Sunday, November 02, 2003
Saturday, November 01, 2003
Friday, October 31, 2003
WHAT'S A MONSTER FOR?
by John Wyburn
"I had heard of some discoveries having been made by an English
philosopher, the knowledge of which was material to my
success..."
(Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley)
Thomas "Tommy Boy" Dutton was not a learned man, and had never
read Walton's biography of Victor Frankenstein. Although he knew
what Frankenstein had done, if anyone had asked him who was the
modern father of the reanimant, he would have said Pomeroy Nathan
Ward, the English philosopher to whom the above quote alludes.
Oh, he knew about Professor "Natty" Ward, all right, having
lost his business because of the great man's creations. It had
been a good trade, selling children and women into indentured
servitude; money from the factories, and money from the families
too, as often as not. "Line foddering", the practice was called,
and Dutton made almost a gentleman's living out of it. But, by
1825, all such labour was performed by reanimants- robotiori- who
worked for no more than the food that kept them standing.
Out of curiosity with regards to his enemy, Dutton had
stolen a copy of Nathan Ward's autobiography. It was Ward who had
been visited by Frankenstein in 1790, and who had recovered the
Swiss' journals from the University of Ingolstadt. Frowning at
the specialist terms, Dutton struggled through the natural
philosopher's explanation of the process of reanimation.
"Living matter," Dutton read, "is a complex structure of
tiny, energetic crystals. It is known that crystals grow
spontaneously from a saturated solution of their basic
chemicals... Frankenstein realised that, if an appropriately
constructed anatomy were immersed in a bath of those chemicals
essential to life (water, sugars, animal salts, and so forth),
and if this were energised by an electrical current of the
appropriate harmony of frequencies (corresponding to the
vibrational frequencies of the chemicals involved; Frankenstein's
greatest discovery and innovation), then the crystals that
compose living matter could be generated; or, those crystals
damaged by constant use throughout life could be regenerated."
It was bad enough to lose one's trade in fair competition,
but if science were raising the dead to steal the bread from a
man's mouth, what could he do?
"It was left only to coin a term for the products of this
remarkable process. After some deliberation, I settled on the
term robotiori, from the latin roboro, to strengthen, and otior,
to be at leisure; since they both strengthen our race, and afford
us greater leisure time."
That much was true, Dutton thought bitterly. He had never
had quite as much leisure since he was bankrupt.
"The new name was important. One could hardly market a
product under the title 'Frankenstein's Monsters'! And after all,
Frankenstein never set out to build a monster, but a servant.
What use would a monster be? What is a monster for?"
What was a monster for? What but to steal the jobs of
honest, or at least hard-working folk? Dutton had thrown the book
aside, and gone to Battersea, where Ward had established his
Reanimation Works. The great edifice stood, black and smokey,
with the stench of blood and ozone permeating the streets for
miles around. The religious protesters had long since left the
gates, when the government had granted Ward the protection of the
Army: and Dutton, who had intended nothing less than arson,
turned away from the armed guards with a curse.
But, though poorly educated, Dutton was an intelligent man,
and could see that the times had changed. If you couldn't beat
them, you could still join them.
The doctor sat up, and tucked his wooden listening-rod into his
pocket. The pale, middle-aged woman in the bed smiled at him;
when he smiled back, the little girl by the bedside reached out
to her mother's hand. "You see, mummy?" She said. "The doctor
says you're going to get well."
"Hush, Georgina," the woman said.
"Would you come out into the hall, doctor?"
The doctor turned to see Dutton, the woman's husband, in the
doorway. He nodded stiffly, and followed the man out onto the
landing. "There's no hope, I'm afraid," he supplied, when he
judged himself out of earshot of the dying woman. "She may not
last the night."
"How much will she fetch?" Dutton asked.
The doctor was taken aback. "Mr. Dutton, I think it's a
little early to be discussing..."
"I'll be the judge of that. Now listen here, doctor, I'm not
long out of the debtor's prison; I'm not going back. And she
wouldn't want me to hang around, not when there's a freshness
bonus."
The doctor bit back on his planned response, and confined
himself to business. "Well, she's still a young woman, all her
own teeth... trouble is, I've got to put cause of death as
cancer. That knocks a few pounds off her. Still, you could
probably sell her for seed anatomy, which is better than pulp-
which is all I'd be are good for! I'd say eighteen pounds, at
least." He coughed. "Of which, I'm afraid, you owe me two. The
morphine alone..."
"Doesn't seem much, for a wife and a mother."
"You're not selling a wife and a mother, Mr. Dutton, but a
dead body. And if you don't, the body will be stolen anyway. The
dead are England's greatest resource nowadays; worth more than
all the coal in South Wales."
"So why doesn't she fetch more? Look, Doctor, I've a
daughter to take care of."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Dutton, but that's about the size of it.
Now, if she were pregnant, it'd be a different matter: foetal
tissue for brains fetches thirty pounds an ounce. I know doctors
in some of the bigger cities who don't even ask questions about
babies' bodies. But as it is..." the doctor shrugged.
