thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
get shot at.Missy swept past him towards the street. Advice Im certain you have ignored at every opportunity.Shall we?After a moment, Heckler followed her into the street.Colls Bystreet murmured under the meek blaze of four oil-fed streetlamps and one eye-stinging electric.People moved about it like shadows, spilling from the Beggars Parade into Marlowe Square andwashing about like leaves in a river. Hawkers, musicians, and beggars stolidly held their places, whilepickpockets floated around the crowds like hungry ghosts. In the centre of the square stood a smashed,dry fountain. It had been a figure once, of what Missy did not know.There, said Heckler.She looked up in time to spot three canaries crossing the square. Two were toughs, the kind of menshed known too much of back in Shoreditch, in her previous life. The other seemed a gentleman of somestature, sporting an immaculate grey suit and silk hat. The electric light cut severe lines across theirflowing cloaks.Now, where are you three off to in such a hurry? she thought aloud, then to Heckler: Ill take them.Heckler nodded and moved off up the Parade towards the lift.Missy took a vantage point on the front steps of a tenement on the squares corner, where she watchedthe cloaks jostle their way through the uncooperative crowd, who showed them only the barest of respects: a tip of the hat (causing the elbow to block the cloaks path), a slight bow (therefore remainingin the cloaks way a few seconds longer than necessary), a sales pitch (louder and more insistent thanwith anyone else). The tension of the crowd grew second by second.Theyve not forgotten the Uprising,Missy realised.Not a safe place to be a cloak, Ill wager.They were heading directly for St. Margaret Street. Missy slipped into the crowd to pursue. She hadchosen today a large-brimmed, backwards-slanting ash hat, an oversized wool coat, and a tweed skirt.She had also neglected any makeup, and so blended in seamlessly with the Underbelly unfortunates in thesquare. Hiding from view was a new activity for her, unknown before joining Olivers crew.Shed always been a feast for the eyes. In her younger years she had fancied herself a succubus, like inthe old fairy tales, stripping men of all qualities but lechery and stupidity.And it was such funwasnt it,birdto watch them drool over you? And then things had changed, and the kindly old woman hadturned out not to be so kindly, the men cruel and lustful and endless.She brought down a wall on the memories.Its over, love. Another life. A bad dream. You have Olivernow.And she had a gun.And shed killed. That knowledge shivered in her stomach with excitement and revulsion. It had beenhorrible, the feel of the act so base and vicious, and yet...the lecherous sot had gotten exactly what hedeserved.She felt a flush creeping into her face and dropped the sentiment behind the mental wall, returning herattention to her task.Olivers lessons in pursuit came back to her.Stay behind crowds, greet people you know, look at shopwindows, linger sometimes. Do not watch your fox too closely. Its your attention on them that they willnotice first, even if
they dont know youre there.So she greeted passing ladies, who gave her a polite smile, and passing gents, who gave her a lingeringtaste with their eyes and tipped their hats. She bought an ugly tin brooch from a vendor for a penny. Shehurried when the cloaks vanished momentarily over a rise in the road or behind a group of locals, so asnot to lose them.Youd stick out like a brass boil if anyone was watching you,she said to herself. She checked aroundand found a few sets of eyes idly looking her way. Avoiding notice was not her strength.She crested a rise in the road, where the lateral slant was so pronounced the buildings on the left were astorey higher than those on the right. From that vantage she could see the Blink, shimmering in thelamplight like a city of smokefrom which all the streets had been excised. The Blinks various roofsand balconies sported an improbable assortment of weather vanes and chimneys, lending the whole anappearance of an oversized pincushion. The cloaks hurried towards it.The sight of the Blink stirred up memories of the German fellow shed followed that morning. Rawstupidity, that was. Shed been lucky to escape with her life and person intact, and yet a part of her satwith crossed arms and pouted at the memory.Why did he have to be such a gentleman? I could see it inhis face, that sick, sinful desire, and yet he held back and didnt give me the chance to stick him.She gasped at that thought. One hand flew to her lips.Oh, poor bird. What has happened to you?Suddenly her handbag felt a much heavier burden.Well, she couldnt very well dispose of ithere, and quite besides: it might be needed in the crooks andcorners of the Blink. One never knew, in such a place.She loitered out front of an apartment buildingas if waiting impatiently for someone to meet herthereuntil the cloaks had slipped out of sight into one of the Blinks alleys. She counted ten heartbeats,then stole in after them.She dogged them through the Blinks random turns, following with ease the tick-tock regularity of theirfootfalls. After a dozen twists, they stopped, and Missy crept to the next corner to listen.Where are we, you dullards? one of them boomed.Dunno, said another.What?Er...dunno, sir?Harmony is built upon obedience, whatever-your-name-is. The spring turns the gear, and the more thegear protests, the less the efficiency of the whole. Missy heard something that could only have been asharp blow. Sobe respectful !Er...yessir.Their footsteps began again, and retreated off. Missy stepped around the corner and pursued them intoa section of alley particularly twisted and misshapen.A hand darted from a close nook and clasped onto her shoulder.Thats right! Come on! she screamed, whirling with one rapid step and plunging her hand into her bag.Heat and rage flared up in her so rapidly that she did not recognise the wide eyes until her fingers were atthe trigger with her arm tensed to draw.Two long-fingered hands waved surrender. My fault. I ought to have learned from the last time I snuckup on you.Missy gasped. Oliver?
