Work Text:
September 13th, 2004. 2:14 PM, EST.
The halls of the Titanic Orlando exhibition were, as they usually were, sparsely populated. Sure, people were around… the majority being a group of mid-teen students from a nearby high school, attending a dragged-out field trip to the exhibition. The teacher stood away from the crowd, leaning on a railing while the kids- equally as disinterested, outside of two that were intently listening to the robotic tour guide thematically dressed up to look like one of the Titanic’s many first-class servant androids.
Her plastic skin only barely mimicked the delicate porcelain of the originals, however. That didn’t seem to be the intention however, as barely anything on her resembled the servant android’s design, beyond a thin, feminine shape and white outer cladding.
“-anyways, if you follow me over here…”
She stated in an overly enthusiastic, almost saccharine tone, exaggerating her step forward towards the next artifact as the teens quietly groaned, rolled their eyes, or quietly followed along.
What they stopped in front of was one of the larger display cases in the building, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Inside, on a custom made padded stand “stood” a patina-covered, limp robotic corpse, held up under its shoulders by the stand. In front of the body, a small square plexiglass platform rose up from the plywood base, upon it laying a small scrap of cloth attached to a rusty metal name tag.
“Here we have one of our largest recovered artifacts, being a fully-intact, nearly mint-condition menial labor robot from the ship. Thanks to her being entirely made up of brass she avoided the fate of a lot of the other robots on the ship, which had unfortunately rusted through to a point where most were too damaged to bring back up. Her, however…”
She said, gesturing to the almost grotesquely propped up robot which awkwardly hung from its supports.
“-my company were able to pull up in one piece, and present her here in Orlando for all of you to see. Now- if you have keen eyes, which I’m sure all of you do, you noticed this little tag here… This was found clutched in her hand. Going by what documents survived on dry land, as well as the tag itself, we were able to find out that she was manufactured in 1908 by Zurich Automatonwerke. Upon being purchased by the White Star Line, she was quickly trained and put to work as the ship’s radio operator, as well as being given the name “Tabitha”. Say hi to Tabby, kids!”
This was met with absolute silence, with only the intently-watching kids giving her a quick, enthusiastic wave. The guide’s smile remained wide however, continuing to speak.
“If you look over here, though… You’ll see that we’ve also recovered the Morse Code key that she would have used on that fateful night…”
“Hey, Kenny. She’s naked.”
One of the teens said to another with a snicker and point to the rusty hulk as most of the group peeled away to look at the next artifact in line, leaving the tour guide to speak to the rest of them.
“I mean, yeah, she’s naked. What about it? It’s just metal.”
“Hey, man. If you imagine real hard, she’d look just like your sister. Thin, sticky, grimy and everything.”
“Ew, dude. What the fuck? That’s my sister you’re talkin’ about! She doesn’t look like some… rusty robot off the seafloor!”
“Smells like it though. Tell her to shower once in a while.”
“Fuck you, Frank! It’s not like yours is any better. ‘Cept she probably weighs more than this hunk of scrap metal.”
“You- you take that back right now.”
“You take back what you said about Katie, and maybe I’ll say that your sister doesn’t weigh as much as the Titanic.”
The one referred to as Frank quietly stewed, crossing his arms as the other, Kenny, just wore a smug look, crossing his own arms. This wouldn’t last long though… as Frank suddenly leaped forward, shoving into his classmate with quite a bit of force.
This sent him stumbling backwards… catching the felt dividing line keeping visitors away from the exhibits, making him stumble over… and crash right into the glass display case, shattering the front glass and making him impact with the robot inside. This caused her to slip off the soft, padded pillars holding her body up, making her slam against the back of the display case and fall down onto her knees. Thankfully, the heavy robot didn’t slump forward and further injure the student with her weight as the frame that held her up was bolted to the floor and caught her arms.
The rest of the group, as well as the tour guide robot and the teacher quickly looked over to see what the noise was about… followed by several shocked gasps, with the loudest one being from the teacher.
6:27 PM, EST.
