thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
rotting off their bones;and yet none of them deadnone permitted to die, so long as the Great Machine had need of them.The Boiler Men dragged him to a halt in front of a creature constructed of tangled strips of brass.Porcelain eyes assessed him, a single finger indicated the place of his fate. Bailey watched the creature asit turned away to its duties, and knew instinctively that it had once been human.His shoulder came loose as his captors renewed their march. His bowels gave as they slammed himroughly into an empty brass chair. His last breath escaped as they forced steel bolts through his hips andchest to pin him there. His vision darkened.Please, Lord.A wire broke the skin of his neck and began digging into him, burning like an electric worm. A secondpunctured his rib cage, a third, his lower back.Not this,he screamed.Death I have always welcomed, but not this.The Boiler Men marched away, and the ticking began. It grew, instant by instant, pummelling hisperceptions with its insane repetition, until it deafened his very thoughts. It stripped away everything heknew, everything he had ever thought, every hope and every plan. The weight of Grandfather Clockcrushed him down, hammered him, shaped him. He became a perfect component of a larger whole,losing all that he had been before.And all was harmony in the Great Machine.The Second DayIt must be dull and lonely to live in a new city, while to live in an old city like London is to enjoy the society of a very noble army of ghosts.Sidney Dark
The second principle of the forge is Method, or perhaps Technique. The artisan must be skilful in allaspects of Her craft. Such perfection comes only from long practice, which inevitably litters the floor withthe misshapen remains of Her failures.V. iiiMissy had not been truly introduced to drink until she met Thomas Moore. Matron Gisella had laiddown strict rules concerning imbibing by her girls: they were not to have any at all, except if the client bidit. Even then, they were to touch scant a tenth of what the client consumed. Missy had rarely hadoccasion to even smell brandy or scotch, as the majority of the customers were upstanding, propergentlemen who came into the Matron Gisellas house to vent their carnal lusts and then flee into the nightlike robbers.Sit up straight; fold your hands across your lap. Hold your head upright, your knees together. You are ashy, naive gentlewoman.Missy drained her glass and poured another. The brandy seared its way down her throat.No, she had been introduced to drink truly on the third night that she had been invited to SherwoodForest. Shed walked in on them unannounced, unobtrusive as she had been trained. Thomas had beencaught mid-swallow, choked on his mouthful, and then scrambled to hide the glass by slipping it half fullinto his pocket. Thinking back, perhaps shed wanted to spare him the embarrassment.Shed stepped over to him, relieved him of his drink, and tossed the whole of it down her throat withoutso much as a sip to gauge it.Your sleeves shall be crimped and even. Your hem shall be free of stray threads. Every hint of lace shallbe sparkling white.That vile liquid had been the strongest of Toms collection. It had taken all Missys aplomb to remainupright and charming as the fire surged into all her limbs, then her brain and her lips, and then lit hercheeks like twin suns rising on a winter morning.But shed held her composure and had reigned in her laughter at their gapes. And for one glorious,memorable evening, the matrons voice had been silent.You shall move to reveal not ankle nor wrist nor neck lest the client bid you or take the initiative himself.Should your client wish you to surrender to his advances, then do so. Should he wish you to resist, do so.The glass was full again. She started in on it without delay.Sherwood stood empty. Heckler had taken watch at the lift with a pair of street urchins Oliver heldsometimes in his employ. The rest of the crew were likely rotting in the downstreets by now, and Oliverwith them.She swallowed, and examined the amber liquid as it caught and mutated the light of the single oil lamp.Always remember that your client has paid for you. I expect that he should come away satisfied and thathe should return to my house when the mood next strikes him. I expect to be spoken of highly in thecircles. A lady has only her reputation, after all.More brandy scalded her throat. Since that third night at Sherwood, she had made alcohol her dailytonic, to keep the Matron Gisella
