Chapter Nineteen — The Orrery
The most dangerous thing about Mechaniacal was that he seemed so reasonable.
Isaac knew that couldn’t be true. The tinker was a supervillain, one terrifying enough that he’d been imprisoned on the moon decades before Isaac was born. He couldn’t shake the sense that he was being led by the nose, and he had to double and triple check that he wasn’t accidentally using his power to reinforce that feeling.. After his successful failure with the Great Kings, he was all too aware of how easy it might be to railroad himself into something he didn’t want.
“Really, the persistence is the most fascinating aspect,” Mechaniacal said, surveying a bank of sensor readouts that were complete gibberish to Isaac.
“I’ve tried to get rid of it, actually,” he volunteered, sitting next to Sarah – or maybe it was Scheherazade – in a chair that was far too comfortable for being made of metal. Some tinker magic, he assumed. “But it isn’t something I’ve been able to change, ironically.”
“I think learning to do so would be about as difficult as learning to break your own arm by flexing,” Mechaniacal said judiciously. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Powers are complex things, existing in a balance within themselves.” He looked away from the sensors long enough to make a weighing gesture with both hands, tilting back and forth. “Modifying the nature of a power itself is a tricky business, especially something so deeply intrinsic.”
“Still something to keep in mind,” Isaac said, not entirely willing to let go of the idea. “I don’t like the idea of leaving altered things lying around just because I can’t get back to fix them.”
“Is that not just life?” Mechaniacal asked, and Isaac couldn’t tell if it was rhetorical or not. “In fact, it’s rare that you can change something you’ve done. Too many supers are careless with their powers simply because there is a temporary nature to them. Tinkers, though, we have to be careful. As do you.”
Beside him, Sarah stirred briefly, and while her face didn’t change he could tell by the way she held her arms that she was annoyed. Sarah was an excellent counter-example to Mechaniacal’s argument; her powers were definitely temporary, but he certainly wouldn’t call her careless. He had to admit that the words would have landed harder only a few months ago, however, when he was still focused on Glorybeam and Blacktime. Before he’d actually met some supers that were worth respecting.
“Sure, okay,” Isaac said, squeezing Sarah’s hand in reassurance. “But you’re doing fine is not useful advice to get my power under control.”
“You are correct,” Mechaniacal said. He reached into the morass of toggles and switches that comprised one of the myriad control boards around the workshop, past gears and axles to pull a lever. A section of workbench separated out with a pneumatic hiss, bearing an array of racked tools and trays of cogs, casings, glass beads, and other mechanical miscellanea. “I find the most useful thing is information. While I cannot give you a perfect rendition of your power’s effects, I can at least produce something that will help you analyze it. Intuition and practice take you only so far without an objective tool.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Isaac said, a little surprised that Mechaniacal’s approach was so pragmatically mundane. As the supervillain began assembling something on the workbench, however, he was certain that mundane wasn’t the proper word to describe anything the man created.
Mechaniacal’s hands moved with rapid, machine-like precision as he selected components from the workbench and began assembling them. So far as Isaac could see, each component was perfectly mundane, though he had no idea what half of them were called. Yet as they came together over the course of a few seconds, he felt a growing unease. It was the exact same feeling he’d gotten when working at the hospital and he caught a glimpse of someone with a gaping wound or the like, seeing things that shouldn’t be exposed to the air.
Then Mechaniacal closed the casing of the device, and the discomfort vanished. Isaac blinked, and recognized the shape of the thing as a silver pocket watch, complete with chain — though obviously it didn’t exactly tell time. The supervillain wound the back with an oddly-sharped key, ratcheting a hidden spring with series of clicks before he tossed the accessory to Isaac, who nearly fumbled the catch.
Instead of the dial being the usual time encoding, it was just a blank white face with a thin black circle. Even as he examined it, a series of soft ticking noises heralded a piece of the dial rearranging itself, a small potion of the watch turning into a spike that reached nearly out to the bezel. Sarah leaned over to look at it, her shoulder resting against his, and he tilted it so she could study the dial.
