Sky Castle and Documentary Dreams

Sky Castle Crash Landing
      I dreamed I was walking along the engineering deck of a large flying castle. I could see the huge furnaces across a thirty foot space from the deck where several people fed coals into chutes that rolled down out of sight. I was with the chief engineer and the Lord of the castle as he gave a tour of the facility to some guests. I was along to answer any technical questions that might arise. We walked past two non-working elevator shafts and entered the third one we came to.
Elevators
      I explained, in answer to a question from one of the guests, that our population had diminished over the years, so we didn't maintain all of the elevators. Only the one on this level. The far elevator had been turned into a storage silo for the castle's emergency gear. The central one was now used as a large conduit for the many steam tubes and communications tubes that now ran through the entire city. It also had a fire pole so that engineers and techs could move rapidly down into the lifting decks.
Infrastructure: Steam and Tube
      The Lord asked me to take our engineering inclined guests on a tour of the infrastructure. I took them on a tour of the steam and speaking tubes in the central elevator shaft. We then made our way to the Babbage engine room. There was a huge clanking computational device, we used it to track our motion and fuel consumption as well as to run some weather prediction simulations. It was all steam driven pulleys and stops and meshing gears.
      The output bezels shown in the ruddy light of gas lamps and numbers carved in ivory spun under the bezels and slowly locked into position. I showed them the outlook at the front of the lift station and the gauges that showed our airspeed and altitude. I noticed that the altitude gauge was decreasing a couple of hundred feet a minute. As I ushered our guests into the Victorian wallpapered elevator car, I leaned out to one of the calculators and asked him to check the airspeed and altitude again, then to get back to me.
      While we were in the elevator I heard echoes of a loud bang and rumble. It was far different to me than the normal sounds of the flying castle, so I knew there was trouble brewing. I stayed calm and got the party reunited with the other guests. The Lord of the Castle was waiting for my chief engineer as we saw our guest's dirigible cast off.
      As we were waving goodbye to our guests the chief engineer puffed into sight. His news wasn't good, and the Lord of the castle immediately ordered a civilian evacuation.
      The engineer and I conferred for a moment, and I raced to the central shaft to ride the fire pole down to the engineering decks to see if we could at least guide the city in for a safe landing.
Strip Mall
      I stopped on the shopping level, racing for the elevator storage shaft on the far end. I told people to get to transport unless they were engineers, then they needed to report to their emergency stations. I helped one of my engineering assistants out of her flowing Victorian dress and bustle.
      "Are you going to strip me out of my corset, too?"
      "No time! Now get going we need you in navigation to prep the escape launches." I dragged her by the elbow and pushed her towards the communications shaft. She slid down the fire pole ahead of me.
The Third Elevator shaft
      Upon reaching the engineering deck we parted company, she headed forward and myself aft to the emergency storage unit in the third elevator shaft. I was the first one to arrive with a key, so rushed up to unlock the doors. The crew began to pull out the emergency launches, which were filled with crates, and in the crates were thick rubbery tubes, thick brass cylinders with clock work mechanisms and several large javelins with trailing tubes of some sort. Each launch was dragged to the mouth of a coal chute and unpacked.
      I unlimbered the first javelin and showed them how to hold it so the power tube would unroll properly behind it. I stepped onto the stone crenelation next to the coal chute nearest the elevator.
      I looked out across the gap into the flames of the furnace. The fuel oil logs were just making their way down the chute into the flaming maws of the furnace some sixty feet below. The other engineers raced to their chutes and when they were all on top of their stations I pulled back to throw.
Powertap Javelin Toss
      Eight of us threw our javelins at once. All but one struck the fiery openings at the base of their chutes. I jumped back to the deck and raced down to where the steps went down into the flaming pit. There was a pool of water there, I dove into it and pulled myself out, drenched on the other side. Instead of running down the hot steps, I poured water on the stair rail and slid down to the bottom. Finding the cable for the missed javelin, I managed to untangle it and pull it back to myself. I got as close to the furnace opening as I could, and launched the javelin in. Steam was pouring off my clothing. Navigation was calling for full power, my crews were waiting for me to get back up, but I knew we might not have time.