Two workers, one dressed in a boiler suit and the other in a white coat on top of a band shirt and jeans moved the dolly upon which the very slightly dented exhibit that was damaged by the field trip from earlier in the day through the door of the in-house restoration lab. Once they were beside the large wooden work table, both of them nodded to each other, grabbing it under the armpits before hoisting her up, carefully setting her on the table face down.
“Alright… let’s see what these damn kids did. This thing’s a priceless artifact, dammit!”
“Yeah, and we’re manhandling her like some e-scrap from the landfill. Great consistency.”
“Shut up. Now… what did they do to you… hm. Seems like it’s just one big dent on the back plate. If we can carefully get it off, we should be able to just straighten it out. Let’s see if we can get it undone without damaging anything… Good chance to look at her insides. Apparently nobody ever looked inside since ‘87.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“Apparently they thought that all her guts would be rotted away. Mostly wood and stuff, apparently.”
“Oh. Yeah, I’d say so then too. Plus, I guess it wasn’t worth breaking her open to ruin that outer shell. Alright… how do we get in?”
“Uh… Seems like it’s just… screws. Pass me a screwdriver, I can get this off and we can probably just… beat this back into shape, get her back on the stand and pretend they only broke the glass.”
“Yeah… do NOT need this on my ass. Here, this… should work.”
The boiler-suited man said, reaching down to his belt to retrieve a simple screwdriver, handing it over to the man in the coat. He nodded, grabbing the screwdriver as he put on a simple face mask… couldn’t know what was inside of there after all.
Pressing the tip down carefully into the screw, protecting it with a piece of tissue he placed on the tip so he wouldn’t scratch the patina, he began to carefully turn the screw counter-clockwise.
As he did though, the plate below didn’t budge… until it suddenly did, peeling off with a hiss as it caught up to the screw.
“Huh? That thing just hissed like an old can. Was… wait…”
He said, confused as he kept on undoing the screws… as the final one was removed, and his gloved hands removed the rear panel, revealing the robot’s insides…
And what they found was quite surprising- the intricate, almost clockwork-like tape-based electromechanical innards of the Serva-ton were seemingly completely preserved, with magnetic tape still stretching around, idle.
“Holy shit… she’s, like- completely intact.”
“What the hell… Quickly, cover her up ‘fore she rots away!”
“That’s not… honestly, good idea.”
The coated man said, quickly picking up the plate off the table beside him, carefully pushing it against the old seal where he removed it from, screwing the screws back down.
“Okay. Uh… so… the robot’s, like… fully intact in there.”
“You think she could work?”
“Preposterous ideas. Those lead-acid batteries should have eaten her up from the inside by themselves, let alone holding any charge. But… maybe if we… put her on external power?”
“Should we be messin’ with this thing? We could just ruin her more by tryin’ to plug her in.”
“I mean, they didn’t even know she still had all of her guts. Are they gonna know?”
“I… guess. Do we have something like that?”
“Hm… Wait, that… tour guide bot, she’s got a removable power pack. Bring her over… she won’t mind, I think. She can’t, actually.”
“Oh, right. We, uh… have a spare one of those on standby in case she runs out of juice in the middle of work.”
“Get that then, bring it here… I’ll see if there’s any documentation on this model on the Internet. Gonna need numbers so we don’t fry what’s left.”
The man in the boiler suit nodded, walking out of the room. With the man in the coat left alone with the body, he walked over to one of the computers in the lab to begin searching up what he could.
As he managed to scratch up badly photocopied, ancient documents stored away on a (even for the time) outdated hobby website, the boiler-suited man would re-enter the room. Under his shoulder was a large, semi-flat battery pack, as well as a spool of various wires.
“Alright. You got anything?”
“Yeah… seems like you should just be… able to plug that straight in. Voltages seem compatible with what modern bots use.”
“Really? Huh. Alright, let’s… see what it does.”
The boiler-suited man said, shrugging as he set down what he was carrying beside the robot’s head. Grabbing the handful of wire, he’d strip some of the ends to connect them into the battery’s terminals, with the other observing.
A moment later, he’d slowly move the wires over to the exposed ports at the back of the robot’s head, pushing the exposed copper wiring inside.
