Word Puppets Read online

  “Where is the missing wind-up key?” Sparrow hung from his line, waiting for the boy to wind him again.

  “The live mouse has it.” Chickadee hopped forward and pecked at another invisible crumb, but did not waste the movement needed to look at Sparrow.

  “What would a live mouse need with a windup key?”

  “He does not need it,” said Chickadee. “But I do have need of it and he is in my service.”

  All the gears in the room stopped for a moment as the other clockwork animals paused to listen. Even the nightingale stopped her song. In the sudden cessation of ticking, sound from the greater world outside crept in, bringing the babble of the fountain in the courtyard, the laughter of the boy, the purr of automobiles and from the far distance, the faint pealing of a clock.

  “I suppose you would have us believe that he winds you?” said Sparrow.

  “Not yet. Perhaps today.” She continued pecking the floor.

  After a moment of nothing happening, the other animals returned to their tasks save for the sparrow. He hung from his line and beat his wings against his side.

  “Ha! I see him. I see the live mouse behind the potted fern. You could too if you could fly.”

  “I have no need.” Chickadee felt her clockwork beginning to slow. “Live Mouse!” she called. “It is time to fulfill our bargain.”

  The silence came again as the other animals stopped to listen. Into this quiet came a peculiar scraping rattle and then the live mouse emerged from behind the potted fern with the missing wind-up key tied in his tail.

  “What is he doing?” Sparrow squawked.

  Chickadee bent to peck the ground so slowly she thought she might never touch it. A gear clicked forward and she tapped the floor. “Do you really need me to tell you that?”

  Above her, Sparrow dangled on his line. “Live Mouse! Whatever she has promised you, I can give you also, only wind my flying mechanism.”

  The live mouse twirled his whiskers and kept walking toward Chickadee. “Well now. That’s a real interesting proposition. How about a silver marble?”

  “There is one behind the potted fern.”

  “Not no more.”

  “Then a crystal from the chandelier.”

  The live mouse wrinkled his nose. “If’n I can climb the chandelier to wind ya, then I reckon I can reach a crystal for myself.”

  “I must have something you want.”

  With the key paused by Chickadee’s side, the live mouse said, “That might be so.”

  The live mouse set the tip of the key down like a cane and folded his paws over it. Settling back on his haunches, he tipped his head up to study Sparrow. “How ’bout, you give me one of your wings?”

  Sparrow squawked.

  “You ain’t got no need of ’em to fly, that right?” The live mouse looked down and idly twisted the key on the floor, as if he were winding the room. “Prob’ly make you spin round faster, like one of them zeppelin thingamabobs. Whazzat called? Air-o-dye-namic.”

  “A bird cannot fly without wings.”

  “Now you and I both know that ain’t so. A live bird can’t fly without wings, but you’re a clockwork bird.”

  “What would a live mouse know about clockworks?”

  The live mouse laughed. “Ain’t you never heard of Hickory, Dickory, and Dock? We mice have a long history with clockworks. Looking at you, I figure you won’t miss a wing none and without it dragging, you ought to be able to go faster and your windings would last you longer. Whaddya say? Wouldn’t it be a mite sight nicer to fly without having to wait for the boy to come back?”

  “What would you do with my wing?”

  “That,” the live mouse smiled, showing his sharp incisors, “is between me and Messrs. DeCola and Wodzinski. So do we have a deal?”

  “I will have to consider the matter.”

  “Suit yourself.” The live mouse lifted the key and put the tip in Chickadee’s winding mechanism.

  “Wait!” Sparrow flicked his wings as if anxious to be rid of them. “Yes, yes you may have my left wing, only wind me now. A bird is meant to fly.”

  “All righty, then.”

  Chickadee turned her head with painful slowness. “Now, Live Mouse, you and I have an agreement.”

  “That we did and we do, but nothing in it says I can’t have another master.”

  “That may well be, but the wind-up key belongs to me.”