“There’s too many variables when it comes to the conceptual realm to actually track them properly,” Mechaniacal said, his tone taking on the cadence of a lecturer. Or a supervillain on a rant. “This will at least give you a general idea. The spikes indicate magnitudes of different probability deviations from base reality, which is not solely your power, but will likely be the one you encounter most often.”
“That definitely will help,” Isaac admitted, as he’d been at a loss for any kind of objective reference for conceptual power use. He didn’t quite know how he’d apply it just yet, but considering that he’d invested in himself, it at least did register something. Out of curiosity, he dialed down his own ontological inertia, very slowly, and watched the watch tick quietly as the sharp spike on the dial receded back toward the center.
“Excellent!” Mechaniacal clapped his hands together, moving with far more vigor than his apparent age suggested. “Then let us be off. I don’t believe there is anything left in the Deep Kingdoms?”
“As long as everyone else got to Endymion,” Sarah said, clearly still worried over James. “And I hope Gratin is okay.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Mechaniacal said, reaching into the mess of mechanical bits that was a control panel and making some adjustments. “I believe that your friend Gratin is already here.” One section of the wall reconfigured itself into a display made up of thousands of tiny dots on the end of armatures, showing the lizard-man waiting in the vestibule where Isaac and Sarah first arrived.
“Thank you for letting him in,” Sarah said.
“Oh, I didn’t,” Mechaniacal said cheerfully. “He got in on his own, and I specifically have anti-crystaltech defenses, so isn’t that interesting? But he’s a polite fellow, so he can come with us.”
“Come with you where?” Isaac asked, something about the way Mechaniacal spoke making him think it wasn’t Star City.
“Somewhere you can help me stop something terrible from happening,” Mechaniacal said, and after a moment Isaac realized he was serious. A twist of a dial engaged something deep within the tower, thrumming through the walls as the supervillain activated some sort of massive engine in the bowels of his lair. Then, as if the thumping vibration was nothing to be concerned about, he strolled over to the exit of the laboratory, where a little mechanical hand fetched his hat from storage and returned it to Mechaniacal’s head. Isaac exchanged a look with Sarah as Mechaniacal let the silence stretch, apparently perfectly willing to wait for Isaac to reply.
“And what exactly do you mean by that?” Isaac didn’t like the sensational words at all. Mechaniacal seemed to be almost theatrically exuberant, but he very obviously wasn’t a fool. The supervillain spun his cane and beckoned them to follow him back to the waiting room.
“I’ve been to several different timelines, and seen some very terrible things happen,” Mechaniacal began, strolling out of the corridor with the pair of them in tow. Across the way, the elevator dinged and Gratin popped out, the little lizard-man lifting a cheerful hand in greeting. “You well know what happened when Glorybeam and Blacktime contested each other, the devastation that resulted. Imagine, if you will, a reality where by simple chance an otherwise inconsequential supervillain ruined a favored vase of Glorybeam’s mother in a minor scuffle, and so she moved to the Isle of Leaves. In that reality, when they finally met, they were tempered by far different things, and were both far more powerful, and less careful. More willing to use what they have to the utmost.”
“They might level a country,” Isaac muttered, feeling like the example was a little too pointed.
“Or worse!” Mechaniacal agreed. “There are shadows and echoes of these kinds of disasters all around us, spun out from the skein of reality. Most will not come to pass, but any that do might destroy the whole world. I have no intention of letting that happen.”
“That is a very large undertaking yes,” Gratin said, joining the conversation without a hint of awkwardness. The little guy was clearly nowhere as harmless as he looked, given that he’d somehow managed to break into Mechaniacal’s tower.
“I am a supervillain, after all,” Mechaniacal said, twirling his cane and then tapping it on the floor. A section of it opened up, carpet and all, and another control panel lifted out, though Mechaniacal merely flipped one lever. With a hiss and a click, the nearby wall slid away, leaving a window looking out into black nothingness. “Professor Mechaniacal, only survivor of a dead timeline and witness to calamities beyond comprehension. Ones that will not happen here, not now.”
