmony. He let his body receive the rest it needed. The iron floor felt better than any bed.

He allowed his mind to go to work.

Model Two initial design plans, Step One: full negatrite steamheart capabilities.

Step Two...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: If you like this story, there's a whole world of it I call the Legacy Universe. A series, the Rail Legacy, details it starting with An Unsubstantiated Chamber, which is completely FREE on Instafreebie. Book Two, Cerulean Rust, is for sale on Amazon. Both links are below. My author page on Amazon lists LU (Legacy Universe) short stories. Read. Review. Tell your buds. Know your alternate history!

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/ropDh

https://www.amazon.com/William-Jackson/e/B00UC38FTI/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0