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From: Mr. Zebulon Pike, Deadwood, Dakota Territory
To: Mrs. Hannelore West, Kingsport, Mass.
September 1879
Endeared Sister,
I must first apologize for the abrupt ending of my previous letter. I was understandably excited, both at the prospect of beginning work on dismantling the secrets of Hellstromme's machine but also that, in so doing, I had made him even more my rival.
It has been two, no, three days since I started work on the machine and most of the events I tell you about I give second hand. So engrossed was I in the task that time had no meaning and I scarcely noted the things that were going on about me.
As people began returning to Deadwood to begin rebuilding the damage done in Hellstromme's assault, we were again beset, this time by a man named Corrigan. An brilliant engineer, Corrigan was responsible for the superstructural mechanisms of Hellstromme's automatons and apparently had something of a falling out. He might have been a potential ally had he not come at us with a squad of hired gunfighters to recover the automaton for himself rather than his master.
I did not even notice the gun battle at the House of Pancakes as I was thoroughly absorbed in the delicate work of dismantling the machine. It took Mr. Tobin several minutes to arrest my attention and inform me of Corrigan's capture. I should have been suspicious when he so readily agreed to assist me in my mechanical vivisection. I should have noticed his attempts at sabotage.
You see, the propensity of Hellstromme's automatons to explode when sufficiently damaged was not the result of some design flaw but was, in fact, a failsafe to prevent capture of the devices' technology. Inside each monstrous hulk was a perfused human brain which, when capture seemed imminent, used the last of its willpower to activate a systemic overload, thus destroying itself. My ionomagentic rocket had successfully jammed the mechanisms to prevent this catastrophic suicide but it was still in an unstable and dangerous state. It was only when Corrigan attempted to flee at a particularly delicate moment did I fully realize that we had been working across purposes. Mr. Tobin killed him as he tried to escape and, while the loss of his knowledge is regrettable, the culmination of his life's work was unfolding before me like the pages of a book and his presence was clearly more of a detriment than anything else.
Even before I pulled the power unit from the machine's chest, I could see that, while the machine was ingenious, the core was not Corrigan's design. Surely Hellstromme built the machine's heart and the command system that not only kept the perfused human brain contained therein but allowed it to transmit its control. I should have liked to save the life of the unfortunate person contained within if for nothing else then to explore the details of that control interface but my priority was preventing the entire device from detonating and so, given the choice between one or the other, I took the non- explosive one.
Thus, with the machine's heart and the secrets contained within successfully extracted and rendered in such a way that it will not destroy us all, I finally end three days of fevered activity. I have eaten and will shortly take a nap so that I may clear my mind properly for the task ahead. I see that in my absence from Deadwood a number of your letters have arrived and I apologize for not having attended to them immediately. I shall remedy that oversight after resting so that I can afford them the attention they fully deserve.
Your admiring brother,
Zebulon
To: Mrs. Hannelore West, Kingsport, Mass.
September 1879
Endeared Sister,
I must first apologize for the abrupt ending of my previous letter. I was understandably excited, both at the prospect of beginning work on dismantling the secrets of Hellstromme's machine but also that, in so doing, I had made him even more my rival.
It has been two, no, three days since I started work on the machine and most of the events I tell you about I give second hand. So engrossed was I in the task that time had no meaning and I scarcely noted the things that were going on about me.
As people began returning to Deadwood to begin rebuilding the damage done in Hellstromme's assault, we were again beset, this time by a man named Corrigan. An brilliant engineer, Corrigan was responsible for the superstructural mechanisms of Hellstromme's automatons and apparently had something of a falling out. He might have been a potential ally had he not come at us with a squad of hired gunfighters to recover the automaton for himself rather than his master.
I did not even notice the gun battle at the House of Pancakes as I was thoroughly absorbed in the delicate work of dismantling the machine. It took Mr. Tobin several minutes to arrest my attention and inform me of Corrigan's capture. I should have been suspicious when he so readily agreed to assist me in my mechanical vivisection. I should have noticed his attempts at sabotage.
You see, the propensity of Hellstromme's automatons to explode when sufficiently damaged was not the result of some design flaw but was, in fact, a failsafe to prevent capture of the devices' technology. Inside each monstrous hulk was a perfused human brain which, when capture seemed imminent, used the last of its willpower to activate a systemic overload, thus destroying itself. My ionomagentic rocket had successfully jammed the mechanisms to prevent this catastrophic suicide but it was still in an unstable and dangerous state. It was only when Corrigan attempted to flee at a particularly delicate moment did I fully realize that we had been working across purposes. Mr. Tobin killed him as he tried to escape and, while the loss of his knowledge is regrettable, the culmination of his life's work was unfolding before me like the pages of a book and his presence was clearly more of a detriment than anything else.
Even before I pulled the power unit from the machine's chest, I could see that, while the machine was ingenious, the core was not Corrigan's design. Surely Hellstromme built the machine's heart and the command system that not only kept the perfused human brain contained therein but allowed it to transmit its control. I should have liked to save the life of the unfortunate person contained within if for nothing else then to explore the details of that control interface but my priority was preventing the entire device from detonating and so, given the choice between one or the other, I took the non- explosive one.
Thus, with the machine's heart and the secrets contained within successfully extracted and rendered in such a way that it will not destroy us all, I finally end three days of fevered activity. I have eaten and will shortly take a nap so that I may clear my mind properly for the task ahead. I see that in my absence from Deadwood a number of your letters have arrived and I apologize for not having attended to them immediately. I shall remedy that oversight after resting so that I can afford them the attention they fully deserve.
Your admiring brother,
Zebulon
