Episode 12: Attempt Number Nine

THE SCIENTIST: Experiment 31E, attempt number nine.

Date: November 7, 1843.

It—it—

[soft laughter]

It worked.

Success.

Everything…everything I’ve been working towards, it…

[soft laughter turns maniacal]

I was right…all along…

It almost didn’t…there were complications but…

It worked!

Tonight, we went into Manchester and met with Herman. I asked the coachman to prepare the coach but told him I would not be needing his services for the rest of the night. He gave me a curious glance but thanked me, saying he had plans elsewhere and was grateful. There was an odd shadow to his expression, though, as if he was worried about what I intended to do in town without him, but he did not give voice to whatever concern he may have had. I highly doubt he suspected what I was intending. When I told John I would need him to not only accompany me but to drive the coach, I could see he wanted to refuse. But it seemed no matter how angry he was with me he would not shirk his duties. He even indulged me when I told him to carry a knife…just in case.

Herman was in the same corner of the pub as he had been yesterday. He smirked when he saw me enter, John at my side. I wondered if he was self-satisfied to see he had successfully entangled me in a nefarious scheme…or if he was simply pleased at the prospect of being sixty pounds richer. Perhaps both.

As we approached, Herman stood and met us halfway. He said to follow him.

My mother had always warned me about going to secondary locations. I’m not entirely sure why she focused on that so much—or why she seemed to find the subject amusing—but it was something that occurred to me in that moment. We had met Herman on neutral ground, but where would he be taking us? I had already agreed, though, that we would…obtain…the specimen elsewhere, so I could not back down now.

Herman brought us a few blocks away to a dilapidated inn. He had rented a room—and told me he expected to be compensated for it. I agreed readily to hurry things along.

The room was cramped. A small bed sat against the wall, a table shoved into the opposite corner. It was dingy and smelled of must and filth. I feared a potential miasma would leave us all ill after this excursion, but I focused on what we were there to do.

“Where is the…specimen?” I asked.

“Where’s the chloroform?” Herman asked in response.

“John,” I said, “could you please make sure there is no one in the hallway?”

John gave me a suspicious look but left as he was told, seeming grateful to be out of the same room as Herman.

Once he was gone, the door closed behind him, I removed a canister and handkerchief from the inner pocket of my frock coat. “If you pour some of the chloroform onto the handkerchief and hold it over the nose and mouth,” I said, “it should induce lethargy within a matter of minutes.”

“A matter of minutes?” Herman said. “It’d be easier to just choke him without it. Be over quicker.”

“I don’t want the body harmed,” I said.

Herman shook his head, rolling his eyes. “Have you ever used that stuff before?” he asked.

I hated to admit that no, I had not. It was merely a theory that it would work in this way. But I had hoped it would allow for the body to stay more intact.

I didn’t say any of this to Herman, but my silence seemed to answer his question.

“I’m just gonna use my hands instead,” Herman said.

“I don’t want there to be permanent damage,” I said.

“Death is pretty permanent,” he remarked.

I didn’t respond to that. I wasn’t sure how much he suspected about my plans for the body, but I didn’t want to give him any more information than he needed.

“Where is the specimen?” I asked again. “Is he on his way? Or do you have to get him?”

“He’s already here, don’t worry,” Herman said.

“Where?” I demanded once more.

Herman pointed with a nod of his head and said, “Out in the hall.”

I glanced at the closed door. “If there’s someone out there, John would have come in to tell me,” I said.

Herman gave me an oddly pitying look. “You’re not as clever as you want the world to think you are, Victoria,” he said.

“I told you not to call me that,” I snapped, my hackles rising.

Herman laughed, a mocking laugh. “You really want to be something you’re not,” he said. “Dressing as a man, slumming it with me and your boy, doing god knows what with these bodies. But all you are is some bored heiress who can’t get a husband.”

I was not surprised to hear this misestimation of me—he is certainly not the first to have said it—but a lack of surprise does not equate to a lack of fury.

“You don’t know what I am,” I said, clenching the canister of chloroform tight.

