Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl (12 page)

They stepped out into the sunshine just as the omnibus rattled through the village. Gideon paid the money and they were directed to a double seat halfway down the carriage. “The outlook is fine for London, today,” the driver said with a smile. “Perfect weather for lovers.”

Gideon flushed and tried to protest but Maria hushed him. She said, “Would you mind awfully if I took the window seat?”

As the bus steamed forward, Maria became lost in the countryside unfolding outside the window. Gideon reached into the cloth bag to count the remaining money, and his hand paused over the book. It was written in English, in diary form. Much of it was dense formulae and scientific jargon, but he reckoned he could get a sense of the book from the intermittent prose entries. He settled back in the seat and began to read.

January 11, 1888—
A most intriguing visit from a Mr. W, who represents the British Government and who I anticipated was here to, as the British say, “lean on me” to work faster toward our goal. I was all prepared to tell him going to the moon is not quite as simple as taking a train to Birmingham. But he came bearing gifts. A recent exploratory mission to the bed of the Atlantic Ocean by a Royal Navy submersible had uncovered the remains of a sunken Viking longship. Among the booty recovered from the wreck was a most unusual item that Mr. W. brought to me for my investigation, with the possibility that it might aid me in my endeavors.

So: The item appears to be of some kind of opaque glass, frosted with a slight yellowish tinge, almost as though it had been forged from sand. It weighs three pounds and has a size of seventy-five cubic inches, and it is shaped like a rough, slightly distended half-sphere, the top being smooth and bisected by a slight indentation, the underside sporting exactly one hundred symmetrically arranged holes, each an eighth of an inch in diameter, and one larger hole. If it is indeed glass, it is extremely tough; I made the mistake of allowing Crowe to hold it, and the damn fool let it slip from his fingers. It hit the floorboard of my workshop and did not crack, chip, or otherwise become damaged. Crowe’s mishap did, though, reveal a hitherto unseen mechanism allowing the flat bottom of the artifact to open on tiny hinges, revealing a hollow interior.

Quite what the point of it is, I am at a loss to explain. Other items from the longship have been dated at the tenth century ad, so all I can say for certain is it is very, very old and manufactured by a very advanced civilization.

February 23, 1888—
Investigations into the Atlantic Artifact have been sidelined of late, to allow me to concentrate on my work in other fields, but a strange occurrence today causes me to pick up my pen once more.

The artifact had been on my desk, gathering dust and proving no more use than a paperweight. But then Baxter, the venerable cat who patrols the grounds of the house, padded into my workroom bearing a present of a half-dead mouse, which he deposited proudly upon my desk, and the poor beast twitched as its life essence deserted it. It was then the development occurred. . . . Baxter had lain the mouse by the Atlantic Artifact, and almost immediately it was suffused from within by a red glow, faint but definite. I immediately placed both the dying mouse and the artifact in a glass fish tank, isolating them from external forces, and monitored the progress every ten minutes. Within half an hour the mouse had died. The red light continued to glow, and did so for a further seven hours, gradually dimming in the final sixty minutes. Curious.

March 14, 1888—
My dear Albert’s ninth birthday today. How I miss him and my darling Pauline. But the work the British Government has me doing here, while producing little of merit so far, is well paid, and they are both looked after in Munich, though I worry the constant infernal spats between the French and the Spanish will spill over into violence again, and Germany will be dragged into the hostilities.

The past three weeks have seen much progress with the Atlantic Artifact. I bade Baxter bring me more presents, and he obliged with a succession of dead and dying mice. The artifact seems to respond to living things as they are near death, and for a period of no more than seven hours after death has occurred. It is frightfully perplexing. Could I be on the brink of a major discovery? Is the artifact nothing less than an indicator or meter of the presence of the very soul?

March 21, 1888—
A major breakthrough, and one of those accidental (or is it?) moments of which great discoveries are made. I was looking through a book of underwater creatures and marveling at a very distinct picture of
Chrysaora fuscescens,
the Pacific Sea Nettle jellyfish. I was idly pondering how its gelatinous dome and trailing fronds looked remarkably like a brain with the spinal cord attached when it struck me like a thunderbolt. The Atlantic Artifact was the rough shape, size and weight of a human brain.

I have a small colony of frogs that I have been dissecting with the purpose of investigating the electrical impulses that power bodily functions. A small current applied to the nerve endings of a dead frog will cause the legs to twitch, and on an impulse of my own I rigged up a copper connector to one of the nerves of a recently deceased frog and inserted it into one of the many holes on the underside of the artifact, which glowed excitedly as I brought the animal to it.

The results were instantaneous. The frog’s right leg moved immediately, proving the artifact is possessed of some internal electricity-generating component. Marvelous, given the age of the artifact.

But there is more.

With the ordinary electrical impulse, the frog’s leg merely jerked and twitched. When plugged into the artifact— which I have already begun to think of as a “brain”—the leg performed a fluid, natural movement, exactly in the same way the living frogs in my colony moved when swimming. The artifact was not merely running a current and exciting the animal’s nerve endings, it was “remembering” how the frog would have moved in life, and replicating it.

I left the frog attached to the artifact overnight, and the next morning the artifact still glowed, much past the seven hour limit when it is merely adjacent to a newly dead beast.

I must investigate further.

March 23, 1888—
I have exhausted my colony of frogs. I tried different nerves and muscles attached to different housings in the base of the artifact. With one group, the forelegs moved. With another, the rear legs. I achieved a beating heart, an opening mouth and, with my final frog, I had the notion of placing its brain inside the artifact, which glowed brightly as though it somehow “approved” of this development. Within moments I gazed into the shining, unblinking, yet evidently seeing eyes of a frog dead for six hours.

