SHIP'S LOG:

Matte Kudasai

Billy Sabab 10/27/2024 11:55pm

Night watch was a little less lonely and disturbing, now that I'd come clean with Shipman Eva. The rest of the crew could feel it too, even if they didn't know all the details.

"Stern, port, and starboard watches still not seeing anybody captain."

"Steady as she goes, ensign."

We were running dark, so console lights provided the only illumination on deck. Past the windshields, it was a moonless night, but the stars were enough to light up the clouds and the silhouette of mountains in the distance.

But there were no lights on the ground, as far as we could see in all directions. A trackless wilderness, and if there were human habitations down there, they were keeping the lights off.

I sat back in the captain's chair and felt the hum of the engines.

Some nights there wasn't much more than to sit back and enjoy the view.

THUNK

"Captain? Feels like we ran into something."

"Or something landed on the hull," I said.

THUNK.

THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK.

Billy Sabab 7/5/2024 7:58pm

"That's in the Un-territories," Eva said, pointing at the part of the map with just scratches and swirls.

"I've heard of that," I said. "Un-eventful, Un-populated, and Un... gone to?"

"Un-traveled," Eva said. "Too far away to make logging worthwhile, and expeditions ended a long time ago. 'Nothing to see here' kinda place."

And a place without people is a place without haunted artifacts, generally. Artifacts don't haunt themselves.

"And this Skr Kressa says it's the ancient lost city of the automatic mannequins? And they need you to talk to them? Didn't a bunch of them just try to kill you for that pinball token?"

"Different faction, she said," I said. "Plus, you need my goggles to find them."

"Why didn't she just take your goggles then?"

"She didn't want to touch the goggles. She said that's what they needed me for."

Shipman Eva looked concerned.

"We could just keep going," I said. "Throw the goggles overboard and head south and never look back."

"You think they'd let you do that? I'm pretty sure we've still got Bruno on our tail, upwind. And he's probably not the only one."

I thought about the bookseller.

"I think we'll need to take advantage of our head start. And speed. And just get this over with as soon as we can," Eva said.

"Aye aye," I said.

Billy Sabab 3/14/2024 11:52pm

"Really? You knew ALL about the goggles?"

"You've spent a lot of time talking to them. In a perfectly loud voice," Shipman Eva said. "Plus, you left them in your chair."

Eva handed me the googles.

"And the automatic mannequins?" I asked. "You knew about them too?"

"After saving you from a small gang of them," she said.

"Ah, right. And Uhrenfabrik AG?"

"I'm a history buff in my spare time," she said. "And you left your little coin on deck one day."

"Oh, I remember. Thanks again for that."

"Not a problem," she said.

"So, now, well," I said. "They've given me some coordinates. To the northeast quite a bit. We have to deliver a message."

"And when we do?"

"It could be our biggest pay out yet," I answered. It felt good to finally tell the truth.

"There's no way it's as simple as you think," Shipman Eva said. "But let's take a look at the map."

Billy Sabab 11/17/2023 10:32pm

"Glad to have you back, Captain," Shipman Eva said, wearing her gas mask. "The wind shifted while you were away, and we've been enveloped by the Bertha's gas almost the entire time. Can we get out of here now?"

The inside of the ship smelled terrible.

"Yes, and we've got a destination. Let's get to the bridge and plot a course."

I could sense Shipman Eva's eyeroll even under her mask. More ridiculous orders with no explanation. I mean, it was my ship, I could do what I wanted. That's how being a Captain worked.

But this was now so clearly bigger than just me. I needed help.

"And Shipman Eva? There's some things I need to tell you about."

Billy Sabab 8/13/2023 11:55pm

Skr Kressa dimmed the lights and a thin screen unrolled itself from the ceiling.

AUTOMATIC MANNEQUINS -- EYES ONLY REPORT -- SECTION 27 -- CODENAME BIRDSONG TAPELOOP

"Don't worry," Skr Kressa said, "You've been cleared. Next slide."

I didn't know who Skr was talking to. The screen changed and showed a black and white picture of a group of people gathered at a street market.

"Automatic Mannequins," Skr asked. "Ever run across one?"

"Well, uhhhh," I answered. Apparently Skr Kressa didn't know everything, since I had just recently been almost eviscerated by one.

"Well, they're not a myth," Skr continued, "though it's absolutely true they're not well accepted."

Skr changed the slide again. She must actually have the button. Or whatever. Now on the screen were black and white pictures of riots. Nighttime shots of big crowds and burning barrels... cordons of police in riot gear facing down crowds in streets.

"A long time ago," Skr continued, "preceding and deeply influencing Uhrenfabrik AG's decision to remove itself from the public eye, there were what was referred to as the Haunted Doll Wars."

I'd had comic books about the Haunted Doll Wars. It was still a popular trope. But just kids stories.

"What the public could only deridingly and ignorantly comprehend as 'haunted dolls' were in fact Uhrenfabrik AG's greatest creation. Automatons so realistic they could perform any task that a human could, and do it so well as never to be detected."

The slide changed again to pictures of a stylish but old fashioned brochure. It appeared to be for a mannequin--a human shaped model and servant. Diagrams and photos showed a range of movement and various tasks being carried out by people dressed as milkmen, postal workers, food delivery agents, and factory laborers.

"Uhrenfabrik AG quickly realized what they'd created were no mere automatons, but sentient beings... clockwork through and through, and commercially described as 'Automatic Mannequins,' but with experiences and lives as real as yours or mine."

The slide changed again, showing a perfectly manicured subdivision from above.

"So Uhrenfabrik AG released them. 'Into the wild,' so to speak. With identification papers and backgrounds to allow them to pass for human, and homes and seed money to start their own lives, anywhere that humans did."

The slide changed back to the riot pictures.

