“Dearly beloved, we are gathered today to pay our final tribute of respect to that which was mortal of our deceased loved one and friend, Abraham Arkwright.”
The reverend paused for the minute in front of the large gathered crowd of mourners at the otherwise quiet church yard. I looked up from where I had bowed my head when the man started the funeral service and allowed myself a minute to glance at the people around me. My mother sat next to me on my left, a handkerchief in her hands, dabbing her eyes, but there was too much pride in her aging eyes to look sad. To my right was my wife, but her eyes were filled with tears of sorrow, my children were sitting next to her sad and subdued at the service for their grandfather. On the other side of my mother was my twin brother Ashton, his eyes were hard and angry, but that was hardly a new expression on his face since our pa passed away. His wife was on the other side of him and his kids. I couldn’t tell what state they were in, but I could only assume it mirrored his own face.
Ashton was still so bitter over the whole thing. I didn’t know how he had the energy to keep so angry in the midst of everything else.
“To you members of the family who mourn your loss, we especially offer our deep and sincere sympathy.” The reverend continued, looking down at the podium where a large black bible rested for him to recite from. “May we share with you the comfort afforded by God's Word for such a time as this:
“‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.’ Such is written in the gospel of John chapter 14 verses1-”
The Reveren’s southern accented voice trailed off, and I looked up again at the man in front of the gathered. The man seemed shocked for a beat, staring out at the back of the church. He cleared his throat and then continued:
“...verses 1-3”
I looked behind to see what had caught the attention of the reverend.
The crowd that came to remember my Pa suprised me. I saw members of his science organization that I had never met. I saw old friends of his from Chicago that I knew only from old photographs. I saw old house keepers and household staff that I recognised from my childhood.
But all those people were not what caused the Reverend to pause.
At the very back of the room, peering in from the front door, was Isaac and Ishmael, my Pa’s first and second Automatons.
I chanced a glance at my brother and groaned as I saw him stand up from his chair and start to march to the back of the church. I looked at my wife briefly with an apologetic smile, that she returned with watery eyes and nodded. I was up in a moment and started after my brother.
“Ashton… hold on there, don’t make a scene over this…” I called gently, but in truth I should have just shouted it, Everyone in the church was already staring at my brother and I. Even the Reverend stopped speaking to watch how our family drama would continue to play out, even after the death of our father.
The door closed as the metal men pulled away from it, but Ashton all but kicked the door open when he reached it. I took off running to catch up with him before he did something even more stupid.
The room outside the chapel was deserted of human life, but there were seven metal human shapes in various states of distress. Pa’s automatons.
“You freaks got a lot of nerve showing yourselves here.” Ashton spat, pacing back and forth, looking at all the machine’s in turn.
“Ashton! I think you have made a fool enough of yourself for one day!” I reprimanded and grabbed my brother by his arm. But he span around and threw himself in my face, his normally pale complexion was livid red.
“Let me go, Asher!” He shouted at me. “These things have no place here! On Pa’s funeral!”
I heard several vents of steam and glanced at the automatons. Shuah and Midian had hidden themselves behind Ishmael, who was easily the tallest thing in the room. Those two were the youngest of the bunch after the destruction of Ishbak many years before. The two had obvious stress tremors running through them that told me of a boiler burning too quickly, a common quirk of all them when situations around them become more than they could process.
Medan and Jokshaw gripped each other, as usual. Those two were never far apart in any situation and this was no different. Isaac stood in front with Zimran at his side. Zimran looked so much smaller than he was when he stood next to Isaac, but he didn’t flinch at the scene unfolding in front of them.
“We do have a right to be here, Master Ashton.” Isaac started, walking forward with his knees bent to appear smaller and less imposing to my twin. “Father made us. Father gave us life. We all want to remember him like you do.”
“Don’t you dare call him that!” Ashton said again, his voice was low and he got up in Isaac’s face, turning away from me and shrugging out of my grip. “I will not stand here and listen to this disrespect on the day of my Pa’s funeral!”
“We do not come with disrespectful intentions.” Isaac continued, not backing down. “We wanted to say goodbye to father together with all the others.”
