Chapter 6: Settling In

Belle dreamed of her life. She remembered the things she had done to get as far as a measly reporter in the city. She remembered pick-pocketing someone to get the money for new clothes to interview with. After numerous failures, she practically begged for ‘just one shot’ at her interview with The Squeaky Wheel. She recalled the joy she felt when she got the gig, and how that joy lingered even as her knees were to the streets, knelt down, sketching tiny bugs for some cute expose on the “Beetle Species of New York.” It was her first article, just a few words among her sketches.

It was something, though.

She also dreamed of the events of the day. She dreamed of walking through the doors to the Voxhaben Complex, hiding in its halls. Her dream jumped to when she was on the operating table. Everything proceeded as it did before, only she could see what was going on as her brain was removed. In her dream, she watched in horror as masked men and women simply dropped her brain on the floor. There was no table, no scaffolding beneath their feet. Only darkness: a void.

Soon, even those doctors disappeared and it was just her brain, laying there, alone, in the endless dark.

--==--==--==--

Belle’s eyelids shot open. She started panting as blinding light hit her senses: among other things. Noise reached her, wracked her. It sounded like... clapping? Slowly the visual of where she was came into view. The noise became clear.

“It worked!”, shouted Victor from below her. “I knew it would, but golly does it feel sublime.”

“Excellent work sir.”, said Henry Fib.

“Great job.”, said another voice Belle had heard.

“Incredible.”, said another.

Belle was not nearly as excited. She tried desperately to clench her fingers, but nothing. She tried to flail her limbs, but they wouldn’t listen to her. She felt some movement on her face. She darted her eyes side to side as the images became more clear. She tried to yell, and a noise like the blaring of a pipe organ came out of her mouth, along with a tuft of steam.

She tried to say some words, but all that came out was loud gibberish. Discordant, it was loud to staff crowding the scaffolding surrounding her body from her head to her feet. They had only a bit of space away from her body per spot, a dozen feet, where they each presently stood.

“Silence everyone silence!” shouted Victor. His staff stymied their gasps and yelps at the noise. His voice was transmitted over some speakers to the far side of the scaffolding. Belle’s vision grew clear enough that she could see him speaking into a microphone on a dial-laden console.

“Speak very slowly Belle. Your new larynx is a series of pipes and bellows. It will likely take some getting used to. The bonding process of your brain with the brass body is still ongoing. You’ll be happy to know your new brass head is fully intact though, no more hole.”

Belle was still in a panic. She felt disturbed all throughout her body. But, she managed to speak, slowly, with pauses between her words.

“I, can, f-fuh, fuh-eel kuh-rwaling. I can feel crawling inside me.”

Even without screaming her voice positively roared with authority. As predicted her voice sounded much the same, with the Black Box interfacing with her brain and having directed the minibots to adjust the orientation and thickness of the pipes to replicate her pitch and tone. Alas, the technology had limits, so it carried a brass-timbre to it now. And, of course, at Belle’s size her voice was loud and echoing.

“I can feel them crawling!!! I can’t move!!”

“Patience Belle!”, spoke Victor. “Those are the minibots, hard at work now that you are finally awake.”

“Guh-get them out. Get them out of me!”

“Relax Belle, it’s a novel sensation to you. In time, your new body will be used to it. Your brain will tune it out except when you focus on feeling them specifically.”

“It’s like mites!”, she roared. “Mites under my skin. I can’t move!”

“Belle, look at me.”

She obeyed, and focused her eyes on Victor. He, Mr. Fib, and some guards and scientists were on a platform on the scaffolding about level with her bare navel. As a minor amusement, she had noticed Henry Fib just recovering from the shock of her voice again. He seemed the most timid of the crowds around her.

A light shined on them, and she realized it was coming from her eyes. It was a gentle gold-orange.

“Good, good. Your eyes are a complicated series of mirrors, lenses, and lanterns. Your vision should be just as crisp as a human’s, but it’ll only get better. It already is better. Belle, try looking at me real close. You should have movement in your face, everything else will come later, don’t worry. Just, look at me.”

Belle once again listened to the man who had yanked out her brain once. She tried to focus on his face and, with a shocked gasp, found herself zooming in on him. The faint sound of clicking echoed from her eyes during it.