  “I reckon that’s true. Sorry, Sparrow. Looks as if I can’t help you none.” The live mouse sighed. “And I surely did want me one of them wings.”

  Once again, he lifted the key to Chickadee’s side. Above them, Sparrow let out a squeal of metal. “Wait! Chickadee, there must be something I can offer you. You are going on a journey, yes? From here, I can tell you if any dangers lie on your route.”

  “Only in this room and we are leaving it.”

  “Leaving? And taking the key with you?”

  “Just so. Do not worry. The boy will come to wind you eventually. And now, Live Mouse, if you would be so kind.”

  “My other wing! You may have my other wing, only let the live mouse use the key to wind me.”

  Chickadee paused, waiting for her gears to click forward so that she could look at the Sparrow. Her spring was so loose now, that each action took an eternity. “What would I do with one of your wings? I have two of my own.”

  The other clockwork bird seemed baffled and hung on the end of the line flapping his wings as if he could fling them off.

  The live mouse scraped a claw across the edge of the key. “It might come in real handy on our trip. Supposing Messrs. DeCola and Wodzinski want a higher payment than you’re thinking they do. Why then you’d have something more to offer them.”

  “And if they didn’t then we would have carried the wing with us for no reason.”

  “Now as to that,” said the live mouse, “I can promise you that I’ll take it off your hands if’n we don’t need it.”

  Chickadee laughed. “Oh, Live Mouse, I see now. Very well, I will accept Sparrow’s wing so that later you may have a full set. Messrs. DeCola and Wodzinski will be happy to have two customers, I am certain.”

  The live mouse bowed to her and wrapped the key in his tail again. “Sparrow, I’ll be right up.” Scampering across the floor, he disappeared into the wall.

  Chickadee did not watch him go, she waited with her gaze still cocked upward toward Sparrow. With the live mouse gone, Chickadee became aware of how still the other clockworks were, watching their drama. Into the silence, Nightingale began to cautiously sing. Her beautiful warbles and chirps repeated through their song thrice before the live mouse appeared out of the ceiling on the chandelier’s chain. The crystals of the chandelier tinkled in a wild accompaniment to the ordered song of the nightingale.

  The live mouse shimmied down the layers of crystals until he reached Sparrow’s flying mechanism. Crawling over that, he wrapped his paws around the string beneath it and slid down to sit on Sparrow’s back.

  “First one’s for me.” His sharp incisors flashed in the chandelier’s light as he pried the tin loops up from the left wing. Tumbling free, it half fell, half floated to rattle against the floor below. “And now this is for the chickadee.”

  Again, his incisors pulled the tin free and let the second wing drop.

  Sparrow’s clockwork whirred audibly inside his body, with nothing to power. “I feel so light!”

  “Told ya so.” The live mouse reached up and took the string in his paws. Hauling himself back up the line, he reached the flying mechanism in no time at all. “Ready now?”

  “Yes! Oh yes, wind me! Wind me!”

  Lickety-split, the key sank into the winding mechanism and the live mouse began turning it. The sweet familiar sound of a spring ratcheting tighter floated down from above, filling the room. The other clockwork animals crept closer; even Chickadee felt the longing brought on by the sound of winding.

  When the live mouse stopped, Sparrow said, “No, n
o, I am not wound nearly tight enough yet.”

  The live mouse braced himself with his tail around an arm of the chandelier and grunted as he turn the key again. And again. And again. “Enough?”

  “Tighter.”

  He kept winding.

  “Enough?”

  “Tighter. The boy never winds me fully.”

  “All right.” The mouse turned the key three more times and stopped. “That’s it. Key won’t turn no more.”

  A strange vibration ran through the sparrow’s body. It took Chickadee a moment to realize that he was trying to beat his wings with anticipation. “Then watch me fly.”

  The live mouse pulled the key out of the flying mechanism and hopped up onto the chandelier. As he did, Sparrow swung into action. The flying mechanism whipped him forward and he shrieked with glee. His body was a blur against the ceiling. The chandelier trembled, then shook, then rattled as he spun faster than Chickadee had ever seen him.

