The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk

by Sean Wallace

  “There’s clouds on the horizon,” Dorothy told them, and hoping the clouds were the gremlin disturbance she longed for. To fly again. To get in the sky and do something. She failed to keep the excitement out of her voice. “All things being unequal between here and there, I’d say we have as long as we like.”

  Instead of a Loving Heart

  Jeremiah Tolbert

  I hate it here. It is too cold for my motors, and it never stops snowing, but Dr Octavio says that the weather is conducive to his experiments. I’m still not certain that what he is working on isn’t meant to replace me. He tells me impatiently that it isn’t, but I live in constant fear of it. I have nightmares that he will withhold the fuel that is my sustenance, that my parts will run down slowly until they can no longer nourish my brain while the rest of me turns to red dust. No oil can would bring me back.

  It is a terrible sort of death; one that I could sit back and watch unfold in gruesome detail. I want to go quickly, when the time comes.

  We are somewhere among the tallest mountains of the world. When we arrived, I was locked away in a cargo hold, so I don’t know exactly where. Our home is a small, drafty castle and a separate laboratory. Dr Octavio had the locals construct the lab before he tested the new death ray on their village. There’s very little left there. In my little bit of spare time, I try to bury the bodies and collect anything useful to the doctor’s experiment.

  My primary duties consist of keeping the castle’s furnace running and clearing the never-ending snow from the path between the two buildings. Sometimes, it falls too fast for my slow treads and shovel-attachment to keep up with and I find myself half-buried in the snow. It is horrible on my gears when this happens, but I use heavy-weight oil now and it helps.

  It is one of the few benefits of my metal frame that I appreciate. Life in this contraption is like being wrapped in swaddling clothes. I wonder if I would feel anything if my casing caught on fire? I need to ask the doctor when he isn’t in one of his moods.

  I am plowing fresh snow from the path when the wind begins to blow harder than usual. I swivel my cameras and spot Lucinda’s flying machine landing on the rocky field behind the castle. Dr Octavio calls it a helio-copter. It is the perfect transportation for a jewel thief of her skill; painted black, with stylized diamonds on the sides. She calls it the Kingfisher because it can hover above her prey. It is faster and more agile than a zeppelin, her previous method of transportation.

  I feel a twinge of happiness that she has caught up with us, even though it will send the doctor into a fit of anger. Before the Protectorate destroyed our previous laboratory, they argued and she left without telling me goodbye. Dr Octavio grumbled the next day about money. Often, Lucinda became stingy and demanded “unreasonable results”, so said the doctor.

  Dr Octavio assembled this new fortress on a very tight budget. We have no automated machine-gun turrets, or shock troops. We do not even have rabid yetis to protect the compound. There is only me and my flamethrower attachment against whatever is out there. The death ray broke down due to the cold.

  I roll up the path as fast as my treads let me. Lucinda climbs out of the Kingfisher wrapped in a scarlet cloak, her trademark color. Her raven hair is braided into ponytail that flails in the wind like a dangerous snake. When she sees me, she smiles. I examine myself for a reaction. I cannot find one.

  I have no heart, like the tin woodsman from the Baum books I read as a child. Only he was lucky enough to lose his body a piece at a time.

  “Zed! What are you doing out in the cold?” she says. She uses the name Octavio gave me, Z-03. I try not to imagine what it was like for my predecessors.

  “I must keep the path clear of snow for the doctor,” I answer in my monotone, mechanical voice. I hate it nearly as much as the loss of my hands; I once prided myself on my ability to tell jokes. Now even the funniest punch line falls flat. “I saw you land. Come into the castle where it is warm.”

  She shakes her head. “I need to see Father immediately.”

  “He left me with orders that he is not to be disturbed.”

  Her smile fades. I cannot disobey Dr Octavio’s orders, she knows this. My body inflicts unbearable pain when I do.

  “Fine then. Lead the way.”

  I plow a path around the castle to the servant’s entrance into the kitchen and allow Lucinda inside while I swap my shovel attachment for my manipulators. They have pressure sensors.