She could see the full details of his face, then kept zooming till she saw small little marks on it: the imperfections a woman like herself might hide with makeup or the like.

It shocked her enough that she thought about seeing ‘normal’ again. With more clicks from her eye sockets, her vision was so. She saw as any human might, not-zoomed in.

Assuming, of course, said human was 1000ft tall.

“Impressive, wasn’t it? Your eyes can swap in magnifying lenses. They are a lot like gear-oggles now, only, you merely need to think to activate them. Even as you tower above people, you’ll still be able to hone in on just one.”

“I... I still can’t move. When can I move?” said Belle. She felt that crawling sensation die down as she stopped paying attention to it. The minibots moving around felt more like tingles now rather than hundreds of thousands of scurrying ants.

“In time Belle, in time. First, lets test your sense of touch. Go on Frederick!” he said.

Far down at Belle’s feet were more of Victor Cogston’s employees. They stood before towering Brass toes about twice their own heights. One of them had a small wooden mallet, and stood before her right foot. He brought the hammer up and then down on her big toe with all his might. The hammer cracked, though her body was just as fine as ever.

“What was that? Did one of you poke my toe?”, said Belle.

“Ah so you felt it!”, said a jubilant Victor. “Good, very good. As I said before, there’s a layer of steam in a cavity below your ‘skin’. When something hits the surface of your body, it vibrates it, or cools it, or heats it. The changes in expectations create the sense of touch you just felt, and they’ll help you to tell when hot or cold as well.”

“Did you let me feel pain too?”, said Belle.

“The expectation now is just touch and temperature. Something that would be hot enough to burn a human or freeze their skin solid would feel hot and cold, respectively, but not enough to be uncomfortable. The vapors within your body dictate your body’s temperature far more than the outside. Just as we humans keep our own temperatures ideal for our bodies.”

“You keep referring to yourself as humans. I’m human still.”

“No, Belle, you’re already so much more.”

“You just put me in some machine. My brain is still human!”

“Given your interfacing with the Black Box, that’s now a matter of debate.”

Belle grunted, the voice vibrating in her new and dry pipe of a throat. She was growing angrier. With all her focus, she tried to move again. She tried to reach out and grab Victor and everyone else on that platform.

She didn’t. She didn’t even move her wrist. All she managed was moving her fingers and wiggling her toes. There was another quick bit of fanfare from Victor and his staff. Down at her feet, those employees gathered there took some steps back as they felt the floor vibrate from the giant metal digits moving around.

“Bravo Belle! Yes it’s all working so far. You just moved a bit: it makes sense it’d be the fingers and toes first, but soon enough you’ll be able to walk with this new body.”

He sighed, happy.

“It’s another novel innovation that you are able to move at all in that giant brass body. Even with gears at the joints, surely you noticed that your elbows, knees, and so on are entirely solid on the outside. Under normal expectations, the gear-joints would try to move, but either get stalled from your immobile brass finger or, worse, break trying to push it. Well, that’s where the layer of steam under your surface, and the minibots, come in.”

He grinned. Victor was always happy to explain how his inventions worked: anything to do with the Brass Woman most of all.

“When you moved your finger, steam within you and around the area was super-heated in order to make the metal more pliable, malleable, moldable. I didn’t choose brass just because it’s the shiny, luxury metal of the past, present and future. That was a factor for your divine form, but, no. Brass also has a low melting point for a metal. The prevalence of it in your make allows these movement mechanisms to function. With this design, you’ll be able to move just as good as a human body in time: better, even. This same process will help you self-repair and, in even more time, self-improve.”

Belle tried to blink her eyes out of disbelief, only to find her eyelids wouldn’t fully shut.

“Wait, so if there’s intense heat to my fingers when I move it, then won’t my metal skin melt off?”

“Well you don’t have skin so much as an exterior surface now, but good question. Just like a human’s skin, your surface is covered in a thin layer of a sort of oil. A coating. The minibots help exude it through tiny, imperceptible holes that dynamically form and seal on the outside of your body. Don’t worry though, the coating is thin enough at your size to not be felt, so it’s not as though anything will slip and slide in your palms normally. Your surface will feel sleek and smooth to a human’s touch, in part thanks the oil which has other functions than just keeping the surface cool. But, it will feel dry rather than slick.”

