by Jean Rabe
“Well,” Dusky said. “Mamma Esther, Missy, and Sandy are still here. And we got this machine up and running and ready to go. Where we gonna take her?”
Obadiah smiled at her then, and she felt her heart melt from the sheer heat of it. “Out of here,” he said. “Any place we can find that’s somewhere new. Someplace you and I can call our own.”
She brought her mouth up to his again and tasted the sweat tang of the sweat on his lips. “Let’s go north,” she said. “Let’s find us a home.”
AUTOMATA FUTURA
Stephen D. Sullivan
I’ve loved steampunk since the first run of The Wild Wild West TV show. Yet this is only my second steampunk story, after last year’s “Of a Feather” in Steampunk’d. Why? Mostly because I’ve been so darn busy working on other publishing ventures and writing about women warriors, alchemists, dinosaurs, and demons (though not all at once). When my old friend Jean Rabe asked me to submit a tale for this book, I immediately decided to return to the cast from “Of a Feather.” Oddly, the resulting story was not any of the numerous sequels I’d planned to follow that tale. Instead, what tumbled out of my keyboard was a mad scientist story with an unlikely romantic lead, plus a touch of classic cinema. I hope you enjoy it. You can discover more about me and my latest mad experiment at www.stephendsullivan.com.
Zoe stood outside the Great Man’s door, her references clutched in her left hand, along with the cablegram that had summoned her to this ramshackle structure. The hall of the building was dingy, its once-ornate carpet musty, dust-filled, and stained. The sole light came from a grime-covered window at the far end. It seemed odd that Doctor Von Lang, the famed inventor, should live in a deserted tenement, though he was a renowned eccentric. Yet, Zoe had checked, and the city registry definitely said he owned the building, so . . .
Maybe I should have brought Armstrong or CC with me, Zoe thought. No! You can do this! We need this job so Kit can continue her research, so all of us can—so we don’t go broke. You can do it!
She remembered Ray Armstrong’s confident smile from earlier that day. . . . “If Victor Von Lang wants to see you, it must be important. And if he’s got work, so much the better.”
“But what could he possibly want with me?” Zoe had asked.
“Zoe, you’re brilliant,” Kit Chapman-Challenger, whom Zoe called “CC,” put in. “Bring your references, in case he wants them.”
“B–but . . .” Zoe stuttered.
Armstrong cut her off. “No ‘buts,’ kiddo. Just keep the rendezvous and knock him dead.”
Dead, Zoe thought. I wish I were dead.
She stretched out her trembling right hand and pressed the doorbell. Somewhere in the unplumbed recesses beyond the battered mahogany door, a distant buzzer sounded.
Suddenly, the door flew open, and the face of a wild man poked out. His shocking blond hair protruded in all directions; grease-smeared goggles covered his frantic blue eyes. Zoe jumped back and nearly lost her glasses.
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” the man said, fairly spitting the words. Then he looked Zoe up and down, and his gaunt face brightened. “Miz Tesla?”
Zoe nodded mutely.
The madman grinned from ear to ear. “Welcome! Welcome! Do come right in.” He held the door open and motioned for Zoe to enter. “I’m Victor Von Lang.”
“I–I’m Zoe. I got your cablegram.”
“Of course, of course.” Doctor Von Lang laid one greasy, glove-clad hand atop the shoulder of Zoe’s freshly cleaned blouse. Despite his apparent mania, his touch felt surprisingly gentle. “I know who you are, Miz Tesla: aide-de-camp and chief mechanic for the world-renowned Kit Chapman-Challenger.”
World-renowned but perpetually strapped for cash, Zoe thought.
“That’s why I cabled you,” Doctor Von Lang continued. “Do step inside. We have so much to talk about.” He gently moved Zoe through the doorway and into the cluttered laboratory beyond.
She gawked. Beakers, tubes, electrical engines, lathes, drills, cutting equipment, and more filled the huge space to overflowing. The ceiling in the lab stood easily thirty feet tall.
It looked as though Von Lang’s lab took up the entire floor . . . maybe the entire structure. No wonder the building seemed deserted!
