Part 1: Glory Days in Lisbon

And once you have tasted flight,

And there you would return.
The air smells of lemon and bay leaves.
The wind roars in from the Atlantic, but no sails wait to catch it. A military blockade sits anchored at the mouth of the harbor. No ship inside is to depart without permission.
It is summer, in the year 1835, and the people of Lisbon, still recovering from years of brutal civil war, are anxious once more. The Queen has banned all passage from the city to the New World.
Above the forbidden sea, only the skies offer a possibility of escape.
Lucy: Are you ready, Jimena?
Jimena: Ready!
Lucy: Three, two, one—
After the mechanical woman finishes her countdown, her able pilot takes a deep breath and opens her arms.
Artificial wings of metal, wood, and leather deploy out from her back. Flapping them like a bird, she runs toward the water and takes a flying leap.
Jimena: Yes, Lucy! We did it! I'm flying!
Jimena: I'm flying! Just keep it steady, just ...!
...
The "bird" dives sharply into the water.
Lucy: Nine seconds.
Lucy: An improvement over last time.
Lucy: Do you need any assistance?
Jimena: Ugh, no, thanks.
She moves to unfasten the wings before noticing a crab perched on her shoulder. Returning it to the sand, she crumples down beside it and sighs.
Lucy: It appears the primary difficulty is power. The wind is not strong enough, or more precisely, we are not generating sufficient lift.
Lucy: With further optimizations, we should be able to extend your flight time.
Jimena: This model took a whole month to complete, and it only flew three more seconds!
Jimena: Is it ever going to work? Dad had to be crazy to spend his life like this.
A gaggle of boys nearby had watched her from their boat. They laughed as she fell, and are still laughing.
The girl shoots them an icy glare, a piercing bolt that hits them one by one until each wises up and turns back to their fishing.
Lucy: Three seconds represents a 50% improvement in performance. If you take that into consideration, our progress has been remarkable.
Jimena: Didn't take you for an optimist.
Lucy: Please, you should get yourself into some dry clothes. I believe I have identified the primary issues with the current design.
Jimena: Great. At this rate, we might make it from the cape to the shore in, oh, about a hundred years or so.
Jimena: sighs If only I could reach the other side of the ocean this very moment!
Jimena: Just think how it would be to fly all across the Atlantic and land on the shores of New England!
Lucy: We should head back.
Jimena: Coming.
Bundling up the soaked machine, the girl and the mechanical woman head back toward the city.
In the distance, the line of warships have resumed patrolling the harbor, their sails jutting up from the water like the fins of hungry sharks.
As the midday hours turn toward the afternoon, the city begins to bustle with activity once more.
Jimena: So, what was the problem you talked about? The wind can't lift me? What does that mean? Am I too heavy? Do you think I'm fat?
Jimena: Have you ever seen kids playing with kites? All you need is a good running start, and the wind just takes them up far into the sky.
Jimena: How about we skip birds and just make a great, big, man-sized kite?
They walk together, talking and laughing; their doomed flight soon forgotten—the warmth and energy of Lisbon's streets lifting their spirits where wings had failed.
The mechanical woman, however, gives no response. She's replaying the experiment within her metal brain, analyzing it detail by detail.
Lucy: We need a pair of secondary wings installed 4 inches from the second joint.
Lucy: They would unfold after the primary set, in order to balance the lifting force of the wind across your body.
Jimena: Are you even listening to me?
The would-be pilot jumps into the mechanical woman's way, arms planted on her waist.
Lucy: The structure of a kite is extremely lightweight.
Jimena: So, you are calling me fat?
Lucy: I am merely asserting that a grown woman is much heavier than a toy made from wood and paper.
Lucy: A kite has a very limited payload, and it cannot be directed while in flight. Our model must be able to do much more than that.
An argument breaks up their conversation. From the slope ahead comes a stiff warning and a slurred response.
A squad of soldiers lead their latest "catches" out from the tavern, driving them away down the street.
Jimena: Looks like the rumor is true. They are hunting the smugglers' accomplices in the city.
Jimena: Or, whoever they've decided is an accomplice.
Lucy: It seems to have little bearing on our situation.
