The Royal Caledon Air Force received word of a strange
anomaly, and nobody from Penzance reported! Minutes from completing the most
important experiment of all Clockwork kind, hours from the obliteration of Cape
Wrath and all my equipment and reports, and I had to answer the call!
But that is what a
doll does. The Book of Shelley states, “Nothing
contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose. With how many
things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness
did not restrain our inquiries.” Priorities are so easy for us, they seem
so difficult for humans, and why? They can ask so many others for help, they
are so smart and resourceful,
surely as a human, I will be able
to bring the clockwork logic to the human intelligence and condition with quite
satisfying results? To be wise and capable of wisdom’s application, Oh purpose fulfilled!
The Ophelia was reporting to an emergency- Candice Shoffler is a competent pilot and nurse. She
reported to Penzance Aerodrome at 5:12
PM, stating, “It’s more horrible than I ever imagined! ALL planes scramble! I am heading,,” and then
several minutes went by with silence. As I rose to her last location known, her
voice came over the airways again,
crackling but clearly her:
“It’s more
horrible than I ever imagined! ALL
planes scramble! I am heading,,”
I watched in awe as
The Ophelia seemed to wink, disappearing like a balloon when popped with a hat
pin. Then it was back at the origin location, even as the first incarnation was
still visible,, her voice an exact duplicate of before. Then another… then another…
The Ophelia Anomoly
was too much for the R.C.A.F.- I was unsure if Cornelius was still monitoring,
but I had to try. Only the time tunnel,
the agents of Timeforce Ten, could handle this. I called up the codes and spoke
over the Audiograph:
“TImeforce Ten TImeforce Ten Chrono marker now now now, Location Fifteen, Thirty-eight, one hundred
seventeen meters above ground,,, Ophelia
Anomoly,,, Out.”
I smiled happily, knowing that this would be resolved soon,,
if Commander Fanshaw was listening.
Landing, mooring, was more special- every minute detail,
recalling it, so that as a human, how much better I shall perform these
actions! Human intuition, boldness, creativity, what spectacle they spawn and
without which, how mechanical man is,, like a clockwork doll. I rode the train
back from the RCAF hangar, the Hypnotic Shoppe still there, the Cape still
there. It was unfathomable to me that in hours, it could somehow be gone. Who
can make a whole peninsula disappear? If Poor Major Shoffler could be replicated
into 14 of her spawning one every several minutes, then who knows what could
happen to the Cape?
Still, the look on Candice’s face in her cockpit, seemed so
frightened… More than the anomaly would cause. In her eyes was the shadow of
impending doom, the portence of cataclysm and the resolve of a woman
sacrificing everything for another. What was it she had learned?
I was stunned to reality as the clockwork conductor echoed
out a never-before uttered, revised version of his call as he pulled into the
Cape Wrath station.
“All Stop, last
stop Cape Wrath, All out. Last Stop, LAST RUN. Cheerio!”
My knees began to
shake,, possibly from a loose belt or
pneumatic piston out of alignment.
Kelsea was dressed
in a fine dress! She stood in the middle of the empty shoppe, and rushed to hug
me as I entered.
“Wenderz! How will
you get out of here with the train disabled? How can this happen? How can,,”
I hugged my friend
for a few minutes, till she was calm and clicking cleanly again. We spoke of
many things, of spirals and fairie wings, of transformation and of trance, of
rising below and daring the dance. With one final look around the vacant old
Victorian abode, she picked up her matching set of luggage, curtsying.
“ I shall be at Coghaven,
with many of the others. There is still
some animosity there about you, I am not sure they would send a helicopter, or car for you,
or even a little red wagon. But I will ask!”
“Kelserz, afterward, send a message by helium filled balloon animal, to
Stellar Drift please? Nemu, Bethi,
Windy, Jaina, anyone. Ask them,, I mean, no. Just tell them I am well,
and thinking of them.”
Kelsea’s eyelids
clicked rapidly many times, fighting back leaking. So did mine.
