• 09 Dec, 2025 *

The mice weren’t so lucky. A connected brain seemed like a requirement. Wemly and Utsab went through mice like batteries in a particularly demanding device. Wemly was able to repeat her initial maze experiments but could do nothing to initiate a model transfer. If the device needed to be operated by the wearer, Wemly didn’t see a way out of a human doing the transfer.

Utsab was more optimistic. He had previously run or supervised choice-preference experiments within the Warner lab, and rigged up one of these button selectors to initiate transfer of the model from the mechanism to the server. He tested it by having Wemly rip the escapement mechanism off his neck at the instant he depressed the rectangular switch. It worked. A new file hash and a few hundred kilobytes of transferred data sat on the server, waiting for a health check.

Utsab sat in his chair waiting for the same, a dazed stupor locked on his face, as if some wires beneath the skin had tensed and been unable to unwind. Only physical stimulus and time returned him to what Wemly considered his normal state. Wemly was a horrible clock watcher. Doing something was easy—for instance lopping off heads from horseback—but waiting for the hoof beats to draw near was excruciating, so Wemly set about trying to get a mouse to move some data. She even tried to convince Ada to help, but to no avail. Ada just cycled through, "Uh uh, and no" and kept typing at her laptop as if she had some crazy deadline to meet, which she probably did.

When Utsab was back to conversation, he repeatedly asked what experiment Ada was planning on using the choice-preference device for. Wemly oscillated from concern, to stop fucking with me, back to concern like an engine accidentally accelerated.

Utsab maintained he felt fine, but refused to even put the mechanism back on to check the menu system was still working after rigging the system, so Wemly checked the interface between mice attempts and felt a surge of panic when the cursor swept too close to the transfer button. They were both done being conduits.

"What about seeing if Ada can ..." but Utsab cut her off.

"No. That’s not fair. She’s too fair for that." Ada stopped typing long enough for Utsab to smile. Wemly rolled her eyes, and suggested that he should wait until his luck improved with mice before moving up the species hierarchy.

But nothing worked. No prodding, or food, or ingenious setup allowed the mice to transfer data to the server; they mashed the button for their food reward, but the only change to the files was their last accessed timestamp.

Night tripped over into early morning. Ada left them at 7pm, after Utsab dragged another cage and electronic accouterments into the server room, and her rebukes were dismissed with with a wave of his hand. It was his bad pun regarding bedding that finally got her to close her laptop and leave.

"I literally have no idea what’s happening in here. I wasn’t around," Ada said, and made them both sign the log book confirming her departure time.

They tried until after 2am. When Utsab couldn’t be refueled with various forms of hardened and liquid sugar, Wemly knew it was time to pack it in.

"I need to sleep. I wouldn’t even notice a real change in the files anymore."

"I just feel like I can get it," Utsab said. His eyes were red, but Wemly had seen him in the lab after all-nighters before. Somehow not being a grad student anymore had robbed her of that ability. "You go, I’ll keep at it."

Wemly looked at the mess—the cage, the wood chips littering the floor, extra wires and a cardboard box of parts she had no memory of retrieving.

Utsab could tell she was about to offer to help clean up. "I’ve got it. Get some rest. When you come back I’ll have it solved."

The polite thing to do was refuse the offer, and at least sweep up the wood chips. Maybe it was even the moral thing, but she left without a glance back at the room. The air in the hallway had a roughness to it, and Wemly hated to think of someone unknowingly walking into that humid sweatbox; she tried to blink away tears from the dry air that brought a clarity and safety to her drive home.

---

The next morning when she entered the lab, Utsab was curled under his desk around his rolled up jacket like some feral lab cat. He was a mess; his clothes looked like he had taken them off and dressed in the dark. He awoke at the sound of the lab door closing and bounded to his feet. Never had Wemly seen him so eager to tell her something.

She shook her head but couldn’t keep from smiling. He had done it. This must be how Warner felt all of the time, unable to clearly understand exactly how Utsab had managed a breakthrough, but just glad that it had occurred.

"You fucking did it, didn’t you?"

Utsab beamed. "I fucking did. I didn’t even mean to. I mean, she came on to me—what was I supposed to do?"

"You... what?"

"Yeah, we fucked. But—don’t look at me like that! It was practically a bed by the time she came back anyway."

"What? You mean Ada?"

"Yeah. Of course. Who do you think we’re talking about?"

"I. No one. I thought the mechanism maybe."

A detached part of Wemly was able to recognize the humour in the way Utsab’s face displayed the internal dialogue that his brain reluctantly chugged through. "Oh, fuck. No. No no no. But I was close. At least, it felt that way. I mean, I was feeling good about it. Everything, you know?"

She couldn’t stop from rebuking the child that had attained Golden Boy status in Warner’s—and apparently all the grad students’—eyes. "You’re an idiot."

Utsab nodded. "But I did a good job." And then he laughed and jumped into his chair, rolling back until he hit the side of his desk. "At least Ada thinks so," he said, and waited until Wemly’s glare met his expectant stare.

"C’mon, daylight’s burning. We’ve got problems to solve."

Utsab put his headphones on, and Wemly picked up the escapement mechanism from his desk. The slow pulse of its red light was hypnotic, and its constant temperature comforting, but its secrets remained hidden beneath the flawless shell.

#escapement #novella #scifi #sff #writing