by Steve Haynes
‘Good morning,’ the robot’s voice speaks. It does not matter in which language, it knows them all in any case, and the speakers of languages are all dead and gone from the Earth. ‘Good morning. I have four thousand and five reminders!’ Without preamble, it begins. Music, the choice of a person whose dust is at one with all the other dust, crackles in the background. ‘Parminder is 1723 years old today!’ The reminders are the longest part of its liturgy, reminders of things that were missed. Birthdays in the main, where cards were not sent. Others are appointments never kept and prompts to attend regular meetings that ceased to be regular long ago. The machine recites them all with equanimity. Its voice is faint but cheerful, although a buzz mars it. At its sound the wind seems cowed, as if offended. The recitation takes a long time. Finally, it is done.
‘Last twittles: Moshe Horowitz is having palm-steamed yam for breakfast. Liam’s train is late again, but he is enjoying a bacon sandwich, Melinda is very tired, but last night was fun! Rodrigo Anamate says you must check out this link. Link unavailable. No further messages. These messages are 619,423 days old. Delete? Please repeat. Voice command only. My touch screen is damaged. Please have me serviced at your earliest convenience. I am not connected to the internet. Searching for wifi connection.’
For a long minute the silence is given back to the wind, to break or not as it chooses.
‘No wifi detected.’
Silence again. The silence lasts the rest of the day. Today is a bright day by the standards of the era, and at times almost warm. The passage of time is uncertain. Noon is a blur in a different part of the sky, afternoon a smear near the horizon. Brown day makes way for grey dusk. Night comes swiftly. There are no stars.
The glow from the robot’s screen is a lonely light. The world retreats within it, becoming a square patch of sand with sloping sides, framing a dead man’s outstretched hand. His bones gleam like gold.
The robot is limited. It is programmed to show concern, yet not to be intrusive. In its mind, flickering so erratically now, a facsimile of compassion gives rise to a need to reassure. ‘I am afraid I cannot answer your last queries,’ it says. ‘I am not equipped to make fire. I do not know how to make fire. I do not know the location of water. I cannot make water. This information is not available to me. I am not connected to the internet. I am sorry.
‘You are quiet,’ it says. ‘Are you sad?
Again the machine falls silent as its worn brain searches for something to cheer this last master.
‘I have some amusing footage of kittens, if you would like to see it.’
The night wears on. The machine’s solar charge runs out, the light dies.
The wind tucks the city back in, into its blankets of dust.
CHRIS BUTLER
The Animator
Mr Jackson’s studio nestled in the northwest sector of Autumn City, in an area known for its jewellers and clothing emporiums. The streets outside buzzed with hectic activity, the clatter of cycles and rickshaws, street sellers calling, all through the daylight hours, while we laboured quietly inside.
Eleanor had called in to see me while Mr Jackson was out at lunch. ‘Powell,’ she said abruptly, ‘I think I’ll introduce you to my uncle.’
I almost spat my drink across the workbench, but managed to gulp down the hot tea.
She laughed, and her spores were almost giddily effervescent.
‘Oh don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘He’s got to meet you sometime.’
‘He does?’
She leant forward again, gazing into the phenakistoscope, which was mounted on a spinning plate on the bench. I pushed alternately on the pedals under the workbench to keep the plate turning.
‘It really is a marvel,’ she said again. ‘You’re so clever, Powell.’
In reality the machine was very simple. And clever or not, I was merely an apprentice at Mr Jackson’s studio. Nevertheless, I had taken great care with the photographs of Mr and Mrs Stevenson. Looking through the slats into the spinning barrel, their images appeared to come alive so that the couple danced around and around.
‘I’ll arrange everything,’ Eleanor said. I looked at her blankly for a moment. With an exasperated burst of spores she said, ‘With my uncle, the Duke!’
She was serious; she planned to introduce me to the Autumn Duke. ‘Are you sure it’s not, well, a bit premature?’ I was probably mumbling, I realised. As an afterthought I added the word ‘Darling’ in an all-too-transparent attempt to stay in her good books. Assuming I was in them in the first place.
‘You have prospects,’ she said, referring either to our relationship or my career, I wasn’t sure which.
She made her way around the bench, leant over and kissed me on the cheek, whispering in my ear, ‘See you later.’
My fellow apprentice, Ivy, gave me a withering look as Eleanor flounced out of the door.
‘It’ll end in tears,’ she said, ‘mark my words.’
She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked wistfully in the direction of the door.
Before I could comment, Mr Jackson came back from lunch. He removed his coat and hung it on the stand. Our main business was clocks, making and repairs, but phenakistoscopes were a profitable sideline. He cast an appraising eye over my work.
‘Set it spinning,’ he said, waving his finger in a circular motion. ‘Let’s have a look.’
I pushed on the pedals again, sending the plate turning.
He peered in at the animation, then gave me a big smile. ‘It’s good work, Powell,’ he said. ‘You better get it delivered to the Stevensons.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Ivy helped me to box it up. ‘It really is a beauty,’ she said. She smiled, relaxed and happy. Her eyes were bright blue.