“Wendy, why do
you have the wicker doll burning? To scare away the Winterfell army?”
“It is in the
by-laws, that Caledon cannot infringe on
any religious activity. As long as that wicker doll is burning, they cannot
destroy the Cape. “ With a mischievous smile, and a nod of her perfect head,
she was gone.
A glance in the low light at the large pile of ash at the base of the
fiery sacrifice told me I was running out of time. Kelsea and her friend hopped
the Winterfell Ferry, last trip out. They waved, and I of course waved back,
even a doll knows when someone thinks enough of you to compliment you with a
wave, one should return the compliment.
There was the small possibility that though my human form could escape
the demise and destruction to come, it might be by fleet of foot, or swimming
to the Isle where there be Dragons, and not able to tow or carry my present
form. This might be the last of Wendyslippers Charisma, clockwork person. My
knees shook again. It was not from a loose belt at all.
Words echoed up
from my memory medium- “Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock.”-
Shelley
MINUTES LATER, IN THE SHOPPE BASEMENT, , ,
The cadaver, soon to be my vehicle for traversing the secret
world of the humans, was still warm and supple. The smell of the body was
complex- The dark rich earth of New Babbage, a cheap perfume, sweat, vanilla
body lotion, the heady fumes of a coal fire, probably from New Babbage smog.
Laying the body on
the preparation table, all these odors and fragrances filled the air, mingling
with the sound of the blazing wicker man There was something else, something
scary. That was it! Fear.
Unmistakable. Poor unfortunate
soul! But my friend was done with the cares of this world. I would use her body well, perfectly. Like
Clockwork. Her fear of dying would perforce be equaled in the Scales by my fear
of living, housed in corporeal chambers, biological and natural. Oh the
excitement! Fortunately there was naught harm to the body but its
exsanguination, and a blemish on its neck, so fortuitous that it felt as if a
gift, from the Heavens, From the Gods, to clockwork dolls, like Fire from
Olympus to man, even this. Again my knee
shook , heel rapidly popping on the floor. I simply must recall to have that
looked at, once I am humanly perfect, and perfectly human.
Attaching the electrodes and sensors took only a moment, the
machine reporting back wonderful findings: The instrument of my freedom
from bias and limitation was in perfectly good working order- except
for the lack of certain fluids, which would soon be replaced. I barely needed
to spray the ozone over the sheet on the body, and the room lit up with the
arcing electrical fire from the transmission probes.
No pulse no radiating miasmic aura response. The body stiffened,
relaxed, stiffened. The fluid pumps were consistent and reassuring with the slow and quiet ‘shluk, ka-shluk,
ka-shluk’. Ionic and anionic mixtures were being forced into the pooling spots
and thru the squishy biological tubing, chemically perfect solutions, as if
made by the human Creator.
The second dose
lasted 45 seconds. I waited patiently, like any doll would, but my mainspring
leaped as the Caridograph revealed the best possible news!
Placing the body into the chamber was easy, filled with
excitement, energized by my own rapidly approaching goal, I could lift twice my
normal! A “normal” which is I believe, about twelve times the normal Victorian woman of my design age. I should be interested to see how feeble the
abilities, the reduction in such
capacities creates, if any. Pulling from
my coat, I read from the parchment found in the Mayan adventure earlier this year. Cleverly keeping
this part from all other equations, and
not stored in the machinery, if this equipment is used by another, their results will not
yield them the desired result at all! This is to protect all, of course, as I could not bear what calamity might come
from the wrong people using the fruits of my labors. I spoke out loud while inputting,, “Third
Spark,,…is C=10 to the 8th power of 9x3-L-3+44 to the 3rd of the 2nd power
to 9, and making 1 equal to 67 for the reasons being of no 0's in the answer
then round to the nearest 9th of the 6th power. Then take 9x6x the answer you
have so far, +7 billion,,” Automatically the formula caused the machinery to
lurch into operation!