The view outside the window became more clear as his eyes adjusted, the blackness resolving itself into stars and colored points of light. Then faint spheres, shimmering in the darkness, and finally the sun itself hove into view, showing where they were. Floating in space, far from the Earth and the Moon, which were visible as two slightly brighter dots enclosed in soap-bubble spheres of empyrean crystal.
“Okay, this is new,” Sarah muttered at his side, grabbing for her notebook to write down what she was seeing. Isaac didn’t blame her. Seeing the sights of the Hollow Earth was one thing, but viewing the solar system spread out before them at such a distance, even to the point of seeing the Earth’s sphere in its entirety, was something different. He could spot the red glint of Mars, where the Iron Shiekh and his legions indulged in their endless flower-wars. The distant, glow of Saturn, where chandelier cities hung above and below the broad ring, populated by dark and uncertain peoples only a few supers had ever encountered.
And that was just what was published, freely available in the public library. There had to be other things out there, other beings and civilizations protected behind their own walls of empyrean crystal, as yet unbreached by fate or circumstance. Then he blinked, because that certainly wasn’t what he would normally think, but it seemed Sarah was having an effect on him. Maybe one made more firm by the amount of inertia he’d shoved into himself before coming, reinforcing who he was and who he wanted to be.
“It is glorious, is it not? Worth saving, I think, even with all the difficulties.” Mechaniacal waved his cane at the display and then used it to press a few buttons on his control panel. The view swiveled, this time to something closer. A station, hanging in the void, built of steel and glass and obviously shattered and twisted, broken from some long-ago calamity.
“When Teraton defeated me, he destroyed what he found. Which was for the best, really. I was too focused on what I was doing, not thinking of the long-term consequences. Not fully considering the best way to accomplish my goals. A long sabbatical was just what I needed to gain a better perspective.” Mechaniacal regarded the wrecked station with a wistful look, and Isaac had a sinking feeling in his gut. Everyone who had ever read a comic or watched a news broadcast knew what was coming.
“But now I have that perspective, and I have some additional help!” Mechaniacal beamed and pointed at the wrecked station with his cane. Like a magician’s trick, it began shuddering and shifting, damaged sections coming apart and rearranging themselves into new construction in complex mechanical origami. “And Teraton only destroyed what he found. The secret heart remained intact.”
“And what does this station do?” Sarah sounded unimpressed, and she looked unimpressed, but Isaac knew that she was not happy by how tightly she was holding his hand.
“A long time in the past, a famous tinker said, give me a lever and a place to stand, I will move the world.” Mechaniacal planted his cane on the floor, regarding the transforming space station. “He never realized that vision, but I have. This is lever. This is the place. Welcome to Point Archimedes, my personal gateway to The Cosmic Orrery.”
“And…” Isaac licked suddenly dry lips, watching the mad tinker construct through the window. This was the second time he’d been on the receiving end of a tinker’s interest, and he wasn’t enjoying the experience, even if this time he wasn’t being shot at. “And how exactly can I help you with that?”
“Permanent changes,” Mechaniacal answered succinctly. “And not to mention, with the proper leverage, a change in inertia here or there can alter an entire mechanical system. I’m sure you understand.”
“All too well,” Isaac said, already trying to think of some way to get out of things. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like Sarah could take them to safety with her smoke, and he doubted that whatever Gratin had used to get around the Deep Kingdoms worked out in the vacuum of space. Mechaniacal didn’t need any special containment to keep them from trying to escape when sheer distance would do it for him.
The station swelled in the window, until the tower’s shadow cut across the steel, rendering it night-dark as a series of thumps vibrated through the room. They had arrived, and time was rapidly running short to decide what he was going to do to hopefully avoid putting Mechaniacal in charge of the entire world. Or however the supervillain wanted to couch it.
“I have to admit, Blacktime never went this big,” Sarah muttered at his side. “I think he only ever thought about the Five City Alliance.”
“Blacktime is exceedingly competent, and knows what his limits are. Mostly.” Mechaniacal responded before Isaac could. “Running the world like he runs his criminal empire would be a fool’s errand, so why even try? But I don’t intend to rule the world, or even run it. Merely adjust it a bit. Ensure that the worst doesn’t come to pass.”