Belle focused and managed to shake her new and giant head now. Victor talked a bit longer.

“You see, if the joints were on the outside, they could be susceptible damage. With this process, the surface of your body is always hard as metal, even when the inside softens to permit movement. Once the movement is done, the metal is cooled, when it begins again, it’s once again heated and so on. Since your exterior is always hard metal, you get the benefits of sturdy resilience while still being able to move with this process. Elegant, simple, powerful, divine!”

‘Shut up shut up shut up’, thought Belle. ‘All you do is ramble about your dumb innovations. You’ve ruined my life.’

But, she held her metal tongue, which seemed to move with the same steam temperature nonsense he had just monologued about. She knew her chance to nab him would come, and then she’d escape.

“Ok, very interesting.”, she said. “Now, can you undo these shackles please?”

“No not yet, we still need to run more tests. It’s no good for anyone if you fall over cause you aren’t used to moving your legs yet.”

There was some truth to that, she still felt like she could only really move her hands and feet. Everything else felt numb.

“But,”, said Victor. “Let’s loosen the binds on your wrists to see if you can move your hands. You heard the order everyone!”

“Sir, are you sure that’s wise?” said Mr. Fib, right by his boss’s side.

“It is, don’t worry. She must learn how to move.”

Some staff on the scaffolding by Belle’s giant brass hands moved towards the shackles. The platform on the scaffolding was able to be slid in and out through controls on the platform itself. So, with a whir, the platform slid close enough for them to slide in some giant metal key into a slot by her wrist shackles.

Belle wasted no time trying to move her hands to reach out and grab Victor. Alas, in her haste, she had forgotten about the shackles just below her elbow, preventing her forearm from moving and her hands from reaching the platform on by her navel. Her palms stopped a bit short of it.

At least she had moved fast enough to shake the scaffolding and knock a few of the employees over. Her fingers even grazed one of the people level with her hands, knocking him out cold as his head collided with the literal tons of metals making up her pinky. He was quickly dragged off as others cleared the area.

Victor clapped his hands while Mr. Fib trembled, having let out a small yelp at the sudden movement, and taken a few steps back since.

“Very good, very good!”, said Victor. “I do hope you weren’t thinking to crush me out of this mortal world though, there’s still much to go over. Why, did you know there are speakers in your body, including in some small cavities near your cheeks? You’re your own radio station, Belle, and you can intercept any frequency there is once you figure that out. I made the protocol, and you have a built in decrypter unrivaled in complexity. With it, you can tune into any channel to snoop, while your own private channels exist just between you, your minibots, and who knows who else in the future.”

“When I get my hands on you Victor I will pop you like a grape.”

“Whoa whoa, easy now Belle. I know this is all upsetting to you-”

“My life is gone!”

“It’s only just begun, but, listen, I think you’re just a bit cranky. Perhaps you should eat.”

“Eat? What are you talking about now?”

Victor leaned into the microphone on his console.

“Reveal the prisoner. It’s time to taste the digestive functionalities.”

On the highest scaffolding, level with her mouth and chin, some of the security guards fanned out. Belle looked at them, the light from her eyes falling upon them as they shifted out of the way to reveal a woman, bound at the ankles and wrists. Arms behind her back, a burlap sack rested on her head with a small hole left where her nose would be.

“Alright Belle, open wide.”

“What, who is that?”

“A dirty spy.”, said Victor. His voice was a bit more stern. “We caught her snooping around just yesterday. Normally they’d be terminated on the spot, but this one is special, especially cowardly and bereft of morals. I decided to imprison her, given how close we were to finishing this project. Now, she’s your food. Your first living meal.”

“You want me to eat people? That’s absurd! Why would I even need to eat at all if you turned me into this construct?” bellowed Belle. She turned her head away from the security guards as they lifted up the writhing woman and brought her close to Belle’s brass face.