Zoe held out the papers clutched in her hand. “I brought references . . .”
“References? Don’t be silly! Why would a mechanic of your caliber need references? I wouldn’t have cabled you if I thought you needed references.”
“Why did you cable me, Doctor? You said something about a job. . .”
Von Lang pulled off his dirty goggles and gloves and smoothed back his hair. “Yes, of course. I almost forgot in the excitement of the moment.” He removed his chemical-stained lab coat and hung it on a mahogany coat rack. “You’ve heard of me, I suppose?”
“Everybody’s heard of you, Doctor Von Lang—”
“Call me ‘Victor.’ ”
“You invented the ionic storage battery, the electro-steam converter, the micro-motor, the artificial skin used to treat burn victims during the war . . . all before you were twenty-five.”
Von Lang waved his hand dismissively as he washed up at one of the lab’s many soapstone sinks. “Child’s play. Anyone could have done all that.”
“Don’t be absurd, Doctor. Your inventions have changed the world—”
“Poppycock!” He straightened and looked her directly in the eye. “People sing of my accomplishments every day, yet the world remains full of chaos and greed. If anything, I’ve merely accelerated humankind’s inhumanity toward its fellows. That is why I have withdrawn—retired, as it were—to these humble chambers.”
I’d give my right eye for a lab this humble, Zoe thought.
He looked away from her, out the lab’s tall windows, and his blue eyes grew distant. In that moment, Zoe realized how truly handsome he was—once he’d cleaned himself up.
“Yet,” he said quietly, “it’s this very isolation that vexes me now. One person, no matter how brilliant, no matter how talented, cannot do everything.” Somehow, despite all his money and property and patents, Von Lang seemed terribly sad and vulnerable. Zoe remembered, then, how he’d lost his wife in an industrial accident, several years before.
He must be lonely living here all alone.
“That, Miz Tesla, is why I cabled you. I need your help.”
“Zoe. You can call me Zoe. But why do you need my help?”
“Because you are the best mechanic in Manhattan, if not the entire country—or perhaps even the world.”
Zoe blushed from the tip of her nose right down to her toes. Von Lang didn’t seem to notice. “I–I’m not—”
“Of course you are. Do you think I can’t afford to hire the best?”
“So you’re hiring me?”
“Of course! Why did you think you were here? What is your usual rate?”
“I don’t really have a usual rate. I usually just work for CC.”
“Miz Chapman-Challenger, yes. How foolish of me.”
“She usually handles all my negotiations,” Zoe fibbed. Even though no one’s ever tried to hire me before.
“I’ll have my solicitor contact her, then. I’m sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement. How soon can you start? Immediately, I hope?”
Zoe glanced down at her white blouse, one shoulder now dirtied from Von Lang’s hand, and her neatly pressed skirt. “I really didn’t come dressed for—”
“Never mind. There are some spare jumpsuits in the locker room. I’m sure one of them will fit you.”
“You have a locker room? I thought you worked alone?”
“I work alone now . . .” His eyes grew sad and distant once more. “Find something you like. I’ll call my solicitor and we can begin work in, say . . .” He fished out an ornate golden pocket watch and checked it. “Twenty minutes?”
Zoe nodded. “I . . . I guess.”
“Splendid!”
He’s really no
t as strange as he seemed at first, Zoe thought as she buttoned the top button of the khaki-green jumper. The outfit didn’t fit very well, but it was the best she’d been able to turn up in the dusty locker room adjoining the lab. She gazed at her reflection in a grimy mirror and adjusted the belt. He doesn’t care how you look, she told herself. It’s your mind he admires, and your dexterity, and your . . . craftsmanship.
Taking a deep breath, she returned to the lab, where Von Lang, in a new white coat, stood waiting.
“All set?” he asked. “Excellent. Everything is arranged. You’re working for me full time until such time as either Miz Chapman-Challenger urgently needs your services or our project is complete.”
“How soon do you think that might be?”
He shrugged. “It depends on how well-deserved your reputation for brilliance is, Zoe.”