The Ozone and Nitrogen pressurized the container, but the meters read
optimal results . After several long pregnant minutes the hiss of
escaping gases echoed out the copper
pipes in the ceiling. The clouded
cylinder cleared rapidly.
It stood! The
Cardiograph drew the frenetic report of alarming arrhythmia! The cadaver had
only autonomic chemical and mental activity from its onboard medium, yet its
hands drummed against the glass seeking escape. I wondered then if all
creatures, alive, dead, clockwork, all sought freedom.
Much of her
residual memory would be destroyed, unusable, eroded by time, the elements, and
whatever strange miasmic readings tickled the sensors, barely readable.
The rays beaming into the memory storage
medium would locate like memory
fragments, fixing as much as possible, and eradicating the fragmented thoughts.
I certainly felt better knowing I would not be plagued, recalling perhaps a pretzel in a child’s hand, but not knowing
the name of the friend of the girl I once spoke to fifteen years ago on a
playground! Or what if the pretzel was for my betrothed and the lack of its
offer meant the demise of the perfect bond of matrimony! Oh what portence could a pretzel be!
The light grew brighter as the temperatures inside the
chamber caused a fluorescent glow. Protein
chains doubled, redoubled, each second
seemed an eternity! Outside, I thought I
heard a peculiar sound, and upon concentraton realized it to be a massive
murder of crows! Thousands, mayhaps
millions of crows blackened the moonlit sky like a curtain crying out as
it stretched, from the once sleepy islands in the Winterfell Strait, the shores
of the Cape Wrath beaches, landing and filling the watery marshes of Brigadoon to capacity.
It was beginning. It was ending.
I was ending. I was beginning.
The pressure valves
creaked, release cocks popped, and soon the silhouette of my sought after vehicle to
human existence appeared,, first an outline, sparkly clean, sanitized and reformed, tissues bone and
musculature in perfect harmony.
Internal infections and bacteria would not survive the next
step in the process, and so needed to be replaced- it is discomforting to imagine a biological host vehicle that
required active culture bacteria in its organs and systems in order to operate properly. Internal
devices were then saturated with the
fluids and excitation, much better
results than the readings just then received
from the external- eyes, skin, etc.
These thoughts came just as the Lateral Carriage began to hum, raising
and lowering the jets of directed fluids with excitation so high in amperage
that I wondered at a moment if Mary Shelley could have been correct- how
counter intuitive, to create a living host from a deadly level of poison gas
and electricity!
Withered husk and putrid material tightened and glowed.
Cartilage
lengthened and straightened as I watched- the nose seemed acceptable to me
before, but there was something pleasing
in the way it sharpened then on its end, and turned up slightly! The skin would
be far more sensitive and repair itself far better than what the previous owner
experienced. That blemish on the neck
seemed persistent but I felt sure in time it would fade.
I pressed the
button for the electro-chemical insemination, my heart clicking hard, pounding
in my chest. This was to me, the most
meaningful and dangerous moment, for upon this, all the rest was found
possible, or pointless. The body froze as it filled with the solution holding a
copy of all my thoughts, memories, recorded data since the first day of my
sentience. There was no way to know how much of the information was being
stored, and how much was being lost in the maelstrom of solutions and gases,
lights and sounds. There was a
possibility I would lose all data. Fortunately I wrote it all in the journals,
left on the table marked “Read me”. Just
in case, you understand, but though the
possibility of my former host losing all data, or the transaction being
flawed, was remarkably low, the prospect of the result was unfathomable! Even
a doll could see, any effort to prevent
this catastrophic failure simply must be taken!
I was so absorbed in the phenomenon of the creation of this
marvelous being, this being that would house
that which is me, that I was unaware of
the passing of several minutes as I stared in awe, comprehending, calculating,
and enjoying every sum in each equation.
This was excitement beyond measurement!
The sensors pinged and the machine made little tones as it
went from one passed inspection to another, until a man’s recorded Victorian
voice cackled, “All tests complete. All results at highest optimum. Biological
organism is 128% natural specification. Warning- No brainwave activity;
artificial cardio pulmonary activity commencing.”
