Work Text:
April 14, 1912. Twelve minutes past midnight.
The Marconi Wireless room remained as cold as ever, the crew mandating all rooms not holding human workers of the RMS Titanic to have their heating shut off to lower strain on the boilers. On the old, but sturdy swivel chair in front of the wireless sat a brass-plated Serva-ton, one of Zurich Automatonwerke’s older domestic robot models.
A simple dress uniform, the right wrist slightly stained with oil while the rest of the outfit remained spotless hung over her shoulders, with an ankle-long black skirt and white shirt comprising the main parts of it. A small, metal name tag was attached to the left breast of the shirt, reading “447-NPA Tabitha.” Her shiny black hair was done up in a simple low bun, tied with a black hair band.
Her life on the ship was a menial one. One finger on the key, the other tracing along the pile of papers laying on the desk beside her. Mostly commercial message requests from the first and some second class passengers. She could have easily just scanned the letter visually, but she preferred to both run her finger across the paper and mutter the letter to herself.
“Titanic to Cape Race: …”
Tap tap tap, tap tap tap. She clicked through the letter, converting it to Morse and tapping it in faster than the most trained human telegraph operator on the planet. A soft scraping sound could be heard from her fingers, identifying a lack of lubrication on her index. She needed to oil the joints often with how much she moved it.
“...to Cornelius Woolbridge, Newburgh. Doing great, the Titanic is a wonderful ship. Hope to meet you within the week. Regards, Thomas.”
Finishing the short message she flipped the page, going onto the next load of messages. Just before she could address Cape Race again though, a soft knocking could be heard on the doorframe. Tabitha turned her head at the interruption, pushing aside one side of her headset to listen.
In the doorway stood a somewhat similar machine, though instead of the brushed brass outer casing, this one looked almost like a doll, with a fine porcelain outside wrapped around a cast inside shell, exposed around joints. Her black hair was more intricately done up, coinciding with her French maid-style uniform, with a small jacket added on top. Her name tag was made of gold, instead of Tabitha’s steel, and read “304-1CPA Marianne.” She held in both of her hands, held at about stomach-level, a silver platter, on top of which laid yet another sheaf of letters, alongside a black oil can.
“Sorry to interrupt, Tappy, but-”
“New letters, I know. And a refill… Thank you Marianne. Please don’t use that nickname though… you know it’s not my name.”
“Everyone calls you that, though.”
“Oh, whatever. put them here, under the last batch. Almost done with it. And take the other can back down if you will.”
“No problem, Tappy.”
Tabitha, or as she was “affectionately” referred to, Tappy (after her only quality being she could tap a button very quickly) groaned quietly, before turning back to the wireless, placing her headset back on.
“Can I watch?”
“What?”
She said, being taken by surprise as the more advanced, usually snobby new-model actually asked to watch her do her job.
“Why? Don’t you have work delivering coffee to the officers?”
“No, I haven’t received any requests… And I’ve always wanted to see you really work. So this is how we talk with the world?”
“Um… Yes. Now… I have a lot of letters to put through, so if you want to watch, just stand there.”
She motioned for a clear corner of the room, with Marianne following the order. Tappy picked up the oil can, depositing a few drops onto her working finger before placing it back onto the key.
“So… How does this work? How exactly do you talk with the other ships?”
Tappy sighed, her eyes remaining on the letter.
“Simple. I push down on the telegraph key in a specific pattern, the “Morse Code,” turning letters and numbers into series of dots and dashes. That connects the circuit, making the transmitter send out the sound of the dot or dash. If we’re receiving a letter or message from another ship, I hear their dots and dashes in my headset, and translate it into English. It’s the same technology as those… wireless requesters all of you carry, which absolutely DEAFEN me every time you’re requested up here on the Boat Deck, since they have just enough range to hit the aerial up above the room. I wouldn’t even be able to work if they could be heard across the entire ship.”
She motioned back at Marianne, before finally laying her finger back onto the key, starting another letter. As she did this, Marianne looked down at her waist, specifically at the device Tappy mentioned. A somewhat bulky wooden box with a small speaker, light and twin antennae poking out of the top.
As Tappy muttered her way through another letter though, she’d suddenly wince as the small headset suddenly started screaming into her ear, just as Marianne’s request device let out a much quieter beep, alongside the glowing of the small bulb.
“I’m sorry, I’ve been called! Sorry, Tappy!”
“It’s Tabitha!”
She said back, just as Marianne rushed back out of the room. Tappy sighed, returning to her letter-sending.