silent.She poured the brandy onto the floor, for tonight it had lost its power.A good lady doesnt cry. Only if the client wants you to cry shall you permit yourself. Oh, dont worryyourselves; he will make it amply clear.Gisella was lecturing from some long-ago memory. Missy had heard the speech dozens of times andremembered it perfectly: always the same wording, the same sharp gestures, and the same piercing glare.She stomped one foot into the puddle of liquor. Droplets splattered her dress and shoes.You wouldnt approve of this at all, would you, Witch?My, my, isnt someone testy? Have you a reason for throwing a tantrum like a child of six?Missy refilled the glass. She sipped it, realising suddenly how light-headed she was.What if they didnt come back? What if Baileys mad crusade left them all corpses and Sherwoodstayed this empty forever?Then you will come back to me, my little one. When you were brought to me, you were coated in dirtand crawled on your hands and knees. You were born a dog, little girl, by Gods hand. That kind of filthnever truly comes clean.She felt oily inside and out with perspiration. It was too cruel to contemplate, that her new life should bewrested from her after three short months. Oliver had not even asked where she came from or what shehad done before. Nor would he, or any of them. Here she had found men who did not judge her, and aplace to rest her feet.Her throat cringed as the brandy scorched it again and she refused to think on such things any further.A rap sounded at the door.Oliver had told her never to answer that door. One of the men should always do it and even they shouldalways be armed. The caller was to be checked by peeking from the second-storey windows, and thedoor traps released only if it proved to be one of the neighbourhood folk.Well, Oliver wasnt there, and she had a gun. Even if things became dangerous, she could defendherself. It wasnt as if she hadnt done so before.Gisella had been silent that night as well.She drained her glass and tottered to her feet. The world spun. She snatched the lamp from the cardtable and her handbag from the chair. She politely forced the doorjamb aside and staggered into the hall.The rap came again.Hold on, she cried, though it may not have emerged so eloquently.Each stair smacked heavily against her feet as she descended. The railing pressed inappropriately intoher side.The rap sounded again, suddenly pounding against her ears like thunder.You, sir, she said accusingly to the door, have no manner of patience at all.Her fingers found the right switches, pulled the right chords. The deafening clicks told her Hecklerstraps had been withdrawn. She grasped the handle and yanked the door wide.A face stepped out of her nightmares and into the foyer.Oh, mother of mercy! The handbag fell from her fingers. The lamp tipped and burned her hand with itshot glass.Heh. I see you remember me.Her knees buckled like so much wet cloth and she crashed to the ground on
her tailbone. The lampbounced on the floor and rolled away.It cant be real, she screamed.He cant be here.The intruder righted the lamp with a deft flick of his cane.Gisella was distraught when you left, Michelle. Even my considerable powers of persuasion were barelyenough to keep her from murdering you.The man closed the door.Imagine my surprise to find you here, of all places, in the lair of my recent rival. The Lord does indeedmove in mysterious ways. Dont you agree?A hobgoblin face beneath a fur top hat. Gnarled bone-white clawed fingers reaching from a black coatas large as the night sky. All the girls knew him, all had felt his nails tearing at them, heard his voicecommanding them. Gisella rendered them helpless with her potions and thenhe came in fevered dreams, avisage of terror half remembered upon waking.Sweat slicked her hands. The floor tilted and rolled as she scrambled for the bag, and for the cool,comforting lump of steel inside. Suddenly he was in front of her, squatting. He jammed a handkerchiefover her face and a jolting ozone stench blasted up her nose.The yellow man calls thisbeng lie, my dear. It is Gisellas favourite, as I recall.Her nails raked over the handbags edges, spinning it towards her. Her legs and fingers began to twitch,then to numb.Gisella needed my help to train her little whores, you see, said the man. You were one of my earlierattempts, as I recall. Probably, there is no one to blame but myself for your present waywardness, but Iwas new to this then. One learns, doesnt one, child?The