Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded

by Jeff VanderMeer

  “Ted, ah yes. Ted. That’s a good name for...for...a new friend.”

  “That’s right!” Edwin brightened. “He’s my new friend. Watch, he can walk. Look at what he can do.”

  He pressed the switch and the clockwork boy marched in place, and then staggered forward, catching itself with every step and clattering with every bend of its knees. Ted moved forward until it knocked its forehead on the leg of a counter, then stopped, and turned to the left to continue soldiering onward.

  “Would you look at that?” Mrs. Criddle said with the awe of a woman who had no notion of how her own stove worked, much less anything else. “That’s amazing, is what it is. He just turned around like that, just like he knew!”

  “He’s automatic,” Edwin said, as if this explained everything.

  “Automatic indeed. Very nice, love. But Mr. Bird and Miss Emmie will be here in a few minutes, and the kitchen will be a busy place for a boy and his new friend. You’d best take him back downstairs.”

  “First I want to go show Mrs. Williams.”

  Mrs. Criddle shook her head. “Oh no, dear. I think you’d better not. She’s upstairs, with the other boys and girls, and well, I suppose you know. I think you’re better off down with Dr. Smeeks.”

  Edwin sighed. “If I take him upstairs, they’ll only break him, won’t they?”

  “I think they’re likely to try.”

  “All right,” he agreed, and gathered Ted up under his arm.

  “Come back in another hour, will you? You can get your own supper and carry the doctor’s while you’re at it.”

  “Yes ma’am. I will.”

  He retreated back down the pristine corridors and dodged between two empty gurneys, back down the stairs that would return him to the safety of the doctor, the laboratory, and his own cot. He made his descent quietly, so as not to disturb the doctor in case he was still working.

  When Edwin peeked around the bottom corner, he saw the old scientist sitting on his stool once more, a wadded piece of linen paper crushed in his fist. A spilled test tube leaked runny gray liquid across the counter’s top, and made a dark stain across the doctor’s pants.

  Over and over to himself he mumbled, “Wasn’t the lavender. Wasn’t the...it was only the. I saw the...I don’t...I can’t...where was the paper? Where were the plans? What was the plan? What?”

  The shadow of Edwin’s head crept across the wall and when the doctor spotted it, he stopped himself and sat up straighter. “Parker, I’ve had a little bit of an accident. I’ve made a little bit of a mess.”

  “Do you need any help, sir?”

  “Help? I suppose I don’t. If I only knew...if I could only remember.” The doctor slid down off the stool, stumbling as his foot clipped the seat’s bottom rung. “Parker? Where’s the window? Didn’t we have a window?”

  “Sir,” Edwin said, taking the old man’s arm and guiding him over to his bed, in a nook at the far end of the laboratory. “Sir, I think you should lie down. Mrs. Criddle says supper comes in an hour. You just lie down, and I’ll bring it to you when it’s ready.”

  “Supper?” The many-lensed goggles he wore atop his head slid, and their strap came down over his left eye.

  He sat Dr. Smeeks on the edge of his bed and removed the man’s shoes, then his eyewear. He placed everything neatly beside the feather mattress and pulled the doctor’s pillow to meet his downward-drooping head.

  Edwin repeated, “I’ll bring you supper when it’s ready,” but Dr. Smeeks was already asleep.

  And in the laboratory, over by the stairs, the whirring and clicking of a clockwork boy was clattering itself in circles, or so Edwin assumed. He couldn’t remember, had he left Ted on the stairs? He could’ve sworn he’d pressed the switch to deactivate his friend. But perhaps he hadn’t.

  Regardless, he didn’t want the machine bounding clumsily around in the laboratory—not in that cluttered place piled with glass and gadgets.

  Over his shoulder Edwin glanced, and saw the doctor snoozing lightly in his nook; and out in the laboratory, knocking its jar-lid knees against the bottom step, Ted had gone nowhere, and harmed nothing. Edwin picked Ted up and held the creation to his face, gazing into the glass badger-eyes as if they might blink back at him.

  He said, “You’re my friend, aren’t you? Everybody makes friends. I just made you for real.”

  Ted’s jaw creaked down, opening its mouth so that Edwin could stare straight inside, at the springs and levers that made the toy boy move. Then its jaw retracted, and without a word, Ted had said its piece.

  After supper, which Dr. Smeeks scarcely touched, and after an hour spent in the laundry room sharing Ted with Mrs. Williams, Edwin retreated to his cot and blew out the candle beside it. The cot wasn’t wide enough for Edwin and Ted to rest side-by-side, but Ted fit snugly between the wall and the bedding and Edwin left the machine there, to pass the night.

  But the night did not pass fitfully.

  First Edwin awakened to hear the doctor snuffling in his sleep, muttering about the peril of inadequate testing; and when the old man finally sank back into a fuller sleep, Edwin nearly followed him. Down in the basement there were no lights except for the dim, bioluminescent glow of living solutions in blown-glass beakers—and the simmering wick of a hurricane lamp turned down low, but left alight enough for the boy to see his way to the privy if the urge struck him before dawn.

