A Fine Way to Die

"Get out of the way!"

The words hit my ears seconds before a flame belching metal beast thundered over the spot I had previously occupied. As the strange contraption rocketed past, I scrambled back to my feet to stare at its receding lights. A man, presumably the one who had shouted the warning, held onto the monster one handed and looked back reproachfully at me as though I had intentionally stood in the way of a hulk of metal and steam hurtling through the sewers of London.

Once my heart left my mouth and went back to its more accustomed place in my chest, it occurred to me that hulks of metal and steam should not, as a rule, hurtle through the sewers of London. In fact, I was fairly certain that such events were not only illegal but unacceptably insane and could not possibly have actually happened. This wishful thinking broke down when a second mechanical monstrosity roared past. The driver of this next one quite considerately swerved to one side to avoid me, which, given the size of the tunnel, meant that he passed me while driving on the ceiling. I had five seconds in which to process the turn of events when something grasped me by the collar and yanked me up and away.

"Hello, sir!" an inappropriately jovial voice cried over the roar of engines. As slime coated walls whooshed past me, I had the unique experience of being confused into calmness. Somewhere, the crazy fuse had blown and all I could feel was wonderfully stunned. Through my daze, the voice continued to call to me.

"You should really be more careful during the STORM. Hanging about in tunnels is a fine way to get yourself crushed or mangled or at the very least slightly broken."

I wriggled in my clothing until I could turn my head enough to see what had hold of me. It looked like some sort of mechanical hand on the end of a scissor extender. The other end sprouted from some hatch in the main machine. Strapped onto the front of the machine was what looked like a Victorian wingback chair, conveniently located for access to a wide array of knobs and levers. The man addressing me sat in said chair, twisting and pulling said knobs and levers with a passion. Despite clearly being in the middle of something rather taxing, he continued to talk at me while I stared blankly back at him.

"Ah well. You're safe now, which makes me rather heroic, now doesn't it? Still, had you died you would have been a fool, and you don't want to be remembered that way, now do you? No! Now, had I died trying to save you, poor soul, that would have turned out quite all right for me, but you would still be the helpless idiot who cost a brave soul his life. No, no, that wouldn't do. If you don't have an engine below you, you have no real business in these parts. I say, are you going to hang about all day?"

With an elaborate, but fluid series of twists and pulls, my rescuer swung the scissor extender around, produced a second wing back chair next to him, and plopped me into it. At this point, with something solid beneath me, the fear came back.