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AI illustration for my short story, Clockwork Girl: Clockwork GirlHe was a genius with mechanical devices. He revolutionized the construction of the difference engine. Babbage's gear-driven computational devices were reaching their calculation limits. Some companies were devising the smallest gear teeth on the tiniest gears that human industry could achieve. Or...ALMOST achieve. They were at the edge of dependable mass production. Each iteration of the infinitesimal Spot Thought One Hundred had flaws that no one could detect until a tooth broke off, bringing sensitive equipment, literally, to a grinding halt.Their rivals were going macro, vice micro. They were constructing tiny teeth on enormous gears. One revolution of the Diff Ex One Thousand, the Deus Ex Machine, was the functional equivalent of a thousand revolutions of a Spot Thought 100.Their machines were far more durable, but by the time you had a decently complex machine, you had a housing the size of Buckingham Palace. The coal demands to compute the building's own coal demands for the coming year were equal to the home heating budget of Cornwall for a mild December week.A desperate government sought some solution between the two extremes.Abraham Maxwell provided that. A master of automatons, he created a laboratory of machine artisans that produced difference engine parts. They came out with ridged gears the size of pocket change, with teeth so small they felt smooth to the human touch.The automatons the size of a man built automatons the size of a collie. They manufactured automatons the size of Leprechauns, who built automatons the size of crickets who built gears the size of pocket change.The self-building Maxwell revolutionized the industry. Now computational devices, Babbage's gift to bureaucracy, were not the sole sport of entire governments. Every agency of the Crown's government could afford their own difference machine.The Maxwells might one day become a toy for individual businesses. It was said that every corporation in the City had their accountants slavering at the possibilities. It was possible to imagine that one day, every quarterly report could be produced in-house, by men diligently cranking numbers into their Max.A grateful government made Bram a rich and famous man. A thankful world went on to make him a very, very rich man.And his wife, Imogene Clacks, made him very happy.Immy was Bram's intellectual equal, though her mind dominated hallways where Bram could never walk. She was an alchemist. A student of mixtures, tinctures and complicated processes that cared what phase the moon was in, or if the artisan had been recently bathed.He scoffed at her recipes and her calendar. At how she would only work love potions after dark, or how she couldn’t make perfume for thirty two hours after they made love. "It would just be too powerful, my dear. Minds would be lost."Happy. Blissfully happy, but lost nevertheless.""Nonsense," he accused. "Your whole industry is shams and shadows."But even he could not deny her results, however she obtained them.She could distill rain into an incense that smelled of childhood. She could bottle regret and season food with a memory.The few that were admitted to her laboratory came out with the air of one who had been granted a vision of Paradise. When he showed her how much money they owned, she asked for a private place they might live, so she could research the very limits of alchemical knowledge.He made an offer on the Vatican. He was ready to board a dirigible to go sign the final papers when she finally learned of the plan. She reminded him that Italian food didn't agree with her.With a happy smile, he sent the Pope his regrets and asked her where the hell she would like to live?The island was purchased in secret and a custom built castle made by workers whose only clues as to their location were the weeks spent below decks to get there, and the very low arc the sun took across the sky.When it was completed, they moved in. Just Bram and Immy and a few hundred clockwork servants to keep the place running.----His retirement project was overwhelmingly complicated. That was by design. He needed to be engaged or he'd be in Immy's lab, pointing out that her efforts to strain the happy out of the water had left a beaker indiscernable from before.He was going to make a woman. They could not have a child. Exposure to her beloved chemicals would be too great a risk. The child might come out unsightly, unfriendly, unintelligent or American. It would be an unconscionable fate to bestow upon any offspring.So he wanted something more durable than an infant, but more lifelike than his other machines. Immy laughed at his hubris."Mechanicals are wonderful, dearest, but they only mimic life. You deal with gross matter. Life is the very essence of my art.""Well, if I were easily successful, my dear, we'd both be in your lab the very next day, challenging your notions."She smiled and shook her head, leaving him to his pins, rods and gears.His prototype was constructed at one quarter scale. A tiny woman to demonstrate his abilities, and a sort of mine-field explorer to locate his weaknesses.There was no effort to make her a brain. Not at first. The body needed to be expressive enough to support the goal his ambition aimed at.He built, then, her body. Each joint matched human range, each limb was human in shape and ability.The face was expressive. Eyes could wink and eyebrows could rise and lips could purse.Every time he felt he'd achieved the day's goal, he hooked his copper and steel woman to an organ. The steam powered construction had no mind of its own, much like the nameless doll.By pressing upon the surface controls, Brom could activate the doll’s abilities. He indulged himself in a little conceit. He would direct her verbally, then play upon the controls to make her respond."Walk," he commanded. Then with hands hovering over her left and right leg controls, she would sashay from left to right, on tiptoe or with full strides. He could, after much practice and some careful construction, make her dance a waltz as if in the arms of an invisible partner.Imogene loved to watch the little figure. While her reagents cooled or her coals burnt down, she would take a seat in the corner of her husband's workroom, where the angle allowed her only the sight of his face and the doll.It appeared as if a living being were trapped, bound by steel cables that ran down into the control device, endlessly performing for her gentle but irresistible master.She almost wished that he would never enjoy success, and merely spend the rest of their time together having his little fae slave dance before them both.But she had too much respect for his abilities to think that the status would remain forever quo.