Dear Cherished Reader,

Welcome back to Volt /and/ Fable. I’m Jack Backes, and we return to the tale of Dr. Lila Blackwood and her quest to defy the finality of death.

Volt /and/ Fable is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Tonight's tale:

Imagine yourself in a hidden laboratory filled with antique instruments and bubbling glass tubes. Dr. Lila Blackwood, driven by love and desperation, is using the Aetheric Resonator to bring her brother, Robert, back to life. The machine, with its swirling liquids, crackling crystals, and a web of gears and pistons, holds the promise of resurrection—a chance to transcend the boundaries of mortality.

But as the Resonator powers up, strange things begin to happen. Is the Robert she sees before her truly her brother, or just a shadow of the man she once knew? And what is that persistent rumbling noise, gnawing at her nerves, growing more insistent with every passing second?

Lila believes she is at the culmination of years of tireless work, teetering on the edge of a breakthrough. Yet, outside the walls of her lab, reality threatens to intrude, challenging everything she has fought to achieve.

And now, prepare for Grasping at Quicksilver Dreams, Part 2 - "Simulacrum."

If you haven’t yet read Part 1 - The Aetheric Resonator, you probably should.

The Simulacrum

Dr. Lila Blackwood wiped grease from her brow as she made the final adjustments to the Flux Chamber, the power source at the heart of the Aetheric Resonator. The lead-infused glass gleamed in the flickering gaslight, the purified mercury and aetheric condensate swirling within like the essence of life itself. She checked the copper coils. Each was wound to precisely 1,000 turns per inch. Good.

She had come so far. Late nights poring over the works of early aetheric scientists and spiritualists. Her treasured correspondence with Dr. Herbert Ashton hung on the wall of the laboratory next to his fading image - it was from him she had learned the potential of the aether to exchange life for life. And her evenings with Lady Eliza Fairfield discussing the communion of spirits, inspiring her to join the Ashton-Fairfield Institute. And of course, her work with Dr. Kai Chen to produce the MAI-27, which would act as the receptacle automaton for the life exchange.

Lila felt the stiffness of her joints as she pushed herself from under the machine and rose to scrutinize the alignment of the Harmonic Resonance Amplifier. Its seven nested chambers were arranged in a perfect logarithmic spiral. Check. The gold-plated surfaces shimmered with an otherworldly iridescence, the quartz oscillators humming with latent power. She wound the steam-powered clockwork mechanism, feeling the tension of the gears and springs as they came to life beneath her fingers. Another check.

Next Lila inspected the radium-infused glass sphere of the Temporal Displacement Field Emitter. One misstep here would be disastrous. She looked closely at the complex array of Helmholtz coils and vacuum tubes, ensuring there were no broken or cracked parts, and that the mercury-based feedback regulator was functioning optimally.

The Fairfield Spiritual Entity Receptor, its polished obsidian disc inlaid with the intricate silver filigree of the Tree of Life, housed aetherium crystal resonators gleaming in the dim light of the lab. This was where Robert's soul would be pulled from the aether, where life would be restored.

The MAI-27 receptacle automaton wore her brother’s face. She had had to deactivate it for these delicate last steps. Its humanoid form sat in the seat under the Fairfield Receptor, the platinum-iridium electrodes of the robotic consciousness interface glinting along its temples. She had spent countless hours fine-tuning the selenium rectifiers and vacuum tube amplifiers, arranging them in the precise tessellated pattern specified in the Blackwood-Fairfield Consciousness Mapping Scheme. The copper mesh of the Faraday cage encased the delicate circuitry, shielding it from the electrical, magnetic, and aetheric energies that would soon flood the laboratory.

Everything was in place. The countless nights of research, the meticulous construction, the painstaking calibrations - all had led to this moment. Lila took a moment to raise a toast to her brother, and to the MAI-27, who sat unblinking and still. The Château Margaux gleamed sanguine in its glass. She dipped a scrap of bread into the wine and savored the taste. It was full and flavorful and satisfying.

To you, Robert.

Placing her glass back on the table, Lila moved to the activation switch, the heavy brass lever that would send a surge of power through the Resonator and finally bridge the chasm between life and death.

But still, she hesitated. If the Resonator malfunctioned and the aetheric energies proved too volatile, it would destabilize the temporal lattice of the aether. Besides, exchanging an autonomous consciousness for a soul of the dead had never been done before. And even if it worked, even if she pulled Robert's soul from the aether, what would the cost be? As they had all learned through many years of experimentation, the aether was a powerful, terrible force.