“The world seems to have been doing fairly well so far,” Isaac pointed out.
“Has it?” Mechaniacal asked.
“We’re all still here.”
“For now.” Mechaniacal smiled enigmatically, then tapped his cane against the floor and strode toward the window. The glass and metal of the wall split apart, separating along invisible seams and folding back to reveal a hallway with a gust of air still chilly from deep space. “Perhaps I can’t take unilateral credit for many things, as it’s impossible to prove a negative. But I haven’t done nothing, and some threats that you never knew about were disarmed before they could rise to notice.”
“Great King Zys did notice some oddities about fifty years ago yes,” Gratin said, more to himself than them. Isaac was less credulous, since he didn’t know how anyone could tell if Mechaniacal had done something in particular through the usual morass of superhero and villain clashes, not to mention the other background noise of mole-man invasions or extradimensional incursions. It was easy to take credit for something that had turned out well in hindsight, though that was more often something he saw from the people who couldn’t do anything with their lives. Mechanical’s obvious ability did make him more credible, even if Isaac was hesitant to grant the villain any kind of grace.
“I’m not sure I entirely understand what you mean to do with the Orrery,” Isaac said instead, fishing for more monologue. He wasn’t sure why villains were so happy to share their plans, but it clearly was a real phenomenon. “I don’t even know what it does.” In fact, he wasn’t even certain it was a physical thing, as opposed to some purely conceptual creation like justice or truth.
“It keeps the world spinning on,” Mechaniacal said as he led them through a bare metal corridor into an interior that was still being assembled. Wall panels moved on pistons and armatures, furniture was deposited through chutes poking through ceiling tiles, and strange colored rays played over the floor, resulting in carpet sprouting a moment later like some alien foliage. Another articulated arm lowered an odd appurtenance that looked like nothing more than a whisk made out of glass, and ran it along one wall in quick strokes. The metal crystallized with a sound like freezing ice, revealing the vast panoply of space.
It was all far more absurd than anything they’d seen in Mechaniacal’s tower — but then, this was clearly a true lair, something built over a long time and holding the pinnacle of what the old tinker had been able to create. The far walls kept unfolding out ahead of them, accompanied by puffs of gas and the thumping of compressors as warm air blew out of newly-created grates. There was an odd curvature to the walls and floor, inducing the feeling of an optical illusion without any apparent cause.
Soon enough another window came into view, showing a similar view as the one they’d had from the tower, of the sun and the planets spread out as distant, glowing specks, with one great big difference. Ghostly gears and armatures spread out over the incredible distances, a machine of staggering complexity and impossible size, moving and spinning in ways far beyond Isaac’s comprehension. Even seeing it as he was, he had the feeling that he was only grasping the merest fraction of what there was to see.
It wasn’t just that the sheer scale boggled the mind. There was the feeling that he was glimpsing secrets man was never meant to know, connections and directions that beggared the imagination. It was almost painful, and while the stories implied such views should inspire revelations, he didn’t get anything useful from it himself. If anything, he was just overwhelmed by the idea of doing anything to or about it.
“The Cosmic Orrery,” Mechaniacal proclaimed, looking out the window fondly. “Or the Grand Orrery, if you prefer, for those without a sense of poetry. Far, far too large and profound for any mortal to truly comprehend, and yet—”
“Doesn’t that mean you don’t actually comprehend it?” Isaac interrupted, latching onto the supervillain’s maniacal rant. “If there’s anything I’ve learned, there are a lot of side effects from messing with systems you don’t understand.”
“A good point,” Mechaniacal said cheerfully. “That was indeed one of the issues that confronted me, when I first conceived my plan. I dedicated myself to study for years, but even that is not quite sufficient. So I did what any tinker would do — I made a device.” He rapped his cane against the floor again, and a large section by the window irised open. A spherical cage emerged, an armillary sphere made up of multiple rings of gears and crystal, with an ordinary-looking chair at the center.