clasp of the handbag fell apart beneath her fingernails and the bag yawned wide. Her fingers snakedinside, the motion in them dying one by one. The muscles in her back jerked and she collapsed, knockingher head on the floor.You didnt think he would find you, you stupid girl? You came into the world dirty and vile and pretendat decency. It is Gods will that you be found.The edges of her vision swam with tears. The room swung like a pendulum. The man crouched like agargoyle next to her, reaching skeleton hands for her face.Gisella will give me a tongue-lashing, its true, but Im afraid I shant be returning you to her just yet.His fingers pressed into the skin of her forehead and scalp. The contact burned and sent shoots of paindeep into her head and neck.I had to look to the East for this process, you know, he said. It requires a certain exercise of the mindand the energies, but it makes Mesmer and Braid into simpletons by comparison.His words blurred, one into the other, until they hissed and crackled together. Missy slipped deep downinto a warm pool of thick liquid. His voice came to her in flickers of dream thought, as flashes of hot andcold and terror.Listen, now, little one. Follow carefully my every instruction. You will not remember any of this until Icommand you. When I do so, you will answer all of my questions truthfully and without evasion. You areto remain with Oliver Sumner. Do as he asks,
and act as you always have. Remember all you see andhear.A pause. Mind distant across expanse. No movement.Scared cleared his throat.My dear, I want you to discover why the Great Mother finds Oliver Sumner so attractive.Missy vomited on herself. She choked, spat, sat up.The foyer was empty. A single lamp lit the dark from its place on the floor some three feet away.Oh, goodness. The mess! My lord, the smell!She scrambled to her feet, gasping in horror at the hideous stain on her blouse. She snatched the lampand fled to the bathroom. She filled the washbasin with water from the rooms iron bathtub, then stripped off her shirt and submerged it.If you put your coat on and run straight home, theyll never know. Just bundle the shirt and take it in abasketsurely they keep a basket somewhere.Filth follows you like a hungry dog, dirty girl.Shut up, you shrew.Missy held the lamp up and surveyed herself in the mirror. Her hair had fallen out of its tight bun; herlip-stain had run down the length of her chin.Not right at all, she murmured.She screamed and jumped back, nearly dropping the lamp. Shed seen...No, it couldnt have...But ithad been there...an ogres face grinning at her from the mirror.It wasnt him. He wasnt here.His voice whispered to her, from far away or from inside her own ears, she could not tell.Tick, tick, tick.At the first sound Oliver unhitched the express rifle and lugged it into his arms. At the second he had itbutt to shoulder ready to fire.Damn it, this was not just a product of his imagination. Something had been stalking him for the pasthour.He didnt even know where he was. He thought he was heading northeast, though after the long,confusing slide down to street level, he might have gone any which way. His hip-mounted lanternprovided only enough illumination to see three strides around him. He probably stood out like alighthouse down here, though hed rather that than be in complete dark.The sound came again: a heavy crunch, a shifting of debris out in the ruined buildings of OldWhitechapel. His bandaged hand twitched on the stock and the single unwrapped finger on the trigger.When the streak of white blasted into the light hed let the shot off before he even had time to register it.The heavy slug escaped into parts unknown, kicking Oliver nearly off his feet with the recoil. Hestumbled and brought his rifle to bear on the object approaching him.It was a clickrat. Moving slower now, it tottered forward on its six legs, maw opening and closing inrandom rhythm. The noise had been far too loud and slow to be from a clickrat, and that left oneplausible alternative.Hed hoped to catch up with Baileys crew before the hounds found him. It should not have beendifficult to spot seven lamplights in absolute dark. Most of the buildings of Old Whitechapel had longsince decayed into lumps of sodden debris, so the terrain was mostly clear, but multiple trips to the topsof said mounds had garnered him nothing but more black all around.And probably brought me