  “Live Mouse, you were rig—” With a snap, his flying mechanism broke free of the chandelier. “I’m flying!” Sparrow cried as he hurtled across the room. His body crashed into the window, shattering a pane as he flew through it.

  The nightingale stopped her song in shock. Outside, the boy shrieked and his familiar footsteps hurried under the window. “Oh pooh. The clockwork sparrow is broken.”

  The mother’s voice said, “Leave it alone. There’s glass everywhere.”

  Overhead, the live mouse looked down and winked.

  Chickadee pecked the ground, with her mechanism wound properly. The live mouse appeared at her side. “Thanks for the wings.”

  “I trust they are satisfactory payment?”

  “Sure enough. They look real pretty hanging on my wall.” He squinted at her. “So that’s it? You’re just going to keep on pecking the ground?”

  “As long as you keep winding me.”

  “Yeah. It’s funny, no one else wants my services.”

  “A pity.”

  “Got a question for you though. Will you tell me how to get to Messrs. DeCola and Wodzinski?”

  “Why ever for?”

  “Well, I thought . . . I thought maybe Messrs. DeCola and Wodzinski really could, I dunno, fix ’em on me so as I can fly.”

  Chickadee rapped the ground with laughter. “No, Mouse, they cannot. We are all bound to our integral mechanisms.” She cocked her head at him. “You are a live mouse. I am a clockwork chickadee, and Messrs. DeCola and Wodzinski are nothing more than names on a scrap of paper glued to the bottom of a table.”

  Body Language

  Saskia leaned into the darkness above the stage, only vaguely aware of the wood rail against her hips as she re-tied the left headstring on her marionette. On the stage below, the Snow Queen’s head eased into balance. The marionette telegraphed its stance back up the strings to the control in Saskia’s hands. She ran the Snow Queen across the set to check the repair, barely conscious of her own body on the bridge above the stage. It was almost like being immersed in a VR suit.

  One of the techies called up. “Hey, Saskia? There’s a detective here for you.”

  She stopped abruptly and the marionette continued its motion in a long pendulum swing. Detective? At the foot of the ladder, the techie stood next to a stocky man.

  If she hadn’t taken her Glass off, she might have gotten an alert from her interface about who he was, but she’d caught the lenses once with a puppet control. You only needed to watch them hit the stage floor during a performance one time to swear never to wear them on a bridge again.

  Even without the Glass, it was obvious he was a detective. Rather than the slimline Glass so hip these days, he wore full wraparound AI interface glasses, with an eBud in one ear. Above each eye, a camera provided the AI with stereoscopic vision. At his throat, where you’d usually see a collar stud, he wore another camera.

  And that was just the hardware that she could see.

  Saskia shivered; AI always made her edgy. They were like puppets in reverse—a soul without a body. She took her time hanging up her puppet before she descended the ladder.

  “Ms. Dorlan? I’m Agent Jared Patel with the FBI, and I’m accompanied by the AI Metta G. FBI.” Patel’s eyes flashed over Saskia’s shoulder. She glanced back before realizing that he was looking at the AI in his interface glasses. It gave her the creeps. “Do you have an interface she could sync in on?”

  “My fans are usually a little younger . . . ” She tried to use humor to lighten the tension, but Patel’s lips barely curved in response.

  “We need to talk to you about eDawg.”

  Saskia had done the motion-capture for eDawg in the series eCity, but she could not, for the life of her, figure out why the FBI would be investigating the puppet. They hadn’t filmed a new episode in over a year.

  Unless, holy crap, unless this was about one of the toys the series had spun off. Maybe one of their tiny terrier brains had gone rogue and killed some rich kid. It had to be a rich kid; they never investigated the deaths of poor ones.

  “I realize this will seem like a strange request. Your producers agreed to loan us the eDawg puppet, but only if you oversee its care. They said the controls are customized to you and they didn’t want to risk it with someone else.”