“I’ve seen your type before,” he said. “Wealthy wives and daughters, coming to the pubs when their husbands or fathers are distracted by playing at pully-hawly, looking for a distraction themselves. Sometimes, it’s the husbands and sons coming ‘round… Everyone needs a distraction every now and then…I don’t mind being one, y’know…”

“I have no desire to use you as a distraction,” I said.

“You don’t, do you?” he said, giving me a curious look. “You’re one of those frigid ones, aren’t you? Or is that what the bodies are for? You only like ‘em cold?”

Again, I couldn’t say I was surprised by his words—I could tell he thought a great deal of himself, and in his opinion, the idea that someone could possibly not be attracted to him clearly could only be due to some mental or physical deficit. I’ve certainly seen his type before. The worst of it was…I knew he thought low of me when he discovered I was a woman, but…to see the assumption of my motivations go from noble to base due to a simple change of gender is…astoundingly insulting.

I refused to dignify his words with a response.

“Where is the specimen?” I asked instead, trying to drag the conversation back onto its tracks.

“I told you,” Herman said. “He’s out in the hall.”

“Only John is in the hall,” I said.

And that was when I realized, perhaps I was not as clever as I’d thought.

“No,” I said.

“You told me to pick for you,” Herman said.

“I said to pick someone I didn’t know,” I snapped.

“No, you didn’t,” Herman said with a wicked smirk. “You only said to pick someone who won’t be missed—and then not tell you who. I still haven’t told you—you just figured it out.”

“John has a family,” I said. “He will be missed—”

“People die in Manchester all the time,” Herman said with a wink. “He won’t be missed, trust me.”

Herman seemed so…assured of that. And it made me wonder, would John be missed? He sent money home to his family, but he hadn’t visited them for some time. Would he be missed, or just his earnings? I could keep sending money, under his name. His family may never know…

And of course, eventually, he would stop being able to send money anyway. How much longer does he have, really? A year or two? Maybe less? How long has he been coughing up blood? For all I know, he could not wake up tomorrow…

Would he be missed? Just some random stoker from Manchester, son of a coachman. Barely old enough to have built a life for himself. No wife, no children. What would he leave behind, what traces of his life, what legacy could he possibly have? A record or two in the parish church registry, some memories that will fade in a generation? Years from now, would anyone even remember his name?

But if he became part of my experiment, then he would be remembered. His name would live on, past whatever his own life’s boundaries will ultimately be. People would know him, remember him—the dead man returned…

But John doesn’t want that. I know he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to be used. He doesn’t care about fame or immortality.

He’s just a boy who wants to live as long as he can and to die on his own terms. Admirable, in a way. So many of us want the world to remember we lived, that we walked this earth and made a difference, but the majority of people will be forgotten once the last person who knew them dies. They will leave no mark, no memory. Making peace with that, not caring that knowledge of your existence will be swept away eventually…it is commendable…remarkable…

Would John be missed? In a year? In a century?

Who would miss him?

Who…?

I knew, in that moment, in that disgusting room standing next to that despicable man…I knew the answer to that question.

Would John be missed?

If John were gone…who would help in my lab? Who would accompany me on my visits to Solomon and Rahul? Who would take in hideous kittens and nurse them by himself? Who would pretend to be a gentleman at a party with me? Who would distract Joseph Hooker while I stole a sample of foreign moss? Who would tolerate me in my meltdowns, who would stay for two years in a job of hauling corpses, standing by me even when he thinks what I do is disturbing, still sticking to his duties even after I—I violated something he considered sacred? John is my servant but…he is also my friend…he’s my friend…

I don’t…I don’t have a lot of those… And John may very well be my closest…but I’ve treated him so… I shouldn’t have brought back Stove without his permission… I shouldn’t have insisted he come with me on a mission I knew would be dangerous…

And I certainly could not—would not—let Herman touch him.

“Not John,” I said to Herman.

“It’s John or no one,” Herman declared.

“Then no one,” I said. “I’ll leave—you’ll still get paid, don’t worry—”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Herman said. “If you pick no one, I’m afraid my price has just gone up. I’ll need another sixty—on top of that first one—if you don’t want me tattling to the Peelers about you. And I’ve got witnesses now, like the inn clerk—they might actually believe me.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but it was a complication I didn’t need. “Aren’t you getting tired of trying to blackmail me?” I asked him.