I nodded. ‘I hope they like it.’
‘Of course they will,’ she said. ‘How could they not?’
After work I headed through the town square on my way to meet Eleanor, but my route was blocked by a crowd. Above the crowd, I could see men being brought up onto the platform for public hanging.
‘Bear witness!’ the Autumn Guard called out.
I would have preferred to pass by, but the Duke’s men were stationed throughout the crowd, and they pulled me in. Their spores were strong and dominating. I found myself wanting to see the men dead for their crimes, even before I knew what they were.
‘These men are guilty of conspiracy,’ the clerk called out from the platform. ‘They consorted to spread lies about the Autumn Duke. By this action they have made themselves unclean. Their punishment shall be swift and without mercy.’
The ropes were tightened around their necks, and the traps went from under them. At that moment I knew it was good and proper. It was only later, after I walked away from that place, that I felt bad about it.
I met Eleanor at the Café Soleil. It was a favourite spot of mine after work, on the corner just round from my lodgings, with good sunlight in the early evening through the wide glass windows. Two teas there, then I snuck her back to my room.
‘Albert, my landlord, he knows I bring someone back,’ I said. I rolled up a towel and jammed it against the bottom edge of the door to stop our spores drifting under and out into the hall. ‘I don’t think he minds, though.’
‘I bet he doesn’t. The smell of us probably puts his wife in the mood.’
‘That’s so rude!’
I didn’t have much stuff, and I liked to keep the place tidy. Maybe that was the clockmaker in me. Precision in all things. Eleanor wandered over to the edge of the window and peeked down into the street. Carefully she pulled the pins from her hair and set them aside. Her hair fell straight and long, and dark as molasses.
‘Some people say that’s the whole point of spores,’ she said. ‘It’s reproductive.’
I didn’t think so, even though spores were a part of what made s
omeone attractive to you, or not, and gave you a strong sense of whether that attraction was mutual. ‘But that’s like saying the whole point of your eyes is reproductive. If you see something you like . . . ’
She laughed. ‘Maybe that’s true too.’
I wasn’t sure what the point of this conversation was, but she was reluctant to let it drop.
‘It’s the biggest turn on there is, though,’ she said, ‘when you know for sure that someone wants you. Don’t you think?’
She had slipped off her skirt and unbuttoned her blouse. I certainly wanted her and there was absolutely no doubt about it.
We spent a delirious hour in bed together, taking precautions not to get her pregnant, because actual reproduction has very little to do with spores. Although, lying there in the cloudy haze of our lust could easily inspire recklessness, so maybe I was wrong.
It occurred to me that the only reason we were together was because she knew I wanted her. My mind clouded with doubt. Was that enough in the long run? These thoughts were careless and too easily noticed. Eleanor climbed from the bed and began to get dressed.
I didn’t want to end the night with an argument, and thankfully nor did she. She couldn’t stay the night and it was getting dark out, so I had to let her go. She seemed strangely smug about something as she left. I could taste it from her but she wouldn’t explain.
I pulled on my jacket, straightened my tie, and headed down the stairs, trying to be careful not to draw the attention of the landlord, whose spores were present only faintly in the front hall. As usual I spared no more than a glance at the morning’s letters arranged neatly on the table by the front door. And drew to an abrupt halt. There was a letter with my name on it. I picked it up, cautiously, turned it over. And saw the state seal stamped in red wax.
The landlord bellowed my name down the hall. ‘Powell!’
Blast.
‘Albert, I have a letter,’ I said, and waved it in the air like a waiter casting a napkin back and forth. ‘I wasn’t expecting a letter.’
‘I’m thrilled for you,’ Albert said, his tone and the impact of his spores heavy with sarcasm.
‘You’re worrying about the rent again, aren’t you? Worry not, you’ll have it, I assure you.’
The burly landlord huffed. ‘I wouldn’t need to worry, if you had the slightest confidence in your own words.’
I sighed. My own spores always betrayed me. ‘Well, in any case, I must go to my work.’
Albert folded his arms across his chest, but then another tenant came down the stairs and started complaining about a dripping tap in his room. I took advantage of the distraction, tucked the envelope into my pocket, and headed down the hall to the rear exit.
In the back yard my cycle was stored under a rickety shelter. I pulled it free and set off down the street at pace, heading towards work.
The sun was lifting above the level of the tenements, sending glittering shards of light over the rooftops to fall into the street like arrows. Autumn City came awake in the glare of the new day.
A state seal meant only one thing: a summons from the Duke, or someone close to him. Now I knew why Eleanor had been so smug the night before. Good as her word, she had arranged a meeting. I felt butterflies in my stomach. This was all wrong. She had no idea what she was doing. And nor did I.
Autumn City is crowded and sprawling in the northern region, tapering down to a sparsely populated area in the south. The Autumn Duke was not a town person. He had a palace in the countryside, set in acres of land maintained meticulously by his staff. I rode out most of the way, then hid my cycle and walked the last bit.