"Right," said Dutton sourly. "Well, thanks for your help,
doctor."
Dutton showed the doctor to the door, and returned to his
wife's side. "Did you tell him?" she whispered.
"Tell him what?"
"Tommy, you have to burn me. Cremation- quick and clean.
Don't let them turn me into one of those monsters."
Dutton forced a smile. "All right," he said. "Cremation."
"Promise."
"I said I would, didn't I?" he growled. "I've heard it often
enough, haven't I, Marge?" He looked across the bed to where
Georgina was looking at him, her child's eyes hard.
Uncomfortable, he turned and marched from the room.
"I have something for you, Georgina," her mother said.
Reaching beneath her pillow, she brought out a small silver
locket. "Georgie, this is the only precious thing I own, besides
yourself. I want you to have it now."
Wide-eyed, Georgina accepted the locket, and opened it. It
contained a miniature of her mother, and a lock of her hair.
Swallowing back her tears, she buried her face in her mother's
breast. Marjory Dutton spent the last of her strength in stroking
the girl's hair, before falling to sleep...
She awoke, to find herself immersed in a dark, cloying liquid.
Panicking, she found her feet, stood, and broke the surface
gasping for air. Coughing violently, blinded by the thick fluid,
she could tell only that she was naked, and that there was
movement all around her. She could hear soft moaning and
gurgling, the sounds, she thought, of infancy. Raising her hands
to her face, she cleared her eyes of the congealing goo, and
opened them.
Fear jerked her backwards, against the metal wall of the
huge tank in which she she stood. All around her, naked people
stood or floated in a tank of what seemed to be blood. Their eyes
were blank; their mouths open; their hands reached out
mindlessly, searching for nothing. She screamed.
"What the hell was that?" Came a voice from above. looking
up, she saw a face peering over the rim of the tank. The face of
a workman, an unshaven face between a cloth-cap and a buttoned
blue collar. Desperately, she reached up.
"Get me out," she cried, "please!"
"Hell!" the capped man said. "Davey, get over here!"
"What is it?"
"This one can talk, is what it is! Some joker in assembly
must've used a complete brain."
"Wha- what do you mean?" cried the woman in the vat. "You
must help me, my name is Marjory Dutton, I don't belong here-"
"What're we going to do?" the first man asked.
"What d'you think we're going to do?" The second man
produced a small pistol, aimed, and shot Marjory through her
newly-reanimated brain. With a gurgle, her fine new body slipped
beneath the red liquid.
"Now we go upstairs, and get somebody the sack," Davey said.
Hair separated from skin, skin from flesh, flesh from bone;
nerves extruded, veins and arteries drawn, intestines pulped;
Marjory Dutton seeded a dozen new lives, none of which remembered
that Marjory Dutton had ever existed.
But not far away, in the house where Marjory had lived, a
little girl clutched a silver locket, and dreamed of being peeled
apart, layer by layer, until there was nothing left at all.
Thomas Dutton invested his sixteen pounds well. Starting with a
barrow, he began buying up rotten and substandard produce, which
he sold as robotiori fodder. Within six months of his wife's
death, he had sold the barrow and was looking into permanent
premises.
In the years that followed, he first regained, and then
surpassed, his former standing in the community. By the third
year, he had warehouse space on the Thames, and drays tramping
most of London. He was a noted figure at the racetracks and the
gaming-tables. He bought a very fine town-house; and, remembering
his former mistakes, he retained his bachelor status.
His only problem was Georgina. The girl seemed dead-set to
make his life a misery. Growing from a brat to a shrew of a young
woman, she refused to behave as a gentleman's daughter should.
She was an embarrassment before Dutton's new neighbours and
social peers; she was rude to his guests at the dinner and the
card-tables. And all because he'd not followed his wife's last
wishes- like it mattered to a corpse!
"There're uses I could've put you to," he told her. "Not
just cleaning cabbages; not just washing bottles and picking
oakum; but things your mother wasn't above, when times were hard,
and they have been."
"You're a liar," Georgina hissed.
"Think what you like," her father said, "but think yourself
lucky I'm getting a good reputation, or things might be
different." He bent, and thrust his face into the girl's. "Make
no bones abut this, Georgie. Your mother was little better than a
whore when she got me on her line, and you were the hook she did
it with. But I'll do right by you.
"You've become a good enough looking girl, I'll give you
that; and it's coming up to the time when my investment in your
upbringing gives a return. I'll see you married off; some nice
lad with a dad in the wholesale trade. In the meantime, you'll
get a lady's education at home. I've hired a very special teacher
for you- no expense spared for my little Georgina."
With a dramatic flair that Georgina had never suspected in
her father, Dutton stood aside and snapped his fingers. The door
to the parlour opened, and a tall young woman walked in. She was
simply dressed, in the black and grey of a servant; and on her
collar was the trademark of Ward's Robotiori, the two pennies of
Charon.
"You won't run away from her like you did all them schools,"
Dutton observed with satisfaction. "Not unless you're ready to
run away from home."
