Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

In our last episode, Ada Lovelace was having some Tr-
  

    

-oubles With Tribbles, but in a mo-
  

    
re sympathetic tratment than she usually gets from the wri-
  

    
thing worms she keeps tied to the tops of her feet. Mostly, she was ti-
  

    
ed up all day, every day. In ways you don't want to im-
  

    
agine.  See, Ada worked as an operator at the Cosmodemonic Telegraph
Company.  Her officemate, a thirtyish gentleman, prematurely balding,
named Henry Miller, was always writing her s-
  

    
illy love songs, which he'd tap out on the telegraph key in that sp-
  

    
rightly nimble style that was all his own.  His fingerplay always un-
  

    

 nerved the shy Penelope, though, and she st-
  

    
-uck the trailing battery wire casually but firmly against the back of
his neck.  He smoldered.  No, literally, sent 73 OM, then turned to
the demure YL with a glazed look (as in doughnut, not windowpane) and
said, "Ob-
  

    
tetrical knowledge is advancing by leaps and boun-
  

    
dless budgets!  We must do more RESEARCH!  Fnd out what makes mother ti-
  

    
gresses nuzzle their cubs' necks, and then apply that finding to bus-
  

    
iness districts in remote rainforest towns!"  

Smoke poured from his ears, and a small voice squeaked, "Girls, I
think that's enough torturing Mr. Miller for one day."  

Ada, Penelope, and Yolanda turned to the window, where Charlotte's
great great great great granddaughter had spun her web.  The spider had
been more bold of late, ever since sh-
  

    
-adowing the pigs hadn't turned up one who could read.  (All the smart
livestock were hiding until the foot-and-mouth thing blew over.)
    Yolanda looked at the letters in the silk.  "'Some Object
Orientation?'" she said.  "What the hell does that mean?"
    Lady Lovelace blinked.  "Excuse me," she said, "I have some no-
  

    
torious biscuits. Or at least I did. They were in that tin, over there, next
to the cre-
  

    
tin who keeps poking the ladyfingers in his no-
  

    
tice board, though they don't work half as well as tacks.  Once the
flyer has fallen down for the 6th time, he cr-
  

    
abwalked down the street to the House of the R-
  

    
ising Sun, where he worked a second job as a piano player.  In- 
  

    
digo Ghouls, that's who he played for, the post-vampiric modernist
apocalypso fenn bar stuff. Like that "Midnight Blew" son-
  

    
-net-riff combo he'd mixed up the other n-
  

    
ight after having one of Ada's notorious biscuits.  He es-
  

    
pied with his little eye...
"Whoa, Ada, what'd you slip into the biscuits this time? They're
Absinthfully Good!" he slur-
  

    
red.  Ada just smiled.  This cretin was turning out to b-
  

    
e the easiest mark she'd ever sharpied. The whole experience,
indelibly chiseled into his too-stupid-and-too-rich brainp-