Chapter 5: Inside Scoop

Belle was restrained to an operating table, bound by her wrists, ankles, forearms, and above her knees by leather straps. In this sense, she was kind of like that inert Brass Woman already. To make matters worse, she was at the top of that construct’s scaffolding: about 1000ft above the ground.

Doctors and scientists surrounded her, wearing masks and gloves. Victor Cogston was there too, with his own mask. Although, Henry Fib wasn’t. She had seen him split off to the lower levels of the scaffolding while Victor and the operation team took her to the top via an airzep.

‘Figures, the first time I ever ride in one it’s against my will AND entirely indoors.’

That cheeky thought was her only comfort in the moment.

She had learned why the colossal body had its head tilted ever so slightly down on the way: the back of the head was open, unfinished perhaps. Belle had briefly seen the inside of that things head and saw the interlocking of pitch-black cubes there, connected to a series of hundreds of pipes in varying lengths stretching around the skull cavity.

It was just a glimpse. They had quickly turned the table so she was facing the other way.

They had let her keep her clothes on, though as she writhed futilely in the restraints, one doctor was hard at work shaving her brown hair. She had only recently regained the use of her body since that jolt, and Victor noticed.

“Sorry about that.”, he said, waving around the cane. “This is a remarkable little toy though. My design. Electrolyzed steam is stored in the hollow shaft of the cane, the tip is pressed against the target. A touch of a discrete button on the handle and the steam is released, sending a lightning sensation to the target’s nervous system which is both incapacitating and harmless.”

“Harmless? Harmless? That thing stung.”, said Belle.

“Oh it hurts I’m sure, but it’s not frying your nerves or anything. One downside, the cane is useless until refilled, which is a bit of a process at the moment.”

He dropped the cane to the floor. Then, he started to laugh.

“What’s so funny? Is it this condition you thrust me into?”, said Belle gritting her teeth. She continued to push her wrists and ankles against the binds.

“No no, I’m sorry. I was just thinking. Decades ago, there were many people who saw fit to study the power of lightning instead of steamtech. This was because back then the only efficient fuel we had for steam engines was coal. Coal burns black, sours the air, and no one wanted a smoggy future. So, a search for clean coal began, a better fuel. Clean coal... an oxymoron really, but there was some truth to the phrase.”

Victor reached out into his pocket and pulled out some shiny engine fuel in solid form. They glimmered from the lamplights as they rested in his palm. He continued.

“Coal’s purest form: diamond. I always keep some on me just in case. By accident, someone discovered the perfect softening agent and spilled it on their diamond ring. Applying it to these shiny stones turns one of the world’s hardest materials into a burnable, efficient, and clean source of fuel. Just like that, the steamtech innovation of the century came about. And to think, people thought to wear these as jewelry at a time. Fuel as earrings, absurd.”

“What is wrong with you?!?”, said Belle. “You’ve kidnapped me, are stealing my brain, you’re about to cut me open and you’re rambling about history and diamonds and your new fancy cane.”

Victor frowned behind his mask.

“You must see that what I’m doing is the new innovation of the century, of humanity. I’m not stealing your brain, I’m liberating a worthy self from an unworthy vessel. From my perspective, you’re the one behaving irrationally. You’re going to be a god, so why complain?”

Belle still thought him mad, she was still ticked off, but saw it futile to protest the matter. Her eyes were drawn to a diagram some staff brought over. She had seen it earlier: both the diagram and what it depicted. Unlike the other drawings this one was completely colored in with black ink. It was that strange, large, mass of seamlessly interlocked cubes she saw in the colossus’s head.

“What on Earth is that?”, she asked.

“Ah that, that... where do I even begin? It’s perhaps the most complicated bit of steamtech ever made. I designed it myself, well, with a bit of special help.”

“Special help?”

Victor looked her dead in the eyes.

“This may sound crazy to you.”

“Oh really?! Try me!”, said Belle. She fidgeted indignantly in her bindings as her head was shaved by a billionaire’s minions so her brain could be obtained.

“Well, I received tips about that device in my dreams. Every time I got stuck on the design I’d receive a fabulous insight that night, something I could’ve never come up with myself. I’d see it via images or, if complex enough, hear it via whispers in my dreams. It was like something already beyond humanity was helping me with my goal. I’m ashamed to admit as a result I’m not even fully sure how it works, and until your brain is inside we won’t really know it does.”

“Ok, yes, you had some detailed dreams. How very relieving and not at all disconcerting but... you haven’t said what it is.”