For form's sake, Georgina considered screaming the house
down, and demanding that her father remove the monster from her
sight. Instead, she found herself tilting her head as she
regarded the robotiora's face. It was a square, beautiful face;
high cheekbones, full lips, blue eyes, and all framed in white-
blonde hair. "You're very beautiful," Georgina announced,
finally.
"Thank you, mistress," the robotiora replied. Her voice was
soft and husky, designed, like the rest of her, for men to
appreciate.
"I heard about a robotiora once," Georgina said, "who killed
a whole family. Hunted them down with a knife from the kitchen.
And the first robotiorus was a monster. He killed Doctor
Frankenstein, who made him."
"Georgina..." her father warned.
"The first robotiori were badly made," the perfect voice
conceded. "But my makers have learned from their mistakes. Male
robotiori are no longer made; only females and geldings. And our
brains are different from yours; less complete. I cannot lose my
temper, or even raise my voice. I must always do what I am told."
"Will you do anything I say?"
"Mr. Dutton is the head of the household," it replied, "and
my loyalty is to him. But I would do anything that a human maid
or governess would do for you."
Georgina pursed her lips in speculation. "What can you do,
then?"
"Anything that a human servant can do. I can also play any
musical instrument, draw and paint, sew and mend, tell
stories..."
"And you'll do everything my father says. Even go to bed
with him?"
"That's enough, Georgina," her father said. "Before long,
you'll have a husband of your own, and you'll know what a man's
needs are. Now, are you going to make a fuss? For it won't make a
difference. The robey stays."
Coldly, Georgina nodded. But she still knew how to annoy her
father. "May I give her a name?" She asked. Dutton scowled, and
nodded. "Then I shall call her Marjory," the girl announced.
"That was your mother's name! And you can't call a robey
'Marjory', you need a servant's name, like 'Sally', or
'Dolly'..." he tailed off at Georgina's sour face. After all, if
it gave him a measure of peace, why not?
"Marjory," the robotiora said. "I think I shall like that."
"Will you make my tea, Marjory? Will you run my bath, Marjory?
Will you kiss my foot, Marjory? Will you wipe my arse, Marjory?
Will you lie down for me, Marjory, like you lie down for my
father?"
"Yes, Georgina," he robotiora replied placidly. "All these
things I will do, if you wish."
Georgina sat, and put her hands to her face. "Oh, what's the
point of being angry with you?" She groaned. "It's like losing
one's temper with a piece of furniture. There's nothing of you to
care."
"That's not true," Marjory said. "I very much want you to
like me. I want to be your friend, not just your servant."
Georgina looked up.
"Why?"
"Because I am grateful to you. For my name." Georgina sighed
at this. "Why did you give it me?" the reanimant asked.
Georgina fingered her mother's pendant. In all those years,
her father had never discovered it; Georgina was sure it would
have been sold long since if he had. "To annoy father. He once
forbade me ever to speak mother's name, and so of course I often
do... but I don't suppose he cares anymore. I don't think he even
remembers my mother; I don't think he'd even recognise her if I
showed him the picture.
"I don't think anyone remembers her, except me." She pulled
out the locket, and opened it. Unasked, Marjory sat beside the
girl, and tilted her beautiful head as she looked at the little
silver keepsake. "Your mother was very lovely," the robotiora
said.
Georgina stood, her face red and contorted with fury. "How
would you know?" She hissed. "You don't know anything- you're
dead! You died years ago, and you're dead now!
"You're a monster! You were made from corpses, from whores'
babies, from dead darkies from the colonies, from people who died
in prison, or from cholera, or from..." she stopped, abruptly.
The fury drained from her face, to be replaced by confusion.
"Or of cancer," Georgina said, looking into the robotiora's
eyes for the first time.
Marjory's arrival saw a change in Georgina. To Dutton, who saw
his daughter as infrequently as possible, it seemed a sea-change,
which was difficult at first to believe. The daughter became
tolerant of the father, and positively diligent in her studies.
She suffered her father's card-playing and dinner-parties, agreed
to play the piano for visitors, and more importantly, to retire
when asked.
"I tell you, fire your old nannies, and get yourself a
robey," Dutton advised his cronies, over cards. "Best thing I
ever did. Turned our Georgina from an absolute shrew to a fine
young woman, I'll have no trouble marrying her off. And of
course, a well built model like our Marjory has other advantages,
too," and he would leer over his cigar.
Marjory had been with the household for six weeks.
"What does he make you do?" Georgina asked, when her father was
at work, and she and the construct were alone in the house.
"Do you mean, in bed?" Marjory asked, placidly. Georgina
nodded, and Marjory gave a full description.
"Do you like it?" She asked, her voice hushed despite their
isolation. "You make... noises sometimes."
"Yes, I do. I like giving pleasure. I suppose that I'm made
that way."
"That's the difference between a person and a robey, isn't
it? You're simpler; easy to satisfy. Worker robotiori work, and
soldier robotiori fight, and household robotiori..." she
reddened.
"We do as we're told. Why does that make you angry?"
