“Whatever you do,” he says, “you should hurry. They are…upset.”
The Old Believer has finished checking the windows. Now he is reaching for Oleg, complaining urgently to him in Slavic. Oleg turns back to the man, both of them gesticulating and speaking in loud whispers.
The hole inside the doll’s chest cavity is ragged around the edges. Whoever did this clearly wanted to remove one part only. I jam a spreader tool between her ribs and pump the handle until her interior is better exposed. The machinery appears undamaged, well preserved these hundreds of years. The missing piece must have supplied power to the rest of the machine.
But there are ways to substitute for a motor.
Ignoring the arguing men, I drag three small plastic cases out of the duffel bag. Cracking the cases open, I array three compact, battery-powered tools on the broad table: a wand, a printer, and a drill.
Kunlun paid for these expensive tools, but they’d never imagined I’d use them like this.
I snatch up the wand-like device and flick a protective plastic nub off its red probe tip, then flip two lenses over my eyes and click on the head-mounted spotlight. The terrain inside the automaton’s chest springs into view, every detail magnified and bright.
The probe enters the hole in the doll’s back, as big as a crane in my lenses. The wand clicks, each tick stumbling over the next like a Geiger counter until finally the steady spatter of clicks indicates the probe has found a scannable area.
I close my eyes and press a button with my thumb. A laser range finder in the tip of the probe spins up, spraying the interior of the doll’s chest cavity with invisible light. It only takes a millisecond and then I’m yanking the headlight off and pulling the thumb drive out of the wand.
“Okay, time to go,” says Oleg, tapping my shoulder.
I shake Oleg’s hand off and jam the thumb drive into a portable three-dimensional printer. Scowling at Oleg, I rest my fingers on top of the rectangular piece of technology. As the surface heats up, I know the device is working.
“One minute,” I say to Oleg. Then, aiming my voice over his shoulder: “I’m packing up, okay? I’m leaving. I’ll finish my work from the pictures.”
With the right fit, I can interface with the gear tooth system inside the automaton. Regardless of whether the power supply is present, this little girl can be activated. She was created before electricity was discovered. Her limbs run on mechanical power—the same kind of good old clockwork stored in a tightened spring.
Or the motor of a drill.
The printer finally spits out a gear-shaped drill bit. I pick it up and rub the plastic between my fingers to get rid of the chaff. I blow on it and the shavings spiral away like cottonwood fluff.
The Old Believer shuffles out of the room.
“Now,” says Oleg. “We go now.”
“Almost,” I say.
Oleg curses in a language I don’t understand.
I pick up the electric drill, a smooth black piece of the future, oiled and heavy in my hands. The freshly printed gear mounts easily on the bit with a twist of my wrist. Pulling the trigger, the drill grinds, humming to itself, rotating the intricately carved artifact in a slow, smooth circle. It took someone months to hand-file this piece three hundred years ago, and thirty seconds for me to re-create it with technology that came out three months ago.
It’s time to meet this little girl face-to-face, wolves or not.
The air pressure shivers as the door to the alcove is yanked open.
The Old Believer has returned with another, even older man at his side. Both are talking rapid-fire, voices rising. Oleg leaps off his chair to deal with them. But I’m not paying any attention. I’m with her, working my way through every gear and lever. I can feel ancient fingerprints on her.
Immersed in the complexity of the doll, I wonder again why people assume the most advanced technology is yet to come. Two hundred thousand years of human history lurk in the darkness behind us; unknown knowledge, gained and then lost. And then, just maybe, regained.
The drill bit clicks into place.
Keeping the drill steady, I lift the doll into sitting position. Her arm is skeletal, reaching out like a dead tree branch. Her porcelain fingers are clasped together like pincers. With my free hand, I drag the elastic hair tie from my ponytail and wrap it around her small fingers, securing a pen to them. I slap down a sheet of paper.
“Here we go,” I whisper.
I pull the trigger on the drill, with the motor set on maximum compliance. It jams, clicking on a sticky gear. I set the torque one notch higher and squeeze again. Slowly, the motor turns. A clicking comes from inside the automaton’s chest. The metal arm shivers, shudders, and then begins to move. The hand dips three times, filling a nonexistent quill pen with ink. Then it moves to the left and drops like the needle on a record player, scribbling in the air.
I push the doll’s body forward so the pen hits paper.
Writing emerges in short, rough strokes. Russian Cyrillic script. Eighteenth century. Now Oleg stands over the desk, breathing heavily, watching in disbelief. More Old Believers have gathered at the door, murmuring to each other in hushed voices.
“Can you read it?” I ask Oleg.
The man’s face is gray.
“I can’t believe you got it working,” Oleg says.
“Read it,” I say again.
With a shaking voice, he begins to speak out loud: “?‘Pyotr Alexeyevich,’?” he says. “?‘Tsar of Moscow, Emperor of Rus,’ honors the formation of a Holy Synod to administer the wealth of God to the Russian people. To honor this occasion, he bequeaths to you this machine, made in the image of man, but with a heart of stone. Let her existence be an eternal reminder to the holy men of the West: all who breathe do not live; all who touch do not feel; and all who see do not judge. Behold the…’?”
“The what?” I hiss.
“?‘The avtomat,’?” he says, lips scarcely touching.
Avtomat.
It’s a uniquely Russian word, meaning “automatic,” but it also means “machine.” Maybe the closest analogue in English is the word robot.
Clack!
The arm reaches the end of its rotation and something snaps. Darkness swallows my peripheral vision and an Old Believer is reaching, his rough hands pulling me away. Muttering a prayer under his breath, he snatches the paper off the desk and jams it in the pocket of his robe. Another priest lifts the doll and carries it away, my drill motor ripping out of her back. A cascade of brass clockwork rains onto the thick carpet.
“Go,” the Old Believer says to us with a heavy accent, eyes burning over his beard. “Go now. Go, please!”
I snatch my camera from the desk, toss the drill and other equipment into the duffel bag at my feet, and shoulder it.