I saw my own reflection in its black eyes. It was like seeing eternity.

Or perhaps God.

March 24, 1888—
I had Crowe capture a magpie in the garden and after some rough surgery I have managed to connect its spinal cord to a large copper attachment, which fits snugly into the largest hole on the base and up into the hollow space within the artifact, where I reattached the cord to the unfortunate bird’s brain. Immediately it began flapping around madly on the desk, its eyes swiveling, its ratcheting cries echoing around the room. I observed the thing for an hour before putting it out of its misery.

I need something bigger.

April 4, 1888
, I have a heavy heart, but I knew what I must do. It is what Baxter would have wanted, being a very scientific cat, and his sad but natural death affords me an opportunity. As exciting as the impulses from the artifact are, do they necessarily indicate anything more than an advanced form of electrical charge allowing the nerves to “remember” their function in life? The real test is whether individual tastes and even memories of a specific living thing can be carried over and recharged by the artifact after death.

I wasted no time in attaching Baxter. Oh, the joy at seeing his eyes open and look at me! A test was called for. Baxter had always been a contrary cat, and unlike his brethren shunned fish. But he had a great love for chicken. I had Crowe bring me two bowls, one of tuna and one of chicken, which I placed before the reanimated cat.

He went straight for the chicken! It was not mere automatic electrical impulses driving Baxter. He had been restored to his former life and memories. Or at least partially . . . although he expressed his former interest in food, he seemed to regard me with blankness, as though he did not remember me at all. The poor thing was in pain and I swiftly administered a large dose of morphine, to keep him alive but unconscious.

I am somewhat at a loss what to do next. I know what I
wish
to do, what
needs
to be done, but dare I cross that threshold? And, if so, how?

June 9, 1888—
More complications. Although the artifact gives life, it does not sustain it. I have had to allow poor Baxter to die a second death. His organs and flesh continued to deteriorate and putrefy, despite the reanimation, and he was in great pain even with the morphine. What use is returned life if the body continues to decompose? Conversely, Baxter’s brain remained in a state of preservation within the hollow of the artifact. I have heard of such things . . . experiments carried out with pyramidal shapes preserved foodstuffs longer than the same items kept within cubic boxes.

June 10, 1888—
I am once again indebted to Crowe for his observations. We were having lunch and he wondered aloud whether a brain attached to an artifact would power a non-living device, such as perhaps Bob or Maria. Bob, of course, is our lawnmower man, while Maria is perhaps my crowning achievement in the field of automata: a life-sized doll with such intricate clockwork workings she can perform astonishing feats of dexterity, and even dance. Hmm.

June 12, 1888—
Success, but of an abominable sort. I managed to transfer the artifact, containing Baxter’s brain, into the headspace of Maria. I connected her workings to the artifact and wound her up. She began to gambol about on all fours, sniffing at Baxter’s bowls and rubbing her torso against my leg, as though indeed a cat in semi- human form. It was quite disconcerting, though Crowe seemed to find it all delightful. I disconnected her at once and ordered Crowe to bury Baxter’s rotting corpse, brain and all. What is this strange device, and what can be its purpose? I dare not conceive of what I must do next. I dare not. But I must.

June 15, 1888—
Another visit from Mr. W, who was “just passing.” He wishes to know if my investigations into the Atlantic Artifact have borne much fruit. I did not reveal my full notes to him, but said progress was continuing apace. He asked pointedly if I required any further resources. I hesitated for but a moment. W. is a man of secrets and shadows, and while I do not feel he can be completely trusted, I imagine he is my best chance for what I require.

I told him I needed a fresh human brain.

He stroked his moustache and regarded me with a most ominous stare, but nodded. “Surprisingly, that is possible,” he said. “I shall be most interested to see what results from your experimentation, Herr Professor.”

What have I done?

June 29, 1888—
W. has been in touch. He has a brain for me. He did not reveal its origin, and I did not ask. It will be delivered within three hours.

There were no further journal entries. Gideon closed the book and let out a ragged sigh. He looked at Maria, who was still watching the countryside flash past. He asked gently, “What do you remember of when you first awoke in the Professor’s house?”

She turned to him and said, “We played a parlor game.”

“A parlor game?” Gideon frowned.

“Yes.” Maria smiled. “They call it the Imitation Game. Do you know it?”

“We had little time for parlor games in Sandsend, I am afraid.”

“One person plays the Interrogator, which was the Professor.

Then two people go into separate rooms. One was myself and one was Crowe. We had a cook, then, and she was the go-between. The idea was both Crowe and I had to make the Professor think we were a woman by way of answering his questions, which were delivered to us by the cook, who also noted down our answers and returned them to him. Crowe had to deceive the Professor and I had to try to convince him. It was quite fun.”

“What sort of questions? How was he to work out your answers?”

“Oh, logic, I think the Professor said. Things like, how long is your hair, do you wear skirts, how do you ride a horse?”

“And what was the result?”

Maria giggled. “What do you think? Crowe was hopeless at the game, while I managed to easily convince the Professor through my answers that I was the real woman.”

She smiled at the memory and turned back to the window, watching the fields that stretched along both sides of Route 1.

Gideon stared at Maria. Einstein had meddled in things he should never have touched. Maria was an automaton, a toy, but with a stolen brain. A pale imitation of a living woman. Had Professor Einstein created a monster? And had Gideon Smith unleashed it into the world?

She laid a hand excitedly on his arm, and if she noticed his involuntary flinch, she did not show it. “Look, Mr. Smith!” she said. “I can see London ahead!”

8
The Children of Heqet