Herman smirked again, then glanced toward the door. John was coughing loudly from the other side.

“I’ve heard him cough like that before,” Herman said. “I’m sure you have too. He doesn’t have much time left, does he? I’m gonna do you a favor, Victoria… It’ll be a mercy, you’ll see.”

“I said no,” I growled.

I stepped forward, ready to slip my dagger out from my sleeve to stop him, and he…he just…pushed me. I fell into the table behind me, pain lighting up along my body. Nothing was broken, but there would be bruises. It was just…a flick of his wrist…and I was down… I felt…I felt…weak…and foolish…

And Herman just…smiled at me. He turned to leave, to find John and…

I could not let that happen.

Before he could reach the door, I doused the handkerchief with chloroform, and using the bed as a jumping off point, I leapt onto Herman’s back. He let out a shout before I could clamp the cloth over his nose and mouth.

John burst into the room, no doubt alarmed by Herman’s cry, his eyes wide and startled. He pulled out his knife.

“No,” I shouted at him.

John froze, watching the struggle, his face full of confusion. I could see he wanted to jump in, join the fray, but as always…he obeyed his orders.

Herman tried to buck me off, but I kept my hand tight over his face. The chloroform was not effective, leaving him awake and fighting. I slipped my left arm around the front of his neck, squeezing, my right hand clenched over his nose and mouth. Herman clawed at my arm, my hand, but I held on. He slammed me against the wall, my back bruising even more, but I held on. I held on…as he slumped to his knees, his movements sluggish but desperate. I held on…as his arms fell to his sides. I held on…as he stopped moving. I held on…until I could no longer feel the pulse in his neck.

It took longer than I thought it would. Slow, agonizing, waiting for him to succumb. John watched, his face filled with a mix of horror and concern.

I finally let Herman go. He hit the floor with a dull thud. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.

I was breathing. Heavily. Panting from the exertion, from the pain.

But it was done.

I knelt on the floor by the body, looking down at it—at the deed I had committed. John knelt too, across from me, his eyes still so wide.

“Did he attack you?” John asked quietly.

I nodded. It wasn’t entirely a lie.

“Why didn’t you want my help?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to damage the body,” I said.

The concern in John’s expression quickly leaked out, leaving behind only the horror.

“You don’t mean…you’re going to use him?” he said.

“He was going to kill you,” I said, and John jumped at the revelation. I sniffed, feeling something prick my eyes, a constriction in the back of my throat. “I couldn’t let him. You’re my friend, John, y-you’re my friend—”

“I know,” John said. “I know.”

“So I had to,” I insisted.

“I know,” John said again.

“But why waste the body,” I said, “when he could finally be of real use?”

John helped bring the body back to the coach. We returned to the manor. It was late, the sun long gone. The wind picked up as we carried the body inside, a storm rolling in overhead.

As thunder rumbled, we placed the body on the slab, stripped it, and stuck its flesh with electrodes. As John stoked the boiler to power the electrical charge, I prepared the formula and waited. Staring at the body laid out, I pondered this striking tableau before me, struck through with cathodes and anodes like Saint Sebastian pierced with arrows. I had always thought nature had been wrong to bestow such beauty on such an ugly mind, but here, now, I could finally make him worthy of that gift—the first man to be restored to life, an angel brought back from the fall—the resurrectionist resurrected. I could correct more than one mistake of nature—mend the random inequities of life, the sins of the world.

When the electrical conductor was at full charge, I injected the serum then pulled the lever to unleash the current.

I watched, waited, John standing at a distance from the slab. I waited and waited…

The chest began to move. The hands stirred, clenching.

The eyes opened.

It was alive.

We strapped him down, naturally. I had just murdered him, after all, and Herman probably would not have been happy to see me once he was able to orient himself. He seemed confused, not quite comprehending the things around him, but since he had just been dead for two hours, that can be expected. Stove had seemed confused at first, now she’s…well, she misses John, I think, and is angry about it. She hisses and tries to bite me still… I need to give Herman some time to gather his wits again before assessing how well his mind survived the ordeal.

