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HG Wells doesn’t do alcohol. He never got drunk and he doesn’t intend to. One time someone told him, that alcohol kills your brain and he liked his brain. So thank you very much, but no.
Lenore, on the other hand, likes alcohol a lot. She can’t get drunk with the whole not-being-alive business, but she loves the taste of it anyway.
Lenore tried to get HG drunk more times than he can count. It was a little annoying when she started with it (not like Lenore of all people could bother him too much), but over time it became almost fun to him. She would come with a plan to make him drink. HG would pretend to fall for it for a little bit to give Lenore hope, but then stop himself in the last minute. Her plans span from simple ones (one time she replaced his glass of mineral water with vodka) to overly complicated (another time she sent him treasure hunting for a whole day, the reward was a bottle of rum).
HG is pretty sure that Mary Anne George started a secret betting pool on how long it would take Lenore to succeed/give up.
HG finds himself in a pub with Mary Shelley of all people. Two of them were never close or talked for that matter, so Shelley inviting him there, out of the blue feels like another of Lenore’s plans.
“Want a drink?” Shelley asks, probably not for the first time.
“Ahem… I… Don’t… Eh…” HG stutters. His mind is still a way too occupied by the storm outside that reminds him of a charging station he built on top of their Edgar’s house. Which also reminds him of how he should be there to redirect the power of the lightning into one of his inventions (the one Lenore insist on calling “The-Food-to-Cold-ator”). Which also reminds him of how he would much rather be there than in the pub. Pubs include too many people and too many people make HG want to crawl under the table.
As his mind spirals, HG doesn’t notice any of Shelley’s questions. She just looks at him for a while and then declares: “Fine, you look like you need it. I’m getting you a drink.”
HG Wells doesn’t do alcohol, but Mary Shelley is a lot better in getting him drunk than Lenore ever was. There’re some shots and rum and whiskey and all of those taste absolutely disgusting, but Shelley doesn’t take no for an answer. He doesn’t know when it happened, but suddenly he’s her apartment (She had an apartment? He didn’t know she had an apartment. She just appeared in Edgar’s house from time to time so HG never gave much thought to where she lived.).
Shelley’s apartment is a mess of dark cloth, dark furniture and lots of beautiful expensive dresses (also dark). In some strange specific way, the apartment looks beautiful, but a mess nonetheless. HG doesn’t have a right to judge though. The part of Ed’s attic he has declared his home looks even worse.
“Welcome to le dominion! Throw your coat anywhere!” Shelley announces as she dramatically sweeps the door open. She drops her (black) coat on a (black) sofa, instantly striding to another room. HG’s good manners don’t let him do the same. And since he can’t see any coat hooks around, he just doesn’t undress. He doesn't have time for it anyway. Before he can get his composure together, Shelley is back with two glasses of obviously alcoholic substance.
His brain feels slightly dysfunctional. Shelley puts one of the glasses in his hand and clinks it with one of her own. HG takes an automatic sip when she does because that feels appropriate. It tastes like how he imagines motor oil would taste.
If this is what being drunk feels like, HG can't see why Lenore misses it so much.
Shelley takes his arm and without a word drags him through the apartment. It’s bigger than it looks (mess tends to do that to a room), there are so many rooms HG gets quickly confused. By the time Shelley stops in front of a huge steel door, he’s convinced that they must be somewhere around the earth’s core.
“What you see there, you can never tell anyone.” Shelley says, squeezing HG’s shoulder and staring into his eyes dramatically. HG holds a breath. He’s not very good with this kind of pressure. Or any pressure.
“I won’t.” he agrees.
“I mean it, Herbert George. Nobody must know. Promise.”
“I swear.”
“On your life.”
“Cross my life and hope do die?”
Shelley holds his gaze for a bit longer before nodding.
“Alright.” She whispers and pushes the massive door open.
The room behind seems to be incredibly tall and wide. It's illuminated by only one small round windows on the top of the dome the ceiling forms. The walls are formed by tall shelves stuffed with books, tools and all sorts of metal objects. HG recognizes a number of them as things he used while making some of his past inventions. All of it makes his head spin and hands twitch with excitement.
However, most impressive of all is a giant metal machine in the middle of the room. It must be about ten feet tall. It reminds HG of one of those Russian dolls, for its vaguely human shape. As he walks further inside the room, HG notices another thing about the mysterious machine. There is a body in it. There is nothing human in its pale greenish skin and mish-mashed appearance. Its limbs don’t even match one another. There are numerous sewing marks all around the body, obviously from being stitched together.
HG is breathless.
“This is the…” he chokes out after a while.
“Karen. Sure, it is.” Shelley shrugs.
“You actually named it Karen?”
“Well, not the first time around, but it's Karen now."
“I didn’t know it was real.”
“Why would I write about something that isn’t real?”
Shelley chuckles (which she doesn’t do often) and it comes off as bit menacing with a sudden flash of a lighting coloring her face ghostly white.
HG chooses not to remind her that both of them are science fiction writers. It’s in their job description to write about things that aren’t real.
“What are we doing here?” HG asks.
“We’re rising the monster, partner.”
Thunder roars in distance.