  Here and there the bubble of an abandoned mixture seeped fizzily through a tube, and when Dr. Smeeks slept deeply enough to cease his ramblings, there was little noise to disturb anyone.

  Even upstairs, when the wee hours came, most of the inmates and patients of the sanitarium were quiet—if not by their own cycles, then by the laudanum spooned down their throats before the shades were drawn.

  Edwin lay on his back, his eyes closed against the faint, blue and green glows from the laboratory, and he waited for slumber to call him again. He reached to his left, to the spot between his cot and the wall. He patted the small slip of space there, feeling for a manufactured arm or leg, and finding Ted’s cool, unmoving form. And although there was scarcely any room, he pulled Ted out of the slot and tugged the clockwork boy into the cot after all, because doll or no, Ted was a comforting thing to hold.

  Morning came, and the doctor was already awake when Edwin rose.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Good morning, Edwin,” the doctor replied without looking over his shoulder. On their first exchange of the day, he’d remembered the right name. Edwin tried to take it as a sign that today would be a good day, and Dr. Smeeks would mostly remain Dr. Smeeks—without toppling into the befuddled tangle of fractured thoughts and faulty recollections.

  He was standing by the hurricane lamp, with its wick trimmed higher so that he could read. An envelope was opened and discarded beside him.

  “Is it a letter?” Edwin asked.

  The doctor didn’t sound happy when he replied, “It’s a letter indeed.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “It depends.” Dr. Smeeks folded the letter. “It’s a man who wants me to work for him.”

  “That might be good,” Edwin said.

  “No. Not from this man.”

  The boy asked, “You know him?”

  “I do. And I do not care for his aims. I will not help him,” he said firmly. “Not with his terrible quests for terrible weapons. I don’t do those things anymore. I haven’t done them for years.”

  “You used to make weapons? Like guns, and cannons?”

  Dr. Smeeks said, “Once upon a time.” And he said it sadly. “But no more. And if Ossian thinks he can bribe or bully me, he has another thing coming. Worst comes to worst, I suppose, I can plead a failing mind.”

  Edwin felt like he ought to object as a matter of politeness, but when he said, “Sir,” the doctor waved his hand to stop whatever else the boy might add.

  “Don’t, Parker. I know why I’m here. I know things, even when I can’t always quite rememb
er them. But my old colleague says he intends to pay me a visit, and he can pay me all the visits he likes. He can offer to pay me all the Union money he likes, too—or Confederate money, or any other kind. I won’t make such terrible things, not anymore.”

  He folded the letter in half and struck a match to light a candle. He held one corner of the letter over the candle and let it burn, until there was nothing left but the scrap between his fingertips—and then he released it, letting the smoldering flame turn even the last of the paper to ash.

  “Perhaps he’ll catch me on a bad day, do you think? As likely as not, there will be no need for subterfuge.”

  Edwin wanted to contribute, and he felt the drive to communicate with the doctor while communicating seemed possible. He said, “You should tell him to come in the afternoon. I hope you don’t mind me saying so, sir, but you seem much clearer in the mornings.”

  “Is that a fact?” he asked, an eyebrow lifted aloft by genuine interest. “I’ll take your word for it, I suppose. Lord knows I’m in no position to argue. Is that...that noise...what’s that noise? It’s coming from your cot. Oh dear, I hope we haven’t got a rat.”

  Edwin declared, “Oh no!” as a protest, not as an exclamation of worry. “No, sir. That’s just Ted. I must’ve switched him on when I got up.”

  “Ted? What’s a Ted?”

  “It’s my...” Edwin almost regretted what he’d said before, about mornings and clarity. “It’s my new friend. I made him.”

  “There’s a friend in your bunk? That doesn’t seem too proper.”

  “No, he’s…I’ll show you.”

  And once again they played the scene of discovery together—the doctor clapping Edwin on the back and ruffling his hair, and announcing that the automaton was a fine invention indeed. Edwin worked very hard to disguise his disappointment.

  Finally Dr. Smeeks suggested that Edwin run to the washrooms upstairs and freshen himself to begin the day, and Edwin agreed.

  The boy took his spring-and-gear companion along as he navigated the corridors while the doctors and nurses made their morning rounds. Dr. Havisham paused to examine Ted and declare the creation “outstanding.” Dr. Martin did likewise, and Nurse Evelyn offered him a peppermint sweet for being such an innovative youngster who never made any trouble.

  Edwin cleaned his hands and face in one of the cold white basins in the washroom, where staff members and some of the more stable patients were allowed to refresh themselves. He set Ted on the countertop and pressed the automaton’s switch. While Edwin cleaned the night off his skin, Ted’s legs kicked a friendly time against the counter and its jaw bobbed like it was singing or chatting, or imagining splashing its feet in the basin.

  When he was clean, Edwin set Ted on the floor and decided that—rather than carrying the automaton—he would simply let it walk the corridor until they reached the stairs to the basement.

  The peculiar pair drew more than a few exclamations and stares, but Edwin was proud of Ted and he enjoyed the extended opportunity to show off.