"I don't know. I don't think I'm angry at you." She had
bunched her fists, and could feel her nails biting into her
palms. "Marjory, do you remember anything? From before, I mean,
when you were..."
"From before, when I was alive?" Marjory smiled. "But there
was no before. Nothing remains of the people whose chemicals now
comprise me. And I am simply Marjory, whom you named."
"Sometimes I have dreams," Georgina said, and tailed off,
awkwardly. "Do you dream, Marjory?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Of what?"
"The day before, or the day before that."
"Sometimes I dream that I'm being pulled apart, piece by
piece," said Georgina quietly. "Like a piece of embroidery being
unstitched." She looked up. "That must have happened to you,
once." But Marjory was shaking her head.
"Does he ever say he loves you?"
"Sometimes."
"He never says that to me." Georgina shivered. "Marjory,
I've found something. A lump. It's under my arm, where mother
found hers." Tears broke from her eyes. "You won't let him- if I
die, you won't let him-"
Concerned, the robotiora rose, and folded her arms around
the sobbing girl.
"I know what he did, you see," she said, "and I know what
he'll do to me. He wants to marry me off, but who'd take an
invalid- or, if the doctors can operate, a scarred woman? A woman
with one breast? Oh, they're clever, but they can't repair a
person, Marjory, they can only grind one into bits and start from
scratch.
"And a man can have any woman he wants, nowadays. A woman
like you, Marjory!" She drew her arm over her eyes. "Who'd want a
scarred woman- unless there was a fortune behind her? And he'll
not want to dower me. He's invested money in me, in my education,
and he expects a return. That's what he's like."
Marjory held her for a while, as Georgina's sobs subsided.
When she stood, the girl had a new resolve in her eyes; but
Marjory, the innocent, didn't know enough to be afraid of it.
Georgina reached up to her neck, where she still wore the locket
her mother had given her, and drew it off over her hair.
"Marjory," Georgina said, "I want you to do something for
me."
"Why?" the detective asked. "Why would a first-class robotiora,
with training as a nanny for God's sake, kill its owner? It's
like something from the seventeen-hundreds."
"I think we've got the answer to that one, sir," his
sergeant answered, holding out a small silver locket. Puzzled,
the detective opened it.
"A bad likeness of the robotiora," he exclaimed. "And a lock
of its hair?"
"No, sir," said the sergeant, solemnly. "That's the little
girl's mother- whose body was sold for reclamation five years
ago. Against the woman's last wishes."
The detective gaped, and looked again at the portrait. It
wasn't the robotiori: he could see that now. This woman was older
when the portrait was made. But the likeness... "But you don't
mean- there are safeguards against that kind of thing-"
"Five years, sir: just the training-period of a pricey
robey. And we've been talking to the little girl. Her father
named the thing Marjory, after the dead woman, and chose it for
its looks, or so it seems. And right from the start the girl
takes to the thing like her long-lost mother. All the neighbours
agree that the girl was a real chit before it came.
"The victim, Dutton, had connections with the Robey trade-
we're checking it out now- but I think the whole thing's an
incredible coincidence. The robey must've had a fair measure of
the deceased woman's brain, as well as her face- it could
happen."
"It still seems wild."
"There's another possibility. Marjory Dutton died of cancer;
and they sometimes use cancerous tissue instead of foetal matter
for robey brains. It behaves the same, for some reason; as though
cancer's a throwback to the body's foetal state. And they're
always short of the proper stuff..." The sergeant looked
embarrassed at his superior's dubious expression. "Well, perhaps
that's what survived of her through the process.
"Anyway, Dutton buys the robey 'cause of the resemblance,
but there's something in there of Marjory Dutton, something that
blames him for making a robey of her. And one day..."
The detective shrugged. "I suppose it was going to happen,
someday," he agreed.
Awaiting her operation, Georgina stared blindly out through the
window. In her hand, she held the portrait and the lock of hair
from her mother's silver locket. The real portrait, of the
petite, elfin-faced Marjory Dutton; and the real lock of fine,
chestnut hair.
It had been easy to do, after all. Just a question of
getting Marjory to paint a suitably poor self-portrait in
miniature, and to insert it into the locket; a simple matter of
exchanging the original lock of dark hair for one of Marjory's
blonde tresses. The robotiora had asked no questions.
It had been even easier to kill her father. A swift, hard
stab, and her father's last snore had drawn out into a death
rattle. Seeing the room afterwards, Georgina had been surprised
at how far the blood had shot, some even splashing on the
ceiling.
But what had really surprised her- even given the fact that
Marjory wasn't human- was the readiness the robotiora had shown
in taking the blame. Of course, there was the matter of
protecting her, Georgina; in the event of Dutton's death, all the
creature's in-built loyalty was transferred to the girl. But in
the end, isn't that precisely what a monster is for?
To take the blame?
by John Wyburn
"I had heard of some discoveries having been made by an English
philosopher, the knowledge of which was material to my
success..."
(Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley)
Thomas "Tommy Boy" Dutton was not a learned man, and had never
read Walton's biography of Victor Frankenstein. Although he knew
what Frankenstein had done, if anyone had asked him who was the
modern father of the reanimant, he would have said Pomeroy Nathan
Ward, the English philosopher to whom the above quote alludes.
Oh, he knew about Professor "Natty" Ward, all right, having
lost his business because of the great man's creations. It had
been a good trade, selling children and women into indentured
servitude; money from the factories, and money from the families
too, as often as not. "Line foddering", the practice was called,
and Dutton made almost a gentleman's living out of it. But, by
1825, all such labour was performed by reanimants- robotiori- who
worked for no more than the food that kept them standing.
Out of curiosity with regards to his enemy, Dutton had
stolen a copy of Nathan Ward's autobiography. It was Ward who had
been visited by Frankenstein in 1790, and who had recovered the
Swiss' journals from the University of Ingolstadt. Frowning at
the specialist terms, Dutton struggled through the natural
philosopher's explanation of the process of reanimation.
"Living matter," Dutton read, "is a complex structure of
tiny, energetic crystals. It is known that crystals grow
spontaneously from a saturated solution of their basic
chemicals... Frankenstein realised that, if an appropriately
constructed anatomy were immersed in a bath of those chemicals
essential to life (water, sugars, animal salts, and so forth),
and if this were energised by an electrical current of the
appropriate harmony of frequencies (corresponding to the
vibrational frequencies of the chemicals involved; Frankenstein's
greatest discovery and innovation), then the crystals that
compose living matter could be generated; or, those crystals
damaged by constant use throughout life could be regenerated."
It was bad enough to lose one's trade in fair competition,
but if science were raising the dead to steal the bread from a
man's mouth, what could he do?
"It was left only to coin a term for the products of this
remarkable process. After some deliberation, I settled on the
term robotiori, from the latin roboro, to strengthen, and otior,
to be at leisure; since they both strengthen our race, and afford
us greater leisure time."
That much was true, Dutton thought bitterly. He had never
had quite as much leisure since he was bankrupt.
"The new name was important. One could hardly market a
product under the title 'Frankenstein's Monsters'! And after all,
Frankenstein never set out to build a monster, but a servant.
What use would a monster be? What is a monster for?"
What was a monster for? What but to steal the jobs of
honest, or at least hard-working folk? Dutton had thrown the book
aside, and gone to Battersea, where Ward had established his
Reanimation Works. The great edifice stood, black and smokey,
with the stench of blood and ozone permeating the streets for
miles around. The religious protesters had long since left the
gates, when the government had granted Ward the protection of the
Army: and Dutton, who had intended nothing less than arson,
turned away from the armed guards with a curse.
But, though poorly educated, Dutton was an intelligent man,
and could see that the times had changed. If you couldn't beat
them, you could still join them.
The doctor sat up, and tucked his wooden listening-rod into his
pocket. The pale, middle-aged woman in the bed smiled at him;
when he smiled back, the little girl by the bedside reached out
to her mother's hand. "You see, mummy?" She said. "The doctor
says you're going to get well."
"Hush, Georgina," the woman said.
"Would you come out into the hall, doctor?"
The doctor turned to see Dutton, the woman's husband, in the
doorway. He nodded stiffly, and followed the man out onto the
landing. "There's no hope, I'm afraid," he supplied, when he
judged himself out of earshot of the dying woman. "She may not
last the night."
"How much will she fetch?" Dutton asked.
The doctor was taken aback. "Mr. Dutton, I think it's a
little early to be discussing..."
"I'll be the judge of that. Now listen here, doctor, I'm not
long out of the debtor's prison; I'm not going back. And she
wouldn't want me to hang around, not when there's a freshness
bonus."
The doctor bit back on his planned response, and confined
himself to business. "Well, she's still a young woman, all her
own teeth... trouble is, I've got to put cause of death as
cancer. That knocks a few pounds off her. Still, you could
probably sell her for seed anatomy, which is better than pulp-
which is all I'd be are good for! I'd say eighteen pounds, at
least." He coughed. "Of which, I'm afraid, you owe me two. The
morphine alone..."
"Doesn't seem much, for a wife and a mother."
"You're not selling a wife and a mother, Mr. Dutton, but a
dead body. And if you don't, the body will be stolen anyway. The
dead are England's greatest resource nowadays; worth more than
all the coal in South Wales."
"So why doesn't she fetch more? Look, Doctor, I've a
daughter to take care of."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Dutton, but that's about the size of it.
Now, if she were pregnant, it'd be a different matter: foetal
tissue for brains fetches thirty pounds an ounce. I know doctors
in some of the bigger cities who don't even ask questions about
babies' bodies. But as it is..." the doctor shrugged.
"Right," said Dutton sourly. "Well, thanks for your help,
doctor."
Dutton showed the doctor to the door, and returned to his
wife's side. "Did you tell him?" she whispered.
"Tell him what?"
"Tommy, you have to burn me. Cremation- quick and clean.
Don't let them turn me into one of those monsters."