“Stop. Calling. Him. That. You were never his children!” Ashton screamed out, his words cut through me like a knife. “You were just a mistake he kept on making. I am his son! Not you! You are just his things! Things got got him laughed out of any respectable end he might have had! If any of you monsters had a soul I curse you all to the devil himself!”
The silence in the air chilled my to my core.
“I can only hope Pa left some of you to me in his will.” Ashton seethed through eyes filling with rage and grief fueled tears. “So that I can disassemble you piece by piece!”
Without waiting for a response, Ashton turned on his heel and stormed back into the sanctuary, all eyes were on him and I. I watched him return to his seat and I saw my mother lean over to him. I can only imagine what she was saying to her other son.
Instead of following him I turned back to Isaac and Ishmael, all the other’s had gathered around the two eldest, looking for some sort of comfort or protecting from all of this around them.
“I… I am sorry about all that.” I said at length, my voice was quiet and controlled and seemed like a whisper compared to my brothers blustering. “Everyone grieves differently, I suppose.”
“That is what we want.” Ishmael said at last, while his faceplates were set in with stoicism, but the expressive eyes that were my pa’s pride and joy showed exactly how much pain and hurting the words of my brother placed on him. “We only beg to have time to grieve the loss of Master Arkwright. We did not mean to cause such strife.”
I nodded my understanding and placed a hand on the arm of the tall Automaton and reached out to take hold of Isaac as well. The other’s surrounded me and came close beside me. I could feel the radiating head off the younger automatons that had yet to be properly insulated.
Here they all were, my father’s true legacy. They still needed so much work and looking after.
“Pa loved you all like sons.” I said, emotion thickening my throat. “And you will have your time to grieve. All of you. Come inside with me.”
“But… Master Ashton…?” Isaac said, looking unsure and worried. His voice box crackling.
“You leave my idiot brother to me.” I promised. “If I’m going to be looking after you now, I might as well start.”
“Ya mean we can go inside with the others?” Zimran asked, looking up at me with an expression I could only describe as hopeful.
I found that my words did not come then, tears swelling in my eyes, so I just nodded and after a time made out the once syllable: “Yeah…”
Only then did I return to the chapel, leading a procession of metal men. All needed to grieve as much as any human at the loss of their parent. Regardless of my brothers callous comments, these seven usual creatures behind me were also my brothers and I meant to look after them as such.
“Master Ashton, it is too dangerous. Do not go outside.”
I ignored the warning and kept forward, heading for the door of the house where my family had made a place for ourselves out here in the texan country. My pa kept promising that this was the land of opportunity, that as long as we dug in our heels we would survive and thrive out here, out here where my old friends from school back in Chicago called it, ‘the west.’ I wasn’t even sure they knew what they were talking about. No one ever was when they started to go on about heading ‘west.’ Reaching for some mythical place where ‘opportunity’ lay. Not sure what opportunities they all talk about. There is nothing much out here that I could tell. Nothing but desert and desperate men. Desperate men like my father was coming out here all those years ago, my ma told me the story enough times to know it by heart.
Pa’s miraculous machines. Pa loosing it all in the war. Leaving Chicago with his inventions to find a place where he could provide for ma and my brother Asher and I while we were still waiting to be born. Pa heading west. Trying to get investors in his inventions.
Pa would never sell his inventions.
“Master, you must not leave the house after dark. It is too dangerous.”
I had no idea why.
I felt something take hold of my arm and stop my forward march to the front door, I was going at such a place that the sudden stop pulled my shoulder painfully and I spun around, furious, coming face to face with the thing that stopped me.
It was over six foot six inches and stood on two feet like a man would. In a silhouette, it indeed looked like a man, as did all the inventions of my father, but once you got them into the light, there was no denying there was nothing human about them. Automatons. Mechanical men. All gears, wires, coils, springs and steam where a human would have flesh and bone. Ticking and gurgling, with their glass covered cores swirling with that unknown black substance that my father only called ‘The Black Element.’
