almost Albinese. Great big fat ’ead. I didn’t get the feeling ’e was new in town, but I weren’t familiar with ’im. Bit of a Geordie, if my knowledge of dialects is up to snuff.”
Finley didn’t doubt he could identify a person’s regional origin with three miles. “You didn’t ask what the cargo was?”
He looked affronted. “Course not, but somefin about it felt off, right? I’ve survived on luck, intuition and not being a bloody idiot. Every instinct I ’ave told me this weren’t good. So, before I delivered the crate I opened it.”
He’d lost some of his swagger and the sparkle in his eyes. That couldn’t be a good sign. He took a drink of tea and made a face. Perhaps he really wanted something a bit stronger. That didn’t bode well. Dandy was not easily disconcerted.
“What was in the crate, Jack?”
“An automaton. I think.” His accent lost much of its affectation. “Unlike any metal I’ve ever seen.”
The unease pooling at the base of Finley’s spine intensified, but it was Emily who asked, “How so?”
Jack chuckled, but there was little humor in it. “She—and it was definitely a girl—was naked, and she—” he swallowed “—she had bits of skin on her, like she was a patchwork quilt without all its pieces.”
“It must have been a waxwork,” Emily suggested, perhaps a bit condescendingly.
Dark eyes turned to her. “That’s what I told myself—before I touched her. Skin and hair. I fancied I could see lungs beneath her metal ribs. One eye socket was empty, the other had an eyeball in it—it was the color of amber.” He swallowed, and set his cup and saucer on the low table at his knees.
Finley reached out and put her hand on his arm. She’d never seen him so rattled, but then she’d only known him a few months. “It must have been a frightening sight, but it was just a machine, Jack.”
He stared at her, then at the hand on his sleeve. It was as though a curtain was pulled back into place, and he was once again the Jack Dandy she knew. “No, Treasure. I don’t fink it were.”
She removed the hand he seemed to find so offensive. If he hadn’t called her “Treasure” she’d start to wonder if he was angry with her. “Why not?”
Jack’s jaw tightened. “It…she spoke to me.”
She had asked the handsome man not to put her back in the dark, but the fleshy stub in her mouth didn’t move the way she wanted and refused to form the words, so all that came out was a moaning noise.
He had looked at her in horror, as though she were a…monster. That was the word. She didn’t quite know what it meant, but she knew it was right. He was disgusted by her. That made her sad, even though she wasn’t sure why, except that he had looked so very pretty to her.
But then, everything looked pretty when your eyes were brand-new, as hers were. She had two now. The second one had started to appear the day after the man opened the ceiling on her wooden domicile.
Domicile. That meant home. She lifted her chin and looked around the room. The other machines had put her here after removing her from the crate. Was this to be her home now? It was ever so much nicer than the hot, smelly box, even though they had set her inside a casket of iron. At least the casket allowed her to stand upright. If only they hadn’t shackled her inside, she might move about a bit. Perhaps that would ease the incessant pressure in her abdomen. It was almost unbear…
Oh.
Hot, wet liquid splashed against her feet. It was coming from inside her. Was it oil? Some sort of chemical for her inner workings? It smelled funny, but at least her belly didn’t hurt. In fact, the release of the liquid felt wonderful. Whatever it was, she’d had a surplus that obviously had to be evacuated. Would this be a regular occurrence?
The door to the room she was in opened, and in scuttled two automatons. One had a shiny porcelain doll head perched atop its squat metal body, and eight reticulated limbs that made it move like an insect. The other appeared as an elderly woman in a tattered gown. It appeared as though her head had been removed at one time and reattached by a clumsy child. It was pitched forward and slightly to the side.
She tried to draw back from them, their monstrous countenances frightening, but there was nowhere for her to go while trapped in the lead box.
“I told you it was going to be female,” the spider said to the woman. Its voice was like the clattering of discordant notes on a piano keyboard.
“We must find some clothing,” the other replied in a voice that was almost human, but with a slight hitch. Whoever had put its head back on hadn’t aligned the voice box correctly. “It would not be proper for her to be seen naked, but we can no longer keep her restrained now that biological function has begun. Bring someone to clean up her mess.”
The short one made a skittering sound. It wasn’t any kind of language her logic engine could identify, but she understood it, regardless. It was the language of metal, and the spider didn’t like being ordered about.
A clawlike hand lashed out from the “old woman” and struck the other. “You will do as told, or face the wrath of the Master.”
The Master. The mention of him made the gregorite vertebrae of her spine cold. Part of her insisted she bow to him, but another part…that strange part responsible for the gooey eyeballs in her head and the fleshy thing in her mouth, was afraid. Why would she be afraid? She was machine, and machines were not capable of feeling.
Something jumped in her chest. She looked down. Between the two swells of flesh on her chest there was a small expanse of her framework not yet covered over by skin. There, through the gleaming rungs of her chasse she spied a red, wet lump of muscle, ebbing and receding in time with the pulsing throughout her form.
What was happening to her?
The old woman came to her, every step halting, punctuated with a dry, grinding sound. Her thin lips clicked upward into a grotesque parody of a smile.
A smile with no emotion behind it. No humanity. The skin of the machine’s face was gray and lax. There was something wrong with it, but what? Her mind knew she should be horrified, but not why.
And it stank. Stank like death, though she had no idea how she knew that. In fact, she didn’t even know her own name. Did she have a name?
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked. The thing in her mouth was bigger now, and moved when she spoke, so that the words that came out sounded almost as they ought.
How did she know how the words were supposed to sound? Why did she know so much and so very little? Why was she so afraid?
“Don’t worry, little one,” the old woman said, reaching out and touching her with cold, foul fingers. “We have great plans for you.”
Chapter 3
A strange young man stood up when Finley entered the dining room the next morning. He was alone at the table, a half cup of coffee and a plate with a few bites of coddled eggs and ham in front of him.
“Good