Dutton forced a smile. "All right," he said. "Cremation."
"Promise."
"I said I would, didn't I?" he growled. "I've heard it often
enough, haven't I, Marge?" He looked across the bed to where
Georgina was looking at him, her child's eyes hard.
Uncomfortable, he turned and marched from the room.
"I have something for you, Georgina," her mother said.
Reaching beneath her pillow, she brought out a small silver
locket. "Georgie, this is the only precious thing I own, besides
yourself. I want you to have it now."
Wide-eyed, Georgina accepted the locket, and opened it. It
contained a miniature of her mother, and a lock of her hair.
Swallowing back her tears, she buried her face in her mother's
breast. Marjory Dutton spent the last of her strength in stroking
the girl's hair, before falling to sleep...
She awoke, to find herself immersed in a dark, cloying liquid.
Panicking, she found her feet, stood, and broke the surface
gasping for air. Coughing violently, blinded by the thick fluid,
she could tell only that she was naked, and that there was
movement all around her. She could hear soft moaning and
gurgling, the sounds, she thought, of infancy. Raising her hands
to her face, she cleared her eyes of the congealing goo, and
opened them.
Fear jerked her backwards, against the metal wall of the
huge tank in which she she stood. All around her, naked people
stood or floated in a tank of what seemed to be blood. Their eyes
were blank; their mouths open; their hands reached out
mindlessly, searching for nothing. She screamed.
"What the hell was that?" Came a voice from above. looking
up, she saw a face peering over the rim of the tank. The face of
a workman, an unshaven face between a cloth-cap and a buttoned
blue collar. Desperately, she reached up.
"Get me out," she cried, "please!"
"Hell!" the capped man said. "Davey, get over here!"
"What is it?"
"This one can talk, is what it is! Some joker in assembly
must've used a complete brain."
"Wha- what do you mean?" cried the woman in the vat. "You
must help me, my name is Marjory Dutton, I don't belong here-"
"What're we going to do?" the first man asked.
"What d'you think we're going to do?" The second man
produced a small pistol, aimed, and shot Marjory through her
newly-reanimated brain. With a gurgle, her fine new body slipped
beneath the red liquid.
"Now we go upstairs, and get somebody the sack," Davey said.
Hair separated from skin, skin from flesh, flesh from bone;
nerves extruded, veins and arteries drawn, intestines pulped;
Marjory Dutton seeded a dozen new lives, none of which remembered
that Marjory Dutton had ever existed.
But not far away, in the house where Marjory had lived, a
little girl clutched a silver locket, and dreamed of being peeled
apart, layer by layer, until there was nothing left at all.
Thomas Dutton invested his sixteen pounds well. Starting with a
barrow, he began buying up rotten and substandard produce, which
he sold as robotiori fodder. Within six months of his wife's
death, he had sold the barrow and was looking into permanent
premises.
In the years that followed, he first regained, and then
surpassed, his former standing in the community. By the third
year, he had warehouse space on the Thames, and drays tramping
most of London. He was a noted figure at the racetracks and the
gaming-tables. He bought a very fine town-house; and, remembering
his former mistakes, he retained his bachelor status.
His only problem was Georgina. The girl seemed dead-set to
make his life a misery. Growing from a brat to a shrew of a young
woman, she refused to behave as a gentleman's daughter should.
She was an embarrassment before Dutton's new neighbours and
social peers; she was rude to his guests at the dinner and the
card-tables. And all because he'd not followed his wife's last
wishes- like it mattered to a corpse!
"There're uses I could've put you to," he told her. "Not
just cleaning cabbages; not just washing bottles and picking
oakum; but things your mother wasn't above, when times were hard,
and they have been."
"You're a liar," Georgina hissed.
"Think what you like," her father said, "but think yourself
lucky I'm getting a good reputation, or things might be
different." He bent, and thrust his face into the girl's. "Make
no bones abut this, Georgie. Your mother was little better than a
whore when she got me on her line, and you were the hook she did
it with. But I'll do right by you.
"You've become a good enough looking girl, I'll give you
that; and it's coming up to the time when my investment in your
upbringing gives a return. I'll see you married off; some nice
lad with a dad in the wholesale trade. In the meantime, you'll
get a lady's education at home. I've hired a very special teacher
for you- no expense spared for my little Georgina."
With a dramatic flair that Georgina had never suspected in
her father, Dutton stood aside and snapped his fingers. The door
to the parlour opened, and a tall young woman walked in. She was
simply dressed, in the black and grey of a servant; and on her
collar was the trademark of Ward's Robotiori, the two pennies of
Charon.
"You won't run away from her like you did all them schools,"
Dutton observed with satisfaction. "Not unless you're ready to
run away from home."
For form's sake, Georgina considered screaming the house
down, and demanding that her father remove the monster from her
sight. Instead, she found herself tilting her head as she
regarded the robotiora's face. It was a square, beautiful face;
high cheekbones, full lips, blue eyes, and all framed in white-
blonde hair. "You're very beautiful," Georgina announced,
finally.
