Chapter 40: A new normal

Three months have passed.
I’m not exactly sure how it was decided Tungsten’s den would be the headquarters of this operation.
Especially since Tungsten still does his own thing and hasn’t offered his help in making dolls.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that Neon hanging out in his den every day now is a major contributing factor.
I’m not sure if they’re together again exactly, they didn’t tell me at the very least. But they spend a lot of time sitting on the sofa together. Leaning against one another as they both work on their own things. So if they’re not I’d be surprised.
Part of me wonders why Neon is still here.
I’m glad he is, of course, he and Steel are the most knowledgeable on the chemistry of ether and have the biggest shot at devising a method to combine it and the machinery together.
But it feels off
With every day it becomes more apparent that he doesn’t have a lot of time left.
Shouldn’t he be enjoying his final however long he has, doing something else?
Relax?
Enjoy himself?
I want to ask about it.
But I’m not sure if I want him to leave.
I’m not sure if we can do it without him.
So I just don’t bring it up and hope that he’s here of his own free will.
I mean he’s a full alchemist. He’s free to leave if he wants to.
And Steel isn’t even around very often, he’s off on University duty most days. Scouting locations and the like.
And leaving Neon in charge of figuring out the chemistry.
At least Tiborah is around to help. His input has been invaluable. The way he describes dolls being brought to life is very similar to the experiments Mercury used to do. With electricity being used to jump-start the process. And while Tin refuses to explain how his weapons work he has assured us that he can help in that department.
So Neon is on ether, Tin takes care of the shock, Steel is out for the university and it’s my job to make a heart. Having made the fake heart I feel I have a good grasp on what functions the heart needs to fulfill and how it does it. But I also feel like the old design has a lot of redundancies. And I can do better.
Scattered over my workbench are multiple tins; biscuit tins, mint tins, and paint tins, I’m not suggesting using these for the final product but they’re my inspiration for the form factor of the piece. Encasing the inner mechanics in something that’s both more resistant to damage and possible to open for the sake of making adjustments and evaluation purposes.
There’s only one missing piece.
“Look I don’t see the problem. It’s a body that’s just lying around otherwise?” Tin announces loudly as I’m trying to lay out my gears. I sigh and put now the tweezers. “It already belonged to Stegarius. We can’t go and re-purpose it.”
“Why not? Tungsten puts dead parts in living beings, they get recycled don’t they?”
As I open my mouth for a retort Tungsten beats me to it his dog ears sharp upright.
“But their loved ones don’t need to look at their dead sibling’s face all day.”
“We can replace the head right.” Tin shoots back.
“We could but we’d still know. And it’d still feel wrong.” Tiborah adds.
Tin rolls his eyes and crosses his arms “Are you vetoing the idea or not?”
“I think I am.”
“Then how do you intend to get a body for this heart the kid is making?” Tin retaliates.
I’m not a kid…
“I can fashion a new body with some outside help, at my own expense as well”
“Tiborah you don’t need to pay all of it. We’re a team, right?” I cut in.
“We are?” Tiborah asks, sounding genuinely surprised.
“I mean that’s the goal.” I sputter, the wind kicked from my sails.
“I see… but it doesn’t feel right to veto an idea and not offer a suitable solution in exchange.”
Tin nods approvingly “I think that’s a splendid idea.”
I sigh “Very well then.” I shrug and turn back to the job at hand.
“Inquiry.” Tungsten calls out.
That is if I can get a moment of peace so I can get these gears lined up.
“What is it Tungsten?”
“Neon needs your attention.”
“Okay?”
I head over to the couch.
“These notes are wrong,” Neon tells me carefully.
“What do you mean they’re wrong?” I copied them off the original journal. The notebook may be new but the numbers and passages are the same. They can’t be wrong.
“The amount of ether needed per doll is far too high, it’s five times higher than any human average. And you said there are over a hundred dolls in existence? It’s…unlikely one man managed to gather this much ether in one lifespan.
Tiborah steps up the the couch as well and looks at the notes.
“Do you happen to know how much your father needed?”
