The Engine What Runs the World: Chapter 1, Page 1 (Unedited)

Her sister called the missing girl Blue.

Smoke Callahan closed the door behind the woman who had entered his home office and let out a sigh. Many times Smoke had been given jobs to track down and retrieve a missing person. Typically they would be jobs dealing with a runaway slave or a kidnapped concubine, but rarely a free woman. Smoke didn’t particularly care for such work, but a job was a job and bills needed to get paid.

He scratched his head lightly and sat in the plush chair behind his cluttered desk. His powder-blue typewriter sat front and center, while papers waiting to be filed leaned from several haphazard piles on either side. Near the right edge of the desk, a closeglass, a large piece of convex glass connected to a small bone handle, bore the impressive amount of grime that could only form after months of living underground. Beside it sat a pristine featherpen and inkwell. Other odds and ends of a private investigator lay strewn across a candle lit room.

Though usually dry, the air in his office had gained a low level of moisture, as if large amounts of water had recently evaporated. Not likely, as the only water that ever made its way to the Underground came from the water pipes. One of the copper pipes serving the first level of the Underground had burst, letting large amounts of steam into the air. This moisture brought the smell of rot and mould alive. Though his small home of synthetic wood could never rot, the place still smelled as if something grew inside the walls.

As the woman entered she introduced herself as Marla Lang. She stood half a head shorter than Smoke, taller than most women. The scent she wore smelled of honey and flowers, a scent not normally found in the Underground. She gazed at Smoke with her large green eyes as he introduced himself, her eyes were red and puffy, clear signs of recent crying. She held her dark hair in a tight bun, a style more for convenience than fashion. The dress she wore was a dark blue and made from a fabric Smoke hadn’t seen before. In her hand was a small hemp bag with what looked to be a few small objects he couldn’t quite make out.

Marla sat on the opposite end of the desk, Smoke marked her every move as she sat. The way her eyes narrowed at the sight of the clutter, though widened when she’d see his revolving pistol or any bottle of mulch liquor she’d see. She lifted the side of her dress as she sat, Smoke assumed to allow for greater movement and comfortability.

Smoke opened the top drawer of his desk. Sliding a set of lock picking tools aside, he pulled out a pair of lookers wrapped in a soft cloth. He wiped the lenses of any dust that had settled from the air and placed them on his face. He then pulled out a large, faux-leather bound journal with onionskin paper. He opened the book to the blank page in front and slid a well-used pad behind it. All used pages had been carefully removed, leaving little evidence they had been there at all.