[Well, that gets her attention. She shoots him an annoyed glance and straightens up, reaching to thread her needle.]
I'm pleased that the wound is neat. Don't make it sound vulgar.
[She falls silent for a few seconds, taking the time to clean the needle and prick it lightly against her finger to ensure it's sharp enough. Skin is tougher than most people realize, and it takes a fair bit of effort to pierce it again and again. She hasn't any anesthesia; she's hoping he'll be all right with the pain.
(Someday, he'll tell her about how fast he heals, and she'll be quite annoyed. But that's for later).]
. . . it's a bit of a story. But it starts when I was seventeen or so. I haven't any idea if your universe was anything like mine, but where I originally hailed from, a woman in the scientific field wasn't simply unusual, but entirely unheard of. At the time, that didn't bother me. I'd managed to get into Girton University, and what's more, I graduated top of my class. I was eager for a chance to prove myself, and yet the second I left school, I found I couldn't get a lick of funding. No matter that I knew my theories were correct, that I was on to something great . . . at best, I was laughed at, and at worst . . .
Well. In any case. Eventually, I found someone who would listen. A religious man. Comstock was his name, Zachary Hale Comstock. He told me he'd had a vision of a flying city, and that he believed I was sent from God to help him achieve that vision.
[She glances up. All her incredulity and disapproval is clear in her expression; she focuses back on the wound once again. Rosalind slips the needle forward, gritting her teeth as she forces it through his skin.]
But he had money. And as it happened, I could help him achieve his vision. My theory of atomic suspension revolved around making things . . . well, not fly, but simply fail to fall, but it hardly made a difference to his gaze.
And so, with his funding, I gave him his glorious Columbia.
Well. You can well imagine what people thought then. Here was a man who had foreseen the impossible, and somehow, the impossible appeared. They hailed him as a prophet, and he decided the title suited him. He decided he was blessed from God, and I, his dear helper, was a tool to be used continuously. So the funding continued, and soon enough I had enough money to grant him another gift: the ability to play prophet again and again.
I was working on a device, you see, that could open windows into other universes. It took me seven years to even come up with the proper machinery, and even then, they weren't doorways. Just . . . snatches of visions. But they were enough. He could see how the future might go, or had gone in other worlds. Add some vague wording and his own natural charisma, and people believed everything he said, ignoring what inconsistencies might occasionally pop up.
Sixteen years passed in such a fashion.
[A pause. The wound is almost entirely stitched up; she stares at it blankly for a few seconds, then resumes her work. He voice is brisker now, eager to skip past this part of the story.]
There was another man. Jeremiah Fink, who fancied himself an inventor. He was clever enough, but his true talent lay in stealing the work of others and passing it off as his own. He made his fortune that way; by the time sixteen years had passed, he'd become the richest man in the city. But that wasn't enough for him.
He used to--
[A beat. Her lips press tight together, and she shakes her head.]
In any case. Sixteen years on that floating city, and at some point, Comstock realized that we were the only ones who knew his dirty secrets. And he realized the surest way to make sure no one ever found out what we knew was to kill us.
So he hired Fink, who had spent sixteen years coveting us, staring after us in jealousy and, I suspect, lust. He promised him that if he killed us, he'd get our patents. Every invention, every single idea we'd ever had, they'd all be his, and he could make a fortune off just one.
It was barely a choice.
October 31st, 1909. He'd sabotaged our machine . . . the one that tore open windows into other worlds. It exploded, and in the process, tore us apart. And once our bodies were recovered and carried away, the little weasel snuck in, rifling through our drawers and taking it all for himself. And not just that, oh no, that wasn't enough. He went through our personal effects, he stole my diaries, he took a portrait I had of--
[She's getting off topic, but she's never going to stop being angry about Fink. Rosalind shakes her head.]
Anyway. The problem with killing a person in such a fashion is that it's not conventional. It tore us apart, yes, and scattered us among all the worlds. Suddenly we weren't human, not anymore-- we were more. We could see all the worlds, all the choices, all the doors . . . and we could move among them. Fluidly, easily, much like you might move through a house.
[There. The final stitch, and she tugs it tight. She knows she's switched from singular to plural again, but that hadn't been deliberate so much as a natural inclination. It hardly matters. He knows she has a counterpart.]
and speaking of tl;dr
I'm pleased that the wound is neat. Don't make it sound vulgar.