The things face was hardly expressive, it had a mouth and two eyes that gave off a white light. It’s face place was constantly being improved, like the other creatures that my father had made, trying to make them look more human and and friendly as quickly as possible. But the inhuman steel that made the body and face of the creature left much to be desired. It was dressed in ill fitting human clothes and it’s dome head was covered with a old fashioned ‘John Bull’ style hat.
“That hurt, Ishmael! Do not touch me!” I shouted at the automaton, pulling out of the things grip.
The mechanical man, Ishmael, let go instantly and gripped the hand that took hold of me with the other long, steel, three fingered hand as if scolding it for hurting me. It’s eyes flicked down slightly, the only expression of hesitation that the limited features of the creature could manage.
“It is too dangerous to to out at this hour, Master Ashton.”
Ishmael’s voice was always a little off putting if you had never heard it before. It was a deep baritone, that echoed slightly as it broadcasted the words out through a music box like voice box. I had no idea how it worked, and I never bothered to have my pa explain it to me, I wasn’t my brother who was willing to humor the old man. Sometimes I even believed that he was actually interested in those weird things pa had made.
“What do you want me to do? Just sit here and wait? Pa needs help now!”
Ishmael hesitated again, clearly wanting to stop me from going outside but also not wanting to contradict my command.
“It is forbidden to go outside after dark. It is not safe.” Ishmael continued, following me as I approached the door again. “It is not safe.”
“I don’t care if it’s safe! Pa is hurt and I’m not jus’ gonna sit here and do nothing!”
“Ashton! Where are you?” I hear the call of Ma from down the hall and before long see her. Where only moments ago she was stiff with worry and fear, she now seemed in control and ready to take command while her husband was in peril. Her clothes were quite a spattered in red, probably from where she was trying to take care of Pa.
He was working in his lab, as he usually did when he was in the house, working on some new machine or trying to better the ones he already had made. Everything seemed normal, he had the automaton he called Zimran with him in the lab and he was working on more delicate hands or something when suddenly the silence house was rocked by an explosion. The lab was full of smoke and when my brother and I went to investigate what had happened, we found our Pa face down on the floor, glass buried in his side, blood on the ground, and the useless mechanical creature hovering over him uselessly.
They were all very good at acting like they cared about my pa.
“This bag of gears is tryin’a to keep me from gettin’ the doctor!” I recounted to my Ma, throwing an accusing gesture at the steel automaton between my mother and me.
My Ma looked at Ishmael who ticked noisily at the look.
“Please, Mistress. It is to dangerous for the young master to go outside.” Ishmael started repeating what he had told me as if it was stuck in a loop. But my Ma walked forward and placed one of her hands on the metal man’s arm, silence his ticking and words as she did so. It was a gentle touch, like the touch she gives my brother and I when we are frightened.
It bothered me when she did that.
“Ishmael, I know the rules, but your father is in trouble right now. Abraham needs a doctor, and fast. I need you to let Ashton go and get help.” My mother’s tone was gentle but serious. Something that both people and machines listened to with rapt attention.
“But, Mistress-!” Ishmael started, but my Ma placed her hand over it’s metallic mouth to shush it, standing on her tiptoes to reach.
“Ishmael, what did I tell you about calling me that? Just Ruth will be fine with me.” My ma continued. “You gotta let him go.”
Ishmael looked at me for a moment then turned back around to my mother and pulled himself up to his full height, squared his shoulders and straightened his hat on top of his head. “Mistre-Miss Ruth. With the master incapacitated, I request permission to accompany Master Ashton.”
I open my mouth to protest, but my Ma speaks before I can get a syllable out.
“Permissions granted. Find the doctor and you both stay safe out there. Watch out for bad men.”
Ishmael gave my Ma a polite nod then it walked outside without a hesitation, looking back at me as it raised its right hand and the brightness in the creature’s eyes grew in the dark night. Waiting for me to follow.
I didn’t look back as I raced out of the house and started for where the horses were stabled. Ishmael was far too heavy to be able to be borne by a steed but it was quite fast and could easily match pace with a horse. Within seconds I was saddled up and both Ishmael and took off for the closest proper town in the Texas countryside.