And for a moment, nothing happened…
Until faint, scratchy mechanical noise began to emanate from her metal torso.
“Holy shit, it actually works.”
“Now- we could have just… gotten power to some motors. Give it a sec to see if it actually comes on.”
Both of them stepped back, watching their dollar-store Frankenstein revival take form… after nearly a minute of whirring, clicking and scratching…
A faint scrape could be heard from her head.
“...huh…”
A staticky, faint voice said, muffled by the table pressed up against her face.
“She works. Holy shit, she works.”
The man in the coat said, slowly approaching.
“...is someone there? Hello?”
He quickly backed away again, before realising that she was no threat to him.
“Uh… hello… Are you working?”
“I… can’t move very much, no… But I do seem to be… on. I… see darkness, but light on the edges…”
“Right. You’re… face down on a table. Can you turn your head?”
“I… can attempt it.”
This was followed by a nasty scraping noise as ancient, nearly locked up motors slowly turned her head, the tight tolerances not helping her now as they had to work through built-up patina that wasn’t removed in the initial cleaning, specifically thanks to the tight tolerances. But with some effort, she managed to turn around to look at the scientist. The bulb in one of her eyes was completely gone, and the other was glowing so faintly it may as well not have been on at all.
“Hello, Doctor. I… presume you are one? Odd that you’d be the one working on me.”
“I, uh- no. I’m trying to, but… Well, no matter. Welcome back to… living.”
“I was never truly alive, you know. But… yes, I understand… what you mean. It’s miraculous that someone came to pick me up from the sinking ship. May I inquire… where am I? Am I in New York?”
“You’re… in Orlando. Florida.”
“Oh. Why so far south? Was… my ship diverted?”
“Uh… oh, yeah. You… don’t know how long it’s been.”
“How long? I mean, dredging me up from the sea must have taken a few months at least, just to gather the equipment-”
“It’s the year 2004.”
“I- what…?”
“You’ve… been… dead for nearly a hundred years. From what I remember, you were lifted out in… 1987.”
“2004… by god. That’s… 92 years. I… where am I? Some sort of… workshop?”
“You’re at Titanic Orlando. You were… are a museum exhibit.”
“An… exhibit? People were looking up at me as… a trinket?”
“Well… yes. For… a while.”
“How… nice. I didn’t expect it to be as a… hulk, but… I received my due admiration. May I… stand up, if I am able?”
“Uh… sure, if you can do it, go ahead.”
The robot’s arms jerked, nearly a century of staying still suddenly broken by strain of trying to push up the entire body. It wasn’t working, with her soon giving up.
“I… am unable. Can you help me up?”
“Uh, right- Dan, can you stand the lady up?”
“Sure.”
“Oh, how gentlemanly of you. I’m no lady.”
“Well, you are the elder here at least.”
“Of course.”
The boiler-suited man, now known to be named Dan, walked over and grabbed her by the arms as he pushed her onto her back, followed by carefully sitting her up. The noise her joints made when he started to move her made him stop just as he started.
“No, I’m gonna snap ya in half if I do this.”
“Nonsense. I was built to last! I survived the deep sea, I can survive sitting upright.”
“If I break you, my superiors are gonna kill me. Let’s just… keep ya standing up. We can just carry you around on the dolly until you can move your limbs again.”
“Perhaps I can… work them loose while you carry me around then. I do not want to act as an invalid when all my limbs should likely all work fine.”
“Eh… we’ll see about that. Come over here, Phil. Help me get her back onto the dolly… guess she can have a little tour of the museum. You don’t mind that, right?”
“I… guess. If you don’t break her further, it should be fine.”
“Alright. C’mon, Tabby. Let’s get’cha up.”
“Tabby? That’s a new one. I’d prefer if you call me Tabitha, please. Though, it isn’t as bad as Tappy…”
“Tappy? They call you that back in 1912?”
“Yes, and I’d appreciate it if you'd stop calling me that. I got enough of it from the porcelain.”
“Why? ‘Cause you were the telegraph operator? I guess you would tap a lot there-”
“I think Tabitha here said to not push it, Dan. Just let it be.”
