history
Childhood
As a child, Arkwright was surrounded by the wonders of mechaniks and, from the very beginning, was interested in them. Growing up on a street that was shared with a foundry, the rumble of gears and pistons and the smell of steam and smoke was an everyday, usual occurrence, one that he grew to actually enjoy. He remembers well the day his mother would walk him to school and he would look up, a little mechanik bird flying high to deliver a message, or mechanik horses pulling carts, jaws exhaling steam and smoke and bellies alight with the glow of fire, the scent of carbon everywhere, all of the time. If they were lucky, sometime they might board the CityCenti; a huge mechanik centipede that one could pay to ride to their destination, and he would marvel at the bronze plating, the gears and levers and all sorts of mechanical things he knew nothing about. Though his parents did not share his awe at the inventions, he certainly did. When he was nine, he started helping out an old man named Tuck Winters, who worked a small little shop across from the foundry. The man did repairs on the foundry's mechaniks and his shop was so alive and absolutely wonderful to be in. At age 11, Winters gave him a secondhand mechanik; a mouser, a cat-like mechanik that performed a similar thing; they hunted mice and rats for pest control. Arkwright was incredibly happy at the time, and named the mouser Smokey; like most mechaniks, after all, Smokey let off small amounts of smoke every now and then. Smokey was a friend for two years until the mechanik broke without repair; it had been a relatively old mechanik in the first place, anyways. Arkwright was grieved over his lost and, at the current age of 13, he learned how to help Winters repair even more. Teenage Years Tuck Winters died when he was 16 years old, and Arkwright went into a brief depression due to it. Winters had been as close as his parents, almost, and by the time the depression was over with Arkwright had decided he wanted to take over Winters' repair shop and begin an occupation repairing mechaniks on his own. However, his parents finally decided they would prefer if Arkwright would not go into an occupation repairing the mechaniks. Though heavily disappointed, Arkwright didn't have much of a choice and began a career in journalism -- a reporter for the local newspaper -- that he kept for three years, until he was 19 years old. He'd been saving up for a while at this point, as much as he could, and finally he could do what he longed to do; go into the occupation of mechaniks. He managed to open his own shop; in the exact same place, actually, as Winters' shop had been before. Purposefully, of course. While looking around, he found a safe that was covered in multiple layers of dust and had the little symbol of Winters' shop on it. He had studied it for a while, curious, before a thought had came to him; a sequence of numbers, he remembered, recurring through his time with Tuck Winters. 11993. He slowly clicked the numbers in, and then he heard the sound of the lock clicking open. He'd opened the safe to find a note and a pocket watch, both made by Winters himself. The letter was simple. Charley, I'm sure you've found this note, and I doubt I am still in the business if you have. However, I wish you luck in your future, my boy. Take this -- it's a pocket watch, one of my own. One of the first I made. It's somewhat of a charm for good fortune. You'll certainly be needing it. -Winters Adulthood As his life progressed into his adulthood, Charley had become a fairly well-known doctor. Yes, doctor, not a 'repairman' or a 'mechanic'. He was a doctor, because he worked on the living mechanics, the living that breathed out smoke and lived on coals and vapor and ran with oil like their blood. That was the living metal he worked for. He firmly continued Winters' legacy. The business he created, Bronze Cog Clinic, was well-known, though he was the only one who worked it. He wasn't, and still isn't, very rich, but neither is he poor. He's in good spirits with everyone, really, almost all of the time. He fancies himself, even now, as quite the optimist, looking up even if storms whirl about him. Even now, at the age of twenty-eight years old, he doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon, and he certainly enjoys his unique line of work. |