[She falls silent for a few seconds, taking the time to clean the needle and prick it lightly against her finger to ensure it's sharp enough. Skin is tougher than most people realize, and it takes a fair bit of effort to pierce it again and again. She hasn't any anesthesia; she's hoping he'll be all right with the pain.
(Someday, he'll tell her about how fast he heals, and she'll be quite annoyed. But that's for later).]
. . . it's a bit of a story. But it starts when I was seventeen or so. I haven't any idea if your universe was anything like mine, but where I originally hailed from, a woman in the scientific field wasn't simply unusual, but entirely unheard of. At the time, that didn't bother me. I'd managed to get into Girton University, and what's more, I graduated top of my class. I was eager for a chance to prove myself, and yet the second I left school, I found I couldn't get a lick of funding. No matter that I knew my theories were correct, that I was on to something great . . . at best, I was laughed at, and at worst . . .
Well. In any case. Eventually, I found someone who would listen. A religious man. Comstock was his name, Zachary Hale Comstock. He told me he'd had a vision of a flying city, and that he believed I was sent from God to help him achieve that vision.
[She glances up. All her incredulity and disapproval is clear in her expression; she focuses back on the wound once again. Rosalind slips the needle forward, gritting her teeth as she forces it through his skin.]
But he had money. And as it happened, I could help him achieve his vision. My theory of atomic suspension revolved around making things . . . well, not fly, but simply fail to fall, but it hardly made a difference to his gaze.
And so, with his funding, I gave him his glorious Columbia.
Well. You can well imagine what people thought then. Here was a man who had foreseen the impossible, and somehow, the impossible appeared. They hailed him as a prophet, and he decided the title suited him. He decided he was blessed from God, and I, his dear helper, was a tool to be used continuously. So the funding continued, and soon enough I had enough money to grant him another gift: the ability to play prophet again and again.
I was working on a device, you see, that could open windows into other universes. It took me seven years to even come up with the proper machinery, and even then, they weren't doorways. Just . . . snatches of visions. But they were enough. He could see how the future might go, or had gone in other worlds. Add some vague wording and his own natural charisma, and people believed everything he said, ignoring what inconsistencies might occasionally pop up.
Sixteen years passed in such a fashion.
[A pause. The wound is almost entirely stitched up; she stares at it blankly for a few seconds, then resumes her work. He voice is brisker now, eager to skip past this part of the story.]
There was another man. Jeremiah Fink, who fancied himself an inventor. He was clever enough, but his true talent lay in stealing the work of others and passing it off as his own. He made his fortune that way; by the time sixteen years had passed, he'd become the richest man in the city. But that wasn't enough for him.
He used to--
[A beat. Her lips press tight together, and she shakes her head.]
In any case. Sixteen years on that floating city, and at some point, Comstock realized that we were the only ones who knew his dirty secrets. And he realized the surest way to make sure no one ever found out what we knew was to kill us.
So he hired Fink, who had spent sixteen years coveting us, staring after us in jealousy and, I suspect, lust. He promised him that if he killed us, he'd get our patents. Every invention, every single idea we'd ever had, they'd all be his, and he could make a fortune off just one.
It was barely a choice.
October 31st, 1909. He'd sabotaged our machine . . . the one that tore open windows into other worlds. It exploded, and in the process, tore us apart. And once our bodies were recovered and carried away, the little weasel snuck in, rifling through our drawers and taking it all for himself. And not just that, oh no, that wasn't enough. He went through our personal effects, he stole my diaries, he took a portrait I had of--
[She's getting off topic, but she's never going to stop being angry about Fink. Rosalind shakes her head.]
Anyway. The problem with killing a person in such a fashion is that it's not conventional. It tore us apart, yes, and scattered us among all the worlds. Suddenly we weren't human, not anymore-- we were more. We could see all the worlds, all the choices, all the doors . . . and we could move among them. Fluidly, easily, much like you might move through a house.
[There. The final stitch, and she tugs it tight. She knows she's switched from singular to plural again, but that hadn't been deliberate so much as a natural inclination. It hardly matters. He knows she has a counterpart.]