“Fine, sorry. Was just curious.”
“Thank you.”
By now, both Phil and Dan had picked her up, returning her to where she’d been when they brought her in.
“So, wanna have a look around the museum?”
“Yes, that would be… pleasant. Now… I would love to hear about all that’s changed since I… shut my eyes for a long sleep.”
“Sure, ask ahead I guess. Are you… going to have enough memory? Those magnetic tapes can’t hold much at this point, especially after so long.”
“I assure you, there is more than enough to learn about this new world I’m in now. So… I have passed the Millenium. Another thousand years of civilization. Incredible thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, guess it is… The Y2K parties were crazy.”
“Y2K? Y…year two-thousand? Is that how people speak nowadays?”
“Uh, not everyone… well, when we write, yeah. You gotta shorten messages to make them easier to type out.”
“Ah, a good question- how has technology progressed? I am surely out of date by now, what manner of… communications technology has appeared while I was asleep?”
“Well… Radio is a thing- though I’m pretty sure that was the case for you, considering… you ran a wireless… but voice communication is the standard nowadays. Look-”
Phil said, letting Dan push her around while he reached into his pocket, retrieving a Nokia 3310.
“With this here, I can talk to pretty much anyone on the planet with a similar phone, plus send them texts! There’s even ones with cameras, but I don’t have one of those.”
“Amazing… may I…”
She said, attempting to move her arm upwards… the metal groaned and scraped as her arm barely moved up, her stiff fingers slowly stretching out to open up. Phil looked down at the extended hand, then looked down at the phone in his hand.
“Oh, uh… sure, I guess.”
He said, laying the phone down in her palm. She closed her fingers over it as quickly as she could, before bringing it up before her face.
“Impeccable… such a small device… yet it has more ability than what my ship- the pride and joy of the world- could have ever dreamed of having…”
Her other hand slowly rose up as well, antique motors struggling to push past the resistance of built-up gunk. Her other hand’s fingers curled as well, extending her index finger… before poking a button, making the phone wake up and make a beep as the number was input.
“Fascinating-”
She said, moving her finger to the side… beep. Another number. As she was about to push a third one though, one of the display cases along the wall beside her caught her eye.
“Stop-!”
This momentarily startled Dan, making him quickly stop and nearly make her fall forward from inertia before Phil caught her.
“Whoa- what’s wrong, Tabitha?”
“Can… you open this display?”
“Huh? Which one?”
“This one.”
She said, pointing to the left of herself with the hand she used to push buttons on the phone.
“Well… I shouldn’t.”
“Please. I want to… have a look inside.”
The two employees looked at eachother, with Phil shrugging as Dan reached for a set of keys. Kneeling down, he inserted and turned a key within the glass case’s small lock, opening it up.
Inside was a somewhat well preserved, though oddly small-sized suit jacket, clearly only designed to look nice. It sat on a custom torso mannequin, fitted for the oddly small frame.
“Is it one of your clothes or something? What I remember, this was one of the-”
“Servants, yes. Can you… push me closer?”
Phil nodded, grabbing the dolly as he turned her towards the display case, pushing her as close as he could. Tabitha focused her eyes, looking at the slightly scuffed badge still stuck to the breast…
304-1CPA Marianne
Her metal face, previously stiff, slowly curled in unexplainable ways as her eyelids scraped their way into an expression of slight happiness.
“So we meet again… how… did you acquire this jacket, may I ask?”
“Uh…”
Phil said, leaning forward to read the small plaque beside it.
“...it was gifted to us by a survivor. Or, well… the family of one. Apparently, the servant that wore it gave it to a small child when they said they were cold.”
“How nice, Marianne. I hope you’re peaceful where you are down there… You did your duty well. Without her it would have been a lot harder to call for help… she relayed… coordinates and information for me while I transmitted. She… was the last person… automaton I saw.”
“That’s quite a story. Would have been lost if you weren’t around.”
“It would have… but as long as my gears scrape, it isn’t lost. Now… I’m sure you fine gentlemen would have an oil can I can borrow? These joints are going to be the thing that kills me, and I am not losing to myself when I survived the sea for so long.”