–
The way was clear of all travelers, hardly surprising on the road from the Arkwright home at any time during the day given our… unpopularity with the other locals, but at night it seemed even more deserted and empty then I was used to.
The pounding of the horse’s hooves as she ran through the semi even ground was accompanied by the loud whir of Ishmael’s servos as it raced to keep up with the horse. i was pleased that Gala wasn’t nervous at the automaton, not many of our other horses were so calm when running next to the inhuman thing.
We didn’t slow our pace until we reached the post office in the slap dash of a town. If my memory serves me, Doc Hertiage lived over the general store with the family that ran it and it wouldn’t do any good to wake the whole town with the noise of the two of us thundering into town in the dead of night. It was so still and quiet there, I wondered if people had heard the explosion in my Pa’s lab a few miles away.
There were spots of light that moves around the sleeping town as Ishmael took in everything around him, the lights from his eyes casting bright spots wherever it decided to move it’s head. The lights landed on the general store and I almost stopped my fast pace on the door. to the right of the door were a few signs, which was not unusual. But there had been an additional notice posted since the last time I had been there.
“Please, leave your firearm at the door”
“No Confederate State Dollar accepted here”
And the new addition:
“No Mechanical Men allowed”
I looked back at Ishmael, whose eyes had stopped on the sign, staring at the letters on it.
I was not completely surprised at this new posting, it was no secret that the people of the city, if one could call it that, thought very poorly of my pa’s inventions and my pa himself. They thought the machines he built were ‘unnatural’ and that my Pa himself had worked evil to do the things that he had. I didn’t know where the hostility had come from and either Ma or Pa ever gave me a straight answer, but since the last time that Pa brought five of his ‘marvels’ into town to use the railroad to take them to an exhibition back in new york… and came home early with only four not even a full day later, none of the automatons nor my brother and I were allowed to leave the house after dark. During the day, I didn’t leave the house unless it was to take care of the horses that didn’t like the machines. I stayed away from the town as much as possible, even before the rule came down.
Pa was different after that day. He didn’t try to go to any more exhibitions.
I was considering how to get the attention of the doctor without waking up everyone in the house when I saw it, out of the corner of my eye. In front of the office of the sherif, a few houses down from where I was standing, some sort of display was set up. I had… heard about it and I tried to look away before Ishmael noticed my paling and disgusted face.
I was too late.
The tall mechanical man turned to where I was looking and the white light fell on it.
It was a large sharpened railroad spike that was sticking up out of ground like a over large nail that someone had dropped, waiting to find it’s way into an unsuspecting person’s foot. On the spike, impaled through the bent and broken metaltic chassi and sicking up through the shoulder, was one of my Pa’s inventions.
Ishbak.
It’s sightless eyes were wide open, looking out at the crowd that was no longer there, it’s mouth hanging open in one last cry of pain before it was frozen forever as this horrible monument next to the office of the sheriff himself. It was much smaller than Ishmael and probably only stood five foot three inches before it was suspended in the air. The clothing that it had been wearing was all gone, but whether Pa was the one that retrieved it or if were now some sick trophy from when an angry mob killed an innocent automaton, I could only guess at.
Around the spike sticking out the ground, the dirt had rotten away as the Black Element had leaked out of the machines cracked and shattered crystal core. While I didn’t know much about these automatons, I did know that if the black element is compromised, it ever ends well for the mechanical man it came from, or the people around it.
Ishmael was not moving, I could just see stress tremors in the things chassi.
I was about to tell it not to worry about that thing right now, to focus on getting the Doc up, when a light in one of the front windows turned on and the curtains parted.
Someone had seen us.
A loud whoop went out into the air, followed by:
“We got ourselves another tin-man lookin’ to be decoration!”
More lights turned on and I rushed to Ishmael’s side and stood next to it protectivly. We had to get into that house as soon as possible. I was not about to lose another one of the my pa’s inventions by myself, and certainly not when he was injured.
“We will see what they got, Ish.” I muttered darkly, looking up the metalic man.
Ishmael’s, nervous eyes hardened into determination and understanding for what was to come.
If it is a fight they want to give me before I get into the Doctor’s house, then it is a fight that they will get!
