Coup
Peter Wilder, squire, slid his considerable frame into his ministry office in Bombay, a cup of champagne in one hand and a cigar smoking in the other. And he froze. Of all the things he expected to see in his office, a woman was not one.
Specially not one woman clad as scandalously as this one. Not that there never had been scandalously clad women in there, mind you, even though one would tend to think of it as scandalously unclad. But the attire of this woman was… outrageous.
She wore breeches and knee-high boots like a man about to go riding, but the fabric of the garment clung to the skin of her legs, as Wilder appreciated instantly. Her shirt was white, offset by a corset absurdly worn on the outside. Still, Wilder couldn’t help but notice the silhoutted curves of her body and feel an unavoidable tinge of desire, exacerbated by the fact that she was obviously a native.
That is, until he noticed her mask. No-one with good intentions ever wears a mask, unless in a ball. And tonight he was indeed throwing a party, but not a masquerade.
“Unfortunate, this is,” Wilder thought she mumbled.
Astonished, he stared as she bent backwards, her extraordinary corset apparently presenting no opposition to the aerobatics, and with a quick impulse started somersaulting backwards towards the open balcony. She stood on her feet just outside the door frame, and raised her arm.
Only then did Wilder notice the strange device attached to her extended forearm. It looked like a small crossbow, a fact confirmed by a muffled twang the gadget produced as it shot upwards. A cable uncoiled from a satchel on her back, and then she just jumped upwards and disappeared.
Wilder noticed he had not been breathing. He gasped for air, then noticed a couple more things. His favourite picture (Nelson’s victory at the Nile) lying on the floor by his office table, and his secret safe behind it unlocked and left open.
Cursing, Wilder ran up to his table. A cursory glance to the interior of the safe told him what he suspected: it was gone. Damning himself for being such a fool, he opened the top drawer and picked up the gun there. A dimmed blue light illuminated its barrel. With a speed that belied his size, Wilder ran to the balcony and looked upwards. There she was, climbing up.
Wilder took aim and shot. A flash of blue lightning lit up the night and barely missed the woman as she reached the ledge. Pieces of rubble rained on Wilder’s head as he got back inside shouting for help.
On the roof, the woman ran towards the far side of the house. She knelt by a group of chimneys, where a contraption she had left there an hour ago rested. She shuffled her satchel so that it was against her chest, then picked the contraption up and wore it on her back. She reckoned she only had a couple of minutes before Wilder returned with reinforcements.
She was wrong. Wilder was back in a minute and a half, his bulk framed against the light that came from the roof door. At least two more men came behind him, and undoubtedly they were armed. They saw her and shouted.
She ran again, but this time she aimed for the ledge. As a lightning bolt singed her hair, she pressed a button on the contraption, and the mechanical wings on her back deployed and started beating. She leaped off the ledge. And fell.
As Wilder reached the ledge, he saw her soar up and away in the moonlight.
***
She landed close to the car. As she unbuckled her wings, the front door opened and out came a man in his fifties, with the dignified air of a servant. He opened the back door for her, and she tossed her wings inside.
“Everything’s gone well, Miss Fogg?” he said.
“I’ve got it, Passepartout!” she said, patting her satchel.
“Good,” he said. “Master Phileas will be happy.”
~~~~
This is my entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: December 4–10, 2016 on the Writer’s Discussion Group in Google+.
This was the first exercise of the year after the holidays. I had a busy week again and only posted it on the last day. The version we have here is longer than the one on the Writer’s Discussion Group, which as usual I edited down to 600 words. If I may say so myself, I think the longer version is much better.
When I saw the picture nothing came to me at first. And then I saw the mix of cultures and my love of steampunk overtook me, and I had the idea of creating the protagonist, the daughter of Phileas Fogg and princess Aouda. I also liked the idea of using a McGuffin.
