Automatic Woman Read online

  The primary lecture hall looked like a painting I’d once seen of a surgery theater. The room was circular and dropped into a deep pit. Rows upon rows of chairs lined the descending floor plan, stopping abruptly at a gated wall three meters from the bottom. Below the gates, the lecture hall stood as a flat and plain circle. The set up of the room gave me the impression of the Roman Colosseum in miniature. All the seats were full as were the stairs and any space that could be counted as standing room. I pressed in next to a group of young academics near the entrance. The hall was poorly ventilated and filled with the smoke of pipes and cigars and cigarettes. Every bloke in the hall was puffing something. The overall effect was like standing in thick, unbearable fog. I never understood the connection between academia and tobacco. Would it surprise you to know I’d never attended university?

  Two men paced the lecture floor like swimmers in a sea of smoke. One of the men I recognized as Darwin. Bald head, pink peeling scalp, long white beard, bushy white eyebrows, ash cane. I’d seen Darwin before, but never in person. The papers showed his picture often enough, sitting at a charity ball, or speaking at some regal event, once with his head superimposed onto the body of an ape by some angry caricaturist.

  Old Darwin shared the floor with a much younger man. The stranger was bedecked in a black suit and black wide-brimmed hat. His accent wasn’t just American, it was Southern American. The laziest of American accents. The Yank spoke first.

  “My esteemed colleague would have you believe that transformation of species is inevitable. That creatures change based on fitness and adaptability rather than the will of God. Well, sir, if this is true, then why has humanity remained the same for the extent of our history? Why haven’t we evolved into something greater? Where is the super-human, Mr. Darwin?”

  Darwin let his hand caress the full length of his beard. He looked every day of his seventy-nine years. The crowed silently exhaled smoke and tension. I tried to ask the bloke next to me who the Yank was and got a shushing for my troubles. Darwin gave a response.

  “Who’s to say we haven’t evolved? The African Negro is better acclimated to sunlight, the Moor to the desert. Caucasians hail from places cold and wet, and we’ve acclimated to the seafaring. The Polynesians are beautiful swimmers and climbers. The Chinese are suited for the hardships of their regions. All stand as proof of fitness.”

  The American dramatically raised his hands to the audience.

  “You have failed to answer my question, sir. I ask for super-humans and you give me Africans and Chinese. Unextraordinary groups who have always existed. Probably inferior genetic stock. The very opposite of what I asked for.”

  Darwin raised an eyebrow.

  “Always you say?”

  The American did not answer.

  “Who were the first people to populate the Earth?”

  The American was quick to answer this one.

  “Adam and Eve.”

  “And of what race were they?”

  “They were of the white race,” the American said without hesitation.

  “So where did the Negros come from? The Arabs? The Chinese? Based on the logic of your beliefs they must have come from the progeny of Adam and Eve.”

  The American responded again without hesitation. “They are. The darker races are descended from Ham, the son of Noah who was cursed for looking upon his father’s shame. The Sumerians, Egyptians, Orientals, Africans, all are descended from Ham.”

  “So the Africans and Chinese are the same?” Darwin retorted.

  “Well, one is darker than the other.” This caught a few laughs in the crowd. “But they come from the same familial stock.”

  “So again I ask, is the African Negro the same as the Chinaman?”

  “They came from the same place.”

  “But are they the same?”

  The American rubbed a hand over his chin.

  “Dr. Warfald, are they the same?”

  “No.”

  “And how do you account for the differences between Chinese and Africans if they share the same ancestor? Their color is not the same, nor their size, nor their eyes. What accounts for these differences?”

  “Well,” the American’s body language showed nerves, apprehension. “Over time, their breeding grew specialized to region. The sons and daughters of Ham in Africa preferred different things than the sons and daughters and Ham in China.”

  “And why?” Darwin interjected. “Why would the children of Ham in Africa prefer different breeding partners than the children of Ham in China? Why do similar creatures from identical backgrounds prefer different things?”

  The American was silent again. He looked to the crowd of smoking academics. His arrogant demeanor softened on these strange rhetorical grounds. Darwin continued.

  “Maybe the children of Ham found difficulties when they came to Africa. Maybe some of them died of the mosquitoes’ malaria. Maybe some of them blistered in the sun and were rendered hideous and unbreedable. Maybe the Hammites who came to China found that they were too big to ride the horses that roamed free. Maybe the smaller men found the advantage in mounting horses and riding to war. Maybe the larger African Hammites found advantage in killing lions and cougars, in running with long legs over deadly savannahs. Dr. Warfald, if what you say is true, children of the same man found themselves in different places, under different circumstances and only the right man for the region bred and passed on his genes. The Africans don’t look like the Chinese because they are perfected for their part of the world. They are fit. The same goes for the Chinese. Ham’s children evolved to their regions, thus evolution is reality.”

  “Sir,” the American retorted. “You are not talking about evolution but de-evolution. I asked for examples of humanity advancing and you give me anecdotes about lesser races who are clearly accounted for in the bible.”