  Before the stairs and at the edge of the corridor where Edwin wasn’t supposed to go, for fear of the violent inmates, a red-haired woman blocked his way. If her plain cotton gown hadn’t marked her as a resident, the wildness around the corners of her eyes would’ve declared it well enough. There were red stripes on her skin where restraints were sometimes placed, and her feet were bare, leaving moist, sweaty prints on the black and white tiles.

  “Madeline,” Dr. Simmons warned. “Madeline, it’s time to return to your room.”

  But Madeline’s eyes were locked on the humming, marching automaton. She asked with a voice too girlish for her height, “What’s that?” and she did not budge, even when the doctor took her arm and signaled quietly for an orderly.

  Edwin didn’t mind answering. He said, “His name is Ted. I made him.”

  “Ted.” She chewed on the name and said, “Ted for now.”

  Edwin frowned and asked, “What?”

  He did not notice that Ted had stopped marching, or that Ted’s metal face was gazing up at Madeline. The clockwork boy had wound itself down, or maybe it was only listening.

  Madeline did not blink at all, and perhaps she never did. She said, “He’s your Ted for now, but you must watch him.” She held out a pointing, directing, accusing finger and aimed it at Edwin, then at Ted. “Such empty children are vulnerable.”

  Edwin was forced to confess, or simply make a point of saying, “Miss, he’s only a machine.”

  She nodded. “Yes, but he’s your boy, and he has no soul. There are things who would change that, and change it badly.”

  “I know I shouldn’t take him upstairs,” Edwin said carefully. “I know I ought to keep him away from the other boys.”

  Madeline shook her head, and the matted crimson curls swayed around her face. “Not what I mean, boy. Invisible things. Bad little souls that need bodies.”

  An orderly arrived. He was a big, square man with shoulders like an ox’s yoke. His uniform was white, except for a streak of blood that was drying to brown. He took Madeline by one arm, more roughly than he needed to.

  As Madeline was pulled away, back to her room or back to her restraints, she kept her eyes on Edwin and Ted, and she warned him still, waving her finger like a wand, “Keep him close, unless you want him stolen from you—unless you want his clockwork heart replaced with something stranger.”

  And before she was removed from the corridor altogether, she lashed out one last time with her one free hand to seize the wall’s corner. It bought her another few seconds of eye contact—just enough to add, “Watch him close!”

  Then she was gone.

  Edwin reached for Ted and pulled the automaton to his chest, where its gear-driven heart clicked quietly against the real boy’s shirt. Ted’s mechanical jaw opened and closed, not biting but mumbling in the crook of Edwin’s neck.

  “I will,” he promised. “I’ll watch him close.”

  Several days passed quietly, except for the occasional frustrated rages of the senile doctor, and Ted’s company was a welcome diversion—if a somewhat unusual one. Though Edwin had designed Ted’s insides and stuffed the gears and coils himself, the automaton’s behavior was not altogether predictable.

  Mostly, Ted remained a quiet little toy with the marching feet that tripped at stairs, at shoes, or at any other obstacle left on the floor.

  And if the clockwork character fell, it fell like a turtle and laid where it collapsed, arms and legs twitching impotently at the air until Edwin would come and set his friend upright. Several times Edwin unhooked Ted’s back panel, wondering precisely why the shut-off switch failed so often. But he never found any stretched spring or faulty coil to account for it. If he asked Ted, purely to speculate aloud, Ted’s shiny jaw would lower and lift, answering with the routine and rhythmic clicks of its agreeable guts.

  But sometimes, if Edwin listened very hard, he could almost convince himself he heard words rattling around inside Ted’s chest. Even if it was only the echoing pings and chimes of metal moving metal, the boy’s eager ears would concentrate, and listen for whispers.

  Once, he was nearly certain—practically positive—that Ted had said its own name. And that was silly, wasn’t it? No matter how much Edwin wanted to believe, he knew better...which did not stop him from wondering.

  It was always Edwin’s job to bring meals down from the kitchen, and every time he climbed the stairs he made a point to secure Ted by turning it off and leaving it lying on its back, on Edwin’s cot. The doctor was doddering, and even unobstructed he sometimes stumbled on his own two feet, or the laces of his shoes.

  So when the boy went for breakfast and returned to the laboratory with a pair of steaming meals on a covered tray, he was surprised to hear the whirring of gears and springs.

  “Ted?” he called out, and then felt strange for it. “Doctor?” he tried instead, and he heard the old man muttering.

  “Doctor, are you looking at Ted? You re
member him, don’t you? Please don’t break him.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, Dr. Smeeks was crouched over the prone and kicking Ted. The doctor said, “Underfoot, this thing is. Did it on purpose. I saw it. Turned itself on, sat itself up, and here it comes.”

  But Edwin didn’t think the doctor was speaking to him. He was only speaking, and poking at Ted with a pencil like a boy prods an anthill.

  “Sir? I turned him off, and I’m sorry if he turned himself on again. I’m not sure why it happens.”

  “Because it wants to be on,” the doctor said firmly, and finally made eye contact. “It wants to make me fall, it practically told me so.”

  “Ted never says anything,” Edwin said weakly. “He can’t talk.”