“For a brief time, this will enhance my cognition, understanding, and even my intrinsic power. A fleeting thing, leaving only a fading dream of knowledge behind, but for that moment I will be able to grasp the Orrery. Make adjustments, enhancements, reinforcements.” Mechaniacal looked momentarily lost in his own imaginings, and Isaac considered very briefly whether he should make a move. Even if Mechaniacal had replaced his blood with sprockets, the supervillain ought to be just as vulnerable as the giant ikiski to that kind of attack.
Then he shook it off. There was no way that Mechaniacal was actually vulnerable, despite the lack of any apparent protection. For all Isaac knew, the power gauge that was resting in his pocket could explode and kill him at any moment, or more likely, simply incapacitate him. Not to mention Sarah and Gratin would likely be collateral for anything that happened.
“Think of it,” Mechaniacal said, gesturing at the chair of power. “Instead of dealing with people – as dangerous, unpredictable, and fallible as they are – I can manipulate the underlying mechanisms of the universe. The rules by which all things are governed. There’s no need to finesse people with unrestrained power, or sort through every awakening, if I can put in guiderails enforced by reality itself.”
“That sounds complicated,” Isaac said cautiously, not wanting to try and argue with the supervillain mid-rant. He was all too aware they were relying on Mechaniacal’s good graces for their own comfort and safety.
“Oh, it may take some adjustment to get right, but that’s one of the best things about the permanence that your power demonstrates. I wouldn’t rely on one single, sweeping change that reinvents the way the Orrery works. I can make small changes, rendered stable by your power, and move from there. Iteration is key for any process, and now I have the chance! A chance to engage with the Orrery in the time and space it deserves, to see the ultimate ends of my tinkering.”
Isaac bit back a comment on such an extravagant vision. Obviously, it wouldn’t go as well as Mechaniacal believed, though it seemed depressingly possible that it would be close. But close wasn’t good enough, even if Isaac believed in Mechaniacal’s vision of altering the machinery of nature. Which he didn’t. Mechaniacal had to be stopped.
Which meant it was up to them. So far as Isaac could tell, they were the only ones who could do anything. He couldn’t rely on the various sovereigns of Earth showing up somehow, since they probably didn’t have the faintest inkling Mechaniacal was here. But one thing he had learned was that sometimes, you had to do something because you were the one who was there.
“It will require some tweaks to incorporate your power,” Mechanical continued, running his fingers along one of the outside rings. “But we will be able to start soon enough. The amenities here are somewhat less modern than what you may be used to, I admit, but you can at least have some rest and refreshment while I work.” He waved his cane back in the direction where they’d come, as a fairly opulent living room was almost fully assembled. There was even a bar to one side, with series of mechanical hands attached to a rack above that seemed to serve as bartender.
“Less modern,” Sarah muttered in a mocking tone as a carriage emerged from the wall, laden with supplies and tools, and trundled over to Mechaniacal. “Mom would be impressed.” Isaac cast another glance at Mechaniacal before taking the opportunity to accompany Sarah to the living room, out of easy earshot of the tinker. He had to imagine Mechaniacal could listen in, but couldn’t do anything about it.
“He seems a bit dramatic yes,” Gratin said, his short legs working double-time to keep pace with them.
“So,” Isaac said, when they reached the bar. “We can’t let him just do this. Right?”
“Seems like a bad idea,” Sarah agreed, leaning against the bar and tapping it with her kiseru. “What’s the plan?”
“Well, we’re definitely out of range of these,” Isaac thought aloud, his hand rising to his collar for the little comm-pin there. “Gratin, I don’t suppose you can get in touch with your Great King from here?”
“Gratin could go only to Iy,” the little lizard-man said as he cast a glance at the void visible through the far window. One without the spectral manifestation of the Orrery. “But that would probably not work from here no.” Isaac grunted; he hadn’t had much hope for reinforcements, but he had to ask.
“So it’s up to us. I gotta say, unless you’ve got something really special up your sleeve, Gratin, I don’t think we can try force.” Isaac knew, roughly, what he and Sarah could do, but unless Mechaniacal left himself defenseless he wouldn’t bet on either of them.
“Gratin is not good at force no,” the little ikiski said. “Mostly good at looking and cooking! He will be remembering everything, but no fighting for him no.”
