It's a bit of a story. But it begins with the fact that I was one of a few people within the city who knew our fair leader, our dear prophet, beloved Father Comstock, was unable to father a child. It wasn’t that he wanted a baby, you understand, but a symbol of his everlasting legacy.
So he tasked me with scouring other worlds. I was to find one in which he had already had a child. A world where he was no prophet, but instead an alcoholic and a gambler. Who was so deep in debt that he'd sell his child in exchange for a large sum of money.
And he did.
Once he had the child secured, Comstock then pretended his wife had carried the child for only a week, and that it was a miracle baby, gifted to him from God.
His wife was informed only afterwards.
[The scene changes suddenly, the walls blurring and the pictures fading. Rosalind inhales sharply, taken aback, but-- ah. Well. If this is her memory, it only makes sense that it might change based as she reminisces, doesn't it?
Rosalind stands in a different home-- a mansion, enormous and opulent. Marble busts and oil paintings, all starring the same man, decorate the walls. There's a fire roaring, and Rosalind, barely twenty-two, stands with her arms crossed. She looks quite unimpressed as she stares at the woman standing across from her.
You whore! the woman screams, and Rosalind blinks just once, her eyebrows ticking up in an expression of patronizing exasperation.
I assure you, madam, my sexual interest in your dear prophet is nonexistent. A little pause, and her eyes dart towards the shadowed doorway. There's a girl standing there, blue eyes wide. She looks to be a year old, if that. Her eyes go between Rosalind and Lady Comstock. Furthermore, the man is quite sterile.
That's a lie, the woman says, her voice first soft and ending on a scream, trembling with emotion. Come and get your little bastard, I want her out of my house!
And then . . . something odd happens. Rosalind comes forward, picking the girl up, turning on her heel to take her back to Lutece Labs. Except that had never happened. Rosalind had never taken the girl. She'd left her with the Comstocks, because it was her father's fault she was there and she wasn't going to take responsibility.]
That's . . . not how it went.
[But no, he'd asked a question, hadn't he? She shakes her head, though her eyes are narrowed.]
In any case: Father Comstock grew terrified I would spill his secrets. His entire reputation was built upon a pedestal of being divine. His image would be ruined if his flock was informed that this miracle was a sham-- because of course it would cast doubt on all his other miracles, which were, by the by, the product of my science.
So. He hired Fink, who had been after Robert and I from the start, to kill us, thus ensuring his secret wouldn't get out. And in exchange, Fink got everything he could get his hands on, including all the patents to our technology.
no subject
So he tasked me with scouring other worlds. I was to find one in which he had already had a child. A world where he was no prophet, but instead an alcoholic and a gambler. Who was so deep in debt that he'd sell his child in exchange for a large sum of money.
And he did.
Once he had the child secured, Comstock then pretended his wife had carried the child for only a week, and that it was a miracle baby, gifted to him from God.
His wife was informed only afterwards.
[The scene changes suddenly, the walls blurring and the pictures fading. Rosalind inhales sharply, taken aback, but-- ah. Well. If this is her memory, it only makes sense that it might change based as she reminisces, doesn't it?
Rosalind stands in a different home-- a mansion, enormous and opulent. Marble busts and oil paintings, all starring the same man, decorate the walls. There's a fire roaring, and Rosalind, barely twenty-two, stands with her arms crossed. She looks quite unimpressed as she stares at the woman standing across from her.
You whore! the woman screams, and Rosalind blinks just once, her eyebrows ticking up in an expression of patronizing exasperation.
I assure you, madam, my sexual interest in your dear prophet is nonexistent. A little pause, and her eyes dart towards the shadowed doorway. There's a girl standing there, blue eyes wide. She looks to be a year old, if that. Her eyes go between Rosalind and Lady Comstock. Furthermore, the man is quite sterile.
That's a lie, the woman says, her voice first soft and ending on a scream, trembling with emotion. Come and get your little bastard, I want her out of my house!
And then . . . something odd happens. Rosalind comes forward, picking the girl up, turning on her heel to take her back to Lutece Labs. Except that had never happened. Rosalind had never taken the girl. She'd left her with the Comstocks, because it was her father's fault she was there and she wasn't going to take responsibility.]
That's . . . not how it went.
[But no, he'd asked a question, hadn't he? She shakes her head, though her eyes are narrowed.]
In any case: Father Comstock grew terrified I would spill his secrets. His entire reputation was built upon a pedestal of being divine. His image would be ruined if his flock was informed that this miracle was a sham-- because of course it would cast doubt on all his other miracles, which were, by the by, the product of my science.
So. He hired Fink, who had been after Robert and I from the start, to kill us, thus ensuring his secret wouldn't get out. And in exchange, Fink got everything he could get his hands on, including all the patents to our technology.