Steamfunk Salvation chapter 2 : Brass and Blood
The air in New Memphis was thick with coal smoke and lies.
Ezekiel "Zeke" Thunderbolt adjusted his pressure-gauge monocle, watching the ticker-tape scroll across the brass-plated wall of the Federal Reserve. The numbers were pure fiction—inflated profits, phantom investments, entire industries that existed only in the fever dreams of bureaucrats.
"They’re not even trying to hide it anymore," Zeke muttered.
Beside him, Seraphina "Sera" Quickfix exhaled a plume of steam from her wrist-mounted vent. "Why would they? The whole system’s a confidence game. Count your own accountants as revenue, call it ‘innovation,’ and boom—endless growth."
Zeke’s mechanical fingers twitched. He’d seen the reports. Three hundred thousand villages, any one of them capable of self-sufficiency if the financial stranglehold ever loosened. But the money-men kept them starved, dangling "investment funds" that never arrived. Ninety cents of every dollar vanished into the pockets of middlemen whose only job was to make sure nothing changed.
"Time to break the wheel," Zeke said.
Sera cracked her knuckles. "You got a plan, or just more righteous anger?"
Zeke grinned. "Both."
The Heist
The Federal Reserve’s vault wasn’t guarded by steel or steam-sentries. It was protected by something far more dangerous: accounting.
Zeke and Sera slipped inside, not through the doors, but through the ledgers.
Sera jacked her spinal cable into the mainframe, her optics flickering as she dove into the datastream. "It’s worse than we thought. They’re not just cooking the books—they’re serving a five-course meal."
Zeke snorted. "Let’s give ‘em indigestion."
With a few keystrokes, they rerouted the numbers. Phantom profits became real debts. Imaginary investments transformed into hard assets—grain silos, water purifiers, solar coils—all redirected to the villages the system had abandoned.
Alarms blared. Somewhere, a bureaucrat screamed.
Too late.
The Aftermath
Dawn broke over New Memphis, the smog parting for the first time in decades.
In the streets, people stared at their suddenly balanced accounts, their suddenly full storehouses. The illusion had shattered. The game was over.
Zeke and Sera watched from a rooftop, steam curling from their gear.
Sera smirked. "They’re gonna call us terrorists."
Zeke lit a cigar. "Nah. They’re gonna call us accountants."
And as the sun rose on a free city, they laughed—deep, loud, and unshackled.
The End.