  “I’m stunned that they would let the puppet out of the studio at all. You must have a heck of an insurance waiver.”

  “We’re the government.” He let that sit between them for a moment, then smiled. It was not comforting. “We’ll compensate you for your time, of course.”

  The word compensate changed everything. He wasn’t investigating eDawg; he was offering her a gig. “So you want me to work the puppet?” She itched to get back into the suit again. She loved traditional puppetry, but nothing compared to motion-capture work.

  “Our AI will handle that, don’t worry; you’re just there as a formality.”

  “Look.” She caught herself before she could start a rant about AIs driving puppeteers out of film and video work. “Even if I were willing, it’s not going to look right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you recognize someone from a distance, it’s not just their height and weight, it’s how they move. Give the same puppet to different puppeteers and it’ll look like different characters. That’s why they had me do the motion-capture work when they made the toy versions of eDawg.” She stopped suddenly, wondering why they needed the puppet at all. “Can’t you use one of the toys? They look just like eDawg and there are like, thousands of them.”

  “We need to have more control of eDawg than a toy would provide.”

  “You can have control, but you won’t have eDawg. Not unless it moves like me.”

  Patel shifted his gaze to the spot over her shoulder. His jaw worked in silent conversation with his AI partner. Crazy machines had no idea how people thought or moved, yet they thought it could do the job.

  Patel looked back at her. “Our agent feels confident that she’ll be able to match your movements.”

  “Is this something you can force me to do?”

  “No.”

  “Then I can’t see any reason to help someone else do my job.” She grabbed the ladder to climb back up.

  Patel leaned forward. “Do you know Hamilton Cruise?”

  “Personally? No. Seen him in the news, yeah.”

  “His son, Wade, has been kidnapped. The kid’s toy eDawg was the only witness. We’ve got the thing torn apart trying to access its memory without wiping it, but the kidnappers just told us that they want the ransom delivered via eDawg. You say ‘no’ to this, we don’t get to use the puppet. You say ‘no’ and that kid’s life is thrown up in the air.”

  Crap. A kid. Saskia stopped where she was on the ladder and rested her head against the rung. “Okay. Let me tell the stage manager where I’m going.”

  At the FBI field office, the motion-capture rig dominated the space like a bizarre piece of gym equipment.

  In the early days of motion-ca
pture, the performer roamed the studio trailing wires, but the new technology used a universal treadmill floor to allow performers to simulate covering ground while remaining in a single location. In the center of the rig, almost obscured by cables and rods, was the carapace Saskia wore when she performed. It looked like a wire-frame rendering of eDawg. In addition to controls for eDawg’s ears and tail, the carapace had sensors built into it so that when Saskia moved, the system translated her movements via a wireless interface to the puppet’s limbs. Patel’s AI partner would hack into the signal and bypass the rig.

  A holo of a woman’s head and shoulders materialized over a desktop interface. She smiled with almost Victorian purity. “I’m Metta. Sorry I couldn’t introduce myself earlier.”

  “That’s fine.” Saskia had been in no hurry to meet the AI then, and would be more than happy to skip it now.

  For the next fifteen minutes, she watched the smooth purple titanium dog spin through a series of movements, all of which looked indistinguishable from her performance. Even the bark sounded like her. It was uncanny, like the first time she had seen one of the toys activated. Except then she had been watching a three-dimensional recording of her performance. This was different; the AI could replace her. Heck, the AI could be her.

  When Metta finished, she turned to Saskia and said, “Am I convincing as eDawg?”

  She was convincing as a bitch, yes. But Saskia nodded. “That all looks really good.”

  “Thank you.” The AI looked unsurprised at Saskia’s praise. “Would you watch us role-play the scenario for dropping the ransom money?”

  Patel held the door open. “We’ll have eDawg start as if it were on the street outside the drop location.”

  eDawg sniffed the air as it leaned forward, with its ears held upright and tail wagging. The movements looked familiar. They also looked wrong. Saskia said, “That’s from the episode with the eTreats, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Metta said.