by L. C. Mawson
“What the devil happened up here?” Thomas asked as he bounded up the stairs to where the women were coughing in the hallway.
“We were experimenting,” Ivy told him. “Trying to get the steam less conspicuous. The mechanical brain creates far too much.”
“Mechanical brain?” Thomas asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, if you don’t mind the soot, I could show you,” Ruth said, giving up on her dress. It was definitely ruined but it, thankfully, wasn’t one of her good ones. She had quickly learnt her lesson regarding proper attire in the workshop.
Thomas narrowed his eyes in a way that suggested that he very much would mind the soot.
“It’s very impressive,” Ivy told him.
“Alright, fine. But I think you two are in need of a break. After you’ve shown me, you two should get cleaned up and I’ll take you out for lunch.”
Ruth hated eating out of the house, but Ivy was instantly ecstatic and she couldn’t bring herself to ruin the younger woman’s excitement.
“So, what exactly does this mechanical brain do?” Thomas asked as they entered the workshop.
Ruth began quickly wiping the soot off of it and making sure that none of it had gotten into the delicate systems housed within. Thankfully, everything seemed to be in order, she found as she tested it manually before closing the casing back up.
She went to the speaker and microphone next to each other on the table, both wired up to the brain.
“Can you understand me?” Ruth asked into the microphone.
“YES,” came the voice from the speaker. She had, unfortunately, had to use the Fralsen voice box temporarily, but she felt that she could tweak it in order to make it less grating.
“So it’s something to rival the Fralsens?” Thomas asked with a hum. “It will have to be good to disrupt their monopoly. People have been trying for years and no one is close.”
“If anyone can get there, it’s me,” Ruth told him as she placed her hands on her hips before returning to the microphone. “Can you identify me?”
“ANALYSIS OF VOCAL PATTERNS SUGGEST THAT YOU ARE LADY RUTH CONSTANCE CHAPELSTONE. ALIAS: THE OWL.”
“Should it have that information?” Thomas asked. “Who knows who it will tell.”
“Don’t worry, no one outside of this room will see it until I’m sure that it is up to my standards, which means that it will be more than capable of keeping the information to itself.” She turned to face Thomas with a glare, her hands still on her hips. “You’re not being excited. This is exciting.”
“This is potentially promising,” he corrected her. “Exciting is a bit of a stretch.”
“It recognised me based on vocal patterns. How is that not exciting?”
“Given that you and Ivy are the only two I can safely assume it has interacted with, and Ivy, no offence intended, has a particularly strong cockney accent, it’s not that exciting.”
Ruth sighed. “I thought it was exciting,” she grumbled as she returned to trying to salvage her dress.
“And I’m sure that I will also find it exciting once it actually rivals a Fralsen,” Thomas assured her. “And once you have solved the steam issue.”
“Ah, yes, well, about that. I was actually thinking about using aether instead.”
“No,” Thomas said immediately.
“Thomas, I can’t get what I need from steam alone.”
“Yes, but I would very much like the house to remain in one piece.”
“I can be careful.”
“This explosion says otherwise.”
“Thomas, please. Fralsen will surely be using aether within the next few years. We have to start now if we want to be competitive.”
Thomas sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine,” he eventually said. “I shall see about getting you an aether core, but I can’t promise anything.” He turned to Ivy. “If you get changed, we’ll go out for lunch now.”
Ivy nodded, hurrying out of the room.
“She seems more comfortable around you,” Thomas noted.
Ruth nodded. “I know I am not the most personable. I’m just glad that she appears to be used to me now.”
“Oh, I don’t think that was ever her problem.”
“There’s no need to make me feel better, Thomas. I know that I am an acquired taste.”
“I’m not saying it to make you feel better, Ruth.”
She frowned. “Then what do you mean?”
He sighed, folding his arms. “I mean that Ivy is a young woman who admired The Owl immensely, to the point at which she actively sought me out in order to work with him. She’s bright, in an environment that doesn’t value such things. I would put good money on her daydreaming of one day approaching The Owl and convincing him to take her on as his assistant. After many a late night toiling in the workshop together, he would be the first person to truly appreciate her worth.”
“And? Isn’t that what happened?” Ruth’s frown deepened. She was very confused.
“Well, yes, that’s my point.”
“What’s your point?”
Thomas sighed. “My point was that she probably had an amorous affection for The Owl.”
“Oh! So, she was disappointed when I turned out to be a woman?”
“Ivy doesn’t strike me as the type to discriminate when it comes to gender. I think she was more disappointed when you revealed that you were never attracted to anyone.”
“Oh,” Ruth said, feeling a little bad. She liked Ivy and didn’t want to have hurt her, no matter how unintentionally. “Well, perhaps Ivy should come with me next time I’m invited to some tedious social event. It would be far more interesting to help her to find a suitor than to force myself to make small talk.”
Thomas gave her a curious look.
“What?”
“Well... Are you not disturbed by the fact that she’s attracted to women as well as men?”
