1.2 – The Mechanical Doll

The School of Biomedical Sciences Building sat to the east of Stone Plaza. Clad in bright white stone with gold detailing, it stood in stark contrast to the building where he worked, the original lab building which was tucked behind. Octavian lovingly referred to it in his mind as well-worn, but it was quite obvious that the building was in a state of disrepair. The brick exterior was cracking, and vines that once were charming now blocked the side entrance.

As Octavian pushed the vines aside to reach the door, he had to swipe his hand across the old lock three times before it recognized his magic essence. If he was in the mood, he might have laughed at how the lock’s dim glowing computer marble was twice as large as the one he kept around his neck. But today, he just heaved his shoulder against the unlocked door to try to get it unstuck in one push. It took throwing his body against it twice and a groan of annoyance to do the trick.

As he exited the stairwell into the hallway on the third floor, he was met with less than kind words from his mentor, known to all only as Teacher. 

“Seven minutes.”

Octavian pushed his hand through his short, white hair and bit the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t in the mood to bicker today.

“I’m sorry, Teacher. My meeting with Grand Kastra started late. I’ll do my best to—”

“You’re late because you met with that sleazy old bastard?” scoffed his mentor.

Bickering would be unavoidable, it seemed.

“You haven’t had time to help me choose my courses for next semester since the Replika project is almost complete, so—”

“If you got yourself here on time once in a while, she would be done,” Teacher interrupted again.

It was the usual complaint, well-founded by Octavian’s typical two- or three-minute tardiness.

“And Kastra doesn’t understand the first thing about your academic plan,” Teacher continued.

“He refused to help me,” Octavian explained.

“You shouldn’t need his help.”

Teacher furrowed his brow, his deep wrinkles squeezing together to accentuate his distaste. He shook his head and waved his hand as if willing the conversation away. “Nevermind,” the old magician stated. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Nevermind? But my academic plan—”

“Doesn’t matter. Did you not hear me?”

How many times did he have to be interrupted today? Octavian huffed. Of course it didn’t matter to Teacher. He was just a lowly, underpaid, underappreciated graduate student. He spun on his heels and stomped from the hall into the break room, where he threw his bag into the cabinet he used as a locker. 

In blatant disobedience, the bag decelerated to keep itself from hitting the back wall, then bobbed downward until it sat just so on the shelf below it. Octavian snatched his work clothes from the top shelf.

“I’ll join you in the lab as soon as I change,” he called.

Teacher didn’t respond and was gone when Octavian returned to the hallway. 

In the bathroom across the hall, Octavian pulled on his worn brown pants, lightweight white shirt, and soft leather vest. He checked the loops and pockets. With a quick spell, he tightened the thread on a loosened loop. After fastening his steel-toed boots, he made his way toward the active lab at the far end of the hall.

His footsteps echoed around the empty hallway. At some point before Octavian joined, more than fifty researchers had worked in Teacher’s laboratory group. Many of those researchers went on to win their own prestigious awards. They were never shy to mention their association with Teacher in public forums. After all, to be mentored by an Exalted Grand Magician was a huge honor. 

But those researchers grew adept at avoiding speaking about Teacher’s demeanor. This came as no surprise to anyone who knew Teacher, especially his university colleagues and his sole overworked graduate student. The halls that once bustled with activity were now empty. The only sounds were those from Octavian’s boots making their way down the hall.

Octavian stepped into a small, glass-walled room at the lab’s entrance. A panel sat next to the door, and he pressed a button to activate the contaminant scanner. As he waited, he saw Teacher with a hand-written notebook in hand. Teacher usually preferred to review his notes in the early hours of the morning before Octavian arrived, so Octavian was quite surprised to see Teacher busying himself, flipping through pages, and making last minute scribbles.

Once the scan was complete — with no contaminants found — Octavian collected his tools for work. Teacher was pacing while he grumbled at his notebook, so Octavian took a few moments to calm himself. 

During the first moment, he took several deep breaths. 

For the next, he noted the smell of machinery lubricants and reveled in the smell of old clutter.

And then he ruined the moment by remembering the meeting he had come from. Oh, well. It was worth a try.

Teacher still seemed lost in thought, leaving Octavian with time to look around the room. He’d done so on many occasions, but it was better than retreating into his thoughts.

The only window in the room was long and horizontal, fitting perfectly above built-in, wooden cabinets. At a particular time in the early morning, light peeked in through tree branches and vines. Despite how nice a bit of natural light felt to Octavian, Teacher regularly threatened to cover it up, complaining that windows didn’t belong on the south sides of buildings.

