Automatic Woman Read online

  “Careful not to touch her detective, she’s quite fragile.”

  The naked figure strode towards me, legs shuffling in tiny lock steps. I looked from her breasts to her face. It was heart shaped and the same milky complexion as the rest of her. Her hair was spun glass; it reflected the flames of every lamp.

  Nouveau rang his bell again. The goddess lifted a pitcher from the table and poured me a cup of wine. In the close proximity I heard the tiny clicks on pendulums, the whir of gears.

  “She’s an automaton!”

  “Oh yes,” said Nouveau. “She’s my prize.”

  He rang the bell and his naked statute brought the pitcher to his goblet. She poured him a drink.

  “Is that the Swan Princess?”

  Frenchy giggled as he sipped wine.

  “No. This creature can serve wine, stand, sit, and look pretty. She’s a four-thousand quid serving wench with jeweled teats.”

  I looked again and realized her nipples actually were rubies. So much for metaphor.

  “So the good doctor lost his Swan Princess?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “and smart fingers point to you.”

  “You need to find smarter fingers, monsieur.”

  “Cheaper ones too, I think,” I shot back.

  “I didn’t take her…” Frenchy turned thoughtful; he downed his wine goblet.

  “Can I make a proposition?” he asked.

  I was interested. “Sure Jacques, discretion is my Christian name.”

  “If you find her… if you find the Swan… bring her to me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He wrung his little bell. Naked and beautiful filled his cup again. He didn’t give her a second glance.

  “Saxon found something. I don’t know how he did it.”

  “Be specific, and maybe this can help all parties,” I said.

  “That man kept his lovelies under close watch. I know what he was doing, because men who make automatic women are a small community, and we buy our sprockets and ball bearings from the same marketers, yes?”

  “Makes sense. Go on.”

  “I heard he was in the business, but he never showed off his creations. He is a selfish old man, hoarding those pretty dancers. They dance for him alone and he lives to watch them. He did something, but I’m not sure what.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Keep a secret, monsieur? Actually, I don’t care if you do.The whole world can know. I broke into his theater. Hirelings watched his door for me, and when he took his morning constitutional I went through an alley window. I saw his dancers up close.”

  “I did too.”

  Frenchy leaned back and rang for another refill.

  “Then that makes three of us.”

  His gorgeous automaton poured more wine.

  “So I climbed through the doctor’s window. All his little creatures were placed on the stage just so. I inspected their bodies. His were no better than mine. Ivory on the women, pine on the men, glass and gems for all the parts that sparkle. I thought ‘this man is not superior to me…’ but then…”

  Nouveau took another sip of wine. He set his goblet down and stared at me in silence. The bastard knew he was in charge of this conversation. I needed to know what came next, he was testing my patience.

  “Alright, I’ll bite. What happened?”

  “I was inspecting the prince when the princess turned her head. I wasn’t expecting any movement. These things run on auditory commands… bells, whistles, tunes and the like. I was standing in a thief’s silence and yet she moved. She turned her body toward me, hands raised in the air like one of Mary Shelley’s creatures. I stood, awestruck. She bounded across the floor in a series of pirouettes and leaps. Her feet wouldn’t let her walk, but she was mobile in dance and she came to me.She came to me, monsieur, and wrapped her arms around me.”

  “And you?”

  “I was stunned, and aroused. Never before have I been so aroused by man or woman or any other thing.”

  Spoken like a true Frenchman.

  “She looked at me with her crystal eyes and I swear to you right here, right now. She tried to speak!”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing, of course. Her mouth opened and I heard the whir and ticking of her parts. She shook her head, closed her mouth and opened it again, like a fish fighting for air. Her hand touched my cheek and her mouth opened wider. I noticed at this time that the doctor had lined her mouth with real human teeth.Some were damaged, cracked, like a person who grinds their teeth in their sleep.

  “It was the cold brush of her hand on my face that brought me back to reality. This thing should not be capable of what it was doing. I hate to admit, I fled the girl. I ran like a coward.”