      "Chutes one through 6 fire up now! No arguments!"
      I turned and ran for the stairs when I heard the shouts of success and anger mixed from above. Soon the shouts were drowned out by the sounds of wooden barrels crashing down iron chutes into furnace mouths. Each barrel exploded on contact, heat and flame spilling back into the lower furnace room at my back. By the time I got to the top of the stairs, my crew had found a bucket and doused the back of my flaming clothing.
Stoking the Furnaces
      Navigation came over the speaking tubes, all emergency lifting rotors were deployed, they needed full power, now. Part of the load in each launch was a half dozen barrels of fuel oil. We rolled the barrels down the chutes for furnace seven and eight. Each barrel crashed into the furnace below with a loud Foom!
Suiting up and Prepping for the Fall
      "Strip down and suit up now!" I shouted to my engineers and technicians.
      Everyone started pulling off clothing and reaching into the crates for the rubbery tubes. The emergency suits were a sort of living, rubbery material. Sealing the tubes,around the waist, neck elbows wrists, knees and ankles was the first step. I had to tell a couple of my gals that they couldn't were their corsets under their suits, they had to come off.
      "Modesty or your life, your choice." It was harsh but the only thing I could think to tell them. "You can put it back on top if we have time."
      I didn't say anything about how nice they were built but I was sure thinking it.
      Once the tubes were in place and sealed, there were tabs to be pulled and connected to each of the other tubes. A water and air sealed film grew out of the tubes and covered our bodies in a thick rubbery layer of projection. I noticed that while we were suiting up the launches were charging from the power taps below. Blue-white light filled the joints in the plating of the launches, and slowly they lifted from the deck.
      The helmet of the suit was created by placing a thick rubbery circle and molding it around your eyes like a pair of goggles. Its tabs connected to the rings on the neck of the suit. There was a goggle piece that went over the tube sealing against it. At that point you only had a few minutes of air trapped in the suit with you. That is where the brass windup canisters came in. They were CO2 scrubbers and oxygen tanks, each one would last about 4 hours. There were two tanks per suit, and there were several extra suits. I ordered everyone to connect just one tank and to stick the other one to their beltline for later. I had all the senior engineers hold on to the extras.
Sinking City
      I ordered everyone into the boats, we lifted off the deck and hovered near the ceiling in the heat and smoke of the furnaces. From that height, I could see out past the furnaces, we were coming down, slowly, but still dropping. We were over a large inland sea, not far from the shore.
      Navigation reported that everyone had abandoned the city, they had taken control cables and were 200 feet above the control room in their escape launch.
      The city struck the surface of the sea. Even though the city was only moving a few feet per second, the mass and displacement was tremendous. The city shuddered. I could hear things breaking as the shock wave rumbled its way through the city. The furnace room floor cracked. A portal opened near the ceiling and seven of the launches shot out into space. I knew they would have a six or seven hour trip to re-enter the atmosphere and land back aboard the city, presuming we didn't vanish beneath the water. My launch stayed with the ship. Our momentum carried us rapidly towards the floor, but we managed to just kiss the floor of the engineering room without harm. I could hear the water rushing into the furnace room below. There was the hiss of steam and the entire engineering room filled with steam as the sea poured into the raging furnaces, extinguishing them. We jumped from the launch, each racing to a furnace control, each opening the huge vents and the emergency fuel dumps. Only three of the eight were able to open the dumps, all of the vents opened. Soon the steam began to condense out of the air. It was raining from the ceiling. I could see out the windows of the engineering level, the surface of the lake drew closer and closer to the level of the windows. The water began to rise in the furnace room. We no longer had power to open up the escape portal. The launch was too large to fit through the opening on the observation deck, and far too large to go through the porthole like windows.