Again, she blushed, and this time he definitely noticed.
“I have few rules in this laboratory. The only absolute one is that you must not touch any of my ongoing experiments.”
She looked around. The lab was a mess of boiling liquids and sparking coils. “How will I know what not to touch?”
“I have only one ongoing project right now, and it lies inside that armoire.” He pointed to a tall wooden cabinet on the far side of the room, between two blue velvet curtains.
“W–what is it?”
“I . . . I’m testing the longevity on a new type of battery. I’ve been working on it for several years now, so it’s imperative that the cabinet not be disturbed. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
He stared into the distance, lost in thought, until she cleared her throat.
“What are we working on, Dr. Von Lang?”
His blue eyes lit up. “Let me show you.” He walked across the laboratory to a large table, draped in burgundy velvet. The tabletop was tilted nearly vertical, and the whole surface was taller than either Zoe or Von Lang. The doctor removed the velvet drapery with a flourish, like a magician completing a trick. “I’ve been working on this for a long time. . . .”
Zoe gasped and stared at the life-size drawing pinned to what she now realized was a huge drawing board. It was the schematic for a machine, but a machine like nothing she’d ever seen before—a machine in the shape of a human being.
“This,” Von Lang announced, “has become my life’s work—the fully functional human automaton. I call it the Automata Futura.”
Zoe looked the schematic up and down; it was, without a doubt, the most complicated set of plans she had ever seen. It made her own automaton inventions—including the self-propelled spider grapnel—look like tinker toys. “Th–that’s amazing, Doctor—”
“Victor.”
“Victor. But . . . why?”
He clasped his hands behind his back and looked at the floor, his shoulders slumping. “You’ve heard about the . . . industrial accident that took my wife from me.”
“Yes. I’m very sorry.”
“Well, what if things like that never had to happen again? What if people never had to labor in the shadow of death—in mines and factories? What if all such dangerous jobs could, instead, be done by machines? Imagine the revolution that such an invention could bring. Imagine the working classes elevated to the leisure class. Imagine the power of all those brains set free from day-to-day drudgery. Imagine working on what you loved—your passion—liberated from worldly cares and danger and loss.”
As he spoke, imagery of the world set free from toil and suffering blossomed in Zoe’s mind. It was beautiful; Victor’s grand scheme was even more glorious than the plans pinned to his drawing board. She gasped at the plan’s brilliance. “I . . . I can see it!”
“If all that could be true—if we could make it happen—what a glorious, shining metropolis this city, indeed, the whole world, would become! Will you help me, Zoe?”
She took his hand, and his fingers felt soft and kind and oh-so-warm.
“I will. Of course I will.”
Von Lang put his hands on Zoe’s shoulders and massaged the tight muscles along the top of her back. “How’s it going?” he asked.
Zoe pushed the magnifier away from her face and pulled her glasses down from her brow. “I’ve never worked on a micro-motor this small—”
“Nobody has. Nobody even dreamed of it before we did.”
“Before you did. I’m just a mechanic.”
“And the best machinist in the world.”
“Anyway, I think we’ve just about got it. Whether the silicon-based oil you’ve formulated will hold up to the stress on so tiny a scale, that’s the key.”
“I assure you, it will. I didn’t make my fortune by screwing up basic chemistry.” He smiled at Zoe and her heart fluttered. In the twelve weeks they’d been working on Project Automata Futura, she’d come to admire Von Lang not only as an inventor but also as a man. Zoe hoped, with a complete lack of certainty, that Victor might feel the same way.
She flashed him a brief, nervous grin and then returned to her work. “And the alloy for the skeleton?”
“The foreman at my foundry says they’ll be ready to deliver the first batch by the end of the week. Then things can really get going.” He kept massaging her shoulders.
“That feels w–wonderful,” she cooed.
“I’m glad.”
“But my hands need to be completely steady to finish this delicate work.”
He turned her toward him, swiveling the work stool she sat on, and looked at her upturned face. “Then maybe we should finish the work later.”