----------Bram took the physical abilities as far as they would go. The doll could even wiggle her ears on command. Something Immy could though Bram couldn't. Likewise, it could roll its tongue as Bram could, unlike his wife.Then he constructed the motor. There wasn't much to that. A winding device that provided power to the as yet uninstalled controller.For now, there was merely a rotating drum that activated a series of commands that would make the automaton walk. And that only on flat surfaces.He demonstrated the successful completion of that goal to his wife at dinner. "I believe," he said as he placed the copper figure on the dinner table, "that the doll deserves a name at this point."I nominate 'Cypria,' as the discovery of copper is very ancient. And the Romans referred to it as Cyprium, the metal from Cyprus.""Hmm. The doll is made of copper, so you call her copper. Ingenious. Tell me, love, what words would you use to describe the metal itself? What is 'copper' in the mind of a metal worker such as yourself?""Oh, um. Malleable. It's a conductor. You can use it to spread heat or electricity. It's a common building material, for houses and ships. It lends itself to several good alloys.""Uh huh," she said with a smile. "For you, copper is largely defined by what you can do with it. I, personally, should hate to be defined by my creator based on that sort of self-interest.""Well, what does an alchemist think of copper?" he charged."I think that pure copper has the second most beautiful color of blue that I've ever seen." As she'd often looked in his eyes and complimented the rich blue iris she found there, he blushed and silently acknowledged her point."I know it conducts energies you don't believe exist. It connects us to a spiritual realm that speeds healing, physical and emotional. And it opens us up to greater beings and powers." The doll had walked to her end of the table by then. She picked it up and sent it back."So," he said triumphantly. "You, too, value copper for what it does.""I value it for what it does already, as part of its very nature," she pointed out. "I do not value it for how I can bend it to my will." She gestured at little Cypria. "Do you want her to be a person? A living thing or as close as you can get?"The galley automatons started clearing the plates and platters of the finished meal. "Or, like them, something you can... What's wrong?"Cypria had slowed and stopped walking. Bram stood and walked to where it was. He removed a key from a pocket."She's just wound down. Uh..." "Why do you hesitate, Bram?" she asked."Well. Um. Well, the motor is in the lower part of her abdomen. In humans, the space is dedicated to digestion, which Cypria will never need.""I understand that," Immy said."So, the entry point for the key has to be close by." She made no comment except to place her chin on her palm, as one waiting out a long and difficult speech. "And, I didn't wish to mar her features with a keyhole.""What are you saying, dear one?""Well, you may not appreciate the engineering concerns that came to dominate the placement of the keyhole.""I begin to wonder if I shall ever learn the placement of the keyhole," she said playfully.He shrugged and upended the doll. Her legs fell apart in a manner usually associated with vulgar entertainments.And he inserted the key into, and you should forgive the expression, her slot."Oh, dear," Immy said."Dearest, it's not exactly as bad as it looks," Bram said."No, dear, it's the pun." Bram blinked at her comment. "Obviously," she went on, "you expected me to groan and complain about the rather chauvinistic placement, but it's the descent into verbal vulgarity that offends."She stood and walked towards the door, her path requiring her to move very near her husband and his naked toy."I assume Cypria will one day wear clothing?""Yes, of course.""Then you've decided that she should daily receive the wind up her skirt." Immy stepped out into the hall and headed for her lab. Behind her, Bram chortled. Cypria clicked.-------They argued long and hard about the nature of life, of living, as compared to the mere automation of motion.Cypria grew in sophistication, range and durability, while their debate remained largely an entertaining distraction.They never quite got to the point of fighting over it.One day, Imogene appeared at dinner with a small glass bottle shaped like a human heart. A real heart, which he would appreciate. Both of them found the two-lobed symbol a monstrosity of inaccurate science and inattention to detail.She placed it before his place and took her seat."And what is this?" he asked."I offer you a reservoir for Cypria's heart, dear.""This is heart shaped," he pointed out. "It would be her heart, if I used it.""No, it's merely a container. I shall make a reduction, boiling life down to an elixir. One that shall inform her creation with true life, not the semblance.""I begin to think that the semblance is all we have," he mused."What?" she asked, scandalized. "Mock my profession, dearest. Mock my colleagues and followers and customers all you wish. But my base beliefs? The bedrock core of our existence, the clear difference between us and the unliving? Mock that at your peril!""Forgive me," he said, apparently quite sincere. "I meant only that if I can create something a casual observer won't be able to distinguish from a living creature, then what difference is there?""Casual observers are largely morons, my love," Immy said, a twinkle in her eye."True," he agreed. "I must say, I hope that Cypria will exceed the rank and file in that respect."He took measurements of the bottle and stopper and promised to make room for it in the little copper torso.-------He visited the mainland from time to time, inquiring as to the advancement of difference engines following his revolution.He was not above using another's work in his greater projects. Frankly, he took a rather proprietary interest in everything that depended from the trail he'd blazed. Perhaps he hadn't fathered the new Dual Difference Comparator, but he was certainly the grandfather.Sadly, the industry had not gone much into advancing the computing power of the smaller gears. There was too big a market in replication. Everyone wanted a difference engine just a bit bigger than the neighbors' machines.The abilities of a machine to solve the great questions man faced were ignored. They clamored for greater and greater concentration of gears, finer teeth. Calculating the machines' powers ignored the Turing standard and merely gauged how many teeth were contained on the final expression gear.There were adverts in the papers bragging of many thousands of teeth, with Roman numbers used to convey a quick grasp of the quantity.Bram was disgusted. In the one interview he granted during the visit, he expressed, "micro interest in the MMMega machines."So he returned home, thinking his disappointment was not to be matched in this century.Until he found the remains of his wife.