Steam War

Prologue.

The cart was stumbling with the rocks on the drive making the passengers jump. There was two hours since they depart from London and the city smog was still on sight all around them while the metal horses walk through the night.

It was not the first time William Hamill had to leave the city in shadows, but being an engineer adverse the crown was difficult to stay in the city without being caught. London was the biggest and the most powerful city on the world, the British Empire stretched along big territories of Africa and Asia giving the british the chance to develop technology never seen before. Many of this innovations were created by people born in this lands. Brilliant minds that were used as objects to be tossed away when or being forced to survive under miserable payments.

William was one of this inventors, his family was british, but he was born in the Guineo-Congolian region, nowadays different ethnical groups augmented the violence between their attacks and started to drive out the british, that why the Hamill family had to go back to the british islands.

William's life in London was far from being a marvel, he was the son of an english embassador and have a sufficient economic status to study in Oxford, uno of the best universities of the country. The fact of being born in a colony make him a second class citizen. Anyway his knowledge of mechanics have serve him to overcome this aspect. It took four years of him to become an engineer and stay another four years working in the dingy factories outside Canterbury, a city that was famous because of it's churches and it's factories, a thing that William thought it was a contradiction but for the religious people it was not.

While the cart was moving, the city of London was disappearing in the darkness and only the road show the direction of the journey. On the last days the city was agitated. Rumors about armored groups in Belgium adversed to the use of automats and the expansion of the french and british empires in the world. In the high society chatter a lot of people was talking about an imminent war, even there was gossips about bigger activity in the factories the next month.

On the other hand, William was willing to join this resistance and had a plan based on the british-french situation. The resistance was sure about the hig size of the empires and they'll force them to split the military forces, and like the saying says "split and conquer".

William was not fully sure about this to work, they had to win the support of the colonies and that was harder than it seems. Surely they think that a men born in Africa could be a good asset to lead the african colonies rebels but that's not going to happen. He was white and the african would not follow someone like him, and to top he was the son of british ambassadors. It was not easy to arrive to a village and say "Hi, gentlemen i'm here to lead you to war against my familly and my blood". There was no doubt that the people in the Congo will attack first and ask later (as long as William survives the attack).

While the engineer's mind wanders about world scale wars and guerilla societies that try to destroy the empire from the inside. The world was still moving and the steam powered horses called him back to earth. Without a warning they stop making William to almost fall to the ground.

"What do you think you are doing?!" It was a young woman dress with a hood and a gas lamp. William did not understand what was going on when the lady started to talk again. "The pats are dangerous at this hours and more for an engineer, there are darker forces that you can't understand."

With that said the young woman vanished in the air. The reaction made William jump again and look everywhere, even the grab the gas lantern hungin of one of the car holders. Anyway the young lady vanished in the air, like a contrail vanished after being expulsed by an engine.

The cart returned to the path west with a happier William "What am I thinking? ¿Vanishing girls? This does not make any sense and in this world there is only place for logical things, even the religious people rule by logic." Anyway something was still working on the young man's mind, something had turned on a part of this brain that worked when he saw a mechnical problem, something had turned on his curiosity.