<div align="center"><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/b/bf/Dorset.jpg)</td></tr></tbody></table></div><hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/b/b8/Victorian_miriam.jpg)</div>Early that morning Prudence had bid a good day to her landlady, the widow Mrs. Bickersteth, and left the lace doily sensibilities of the boarding house behind. She had slipped unnoticed past the old biddies clucking their tongues at the dollymops in corsets and French skirts down the road. Where Old Montague Street emerged from a maze of little alleys, where the cranes had set down sixty tonnes of smokestack pipe and never lifted it again, there had been a ladybird, a fancier class of prostitute than the dollymops, burning down a cigarette. There had been the blue-and-white emblem of the Metropolitan Police- two manticores rearing before a shield, beneath the crown of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria- emblazoned on the side of a carriage. And Prue had lingered to see if there were a flesh-and-blood policeman, but had seen none.<br/><br/>There were not many young men left in London. One in seven, some estimates said; one in twelve, the Sheffield Daily Telegraph cried. The war with Germany was a race to annihilation.<br/><br/>Into a dark archway, down an alley whose cobblestone was scarred with deep water-filled grooves Prudence went. Up a narrow stair, squeezed between the tall brick apartments of Osborn Street, she ascended. Damp laundry hung out to dry on the lines above dripped onto the coffee-colored velvet of her gentlewoman's top hat as she worked the brass knocker. A moment later, the door unlocked with a heavy *thunk*, and the blank metal face of a clockwork butler, goggle-eyed and slot-mouthed, appeared in the crack.<br/><br/>"Good morning, Ives." A telescopic hand clumsily grasped Prudence's hat as she handed it over. The clockwork butler gave a reedy whistle and stepped aside to let her in. She kissed his metal cheek, though he was only brass and copper and a juddering steam engine that left him loose in his joints. "Good morning, Dr. DuPont," she spoke cheerfully to the shape glimpsed through the beakers and machinery and the glare of a bright surgical lamp repurposed for reading. She turned down the gas valve to cut its eye-searing intensity as she joined the doctor in the lab.<br/><br/>She pretended that it was no different, to kiss the soft skin of Charlotte DuPont's cheek, than it was to give her automaton a peck. But her lashes batted closed when her lips touched, and her eyes darted away to distract herself with work. It was a good job, working for Dr. DuPont. It was better than Whitechapel afforded most girls, its ladies of the evening. It was noble work, improving the human condition. It was unthinkable to risk that blessing to act on these girlish feelings- everyone had them, didn't they?- a sexual frustration knotted so tight that it simply held her taut form together. It was her job to take dictation, to run errands to the apothecary, to do the work too delicate for Ives, and most importantly, to assist with the subject.<br/><br/>Justine, that was the name on the dossiers. Prudence was drawn to the glass of the enclosed chamber where she slumbered like Sleeping Beauty, recovering from the previous day's surgery. Her fingers were drawn up to the vignetted glass and bands of brass filigree that lent Justine some modesty, and she touched the steam-powered machinery as gingerly as she would the encased woman's own skin. "Are you awake?" she asked, even though the glass muted all sound. "You must be a very strong woman." Her head tilted to follow the angle of the woman's face, and felt she had witnessed Justine's eyes stirring. She retreated from the glass. It was not appropriate for her to watch the subject as she slept, however professionally necessary it might be.<br/><br/>"Dr. DuPont, a government man came to the boarding house last night. Mrs. Bickersteth turned him away, per the house rules on gentleman callers. Yet I gathered, from his protest, that he was from the 'eugenics' department of the London Authority." An oiled leather satchel unfastened on her low-slung belt, and she slipped out a dog-eared handbook of the sciences. A glossy fingernail underlined a term. "<em>Eugenics: </em>the doctrine of progress or evolution, especially in the human race, through improved conditions in the relations of the, ah, sexes." A fine brow knit. "I think perhaps this was about your work, here."<br/><br/>That was when she felt the first tickle in her throat, and hid away her first dainty cough. Was it getting warmer in the lab?