“Belle!”, said Victor. He sounded offended. “For one your brain still needs energy, but I didn’t just make some giant shiny idol for people to bow down to. I’m no fool, you might get into some scuffles in the process of cementing your superiority. The Brass Woman was designed with the capacity to break down anything consumed into fuel and processable components. With minibots help the resources can be used for repairs or even improvements. Your body was meant to evolve, Belle, to always be ready for and beyond any challenge it could face.”

“Why people then you monster? Why not just feed me diamonds and steel?”

“Your body can make its own diamonds by pressuring other sources of carbon if need be but, a fair question. Organic materials are needed. Carbon is used in many of the lubricants for your gears, and its used in that coating over your exterior I mentioned. They provide a variety of essential minerals to be repurposed too, and the complexity of the human mind means it has some of the densest neuron clusters.”

Belle continued moving her face away from the guards bringing the woman near her mouth. She thought to blow on them, but didn’t want to knock that poor woman Victor captured off the scaffolding with them. Besides, even doing that to just the guards would be the first time she’s killed someone.

“Who is she?”, roared Belle.

“I already told you, she was a spy we found. No one important in the grand scheme of things. Just another scheming rat in the city, driven by greed and disrespect towards places they don’t belong.”

“No, what’s her name? where’s she from? She’s a person!”

She turned to the guards.

“Get away you persistent gnats!”

Belle held her lips, a slightly darker shade of brass, closed. The guards were practically pushing the woman against her mouth to force the prisoner in, but Belle talked with tight lips to thwart them.

Victor talked into the microphone again.

“Belle none of that should matter to you as a god.”

“Well if I’m your damn god I order you and your goons to stop this.”

“We can’t Belle, not yet.”

“Am I not the god you were calling me, the one you were trying to make? Do as I say then!”

“Think of this as a test. All humans must be viewed as expendable to you Belle. I’m trying to teach you more than how to move your new body. If you can’t bring yourself to kill people, you’ll be in trouble. You can’t ignore people as sustenance, and there will be many who refuse to yield to your whims more violently than I am now. You need to be able to do away with them and, if you can, get something out of them all the while.”

“I refuse!”

“Then we’ll never release your shackles. You can spend as much time in this central chamber as you want then. We are still in the learning phase of things here Belle. Why, if we undid the shackles you’d just fall right over much likely. But, there are more than just physical lessons to learn here. I insist you devour the prisoner. If it helps, we would simply shoot her otherwise. That’s an important thought, you know. Only you are eternal. Every human you meet will eventually die, won’t they? So, what’s it matter if you take their life yourself as a higher being?”

Belle puffed steam out of her nose with a grunt. She didn’t need to breath of course, yet her body reacted to her desire to make a fuss. Still, it’s clear Victor wouldn’t back down from this. She could feel a bit more of her body than just her extremities now, but she was still too numb to try and bust out.

Then, Belle had an idea.

“Fine.”, she said. “I’ll eat her.”

The giant brass head turned to the guards. She stared daggers at them. Her eyelids couldn’t close, but they could contract up to the point her luminescent pupil wasn’t covered. It was to help with making expressions. Here, it let Belle squint at them, letting the guards know she didn’t approve.

“Aaaaa”

The sound vibrated from her pipework voice-box. She let the noise roar over the group as she slipped out her tongue. The former reporter could feel and manipulate that part of her body pretty well, but she held it stiff and steady like a welcoming rug. The guards, looking just a tad intimated, quickly shoved the bound woman onto that dark metal organ.

“One important note Belle.”, said Victor into the microphone. “It’s recommended you swallow things whole when possible. The processes within your body will be more efficient that way. You shouldn’t have a gag reflex anymore, so it should be very simple.”

Belle slowly brought her tongue back into her mouth. Belle couldn’t taste the woman, but she could feel the prisoner doing her best to not move till the tongue was in her mouth. Once there, Belle quickly discovered she had ‘saliva’ of some kind as her mouth felt a little wet. Some steam even emitted into the cavity.

She swished her tongue around a little making a show of things. Then, she made a swallowing motion.

“Good show!”, said Victor. “That wasn’t so bad was it. Now, how does it feel?”

Belle paused a moment, she had to think.

“It feels weird. Am I supposed to feel her inside me like this?”

Victor smiled.

“Yes, that’s normal.”

Belle smiled just a little. She had guessed right.