But I was far too excited to wait around. I left the lab to makes these notes because I just…I need to say it out loud.

I did it. I did it.

Everything—it came together perfectly in the end.

It—it’s all been worth it. Every last painful hiccup—it’s all led to this moment…

Well, perhaps not every hiccup has been worth it…

As I left the lab I glanced back at John. He looked…perturbed. I’m not sure if that’s because I asked him to stand watch over Herman…or because of Herman’s resurrection…

Or…

Perhaps John did not expect me to be capable of murder. If true, I appreciate the sentiment. He is…so loyal to me…I do not understand why. It makes that look on his face…far, far worse to see… I wish…I could be worthy of his estimation of me… It’s not as if I’ve done it often…it was only once before…

Mother’s cancer had left her in such awful pain. She believed some toxin from one of her earlier experiments was responsible for the disease, but I don’t know how she knew this. Lydia and I cared for her in those final months. Near the end she became…delusional…mad… She saw things that weren’t there, remembered things that could never have existed, said things…things that…she would never have said…

That night…she didn’t want to eat, but I tried. I tried to get her to have something, a bit of soup—Lydia’s chicken soup, she always loved that. But Mother refused, too ill…too weak… She said she wasn’t hungry, but she hadn’t eaten all day…

Then she looked at me…grabbed my wrist and looked into my eyes, her own clearer than they had been in days.

“I shouldn’t have stayed,” she whispered.

I didn’t know what she meant, but she hadn’t made much sense recently—talking of strange things like a network of information accessible from a pocket-sized device, an invention I assumed she must have wanted to create but never could, or something about mutated adolescent reptiles… It was…an odd mishmash of the absurd, names and stories I’d never heard her mention before, songs she seemed to know by heart but that had never been written. So this, too, I assumed was nonsense. Shouldn’t have stayed? Stayed where?

“I should’ve gone home,” she said. “I shouldn’t have let him charm me so…I shouldn’t have…” Her eyes narrowed, fixated on me. “I stayed…because of you. You. When I realized I was pregnant I stayed… It was only supposed to be for a few months…an adventure…the greatest breakthrough in quantum mechanics… And I gave it all up to stay here… To lose him… To ruin everything…”

Her grip tightened on my arm, far stronger than her weakened state should have allowed.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “I shouldn’t have allowed you to be born. You are…a paradox. Your every step is…stepping on butterflies. You are chaos, spinning us further and further out into the void. Your very existence is wrong. You are…wrong…”

Tears burned my eyes as I said, “Mother, please…mother, please, you’re hurting me…”

But she didn’t stop. She grew more agitated.

“I tried to hide myself away,” she said, “remove myself from events as much as possible. But things have already diverged. I was an idiot… I tried so hard to hold you back from making it worse, but soon I will be gone and there will be nothing—nothing—to stop you. What abomination have I unleashed on this world? I have destroyed us—I have destroyed us all.”

“Mother, please,” I begged. “Please forgive me.” I didn’t understand what I was asking forgiveness for, but she was so convinced that I had done…something…wrong.

“You should not exist,” Mother told me. “I should never have let you be born. You will only bring further chaos to this world.”

“No,” I pleaded with her. “I have value, I can prove it. My inventions, they will make everyone’s lives better—”

“No one can ever know about those,” she hissed. “You can never share those with the world. They’re not meant to be—just like you.”

“But, mother, please,” I said. “I can make a difference—”

“That’s the problem,” she said. “You are making it…different…wrong…”

“Stop calling me wrong—” I began to say.

But she interrupted. “You are a wrong—a wrong that must be righted—you shouldn’t exist—”

“I promise not to share my inventions,” I said. Her fingers dug deep into my arm…I was bleeding…I still have the scars… “I promise,” I went on, “I promise to keep my head down, to not—to not make anything…different…”

“Yes, yes,” Mother said. “Stay secreted away…let your life play out in silence…no one can know about you…find a hole and hide in it…”

“Yes, of course, I promise,” I said.