“No. She’s my friend.”
Thomas just kept on staring at her, before eventually saying, “Is it truly that simple for you?”
“She’s my friend,” Ruth repeated.
In truth, she hadn’t had many friends before, but she saw little that would make her turn on those she had.
“I had better hurry and get changed, otherwise Ivy will be furious at having to wait for lunch,” she said, deciding that she was done with the draining conversation.
7
“What’s this?” Ivy asked as Ruth passed her a bundle of dark blue fabric after they were done with their afternoon tea.
“A dress,” Ruth told her. “I thought that you should come with me to the ball tonight.”
Ivy shifted a little from one foot to the other, biting her lip as she looked over the dress.
“I really appreciate this, Ruth, but... I can’t accept it. The other people at the ball will take one look at me and know that I don’t belong. And I’m okay with that. I don’t want to spend an evening having them sneer at me.”
Ruth sighed, nodding as she folded her arms. “In truth, I don’t want that either. I’m not... I’m not good at making friends. As much as Thomas will be there, he often gets sucked into the crowd. Not to mention the number of men who will seek my attention.”
“Just start kicking ‘em in the groin if they give you too much hassle. Always worked for me.”
“I fear that would be more likely to make me a social pariah than anything else.”
“At least pariahs don’t have to go to balls they don’t want to.”
“Well, no. But I’m pretty sure my mother’s response would be to come down here herself to set me straight, and that is the last thing I want.”
“Not get on with your folks?”
“We have little in common. Except, perhaps, a passion for being well dressed, though our opinions on what that phrase means often differ drastically.”
“Harsh. I’ve always gotten on well with my mum.”
“And she approves of you working with me?”
/> “She can’t complain with what Thomas has been paying me.”
“No, I suppose not.” Ruth sighed once more. “Are you sure you won’t accompany me?”
“I don’t think that I’ve ever been more sure of anything else.”
A SINGLE HOUR INTO the ball, Ruth was ready to leave. The cacophony of music and chatter was giving her a headache and she was struggling to remain expressive.
“You’re making quite a few friends tonight,” Thomas noted as she sidled back up to him, hoping to convince him to take her back home.
“I am quite the thespian when I put my mind to it,” she replied with a tight smile. “But it’s getting late and I’m getting tired.”
“Ah. Of course.”
Ruth let Thomas make the farewells as she started to feel lightheaded. She desperately needed fresh air. It was a pity that there was so little of it in the city.
She clutched at her skirts, her fist grabbing and letting go of the fabric to a rhythm that soothed her, if only a little.
Thomas hailed a Fralsen-driven carriage to escort them home.
“WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE TAKEN?” the Fralsen shouted in its usual, grating voice.
Ruth let out a squeal of protest, her hands flapping against her skirts as she spun away from the noise.
“Ruth? Ruth, it’s okay,” Thomas tried to assure her, moving his hand to her arm.
She slapped it away, her words not coming fast enough for a gentler rebuke as her attempt to settle her hands seemed to have the effect of transferring her frustrated energy into tears.
She was crying in the middle of the street in a completely undignified fashion, but she wasn’t quite ready to share the confined space of the carriage with Thomas just yet.
“I’m tired,” she managed, in a feeble attempt at apology.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kept you out so late.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t say anything. I thought I could manage until we got home.”
She wiped away her tears with her handkerchief before hurrying to the carriage. The sooner they got home, the sooner she could hide.
AS SOON AS RUTH WAS home, she silently made her way to the workshop. Thomas, thankfully, knew enough to leave her alone.
She turned on the mechanical brain as soon as she entered the workshop, as had become her habit when Ivy wasn’t there. It needed to practice talking if it was ever going to rival a Fralsen.
“Good evening, Mech,” she said. Ivy had suggested the nickname, since “the mechanical brain” was a bit of a mouthful.
“Good evening, Lady Ruth,” it replied in a tone far more melodic and soothing than the grating yells of the Fralsens. “Have you had a pleasant day?”
She knew that it was a preprogrammed question, but it still lightened her heart a little.
“Not really,” she confessed. “I stayed too long at the ball and... Well, I had somewhat of an episode when I finally left.”
“An episode?”
She shrugged, forgetting that it couldn’t see. “When I get frustrated, it’s as if I’m a bottle of champagne that has been shaken too much. If not allowed proper time to rest, I simply explode. It does not help that I am so delicate as to be easily frustrated by unexpected noises or unpleasant textures. It leads to many a night like tonight.”
“That is not normal human behaviour?”
“No. No, it is not.”
Mech didn’t seem to have a response to that and Ruth didn’t blame it. She had only programmed it for so many responses and she was sure that most people would struggle to come up with something to say to her in that moment.
“It’s fine, Mech,” she assured it. “I simply need to be better about my limits.” Ruth hummed. “Actually, you might be able to help me track trends. If I can figure out when I am most vulnerable, I can plan my social calendar more effectively.”