You ass! Have you any idea what you almost made me do?Oliver grabbed her wrist and pulled her down a side alley. Oh, I can imagine it.She flushed. I dont think you can. What are you doing here? What is all that? She gestured to thepack Oliver wore, and the long rifle strapped to its side.Oliver ground his teeth a moment before replying. Baileys called us in. Were going down, Michelle.Down?Into the downstreets.Missy stood stunned a moment, as the statement sank in.I told you it would not last, bird, this fantasy of yours.She crossed her arms to keep them from shaking. And I suppose youre going to tell me youre comingback?Olivers smile looked forced. Thats my plan, even if Bailey doesnt share it.You are a poor liar, Mr. Sumner.Oliver adjusted his packs straps and regarded her with a furrowed brow.I should catch up. I stayed behind only to ensure they didnt follow us.I suppose you should, said Missy hotly. Duty to England and all that rubbish.Michelle...I dont want to hear it, Oliver.I dont want to hear you tell me you are not going to die, that Im notgoing to have to go back to...to... If you must follow that madman to an early grave, who am I to get inyour way?Ill be back inside a day, he protested.Idont want to hear it! Your fools crusade is your own.My fools crusade isYou wont come back. You know it; its written all over your face.Oh, for the love of Petehere.He jammed a hand at her, holding a leather-bound book. Missy looked from his eyes to the goldenletters on the cover and back.What kind of absurd gesture is this? she said.Im leaving this with you, he said. I intend to read it when I get back. Im toldhis face relaxed abitthat its a ripping good read.Oh, nowtheres a reason for returning, she replied, snatching the book.Missy knew he was staring at her, but did not raise her eyes from the golden script. As the silencedragged, she felt an unwelcome heat creeping up her neck.Try not to give up on me, he said at last. If all goes well, well be eating gruel in Sherwood bymorning.Missy jammed the book in her handbag.Hadnt you better be off? she said.Oliver swallowed hard before replying. I suppose I should.They shared a long look, filled with unspoken words.Oliver turned and vanished into the alleys. Missy stood alone for a while.Shall you make your way back to me now, little one, or will you await the news?Be quiet.Hewould have had faith inher, and so she would wait until morning.
