Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium by Robert Rodgers Read Free Book Online

what? ‘The Society of Distinguished People’? It makes it sound like some sort of book-of-the-month club," Jeremiah said.
    "The Society of Distinguished Gentlemen rolls off the tongue. It is clearly the superior name."
    "It is an exclusionary name," Abigail snapped. "Why can a lady not be distinguished, hm?"
    "I agree with Abigail," Nigel said.
    "Exactly, Nigel, thank you very mu—wait, what?!"
    Jeremiah spluttered.
    "Her point is valid, Jeremiah. We are in the 19th century, yes? We must be modern in our mindset," Nigel explained.
    "Language is important, and as Abigail’s work has demonstrated, exclusionary practices are outdated relics of the past."
    "And yet here we are discussing the creation of an exclusionary social club," Jeremiah pointed out.
    "We'll only be selling exclusiveness, not practicing it,"
    Nigel said.
    "But certainly, people would eventually realize it’s all a sham," Abigail said. "You can’t just make mysterious societies appear out of thin air."
    "Why not?" Nigel asked. "We need only insinuate that the Society has existed throughout antiquity. People are drawn to mysteries without answers—references and symbols without meaning. Given the opportunity, they shall construct the meaning for you. In addition, by maintaining this 'air of mystery', we shall insure that the scientifically minded avoid our work."
    "I have asked you before, and neither of you could provide sufficient answer. So I ask again: What is our ultimate goal, here?"
    Abigail said. "What is it that we seek to accomplish?"
    Jeremiah thought on it for a moment, and then said: "To build a more powerful probability engine, and perhaps to use it for some small good."
    Nigel hesitated. "And yet we have used the engine frivolously, Jeremiah. Abigail was quite correct when she criticized us for employing it to impress her with a rain storm. It is never a large step from benevolence to despotism."
    Abigail nodded. "Then from now on, we shall refrain from using it frivolously."
    "Let us set a rule," Jeremiah said. "No change may be wrought through this means by any one of us without the consent of all three of us."
    "Yes," Abigail said after thinking it over for a moment. "I find that to be a most agreeable solution."
    Nigel thought it over the longest; after a minute, he reluctantly nodded his head.
    ~*~

     

CHAPTER 6: IN WHICH WE ARE INTRODUCED TO RECKLESS MATHEMATICS AND AN ASSASSIN MOST FOUL
    ~*~
    "How I loathe intrusive little weasels," Mr. Eddington said, his hands clenched into bundles of frustration. "How I despise nosy finks!"
    He stepped into Daffodil’s workshop. William was currently scribbling away at a blackboard with a long stick of chalk. The young man's work was a labyrinth of geometric shapes and equations; it was steadily filling the wall's entire surface. At only a glance, any sane mathematician would have instantly declared them to be meaningless gibberish. He hadn't limited himself to dividing by zero; he had divided zero by zero. When he had been feeling particularly sadistic, he subtracted by cat and multiplied by dog.
    But beneath the fanciful whimsy and frolicking chaos was an underlying structure that no one could quite comprehend. Real numbers choked on their irrational counterparts only to spit out imaginary ones. Formulae appeared out of nowhere, treated the other equations rudely, then ate and ran without paying the tab.
    Brief and spurious flashes of precision emerged from the madness
    —and each time William found such a point, he stopped to meticulously write down everything that had lead up to it in his notebook.
    Mr. Eddington cleared his throat. The mathematician jumped, turned, and politely smiled.
    "Good afternoon, Mr. Eddington."
    "Mr. Daffodil," Mr. Eddington said, glaring. "Am I to understand, then, that you have once again wasted company time on this fanciful whimsy of yours?"
    "Oh, merely more preventative measures, sir. I want to ensure that our calculation engine can sustain every feasible