  Inside the kitchen, I put a kettle on the stove while Lucinda warms herself beside the radiator. “The tea will be ready in a few minutes,” I say.

  She doesn’t answer, and I turn to see what has captured her attention. She has uncovered my easel and is looking at the latest of my failures. “Hmm? That’ll be fine, Zed.” She takes a seat at the small table in the corner. I recover the painting and roll to be opposite her. She reaches out and holds one of my manipulators in her hand. Six PSI. Six PSI.

  “What’s his mind like these days?” she asks. She looks at me when she speaks, unlike the doctor.

  “It’s fine,” Dr Octavio says, voice full of irritation, from the doorway. I hadn’t noticed the gust of cold air. How could I? “What are you doing in here?” He points at me. “You’re my servant, not hers. Get out there. I nearly broke my back on the ice, you useless heap of scrap!”

  When I see the doctor, I see him in his youthful prime. He has designed me that way. Where his aged voice comes from, I see a stretched-out man with fidgeting hands and fevered blue eyes. I know that he must be decrepit by now. I do not know exactly how old he is, but he rants about the American Civil War as if he were there.

  Lucinda gives me an apologetic look, and I roll outside, but stop on the opposite side of the door. I extend my microphone and maximize the gain.

  “I saw the village, or what was left of it anyway. So you’re a mass murderer now?” Lucinda shouts. “What did those people ever do to you?”

  “They knew too much,” Dr Octavio says, raising his voice to match hers. “The Protectorate found me too easily last time. No one must know we are here. But you needn’t worry. The death ray failed to function afterwards,” he grumbled, sounding like a child with a broken toy.

  “Thank God for small miracles,” she says. “I want to inspect the weapon, to be sure that you’re not lying again, Father.” It is quiet for a moment, and I fear that I might have made a sound. No one comes to the door. Finally, Lucinda continues. “What are you working on now?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that!” Dr Octavio nearly shrieks. “It’s not a weapon, if that’s what you want to know.”

  “It had better not. The Germans are looking for weapons, and if I find out you have been dealing with them, you will learn the true meaning of poverty.” If I could shudder, I would at the tone of Lucinda’s voice. She can become as cold as this mountaintop when dealing with the subject of money.

  They argue about money for an hour, and then the subject turns to Lucinda’s latest heists, so I hurry away to the path.

  I still sleep, much to the doctor’s dismay. Sleep is a requirement of the mind as well as the body. Mostly I have nightmares, but sometimes I have a real dream. I dream that I still have hands that can paint, that can sculpt, that can play the piano. In the dream I have six arms, and I do all at once. When I drift awake, there are only the manipulators, reporting pressure. Zero PSI. Zero PSI.

  Lucinda left in the evening, and Dr Octavio retired to his chambers. My internal clock tells me that it is six a.m. and I must wake the doctor. I take the crude elevator that he has rigged to allow me access to all the floors. His bedroom chamber is dark and baroque, full of intricately carved furniture. The set was a gift from Lucinda last Christmas, and somehow he managed to retrieve it from our previous fortress in the South Pacific.

  “Dr Octavio, it is a new day,” I say tonelessly. He groans and rolls out of the bed, apparently a well-muscled man in his mid-twenties. Well-endowed. He shuffles into the bathroom and waves me away. “Go clean
or something, Zed.”

  I obey.

  * * *

  Once, Lucinda asked Dr Octavio why he chose me, an unknown painter, to be the brain of his servant-machine. His reply is burned into my mind.

  “Because he is an artist. Art serves no purpose but to distract. How does it improve the lives of men? Science is ultimately the true path of all men, even artists like him. Unfortunately, he is stubborn.”

  Dr Octavio kidnapped me from my Paris studio, removed the brain from my body, and implanted it in a machine, to prove a philosophical point to no one in particular.

  That is how the man’s mind works.

  “Zed, I need your assistance in the laboratory,” he says to me from the doorway. His words hang in the air amid the fog of his breath. How long has it been since he last asked me to assist him?