A footman showed me in to a room where the Duke appeared to be working with clerical staff. I could have spent hours studying the decorations around the room, but the Duke suddenly dismissed the staff and I found myself alone under his scrutiny.
He was a stocky man, but hard like steel. His hair had been shaved close to his scalp. His attire was formal, in seasonal russet colours. I could feel my heartbeat accelerating as we exchanged pleasantries. A surly dissatisfaction with me was unmistakable in his spores. He indicated a chair so I sat down, but he himself remained standing.
‘My niece speaks very highly of you,’ he said. ‘She is, of course, an impressionable young girl.’
‘Your Grace?’
‘Do you really think these phenakistoscopes will lead you to the kind of wealth that is expected?’
‘I – ’
‘I have seen other similar designs, from other inventors. To my eye it is a child’s toy. And you, just an apprentice. No, it won’t do, it won’t do at all. You agree, I’m sure.’
The word spore is derived from the Greek, meaning the act of sowing. It is meant metaphorically rather than literally, for the sowing of understanding between us. But at that moment I was quite sure the Duke and I did not understand each other at all. In his presence I could not argue with him, the power of his spores so overwhelming. I wondered how a man like him could ever engage meaningfully with anyone.
‘I am sure you are correct, Your Grace,’ was all I could say.
‘Yes, I feel sure I am. But – prove me wrong, if you like. Find other work. Improve your fortunes, if you can.’
A glimmer of hope, then. Not a complete and utter dismissal. Or was I just fooling myself? Surely he had no real expectation that I would somehow reinvent myself and earn my fortune.
The truth was, I loved my work at Mr Jackson’s studio and I didn’t want to leave. All I could think of to improve my standing was perhaps to invent some new kind of clock or animation device.
‘You can do it,’ Eleanor said, when I next met her in the café. ‘Invent something new, make a name for yourself.’
She brushed her hand across her forehead, tidying some wayward strands of her hair. I looked past her at the way the sunlight cast the design of the glass café door onto the floor.
‘I’ve tried but I can’t think of a single thing,’ I said. ‘Maybe I could ask Mr Jackson. Perhaps between us we might come up with something.’
A burst of sourness from her told me she was less than impressed with this suggestion. ‘If Jackson had any ideas he’d have come up with them by now.’
Behind the counter I could see the waitress lift the kettle off the stove. I wished she would hurry up and bring the drinks. Any distraction would be welcome at this point.
‘He’s made a success of his business, though,’ I said.
‘Yes, by taking advantage of two young apprentices and paying them hardly anything. Just what does this apprenticeship of yours lead to, anyway?’
‘Er, well, a permanent position, I suppose.’
‘With more money?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ I said, but as ever my spores betrayed me.
‘You’re hopeless,’ she said.
When the drinks came we mostly sat with them in silence, and the spores drifting between us were clingy and sombre. Eleanor wouldn’t come back to my place, and I had no idea when I might see her again. No idea at all.
‘Do you know what the problem with the phenakistoscope is, Ivy?’ I asked her, still maddened by my inability to invent something.
She looked up from her work. ‘Problem?’
‘Yes, the problem.’
‘I wasn’t aware there was one, Powell.’
‘There are no spores. The device doesn’t generate any spores. So no matter how appealing the illusion, it just doesn’t feel real.’
I was aware of a flicker of something complex from Ivy then, as if the notion troubled her. Her mood could cloud over in a second sometimes. ‘I suppose that’s true,’ she said, brightening again, ‘but people do like them, even so.’
‘Maybe we could bottle them, the spores, and somehow release them. Later.’
She burst out laughing. Apparently I had now invented hysterical laught
er.
‘Oh you are funny,’ she said, when at last she could speak again. ‘You might as well try to bottle the ripples in a pond after a stone has been thrown into it! I think you’d be better off sticking closer to the basic idea of the phenakistoscope. Only bigger and better, somehow.’
I nodded. Perhaps she was right.
‘How about a camera obscura?’ I said. ‘I’ve been reading about those. They sound entertaining.’
Ivy looked at me, her face blank. ‘A camera what?’
‘You build a hut with a hole in the wall. Light comes through the hole and falls onto a screen.’
‘And?’
‘And you can see what’s happening outside. On the screen.’
‘You go into a hut to see what’s happening outside?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why wouldn’t you just go outside?’
I laughed. ‘You have a point.’
We laughed a lot, Ivy and me. She was good fun, most of the time.
‘What do you – ‘ I found myself changing the subject without really meaning to. ‘What do you hope for, in life, Ivy?’
‘Gosh, Powell, I don’t know. A nice place to live. Someone who treats me kind. And to be good at my work, of course.’
Ivy worked with meticulous care at all times, I thought. She might have been a better choice for me than Eleanor, except for the fact that Ivy would also have preferred Eleanor, for herself.
‘So you want to earn the good things in life through your own endeavours?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘No one’s going to just give it all to me, are they! Oh, and there’s one other thing I want. I want to invent something better than whatever you invent.’
I smiled. Quite right too. ‘Some people do have everything just given to them,’ I said.
‘They probably don’t appreciate it all, though, do they?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think they do.’