“Titanic to Cape Race: Frank Howell, Miami. Weather looking good but cold, cannot wait to be in the warmth-”
All of a sudden, the ship lurched, making Tappy fall from her chair and onto the ground, yanking the headset from her head, leaving it hanging from the table. Struggling to get back to her feet, she ran her hand across her head, feeling the brand new shallow dent in the side of her head just as she heard someone rush into the doorway yet again.
Turning around she saw Marianne, though the spotless porcelain on her left arm was completely shattered, revealing the riveted iron underneath, as well as the coating on her face being quite cracked.
“Tappy! We’ve hit an iceberg! The officers told me to run here and tell you: 41.46 North, 50.24 West.”
“Our coordinates! Thank you, Marianne.”
Tappy scrambled into her seat, snatching up her headset. Wasting no more time, she laid her hand on the key.
“All stations, distress. This is Titanic. All stations, distress. This is Titanic.”
Her taps were much too short for her to be writing out the full words, considering she was keying in the proper abbreviations to not waste any of the others’ time. She repeated her initial message a few more times.
“Position 41.46N, 50.24W.”
“Marianne! Go to the bridge, ask for updates! Come back if they give new coordinates, or how the ship’s doing!”
“On it!”
She rushed back out through the door, leaving Tappy to continue working the key.
She did so for a good half hour, trying to respond to anyone who could hear. The sound around her was deafening, with the noise of panicking passengers, steam and the cacophony of received messages from the other vessels around.
Marianne showed up a few times as well, telling her what the officers on the bridge had to say. Updated coordinates, mostly.
And then, the lights flickered. Marianne again rushed through the door, the constant running about having knocked a few pieces of her face porcelain off, revealing more of the iron beneath.
“The water’s to the boilers! Women and children are boarding lifeboats! We need to go!”
“Where?!”
Tappy responded, her finger still keying in the many-times sent message: “All stations, distress. SOS. SOS. Titanic is sinking.” She added their new troubles to it now. “Water is to the boilers, sinking down by the head. Come quick.”
“To the lifeboats!”
“Do you think they’d let us on?! Company policy, we go down with the ship! The humans take the lifeboats, we take ours down!”
“What?! But-”
“Just go! It can’t get any worse, just… go help the passengers! Help them board! I’ll be fine here!”
“But, you need updates-”
“There’s only two more states the ship can be in, and I can’t put any of them through! We’re either out of power, or under water after this!”
“O-Okay! Get us help!”
Marianne rushed out of the door one last time, slamming it behind her leaving Tappy completely alone, still tapping in their distress call and responding to whoever tried to come help.
She knew even the closest wasn’t close enough. They’d only be picking the people off the rafts long after the stern was under… And the further ones would just be picking corpses.
She persevered though, desperately trying to get the word out they were still there, just in case the slim chance of someone not listening would receive. Once she was told from another ship that she wasn’t audible anymore, she rushed to the technical room connected to the radio room, her charging cable still hanging from the roof as she pushed a large breaker, switching to their emergency set. She rushed back to the key, having foregone the chair once it had rolled away from the ship’s angle.
And then, an hour and some change later… the lights flickered one last time, before shutting off completely. Her hand slipped from the key, knowing there was nothing anyone else would hear. She could hear water rushing in down the hall. It was all over. She sat down on the cold floor, hugging her legs to her chest with one arm while the other reached up, clutching her name tag. The only thing she could really consider a possession.
She closed her eyes, thinking of what could have been. She could have been the famed radio-automaton of the largest ship in the world. Present at World Fairs for Zurich and England. But fate had other plans.
A puddle of water began to form as water rushed into her room through the unsealed wooden door. She accepted her fate, feeling the cold Atlantic waves wash over her, the water eventually surrounding her to the head. She felt tired, her batteries drained from a busy night of transmitting, as well as having to repair the wireless when it had broken down. If she’d gone to charge, nobody would have heard her pleas. As the ship fell deeper and deeper, the last watts of her battery began to finally drain away, leaving her still, cold body huddled up in her workroom’s corner, clutching the breast of her shirt.
The ship fell. The water’s weight was crushing on the ship, causing many of the small bubbles of air caught around the prow to turn into crushing implosion charges, destroying more of the ship than there already was.
But she was left with one last gift on this world by her creators. She was built tough. Very tough. Thick plating with small, almost non-existent allowance around places that were meant to close like her eyelids and ears. Even as the ship sank leagues below the sea, not to mention the collision with the seafloor, she remained still. Maybe in a different part of the sea, shot out of the wreckage of her precious wireless room and out into the large debris field, but she was still there.