  Nouveau swallowed the rest of his wine and rang the bell.Like clockwork, his serving woman refilled the glass, each movement identical to the last.

  “My sweet wench employs over twenty thousand gears. She is the cutting edge in all circles that care about such things, but she does nothing but serve wine. She doesn’t move unless prompted, she doesn’t smile or bite or do anything but walk, and grip, and pour. Dr. Saxon has done something… unnatural. His automatic woman, the way she moved, the way she grabbed me. It was like she was curious. There is no way to make gears do that, Mr. Fellows.”

  I looked to my goblet of wine. I was tempted to down it but resisted. Frenchy’s words had rubbed me wrong, unsettled me. I knew if I started to drink, I’d be tempted to leap down the rabbit hole.

  “Look, Nouveau. You’re in the know, and I need to find this thing.”

  “If I find her, monsieur thief catcher, I’ll let you know.But I will look at her first. I will look inside of her. I have to see her parts.”

  The Frenchman downed another goblet of wine. I noticed for the first time that he was absolutely pissed. Shite-faced. Eye-watering, slurry-speeched, imbalanced, pissed.

  “I will look at her. I will take off her skin and see what makes her curious. And if you find her, bring her to me.”

  I stood up.

  “You keep the line open, Jacques, or you’ll have trouble from me.”

  I left Nouveau’s gallery. It was coming upon the dinner hour, and yet Nouveau’s words kept scrolling through my mind. I hadn’t realized I’d been returning to Saxon’s theater until the hansom dropped me off. I honestly don’t remember giving the driver Saxon’s address, but there I was.

  The door was ajar, strange for a man of solitary and secretive practices. I pulled the bell cord regardless. No one responded so I let myself in.

  The lobby was unchanged from my last visit. I stood there feeling like a fool; maybe Nouveau was having a laugh and I’d got caught up in a spook story. I was about to leave when I heard a groan. It was soft, but somehow amplified by the silence of the lobby. I unsheathed my weapon, a collapsible baton issued to all of us in the Bow Street Firm. A telescoping steel rod some of my mates call “The Cobra,” though I’ve never asked why.

  I crept into the theater. All was dark except for a lone spotlight centered on the stage. Dr. Saxon’s dancers were gone and replaced by a scene that will forever haunt me.

  They were together on center stage, bathed in the spotlight. The doctor was laid out, limbs splayed. The automatic woman, Dr. Saxon’s Swan Princess, held his body against hers, like a mother cradling a child. He issued another low groan.

  I crept closer. No one else moved, not the princess, not the doctor. Regardless, I snapped my cobra to full length, if for nothing but my own confidence. I crept onto the stage; blood pooled under the doctor and seeped into the hardwood. Thick red stains ran up the Swan Princess’ arms.

  “Doc?” I called out.

  He let out another low groan. The princess squeezed him tighter in her arms. The doctor’s legs kicked in convulsion. It was then that I knew she was crushing him, that Dr. Saxon’s beautiful Swan Princess was squeezing the life and blood from his body.

  This was my time to shine. I may not understa
nd automatics or gear ratios or any of that rot, but I understand violence. Violence and I are old acquaintances.

  I roared like a lion and struck the Swan Princess with my cobra. Her head rotated a one-eighty; her mouth opened, showing off teeth lacquered with the old man’s blood. He kicked and squirmed and I struck again. The tip of my rod whipped across her brow, shattering a crystal eye. I whipped the cobra again across her face, cracking the ivory of her forehead. A tuft of rendered silk hair flew to the back stage. I struck her arms and her shoulders. Bits of ivory littered the stage and yet she held. She held until the old man stopped convulsing, until he was still… and then she let him go.

  I yelled again, a wordless animal yell of frustration. An ancestral call, if you will. I couldn’t stop her from finishing the doctor, but I was determined to finish her.

  She rose to her feet through my barrage of strikes. Plates of her came loose, revealing gears and inner springs. She tottered for a moment like she was going to fall, like she’d had enough, like my strikes were not the impotent efforts of a man who knew no better than to lash out. A Front Doors Man they call me. Jolly they call me. Helpless is not a word I’m accustomed to.

