Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [82]
"The brain to whose vibrations the governing mechanism is tuned thus serves to regulate two creatures, one of flesh and blood, the other made of clockwork. Now, then who do you suppose it is, whose brain is being used in this manner?" His eyebrows arched in counterpoint to his smile.
A grotesque suspicion formed in my thoughts. "Do you mean… me? My brain?"
"Very good! You're quick, Dower! And it's quite a personal history you have, if I may say so. Your father, having discovered this principle of rarefied sympathetic vibrations, needed a human being whose mind was of a particularly complex yet stolid nature – one not given to the various excitements that cause the erratic brain vibrations in most other human beings and render them unsuitable as the necessary adjunct to the governing mechanism. So he searched out and married your mother, a woman – and I mean no disrespect to her memory, now – a woman of singular unresponsiveness. Against all difficulties, he managed to get her with child – you, Dower. Upon her death, you – a mere infant – were sent off to be raised by your aunt, primarily to keep your cerebral vibrations from close proximity to the devices upon which your father was working; it would have been disastrous if the conjunction had been made too soon."
For a moment, I felt as if I were inside the carriage, and yet at the same time far away, listening to someone else's life being narrated. A dream; this person with my face was describing mysteries – long-suffering puzzles of abandonment and a child's exile – and the answers to them that were as cold and intermeshed as the sharp-edged gears inside a watch. I brooded in my silence until the other spoke again.
"You see," said the Paganinicon, "the governing mechanism, once installed in the device it is to control, must be brought within a few miles of the adjunct brain – yours – for it to pick up the subtle vibrations and begin its operations. However, once it has been activated, distance between the device and the brain is no longer a matter of concern; the medium in which the vibrations travel is not bounded by space. Its nature is of another dimension entirely." He peered closely at me. "Do you understand that?"
"I– I believe so." My trembling hand passed over my brow. "Somewhat… It's all so strange…"
He nodded, moved by another form of sympathy. "I suppose it is. But the proof is before your eyes. Before he died, your father moulded my features" – he touched his face with one finger – "from a portrait your aunt had sent him. But then he died before he could send for you and bring you near enough for the vibrations of your brain to set me into life; I was but inert machinery, gears frozen, waiting. And, as you know, your father's estate was left in much confusion; though much of his work remained at the shop you inherited, the contents of other laboratories – he had several throughout the city – were dispersed. Such was my fate, though I was of course unconscious of it." He pulled at his lower lip, falling into sombre thought.
I felt a twinge of compassion for him, this device in my image. So we were moved, from place to place, all unknowing, like blindfolded chessmen upon an unlit board.
The Paganinicon roused himself from his reverie, and continued: "I am grateful to our mutual acquaintance Scape for this account of this history we share; he is something of a self-taught authority on the subject. And a leading character in the drama himself, at least in the latter stages. It was he who, in partnership with his charming colleague Miss McThane, came into possession of my inactive form; he had been circulating a few gambling enterprises