  I turn from my shoveling and join him inside the laboratory. I wait for my lenses to clear. When they do, I see his latest experiment.

  Rows and rows of vacuum tubes connected with haphazard wiring line the walls, connected to more arcane machinery that I have no words to describe. Some of the machinery resembles parts of me, especially a manipulating arm that resembles mine, but significantly more advanced. I feel a deep pang of greed at the sight of it. The emotion surprises me, and I relish the sensation.

  “What is your bidding, Dr Octavio?” I ask.

  He motions toward the arm. “I need you to interface with this. Come over here.”

  Dr Octavio attaches me to the arm, and I flex it, checking the wiring. It seems good. It relays seven decimal pressures to my brain, far more sensitive than my own manipulators. “What would you like me to do with it?”

  He shrugs, his attention already returning to a workbench crisscrossed with wiring. “I don’t care. Give it a through testing for range of motion and dexterity.”

  “Can I retrieve a few things?” I ask.

  “Fine, but don’t be long. I have other tasks to attend to,” he barks.

  I collect my easel and paints from the kitchen and bring them to the laboratory. Dr Octavio impatiently hooks me to the arm again, and I take up my brush.

  An hour later, I want to weep. I haven’t been able to achieve this level of technique since Paris. I call for the doctor to inspect my work.

  He picks up the canvas and examines it passionlessly. He walks to the furnace and throws it inside the burner. “The quality of the arm is sufficient. You may go.”

  It is spring when Lucinda returns. The snow has turned into freezing rain, and I’ve been using my flamethrower to clear ice from the path for a week. Clean the path before sunrise because I cannot sleep. After the Doctor caught me using the arm late one night, he has kept the lab padlocked. He shattered the sculpture with a sledgehammer.

  Lucinda’s helio-copter lands quietly and I watch as she leads several gray-uniformed men to the laboratory. They make short work of the lock, and I hear them breaking things inside the laboratory. Several minutes later, they leave with armfuls of equipment. Lucinda walks down the path to me.

  “I’m sorry to do this to you, Zed,” she says, and I can see that her face is bruised. “I owe money to some people.” She stares at the castle for a moment, and then curses. “I’m sorry I’m leaving you here with him. One day I’ll come back for you.”

  “Will you be all right?” I ask.

  She forces a smile, and I almost believe her when she says yes. “There’s a war breaking out in Europe. The Germans have taken Poland. It will be a good time for someone in my profession.” The men come out of the helio-copter and shout down at us in German. They have guns. Lucinda walks back to the helio-copter, slipping only a little. She waves at me from the cockpit when the Kingfisher takes off.

  “Failed projects,” Dr Octavio says when he inspects the damage. “All junk. They damaged my masterpiece, but it will only take a week to get back up to speed.” He grins and rubs his hands together. He enjoys a good setback. They give him an opportunity to refine work that his manic brain would not otherwise allow.

  “What is this project?” I ask.

  “Why should I tell you?” He says and squints at me. “I’m not going to let you use the arm again. You’ll waste its potential on worthless doodles.”

  “Will it replace me?” I ask.

  The doctor muses for a moment. “I think that in the end, it will replace all of us.”

  “What is it?”

  He grins again. “It is my greatest invention. A machine that will be smarter than me. A thinking machine, capable of creating machines more intelligent than itself.”

  “How can you create a machine that is smarter than yourself? Isn’t that a . . . paradox?” I ask.

  Dr Octavio laughs. “No, it is not, but it is a good question. To create a mind smarter than my own, I only have to improve upon my design and give it a desire to further improve upon itself. By eliminating the flaws in my own mind, it will be superior. Then from its heightened perspective, it will analyze itself and continue to improve, all much faster at thinking than even the Human Adding Machine.” He taps his head. “It will be the Supreme Intellect, my ultimate achievement, and the ultimate achievement of science!”

  “So the arm is for creating?” I ask, fear growing in me. I can sense my brain sending signals to a non-existent body. Run. Do something. The body does not obey these primitive signals.

