Chapter Four

Winnipeg, Manitoba

December 25, 1944

Snow fell lightly from the bland, gray sky, the fat flakes taking their precious time to touch down upon the buildings and streets below. It was cold, the blustery wind blowing sharp, chilled waves through gaps and alleys between the houses and shops. It was the perfect winter day to be inside, warm and cozy beside the fire, safe from the elements.

And inside was exactly where Dr. Kenneth Andrusko was, although warm and cozy he was not. He was hot and sweaty. His clothes were grimy and stuck to him, and his smell gave away the fact that he hadn't bathed or even changed in days. None of this he even noticed, though, as deeply focused in his work as he was.

He had spent the past four days straight down in his cool, dark basement, barely eating, not sleeping, trying to finish his project as soon as he could. Already it was late: he should have been done yesterday at the latest, but delays – finding and securing parts, mostly – had slowed progress considerably. Now he was stuck struggling to finish before today was over. He glanced up sharply from his soldering at the clock on the wall; already 12:31 p.m.! There was but twelve hours – less! – until the day was over. It would be no good – terrible, in fact – if he did not finish today. Sarah would never forgive him for missing the anniversary of their first meeting. He would never forgive himself. He sighed in frustration and returned to his work.

Distantly, he was aware that today was Christmas Day, and that it was the first in his life that he had not celebrated. For the first 21 years it had been with his family – his parents and dear sister – and then he had married his first love (Oh Sarah!) and spent every Christmas thereafter with her. It had always been his favourite holiday; the mixture of surprise and gratitude from receiving and giving gifts, sprinkled with the festivities of the holidays and the mystery of Santa Claus, his elves, and his reindeer, made everything seem magical. Eventually Amanda, their daughter, had come along, and every year had been even more special; seeing the joy on her sweet face as she opened her presents each morning was more than enough of a gift for him. Sarah had given him Amanda, but he had never been able to give her anything in return.

Until now. Yes... He would finish today, complete her gift and deliver it on time.

Almost done, he was sure of it. There had been many hurdles in getting the project – The Gift – this far. Lack of parts and equipment had been the biggest issue; ultimately, he had gathered all the pieces he needed to build the final model, both legitimately and through significantly shadier means. Then there had been the various failed attempts at construction that had required months of re-planning and re-building to fix.

And there was the simple fact that he couldn't just ignore the rest of his life – his job and his daughter. When Sarah had left, he had been Amanda's sole care-giver. That had been fine until Ken had realized he could no longer provide the home she needed; he saw The Gift had become an obsession of his, and he didn't want the gift Sarah had given him to be affected by it. So he had sent her away to live with her Aunt Diana, Ken's own sister. Diana had taken her in and, as far as Ken knew, was treating her well. His sister had tried to get in touch with him since, but – other than to check on his daughter – he ignored her; he didn't need her nagging him about spending so much time on his 'ridiculous and absurd project.' She didn't understand... but she would very soon. His job at the hospital had been dealt with similarly; he had missed too many days of work, and even when he had shown up his focus was on The Gift and what work he still needed to do on it. His care of the patients had been poor, so he had resigned before he could have suffered the indignation of being fired. There was still enough money to keep going, although if this model didn't work then his funds would be drained to pay for replacement parts. That wouldn't happen, though, because this time it would work.

Yes, he was just about done. Mere minutes now! Perhaps less. If he just bolted this plate down... yes... and soldered these wires to that panel... and plugged that cable into there...

With a disheartening thunk followed quickly by an inspiring whirring, The Gift lurched on its workbench as power flooded its systems. Various lights and diodes lit up, and a series of reassuring sounds flooded the air. Kenneth sat back from the machine, watching and listening intently to find anything that might be wrong with it. He sat still for several minutes, barely breathing, his eyes and ears focused on nothing but his Gift – Sarah's Gift. His Gift to Sarah. Satisfied it was functioning properly, he let out a long breath and managed a smile. Finally, after nearly three long years of toil, it was complete.

Sarah would be pleased.

He would be pleased to see her reaction.

He would be pleased to see her period. It had been too long... far too long. He missed her, and this Gift was the only way he would be able to see her. There was so much stuff left unfinished, so much he had to tell her...