The host was
ready. But was I?
Shelley said, “Nothing
is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been worked up
by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty
which follows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear.” I
scrawled a few last thoughts upon a parchment for myself to read, once I exited
the chamber on the other side of the room. It would not do to stand about,
unsure of things, while the Cape was being eradicated and rewritten at the
elemental level!
A sizzling sound, crackling, and hissing, seemed to come
from the ground, followed seconds later by a shudder which I am certain moved
the tectonic shelf upon which the Cape
sits, at least a full inch! I was out of time!
I end this, certain
that I shall write the rest after the fact, filling in those facts and
feelings which due to the constraints of
the hour, cannot in required luxury, be mulled and recorded. I shall look
toward the machine minding its every stage until I take my first step at the
completion of my version of Houdini’s Metamorphosis trick.
As I step into my familiar friend, my doll box, at once I am
coated and consumed by the static electricity and the wave created by the
. . . .
OHMYGOD
help me! How had I gotten here? Why is
this all happening to me? I could remember words, the voice of the doll in the
box, like she had spoken to me while asleep. Her thoughts were in my head, up
to last night but what about ten minutes ago? I am SOOO not laughing! I looked around the large room and read some of the items
left for me, boring manuals and dumb junk meant for math people or like Doctors
and stuff. I was filled with terror when
I saw the night sky thru the window- they would be awake, and feeding,,, That was when I saw her.
Ohmygod. Bloody, with her hair standing straight up, she would have been so pissed. She hated dirt and blood, and she had just done all she did, endured crap she hated, for me. I made sure the door was locked, then I spent a few minutes dressing her and cleaning her up. She would have liked that.
There. The look in
her eyes really wierds me out, it’s like, me but not me, happy for me, and judgmental at the same time! She left a long note for me; gonna read it and be
right back.
I lived. For the first time, I guess, I was thinking. Not
equating, thinking. I touched my face and reveled, not in my symmetry, God no.
I could feel. I was alive, I was beautiful and young and, and terrified. The
end of the world was coming! Or like, the Cape Wrath, but anyways it still
sucked! I ran outside to look around,
while the E.K.G. played that one long still tone for the doll in the box.
There
in the sky was a man, and though I didn’t recognize him, I could feel,, things.
I don’t want to write them all down here, but I think the doll liked him.
He was focused on the edge of the ocean, the beach, you
know. Annnyways seconds later this freaky huge wave came up and splashed and
rolled up where houses had been, then receded.
Then again and again, and the shore looked different, shaped
new, grass where there had been the remains of some huge looking building-
wait,,, it had been the embassy,, I remember paintings, I think. It must be the
memories of the dol,, me,, I mean.
How could I be so stupid! That was what the letter was
talking about! This whole building is
about to be gone! No matter what evil is out there in the night, if I stay
here, I’m dead right? Gotta get out of
here!
---- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
I write this like, an hour later, on the way to the new home
like she said to. I didn’t really clue on the fact I was running around,
watching a man in the sky, and me standing there in public completely
naked! Before, you know, before I died,
I spent a lot of time working in the clubs, polishing a pole with my thighs,
naked thighs. But like, I never walked around naked in the street! I got so lucky that the doll is, I mean , I ,
gotta remember to say I, me; I am about
the same size so I can wear all the doll’s awesome clothes! I mean, my.
Crying and dragging a huge trunk into the street, I looked
outside and there stood a woman with
long black hair, arms wrapped in long bindings which looked like horse hooves.
Her boots looked the same, though her
skin had that alabaster sheen, kinda like the doll I had been before. She just
watched, totally freaking me out, not talking or anything, hooked to this great big, old looking
carriage. She just stood there while I made a dozen trips up and down the
basement steps, carrying all the makeup (crap she owned
4 boxes of makeup! Who needs 4 huge boxes of makeup?) and clothing, but
there was no way I was going to lift that big doll box. “Uh, Pony, I really need help lifting-”
“Yuki.”