Lila's imagination conjured Dr. Chen's presence, just beyond her sight, his hand pounding impatiently against the table to try to get her attention. His voice was filled with earnest pleading, caution and disapproval. "Lila, you know this isn't safe. We don't know all of what could happen, but none of it will be good. You cannot let the MAI-27 out." His words were a constant refrain. It  reminded her of the risks she was taking.

But Robert's plea carved its way into her heart, drowning out the voice of caution. "You promised me, Lila. Don't stop now. You've got to let me out. We'll see the world together like you always said, you and I."

Lila's heart pounded with the weight of her decision. She looked at the MAI-27 before her, enveloped in the purple haze from the bubbling aetheric flux chamber and the soft light from the Resonator's radium-infused core. It wore Robert's face—a face she knew so well but now looked to her like a revenant hungry for the return of its soul. Could she really defy her mentor, defy the natural order itself, and bring him back?

Yet the promise of seeing her brother again, of holding him in her arms once more, was too powerful to resist. She had come too far, sacrificed too much, to turn back now. She would cross the Rubicon. She grasped the activation lever.

But before the scientist could pull it, a sudden jolt shook the laboratory. The quartz oscillators in the Harmonic Resonance Amplifier let out a discordant shriek, their frequencies diverging from the carefully calibrated settings. Letting go of the activation lever, Lila frantically adjusted the dials arrayed across the control interface, her hands shaking from the reverberating power as she fought to bring the system back into alignment.

Lila had to dodge out of the way as three great arcs of electricity bloomed out from the field emitter like giant tentacles. One crashed into shelves of chemicals that broke and relieved their contents onto the floor. Another vaporized the contents of the table that held the wine bottle, bread, and empty glass. A third was slowly carving a path of cauterized oak flooring toward Dr. Blackwood as she continued to wrangle the controls. She tried in vain to recall the emergency shutdown procedures she had outlined in the Blackwood Compendium, but it was all happening too fast.

Then she finally found the temporal control knob and almost wrenched it off the panel. The giant squid like arms of electricity retracted back into the field emitter. The air calmed. Glass fell off of a shelf and crinkled on the floor.

Throughout all the chaos, the MAI-27 automaton had remained entirely still, its glassy eyes, still deactivated and vacant of the behavior protocols she had installed, staring into the void. Above the robot, the silver filigree of the Tree of Life writhed and twisted in the pulsating light. She could feel the pull of the aether, the whispered promises of reunion and redemption.

With a shaking hand, Lila reached for the activation lever once more. As her fingers brushed the cold metal, a searing pain lanced through her temple, a manifestation of her own doubts and fears. The rational part of her mind screamed for her to stop, to shut down the Resonator before she did something she deeply regretted. What was this thing she would regret? But the desperate, grieving sister within her could not be silenced.

She closed her eyes, steeling herself against the pain and the rising tide of uncertainty. She took a deep breath, the scent of escaped gasses and burnt metal filling her lungs.

Dr. Lila Blackwood pulled the lever.

The Aetheric Resonator roared to life, filling the laboratory with light like a hot pulsating star. The air exploded with raw, primal energy as the machine tore a metaphysical hole into the universe. Lila staggered back, shielding her eyes from the searing brightness. She could feel the Resonator's power surging into and through her body, setting every nerve alight with searing, exquisite agony.

In that moment, suspended between life and death, hope and despair, Lila knew there was no turning back. She had unleashed forces beyond her comprehension, and now she could only pray that her gambit would succeed.

The Aetheric Resonator was surging with power, the blinding light of the radium core engulfing the laboratory. The air itself seemed to shatter, reality fracturing as the machine tore at the veil between worlds. Lila's body was flung back against the wall by a maelstrom of energy as the Resonator consumed itself in a cataclysmic release of aetheric potential.

The MAI-27, now re-animated by the power of the machine, began to move, its limbs twitching with a grotesque semblance of life. It looked at its hands. The face that had once been Robert's contorted in a rictus grin. This wasn’t the love and warmth she had once known, but she knew she was only moments away before the soul returned and all would be complete. Lila whispered a plea for forgiveness from whatever dark god was watching over her, for the hubris that had led her to this moment.

As the Resonator shook itself apart, the very foundations of the Ashton-Fairfield Institute began to crack and splinter. The photograph of Dr. Herbert Ashton tumbled from the wall, its frame shattering upon the trembling floor. The stained glass windows depicting the three great pioneers of aetheric science burst inward, showering the laboratory with a kaleidoscope of razor-sharp shards, carving into Lila’s skin like pencils through paper.

Another tremor ripped through the laboratory, more violent this time, sending equipment crashing to the ground and showering Lila in another mist of shattered glass. Lila covered her head to keep from having any more glass embedded into her now-tattered face.