---------Immy had suffered an accidental exposure to some of the more dangerous materials in her laboratory."It was entirely my fault, my love," she wrote. "There was nothing you could have done to prevent it, or to make my lovely, lovely laboratory safer."Quite frankly, I dropped a vial because I took a shortcut."The vapors have hardened my lungs. Breathing is becoming laborious. But there's no cure, and no point in beating my chest over it."At least I have time to tell you how very much I love you. And I hope you consider it a blessing that you won't have to watch me expire."The heart is complete, and had nothing to do with the accident. I want you to feel no guilt associated with this turn of events."Enjoy Cypria. Know that I love you, and I have loved watching you craft her."He grieved mightily. Surrounded by his machines and her chemicals, there was no one to tell him that she had gone to a better place. No one cautioned him against thinking he could have changed fate.No one tried to convince him it was God's will.Rather, he could fully indulge his emotional breakdown, working through his grief by stages, unhampered by the well-meaning comments of idiots.He tearfully collected the little heart, the last item his loving spouse had completed. He lodged it carefully in the little chest and made fast the connections to the control systems. This was accomplished mostly by feel as Bram was blinded by tears.And he wailed. He knelt before the little doll, alternately apologizing to Cypria for killing her mother, and apologizing to Imogene for building her the death trap that ended her life.His clockwork servants went about their stations and their duties, unaffected by the strange hours and mournful noises.Six months after the death, Bram was standing in the dining room, ignoring yet another meal. He had placed Cypria at Immy's place, then sat at his own and stared at it.An automaton entered the room. One he hardly recognized, it was the one he'd constructed as his wife's maid."What do you want?" he asked. Then he realized that he'd taken no steps with respect to his wife's portion of the staff.They'd been cleaning her room, examining her hamper for laundry, inventorying her consumables... Details of her life continuing without her life.He moaned. He would have to issue new orders, shift some of the servants around... Perhaps close the lab.An alarm sounded in the maid's chest. She opened a safe within her belly and took out an envelope. She handed that to Bram.His hand shook as he recognized his wife's handwriting on the outside, addressing the contents to him.The maid withdrew as he opened it and removed a single sheet of paper. He glanced at his wife's place, eyes resting on Cypria, on her copper bosom.So the heart was not the last thing his wife had completed.What had she thought about, in those last moments? What message had she constructed? Why set it to be delivered half a year later?Was she thinking he'd be recovered from his grief at this point? Or nearly suicidal? He almost didn't read the letter. The possibilities were too great. He imagined it might contain a love poem, or maybe an apology for some slight, or perhaps she'd admit he was always right about alchemy... Such thoughts brought her back to life in his memory. She continued to exist, as long as he could hold those images in his mind.But tempting as it was, he could not ignore what might be her last request. Her last message. His last chance to hear her express her love.He unfolded the parchment and wiped his eyes. It was her handwriting. And it was clear, short and concise."Dearest," he read aloud. "Wind the fucking doll."======== He stared at the sentence. Then he laughed, a short chuckle. And again. The laughter grew. He stood and took Cypria's key out of his pocket. He stumbled as he tried to walk the length of the table. Laughter overwhelmed him. Laughter at his hubris, his egocentric grief, the inattention to detail and his wife's careful choice of words.Skewered mightily through heart and mind, he fell to the floor, overcome by guffaws, belly laughter and more blinding tears.Whenever he recovered enough to pull himself up, leaning on the table, he saw Cypria.The doll seemed to be looking down on him in judgment, a wry look that Immy did so, so well, Bram had spent weeks trying to capture it.And he was off again.Time passed. He may have passed out. When he could breathe dependably, he crawled to the chair and lifted the doll.Her legs parted as they were designed to. He imagined they opened eagerly.The key was gently but firmly inserted and the doll was wound. Tighter and tighter the spring went, more and more rapid the clicks sounded.He paused, carefully avoiding overwinding it. Damaging her. He removed the key and gently set her back in her place.Kneeling still, he looked up at the figure and waited, barely breathing.Cypria ticked over, the little period where the first load of instructions would prepare her for the rest, for walking.She flattened her feet, widened her stance...and raised her arms to feel her face."Oh, my Lord, it worked," Immy said. She raised her eyes to Bram's seat, the chair at the far end of the table. It was empty. She looked around in fear. Someone had to have wound her.Her dear husband knelt at her place. Eyes as wide as her spread hand stared up at her. A smile that was nearly a frozen rictus covered the face."Dearest?" she called to him."Bwah-HAH!" he cackled. Then fainted dead away. "Oh, dear," she said, looking down at his prone form.She turned to look around the table. Two chairs were still close to the sides. She could descend by stages rather than risk jumping.She would have to ask Abraham if this chassis could withstand such a drop. After one step towards the nearest chair, she paused. There was a very strange discomfort in her lower...Imogene widened her stance further and reached down. "You could have removed the key, darling."Once that was out and placed carefully beside the salt shaker, she moved quickly down to her husband's side.He remained unconscious, though she delighted in the smile still showing on his face. She was less pleased with the beard stubble. His clothes were rumpled from days of wear and, she suspected, not a few nights.Bram had really gone to pieces without her. Well, she was here, now, and she'd just have to put him to rights.She crawled up onto his chest and knelt by his chin. Gentle but amazingly articulate hands grasped the sizes of his face. And she shook. "OI! Boyo! Wakey wakey!"He mumbled but remained unconscious. Her bag was in view, on the side table. There were smelling salts within it, but it was currently out of her reach.She shook and yelled a few more times. Then she had a thought. She shifted to kneeling beside his ear. "Bram, there's a man at the door," she said in a conversational tone. "He says the age of the difference engine is past.""Oh, like bloody Hell!" he shouted, sitting straight up. "Where? Where is this- Oh. Oh, God, Immy. Is it really you?""According to my standards or yours?" she asked sweetly."Close enough," he replied. He reached out and gingerly cupped her hips in both hands to lift her to the table.There he stared, one thumb stroking her fine, burnished thigh. "I've missed you so..." he said."Well, I've been waiting," she said. Her arms folded over her chest. Her whole posture was so classically Immy that he saw her there, a ghostly body superimposed upon the metal form."I'm so sorry," he apologized."Well, it's possible you weren't really ready to welcome me, not in this form. Not until tonight.""A point," he confessed. "It would have interfered with the proper processing of my grief.""Which was?" she asked."I went nutsy fuzzbean," he said. "A technical term.""Alchemists use it, too," she said with a smile. She spun around suddenly, coming up on one toe and turning the full three hundred and sixty degrees. "Good thing you completed this while you were still sane, darling."She glanced up. Bram was watching her animation with wonder. "It's so responsive. I feel I can do anything.""Anything you can imagine," he promised. "A cartwheel?" she asked. "I've always wanted to do a cartwheel." He gestured to invite her to try it. She smiled, threw herself to one side...and collapsed.