Carli Evans And The Questing Of Sir Steam

  Note: This story is related to my previous story, “Carli Evans and The Vigilante”. Please read that story before this one for better context although you are free to read them however you like. Enjoy!

“I’m telling you Carli,” Jefferson said while typing on his laptop, “Brandon wants to date you! He went to Sadie Hawkins with you right?” 

    Carli was standing in the main lobby and work room of the R&D building of the HOU’s American branch asking, once again, for advice about boys from her best friend Jefferson Copper. 

“Yeah,” Carli answered, “but what if he only said yes out of sympathy? I mean, I did act pretty weird.”

 “Your communicator went off Honey, you couldn’t control that.” 

Before Carli could continue to beat herself up over whether a guy liked her or not, a lab tech approached Jefferson and handed him a letter. The teenage tech genius opened the letter and his eyes went wide with a look of fear and worry. 

“Where did you get this?,” Jefferson asked in a serious tone. 

“It was delivered to us moments ago and was addressed to you. We were told it was urgent.,” said the lab tech. 

Jefferson stood up with a fury in his eyes that Carli had never seen before. For the first time, Carli could barely recognize her best friend’s eyes. Jefferson then stormed through the room in the direction of his private lab with Carli following close behind. 

“What is going on?,” Carli asked, “What did that letter say to make you so angry?”

Jefferson didn’t answer till he reached the large steel doors to his own little world of which no one was allowed to enter.

“Carli.,” Jefferson said, his eyes never leaving the large doors, “There are things you don’t know about me. About my past. This is one of those things.”

He then put his eye up to a retinal scan and the doors slowly slid open, but only very slightly. As the doors opened a body of fog and steam bursted from the lab like water from a dam. Jefferson took a deep breath in and stepped into the thick fog as the doors shut behind him.

All the while, Carli only had one thought in her head.

“I thought we told each other everything.”

This is a story about Carli Evans. 

     Sixteen years old, Carli Evans works for an organization called the House Of the Unknown (HOU). 

This organization is dedicated to protecting the world from the panic and chaos of things we do not yet fully understand. 

Whether the threat be foreign or domestic, man made or animal, mythical or mechanical, the HOU makes sure it is taken care of, examined, and safe before anyone else knows about it. They only recruited the best.

 And Carli, 

well,

 she was the best of the best. 

Moping in her office, Carli felt the vibrating of her phone. She pulled it out and saw a message from the Director of the HOU. 

“There’s a dragon at an elementary school.”

This was not the most surprising text message she had ever received, but Carli was almost relieved to get this text. This was something to help take her mind off of whatever the heck her best friend was keeping from her. So, Carli got in her 2003 Ford Explorer (Dora) and left to go and slay a dragon!

Ironically, the school where the dragon had been sited was the same elementary school that Carli went to when she was little. She entered the school using the key that every HOU agent has. These keys have runes on them that allow the user to enter through any door and be unseen by any surveillance or security system. This only made Carli distracted because, like all of her gadgets and tools, Jefferson was the one who gave Carli her key.

A loud crash and a roar snapped our heroine back into reality.

 It came from the playground behind the school. 

Carli was on the second floor at the time, which was really just one hallway, so she ran to the end of the hall and looked out the window which faced the playground. 

Upon seeing the dragon, the sixteen year old spy noticed that the Director forgot to mention two crucial details:

1. The Dragon was big. Like, really big.

1. It was a freakin robot!

Carli looked down at the playground and saw a machine as big as her childhood oasis. This mechanism looked to have come straight out of a steampunk novel. It had exposed gears and it looked very old. It had pipes coming out of its wings that shot smoke and steam. To say it was a terrifying beast would be an understatement. The only words I can think of to describe it thoroughly are that it was a Clockwork Dragon.

“HALT!,”

 cried a voice from the darkness.

The dragon turned its fearsome head towards the hill where the school sat atop of and on the top of that hill was a blacktop and on that blacktop was a man. Carli stared at this man in sure confusion because of the way he was dressed. The man wore a knight’s suit of armor made in a strikingly similar manner to the dragon. 

“My creation, why do you do these things?,” said the knight in steampunk armor. The Clockwork Dragon simply roared in response to it’s master’s query. 

“Very well,” said the man, “it breaks my heart to do battle with you, but you have left me no choice. You shall now face the wrath of Sir Steam!” 

The knight yelled as he ran to the edge of the blacktop on the top of the hill. Hydraulic pistons pushed against the ground as he jumped, allowing him to leap onto the playground in a single jump, and yet somehow land as if he was as lighter than a feather. 