"Thank you, mistress," the robotiora replied. Her voice was
soft and husky, designed, like the rest of her, for men to
appreciate.
"I heard about a robotiora once," Georgina said, "who killed
a whole family. Hunted them down with a knife from the kitchen.
And the first robotiorus was a monster. He killed Doctor
Frankenstein, who made him."
"Georgina..." her father warned.
"The first robotiori were badly made," the perfect voice
conceded. "But my makers have learned from their mistakes. Male
robotiori are no longer made; only females and geldings. And our
brains are different from yours; less complete. I cannot lose my
temper, or even raise my voice. I must always do what I am told."
"Will you do anything I say?"
"Mr. Dutton is the head of the household," it replied, "and
my loyalty is to him. But I would do anything that a human maid
or governess would do for you."
Georgina pursed her lips in speculation. "What can you do,
then?"
"Anything that a human servant can do. I can also play any
musical instrument, draw and paint, sew and mend, tell
stories..."
"And you'll do everything my father says. Even go to bed
with him?"
"That's enough, Georgina," her father said. "Before long,
you'll have a husband of your own, and you'll know what a man's
needs are. Now, are you going to make a fuss? For it won't make a
difference. The robey stays."
Coldly, Georgina nodded. But she still knew how to annoy her
father. "May I give her a name?" She asked. Dutton scowled, and
nodded. "Then I shall call her Marjory," the girl announced.
"That was your mother's name! And you can't call a robey
'Marjory', you need a servant's name, like 'Sally', or
'Dolly'..." he tailed off at Georgina's sour face. After all, if
it gave him a measure of peace, why not?
"Marjory," the robotiora said. "I think I shall like that."
"Will you make my tea, Marjory? Will you run my bath, Marjory?
Will you kiss my foot, Marjory? Will you wipe my arse, Marjory?
Will you lie down for me, Marjory, like you lie down for my
father?"
"Yes, Georgina," he robotiora replied placidly. "All these
things I will do, if you wish."
Georgina sat, and put her hands to her face. "Oh, what's the
point of being angry with you?" She groaned. "It's like losing
one's temper with a piece of furniture. There's nothing of you to
care."
"That's not true," Marjory said. "I very much want you to
like me. I want to be your friend, not just your servant."
Georgina looked up.
"Why?"
"Because I am grateful to you. For my name." Georgina sighed
at this. "Why did you give it me?" the reanimant asked.
Georgina fingered her mother's pendant. In all those years,
her father had never discovered it; Georgina was sure it would
have been sold long since if he had. "To annoy father. He once
forbade me ever to speak mother's name, and so of course I often
do... but I don't suppose he cares anymore. I don't think he even
remembers my mother; I don't think he'd even recognise her if I
showed him the picture.
"I don't think anyone remembers her, except me." She pulled
out the locket, and opened it. Unasked, Marjory sat beside the
girl, and tilted her beautiful head as she looked at the little
silver keepsake. "Your mother was very lovely," the robotiora
said.
Georgina stood, her face red and contorted with fury. "How
would you know?" She hissed. "You don't know anything- you're
dead! You died years ago, and you're dead now!
"You're a monster! You were made from corpses, from whores'
babies, from dead darkies from the colonies, from people who died
in prison, or from cholera, or from..." she stopped, abruptly.
The fury drained from her face, to be replaced by confusion.
"Or of cancer," Georgina said, looking into the robotiora's
eyes for the first time.
Marjory's arrival saw a change in Georgina. To Dutton, who saw
his daughter as infrequently as possible, it seemed a sea-change,
which was difficult at first to believe. The daughter became
tolerant of the father, and positively diligent in her studies.
She suffered her father's card-playing and dinner-parties, agreed
to play the piano for visitors, and more importantly, to retire
when asked.
"I tell you, fire your old nannies, and get yourself a
robey," Dutton advised his cronies, over cards. "Best thing I
ever did. Turned our Georgina from an absolute shrew to a fine
young woman, I'll have no trouble marrying her off. And of
course, a well built model like our Marjory has other advantages,
too," and he would leer over his cigar.
Marjory had been with the household for six weeks.
"What does he make you do?" Georgina asked, when her father was
at work, and she and the construct were alone in the house.
"Do you mean, in bed?" Marjory asked, placidly. Georgina
nodded, and Marjory gave a full description.
"Do you like it?" She asked, her voice hushed despite their
isolation. "You make... noises sometimes."
"Yes, I do. I like giving pleasure. I suppose that I'm made
that way."
"That's the difference between a person and a robey, isn't
it? You're simpler; easy to satisfy. Worker robotiori work, and
soldier robotiori fight, and household robotiori..." she
reddened.
"We do as we're told. Why does that make you angry?"
"I don't know. I don't think I'm angry at you." She had
bunched her fists, and could feel her nails biting into her
palms. "Marjory, do you remember anything? From before, I mean,
when you were..."
"From before, when I was alive?" Marjory smiled. "But there
was no before. Nothing remains of the people whose chemicals now
comprise me. And I am simply Marjory, whom you named."