----------The world came back slowly. There was darkness, and a tingling in her limbs. She felt every joint, and could even tell if the joint was ball and socket, hinged or pivot.After that, she started to smell. She smelled an overwhelming amount of Bram.Then she heard him. "Come on," he said. And repeated over and over."Come where?" she asked. She raised a hand to her forehead. It was a reflex, though. From her disorientation she thought she should feel dizzy, perhaps drunk.But when she blinked, she was whole. She sat up. She was on the table, laying before her husband's place. And the key was back inside her."What happened?""Dear, you over exerted yourself and wound down.""Bram? You made a doll that couldn't last an hour?""No, no. Well. This was supposed to be a prototype. Cyrpia only had to last long enough to demonstrate the possibilities so that- Argh. That's not important right now.""I should think," she protested, "that the ability to hold an entire conversation without passing out would be important!""Well, yes, but-""I mean, it's the only intercourse left to us." He blushed, right then, deep and purple, but didn't correct her. She filed that thought for later investigation."Yes, well, the thing is, I didn't fully wind the spring this time. I just... I didn't want to risk breaking you.""Darling," she said. "It's an original Maxwell. I don't think you COULD break me, at least without serious intent and preparations." She clanged a metal fist on her chest. The clear note of the impact rang out."Ah. A point. But that was when it was merely Cypria, not... Not you.""Well, since I dislike going insensate, could you please wind me up to full intensity?" she asked. He was surprised at the pout, having never designed the expression.But he assented quickly. She lay back and spread her legs. The key poked up at a forty five degree angle, more or less.She tried not to think of it in terms obscene. Then he pinched the handle and twisted.Her insides...tightened. Tightened in a way she found very...pleasing. With the key merely set inside the lock, she felt nothing. Not even a whisper of penetration.But as it turned, she knew every knurl on the knob, every star point in the socket, and could probably estimate the windings of the spring.He twisted, slowly and methodically, a gentle pace, waiting no doubt for any complaint on her part."Faster," she hissed. He looked surprised, but he obeyed. She writhed a bit. The twisting...it was as a rhythmic pounding into her center.His pauses were frustrating losses of sensation. But she adapted herself to the pulsing changes."Oh," she cooed. He recognized the sound. He twisted a bit slower. Her toes curled, feet moving in little circles by his wrists."Bram," she whispered."Immy," he replied. The fingers of his free hand stroked her inner thighs.She reached out with her hands and grabbed his wrist, pulling his touch tighter.He shifted a bit, coming at the key at a more efficient angle.Tighter, tighter, fuller and harder. Then she felt the last winding go taut. There was nowhere else to go, no further twisting would fit on that cam.She screamed his name. He swore mightily. His sweat dripped on her form, shining bright as she bucked and kicked. The key flew across the dining room, ricocheting off of the frame of a painting over the fireplace."Wow," she said, slowly regaining control of her extensions."Indeed," he said, stroking her skull. "Wow, indeed."She felt a new vigor after the winding. He felt a keen appreciation of her movements as she explored. After he assured her she could jump straight to the floor, she ran around the room, climbing and touching and pulling and jumping. He sat in one spot, turning only to follow her with his eyes.She found she could focus her gaze far more closely than humanly possible. The fibers that made up the carpet were fascinating. Twisting endlessly, fold upon fold of material.Bent over, she traced a single hair through a vertical road map of...Her hearing was enhanced, too. She not only heard Bram's breathing speed up, she heard a stirring in his trousers. And actually heard the echo of the pulse in his hardening..."Darling," she asked, still bent over, "did you make any garments for this figure?""No," he choked out."So, you have no immediate way for me to cover my derriere?" She shook those juxtaposed hemispherical plates back and forth."No, thank God," he moaned."Dearest?" She stood and walked towards him. "Do you find this form...arousing?"His eyes shone in wordless excitement. She had her answer.Dainty metal hands unfolded to cover her face. She made noises of one in great distress. He was instantly on his knees, scooping her up, trying to simultaneously discover the cause of her upset and to console her."I perceive the injustice of our lives together," she wailed. "Your hours and hours, years of labor, all because what you wanted was a little metal lover, a clockwork girl?"You suffer from a fetish for artificial parts!""Oh, bullshit," he said. Her ersatz waterworks cut off instantly. His tone was happy, not guilty. Her head whirred as she thought quickly.He didn't wait. "I'm intrigued, and my body quickened, by your form, dear, only and exactly because it is so clearly YOUR form. You have my wife's walk, my wife's expressions, my wife's curiosity and my wife's total possession of my heart, my soul and my little pinky finger that used to touch you riiiiiiiiiiiight there."She gasped, dropping her arms. "Oh, dearest, truly?""I could never lie to you," he said warmly. "You always caught me and always metaphorically kicked the shit out of me for that.""True," she said with a nod. "Well. I suppose I can only hope you made this form sensitive in that spot, riiiiiiiiiight here....""I shall endeavor to find the blueprints and my construction notes," he promised."Or, you could... I suppose.... Touch me?""If I do, he cautioned," he said with a whimsical tone, "we may run down your spring once more.""Then you had better find out where it landed, hadn't you?" she said with a sweet but urgent smile.He clutched her to his chest and scurried towards the last known position of the key. She laughed and hugged him.The end....