“Ah yes, well, it’s the container for your brain basically. It will allow your mind to interface with the brass body properly. It does look a bit scary though, doesn’t it? Otherworldly, even? I went through a few name ideas for it, the Dark Brain, the Devil’s Machine, the Mind Chamber. I settled on “The Black Box”. On the surface it’s a bunch of boxes sort of mashed into each other without any sign of force, but the biggest cube, in the center, is the one your brain will be in. That’s the most important don’t you think.”

“I-”

Team members brought two more diagrams. There was the one of the body from earlier, flipped to some internal details page showing a stomach filled with steam with gears just outside the cavity. The other diagram caught her interest. It was a big spider-like machine. She had recognized it from earlier.

“What are those? I saw them earlier, in the body diagram.”

“Ah, now these little things are perhaps the second most complicated bit of steamtech I ever made. Second most expensive too. The size of the gears on these is minuscule. Each one of those ‘spiders’ is just one millimeter long, so I call them minibots. The smallest bit of fuel can keep them going for quite some time.”

“Minibots, so there will be automatons within that body, crawling around?”

“Yes, but you shouldn’t view them them as distinct from the body. I’m not sure how versed you are on biology, but it might be helpful to think of them as cells. It’s not a perfect analogy, but the minibots are essential to your new body’s functions. They are also most responsible for repairing the colossal form and even improving it. Their spindly arms carry all sorts of tools on them, and each minibot is equipped with a miniature analytic engine. That is, a mechanical device for solving all sorts of mathematical, logical, and navigation issues.”

“So, they’re just going to scurry about doing whatever they think is best?”

“Not exactly. There’s some basic movement functionality preloaded as a ‘program’, which is what we call sequences of operations for an intended goal. For the most part, they will listen to you though. That is, your unconscious and subconscious needs, wants, and desires. Through the Black Box and an encrypted radio signal, your mind will feed the minibots orders, share with them your will. They will carry it out, if possible, to the best of their ability if the resources permit.”

“That’s...” Belle was tired of calling things mad. She didn’t know what word to use to qualify what was going on around her, or this eccentric rich man’s plans.

‘Surreal’, she thought. ‘Maybe that’s it.’

“Now,”, began Victor. “Consciously manipulating them might be a tad overwhelming at first, likely not even possible at the start, but the potential is there if your mind advances enough.”

“My mind advances? What do you even mean-”

A loud noise interrupted her. It came from just behind and above her shaved head. She could only see a part of the machine, which was held in a masked woman’s hands. What Belle saw revealed an assortment of dials, lights, but also, being able to see the front, she saw a cavity bordered at the entrance by spinning saw blades.

“What is that? What the damn is that?”

“That is the scooper. It will be extracting your brain.”

Belle really started fidgeting. Staff rushed to grab her arms and legs and help hold them steady.

It had really sunk in to Belle that her brain was about to be removed. She was going to be cut open.

“No, stop, it’s not to late to change your mind. Stuff your own brain in that dumb monster of yours!”

“Belle, please.”

One doctor help up a large syringe filled with some strange purple liquid.

“Am I gonna feel that? Those blades on that ‘scooper’ of yours?”

“I’m afraid we cannot anesthetize you Belle. You need to be alert for the operation.”

“What? No you can’t!”

“Belle, listen, your brain must be in as active a state as possible for the transfixing into the Black Box. If anesthetized, then the brain could fail to integrate at best, or, at worst, it’d integrate with your mind in a diminished capacity. We don’t need a 1000ft tall body controlled by an intelligence equivalent of a chimpanzee, do we now?”

Belle was jabbed in the shoulder by the needle. She let out a scream.

“Then what the damn did you just inject with me? You damnable monster”

“A paralytic, and something to prevent your body from going into shock. If your current body can move, it’ll make the process difficult. The Black Box cost more than half my fortune to make. Even if I had the money for a second shot at this, it uses materials from outside our planet. There’s not enough time to wait for more meteors to fall. I’m not going to rely on luck with comet showers. I’m making history here, Belle, I’m making a superior being. You are going to be that being. Show some constitution, some resolve, some joy!”

Belle started losing feeling in her body, starting at her toes but spreading everywhere fast enough. Soon, she couldn’t even move her mouth to speak. She could only blink, rapidly and in horror as the sound of her skull getting sawed filled her ears.

Then, she heard a disconcerting popping noise.

“Don’t worry Belle.”, said Victor. “It’s all going to plan. Pretty soon, for the last time, you’re gonna feel like you’re asleep.”

“And when you wake up, you’ll be the greatest thing the world has ever seen!”

For Belle, everything went dark shortly after.