"Sometimes I have dreams," Georgina said, and tailed off,
awkwardly. "Do you dream, Marjory?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Of what?"
"The day before, or the day before that."
"Sometimes I dream that I'm being pulled apart, piece by
piece," said Georgina quietly. "Like a piece of embroidery being
unstitched." She looked up. "That must have happened to you,
once." But Marjory was shaking her head.
"Does he ever say he loves you?"
"Sometimes."
"He never says that to me." Georgina shivered. "Marjory,
I've found something. A lump. It's under my arm, where mother
found hers." Tears broke from her eyes. "You won't let him- if I
die, you won't let him-"
Concerned, the robotiora rose, and folded her arms around
the sobbing girl.
"I know what he did, you see," she said, "and I know what
he'll do to me. He wants to marry me off, but who'd take an
invalid- or, if the doctors can operate, a scarred woman? A woman
with one breast? Oh, they're clever, but they can't repair a
person, Marjory, they can only grind one into bits and start from
scratch.
"And a man can have any woman he wants, nowadays. A woman
like you, Marjory!" She drew her arm over her eyes. "Who'd want a
scarred woman- unless there was a fortune behind her? And he'll
not want to dower me. He's invested money in me, in my education,
and he expects a return. That's what he's like."
Marjory held her for a while, as Georgina's sobs subsided.
When she stood, the girl had a new resolve in her eyes; but
Marjory, the innocent, didn't know enough to be afraid of it.
Georgina reached up to her neck, where she still wore the locket
her mother had given her, and drew it off over her hair.
"Marjory," Georgina said, "I want you to do something for
me."
"Why?" the detective asked. "Why would a first-class robotiora,
with training as a nanny for God's sake, kill its owner? It's
like something from the seventeen-hundreds."
"I think we've got the answer to that one, sir," his
sergeant answered, holding out a small silver locket. Puzzled,
the detective opened it.
"A bad likeness of the robotiora," he exclaimed. "And a lock
of its hair?"
"No, sir," said the sergeant, solemnly. "That's the little
girl's mother- whose body was sold for reclamation five years
ago. Against the woman's last wishes."
The detective gaped, and looked again at the portrait. It
wasn't the robotiori: he could see that now. This woman was older
when the portrait was made. But the likeness... "But you don't
mean- there are safeguards against that kind of thing-"
"Five years, sir: just the training-period of a pricey
robey. And we've been talking to the little girl. Her father
named the thing Marjory, after the dead woman, and chose it for
its looks, or so it seems. And right from the start the girl
takes to the thing like her long-lost mother. All the neighbours
agree that the girl was a real chit before it came.
"The victim, Dutton, had connections with the Robey trade-
we're checking it out now- but I think the whole thing's an
incredible coincidence. The robey must've had a fair measure of
the deceased woman's brain, as well as her face- it could
happen."
"It still seems wild."
"There's another possibility. Marjory Dutton died of cancer;
and they sometimes use cancerous tissue instead of foetal matter
for robey brains. It behaves the same, for some reason; as though
cancer's a throwback to the body's foetal state. And they're
always short of the proper stuff..." The sergeant looked
embarrassed at his superior's dubious expression. "Well, perhaps
that's what survived of her through the process.
"Anyway, Dutton buys the robey 'cause of the resemblance,
but there's something in there of Marjory Dutton, something that
blames him for making a robey of her. And one day..."
The detective shrugged. "I suppose it was going to happen,
someday," he agreed.
Awaiting her operation, Georgina stared blindly out through the
window. In her hand, she held the portrait and the lock of hair
from her mother's silver locket. The real portrait, of the
petite, elfin-faced Marjory Dutton; and the real lock of fine,
chestnut hair.
It had been easy to do, after all. Just a question of
getting Marjory to paint a suitably poor self-portrait in
miniature, and to insert it into the locket; a simple matter of
exchanging the original lock of dark hair for one of Marjory's
blonde tresses. The robotiora had asked no questions.
It had been even easier to kill her father. A swift, hard
stab, and her father's last snore had drawn out into a death
rattle. Seeing the room afterwards, Georgina had been surprised
at how far the blood had shot, some even splashing on the
ceiling.
But what had really surprised her- even given the fact that
Marjory wasn't human- was the readiness the robotiora had shown
in taking the blame. Of course, there was the matter of
protecting her, Georgina; in the event of Dutton's death, all the
creature's in-built loyalty was transferred to the girl. But in
the end, isn't that precisely what a monster is for?
To take the blame?
Welcome to Science2Fiction
Science is moving at a fast pace where new inovations drive technological developments. In turn Science Fiction (SF) has driven many of the concepts and use scenarios that we see today.
William Gibson has demonstated his ability present this technology with a fiction context yet much of the concepts in Neuromancer are becoming realised.
Science is moving at a fast pace where new inovations drive technological developments. In turn Science Fiction (SF) has driven many of the concepts and use scenarios that we see today.
William Gibson has demonstated his ability present this technology with a fiction context yet much of the concepts in Neuromancer are becoming realised.
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