Description
AI illustration for my short story, Clockwork Girl: Clockwork GirlHe was a genius with mechanical devices. He revolutionized the construction of the difference engine. Babbage's gear-driven computational devices were reaching their calculation limits. Some companies were devising the smallest gear teeth on the tiniest gears that human industry could achieve. Or...ALMOST achieve. They were at the edge of dependable mass production. Each iteration of the infinitesimal Spot Thought One Hundred had flaws that no one could detect until a tooth broke off, bringing sensitive equipment, literally, to a grinding halt.Their rivals were going macro, vice micro. They were constructing tiny teeth on enormous gears. One revolution of the Diff Ex One Thousand, the Deus Ex Machine, was the functional equivalent of a thousand revolutions of a Spot Thought 100.Their machines were far more durable, but by the time you had a decently complex machine, you had a housing the size of Buckingham Palace. The coal demands to compute the building's own coal demands for the coming year were equal to the home heating budget of Cornwall for a mild December week.A desperate government sought some solution between the two extremes.Abraham Maxwell provided that. A master of automatons, he created a laboratory of machine artisans that produced difference engine parts. They came out with ridged gears the size of pocket change, with teeth so small they felt smooth to the human touch.The automatons the size of a man built automatons the size of a collie. They manufactured automatons the size of Leprechauns, who built automatons the size of crickets who built gears the size of pocket change.The self-building Maxwell revolutionized the industry. Now computational devices, Babbage's gift to bureaucracy, were not the sole sport of entire governments. Every agency of the Crown's government could afford their own difference machine.The Maxwells might one day become a toy for individual businesses. It was said that every corporation in the City had their accountants slavering at the possibilities. It was possible to imagine that one day, every quarterly report could be produced in-house, by men diligently cranking numbers into their Max.A grateful government made Bram a rich and famous man. A thankful world went on to make him a very, very rich man.And his wife, Imogene Clacks, made him very happy.Immy was Bram's intellectual equal, though her mind dominated hallways where Bram could never walk. She was an alchemist. A student of mixtures, tinctures and complicated processes that cared what phase the moon was in, or if the artisan had been recently bathed.He scoffed at her recipes and her calendar. At how she would only work love potions after dark, or how she couldn’t make perfume for thirty two hours after they made love. "It would just be too powerful, my dear. Minds would be lost."Happy. Blissfully happy, but lost nevertheless.""Nonsense," he accused. "Your whole industry is shams and shadows."But even he could not deny her results, however she obtained them.She could distill rain into an incense that smelled of childhood. She could bottle regret and season food with a memory.The few that were admitted to her laboratory came out with the air of one who had been granted a vision of Paradise. When he showed her how much money they owned, she asked for a private place they might live, so she could research the very limits of alchemical knowledge.He made an offer on the Vatican. He was ready to board a dirigible to go sign the final papers when she finally learned of the plan. She reminded him that Italian food didn't agree with her.With a happy smile, he sent the Pope his regrets and asked her where the hell she would like to live?The island was purchased in secret and a custom built castle made by workers whose only clues as to their location were the weeks spent below decks to get there, and the very low arc the sun took across the sky.When it was completed, they moved in. Just Bram and Immy and a few hundred clockwork servants to keep the place running.----His retirement project was overwhelmingly complicated. That was by design. He needed to be engaged or he'd be in Immy's lab, pointing out that her efforts to strain the happy out of the water had left a beaker indiscernable from before.He was going to make a woman. They could not have a child. Exposure to her beloved chemicals would be too great a risk. The child might come out unsightly, unfriendly, unintelligent or American. It would be an unconscionable fate to bestow upon any offspring.So he wanted something more durable than an infant, but more lifelike than his other machines. Immy laughed at his hubris."Mechanicals are wonderful, dearest, but they only mimic life. You deal with gross matter. Life is the very essence of my art.""Well, if I were easily successful, my dear, we'd both be in your lab the very next day, challenging your notions."She smiled and shook her head, leaving him to his pins, rods and gears.His prototype was constructed at one quarter scale. A tiny woman to demonstrate his abilities, and a sort of mine-field explorer to locate his weaknesses.There was no effort to make her a brain. Not at first. The body needed to be expressive enough to support the goal his ambition aimed at.He built, then, her body. Each joint matched human range, each limb was human in shape and ability.The face was expressive. Eyes could wink and eyebrows could rise and lips could purse.Every time he felt he'd achieved the day's goal, he hooked his copper and steel woman to an organ. The steam powered construction had no mind of its own, much like the nameless doll.By pressing upon the surface controls, Brom could activate the doll’s abilities. He indulged himself in a little conceit. He would direct her verbally, then play upon the controls to make her respond."Walk," he commanded. Then with hands hovering over her left and right leg controls, she would sashay from left to right, on tiptoe or with full strides. He could, after much practice and some careful construction, make her dance a waltz as if in the arms of an invisible partner.Imogene loved to watch the little figure. While her reagents cooled or her coals burnt down, she would take a seat in the corner of her husband's workroom, where the angle allowed her only the sight of his face and the doll.It appeared as if a living being were trapped, bound by steel cables that ran down into the control device, endlessly performing for her gentle but irresistible master.She almost wished that he would never enjoy success, and merely spend the rest of their time together having his little fae slave dance before them both.But she had too much respect for his abilities to think that the status would remain forever quo.