He shakes his head “The numbers mean nothing to me. But I have seen him put the ether in. How much ether would this be in volume?”
Neon takes a moment to think, then gestures out a large box in front of him.
Tiborah closes his eyes for a moment, as if thinking back before saying “That looks about right.”
And then Tin laughs “Brutal! So here I’m not even allowed to reuse an old body but that precious father figure of you just casually killed five people to make one of you?”
Tiborah shakes his head “He used animals, not people, just boars and deer living in the surrounding forest.”
“Really? This guy went out of his way to kill hundreds no, thousands of animals rather than kill a couple of people.
“Yes.”
“Did you see him do it?”
“No, but he told me that’s what he did and he always told me the truth. Please don’t insinuate otherwise.” The doll crosses his arms.
“I mean he’s a human, humans lie all the time. It’s not a big deal.”
“Please stop Tin.”
“He massacred an entire forest for his pet project yet lying is where you draw the line?” The man laughs even louder than before and Tiborah balls his fist, relaxes it. Takes the notebook from my hands and steps back “If you’ll excuse me for a minute.” He walks out.
I think that’s my cue to follow.
I send Tin a look but he just shrugs and rolls his eyes.
He’s such a brat for an old man.
I exit the lab and find Tiborah leaning against the wall, staring into nothing.
“Hey.” I wave a bit awkwardly.
“I’m fine.” He tells me.
“Are you sure?”
“No, but…” He opens the notebook and gazes longingly at the pages “Everything else in here is correct. Events I were part of are recounted in perfect detail.” He chuckles “I never knew seeing me without a head that one time caused him such distress. I wish I’d known. I’d like to have told him it’s okay, he’s only human…But he didn’t lie, not to me or any of his children.”
His conviction and loyalty are admirable. But at the same time, I can’t help but think about how he kept the fact the dolls would die from all of them. So, that means he’s at least he wasn’t above hiding information. But I don’t think that’s what Tiborah needs to hear right now either. I put a hand on his shoulder “There’s no way to check, and we’ll be using ether harvested from the slaughterhouse so we’ll be using animal ether regardless of what he used.”
“I guess…” He sighs “I’m not used to this…this I don’t know human-ness.”
“Tin is a bit of a piece of work yeah.”
“Is it odd I never considered it a bad thing, all the animals he killed to make us? Yet then he goes and calls it ‘massacring an entire forest’ and I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Well…if Stegarius was to be believed your father was a complicated figure.”
He looks at the book, closes it and holds it to his chest “He was a man unlike any I ever met, human or otherwise. He was unique, his brain was arranged in its own special way. And I never questioned his brilliance or morality. It’s not a nice feeling.”
“How about we head to Bar-B after work? Maybe being around dolls for a while will help cheer you up?”
“I’d look forward to that, thank you Inquiry.” He smiles gracefully then straightens his tie and says “Well then, there’s still a lot to do if we want to make progress today.”
“Indeed there is.” I smile, a bit surprised by the sudden turnaround but then as long as it works things should be okay right?”

Tiborah and Tin keep their distance after we rejoin the others with Tiborah staying close to Neon and helping him where he can.
A few hours later Tin leaves for the day without so much as saying goodbye.
I manage the gears and I think a tube shape would be the best way to keep all the parts together. It’s structurally sound and leaves a lot of room.
I write down my findings, then start cleaning up my table.
“Are you done?” Tiborah asks me.
“Huh? Oh yeah, just cleaning up.”
“You still want to go to Bar-B?”
“Absolutely.”
“I think I’m done too.”
“Give me a moment to put this away and then we can go.”

Bar-B feels like old times.
A lot of the dolls who holed up in here during the panic times have returned to their lives and the relaxed, easygoing atmosphere has returned to the place.
Prishtoli isn’t on her sofa.
So we head to the bar and ask about her.
“Oh she’s working, you thought she was here all the time?” Jaxogera chuckles.
“I…uh, thought she worked here actually,” I admit sheepishly.
“Oh I offered her the job all right, she just won’t. She likes having human fans and a band to help her out.”
