November 3rd 1888

[valdemars]

Date: November 3rd, 1888
Time: 10am and 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Location: The Great Hall and the Ground Floor Classroom
Characters: One of the automata (valdemars) and YOU/students and people with know-how [OPEN/CLOSED]

Summary: One of the manor’s automata is acting curiously and, upon its discovery, Lady Valdemar demands its immediate repair.
Warnings: None.

The day has long since begun for the servants of the household and, in actuality, it never ended for their tireless, mechanical brethren. At work, cleaning and dusting and smoothing the finest of creases from drapery, their movements are just far enough removed from a human’s as to be peculiar to the careful eye but unbroken by fatigue. That is, but for one.

The automaton must have been struggling for the past hour or so because the others have gone on ahead without it, leaving it stranded in the middle of the great hall, a soldier abandoned by his regiment. It walks sluggishly, its inner workings protesting to every step it takes and, even as it reaches its destination at the foot of the staircase, it cannot seem to find the energy to lower the hand already lifted to polish the dark wood. Its jaw falls slack.

Eventually, someone might come to its aid but for now it remains stuck gurning in a twitchy loop, arm jerking up and down erratically.

--

The morning’s humidity has yet to lift and the air in the house is beginning to stifle and yet, at Lady Valdemar’s request, the ailing machine has been carried into the classroom for inspection. It lies across one of the tables, still intermittently cycling through frenzied, programmed gestured and lying prone. The proper tools for whatever procedure is deemed necessary have been set out beside it and the students and academic minds herded in like doctors to theatre. Perhaps, thirty years or so ago, they would have had a captivated audience in the wings but times have changed and those assembled are a rather more select group than a gawping crowd.

The automaton attempts to spit out a morning greeting- its internal clock must have been unsettled- as the door closes but it gets caught up on the very first word. For several, unhinged moments, all it can do is open and close its mouth before it finally seems to get a hold of itself and tries again.

“Good mo-mo-orning- morning, sir!”

Comments

The Great Hall- 10am

[valdemars]

[motherof_bone]

She has instructed that her own students remain in their classroom, but they can be rather willful, it would not entirely surprise her to find them making mischief upon her return. However, the grinding gears of the poor thing can most certainly be heard in the day-room on the ground floor. And so Mary comes out to investigate.

The sight of it reminds her of rabbit tangled in barbed wire, thrashing uselessly against some unseen torment. It is fascinating to her and she draws closer to the life less thing, reaching up to touch it as if she could offer some comfort.

She can't, she knows absolutely nothing of the complicated mechanics that make it so special.

"You poor thing..."

[valdemars]

It appears to still be at least partially conscious of what is happening around it and, in a way, that makes it all the more pitiable. The battle between its unresponsive body and its determination to carry out its programming grows more tangible and, for any onlookers, unsettling the longer it continues.

But, if it feels any distress, it doesn’t reach its eyes and they remain as glassy as ever, fixed in metal into a sculpted, serene indifference. As Mary speaks, it makes an attempt to turn towards her, but its legs refuse to cooperate, leaving its torso twisted in an ungainly way and its arms suspended in the air like a puppet.

“Good m-morning, mistress!” Its voice rings metallically through the hall, although she might detect a strange, thick undercurrent to the sound of it this morning. “Do you require assistance?”

[motherof_bone]

Her eyes get very wide, taking a step back to stare up at the thing. It makes something tremble inside of her thoughts. Something painfully nostalgic, like a young woman reflecting back on a lost love from her youth, but Mary... Oh Mary never had such a love, did she? She had never seen a human face that inspired her with affection. None save for the baby.

But there is something about this slave and its steeled determination to do as it is bid...

She doesn't know what to say to it, can offer it nothing, but she still says gently, "They'll come for you soon."

She knows they will, they'll fix whatever twisted thing has ruined its movements. No one loves a broken slave, not even God.

[valdemars]

Her words do little to soothe its increasingly frantic gestures as it tries, yet again, to make its legs move. This time it has a degree of success and it shudders towards her, closing the gap she just made between them again.

"The t-time is ten thirty-five and forty-nine seconds, mistress. Fifty. Fifty-one. Fifty-two-"

Its count comes to an abrupt halt and, after a brief pause, and it tilts its head, as if seeing her for the first time. They might be emotionless and unreadable but there's something bizarrely penetrating about its eyes and their unbroken, unblinking stare.

"Assistance, mistress-ess?"

[motherof_bone]

She stares back at the thing, horrified and transfixed. She feels as if there is something strangling her, and even as it causes her discomfort, something warm blossoms low in her stomach. Broken slaves. Broken slaves, so pitiful. Just like her.

Her heart is beating too hard in her chest, and so she raises a hand there, trying to push the thunder of it back down.

She turns quickly then, like a deer spooked, and hurries back to her classroom before her thoughts drift any further into the strange places her mind cannot come back from so easily.

The Ground Floor Classroom- 1:00pm-4:00pm

[valdemars]

[dracobin]

Temeraire is one of the first students to arrive in the classroom. There is something a little eerie about the still-twitching form of the automaton, it is true, but it is simple curiosity rather than morbid fascination that draws him to the table. He understands, in theory, how the automatons work, though it is not his own area of interest; it may take a more experienced eye to diagnose the problem here.

Unthinking machines or otherwise, he has always been unfailingly polite to the automatons--often, he is sure, to the amusement of any onlookers. Now is certainly no exception, and as the automaton spits out its choppy greeting, he responds with a dutiful, "And a good morning to you, as well," eyes still scanning its shuddering frame.