Ah, but he was getting ahead of himself. Building The Gift was done, yes, but the truly challenging part was yet to come: he still had to deliver it to her. Or, rather, he had to deliver her to it.

For that he had sought out special help. He was a medical doctor – a damn good one, as far as he was concerned – and his interest in technology was mostly just a hobby. He had always been skilled working with machinery, building and designing many devices since childhood, but he had found his true calling in medicine; his interest in the mechanical, however, had never diminished. Thus he was well rounded in the scientific and possessed, he often realized absurdly, the logic required to build The Gift. But there was a part of it he had had no knowledge of, a part of the process he had never even thought possible. Until, of course, he had met that man in the pub...

At first Ken had thought the mysterious old man was absolutely crazy, and even now he was sure the man wasn't fully fit in the head, but some of what he had said made sense. Or seemed to, anyways; Ken realized he was probably grasping at straws, desperate to find a way to see his precious wife again, but the old man was so sure of what they discussed that Ken would have had a hard time not believing him. The first night had been merely an introduction; only a month after Sarah had left him, he had gone to McKinnon's Pub immediately after work and gotten drunk. He had met the old man, they had shared several drinks, and the discussion turned to his wife... and eventually how Ken might be able to get her back. The next day he had almost forgotten, but – barely able to function in his rampaging hangover – he had gone back to the pub... and there had been the old man, sitting hunched at the bar exactly as Ken had found him the night before. They sat and discussed further details, and the old man gave him a book. And a warning: he was delving into something "far more powerful and dangerous than anything the world of known science could prepare you for." Ken had listened to those words and had been momentarily deterred, but his desire to meet with Sarah again was strong. This new and profane knowledge, an old and weathered book, and heavy words of caution under his belt, Ken had left the pub and set to work immediately. He had never seen the old man again.

But his mysterious companion's descriptions of what he needed to do remained crystal clear in his mind – he could recall every detail, every individual word. He had even written it all down in a journal just to be safe, and that journal was close at hand on the workbench... but he wouldn't need it. No, Kenneth Andrusko would perform it all from memory. He wasn't sure if the ritual would actually work, but he was certain he would do it exactly as described to him; he had faith in himself, and was hoping his faith in the old man was well placed.

Only one way to find out: it was time for The Ritual. It seemed a fairly straightforward procedure, albeit a ridiculously far-fetched one. A part of Ken honestly thought it was a crock of shit, but most of him believed it; perhaps it was his desperation, perhaps the old man had merely convinced him with his absolute sureness, perhaps there were elements of the procedure that he couldn't distinguish that made it at least seem plausible. Whatever the case, he had come this far and he would go through with it. Turning back was not an option; years of planning and work, his job lost, his daughter gone... all would have been a waste if he stopped now.

Time to begin. Ken lifted The Gift so that it rested on the bottom of its cylindrical core; he had been working with it laying along its length as it made access to the innards easier. Up straight on the work table, the appendages – the arms and legs – hung limply from their joints attaching them to the core – the body. The crude face was now eye-level with him. The blue lenses covering the eye-pieces were cool and emotionless – it was a machine, of course it lacked emotion. And yet its vague resemblance of a human demanded that it be viewed as more than just a machine... that it be treated as a living creature. Ken stopped for a moment and just stared into those eyes, struggling with the thought of this thing essentially becoming a living being; inorganic – artificial – but with the same thoughts, cognitions, beliefs... emotions... as something alive. As a human.

As Sarah.

Could he really turn this crude, potentially flawed machine into his dear beloved wife? It was a horrible looking creation – device. Would he still be able to love her if she inhabited it?

Of course he would. She was his wife – looks were unimportant. He loved her, would always love her, and would have her back any way he could. Besides, if it really did become an issue, he could improve her. As horrible as that sounded, it was true; with more work he could even someday recreate this shell into a life-like replication of Sarah. If not, so be it. He would live with and love this metallic visage if it held Sarah within.

Enough thinking, enough brooding. It was time for action. 1:03 p.m. now. But the time no longer mattered; there was still plenty of it left this Christmas Day – this day, exactly seven years since he had met and instantly fell in love with Sarah Marie Walker. What better day than that to bring her back to life? The anniversary of their wedding, perhaps, or Amanda's birthday, but those were months away. He had planned her re-birth for Christmas Day, and by God it would happen today.