The National University of Magic had once debuted an international campus in the Middle East. The architecture firm chosen for the project had no experience on design for that climate, and it later became obvious that they overlooked many important points in such a design.

The most famous — and deadly — example was in the choice to face the entire south side of the building with windows. It was rumored that during the first class held there, every student left with a serious sunburn and several were taken to the hospital for heatstroke.

It’s rare for rumors to be less serious than the real story.

In this case, the architecture of the building was determined to have contributed to the deaths of members of the construction crew before a student ever stepped foot inside. A lawsuit ensued after the first, and it wasn’t until the fourth that an agreement was reached to redesign the structure under the supervision of a new, local architecture firm.

After only one semester of opening, during which several popular ghost chasing shows featured the building, the campus was shut down. Apparently, most students weren’t keen on taking classes at a haunted campus.

The discipline that this campus was meant to focus on? Engineering & technology, specifically architecture.

Octavian had never heard the story of the cursed middle east campus, and he felt that a bit of natural light in the lab was very nice.

He turned his attention to the old, wooden, glass-front cabinets that sat underneath the window. Among the lab notebooks, random mechanical parts, and books on magical theory was one item that always caught his eye.

It was an old computer, but unlike the small marbles used for modern magic, this computer would fit in his hand. He’d never had the chance to get a good look at it since Teacher kept the cabinets locked, but it was unique enough to always catch his eye.

It was round but ornately decorated. The bottom half was coated in gold plating with flourishes of vines and flowers that wound around like ivy. Three branches of these vines reached up over the top half where they came together around…something. Octavian thought it was a crystal, but it was facing away from him, so he couldn’t be sure.

Between the vines was the truly distinctive quality of the computer’s design. The computer hanging on the chain around Octavian’s neck, like every computer Octavian had ever seen, was translucent but solid. But within the three branches of flowers and vines tarnished from time, the computer in the cabinet appeared to have a hollow interior.  Peering from afar and squinting as hard as he could, Octavian thought that he almost, maybe, possibly saw that the interior had some color to it.

With a deep sigh, he returned to his workstation and pulled his computer marble from under his shirt. He tapped it to bring up its visual interface and reviewed the previous days’ notes.

He couldn’t help but glance up every so often to check on his mentor. Teacher was a very old, very strict, and very private man. He was a member of the International Council of Exalted Magicians — one of only two from the university, twenty from the country, and one of just a hundred in the world. 

He had developed a slew of magic therapeutics for several diseases. His work on permanent prostheses had won him many accolades and continued funding. This success earned him enough laboratory space to fill the entire top floor of the building, even though it now seemed lifeless and neglected. Instruments and machinery gathered dust day after day, even as other faculty members requested access. 

No one was clear why Teacher wouldn’t share his space. Some claimed that he didn’t learn the value of sharing as a young boy, while others claimed that he was trying to hide a secret research project. One of these was very close to the truth.

Octavian scrolled through the schematics of his thesis. The Replika project was a marvel of robotics that would change the way biomedical treatments were performed. Replika’s capabilities were far more advanced than any robotic system before, and it was the first to have a fully integrated magic-based operating system.

Teacher was rather aloof and never one to share too many details. However, Octavian’s own work notes of Replika’s innovative systems convinced him that their work would make leaps and bounds for prostheses quality, drug delivery, and regenerative medicine. As Octavian reviewed the systems that he would be testing today, he couldn’t help but smile at its ingenuity.

Replika rested on an adjustable table that sat at a forty-five degree angle to the ground. Although Teacher called Replika a ‘mechanical doll’, he had designed it— that is, he had designed “her” to be lifelike in aesthetics as well as in demeanor.

Her dark brown skin was indistinguishable in texture from his own golden tan. The tight black curls that cascaded from her scalp were soft and full of body. Octavian once joked that her hair was more real than his own white, thick locks that he styled short and tidy. 

Teacher had been less than amused.

The only part of her that hinted that Replika was artificial was a pair of large purple eyes, a color that Teacher must have special ordered or custom-crafted. Despite standing out, the eyes did not detract from her realism. Had Octavian not known this was a robot, even her eyes would not have been enough to convince him. It was the kind of craftsmanship only possible from an Exalted Grand Magician.

Teacher’s fashion sense was another story. 

Replika wore a dress more suited for a child than a medical device. Though it was a simple design, it poofed out at the shoulders, and the skirt was lifted into a round shape by a petticoat. Octavian was no fashionista, but he didn’t see people around campus looking like this, and he couldn’t imagine why Teacher thought it was appropriate.

