Lily Marin - three short steampunk stories by Paul Kater Read Free Book Online Page A

backwards, her
eyes flying open as she fell back onto the table. From there she
heard the man groan as he rolled over to get onto his knees.
    "What is happening?" Lily asked, half in a
scream. She looked at her hands. They shook. So did her voice. She
could not remember ever having been in such an floundering
situation. "Tell me what is happening, doctor. This is not normal.
What have you done to me?"
    "I just want to improve your voice," the man
on the floor said. "Trust me."
    Lily was halfway tempted to do that, when he
jumped up with an ease she would not have believed possible for
such a big man. He landed on top of her, pressing her down on the
table. Before Lily had understood the situation, the doctor had
grabbed a small flask from his pocket and sprayed something in her
face. The world went fuzzy, and then black...
    ...until she woke up again. Lily was
instantly aware that she was on the table again. Tied to it. And
the doctor had not taken that lightly this time. A heavy chain was
wrapped around her and the table several times. She could not move
her arms nor her legs, and she could barely lift her head high
enough to see all these things, as a big metal ring around her
forehead effectively restricted her movement.
    "Doctor Drosselmeyer?" she asked, blinking
her eyes. Whatever it had been the man had sprayed in her eyes, it
still stung. There was no answer to her calling out his name.
    "Doctor!!" Lily threw all politeness
overboard. Still no answer. She strained her ears to hear
something. It was all she could do; the ring on her head made it
impossible to look sideways. Then she heard it. Breathing.
Breathing and a slow thumping. His breathing, she suddenly knew,
and his heartbeat.
    "I know you are there," Lily said. "Come here
and release me."
    The thumping became faster, the breathing
too. Then she heard a creaking sound and the loud rustle of...
clothes? Puzzled, Lily tried to understand this as footsteps came
closer, until the face of Doctor Drosselmeyer loomed over her.
    "Miss Marin. Welcome back to the living." His
voice was cold now, very different from the gentle and
understanding tone she was used to from him. "I have taken the
opportunity to make sure you will not become violent against my
person again, as you may understand."
    The man's first words had thundered in Lily's
ears. Very quickly her hearing seemed to react by itself, the noise
the voice had made was gone.
    "I assume you are not willing to let me
complete the procedure that we started..."
    "Certainly not!" Lily fumed, yanking the
heavy chain..
    "I thought so much. That is why I proceeded
without your approval. Oh yes," the man said as Lily's eyes grew
large, "the third part of the procedure is done by now, and it all
went very well. I am sure you are going to be thrilled with the
result, Miss Marin."
    "How dare you! Without my consent!"
    "Oh, I beg to differ," the doctor grinned, as
Lily noticed a red mark on his face that had not been there before.
"Before we started the procedure, you agreed to it. As you were not
able to respond when I was ready to continue, I went ahead and
completed the procedure."
    "You are going to regret this, sir," Lily
hissed, "I will report you to the authorities."
    "I am sure you feel that way, Miss Marin, but
by the time you reach the authorities, I will have gone. Yes, the
procedure I performed was slightly outside of the law, but I needed
to do this to complete the preliminary experiments."
    "Preliminary..." Lily's voice failed her as
she understood that she had been used as nothing more than a
test-person. And one for illegal experimentations too!
    Calmly the doctor held something in front of
her face. It was the same spray he had used before.
    -=-=-
    Lily woke up. It was dark in the room, and
cold. Her eyes stung.
    "Hello?"
    There was no reply. No sound. She strained
her hearing, the way she had done before. There was no breathing,
and also the thumping heartbeat was missing. There just was the
loud ticking of a