to the attention of every whelp creature down here. Damned foolish.The clickrat ticked a few steps closer. It sat back on its stubby tail and wailed a low buzzing sound, thentilted its head and regarded him in a pose resembling curiosity.Jeremy Longshore! Oliver said. The clickrat bounced back to its legs and scuttled up next to his shoe.Oliver smiled down at him. You clever little bastard. You must mean Phin and Tom arent too far.Tom!His voice echoed away into the dark. A growl like glass being ground down reverberated back to him.Stupid.Oliver swung the express rifle back into position and began scanning the shadows as much as hisfogged goggles would permit.Jeremy Longshore hopped a foot forward and bobbed his nose in a direction to Olivers left. Oliverswiveled to face the rifle that way, just as a black and silver shape broke the perimeter of the lamplight.He put a bullet into its shoulder. The hound twitched, but did not back off.Jeremy Longshore leapt forth and confronted the creature, balancing on tail and two rear legs andclicking into its face. Oliver shot the hound again, this time in the flank as it reared back to take stock ofits second opponent. The impact jerked it to the side, but it barely seemed to notice, its attention fixed onJeremy Longshore.Oliver swept away the gun smoke with his left hand, keeping unsteady aim on the hound as it circledright, its sleek muzzle poking into the clickrats striking range. Jeremy Longshore stood his ground,emitting an unceasing string of clicks in patternless rhythm. Oliver orbited the clickrat as well, keeping itbetween him and the hound.The thing would eventually figure out that Jeremy was bluffing and crush him. Could Jeremy keep itsattention if he bolted? Oliver had no delusions about outrunning it if it chased him.The hound paused and dipped its head. From deep inside its silvery, steel-sheathed ribs, Oliver heard atickinglike someone tapping a wooden spoon on a large pot. After a few moments of overlap, theybegan to tick one to the other, then the other to the one. Back and forth: a conversation.Oliver squinted hard at the pair. For an instant, the hound seemed to have a human face, indistinct andblurred, like a botched daguerreotype. The face tilted and changed, shifting into and out of expressionsthat Oliver could not quite identify. Jeremy, as well, took on an aspect far more human seeming. It wassomething in his bearing, in the gestures made with his front two legs.The conversation ended, and for a long moment the two stared at each other. Then Jeremy dropped toall six legs again, and the hound turned and slunk out of the light. Jeremy Longshore ticked a few timesand scuttled back over to settle beside Olivers shoe.Oliver remained perfectly still until the hounds receding footsteps passed into the distance. Then helowered his rifle and breathed.Youre a handy fellow, Oliver said. Jeremy clicked. Remind me to stop thinking that Tom is crazy.Oliver considered the mechanical animal winding around his feet. Tom hadnt had time to train the thingto do what it had just done. Jeremy himself
was different from his kin.Can you lead me to Phin and Tom? Oliver asked, thinking it was worth an attempt.Jeremy clicked and buzzed, then started off at a fair clip into the darkness.Slow down! Oliver called, and limped after.The creature led him on a chase past tumbled beams, ruined buildings, and pits of dank slime. The rottedunderworld passed through the arc of his lamp, fading into view from illuminated mist and seeping backinto the absolute shadow of Shadwell Tower that flanked him and loomed always over his shoulder.He scrambled along as best he could, hobbling on his ankle as the pain swelled with each step. He calledout again and again for Jeremy to hold back, but the little creature tore ahead, hell-bent on whatever goalit had chosen. It escaped the range of his lamplight as they entered what might have once been a publicsquare; the constant jumble of beams, debris, and upturned chunks of roadway gave way to an unbrokensuccession of tightly fitted bricks.The pace wore on Olivers lungs. Even through the mask, the air was coarse and heavy withparticulates. The heat, unnatural even for Whitechapel, provoked an unending sweat that beaded and randown his neck, slick and sticky in the oily air.Panting, Oliver finally halted the mad dash. Holding his breath and his nose, he carefully lifted the maskand splashed some water in his mouth. It tasted of ash, but calmed for a moment the tickle in his throatand the rampant thirst drying out his lips and tongue.Out in the dark, the skittering of clickrat legs faded.No use trying to follow