“Right, so we’ve got illusions and inertia,” Isaac said, tapping his fingers against the wood of the bar in thought. Gratin slipped behind it to select something from the shelves, batting away a mechanical hand as it tried to either help or interfere. “If the illusions fooled Blacktime, they might Mechaniacal — except, I’m not sure what we’d use?”
“I really can’t fake what he’s doing,” Sarah muttered, maybe a little sullen that the details of Mechaniacal’s creations were so outlandish that she couldn’t mimic them. “Let alone whatever he’s going to see when he gets in the chair.” She nodded back toward where the supervillain was working, and where she’d been staring the entire time. Isaac glanced that way and shuddered involuntarily. There was something distinctly ominous about the perch at the center of the complex machinery. As if he could feel the weight of potential. Though considering that he’d been working on feeling out conceptual inertia, there may well be something there.
“If not that, then…” Isaac tried to work through options, blinking when Gratin slid a glass of something dark and bubbling across the bar to him. He picked it up and took a sip, finding it to be Doctor Titanic, one of his favorite sodas. Better, it was the original recipe, not the rebranded new stuff that just tasted like someone trying way too hard to justify a recent promotion.
It was a simple thing, but a fizzy soda did help clear his mind. Maybe it was the sugar, or maybe it was just the taste of home after so long away, but he could practically feel some of his anxiety wash away as he took a couple healthy swallows. He nodded to Gratin and set the glass down on the bar as the little lizard guy poured Sarah an orange cream soda of her own.
“So, we need to convince him,” Isaac said at length. “We can see how it’s blatantly a bad idea, and he’s at least admitted he was wrong before, which is more than you hear from most supervillains.” Or people, for that matter. “Thing is, I doubt he’s going to just give up on something he’s been working at for decades. Or more.” Given that the station alone stretched back at least eighty years, and Mechaniacal was a self-admitted traveler of time and dimensions, there was no telling how long the supervillain had been around.
“So…” Sarah puffed at her kiseru, smoke pluming up around her as she adjusted her hat. It was all illusions, but by now Isaac knew her well enough to know that the fiddling helped soothe her nerves. “When it comes to Dad and Blacktime, usually they won’t accept a flat no. That just doesn’t go well. But I’ve seen people get by with giving them an alternative.”
“Right,” Isaac said thoughtfully, idly spinning his glass where it rested on the bar before taking another drink. Sweet, spiced, a little bit of bite from the carbonation. A taste of home, and a reminder of what was at stake. Not that he needed it, but it never hurt to be grounded. “Thing is, I kinda sympathize with what he wants to achieve. It’s just that getting there…”
“Not ending the world is good yes,” Gratin said as he mixed something for himself, which judging by the bottles involved was exceedingly alcoholic. “It is a constant chore! But his way is dangerous very.”
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Sarah quoted, completing the general sentiment. “It’s great that he wants to stop terrible things, but there’s no world in which messing with the Orrery works out. Why can’t he try to take over the world the normal way?”
“Hah.” Isaac shook his head, watching Sarah twirl the kiseru back and forth between her fingers. “Probably because there are too many superheroes willing to throw down if he does. Or even just metas.” Part of him wondered whimsically what The Living Lift might do in his situation, and concluded that he’d probably lift Point Archimedes off of the Orrery. Or maybe the reverse. “And what he’s doing is different from wanting power, too, which makes it even harder to deal with.”
The chatter was a distraction from the conclusion he had already drawn. There wasn’t any way he could argue Mechaniacal out of the insane plan with simple words. Even if Isaac had a silver tongue – which he didn’t – and even if he pushed inertia into his arguments – which he would – it wouldn’t be enough. He had to have some sort of substance. Something actionable.
He reached for the pocket watch and looked at its dial, the single spike still stretched outward toward the six-o-clock position. There was, of course, the obvious answer. One that he was avoiding because had no desire to be responsible for the entire world. Even temporarily, even theoretically. But it was the only thing he could offer Mechaniacal that might be better.
“Alright,” he said, taking a deep breath and downing the rest of the soda, then thumping his chest to burp out the excess carbonation. “Think I’ve got an idea. I can offer him an alternative to mucking about with the Orrery. Kind of simple, actually. The same thing I’ve been doing this whole time.”