My mother looked at me…her expression…she’d never looked at me like that before…

“It won’t work,” she breathed. “There’s nowhere you can hide. I couldn’t even…the things that happened simply because I existed here and now… Your every step… So many god damn butterflies…”

She stared at me, her eyes wild, her breath rapid.

Then she lunged.

There was a knife on her bedside table. I had used it to whittle a little rabbit for her…she loved rabbits… She grabbed the knife.

I grabbed her wrist to hold her off.

We struggled. She was strong, as if she was using her last well of strength. I pushed her back onto the bed, but she yanked me toward her, toward the knife. I twisted the blade away from me and…

I had no other choice.

It was a mercy.

She was dying. She wasn’t in her right mind.

I had no other choice…

What I didn’t realize was that Lydia was at the door. She saw…she saw what happened. She…she kept it secret…because she’s so good at keeping secrets… She said it was our business, that my mother wouldn’t have wanted anyone else involved. She has told no one…no one even knows Mother is dead… And she made me promise to stay hidden from the world, to keep my inventions to myself…

I obeyed…at first…

But now…

Now…I can finally prove my worth. I can finally show the world what I can do, what power I have.

I can bring back the dead. No more must we be at the mercy—the whims—of nature and random happenstance. No more must we let our loved ones die from illness, from injury, from war. I can bring them all back, restore lives to their proper order. I can fix fatal mistakes, I can defy those with deadly intent.

I can bring the greatest gift of all time to mankind. I have value, I am not wrong.

I am not an abomination, I am not this Nexus of the Rubedo, I am not chaos incarnate.

I. Am. GOD.

What is God but the controller of life and death?

I can control both.

Those scientists my mother told tales of, those who wanted to create a new being—Frankenstein, Noonien Soong—they performed impressive feats, yes, but...Soong merely tinkered with machines, and Frankenstein…[scoffs]…Frankenstein feared his own creation. I do not fear the thing I brought back. It is…it is a thing of beauty…because I made it happen…because I gave him life…I took, and I returned…

There is so much I can do with this. The balance of power in this world has been forever changed. I will no longer be at anyone’s mercy, I will no longer be weak or forced under another’s heel, I am—

[gunshot in the distance]

What? What is happening?

[another gunshot]

What is—?

[recording cuts off]

[recording comes back on]

My god, no!

The Rubedo—I forgot to factor in the Rubedo.

Solomon and Rahul were right—they had warned me but—

But I was too stubborn, too focused, too…unwilling to believe…

My coachman. They got to my coachman. That was his business elsewhere for the night. He let the Rubedo’s man into the manor.

The assassin went to the lab. He saw the lights on and—

John tried to stop him, but the assassin—he did something, some sort of—spell? I don’t know. I would never have believed it before, but John froze and—

The assassin, thinking Herman was a prisoner, removed the restraints. Herman was freed and—

But Agnes—oh, sweet Agnes, she may have earned my ire for the incident with Stove, but I shall never think of her as anything less than the most brilliant and resourceful of people. Her pistol—that blasted thing she had threatened with—she’d heard commotion, John trying to stop the assassin, and she came running. She witnessed whatever the man did to John then shot him—the assassin. He died—so much for his alchemical powers. Those were the shots I heard, and I went running to the lab—

But Herman…

Was he angry at what I’d done or was his mind still addled? Or…Stove’s behavior…could that…could that be a side effect?

But no, he’s…he has every reason to be furious, to have…

He threw John across the room. John, he…he’s alive, but he won’t wake up. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. Was it Herman? Was it the assassin? Either way…it’s my fault… He’s always been loyal, sacrificing so much for me, and in turn I…

And Herman struck Agnes too, before she could use her pistol against him. She fell but I—I think she’ll be fine.

By the time I made it to the lab, he was gone. Agnes pointed where he’d run to, and I followed, but he was already too far ahead. I found the front door of the manor open. Through the pouring rain I saw a figure, running across the grounds. He was too far, too far to catch.

I shouted into the storm, and the figure…stopped. It turned.

In a flash of lightning, I saw him. I saw him look at me.

I saw…that smirk…

Then he disappeared into the night, the rain washing away any trace.

He’s… Is he even in his right mind?

But that smirk…

He knows…everything.

He…

Dear god, what have I done?