  The creature lolled back like she was going to pitch over and then sprang into a ballerina’s leap. In my mind she resembled a gazelle, all lines and form. She leapt to me with open arms, striking the center of me with all the weight of her artificial body. I imagine getting struck by a rail handcart is similar. My feet left mother Gaia and we flew together for a long moment, over the lip of the stage, into the darkness of the orchestral pit. We collapsed in the darkness, together. We rolled as one, but she separated from me, retreating to an unseen corner. Luckily, I still held the cobra and whipped it around in the empty darkness. I could not see her in the blackness, but my shifting feet caught debris. I knelt down and swept my hands over cogs and severed limbs of what I assume were her back-up dancers. The pit was a graveyard. I could not step nor shift without contacting the remains of some poor dismantled automaton. Something had happened here beyond my comprehension.

  Growing up in Whitechapel, my father often told me that all men and women have a place on God’s green earth. He told me that it was the job and place of royalty to fuck up and look good, just as it was the job and place of Parliament to pretend not to fuck up and look regular enough to court votes. He told me his place was to make boots, to cut leather, to polish in browns and blacks and having realized this, he needed no church or greater philosophy. He had found his place on Earth as God had intended. He lived a bootmaker’s life, and died a bootmaker’s death. I took these teachings as truth and have always held that the only worthy men are those doing what they’re supposed to. Those outside the grain are ripe for correction and often times it’s my job to do the correcting.

  To retrace my original point, I think the doctor made an automaton to love him, and she did. And I think it was her, or the doctor, who destroyed all those other dancers. Was it for jealousy? Was it for passion? Was it for some sense of purpose or some greater acknowledgment of purpose? I don’t know. I’m just a bloke who likes to put mashers in their place and swing a club at a crook now and again. I don’t reckon any greater meaning from this, but I’m sure there is one.

  So there I was, in the darkness of the pit surrounded by parts of destroyed machines. I heard her shuffle and swung my cobra accordingly. I spun my club through empty air. It would have been embarrassing had any live creatures stood as witness. Suddenly, a great scratch rendered the heavens, and then all things were filled with Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. She must have hit the switch to start the orchestral score; it resounded in the pit as though all things were consumed by horns and strings and powerful drums.

  I screamed in frustration. I was already blinded by the lack of light, and now I was deafened and muted by the music. I swung the cobra through empty air, determined to strike something, anything. I was overwhelmed in the darkness, in the crashing music, consumed and lost like an ape dropped in the ocean. The automatic woman bit my shoulder with her horrid teeth, but when I turned to confront, she was already gone. I backpedaled to the pit wall, desperately feeling for a ladder or door, anything to escape from this nightmare. The automaton bit me again, this time on the stomach. I swung and made contact, but again she vanished in the darkness. I was desperate, a creature far out of his element.

  My father’s words came into my head again: all things in their place, all things conforming to their nature and doing what comes natural. For me, destruction is natural. My meaty paws gripping and tearing comes naturally. My weight and stature, these things are my nature.

  I dropped the cobra and sat cross-legged. I closed my eyes, which weren’t doing me any good anyway. I cracked my knuckles and flexed my fingers. I imagine competitive fighters do this, the limbering of the hands. I stretched each finger and popped the knuckles of my thumbs and there I sat. She came upon me again as before, with a bite on my left shoulder, only this time I was prepared. I grabbed the automaton with my hands, my God given tools of destruction. I gripped under her elbows and rolled her to the floor; her teeth were lodged in my shoulder and stung fiercely. I spread my weight on top of her and prevented her from escaping. She would not strike me in another sortie; this fight would end in the grapple, under my terms.

  The Swan Princess must have understood this because her arms and legs wrapped around my body, much as they’d wrapped around the poor dead Dr. Saxon. She squeezed my corpulence and I suddenly knew the strength of this beast, that it was enough to crack bones and snap a spine. I wrapped my arms and legs around her and squeezed with all my might, if for no greater purpose than to give the same treatment I was receiving.