  “The bible mentions the Chinese at no point. This is a moot argument; there is no distinction between evolution and de-evolution, as you put it. Both account for change, change based on adaptability. I’ve posited nothing less. If you believe that the Africans and Chinese have stepped backwards from their origins, then you must admit that they changed and their change was based on the environment they found themselves in.”

  “I accept no such thing!”

  “Then tell me sir, why are the children of Ham so different? Why are the all the colored men and women of the world built so differently one from the other? Why can’t I rely on my knowledge of the people of India to assist me in dealing with your own red Indian countrymen?”

  “They are not my countrymen.” The American was letting anger seep into his voice.

  “Why are the Indians of America so different and strange from the Indians of India? They share a name and yet they are each and every one adaptable to their region. I assume you regard them both as children of Ham. The best survived and lived on and passed his genes to the next children based on the requirements of the land. I don’t believe that Ham was the first man of color, but even if I did that would not change my theory of evolution and fitness.”

  “Then perhaps God allowed for the survivors to adapt? Perhaps it was God who chose the fittest?”

  “I never said he had no place in this, only that I don’t know what his place is. Don’t you see? If God accounts for adaptability then he is the catalyst for evolution, and evolution exists. By God or by chance the creatures of the world, of which man is one, change to conform to the world’s environment. By this very observation all of evolution is proven.”

  “Not all evolution. Maybe men lived and changed in the short term, but this does not account for your shameful proposition that man descended from the monkeys.”

  “Shameful?”

  “Yes, shameful! By biblical calculations the world is no more than six thousand years old and yet you propose that men came from monkeys over the course of millions of years. You claim not to know God’s place but don’t deny his existence. If you don’t deny his existence, how can yo
u deny his history of the world?”

  “What’s shameful, sir, is your lack of imagination. Our bible, assuming we’re going by the King James version, says that God made the earth in six days, that Noah lived for over nine hundred years and yet how time is measured has changed and changed and changed. Who’s to say six thousand years to one species can’t be a million years to another. Who says that time cannot be relative?”

  “That’s a fools’ argument and I won’t debate with a fool.”

  Darwin smiled. He looked so old, like father time himself.

  “That’s fine, sir. I hold my belief, you hold yours and we shall live on until the end of our days. If either is wrong, let our father judge.”

  “That’s not good enough!”

  “Sir?”

  “We cannot agree to disagree. There are no more realities than the one. To think a man can hold an opinion that is wrong is blasphemy. Our world is objective and no two men can hold opposing opinions and both be right.”

  “Alright, then I’ll claim the right. You are wrong. Logic and evidence support me.” Darwin said.

  “Faith and popular sentiment back me,” the American said.

  “Then we find ourselves at an impasse, without the means to win except to defame our opponent or stave off and return to our honest fulfilling lives. Good luck, sir.” Darwin held his hand out. The American ignored it. He addressed the audience.

  “Can we declare me the winner, then?” He asked the silent and smoky crowd. “Is this my victory to claim?”

  No one said anything. Even Darwin was silent. The American shook his head in disgust.

  “You will pay for your lack of faith in time. Ours is not a forgiving God, and hell is not a place for splicing words and opinions.” The American turned away from Darwin and ascended the arena stairs.

  “Just so we’re clear,” Darwin called to the escaping man’s back. “I think you’re wrong about the Hammites as well. I don’t think God started the colored races with just one man. I think we all started colored and adjusted our colors based on location and time. The only difference between us and them is how we’ve adapted to these surroundings.”

  The American stopped, turned, spat on the floor, and proceeded with his exit. All very dramatic. The audience gave a polite applause, and shuffled off to whatever else their days held. Other lectures, other debates, others places to puff the day away in cloudy contemplation. A small group stayed to shake hands and offer platitudes to the venerable academic. I joined this crowd and approached the esteemed naturalist upon his ascent. He dismissed his well-wishers with patted handshakes. His eyes found me in the group and he presented a hand.

  “Good sir, pardon me for saying but you look as though you should be under a physician’s care.”

  “What, this? Just a scratch.”

  I shook his hand.

  “I need to talk to you about Dr. James Saxon.”

  Darwin showed no surprise. He took my arm for support and waved away the rest of his followers.

  “What you should have said is, ‘I’ve got something to gain from you.’ In an honest society that would be the only honest greeting.”

  I nodded at this. Darwin’s words had the sound of observations often repeated.

  “We say ‘hi’ to gain recognition, or as pretense to gain knowledge or ask a favor.”

  The old man guided me to an ornate double door. It looked more like the entrance of a church than the entrance to an academic’s office.

  “Mr. Fellows, I have something to gain from you.”

  My eyes went wide at that one.

  “You know my name?”

  The codger smiled and ushered me through the massive doors. Darwin’s office was circular and vaulted like the lecture hall we’d just left. Instead of rows of seats, the upper rings were lined with bookshelves. The stage floor held two oak desks, one empty, the other occupied by a giant bloke who rose at the sight of me. He was dressed the part of an academic secretary; spectacles, gray suit, stripped vest. Aside from his suit, Darwin’s secretary gave me the impression of a circus strong man or bare knuckle boxer. The only hair on his thick-necked cranium was relegated to a fantastic handlebar mustache.