An hour ago I severed my left hand with a hatchet. A new one has grown in its place. I now have fingersof brass and iron, fingers strong enough to accomplish my next task, which is the removal of my eyes.II. viOliver was afraid of heights.Im not bloody afraid of heights.Tommy snorted politely. Come now, Ollie. Youre white as a ghost.You clam up, Tom, or so help me Ill be riding you down like a sled, Oliver snapped.Defiant pride managed to rise up and choke his fear for a few seconds. Oliver stepped up to the rim ofthe tiny ledge and raised his lantern high. The light, focused by a curved mirror of polished silver behindthe flame, shot out into the dark, returning visions of smoke and the occasional gleam, indicating thepresence of a sapling steel beam. Already the glass goggles Bailey had given him had begun to blur fromgreasy deposits that seemed carried on the very air.He glanced downwards as long as he dared, charting the treacherous hand-over-foot route down intoOld Whitechapel. The rusted stair was a path over, under, and along the maze of beams that held upthe Shadwell Underbelly and went on to support the Concourse above. The path, such as it was, hadbeen marked by smears of yellow paint, the legacy of some long-forgotten explorer with more gumptionthan sense.People in this city have a strange definition of the word stair.Bailey had led his team down first.How long, Phin?Phineas, reclining against the ladder leading to the public house above, had Tommys captured clickrat,now eerily still, out in his palm. After a few seconds, he mumbled, Eight minutes, and returned to his examination.Lets prepare, then, Oliver ordered. Bailey had directed them to wait ten minutes, and then start theirdescent.Oliver adjusted the bandages on his right hand and the kerchief over his mouth, then buckled the clumsyexpress rifle over his shoulders, tightening the dual straps to keep it from swinging too much. He alsowore a belt of ammunition about his waist, a two-quart canteen of water at his hip, and a pack on hisshoulder into which had been stuffed dried jerky, kerosene, an extra face mask, a compass, a few morebandages, a matchbox, and one stick of dynamite.Why the dynamite, sir? Oliver had asked.All men in my company carry a single stick of dynamite was Baileys answer.His load secured, Oliver slipped one foot cautiously over the edge. I feel like a packhorse.And look like a Swiss mountain hermit, Tommy contributed.More an Edinburgh vagrant, Phineas said, passing the rat back to Tom. They cant climb either.Oliver found purchase on the first dull smudge of paint, set his weight on it, and slowly lowered himselffrom the sane, flat, sturdy ledge into total structural madness. A gust of wind shoved him sideways like asoft but insistent pillow and he had to scramble for some minutes to find spaces for his other foot and histwo hands.Bugger you both, Oliver spat through clenched teeth, that being the most scathing comment that visitedhim. He craned his neck around, spotted the next yellow marker, and began shuffling his
way along thebeam, thankful for once for the constant grit and ash that gave his fingers and soles purchase. Fouragonising eternities later, he discovered two beams running parallel and almost level. Tommy trotted upbehind him an instant later.Not so bad a climb, really, Tommy said, grinning.I always knew you were an ape, Tom.Apes walk on the ground, Ollie.Monkeys swing in the trees.Lionsinjure things when they are pestered.Tommy guffawed merrily, having no apparent need for mask or goggles. Our regular John Bull fancieshimself a lion, then. Knighthood in the future, Ill wager.If it turns one into an arrogant sot like Sir Bailey, Her Majesty can keep it. Oliver fished a foot downfor a suitable beam. The next marker lay some twenty feet below. Three steps later, with his nosepressed almost flat against an upshooting beam, Oliver beheld a clickrat skitter down and stop rightbefore his face.Its going to bite me,he realised. Slowly, he peeled his left hand from its roost, leaving his injured onebearing most of the weight, and reached for his derringer, then reconsidered and reached for the watercanteen instead. One quick swat would do the job.Jeremy Longshore the Third hereby names you as his first knight. Arise, Sir Lion-upon-the-Cliffs.The clickrat swivelled and scuttled up the beam, leaping to Toms arm when it got close enough, thenclambering down his jacket into his pocket. Oliver shook his head and clamped his hand back onto thebeam.Good God, Tom, have youtamed that thing?Jeremy Longshore cannot be tamed, Tommy pronounced. That is the essence of him: solid will andindomitable spirit. He is the very symbol of perseverance.Phin appeared behind him, panting. Bugger that, bolts-for-brains. He dont have muscles to ache orbones to pop about. Jesus, but Im old.And cantankerous as well, said Tom. Curmudgeonly, even. Perhaps churlish, if you prefer.Right, laugh. Enjoy that young body while you can. The clacks is like to eat you up by your thirty-fifthyear.Oliver gaped. Phineas!Phineas frowned down at him. Oh, dont be such a woman. I expect to wake up dead every morningwith my