  And there we lay, locked like a serpent and mongoose; she tried to squeeze the life out of me, but found me no weak candidate. Not like the poor doctor. I squeezed with all the strength in my arms and legs, but heard no crack over the orchestral consonance, the beautiful and at this time dreadful conclusion of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece. We must have spent a minute locked in embrace, though it stretched into an eternity. My thumb found a space on her back, a crack. I changed the strategy of our grapple, for if she’d found a crack in me, I’m sure she would have exploited it all the same. I wedged my hand into her innards and felt all those working parts, all those cogs and belts and pendulums, whirling about and giving life to this aberration. I made a fist, and let my meaty fingers pull apart what they contacted. Belts dislodged, gears flung themselves loose and fell into her inner sanctum. I gripped again and this time pulled from her back a fist full of vital shiny trinkets, all those solid pieces of brass that accounted for her life’s blood.

  The creature’s teeth loosened from my shoulder. She slumped and shuddered, much like the poor dead Doctor had shuddered in his last moment. My eyes had grown accustomed to darkness, and in the haze of what I remember, I swear she gave me an accusatory glare with her one remaining eye. I dripped blood on her face from my wound, and yet, there it was…her eye shown angry and then the light faded, or rather, I passed out.

  So you see officers, it was not I who took the life of poor Dr. Saxon, rather it was his creation. I cannot explain the why, but I have provided the how. Contact my office, the Bow Street Firm. There you’ll find I have an impeccable reputation. You must believe me. I have nothing to hide.

  Two

  Jolly Gets a Second Chance

  Blood stains on brick tell a tale as good as any Arthurian jaunt. This stain in particular, vertical, shaped like an oriental fan; it’s no different. The first thing I know is that this splatter came out of some bloke’s mouth. The stain is two meters up the wall and slightly off center of the piss bucket. I imagine the dispute had something to do with waste disposal, a priority to drunk and sober men alike. This assumption may be false, but given the proximity of blood-to-pisser, I’d say it’s a fair starting point.

  The strikee was shoved flush against the wall. That perfect blood fan was not a spray of any distance. That bloke was pres
sed up, knob in hand, against the wall and given a crushing right haymaker. Blood goes to mouth, mouth goes to holler, blood paints the walls.

  I don’t have to look in the pisser to know there’s probably a tooth bobbing in that filth, maybe more than one.

  Bloody driblets on the floor showed the trajectory of the man. He crawled. A standing man would have left a wider trail. A fighting man would have speckled the floors and walls and chairs and Lord knows what else in a wet struggle. Not this one. First he spit the fan on the wall, then the he dribbled a tight trail to the cell door. He probably mewled for the jailor. He probably begged. By the looks of the congealing pool by the cell door, his wait was long and his release was in the not too distant past. Not a fighter this one. Weakness in men makes my skin crawl. A man who begs and cries is like a dog in coolot trousers. My dad used to say that. I get chicken skin up my arms thinking about this bloke begging through a busted gob, wailing away, waiting for an exodus to safer accommodations, which in this place meant another cell; same type of cell, same type of blokes, same type of pissers. That might be a metaphor for life. I don’t know. I’ve never been called a literate man.

  I know about the blood and the man because it is my profession to know. Doctors stop seeing patients. They only see symptoms and remedies. Mashers stop seeing girls; they only see ankles and legs and tits and arses. Thief catchers don’t see rooms. They see clues, hints, causes to be linked like puzzle pieces into a great, rational, and hopefully honest story.

  That’s the reality of my work. I’m paid to complete incomplete stories. Usually of the “where are my beautiful possessions” or the “who caved in my husband’s skull” variety.

  I am a thief catcher. I was a thief catcher. I’m not sure the proper tense of verb given that I may or may not be sacked by the firm. The infamous Bow Street Firm in all its wisdom and prestige is going to have to decide if I’m one to keep.