  “It will create others in its own image. I suspect humanity will become extinct in a century at the most,” he says. “I have more vacuum tubes being air-dropped this afternoon. Go wait for them, and bring them straight to me when they arrive.”

  I obey.

  There is no doubt in my mind that these machines will have no use for me. They will create themselves to be capable of serving all their needs. They won’t need assistants. Nor will they need artists.

  I roll down the unused road to the old village, keeping an eye on the sky for the airdrop. I maximize the gain on my microphone, listening for the hiss of radio static.

  I awake from my nightmares to the sound of explosions. The castle shudders beneath me. Outside, it is raining in the darkness. There are voices inside the castle, speaking in British accents. I can hear Dr Octavio calling for me above it all – he is using the radio commander. “Come quickly! Kill all who stand in your way!”

  I attach my flamethrower as quickly as my manipulators allow and then I roll out into the hallway. British commandos spill through a break in the wall. They ignite like cheap wax candles and flail around uselessly. I press past them toward the elevator.

  Dr Octavio has fallen silent, and I suspect he has been captured. When I arrive at the highest floor of the castle, a commando opens fire with a machine gun. Bullets ricochet from my armor-plating and kill him.

  Allen Stone, leader of the Protectorate, has Dr Octavio handcuffed to a chair. “Tell us where the super-weapon is, Octavio!”

  “What super-weapon?” the doctor asks. His eyes search around him wildly. Blood trickles from a cut in his upper lip. He sees me. “Zed, tell them I am not making a weapon!”

  I roll from the shadows. Stone and his men train their weapons on me. I can barely make the words. “It is in the laboratoryyy . . .” My mechanical voice shuts down.

  As my body shuts itself down, piece by piece, the world seems to speed up.

  Dr Octavio lurches forward in his chair roaring. One of the commandos spins and pulls the trigger. The gunshot deafens me, overriding all sound from my microphone. “Destroy everything down there,” Stone says on his radio. My microphone shuts down.

  Then the cameras. I am in darkness.

  It starts as a buzzing sound. Someone is speaking to me. My cameras come back on line and focus sluggishly.

  “He can hear me now?” Stone asks the balding technician in a white parka. The technician nods and backs away.

  “Stone,” I say.

  “Good. It’s time to leave,” Stone says, cigar clenched between his teeth. We stand on the open field beneath his zeppelin. The laborat
ory billows smoke below us. Nothing will have escaped the fire.

  “I am waiting for someone,” I say.

  He looks away uncomfortably. “That wouldn’t be Octavio’s daughter, would it? Infamous jewel thief Lucinda Octavio, aka ‘The Ghost?’”

  “Yes,” I say. I feel something familiar rising from the depths of my reptilian brain. Fear – I have almost missed you.

  “I guess you have no way of knowing, living out here . . .” His voice trails off. I stare at him. If he doesn’t say something soon, I will set ablaze with the remaining fuel in my thrower.

  “She’s been captured by the Nazis.” He pauses, considering his words. He stares at me with a perplexed expression, one I recognize as the result of searching me for outward signs of emotion. I feel sorry for him. “Seems she tried to steal from Hitler’s private stash. They’ve been trumpeting it in their papers and on the radio. Truth is, we’ve been afraid she would lead them to Octavio. That’s why we moved so quickly when you radioed us.”

  I try to pretend that I don’t feel anything. I don’t have a heart.

  “Look, mate,” Stone says, “come with us and you can make a difference in this topsy-turvy world. I can’t promise you anything, but maybe you can rescue her. British Intelligence has a lot of questions for her. What do you say, Zed?”

  “My name is not Zed,” I say. “But yes. I will come with you.”

  “What is your name then?”

  “Call me Tin Man.”

  Stone shrugs and walks up the ramp into the gondola hanging a few feet above the ground. I turn my cameras to watch the smoke from the laboratory for a few more minutes, until I can be sure that I will never doubt that every last bit of Octavio’s last experiment is gone.

  Steel Dragons of a Luminous Sky

  Brian Trent