The mechanical body – a bland cylinder cut from pieces of a metal barrel for the trunk; spindly combinations of hydraulic hoses, pumps, and rods for the arms and legs; and a jumble of wires, vacuum tubes, and custom-made circuitry crammed into an angular, skeletal frame for the head – was now only an empty shell: it was, essentially, a useless waste of space and energy. There was no control unit, no artificial intelligence to command the body. But the special crystal – the hardest piece of The Gift to secure, the one that had cost the most money and at least one life to get – as described by the old man, resting in a special cradle in the chest, would soon hold within it Sarah's soul. Her soul, caught from the grim reaches of the afterlife.

Ken was not an especially religious man, but he had been raised a Christian. He believed that there was a heaven and a hell, but had never thought much about it – he would worry about that when death took him. The old man had shattered that belief. He told Ken there was no heaven nor a hell: there was only an endless void where peoples' souls went after they died. The souls drifted aimlessly and unconsciously through this gray region for all eternity – unless something were to bring them back to the living world. The Ritual he described to Ken was just that something: assuming he performed it properly, Ken would release Sarah's soul – everything Sarah was in life, minus her old body – from that endless void and bring her back to the world she belonged to. He would only have to try it and see if the old man hadn't just been bull-shitting him.

The procedure was quite simple: from the tattered book the old man had given him, Ken would read aloud an incantation while drawing – with blood, his own blood – a circular design on the floor (the old man hadn't specified the floor, but Ken wanted to make sure he had enough room). If he did it correctly, the picture he created would actually move of it's own accord and parts of the circle would align themselves into another design. He would continue reading another passage from the book – a part of which he would specify Sarah's name – and then the procedure would be finished.

Ken had practiced reading the incantation – in pieces; he never read the whole thing at once, lest he begin the ritual prematurely – and was confident he could say it properly. It was in a language he had never seen before, but the words – or phrases – were easy enough to pronounce. Every time he had practiced it, however, his heart hadn't been hammering. He was nervous now, his heart-rate quickened, a cold sweat broken out. After so long, he would finally perform The Ritual.

He took a deep breath, opened the old book on the workbench beside the empty, mechanical shell that would be Sarah, and began. The lines flowed out of his lips perfectly, read aloud exactly as they should have been. Dimly, Ken felt like he wasn't speaking, but rather something else was speaking through him. Someone else, perhaps. But as soon as that thought entered his head, Ken pushed it aside – he had to focus. He was doing this of his own accord, not by the will of some mysterious force. He was in control.

Finished the first passage, his guttural words filling the air, Ken grabbed a small knife and pushed it deep into the thumb of his right thumb. He would have preferred to inflict the cut onto his left thumb, but thought he would have better control of the drawing with his right. Blood immediately escaped the wound, and, picking up the book with his left hand, bent to the floor. He ran his thumb slowly over the cool bricks, reading mostly from memory now, laying the blood in a circle roughly two-feet in diameter. When the outer ring was complete, he drew in it a smaller circle, and then in this smaller ring he made a star. Still speaking, occasionally glancing at the book, Ken made five specific and unique shapes between the inner and outer rings at each point of the star. Whereas the circles were obviously circles and the star was obviously a star, these five shapes were nothing Ken had ever seen before having looked in the old man's book. He had practiced them many times, however – had practiced the entire drawing many times, in fact, until he was positive he could do it all from memory. As he worked now, his attention between book and drawing, Ken was sure he was doing it right. The last part of the design was an eye in between two points of the star. The way Ken drew it, it seemed to stare directly at him, and he felt a brief moment of irrational fear; he felt as though the eye suddenly had come alive and was watching him.

Finished the drawing, Ken stood and continued reading. A few lines later, he stopped, and watched in fascination as the five shapes and the two outer rings did indeed move on their own. The blood lines just slid across the bricks of the floor, each of the five shapes coming to rest at a different point of the star. The eye, that dark and piercing eye, began to glow faintly, then it closed – Ken had not drawn a lid for it, and yet one appeared and covered it so that there was just a red, oval streak of blood. The rest of the drawing then began to glow, and Ken took this as the sign to continue speaking aloud from the book.

