2 Pages

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The Promethean Doll Chapter 2 (NSFW, Nudity, Adults Only Please)



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!


Last night I was dancing at the club where I work- worked:


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 running,, and there was one of them chasing me through the cemetery:

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









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