----------Bram took the physical abilities as far as they would go. The doll could even wiggle her ears on command. Something Immy could though Bram couldn't. Likewise, it could roll its tongue as Bram could, unlike his wife.Then he constructed the motor. There wasn't much to that. A winding device that provided power to the as yet uninstalled controller.For now, there was merely a rotating drum that activated a series of commands that would make the automaton walk. And that only on flat surfaces.He demonstrated the successful completion of that goal to his wife at dinner. "I believe," he said as he placed the copper figure on the dinner table, "that the doll deserves a name at this point."I nominate 'Cypria,' as the discovery of copper is very ancient. And the Romans referred to it as Cyprium, the metal from Cyprus.""Hmm. The doll is made of copper, so you call her copper. Ingenious. Tell me, love, what words would you use to describe the metal itself? What is 'copper' in the mind of a metal worker such as yourself?""Oh, um. Malleable. It's a conductor. You can use it to spread heat or electricity. It's a common building material, for houses and ships. It lends itself to several good alloys.""Uh huh," she said with a smile. "For you, copper is largely defined by what you can do with it. I, personally, should hate to be defined by my creator based on that sort of self-interest.""Well, what does an alchemist think of copper?" he charged."I think that pure copper has the second most beautiful color of blue that I've ever seen." As she'd often looked in his eyes and complimented the rich blue iris she found there, he blushed and silently acknowledged her point."I know it conducts energies you don't believe exist. It connects us to a spiritual realm that speeds healing, physical and emotional. And it opens us up to greater beings and powers." The doll had walked to her end of the table by then. She picked it up and sent it back."So," he said triumphantly. "You, too, value copper for what it does.""I value it for what it does already, as part of its very nature," she pointed out. "I do not value it for how I can bend it to my will." She gestured at little Cypria. "Do you want her to be a person? A living thing or as close as you can get?"The galley automatons started clearing the plates and platters of the finished meal. "Or, like them, something you can... What's wrong?"Cypria had slowed and stopped walking. Bram stood and walked to where it was. He removed a key from a pocket."She's just wound down. Uh..." "Why do you hesitate, Bram?" she asked."Well. Um. Well, the motor is in the lower part of her abdomen. In humans, the space is dedicated to digestion, which Cypria will never need.""I understand that," Immy said."So, the entry point for the key has to be close by." She made no comment except to place her chin on her palm, as one waiting out a long and difficult speech. "And, I didn't wish to mar her features with a keyhole.""What are you saying, dear one?""Well, you may not appreciate the engineering concerns that came to dominate the placement of the keyhole.""I begin to wonder if I shall ever learn the placement of the keyhole," she said playfully.He shrugged and upended the doll. Her legs fell apart in a manner usually associated with vulgar entertainments.And he inserted the key into, and you should forgive the expression, her slot."Oh, dear," Immy said."Dearest, it's not exactly as bad as it looks," Bram said."No, dear, it's the pun." Bram blinked at her comment. "Obviously," she went on, "you expected me to groan and complain about the rather chauvinistic placement, but it's the descent into verbal vulgarity that offends."She stood and walked towards the door, her path requiring her to move very near her husband and his naked toy."I assume Cypria will one day wear clothing?""Yes, of course.""Then you've decided that she should daily receive the wind up her skirt." Immy stepped out into the hall and headed for her lab. Behind her, Bram chortled. Cypria clicked.-------They argued long and hard about the nature of life, of living, as compared to the mere automation of motion.Cypria grew in sophistication, range and durability, while their debate remained largely an entertaining distraction.They never quite got to the point of fighting over it.One day, Imogene appeared at dinner with a small glass bottle shaped like a human heart. A real heart, which he would appreciate. Both of them found the two-lobed symbol a monstrosity of inaccurate science and inattention to detail.She placed it before his place and took her seat."And what is this?" he asked."I offer you a reservoir for Cypria's heart, dear.""This is heart shaped," he pointed out. "It would be her heart, if I used it.""No, it's merely a container. I shall make a reduction, boiling life down to an elixir. One that shall inform her creation with true life, not the semblance.""I begin to think that the semblance is all we have," he mused."What?" she asked, scandalized. "Mock my profession, dearest. Mock my colleagues and followers and customers all you wish. But my base beliefs? The bedrock core of our existence, the clear difference between us and the unliving? Mock that at your peril!""Forgive me," he said, apparently quite sincere. "I meant only that if I can create something a casual observer won't be able to distinguish from a living creature, then what difference is there?""Casual observers are largely morons, my love," Immy said, a twinkle in her eye."True," he agreed. "I must say, I hope that Cypria will exceed the rank and file in that respect."He took measurements of the bottle and stopper and promised to make room for it in the little copper torso.-------He visited the mainland from time to time, inquiring as to the advancement of difference engines following his revolution.He was not above using another's work in his greater projects. Frankly, he took a rather proprietary interest in everything that depended from the trail he'd blazed. Perhaps he hadn't fathered the new Dual Difference Comparator, but he was certainly the grandfather.Sadly, the industry had not gone much into advancing the computing power of the smaller gears. There was too big a market in replication. Everyone wanted a difference engine just a bit bigger than the neighbors' machines.The abilities of a machine to solve the great questions man faced were ignored. They clamored for greater and greater concentration of gears, finer teeth. Calculating the machines' powers ignored the Turing standard and merely gauged how many teeth were contained on the final expression gear.There were adverts in the papers bragging of many thousands of teeth, with Roman numbers used to convey a quick grasp of the quantity.Bram was disgusted. In the one interview he granted during the visit, he expressed, "micro interest in the MMMega machines."So he returned home, thinking his disappointment was not to be matched in this century.Until he found the remains of his wife.