When Octavian reached the part of his notes discussing Replika’s behavioral algorithms, he reviewed the order to activate each startup element several times. 

Of particular importance was when to activate her personality matrix. Replika had a full and enriched personality, as far as Octavian could tell from the cursory review he was allowed. Her complex personality matrix had fascinated him ever since he got his first look at her a few years prior, and Teacher’s offhand remarks inferred a feminine demeanor. 

However, despite the gendered personality and fashion, her actual body was androgynous. Octavian never asked Teacher why he made this choice, and Teacher never brought it up.

In fact, Teacher avoided talking about gender altogether. When Octavian had built up the courage to discuss his own gender transition with Teacher, the old man had refused to hear it, going so far as to leave the room without a word. He even locked himself in the office he used as a bedroom for the rest of the day. Octavian wasn’t sure whether Teacher knew that he was transgender, though it seemed impossible for him not to know.

However, he obviously approved of the cross-discipline approach that Octavian had studied. It sometimes came up during Octavian’s work on Replika, and Teacher always expected that Octavian could do what needed to be done, whether it involved magic of the masculine discipline or of the feminine. This was a rare and open-minded trait for such a strict curmudgeon.

“Check Replika’s internal sensor readings,” Teacher blurted out of nowhere.

Octavian jumped in surprise. He wasn’t sure when he’d zoned out. 

“I did that before I left last night,” replied Octavian.

“Then do it again.”

Octavian rolled his eyes as he deactivated the display of his notes and started a recording of his day’s work.

Performing these tests again was quite necessary, and Teacher had made it clear that one of two things could happen if done incorrectly. One was shorting out the whole system, causing them to have to start from scratch on many parts of Replika’s technology, and the other was an explosion. Neither sounded appealing to Octavian, so he did his work without complaint.

All Octavian knew about the power core was that it used magic in a way never seen before. Once turned on, it generated its own power. To deactivate it, the core would need to be removed from its auxiliary systems, a process that was quite tedious and would ruin many of Replika’s internal systems.

If activating Replika failed, a new core would need to be created. The information about the manufacturing of the core was a well-kept secret. There had never existed anything like it in the world, and Octavian didn’t know where it was made, who it was manufactured by, or how long it took to create.

He didn’t intend to find out. He was doing everything he could to ensure that her activation was a success, and he may have had a few fingers and toes crossed for extra luck. Even magicians need luck sometimes.

Octavian’s curiosity had once led him to engage Teacher in a discussion about the core. He had pursued Teacher when he left the lab without a word, and had even knocked on the door when Teacher locked himself in his office. 

Teacher had proceeded to send a text to Octavian telling him to go home for the day. Instead, Octavian went for way more comfort food than he should have eaten and was sick for the rest of the night.

“After you’re done with that,” Teacher interrupted as Octavian worked, “we should check the alignment of Replika’s stabilizers, both for the core and peripheral systems. Since they have been on for a few days, I want to be sure they don’t show any signs of strain.”

Teacher paused to consider Octavian, though Octavian didn’t know what he was being considered for.

“I suppose,” Teacher said, drawing out the words in clear reluctance, “you should start considering which journal you want to submit to.”

Was this an attempt at caring about another human being?

“I may need help with that,” Octavian said, trying not to sound as unsure as he felt. “At first I thought a robotics journal would be best, but then maybe biomedical would be better. Could you—”

“You don’t need my help,” interrupted Teacher. “Figure it out.”

Teacher’s expression made it clear that the conversation was over. 

Octavian sighed, though he wasn’t surprised by the response. So much for caring about another human being.

“We’ll finish our final tests this evening, and get her up and running first thing tomorrow morning,” Teacher said. 

In other words, there would be no sleeping tonight.

“Do you really think we can finish today?”

“We will.”

It wasn’t strange to work through the night, but something about the way Teacher’s gaze shifted when he said it made Octavian uneasy.

“Good thing I brought a change of clothes.”

Teacher rarely left the lab building and had transformed some of the unused areas of the floor into a full-time living space. Octavian even had his own sleeping and washing space, which he used far more often than he would like.

“Focus on the details as you work,” Teacher continued as if Octavian hadn’t said a thing.

“Of course.”

“And today, I’ll need to approve every procedure checklist as you complete them.”

“Really?” 

Teacher had never even looked at his checklists before. It was adding to the oddities of the day and not helping Octavian’s nerves.

“Octavian…” Teacher grumbled in a warning tone.

“I’m sorry. I mean, yes, of course.”

And so, Octavian got back to work while Teacher didn’t do much of anything at all.