nerves given out. Cant be easy on them, all this seein and hearin I do.But how could you say...Tom waved him silent. Its all right, Ollie. That kind of talk doesnt bother me.You know what bothersme, Phin said. Your new toy, there, is what. It isnt really a clickrat.Quite right, Tom said, warming back to his new acquisition. He is such a picture of majesty as noclickrat could equal.I mean it in earnest, tin-teeth. It has a different seeming to it. Something different inside.Oliver interrupted: May we get moving? I would not lay odds on Bailey waiting for us.He calculated the contortions necessary for the next step, and stretched out for it.In a sour mood, is our chief, Tommy said. His voice grew faint with distance and the interveningthickness of the air. He needs the company of a certain good woman.Nothing more was heard, not that Oliver would have spared the attention to listen to it.Four marks and a thousand drops of sweat later, the faded light of the Underbelly above had vanished,and Oliver could not
see the next mark. He unhooked the lamp from his belt and swung it in alldirections, finding nothing but serpents of dust and ash coiling and uncoiling at random. The air moved,rolling past him like a great ocean wave. A rumbling sound passed with it, shaking the beams, like thebreath of the Mother herself.He leapt recklessly to his next perch, skidding a bit as he landed on a moist stretch of steel. Oliverscrambled to fight the platforms extreme slope, his hands flying out in all directions. His nails found rivetsin the platform and dug under them. Pain pricked up his fingers; annoying, but better than the alternative.His injured hand skittered uselessly across the surface, unable to grip to anything.Im ill suited to this,Oliver concluded. He slid one foot carefully towards the more level beams runningup the right side of the platform. Before him, the platforms slope ended in grey nothingness. Some of thetoxic air slipped around his mask and down his windpipe. He coughed it out, violently, shaking as hischest caved inward. A burning sensation flared at the back of his skull.The smoke turned and looked at him. Or maybe it was something within the smoke. Something, in anycase, with eyes and a face resembling human. It blinked and was gone.Oliver froze and tried not to breathe.Memories of Mama Engine flickered across his mind and vision, playing on the currents of ash. Had thatbeen something real, or the product of a violated imagination?Oliver felt unmistakably like he was not alone. Quiet, indecipherable whispers reached out to him from aburgeoning fire at the back of his head. Eyes searching the smoke, he reached for his derringer.When it appeared again, he swung at itthroughitas if it had never been there. The sudden movementtwisted his left hand. Two nails tore out of place and gravity claimed him.The face watched him slip into the dark.Scared awoke to find the heavy curtains around his bed frayed and singed.He sat up, wiping the drool from his chin onto his nightshirt.You were angry tonight, my sweet. You were aggressive, savage. Quite out of character for you.Mama Engine was not in the habit of keeping secrets from their embrace, and Scared found it irksome.Details and schematics had always been withheldScared cared little for thosebut not her emotions,not her urges. Those things that wereher were his to peruse, his to catch and hold, and then release at hisfancy.Playing a game, my love? I am very good at games.He roused himself and shoved aside the curtains. The room was cool and dark, the fireplace empty, thenight table vacant. He dragged a knobby finger through the charcoal dust there and lamented the need toorder servants to keep out of his room, lest his lover annihilate them: the wood paneling had beencracked and curled by heat, the floors stained with ash. The wan light of faraway electrics filtered into theroom through its single, frosted pane.He hobbled to a low-backed plush chair in the corner and dragged the leather cover from it. Beneaththis, the fine velvet upholstery lay undamaged by heat, with a small bottle
of yellowish liquid nestledagainst the left arm. Scared lowered himself into the chairs welcoming grip.A strange night it had been. Towards the end, the nightmares had begun to creep in from the edges.They had come through the singed curtains; he was sure of it. The burns inflicted on those curtains by thenights lovemaking had weakened them somehow, and they had begun to admit all those outcast thoughtsScared had long ago banished to the far reaches of his mind.He banished them now, clearing his head for the relentless chill of calculation. He retrieved and uncorkedthe small bottle, allowing the faintest scent of the liquid within to twist into his nostrils. Scared replacedthe cork and settled back to let it do its work.It is the chief folly of modern mathematics to confine calculation to the written page,Scared said tohimself, almost as a mantra in the fashion of the Indians ascetics.The scope of logical reasoning is too vastto be expressed in human symbolism. All objects in the universe are data, all forces equations. All eventsare the result of