The next passage was fairly short. In it, designated by a blank line on the paper, Ken was supposed to mention Sarah's full birth-name. He had the sudden worry that just her name wouldn't be enough information – what if there had been another Sarah Marie Walker that had died? But surely there was some other magic happening in this ritual that could tell exactly which Sarah he meant; there were many things he didn't fully understand about all of this, so it was very possible. Yes, that did make sense – the old man would have told him to be more specific otherwise. There didn't seem to be a place in the text to fit in any more details anyways.

As soon as he said her name aloud, carefully enunciating all of it, the pentagram and its rings on the floor flashed a vibrant orange. Tendrils of light started to rise up from the drawing, reaching towards the crystal cradled inside the robotic skeleton. It was working! Ken's pulse quickened even more, now because of excitement, not worry. He kept his pace of reading slow and steady though, not wanting to ruin The Ritual when he was so close. So close to being with his sweet Sarah again! Minutes – no, seconds!

Ken uttered the last line. He held his breath, simply watching the almost organic-looking tendrils (tentacles) of light wrap around and encase the crystal, which had just started to give off a faint glow of its own. The light from the drawing on the floor faded, and the last of the beams it had given off slowly drifted up on- and into the crystal heart. When the last one disappeared, the rough-edged stone suddenly flashed, a flare so brief that Ken didn't have a chance to cover his eyes to protect them from the intense light. A white spot appeared directly in his vision, and he tried to blink it away. Curse his eyes! He rubbed at them, willing the – hopefully only – temporary blindness away.

He heard a sudden cacophony of mini-hydraulic and pneumatic pumps in front of him, a bizarre clink, then was suddenly hit in the chest – hard – and was thrown sideways into a shelf. He struck his head on the frame, his body slammed into the shelves, and the array of parts and tools on them rained down upon him as he fell to the floor. The blow seemed to replace the large, white spot in his eyes with many smaller, black ones. He was aware of a sharp pain in his back, just below his ribcage, and he felt with one hand, found a screwdriver stabbed a good inch into his flesh. Acting without conscious thought, he yanked the tool out and tossed it aside. He then stood – shakily – and looked through his partially-clouded vision to see what had hit him.

There, standing directly above the pentagram on the floor, was The Gift. No, not The Gift anymore: there stood his wife. There stood Sarah. Her mechanical body was in a pose that was very much human, slightly crouched, feet spaced apart, her arms bent in front of her. The stance was almost aggressive, and Ken suddenly realized that being torn from death – and whatever horrors might lurk after life – like that would make anyone react instinctively, and Sarah had always been a fighter. Her robotic gaze darted around the room, finally settling on him.

"Sarah..." he said quietly, slowly moving closer to her. "Sarah, it's me, Ken."

He had installed a single microphone in the head-casing to be used as an ear. It seemed to be working, because she cocked her head to the side, the way a curious puppy would do, as soon as he spoke.

"Do you not recognize me?" Ken asked. He took another tentative step forward, but Sarah was moving backwards now. Why was she so afraid? Could her memories of him have been forgotten? Or did she just think it was some sort of trick, some false vision of her husband that Death would taunt her with? So many possibilities, none of which Ken could even begin to try and answer by himself. If she would only respond...

"You," she suddenly said, raising a metal hand to point at him. There was an amplifier from a radio in her chest cavity (it had been too big to fit into the head). The quality was poor, the voice coming through tinny and rough. But even undistorted, Ken could tell that that voice wasn't Sarah's.

He suddenly regretted having performed the ritual.

"You brought me here," the voice said. It was cold and raspy, seeming to suck the warmth out of the air with every word. Ken could not recognize it, and he had a terrible feeling that it wasn't even a human voice.

This wasn't his wife. It wasn't even human – he couldn't explain how he knew that, he just did. He wanted to scream, to simply turn and run. But he couldn't – he had created this... thing, and he would have to stay and face it. He swallowed down the bubbling terror that was building in his stomach and replied with a "Yes."

The mechanical demon – for that's what Ken deemed it must be – stepped forward and bent its face towards him. The glowing blue eyes, once so emotionless and simply artificial, had become full of malice and hate. Of evil. They pierced into his own gaze – into his soul – and Ken barely contained his scream. He merely whimpered and cowered, and at this the horrible thing drew back slightly.

And began to laugh.