"Many of the Automatic Mannequins, however, were not content to live as humans, secretly, merely passing as humans and keeping their clowork nature secret. They wanted representation, to be appreciated for who they were. And thus, the Haunted Doll Wars began... and were quickly ended. And rather than address the potential of 'haunted doll sentience,' the protests themselves were erased from history, and turned into a story, a myth."

The slide changed again to display the garish cover of a comic book entitled HAUNTED DOLL.

"Hey, that's number 75. I had that," I said.

"Well you can now prepare to meet some in the clockwork flesh," Skr said. "You're going to bring them home."

Billy Sabab 5/2/2023 7:18am

Uhrenfabrik rang a bell. But I didn't want to contradict Skr Kressa. I was definitely feeling out of my depth.

"Uhrenfabrik AG is a very exclusive and very old luxury design company," she said. "We exist today through a number of shell companies, equally exclusive but known in the very highest circles of ultimate taste. But the Uhrenfabrik name is no longer used publicly."

It wasn't the sound of the name that was familiar. I couldn't even spell it. But there was something about the shape of it... The AG part helped.

"Publicly, the height of our technology was reached a very long time ago. But the sciences we created had the potential of becoming so powerful, we hid ourselves in obscurity until the name was erased from history. That way we could go on creating our work outside of public scrutiny."

I wasn't much for luxury technology. Not something I'd ever been around in my life, really. And it's not like I read magazines. The fanciest technology I'd ever been around -- outside of haunted artifacts -- were games. Like really great pinball machines, which I still had a thing for. But when I was a kid, my parents took me to this AMAZING arcade at the top of the Verts. It was beyond pinball. They were like life sized dioramas of robot mannequins, doing karate and ballet and acrobatics. You'd put in a token...

"But through the years -- very many years -- the pinnacle of our technology was lost. Or, more accurately, stolen. It ran off with itself you might say."

And then I remembered. The shape of that word on the animatronic battle games at the arcade at top of the Verts.

Uhrenfabrik AG.

Billy Sabab 1/19/2023 10:59pm

"Mr. Sabab, thank you for coming," said Skr Kressa. "Please have a seat."

Skr Kressa was tall. And dressed very sharply. Also, nice eyewear. She took a seat behind her desk. Everything was very clean. She looked at me through her glasses. For a long time.

"Oh!" I said, and took a seat.

"Mr. Sabab, you've been in some trouble lately."

"Well, you see, it's all been a--"

"And the cause of it is a pair of antique and rather garish googles that has recently come into your life."

Automatically I reach for the pocket inside my jacket, but the glasses aren't there. Where did I leave them again?

"Don't worry," Skr continued, "I'm not here to take them from you. In fact, we're going to ask you to use them."

Those glasses really were at the root of it.

"Er... I call them glasses."

"Oh, they're not glasses at all. Googles. Something with so many horrible knobs and switches."

Skr had a point.

"If it's all the same," I said, "I really wouldn't mind just giving them to you. They've been nothing but trouble for me. Them and that bookseller--"

"Yes, the bookseller," Skr said. "His shop in Old Habitsform has been closed for weeks, and no one knows where he is."

She looked at me again through her glasses. There seemed to be a twinkle of light reflecting off her eyeballs.

"But he remains in contact with you, doesn't he?" Skr asked.

That's when I realized things weren't going to be getting easier any time soon.

"I'm sorry," I said. "But who are you exactly? What is this place?"

"We're called Uhrenfabrik AG," Skr replied. "But we're sure you've never heard of us."

Billy Sabab 10/23/2022 11:38pm

Everything on this floor was gleaming white. I wished I had sunglasses.

"May I help you?" asked the man at the reception desk.

His collar was buttoned all the way up and he had on a pair of pince-nez glasses -- the kind that just sit on your nose. I didn't understand how those stayed on, unless they were super pinchy.

"Yes, uh... Bruno sent me?"

"Bruno? Bruno who?"

All this time and I'd never known Bruno had a last name.

"Uh... big guy. Kinda... earthy? Drives a Bertha-class biomethane ship and---"

"Oh, yes, you'll want to see Skr Kressa, skunk-ops, Suite 7c on the right."

"Oh, I get it," I said, "Skunk-ops because of the smell, right?"

The receptionist stared at me for a moment.

"7c on the right," he said.

The goons were still with me, and started driving me in that direction. I stopped and turned and said:

"Those glasses! How do they stay on your face? Are they comfortable?"

The receptionist stared at me again. This time I could see there were little lights on the inside of the rims. I could see something reflecting off the receptionist's eyes.

"Oh yes," said the receptionist. "It's like they're a part of me."

Billy Sabab 8/6/2022 11:51pm

"It looks like they have valet parking," I said to Bruno as we approached the immense building.

"And trust some rando with the keys to our ride? Not a chance."

After a short walk to the lobby entrance, Bruno took us inside and directly to a special elevator, different from all the rest with silver inlays and diamond mosaics, and a couple of heavies in suits garding the UP button.

Bruno turned to me and said "Now you just play it cool, Billy Boy. This is as far as ol' Bruno can take you. But trust me, you're going to be safe and sound, all right?" and he gave me a big wet sloppy wink.

I had a bad feeling about that as I walked into the elevator with the two goons behind me.

Billy Sabab 5/20/2022 11:57pm

Leaving the Matte Kudasai in Shipman Eva's hands felt right. Lately I'd realized I trusted her more than I trusted myself.

"Dreamin, Billy Boy?" Bruno shouts and winks over his shoulder. He's driving the pontoon skiff over the tops of the pines, his black and white scarf flowing in the wind.

Maybe the breeze really is starting to blow off his stink.

Soon we round the edge of the forest and behold the spires of Pinroma, gleaming in the late afternoon sun.