      I felt the deck shudder beneath our feet. We'd struck bottom, at least on the aft half of the city. The deck began to tilt. My crew raced back to the launch. On slipped on the wet sloping stonework and cracked open her face plate. Her exposed face immediately turned red. Another engineer pulled her to her feet and touched her goggle frame to his own faceplate. The two suits merged. We had to help them into the launch. The stairs forward into the furnace area overflowed and the city bottomed out on the forward end. The water in the area sloshed forward and then crashed against the bulkheads, popping open the door between Engineering and Navigation. The water surged back but didn't come quite to the level of the launch.
      My crew as silent. I looked where they were looking out the observation deck. The engineering observation deck was partly under water; water was pouring into the whole engineering section. Some wanted to go aft and wait for rescue, gambling that the aft part of the engineering room would be above water when we stopped sinking. If not, we would always be able to swim out.
      I suggested we head for the first elevator. The elevator car was on the deck below us. We forced open the doors and were just able to get the launch into the shaft on the diagonal. We floated gently up the shaft in darkness. Every snap, every crash, every reverberation of destruction was amplified by the shaft. I could hear the city collapsing in slow motion all around us. We came to the Plaza level and forced the doors open. A cheer went up as we sailed out into the open night air. Steam rose from the sea all around the city. The Navigation Blimp was to starboard and only 50 feet above the surface of the water. We angled over to them to offer assistance.
      The city still had sections of lights on, but was mostly dark. Several dirigibles were visible high in the sky, all were angling down towards the city. I spotted the Lord of the City's airship and ordered one of my crew to message them that all engineers had gotten away safely. Aircraft were racing low towards the nearby shore, barely visible above the large wave that followed them.
      I knew our pilots were trying to warn the communities on the shore about the wave that we'd generated. I found myself wishing I'd kept all my engineers here, we'd have been able to lend assistance with our launches. I was sure there was going to be some mild flood damage. I could tell the City Lord had thought of that too, several of his attendant fleet broke off from their path to the fallen city and headed towards the nearby shore, all of them flashing white truce lights on the front of them while signaling a tsunami warning as well.
      The city shifted under us and slid about 15 feet towards deeper water.
      I ordered my engineers into four teams, each to go aft and try to fire the sky anchors into the depths of the water. As soon as they were out of the launch I headed for the Navication Blimp. I didn't know if we could stop the city from sinking further, but wanted to try. There was a pet cat in my quarters, and I would suspect several others as well, that we might be able to save. Not to mention all of the property still in the city.
      I found myself wondering if we could ever lift the city out of the water. I also wondered about living on an island tilted at 10 degrees or so, could we make a go of it?
      When we reached the navigation blimp I could see that it had been damaged and was loosing buoyancy. Fortunately we now had room for the navigators aboard the launch. My shopping colleague had put her new corset on over her life suit, making for a very sexy picture, much more so than if she'd just been in the form fitting survival suit. I decided not to tell her that and just enjoy the view.

Filming a Documentary
      The director of many films in the early 2000s was focused on many adult erotic topics. I was interviewing and filming he and his wife when he dropped his fur coat and sprinted for the house. His wife struggled to lift his fur coat from the road. She didn't want me to help, as she was pretending I wasn't there. She donned the coat and made her way unsteadily to the line of Rolls Royce autos along their driveway.
      Her husband was running around on all fours, barking. She started picking up golf balls from her front lawn and tossing them between the cars for her husband to chase down. I was recording all of this. The golf balls kept flying past me with her husband racing to and fro. Like a scene I had taped with T and E many years ago, a ball finally came right at the camera and I had to duck out of the way.
      We then went into the mansion where the director proudly showed me a full wall collection of 8x10 color photos of a now dead starlet making her debut (though not known to the public) in his "Instructions from Anal Angels" series. I didn't think I would want to use that for the documentary and told them so. They then showed me another room with photos from the same series, this time of a current porn star, and also a series featuring his wife (from near the beginning of the series.)