It started quietly, indistinguishable as a laugh; it sounded like some sort of repetitive feedback. It quickly grew louder and clearer, turning into a dark mockery of a very human sound. Without any lungs, the mechanical body didn't shudder with the laughter, but when it reached its peak – an uncontrollable, braying guffaw – the demon clutched at its chest cavity and leaned backwards. Abruptly it finished, and Ken – cowering against the shelf he had been thrown into – flinched.

He flinched again, this time more severely, when the machine suddenly lunged at him. It stopped just in front of him, once again bringing its crude, emotionless – no, now sinister – face close to his. It seemed to sniff, which was absurd; Ken hadn't included any olfactory senses. Nevertheless, a definite sniffing sound emanated from the speaker in its chest cavity.

"Weeaaak..." the demon crooned, moving back slightly. It was crouched in a very animal pose, and the way it moved reminded Ken of chimpanzees he had once seen at the zoo. But the way it had laughed had been so eerily human...

"You are weak," it said, jabbing a finger (Ken had built each hand with three simple digits) into his arm. "Pathetic. But you can be of further use to me."

It raised its own arm and studied it. "Who am I to say you are pathetic? Look at this spindly shell you have trapped me in." It slammed a fist down onto the floor – and the thin fore-arm snapped; Ken had made the body functional, but intended to make it more resilient once The Ritual had been completed. Those evil blue eyes bored into his own again, and it raised its now limp and useless arm in front of him. "Garbage. You will fix it – fix me. Make me better. Then..." Judging from his tone, Ken imagined the monster would be spreading a smile across its face if it could.

A dark, sinister smile.

"Then," the demon continued, "we have other business to attend to." It stood to its full height – an fairly unimpressive six feet – and stood over Ken. While it wasn't especially tall, it towered over Ken sitting on the floor. "You are mine now. You will do as I say."

He surprised himself by saying, "Or else what? What if I don't do what you want?"

The thing stared at him for a few moments, then said, "Your wife. Sarah Marie Walker." He paused again. "She still awaits in Alyschiae – in the void between life and her final destination, be it heaven or hell. Yes... the withered corpse that gave you my book only gave you half of the truth.

"If you disobey me..." The voice somehow grew even more menacing. "I will see to it that the gates of heaven are sealed for her, for your precious wife, and she shall spend eternity in the fires of hell. Her ultimate fate lies in your hands, Kenneth."

He did not know what to think. The old man had told him there was no heaven or hell – but now this monster claimed there was! Not only that, but it had control, or at the very least an influence, on who went where. A part of him – a strong part – told Ken that he should not help this creature no matter the conditions (it lies!), that he needed to destroy it. But there was that voice inside him that yelled – screamed – for him to do whatever he could to ensure Sarah's place in paradise. If he could not bring her back to life, he would then do the next thing best thing and save her from an eternity of pain and suffering. The only way to do that, it seemed, was to relinquish himself as a slave to this hell-spawn, which would effectively decide his own damnation.

"Fine," he muttered, feeling sick. So many thoughts and emotions were washing over him, it was hard to focus. "I'll do it." He looked up and met the demon's gaze. "I'll help you."

"I knew you would."

"But you will let her into heaven if I do."

The possessed machine stared at him and laughed harshly. "I have no control over that realm. Be grateful I will spare her from hell. What happens to her after that... it is not mine to decide." It paused. "Have you changed your mind, Kenneth?"

He swallowed. He had tried, but that seemed to be the best he would get out of this demon. "No."

"Good. Now..." The robotic gaze shifted to its broken arm. "We have work to do. You have work to do."

Ken wanted to crawl into a deep, dark hole and never come out. Not only had he wasted the past three years of his life, but he had given up his daughter, he would he never see Sarah again, and now he was the Devil's Advocate – or close enough. But he numbly moved over to the workbench and started reaching for tools. The mechanical abomination walked over and lay down without a word, giving Ken easy access to its snapped limb. He began unbolting it from the body.

"Do not worry, Kenneth," the thing said, its voice softer now, but still unsettling. "You are merely a servant – not a pawn. I will keep you from harm's way... mostly. You are the genius of my... operation." Its tone became almost awed. "Very soon we will have more join our party."

Then, whispered so quietly that Ken almost didn't hear, "And the key."