Under the gaze of his sea-blue eyes, Zoe’s heart melted. She tried to stop herself from quivering as he leaned down and kissed her.
She failed in her attempt, so, still trembling, she threw her arms around him and kissed him back with all her might.
“Victor?” Zoe said, sitting up in the bed they’d shared for the past seven weeks.
His side was empty save for the shadows of the window panes cast in a checkerboard grid across the satin sheets.
She rose, naked, and tiptoed to the adjoining master bathroom. Victor’s quarters had been a mess when she’d first arrived at the laboratory, but the bedroom had transformed into a clean and sparkling retreat from the lab—as if by magic—the first night they slept together. It had remained neat and tidy ever since.
“Victor?” she called quietly outside the bathroom door.
She gently pushed the door open, but he wasn’t there—only darkness.
She took a silk robe from the dresser near the bed and threw it around her shoulders. A dim light shone from beneath the door that led to the laboratory.
A tingle ran up Zoe’s spine as she opened the door and padded across the lab floor. She knew where she’d find him: at the drawing board. She and Victor had run into a design problem with powering all the discrete elements in the mechanical skeleton, and he’d been tormenting himself about it for weeks. Often, she would get up in the night and find him working. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her, or want to be with her; it was just that his work—their work—kept driving him forward.
She tiptoed around the lab tables, the generators, and the machine tools, to the far side of the lab. Sure enough, Victor lay with his head on the drawing board, diagrams scattered around him, exhausted, sleeping. His eyelids twitched with troubled dreams. He hadn’t even bothered to dress.
Zoe’s heart went out to him. Poor darling. She gently stroked his forehead; he felt deathly cold.
She took off her robe and draped it around his shoulders. Then she put his right arm over her own shoulders and tried to ease him off the stool. “Come on, darling. Time for bed.”
He opened bleary eyes and gazed at her. “I have to work.”
“I know,” she said sympathetically. “But not tonight. Tonight you need to rest. Come back to bed. No more work.”
“But I have to,” he said. “Time . . . our time is so short!”
Though the lab was warm, goosebumps prickled Zoe’s s
kin. “Victor, is something wrong? Are you . . . ill? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“I . . . No. I’m fine. It’s just. . . .”
She embraced him, pressing his head to her naked breast. “Don’t worry, darling,” she said. “I won’t leave. We’ll see this through right to the end.”
He threw his arms around her, clinging, his body trembling as though he were crying, though his cheeks remained dry.
“Oh, Zoe . . . I . . . I don’t deserve you.”
She stroked his hair. “The world won’t end if we don’t solve this tonight—or even tomorrow or next week. The world’s survived without automata this long. It can survive until we get this done.”
He smiled at her, but she could see in his haggard eyes that he didn’t believe her.
“And we will get it done, together,” she said, leading him to the bedroom. “Don’t worry. We can start again tomorrow.”
Victor was up before Zoe the next morning, and working late again after she went to bed that night. In the days that followed, the pattern continued. She tried to keep up with him, tried to support him, but though they worked practically side-by-side, she felt more distant from her lover each day.
Even after they’d solved the power distribution problem, Victor’s mania did not stop. “Now we need to finish constructing the skeleton.”
“But it won’t even move without the clockwork brain,” Zoe said, “and we’ve barely begun designing that yet. Without the brain, the automaton won’t walk, it won’t move, it won’t do anything.”
“I have some thoughts about that,” Victor replied feverishly. “Once the skeleton is finished, I will supply the motive force. It will work. It has to!”
Her heart ached to see him like this. Yet what else could she do but support him and work as hard as possible?
Over the course of a week, the final form of the automaton took shape. Victor revised the designs as they went, tweaking here and there to make the form more functional. The hips flared out for more leverage and strength. The arms bowed slightly to carry objects. The chest cavity grew larger to house the ion batteries, the large electro-steam generator, and the interlinked series of micro-motors to supply energy to the machine’s powerful arms and the rest of its body. Tiny arrays of light-and-shape sensors, like miniature cameras, glistened in the automaton’s metallic eyes.