---------Immy had suffered an accidental exposure to some of the more dangerous materials in her laboratory."It was entirely my fault, my love," she wrote. "There was nothing you could have done to prevent it, or to make my lovely, lovely laboratory safer."Quite frankly, I dropped a vial because I took a shortcut."The vapors have hardened my lungs. Breathing is becoming laborious. But there's no cure, and no point in beating my chest over it."At least I have time to tell you how very much I love you. And I hope you consider it a blessing that you won't have to watch me expire."The heart is complete, and had nothing to do with the accident. I want you to feel no guilt associated with this turn of events."Enjoy Cypria. Know that I love you, and I have loved watching you craft her."He grieved mightily. Surrounded by his machines and her chemicals, there was no one to tell him that she had gone to a better place. No one cautioned him against thinking he could have changed fate.No one tried to convince him it was God's will.Rather, he could fully indulge his emotional breakdown, working through his grief by stages, unhampered by the well-meaning comments of idiots.He tearfully collected the little heart, the last item his loving spouse had completed. He lodged it carefully in the little chest and made fast the connections to the control systems. This was accomplished mostly by feel as Bram was blinded by tears.And he wailed. He knelt before the little doll, alternately apologizing to Cypria for killing her mother, and apologizing to Imogene for building her the death trap that ended her life.His clockwork servants went about their stations and their duties, unaffected by the strange hours and mournful noises.Six months after the death, Bram was standing in the dining room, ignoring yet another meal. He had placed Cypria at Immy's place, then sat at his own and stared at it.An automaton entered the room. One he hardly recognized, it was the one he'd constructed as his wife's maid."What do you want?" he asked. Then he realized that he'd taken no steps with respect to his wife's portion of the staff.They'd been cleaning her room, examining her hamper for laundry, inventorying her consumables... Details of her life continuing without her life.He moaned. He would have to issue new orders, shift some of the servants around... Perhaps close the lab.An alarm sounded in the maid's chest. She opened a safe within her belly and took out an envelope. She handed that to Bram.His hand shook as he recognized his wife's handwriting on the outside, addressing the contents to him.The maid withdrew as he opened it and removed a single sheet of paper. He glanced at his wife's place, eyes resting on Cypria, on her copper bosom.So the heart was not the last thing his wife had completed.What had she thought about, in those last moments? What message had she constructed? Why set it to be delivered half a year later?Was she thinking he'd be recovered from his grief at this point? Or nearly suicidal? He almost didn't read the letter. The possibilities were too great. He imagined it might contain a love poem, or maybe an apology for some slight, or perhaps she'd admit he was always right about alchemy... Such thoughts brought her back to life in his memory. She continued to exist, as long as he could hold those images in his mind.But tempting as it was, he could not ignore what might be her last request. Her last message. His last chance to hear her express her love.He unfolded the parchment and wiped his eyes. It was her handwriting. And it was clear, short and concise."Dearest," he read aloud. "Wind the fucking doll."======== He stared at the sentence. Then he laughed, a short chuckle. And again. The laughter grew. He stood and took Cypria's key out of his pocket. He stumbled as he tried to walk the length of the table. Laughter overwhelmed him. Laughter at his hubris, his egocentric grief, the inattention to detail and his wife's careful choice of words.Skewered mightily through heart and mind, he fell to the floor, overcome by guffaws, belly laughter and more blinding tears.Whenever he recovered enough to pull himself up, leaning on the table, he saw Cypria.The doll seemed to be looking down on him in judgment, a wry look that Immy did so, so well, Bram had spent weeks trying to capture it.And he was off again.Time passed. He may have passed out. When he could breathe dependably, he crawled to the chair and lifted the doll.Her legs parted as they were designed to. He imagined they opened eagerly.The key was gently but firmly inserted and the doll was wound. Tighter and tighter the spring went, more and more rapid the clicks sounded.He paused, carefully avoiding overwinding it. Damaging her. He removed the key and gently set her back in her place.Kneeling still, he looked up at the figure and waited, barely breathing.Cypria ticked over, the little period where the first load of instructions would prepare her for the rest, for walking.She flattened her feet, widened her stance...and raised her arms to feel her face."Oh, my Lord, it worked," Immy said. She raised her eyes to Bram's seat, the chair at the far end of the table. It was empty. She looked around in fear. Someone had to have wound her.Her dear husband knelt at her place. Eyes as wide as her spread hand stared up at her. A smile that was nearly a frozen rictus covered the face."Dearest?" she called to him."Bwah-HAH!" he cackled. Then fainted dead away. "Oh, dear," she said, looking down at his prone form.She turned to look around the table. Two chairs were still close to the sides. She could descend by stages rather than risk jumping.She would have to ask Abraham if this chassis could withstand such a drop. After one step towards the nearest chair, she paused. There was a very strange discomfort in her lower...Imogene widened her stance further and reached down. "You could have removed the key, darling."Once that was out and placed carefully beside the salt shaker, she moved quickly down to her husband's side.He remained unconscious, though she delighted in the smile still showing on his face. She was less pleased with the beard stubble. His clothes were rumpled from days of wear and, she suspected, not a few nights.Bram had really gone to pieces without her. Well, she was here, now, and she'd just have to put him to rights.She crawled up onto his chest and knelt by his chin. Gentle but amazingly articulate hands grasped the sizes of his face. And she shook. "OI! Boyo! Wakey wakey!"He mumbled but remained unconscious. Her bag was in view, on the side table. There were smelling salts within it, but it was currently out of her reach.She shook and yelled a few more times. Then she had a thought. She shifted to kneeling beside his ear. "Bram, there's a man at the door," she said in a conversational tone. "He says the age of the difference engine is past.""Oh, like bloody Hell!" he shouted, sitting straight up. "Where? Where is this- Oh. Oh, God, Immy. Is it really you?""According to my standards or yours?" she asked sweetly."Close enough," he replied. He reached out and gingerly cupped her hips in both hands to lift her to the table.There he stared, one thumb stroking her fine, burnished thigh. "I've missed you so..." he said."Well, I've been waiting," she said. Her arms folded over her chest. Her whole posture was so classically Immy that he saw her there, a ghostly body superimposed upon the metal form."I'm so sorry," he apologized."Well, it's possible you weren't really ready to welcome me, not in this form. Not until tonight.""A point," he confessed. "It would have interfered with the proper processing of my grief.""Which was?" she asked."I went nutsy fuzzbean," he said. "A technical term.""Alchemists use it, too," she said with a smile. She spun around suddenly, coming up on one toe and turning the full three hundred and sixty degrees. "Good thing you completed this while you were still sane, darling."She glanced up. Bram was watching her animation with wonder. "It's so responsive. I feel I can do anything.""Anything you can imagine," he promised. "A cartwheel?" she asked. "I've always wanted to do a cartwheel." He gestured to invite her to try it. She smiled, threw herself to one side...and collapsed.