  “Mr. Stevens, please see that we are not disturbed,” Darwin said. Stevens looked like he was going to say something, then changed his mind and sat back down.

  Darwin guided me to a bookshelf that swung open at the click of a hidden lever. A trap door behind the shelf led into a smaller office. Darwin’s personal sanctuary, I assumed.

  The cramped space was made more cramped by stacks of books, mounted insect collections, boxes of unlabeled fossils and bones: the tools of this old man’s livelihood. Darwin removed a stack of books from a King Louis chair and beckoned me to sit.

  “Impressive debate, Mr. Darwin,” I said.

  Darwin gave me an irritated look. The frail grandfather of science outside had become a wholly different creature in this office.

  “No it wasn’t,” he snapped. “Everyday my ideas and observations are questioned and ridiculed and every day I find myself defending what should be obvious to the masses. I didn’t invent evolution or fitness of species, I was simply the first to put it to popular record. Kant, Malthus, Lamark, Wallace, all men who observed the trends of species and applied it to man. But I take the label of father and now have to answer to every fool who comes calling. That man you saw me debate, that’s Dr. Thaddeus Warfeld, a respected theologian from the Harvard School of Divinity. And yet to me, he’s just another fool in a long string of fools, in a lifetime of fools. I could have defeated him with three simple words. ‘Are you sure?’ The burden of genius is not the labor of our endeavors but in sharing the world with fools who don’t know they are fools. Mark my words, the pseudo-intellectual will be the death of us all.”

  Darwin slumped down onto an overstuffed leather couch. It bore the cracks and scuffs of an item well-used and well-loved.

  “Are you armed, Mr. Fellows?”

  How vast the coincidences of this world that Charles Darwin was now asking me the same question I’d asked a pimp this morning.

  “Is it obvious?” I replied.

  “Mr. Fellows, I’ve sailed in three oceans and seven seas. I’ve spent innumerous hours in the company of sailors and I’ve spent time in America. I know when a man has pistols under his coat.”

  “Nothing personal, sir. If you’d had the week I’d had you’d be armed too.”

  Darwin smiled an old man’s smile of brownish teeth.

  “That I believe, Mr. Fellows. You look as though someone threw you from a flaming dirigible.”

  “Close enough to the truth, that. Are we safe to talk here?”

  “I’m safe, Mr. Fellows. You, on the other hand, are not safe anywhere.” Darwin leaned over and struck the trap door with his ash cane.

  “What was that for?”

  “Tea. Care for some?”

  I let out a long breath. Darwin was right. I was a man without a country, a ship without safe harbor.

  “You said something about gain?” I asked.

  “Knowledge, good sir. You have an inside perspective to a matter which has aroused my curiosity. You must know from your work in the thief-catching trade that there is no currency more valuable than new knowledge. I hope to gain new knowledge from you. How did know to find me?”

  “I found an old envelope in Saxon’s flat. Figured you might have insight regarding his creation.”

  “I’m no engineer. I couldn’t build you a clock let alone a humanoid automaton.”

  “But you knew about them?”

  “I did.”

  The office door opened. Mr. Stevens crouched in, holding a silver tea service. For the first time I noticed the bulge of a pistol beneath his suit jacket. He poured a cup for Darwin, then myself. Stevens smelled like the circus. There was a tinge of animal musk I noticed when he neared. He left the office the way he’d come in.

  “You have a trial coming up, correct?”


  “Yes.”

  “And you claim as your defense that the automaton slew Dr. Saxon?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t like how Darwin was smiling through this line of questions.

  “Tell me what happened to James, every detail. Leave nothing out.”

  I gave Darwin the full version of events, just like I’d given the Metros after my initial apprehension. The old man’s smile broadened in the telling.

  “That old scallywag! He did it!”

  “Did what?”

  “Years back we had a debate. The subject was whether the functions of the organic mind could be replicated through inorganic means. The invention of the difference engine sparked our debate and Saxon was convinced that he could create a self-reliant, independently powered brain. I was fascinated, but countered that true self-reliance was no different from perpetual motion, and thus unlikely due to the second law of thermodynamics, or natural entropy. Really we were interested in immortality. How old are you?”

  “Thirty.”

  “If you survive to your twilight years you will find that mortality dominates your thoughts. It is why middle-aged men pursue young girls, or grand adventure, and why the elderly seek the bosom of the church. We need an avenue to avoid the inevitable conclusion of our lives.”

  “So Dr. Saxon built his brain?”

  “If what you say is true, yes. The next piece of the puzzle is to determine how smart she is.”

  “No,” I countered. “The next piece of the puzzle is finding her.”

  “I already have her.”

  I had no response to this. Darwin continued.

  “You were right to confide in Nouveau. As far as engineers are concerned, no living man is his equal. His talents are wasted in the art community.”

  I took my hands off my tea cup and let them rest in my lap, closer to my guns. What next? Ambush? Darwin observed my gesture and shook his head.

  “There is no cause for fear, I am not your enemy. I have Nouveau cloistered in a safe location. Also, I’ve moved his closest associates and a poor unfortunate slut-house porter who inadvertently stumbled upon Nouveau’s exit.”