From the hilts on his thighs Sir Steam pulled two handles which unfolded and extended into large hatchets. While this was happening, the dragon was reeling back, preparing for battle. Sir Steam jumped from the slide with his hatchets in his fists and a battle cry that would inspire even a pacifist to take arms. Sir steam dug both of his weapons into his creation’s neck as the machine cried out in pain. 

Carli stood at the window so entertained by this battle that she did not want to take her eyes off of this epic exchange of might for even a second. She knew she was there to do a job but this mysterious man fought with such rigor and passion that she just couldn’t look away from this beautiful and hypnotic dance of man against machine.

The dragon would throw Sir Steam across the playground.

Then the copper knight would leap at the machine yet again.

The dragon would whip its tail at the metal hero.

But then the man would strike it in the leg.

The machine would launch fire with its breath.

Then the knight would simply dive under the belly of the beast and attack it from there. 

This back and forth filled the fight.

The clash and grinding of metal was a sound most unpleasant and yet seemed melodic compared to the sound of bloodshed that usually serenades a battlefield. 

This was the kind of battle legends were made of.

The knight, after much trial and error, successfully mounted himself upon the back of the ferocious Clockwork Dragon. Sir Steam then opened a panel with one hand and found a hidden lever. The brave sir knight flipped the switch and the beast stood on its hind legs and gave out an unearthly screech as it fell to the ground in defeat.

The machine had been turned off.

“WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED?!,” Carli yelled out loud in disbelief and confusion and amazement. Our heroine then realized that she had been just standing there the entire time!

Upon this realization, Carli bolted down the hall, down the stairs, through another hall, out the door, across the blacktop, down the hill, and across the playground. This probably was not the best idea ‘cause she tripped and rolled her way down the hill in proper elementary school fashion.

Carli picked herself up and THEN she bolted across the playground. She approached the knight in wonder.

“You were amazing.,” Carli said out of breath.

The knight looked at her through his helmet for a moment, and then remounted the dragon.

“Who are you?” Carli asked.

“I am Sir Steam, malady.”

“Well, yeah, but what’s your real name? And whose dragon is this?”

“Some things are best unknown.”

With that, he flipped the switch and held on tight as the dragon awoke once more.

“He just needed to reboot.”

Sir Steam patted the Clockwork Dragon on its side and with a roar and a battle cry, the two launched and went flying into the cold and crisp night air, and left poor Carli Evans with a dumbstruck look on her face.

Carli then returned to the HOU American headquarters to begin the paperwork about what she had just witnessed when she happened to wander into the R&D lobby/work room. She then became frustrated when she saw that Jefferson was sitting on one of the couches. 

With a gasp, Carli stormed through the room on a direct collision course with her so-called “BFF”: Jefferson Copper.

“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do Mr.!”, shouted Carli. 

The room was crowded and busy so no one could hear the angrily screaming of a teenage girl. 

Once she got a closer look at him, she could see that Jefferson was crying. This wasn’t very shocking, seeing as Jefferson was the most emotional person that Carli, or I for that matter, has/have ever known.  

“The letter was from my ex boyfriend.,” Jefferson said as another tear fell from his eye.

“Oh,” said Carli, realizing the emotional pain he must be going through.

“When I was with him, he showed me how to be strong.,” Jefferson continued, “He taught me how to express my masculinity. He forced me to not be weak and I kinda liked it. But I found out he was using me. He was working for the Time Crunchers. He used my inventions to fuel their heists and their nefarious plots. When he was not appeased he would hurt me, so I left him. The letter said that he wanted me back so much that he will release the most dangerous thing I have ever created upon the city if I do not do what he says and come back to him. Oh Carli, I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t worry.,” Carli said while leaning in for a hug, “I saw someone take care of it tonight.”

“Really?! Someone destroyed my dragon?!”

“No, he just rebooted it.”

“Oh, good. I know it’s dangerous, but it’s like my child. I only hope that whoever rescued it from the Crunchers won’t use him for evil the same way that I was. Carli, I have kept your secrets for as long as I have known you. Please repay me by keeping mine. Don’t tell anyone! Please! Especially not Braylen.” 

“I will always keep your secrets. And I’m not gonna tell your boyfriend who I've never even met and even if I did know him, I would never tell him.”

The two friends hugged each other tight as they felt their tears on each other’s faces. 

They sat together and talked for another hour or two before Carli left to do the paperwork she had come there to do. Since Carli had left she did not see Jefferson enter his lab. She also did not see Jefferson pass the Clockwork Dragon in the steam filled room of his. And she most certainly did not see Jefferson pick up Sir Steam’s armor and place it in a chest with a giant lock. 

“Now, I am finally done with all of this.”