----------The world came back slowly. There was darkness, and a tingling in her limbs. She felt every joint, and could even tell if the joint was ball and socket, hinged or pivot.After that, she started to smell. She smelled an overwhelming amount of Bram.Then she heard him. "Come on," he said. And repeated over and over."Come where?" she asked. She raised a hand to her forehead. It was a reflex, though. From her disorientation she thought she should feel dizzy, perhaps drunk.But when she blinked, she was whole. She sat up. She was on the table, laying before her husband's place. And the key was back inside her."What happened?""Dear, you over exerted yourself and wound down.""Bram? You made a doll that couldn't last an hour?""No, no. Well. This was supposed to be a prototype. Cyrpia only had to last long enough to demonstrate the possibilities so that- Argh. That's not important right now.""I should think," she protested, "that the ability to hold an entire conversation without passing out would be important!""Well, yes, but-""I mean, it's the only intercourse left to us." He blushed, right then, deep and purple, but didn't correct her. She filed that thought for later investigation."Yes, well, the thing is, I didn't fully wind the spring this time. I just... I didn't want to risk breaking you.""Darling," she said. "It's an original Maxwell. I don't think you COULD break me, at least without serious intent and preparations." She clanged a metal fist on her chest. The clear note of the impact rang out."Ah. A point. But that was when it was merely Cypria, not... Not you.""Well, since I dislike going insensate, could you please wind me up to full intensity?" she asked. He was surprised at the pout, having never designed the expression.But he assented quickly. She lay back and spread her legs. The key poked up at a forty five degree angle, more or less.She tried not to think of it in terms obscene. Then he pinched the handle and twisted.Her insides...tightened. Tightened in a way she found very...pleasing. With the key merely set inside the lock, she felt nothing. Not even a whisper of penetration.But as it turned, she knew every knurl on the knob, every star point in the socket, and could probably estimate the windings of the spring.He twisted, slowly and methodically, a gentle pace, waiting no doubt for any complaint on her part."Faster," she hissed. He looked surprised, but he obeyed. She writhed a bit. The twisting...it was as a rhythmic pounding into her center.His pauses were frustrating losses of sensation. But she adapted herself to the pulsing changes."Oh," she cooed. He recognized the sound. He twisted a bit slower. Her toes curled, feet moving in little circles by his wrists."Bram," she whispered."Immy," he replied. The fingers of his free hand stroked her inner thighs.She reached out with her hands and grabbed his wrist, pulling his touch tighter.He shifted a bit, coming at the key at a more efficient angle.Tighter, tighter, fuller and harder. Then she felt the last winding go taut. There was nowhere else to go, no further twisting would fit on that cam.She screamed his name. He swore mightily. His sweat dripped on her form, shining bright as she bucked and kicked. The key flew across the dining room, ricocheting off of the frame of a painting over the fireplace."Wow," she said, slowly regaining control of her extensions."Indeed," he said, stroking her skull. "Wow, indeed."She felt a new vigor after the winding. He felt a keen appreciation of her movements as she explored. After he assured her she could jump straight to the floor, she ran around the room, climbing and touching and pulling and jumping. He sat in one spot, turning only to follow her with his eyes.She found she could focus her gaze far more closely than humanly possible. The fibers that made up the carpet were fascinating. Twisting endlessly, fold upon fold of material.Bent over, she traced a single hair through a vertical road map of...Her hearing was enhanced, too. She not only heard Bram's breathing speed up, she heard a stirring in his trousers. And actually heard the echo of the pulse in his hardening..."Darling," she asked, still bent over, "did you make any garments for this figure?""No," he choked out."So, you have no immediate way for me to cover my derriere?" She shook those juxtaposed hemispherical plates back and forth."No, thank God," he moaned."Dearest?" She stood and walked towards him. "Do you find this form...arousing?"His eyes shone in wordless excitement. She had her answer.Dainty metal hands unfolded to cover her face. She made noises of one in great distress. He was instantly on his knees, scooping her up, trying to simultaneously discover the cause of her upset and to console her."I perceive the injustice of our lives together," she wailed. "Your hours and hours, years of labor, all because what you wanted was a little metal lover, a clockwork girl?"You suffer from a fetish for artificial parts!""Oh, bullshit," he said. Her ersatz waterworks cut off instantly. His tone was happy, not guilty. Her head whirred as she thought quickly.He didn't wait. "I'm intrigued, and my body quickened, by your form, dear, only and exactly because it is so clearly YOUR form. You have my wife's walk, my wife's expressions, my wife's curiosity and my wife's total possession of my heart, my soul and my little pinky finger that used to touch you riiiiiiiiiiiight there."She gasped, dropping her arms. "Oh, dearest, truly?""I could never lie to you," he said warmly. "You always caught me and always metaphorically kicked the shit out of me for that.""True," she said with a nod. "Well. I suppose I can only hope you made this form sensitive in that spot, riiiiiiiiiight here....""I shall endeavor to find the blueprints and my construction notes," he promised."Or, you could... I suppose.... Touch me?""If I do, he cautioned," he said with a whimsical tone, "we may run down your spring once more.""Then you had better find out where it landed, hadn't you?" she said with a sweet but urgent smile.He clutched her to his chest and scurried towards the last known position of the key. She laughed and hugged him.The end....