now.He set himself and his rifle gingerly down on the brick and rubbed at his ankle. He scanned hissurroundings and made out nothing beyond the flickering lamplight but for a far-off glow. It might havebeen a hint of the bright lights of Aldgate.If so, then that way was northwest, where Baileys crew would be heading.And since I couldnt possiblytrace my way back to the stair...Oliver wiped his goggles, chewed a piece of jerked beef, and put some more oil in his lantern. After afew minutes rest, he struggled back to his feet and began walking. For twenty or so steps the bricksrolled beneath his feet, unchanging. Then he came to a low wall of concrete, topped with a twisted andrusted wrought-iron fence: too tall and too uneven to climb. He unhooked the lantern from his belt andlifted it up. The light cast dancing doppelgangers of the fence on the wall beyond. Something twisted andfled as the light struck it.I hope that was Jeremy,Oliver thought, knowing it wasnt.Oliver tilted the light farther back, revealing the facade of a building reaching high above the fences top.Mortar had worn away between the blocks used to build it, leaving deep black slashes on its palesurface.A sudden scuffing sounded from behind the fence. Oliver hefted his rifle to face forward in one hand,then leaned into the fence and panned his lamp back and forth. The gap between the wall and the buildingseemed devoid of anything, including debris. A sparkle caught his eye at the far
right of the lanterns light.Red?He took a few strides down the wall to the right.Red and yellow and purple and blue, a jumble of colours glowing in the flickering light. It resolved itselfinto the shape of a stained-glass window.Its a church,he realised, then smirked.A white chapel.He panned his lantern upwards, revealing an arched top to the window, a peaked roof, and hints of asteeple at the lights farthest edge. This was not a church as he knew them, as little decrepit buildingsconstructed from scrap and tolerated by the cloaks so long as they stayed that way. No, this church wasa magnificent structure, designed to stand out from the city around it, bold and proud. It was a piece ofthat London spirit that Hews and Bailey always went on about. Oliver felt a welling of uncomfortableemotion: some mixture of pride, longing, shame. What was he supposed to feel at this sight? Londonwasnt his city. England wasnt his home.Maybe it could be.When the clacks sounded behind him he knew it was already too late to run. He hooked his lantern tohis belt again and wrapped both hands around the express rifle. He took a deep breath, held it, let it go.Then he turned.Faces: brass eyes, steel teeth, iron bones, and long snouts. Shapes: canine and simian, some hunchedparodies of human, even sporting a few last remnants of flesh and hair. Not a sound from any of them,nor breath disturbing the air.Olivers own breath and heartbeat suddenly became thunderous.The circle was tight against the wall on either side. He counted seven hounds, maybe two dozen clickratsof varying composition, a legion of Frankensteins behind that had once been men, fading shadow overshadow to the edge of the light. None of the clickrats sported the silver colour of Jeremy Longshore.He fitted his bandaged hand around the stock and curled one finger on the trigger. The barrel shookwildly.Hold together. Youve been in worse spots than thisremember the battle in Marlow Square?Only that had been Boiler Men, and Boiler Men were slow. One might run away.Oliver risked a glance over his shoulder. The fence might be scalable, if he abandoned his pack and hisrifle.The dogs could leap it, or might simply bite through. No good.Oliver skipped his eyes back to his grim audience. There had to be a route of escape. He noted twogaps wide enough to run through, assuming the hounds held still. He could maybe hold them off with therifle...All of them? With the clickrats and...those ghastly things?His breath began coming in staccato pulses. There had to be something else. Could he toss them somemeat maybe? Or...One bloody stick of dynamite.With numbing slowness he shouldered out of his pack and slipped it to the ground. He knelt and reachedinside. The dynamite slipped into his hand as if it had been waiting for him. The matchbox he claspedbetween two fingertips.His eyes never left the horde around him. The snouts and muzzles and bared skull teeth began to shift,taking on more human features. They became rounder and softer, a shifting image of translucent fleshover the metal beneath, like a