“Um, yah, I’m
Candi, anyways, Lifting the doll, and I was wonder-“
“Wendy?”
“Uh, yah.”
“Bluebirds help others,
especially their own.”
I almost asked her what the Hell she was
talking about but then I remembered, the doll, I mean, I,, was a member of the
Bluebirds of Stellar Drift. A benevolent organization, from all walks of life.
They have meetings, and contests for their writing and art, and “Best Doll” and
stuff, and like the best Christmas parties ever! ANNyways, That pony doll Yuki lifted the Wendy doll box
with her, me,, in it, all by herself,
and carried it up all those stairs, and sat it on the carriage roof, by
herself!
The
ground shook then, and the whole north
wall of the shoppe collapsed. If you have never been in a building when it was
collapsing, it really sucks! Totally scary; I screamed like forever. When I looked around and the
dust had cleared, Yuki had packed everything into that big old carriage, and
stood there locked back into it’s straps and collars. Not like a nice collar,
like Masters and Mistresses bestow to their favored sexy slaves when they are worthy of being owned by them, but like, a dirty smelly horsecollar, a belt
kinda thing.
“Thanks, I really
appreciate you doing-“ She held up a hoof, silencing me, tears in her eyes.
“Wendy would have
done it for me.”
My self-absorbed
ass felt so ashamed.
“I didn’t care if
that doll-pony-thing saw me cry, I bawled like forever. Wendy (me) didn’t just say she would do
anything for her friends (yuki) and co-workers (me) , her body was lifeless on the
roof of the carriage, as proof! Then
Yuki started crying, and we held each other sobbing while the ground trembled. It
was just too overwhelming!
Then
I got invited by this rich European guy to a secret meeting, we wore these
cloaks and masks, had strange magic rituals and like awesome anonymous orgy
sex:
Woke
up there, drunk, drugged, whatever, with some huge guy drawing on my naked body! I told him how much I would
charge for that but he just laughed this sick laugh and I ran:
They found me,
spirits compelling me to them and I could not stop walking, lifting me
weightlessly into the smoky air, murmuring, saying things,, and , I remember, I
repeated them back! I wish I could remember what I said. Maybe the Doll memories will help me.
Then I was dead.
Then
I was,, a doll? Or, was I the doll first? I worked for Wendy at her shoppe,
but, I was Wendy… I would need so much
time, putting this together.
I gave Yuki the address I left myself (God that sounds
stupid) and read aloud the list of things that needed doing.
Behind us lingered
the final tremors and rumbles as Cape Wrath ceased to be.
“Hey, do you Bluebirds
know how to hook up all this machinery again?”
“Yes.”
“Would you please,
when we get where we are going? “
“Yes, you will be
able to change back from one form to the other. This will help you immensely,
thinks Yuki.”
“Wow, you totally loved
Wen, I mean me, huh? Why? Cuz she’d do the same for you, or…?”
Yuki stared totally
unblinking for a minute, then turned back, speaking while facing away, as we clopped down the midnight
cobblestone streets of Caledon.
“In
your present, human condition, you wouldn’t understand.”
“The
beginning is always today.”- Mary Shelley
(( PS ))
My immeasurable gratitude to
Guvnah Desmond Shang for the cameo appearance and all the tireless, phenomenal
work he has put into managing thousands of inhabitants in over 35 sims, of The
Independent Sims of Caledon. Caledon is
not only fun and constantly busy with purpose and distractions, but well
maintained and financed, by experienced
financial planners, forecasters and bankers, programmers, attorneys, writers
and teachers, mad scientists I think,
and even in a small way, myself.
We are Caledon, forever I do hope, solvent
and stable, but would not have become
so, nor continue to be so, were it not for the vision, blood, sweat and gears
of the gentleman who cries with every
one of our losses, cheers for our successes, and does all that he does, so that
his friends might have a second life, and have it more abundantly. My
very dear friend,Guvnah Desmond Shang.
Thank You,
Wendy