And she would remain there for what may as well have been eternity.
The salty water around her would make its mark on the ship and its last inhabitants, previously alive or not. Her age and quality manufacturing made her the last to remain intact. The crew of new-model porcelain-plated Serva-tons all slowly rusted away along with the ship, their cast insides untreated for the saltwater and unprotected by their brittle porcelain shells leaving them exposed to all the elements the bottom of the sea had to offer, their insides rotting along with them.
Tappy didn’t remain untouched, of course. Her clothes and hair all were decaying, the decades upon decades of saltwater, bacteria and the simple passage of time wearing down her simple uniform, strands of her bunned-up hair washing away in the currents leaving her with many bald patches across her brass scalp. A strip of cloth still floated from her clutched hand, still attached to the name tag she held onto all those years ago.
August 13, 1987
The bright-yellow Nautile was slowly scanning the wide debris field, searching the many artifacts ejected from the vessel they were heading towards. Many of them were quite insignificant at this point: cups, bottles, small pieces of furniture, destroyed luggage.
The pilots inside were ready for another day of examining the wreck, a wire dragging far behind it back to its mothership.
There, much more exhausted operators sat behind screens, watching the feed of the sandy, rubble-strewn ocean floor slowly move by. One of the operators was laying on his hand, eyes barely open as he watched the feed, only to be roused just a bit awake as he heard and saw the plain white mug of coffee be laid on the console in front of him. Looking over, he saw Valérie, the old, first-run Nandroid purchased and renamed by the French crew of the ship for exactly this kind of menial task. Her original uniform was replaced by a navy-blue jumpsuit, adorned with the logo of the ship they were on.
“Thanks, Val.”
“No problem, sir. How goes the search?”
“Bah… Only just started. We’re just scanning the debris field…”
He motioned to the screen, looking away from it and at her as she focused on the screen instead. It was a little mesmerizing, the simple, non-repeating pattern of sand particles and occasional debris…
Only to be broken up by a dull reflection of light.
“What is that?”
“Huh?”
The operator said, looking back at the screen. There, in the deep Atlantic sands, laid the cold, dormant body of Tappy. On her side, still clutching the scrap of cloth.
“Holy moly!”
The operator exclaimed, rousing a few of the other operators, French and American, to look over from their posts as he pushed down the button to talk with the sub.
“Nautile, do you read?”
“Copy Mothership, you’re seeing the same thing we are, right?”
“Yeah! Looks like one of those on-board servant robots. Kinda looks like Val, right?”
“They were made by just about the same company.”
“Oh yeah, right. Look at the condition!”
The submersible got up closer, the manipulator arms extending to reach out for her.
“Must not be one of the servants after all… Looks like one of the older brass-plate models. Kept her spotless. Do you think we can get her up from here?”
“We’re not bringing back anything else… She’s probably heavy as all hell. Basket won’t fit anything else, either.”
“Oh well. Next crew’s gonna bring up some more mugs. Get her loaded up!”
“Sir?”
He let go of the transmit button, looking back at Valérie.
“Oh, yeah. Well… looks like we’re bringing back your Grandma. When the Nautile comes back up, you can come over and see her.”
“My… Grandma? You do know robots cannot-”
“It’s a metaphor, Val.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Yes, I would like to see my… ancestor.”
Meanwhile, on the seafloor, the two heavy-duty manipulator arms carefully grabbed onto the stiff metal body of the old machine, carefully pulling her from the built-up sand, depositing her in the sub’s basket intended for artifact recovery.
It then continued on its mission, sailing to the wreck of the Titanic to take the pictures the scientists wanted, before returning to the mothership a few hours later.
The submarine, along with its singular piece of cargo was hoisted onto the dock crane, lifted out of the water into the full view of everyone. The crew congregated around the submersible, looking over at the piece of salvage in the basket. Two men approached her, pulling open the basket and, with some effort, pulling her from it and onto the hard deck with a CLUNK. Before any of the others could get closer, Valérie suddenly emerged from the crowd, looking down at the old Serva-ton huddled up with herself, clutching something in one hand.
She kneeled down in front of her, extending her hand to touch Tappy’s.
“Welcome back.”
She quietly muttered, staring at her long-shut eyes and neutral expression. Even though she knew the robot in front of her was dead, it’s as if she could feel her respond:
“I’m glad to be back.”