“Oh? Oh!” Sarah’s eyes widened as she understood and thought about it. “That might work. Worth a shot. I guess we can always try something else if it doesn’t.” She glanced over at Mechaniacal, frowning.
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Isaac said, reaching out to pull Sarah into a hug before turning and heading back toward the supervillain.
Mechaniacal was elbow-deep in the bowels of the chair’s mechanics, shifting gears, cogs, springs, and rods with preternatural precision and speed. Different glass and crystal cores were being swapped out, the tinker taking measurements with a bewildering hand-held instrument that had a half-dozen dials and burbled tones from a speaker as Mechaniacal passed it over the connections. He glanced up as Isaac approached, still cheerful despite the fact that he had to know what was coming.
“What can I do for you, Mister Hartson?”
“Look, Mechaniacal—”
“Professor,” the tinker interjected.
“Professor, you know this isn’t going to work,” Isaac said. “No matter what changes you make, no matter how well thought through you think it is, you know it’s going to go badly. You said you were wrong about it before; do you really think that you’ve got every detail nailed down now?”
“If you’re intending to stop me, I believe it is far too late for that,” Mechaniacal said, turning back to his work without any sign of worry.
“Oh, I agree with that,” Isaac said. “It’s just that — the Orrery governs reality, right? Aren’t you part of that? When I tried to apply my power too much to myself, I nearly got stuck, a feedback loop locking me into place. Wouldn’t the same happen to you?”
“It is a risk, I admit,” Mechaniacal said, sounding impressed that Isaac had a genuine objection. “I believe it is one I have designed around, however. As well as my extradimensional nature giving me some degree of insulation from the effect.”
“It’s a hell of a risk when you’re talking about the entire world. Or even more,” Isaac said. “But you’re right that we want to avoid the kinds of superpowered clashes that hurt everyone. So I have an idea, one that might do the same thing without the risk.”
“Oho?” Mechanical turned away from his labors, reaching out to take a rag from the parts trolly and wiping his hands. “Now you have my interest.”
“Instead of boosting you to interact with it, maybe I do it instead. I give it extra inertia — not the physical kind, but ontological inertia. Make it so the Orrery can’t be changed by outside forces. Ensure that the world keeps spinning on.”
“An interesting pitch.” Mechaniacal regarded him, making Isaac feel for an instant like a particularly rare species of bug under a glass. “Though if the world cannot change, that is its own problem.”
“Oh, absolutely, I already ran into that,” Isaac assured him. “I’ve learned that there’s a lot I don’t want to affect, and I absolutely wouldn’t want to stop the world from changing. But if I reinforce the Orrery, and it puts guidelines on the world, I can make it that much harder for anything to break those guidelines. Stop things from threatening the world itself, or for that matter the Orrery directly. Keep anyone from bending or breaking it, undermining or corroding it. Subverting its purpose.” Mechaniacal raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to continue with an open hand, and Isaac took a breath, feeling like he was the one doing the supervillain monologue.
“When I reinforce a wall as a wall, it can still be decorated and changed. But its fundamental nature and purpose remains, and it will resist becoming anything but a wall. That’s what I want to do with the Orrery. There’s a lot of room for movement and evolution there, and it will keep going on and underpin life for everyone as usual, but it will resist anything that would be catastrophic. And it wouldn’t rely on a person to adjust it.”
“Man is both stone and carver,” Sarah quoted, having joined Isaac without his noticing. “I think you’d have to be outside of things for your idea to work, and you’re not. Neither are we, but our way doesn’t try to take control.”
“Some would call it hubris to suggest you can make something that has been there from the beginning of creation more of itself,” Mechaniacal said, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
“No less than trying to take the reins yourself,” Isaac objected.
Mechaniacal stood still for a long moment. Isaac could literally hear clockwork ticking away inside the man, ratcheting faster and faster as the old tinker considered it. The sound of meshed gears reached a fever pitch and then stopped. Mechaniacal smiled.
“We’ll try it your way,” he said.