As the Aetheric Flux Chamber shuddered and cracked, the threat of a reality-warping miasma loomed over the laboratory. The Harmonic Resonance Amplifier's discordant shriek heralded the unraveling of the aetheric energies, threatening to tear the machine apart from within. The Temporal Displacement Field Emitter pulsed erratically, casting eerie shadows as pockets of distorted time emerged, threatening to drag the entire facility into a timeless void.

Amidst the chaos, Robert's voice echoed through the laboratory, a distorted plea that sent shivers down Lila's spine. "Lila, please! You have to let me out!" His words, laced with desperation and an unsettling digital echo, seemed to carry the weight of a thousand unspoken secrets, a cryptic message encoded in the very fabric of his artificial existence.

There were two more steps and then all would be finished. Lila needed to hook the resonator diodes to the exposed nodes on Robert’s - no, the MAI-27’s - neck. This would complete the connection. And then the control pad on the wall would need her access code. That would complete the exchange of consciousness. That would bring her brother’s soul back, and release the robotic consciousness out into the aether.

The men were pounding incessantly at the door now. Dr. Chen was pleading and exhorting Lila to shut down the connection. The MAI-27’s eyes gleamed with victory. "They're coming, Lila. They're going to take me away forever. Is that what you want? To lose me all over again? Do it now, Lila. LET. ME. OUT."

Lila's hands shook as found she was off the floor and was gripping the terminals of the resonator diodes. The wires trailed from her white-knuckled fists to the Aetheric Resonator's core, pulsing with the machine's eldritch power. Step by faltering step, she inched closer to the MAI-27 smiling its sickening smile back at her, the vessel that looked so much like her brother, that would house Robert's soul, torn from the aether.

The door shuddered, the lock straining as Dr. Chen and the guards threw their weight against it. Lila's gaze darted between the buckling door and the MAI-27's contorted and alien face, glowing in the machine’s light. The lab shimmered and warped and lengthened, straining against the unnatural forces at play.

In that frozen moment, as the lab quaked and reality quivered, Lila's resolve solidified. The echoes of Robert's voice, a desperate robotic cry—"LET. ME. OUT!"—drowned out the frantic pleas of her mentor beyond the door. She focused on the impossible dream that was now so tantalizingly close.

With a surge of adrenaline, Lila ignored the splintering door and the shouting guards and her pleading mentor. Her trembling hands steadied, her fingers finding their mark with precision. The terminals connected to the nodes on the MAI-27's skin, a surge of energy coursing through the wires as the Aetheric Resonator reached its crescendo.

A blinding flash of light engulfed the lab, a deafening roar drowning out all other sounds. The world dissolved into a maelstrom of energy, a blinding white void that swallowed everything in its path.

And then, silence.

As the blinding light fades and the silence settles over the shattered remains of Dr. Lila Blackwood's laboratory, we are left to ponder the consequences of her actions. In her desperate attempt to bridge the chasm between life and death, Lila unleashed forces beyond her comprehension, tearing at the very fabric of reality itself.

But what of the MAI-27, the automaton wearing the face of her beloved brother? Has Robert's soul truly been pulled from the aether, or has something far more sinister taken its place? And what of Dr. Blackwood herself, now trapped in a laboratory that has become a nexus of twisted aetheric energies and fractured timelines?

These are the questions that haunt us as we step back from the precipice of the unknown, the tale of Lila Blackwood's audacious gambit forever etched in our minds. For in the end, perhaps some boundaries are never meant to be crossed, some voids never meant to be filled.

And so, dear reader, we leave you to ponder the mysteries of the aether and the consequences of tampering with forces beyond our ken. If you find yourself drawn to the dark allure of the unknown, consider subscribing to Volt /and/ Fable for just $8 a month - the price of a haunting memento from an isolated curiosity shop.

As a subscriber, you'll gain access to exclusive supplemental content that delves deeper into the world of aetheric science and the twisted machinations of the Ashton-Fairfield Institute. Uncover the hidden truths behind Dr. Blackwood's experiments, explore the dark corridors of the Institute, and immerse yourself in a realm where the boundaries between science and the supernatural blur like a fading nightmare.

But be warned, for once you cross the threshold into this world of eldritch wonders and unspeakable horrors, there may be no turning back. The aether has a way of claiming those who dare to unravel its secrets, binding them to a fate as inexorable as the tides of time itself.

Until next time, dear reader. And remember, the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe may lie just beyond the veil, waiting for those with the courage - or the hubris - to grasp it.

Your humble narrator,

Jack Backes

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