fast and fixed processes, algebraically perfect.His nose began tingling, followed by the rest of his body. His hands began to shake, but he paid that nomind now. The drug filtered into his mind, pushing the paltry needs of flesh aside, thumbing down thetrappings of morality and emotion until only the endless order of everything remained. He breatheddeeply, and dropped away from that chill, hidden room, into the spaces between molecules.And now, my sweet, we will see what you have been up to.He mentally pulled together the memories of her quivering essence as she had shuddered in his grasp.These he crystallised until every detail stood out like a diamond among stones, and then delivered them tothe universes equations.He held his thoughts back and let the calculations run themselves. The touch of man could only sully suchperfection.Some long minutes he stayed in such a state. There was utter timelessness here, though mere seconds,perhaps, passed in the vulgar world.The calculations delivered their answer. Mysteries became knowledge, variables became constants.Scared leapt upwards and arrived slouched in his chair, the bottle of precious fluid rolling to a stop threeyards distantrecorked, thank the Lord. He pressed his hands hard onto his thighs to keep them fromshaking. Mama Engine had indeed been hiding a secret from him.You filthy harlot,he thought.Youve found another.Her eye was on another man. A sudden, unbecoming tickle of jealousy nagged him. More calculationwould be required to discover this rivals identity, but that would have to wait. Time and hot tea wererequired now to banish the remnants of the drug from his blood. He had taken too much this morning,enough to impair the flexing of fingers and bending of knees.He reached out to the wall and pulled on the hanging cord. A wall panel, mounted on ceramic tracks andwooden wheels, slid aside to reveal a rack of bottles and tubes. At the base of the shelves sat a panoplyof scientific equipment and a full washbasin. Still too tired to rise, Scared slumped back in the chair andtook deep breaths to steady
his heart.The question now was what to do about his lovers new fancy. Death would be easiest, though the fickleLady might take that harshly. For the meantime, information would need to be gathered, control exerted.He might have delegated it to one of his boys, butif shewas courting another lover, if shewas intendingto betray him, the matter was Scareds alone to confront.He let his body recover over the next few minutes, allowing automatic mental processes to wheel in thebackground of his consciousness. He had trained his mind so well over the long years that deduction nolonger required any conscious effort. As soon as it was able, his mind would deliver to him the answershe sought. The potion was rarely needed.Except when the deduction concerned Mama Enginenot her plans or her children; no, those wereplain to the ordinary, mortal eye. It was the Lady herself that required the superhuman mental spacebrought on by the potion, which the Chinese calledmei kuan . To fathom her, in her entirety, to know allthe nuances of her psyche better even than he knew his own...that was a feat extraordinary in any set oflovers.How many have you had, my sweet? How many have you burned to dust because they could notunderstand you?He forced himself up, fighting the shuddering aftereffects of the potion, and waddled to the washbasin.He splashed the warm water across his face, letting it chase away the sweat and ashes. A yellow-skinnedghast of the worst childrens tales scrutinised him from the mirror.If anyone were to see me like this...What did it mean, her thoughts of this other man? Could she be plotting to betray him?Do you think, my sweet, that you can use me and cast me aside? It is far too late, pet, for secondthoughts.And yet...she dared to spurn him.Jealousy again, unwelcome and unbalancing. The calculations took space to function, and it would notdo to have his mind so crowded with petty worries and grievances.But...he had to know.The bottle hissed as he opened it again, its previous agitation having pressurised the gas within. The blastof scent speared up his nostrils into the sensitive flesh behind his eyes. Gasping, he squeezed the corkback into place with hands already trembling.Ive taken too much.The bottle clattered to the floor. No tickle came this time, but a scraping fire under his skin. Scaredgrappled at the arms of his chair. His knees cracked like dry tinder, and the floor rushed to meet him. Aswift strike against the boards, and he was away into that eternal, infinite space.He had never dared consume so much before, but as the reaches of heaven glinted and soared all abouthim, he never felt more regret for that decision. Even the transcendent mathematics of the clear mindwere inadequate to describe the sights he saw. More information could be packed into a single mote oftime than in all the depths of human history.Lover, I will tear you apart.The memories of the Lady came in full relief as he summoned them, playing before his eyes as if he werewitnessing them again from another body. The calculations whirled, visible now,