“I would be happy to help.”
Ruth smiled, despite knowing that there was no way Mech could deny her request. It wasn’t a person; it was just a machine, but it was comforting to think otherwise.
She wished that Mech could accompany her out of the workshop. As much as she didn’t leave that often, it would have been comforting to talk to someone who wasn’t a real someone when she was frustrated. It would take away the embarrassment, which always delayed her calming down.
She moved over to the collection of projects she had been working on, humming as she went. It mostly consisted of a selection of clockwork limbs she had built to help amputees, like her grandfather. There were also a few plans for internal organs, but they were in the most initial stages. She needed a firmer grasp of biology before pursuing them.
But movement? Movement she had perfected.
How hard would it be to construct a human looking vessel for Mech?
She hummed as she started to get to work, and Mech joined in with chimes that sounded almost like a music box.
8
“What’s all that?” Ruth asked, as she and Ivy drank their tea with Thomas. He had started insisting on them all having afternoon tea together in an effort to see more of Ruth. With Mech’s progress coming along so well, she barely left the workshop. Its body was nearly complete and quite human looking, and its mind was capable of mimicking an almost natural conversation.
Thomas put down one of the many letters he was rifling through. “I have been contacted by many of my friends in recent months.”
“Really?”
“Yes. In fact, almost every unmarried friend who has met you has contacted me, enquiring about your availability.”
“Availability? We’re talking about marriage again? I thought I had been firm on the matter.”
Thomas sighed as Ivy stared at her teacup in an attempt to stay out of the conversation that was so blatant that even Ruth picked up on it.
“I am simply telling you that they have shown interest. I’m not asking you to do anything about it. I just wish that I had a good excuse to give them. Most have only met you briefly. Some have only seen you at balls and simply wish the opportunity to talk with you. It’s difficult to give them a reason as to why.”
Ruth huffed, but didn’t have an answer for him. She knew that ‘she doesn’t want to marry’ wouldn’t be taken as an acceptable answer. She would be expected to find a husband eventually. And eventually was approaching far sooner than she would like.
Ivy cleared her throat a little, finally seeming to have given up on staring at her tea cup. “I was just thinking,” she ventured. “Why don’t you tell them that she’s already being courted?”
Thomas waved his hand dismissively. “They would ask who the suitor is. It would be difficult to invent and maintain the illusion of an imaginary man.”
“Well, aren’t you already doing that? With The Owl, I mean.”
“Yes, and look how well that’s turning out.”
Ruth shook her head, her fingers tapping on the table as she thought. “No, I think Ivy might have a point. I could just say that I’m involved with The Owl.”
“But we’re already having a problem with that little masquerade. Making it more complicated won’t help matters.”
“I don’t see how it would make it worse,” she countered.
Thomas stared, though Ruth knew that he wasn’t truly looking at her. It was the look he had when he was processing a particularly extraordinary idea of hers. His mind needed time to catch up.
“No,” he finally agreed. “I don’t suppose it could possibly make it worse at this point, could it? Your mother most likely won’t be happy with the falsehood, but I doubt she would go so far as to out you. However, this doesn’t change the fact that The Owl doesn’t exist.”
“Apart from James’ pestering, no one has seemed too dubious of our story that he is simply reclusive. With my own nature, most will probably think it’s a good match.”
“Well, quite. Though there will come a time when people will expect a wedding, and you cannot marry a man who does not exist.”
Ivy let out a small laugh. “I don’t know any other woman who is so keen to age.”
“Do not misunderstand me, Ivy, I do greatly appreciate my looks. I just wish everyone else would appreciate them a little less. Or do so from afar.”
“Ah yes, how terribly inconvenient it must be to have such beauty.”
Ruth knew that she was joking, but it still stung. “Don’t be so glib,” she said, in a tone she hoped was equally joking, instead of betraying the twisting of her insides. “I was simply being honest.”
Ivy nodded, seemingly catching onto Ruth’s discomfort.
“Anyway, we should head back to the workshop. We still have the eye problem to fix.”
“The eye problem?” Thomas asked. “What eye problem?”
“Mech has none. His body won’t get him far without any.”
“That’s not true,” Ivy countered. “Old Guinevere, who lives down the street from me, has been blind since she was a little girl. Mum said it was illness. Almost killed her. But Guinevere worked her whole life and has six grandchildren, so she must manage somehow.”
“Hmm. Perhaps we’ll hire this Guinevere to teach Mech how to get about without any sight if we can’t figure out eyes for him.”
Thomas frowned. “Surely, you can use cameras of some kind?”
“Cameras are not swift,” Ruth reminded him. “Nor are they particularly compact. These need to fit in his head.”
“Well how do Fralsens see to drive?”
“They don’t. They have an inbuilt map of London and all road users have little transmitters which alert the Fralsens to their proximity. Anything more complex than that is beyond us.”
“Fair enough. I shall leave that to you. But a blind mechanical man will be difficult to sell.”