6
" Electricity," Purva said, rolling the strange new word around in her mouth, giving it at once an Australian and a French inflection.
"Sir William was playing around with it when we met, do you remember?" Jack said to Clare. "He was storing charges in boxes."
"I remember he was blowing things up," Clare replied.
"Six of one..." Jack grinned. "Nobody really knows how it works, but down here it powers most of the lights in the big cities and parts of the automobiles and the stoves in the train kitchen. You can store the power in blocks, then hook it up to anything you might otherwise run on a boiler. It's cooler, and the blocks last longer than coal. I think I can reproduce it when we get home, if I can take enough schematics with me."
"He is going to kill himself," Purva said, but her tone was casual, not overly worried.
"I'm not going to kill myself," Jack answered, equally casual. "Just because it can cause your heart to stop doesn't mean it always does. "
― , The Dead Isle
7
" He looked down at the desk, at his notebook resting there with the pen on top. He had never thought of engineering as a way to escape the world; after all, engineers didn't build stories or other worlds.
Or, well, perhaps they did; perhaps, late at night, huddled around the boiler with the driver and the conductor, they told their own stories. Famous robberies in the west, derailments, perhaps even ghost trains or passengers long dead who still prowled the carriages.
Either way, Jack had turned his profession into his escape, which Ellis could respect. "
― , The Dead Isle
9
" Miss Fields," said a servant, stepping into the room and closing the door, "There is a visitor for you. Are you in?"
Clare blinked. "Yes, obviously."
"Ah. Miss Fields, I should advise -- you may be in without being 'in', if you prefer," he said, offering her a tray. There was a calling card on it; Arthur Conan Doyle, Edinburgh. "
― , The Dead Isle