Stolen Soul
A large box sat
upon the dais, front doors opened to show it empty. Doug closed the doors and
began placing items into the box from an open door in the top. Springs, cogs,
vacuum tubes, all the building blocks of the dawning civilization. They clanked
as they dropped into the box. When he was done, he closed the top of the box,
stepped down from the dais, and approached a board of dials, gauges, and
levers. He pulled a lever and the electrical pylons on either side of the box
sprang once more to life, snapping their energy menacingly. The stage, the
entire theater, pulsated in the flashing light, so that the audience could both
see and feel what was going on. The result was an audience that felt both
threatened and helpless. They were mere spectators of an event that could at
any moment overwhelm them.
The lightning
throbbed and arced, each pylon reaching out to the other. They met at the box
in the middle, the one that contained the cogs and tubes. The very air seemed
to fry as it carried along the electrical charge. Behind the box, vast cogs
began to spin, unstoppable wheels of industry coming to life, energized by the
pylons.
Something immense
was being born. Something beyond the comprehension let alone control of mere
humans. The man who had pulled the lever, who was now busily adjusting dials
and gazing at gauges, was in the grip of the energy as much as any of the cogs.
Strobing blue light revealed him lost in ecstasy. He was part of something
larger, and it did not matter that it had taken control of him. His posture,
his movements, the manic look on his face made it appear as though he was no
longer a man at all but a part of the machine.
And just when the
noise of machinery and crackling electricity had reached its crescendo, it
accelerated. This was no show for humans, it was a spectacle they were forced
to participate in. They were witnesses to the dawn of a world that was
indifferent and hostile to them. Their only choices were to surrender or
perish.
In the midst of
the madness, a sudden final climaxing throb arose. Then suddenly there was
silence and darkness. The effect was even more shocking than the chaos it
followed. It left the audience without anything to hold onto, as if they had
been carried up into the sky and then left to fall. But the figure at the
control board flipped a switch, and two lights cast their illumination upon him
and the box upon the dais.
After a moment,
the small sound of an opening door could be heard. The front of the box was
opening, slowly, almost painfully. The hinges of the front doors seemed to shriek
in pain as they gave way, as if the lightning had fused the metal. The audience
peered inside the box in anticipation, waiting in fear for what would emerge
from the shadows within the box. Amid the darkness inside, sharp light glinted
on something shiny and silver. As it emerged it became obvious that it was a
woman and yet not so. She was beautiful and bright, and yet she was not human.
She was a machine, and yet something more. She was a goddess. Untouchable.
Inhuman.
Upon her was an
air of imperiousness. The man who had created her was enthralled with what he
saw. Here was a thing of beauty to be worshipped, though it was the work of his
own hands.
It could not be
denied she was beautiful, despite her unworldliness. She was austere and pure,
unblemished by the world, not of it. Untouched by mortality or imperfection.
She was everything humanity had attained to, and yet she was not human. She was
physically ideal, and yet within her gaze and within her movement, one could
see that she had no soul.
Her movements were
slow and stiff, but majestic. Upon her diaphanous clothing, light shown like
the aftereffects of the electricity that had given her life. And all the while
the man at the control board look on, transfixed.
She made her way
slowly towards him, and as she neared he fell to his knees in obeisance, in
worship. He bowed his head to the floor in front of her. And yet, though he did
not cast his eyes upon her, he rose when she commanded him to do so with a wave
of her inhuman hand. He got to his feet, head still bowed, and followed her as
she walked slowly towards the box. They both entered, then the doors shut of
their own accord. Once more, the machinery sprang to life, no longer requiring
a human operator. Once more, lightning flashed, puffs of smoke arising from the
pylons. A smell of burnt flesh, sulfur, and oil hung in the air. And when at
last the machinery was silenced, when the lights died to a single circle
focused on the box upon the dais, the doors slowly opened to reveal nothing but
darkness.
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