[valdemars]

Whether or not his previous courteousness has been noticed by this particular automaton, it seems pleased that its greeting finally has a response and settles down. Now, only its head moves, turning to keep its eyes fixed on Temeraire as students move around it and turn it onto its front so that they can access its back panel.

At least this new-found docility will make it easier to open up- none of them are particularly keen on completely disengaging its systems without Lady Valdemar's knowledgeable hand to guide them.

[ryuuzaki]

This wasn't what L had planned for the day, and a part of him resented the fact that his mother-in-law had redirected his plans without consulting him. On the other hand, repairing the automaton was both a household necessity and an interesting experiential opportunity for his assistants, and his plans could keep--the rising damp, always a problem here in Yorkshire, had already made it desirable to put them off.

His mood was ambivalent when he appeared in the classroom, but any resentment had been replaced with resignation, and he appeared ready to assist his students with any questions they had regarding their task. His education had been in medicine, but this kind of invention had interested him, too. He could set to repairing it, and would if no one else was able to, but they would learn nothing if he took on the task for himself.

The way the thing was jerking about on the table, though... it reminded him of a seriously wounded man awaiting surgery, possibly amputation of a limb, or of someone going through what they didn't yet understand to be their death throes. They did what they could to keep the old machines in good working order, but they would die one day, and they would never understand, because they weren't capable of that kind of cognition. It had no soul, and the soul wasn't his province or his concern. Still, he would do what he could to teach them to heal it.

[valdemars]

Lying on its front now with its legs seizing over the sides of the table, the automaton is uncannily like a floating body; without a soft face to bruise no one has thought to hold its head steady, and every now and then the roll of its face from side to side, as though its marbled eyes might be able to understand the faces of those around it, rocks the torso up and down in wavelike motions. Lady Valdemar might have bemoaned the fact that they can't process the world around them in anything more than geometric and textural terms, but that doesn't stop anyone who's lived here for as long as L has from feeling the weight of their stare as though it came from another man.

It catches sight of L. "G-good... morn..." The greeting dies away into a thick groan, as though it has a cold- their voices are entirely artificial and the complex combination of cylinders and lamellae that produce them burn out with predictable regularity, but this one was only replaced last week. Maybe Her Ladyship would prefer it that way. She never wanted them to talk.

[ryuuzaki]

He frowned at the attempted greeting. The condition of the thing seemed to deteriorate more and more; its cylinders required regular replacement, and preparing them could be tedious. It was possible that the student who had been directed to replace it the previous week had botched the job, but unlikely... it wasn't that difficult, and they were bright.

L turned his head to Temeraire. "Have you established anything yet? It shouldn't require replacement as quickly as this. The first thing to do is to remove this plate here on the back."

[dracobin]

Temeraire shook his head, eyebrows furrowing slightly in thought. Something wrong with its winding mechanisms, perhaps--but there was no telling, just looking at it from the outside. The master was right; it would need to be opened up before they could tell.

He located a screwdriver and began to loosen the screws on the automaton's back, speaking as he worked. "The external chassis appears to be unaffected, as far as I or anyone else can tell; as for its voicebox, there is hardly any cause for it to have broken down so quickly. I changed its cylinders myself last week, and I certainly would not have done anything so careless as to make a mess of things."

There was an undeniable note of injured pride in his voice, as if the automaton had somehow done him wrong by malfunctioning like this, and his frown only deepened as he loosened another screw and dropped it carefully into a nearby dish.

[valdemars]

As Temeraire worked to loosen it screw by screw, either one of them might have noticed the curious effect it was having on the backplate. With each corner released, it increasingly felt as though some pressure from within was trying to push it further out; by the time the final screw is removed it would have been entirely possible for them to remove it by hand without even having to lever it out of place.

Perhaps more alarming, though, was the smell. No one could have missed the damp, earthy odour rising from the automaton and catching in throats, conspicuously organic but for the faintest tinge of rusting metal.

[ryuuzaki]

L frowned as the smell hit him; he produced a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his nose and mouth, then moved in closer to peer at the plate from a few feet away. It should have stayed in place, but pressure--what could be causing that kind of pressure, and that kind of stench?--seemed to be coming from within the unfortunate machine.

It was possible that Temeraire had made some kind of error when he last changed the cylinders. However, anyone with the capacity for observation would easily have been able to find a way into the automaton's workings, and there were enough people in and out of the house, which was quiet late at night, that a prank, an error, or sabotage couldn't be ruled out. Did one of the servants fancy themselves a mechanic? If they were interested in learning, they could always approach one of the members of the family. The fact that it wasn't their place to ask made it understandable that they might elect not to, but it was even less their place to conduct secret midnight experimentations on their employers' property, or to tamper with it out of spite.

"No, of course not," he replied to Temeraire, his voice flat, a perfunctory reassurance. "Still, I don't like this. Please fetch the tongs to remove the plate... I think it might be better to keep a bit of distance from the thing." As he said so, he pulled back from it again.

[dracobin]

Temeraire struggled not to pull a face as the last screw dropped away into the pan. That, at least, was something he had never encountered while examining the automatons before, and it was becoming readily apparent to him that whatever the cause of this was, it was in all likelihood not mechanical in nature.

He had encountered very little resistance as he unscrewed the back panel--if anything, it had seemed to him that something was trying to force its way out. He was certain he could have tipped the panel off with a finger, and his mentor's caution seemed to him unwarranted. All the same, he had hardly made it this far in academia by disobeying his direct superiors. With a small nod, he located the tongs and carefully levered the back panel of the automaton away from the main body.