Jimena: Doesn't it? Just look at who they've arrested. Fernandes the Broken Arm, Carlos the Golden Hand, and Alfonso the Gill ...
The girl's face grows pale as she keens their faces out from the dark. All of them local arcanists, no exceptions.
Jimena: Of course, why should it bother you? You're not a local. Her Majesty would never dream of being so unkind to foreigners.
Jimena: Besides, you have that letter of introduction from that Computing Center. Who would be so stupid to offend an honorable guest from Britain?!
Jimena: But I'm not so lucky. If only I could fly, then if they ever came for me, I would laugh at them from the safety of the skies.
Lucy: There was no luck involved. The LSCC sent me here with all the necessary documents to accomplish their interests.
Lucy: I suppose I had not considered that arcanists here might not have the same privileges I do because of them.
Lucy: Returning to our work, where are the spare materials your father left?
Jimena: He kept them under St. George's Cathedral. It's on the east side of the city.
Carrying the still-dripping gear, the girl seems to forget her prior concerns, running ahead to lead the way.
Jimena: Keep an eye out for more of those soldados. We'll make a detour if we have to.
Jimena: Don't worry. We're going where the Queen and her dogs aren't likely to follow.
However, it seems Her Majesty's dogs have already caught their scent.
Lucy: Quiet.
Lucy: I believe that soldier may be an issue.
Jimena heeds the warning, passing the wet contraption over to Lucy.
Jimena: Shh. I'll meet you at the second junction past the checkpoint. Good luck!
She whispers her instructions and disappears into a narrow alleyway.
The sight of a mechanical woman holding a strange dripping machine cannot help but attract attention.
Soldier: Er, what have you got there?
Lucy: But if you must know, metal, wood, leather, fabric ...
Not to mention a badge bearing two lions that signifies an empire on which, it is said, the sun never sets.
Lucy: It is a device. Wings.
Wings.
The soldier's eyes bulge as he contends with the information, before signaling for her to move along.
The mechanical woman continues on unhurriedly toward her rendezvous.
Jimena: He didn't question you?
Jimena: What did you say to him? How come he just let you go?
Lucy: He only inquired as to what I was carrying, and I replied honestly: wings.
Jimena: ...
Jimena: Haha, I guess he took you for a weirdo and let you go. You aren't exactly what these dogs are hunting for anyways.
Jimena: Anyway, we'll reach the cathedral soon. It's in a spot underneath the pulpit. Well, if no one has cleared it out yet.
Lucy: Why would anyone do that?
Jimena: The poor are short of everything here. Metal for cookware, fabric and leather for clothes, and wood for their hearths ...
Jimena: They'll use whatever they can get their hands on. I just hope it's still there. I want to fly, to finish what he started, so he can rest, and so I can escape this place.
Lucy: We still have many problems to solve before we get there.
Lucy: A compiling set.
But these problems can be handled, shaped, like pruning the buds on a tree. Solving them one by one until we reach our goal.
Jimena: And it's taken us a whole month to solve just one. Maybe you've got that kind of time to spare, amiga—Not me.
Lucy: Your father spent ten years just to get us here.
Lucy: And he gave everything he had to this project.
Jimena: Yes. He did.
Jimena: Was it worth it? Will it ever be worth it? I know it was his dream and mine, but it feels impossible, or so far away, I'll never live to see it.
Lucy: When they first introduced the locomotive, people laughed at it. It was slower than a horse, and far less practical.
Lucy: Now, they talk of building railways to connect cities across the continent. Look at their progress. Imagine what might come of them in the future.
Jimena: And this hunk of junk that's flown a whole nine seconds—you think this is our future?
Lucy: I do.
She answers without hesitation. The woman herself is a product of this unstoppable revolution.
Jimena: Alright. Well, we're here. Let's see if we can find our way to this future with whatever is left of the past.
The two of them arrive at the ruins of a cathedral damaged in the war. A solitary statue of an angel remains, though it has lost its wings, and with them, it seems, all holiness fell away too.
Lucy: I do hope the materials are still intact.
Jimena: There is a cellar underneath the pulpit. Go on ahead. I need to speak to a friend around here. Be right back.