“I see.”
“Although she has been doing fewer live shows now that her wax cylinders have taken off.”
“She has wax cylinders now?” Tiborah asks perplexed.
“Yes, they’re still too expensive for your average human but cafes and restaurants like to buy them to play in the establishments.”
“That’s smart, are you going to get one as well?”

“Heavens no, could never pick the scratchiness of a wax cylinder over the clean sound of a music box. But her success did drive me to improve on my own formula for a bit.” They tell me mysteriously before diving under the bar.
Tiborah and I look at one another until a moment they plop down a box tall and narrow akin to a sewing machine case. They open the lid to reveal the machine within. It looks roughly like a music box, only massive and the barrel is spiked all the way around and instead of small metal springs the mechanism is attached to an array of metal bars at different lengths flanked by small hammers.
“You made a large music box?” Tiborah guesses
“I made a music box I can program, look at these.” They open a drawer in the bottom of the case and pull out strips of paper with holes punched out of them “Each pin on the barrel is spring-loaded and will only pop up if it’s not blocked by anything. Meaning that as long as I position the paper right the machine will only register the notes I want them to.”
I look at the intricate gear and belt work in awe of the craftsmanship “You’re making me jealous Jaxogeras, you’re far better with mechanics than I ever will be.”
“Don’t feel bad I’ve had over a century to practice, now~” They raise their voice to address the bar at large “I’m demonstrating the music machine again, any requests?”
“Number 331!”
“Number 210!”
“If I have to listen to 210 one more time I’m out of here!”
“Sounds like we have a winner number 331 it is.” They move the barrel to the right position using a cranking mechanism that detaches from the whole and then gently pushes the edge of the paper onto the pegs, being sure to precisely line everything up. Then they flick a switch, crank it backward as I hear the gears rattle round on the inside of the barrel. And then they let go, and the barrel moves round.
And plays.
The song itself was nice of course but I barely even registered the notes as I watched the hammers clash against the bars and pull back again with pinpoint accuracy. I noted how the pins are only pushed down on the top of the barrel where they go through soft rollers and after they’ve done their jobs they pop back out again as the paper is led to a tray and the pegs are ready to be programmed again with the next piece of information. “You’re no longer limited by the size of the barrel,” I remark.
“Yes and no, I can’t make the barrel smaller than this because of the springs and gears inside but when it comes down to the length of a song the only limit is the length of the paper I have.”
“That’s incredible.” It’s been so long since I’ve seen a mechanism move this smoothly, this elegantly. It makes me feel like I’m fourteen again chasing mechanical dragonflies in the garden.
“Thank you.” The doll beams before getting shushed by a doll I don’t know but who looks very strict and scary.
As we listen to the rest of the song in silence I think. It’s no wonder the university didn’t grasp me, they were held up in math, starting from a basis that was dry and boring. They never managed to capture the wonder of it. The beauty of a well-oiled machine. When it’s time to make our own university I have to make sure I don’t make that same mistake.
The moment the last note leaves the barrel the paper flops down on the bar and the dolls clap cheerfully.
I clap along with a grin.
“That’s it for the demonstration, for now, carry on.”
The dolls start talking again and playing small music boxes meant for a single table.
“Do you think this will replace the old collection?” I ask pointing at the music machine
Heavens no, but it’s going to be a hit at this year’s. Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask, who’s in charge of the house now that you’re here?”
“Lara and Rala offered to keep everything in working order, although they did ask me to help with the party preparations. I don’t think that should be an issue considering last month’s progress?” He looks at me as if I’d need to permit him.
“Of course, it’s not.”
“Will any new siblings make it to this year’s party?” Jaxogeras asks cheekily.
“I don’t know, it’d be nice but I also don’t want to overwhelm them with something as intense as a remembrance party.”
I listen, fascinated as they talk doll stuff and I wish I had the guts to ask if I could come along to a remembrance party.
It sounds like so much fun.
But it’s not my place.
And I don’t want to put them on the spot by asking.
So I listen, and I appreciate this wonderful place that feels like home.
As the hours go by.