"Yves!" Chevalier Toussaint's voice echoed through the gaily decorated halls of his Parisian town house. "Yves!" His voice echoed and died, but not before reaching the little room at the top of the attic stairs.

This room was the domain of Yves. It was sparsely furnished, containing a chair, a wardrobe and a bed with a straw-stuffed mattress. And books. There were books everywhere, arranged neatly to some scheme. Hardbacks and paperbacks; textbooks and novels; romances and philosophies. Yves was an avid reader. As was her habit, she was sitting on the bare floorboards, absorbed in her current reading matter. Tonight it was a leather-bound volume of poetry that held her attention.

"Yves!"

She looked up. The cracked porcelain mask of her face showed no emotion as she put down her book. Precision-milled gears turned insider her body, assuming new configurations and issuing commands to her limbs. Yves stood up and headed downstairs, the sound of her footsteps preceding her.

Toussaint was in his library. He had been going through the household accounts, and was now pacing back and forth in agitation. "Yves!"

"Chevalier?" Yves curtseyed to her master with mechanical precision.

"Ah! Yves. Thank you for coming." The chevalier smoothed the grey bush of his beard. "It seems there are some bills outstanding, and I would like to get them settled tonight." He gestured at ledger that lay open on the great wooden desk in the middle of the room. "I owe Monsieur Martin for tomorrow's feast, and I would like it to be settled."

"Of course, chevalier."

Toussaint held out a bundle of bank notes. "However, there is another matter that requires my attention and which must be dealt with before Midnight Mass. So, Yves - would you please take this to Monsieur Martin?"

"Of course, chevalier." Yves took the notes and secreted them in the depths of her maid's uniform.

"You will have to hurry - " Toussaint began.

Yves interrupted him. "I am aware of Monsieur Martin's hours. They are recorded in my register." She glanced at the clock above the door. "I shall leave immediately."

Christmas Eve, 1894. It was cold on the streets of Paris. Yellow pools of gaslight illuminated the banks of snow that lined the roads and pavements. Yves picked her way through the gathering darkness with the grace of a dancer, unburdened by the heavy coats and gloves that everybody else was wearing. This was because she was a mécanique - an artificial person, powered by a mechanical heart, controlled by gears and relays. Yves' original owner had wanted a mécanique that resembled the younger members of the corps de ballet. However, his desires had not been innocent. Yves had been abused to the point that she had retaliated, killing her owner. She would have been destroyed by the authorities, but for the efforts of the Chevalier (3ième Classe) Toussaint. Although he had offered to repair the damage done to the gyroid, Yves had refused. They were part of her now; a reminder of her past.

It took Yves slightly more than half an hour to make her way to the butcher shop that belonged to Monsieur Martin, on foot all the way. No taxi driver would take an unaccompanied mécanique, and she would likely have been the centre of unwelcome attention if she had travelled on public transport outside the permitted hours. However, as it was Christmas Eve, Monsieur Martin's establishment was still open, even this late.

A burly mécanique with a cleaver for its left hand was busy in the shop. It was standing behind a marble slab laden with Christmas fare, jointing a suckling pig. Yves waited for the mécanique to acknowledge her presence.

"Good evening." The greeting was accompanied by the sound of grinding gears from within the mechanical man's torso. "Madame. How can I be of service?"

"Bonsoir, Jean," Yves replied. She was well acquainted with Jean's idiosyncrasies, and did not take offence at the mécanique's hesitation. "I am here to settle Chevalier Martin's account."

Jean stood motionless as he processed this information. Then he raised his voice. "Monsieur Martin!"

a fat, bald-headed man man appeared from the butcher shop's office, wiping his pudgy hands on his striped apron. "What do you - ? Ah! Yves. What does the chevalier want? I am afraid that all my goods are reserved."

"The chevalier sends his apologies," Yves began. "But he has realised that he has not paid his bill for the month."

"And he has sent you to settle? Please wait." Martin returned to his office, then came back carrying a ledger that was almost the twin of the one that Toussaint used for his accounts. The butcher opened the volume, then placed it on the marble slab. "Let me see." He ran a finger down the columns of neat figures. "He owes me a hundred and twenty francs and thirteen centimes."

Yves took out the money she had been given -two hundred francs in total - and began to count it out. The butcher's eyes opened wide in greedy anticipation. "It is Christmas," he said. "And I am sure the chevalier would want to give a little gratuity - ."

Martin was interrupted by a commotion from just outside his shop. He looked up, then shouted angrily and pointed. "Thief! Stop!" With a speed that belied his great bulk, Monsieur Martin pushed past Yves and barrelled his way out towards the pavement. Yves followed him.

A display of cheeses, cold meats and other festive goods had been set up outside the butcher shop. Yves had paid no attention to it on the way in, but she was sure that it had not been scattered across the pavement. In the middle of the Christmas chaos two well-dressed gentlemen had hold of a struggling urchin of indeterminate gender. The child was screaming to be let go, and each kick of their rag-wrapped legs sent brightly-coloured packages flying.

Monsieur Martin nodded at the two gentlemen. "Thank you for capturing this miscreant. I know their type well." He rolled up his sleeves, exposing his tattooed arms. "Hold them still while I administer some justice."

As soon as the butcher raised his fist, Yves reacted. Like all mécaniques, her behaviour was governed by a set of built-in rules. One of these rules did not permit her to allow a human being to come to harm, and so - without any conscious thought - Yves raised her arm to stop Martin's blow.

"You piece of mechanical - !" Martin yelled, then aimed a blow at Yves. Another on Yves' directives responded: this one commanding her to preserve herself from damage. Steel muscles propelled her to one side, and she dodged the butcher's fury. In the confusion, the urchin slipped from their captors and ran.

"Don't just - ! Stop! Now!"

Yves turned to pursue the escaping child, her mechanical body carrying her at speeds that no human could match. However, her progress was impeded. Bystanders crowded her; hands reached to grab her. The child faced no such problems. They slipped through the crowd, sliding between legs and sidestepping passers-by. Even so, Yves' superior speed and endurance won the race for her, and she soon cornered the thief in a blind alley between two buildings.

Yves spreader arms out wide so she could catch the child, whichever way they tried to go. "Please. Do not try to escape. You may hurt yourself."

For a moment the child stared at Yves. And then they began to bawl. "Please! Pretty lady! Have pity! You have a kind face."

Yves shook her head. "I am sorry. You must be punished for your crime, but not in the way that man would have done." The gynoid held out her hand. "Come with me to the gardiens."

The child recoiled, a look of terror in their eyes. "No!"

The gears in Yves' brain jumped their tracks and assumed a new configuration - one that opened a register of memories that she had not accessed in a long time. Yves saw herself chained to a metal pillar, her old owner advancing towards her. In his gauntleted hands he held a metal rod crowned with an electric blue halo.

Yves lowered her hand. "Please. I cannot let you go. But I cannot force you to come with me." The monotone of her voice could not express the turmoil within her.

"Please!" The child pulled back the hood of her cagoule, revealing a thatch of long, dirty brown hair and a tear-stained face. "I didn't take the food for me."

Yves cocked her head in a gesture that she had acquired from the chevalier. "Why did you take it, then?"

"Can I show you?"

Yves considered this for a moment. She knew what Toussaint would have done, and decided to follow his example. "Please." She tried to inject a stern hint into her voice. "But do not try to escape from me. I have caught you once. I will catch you again."

Sullenly, the girl led Yves away from the brightly decorated shopping streets of the suburb, into the dark avenues and alleys of the banlieu. Yves kept a watchful eye out, wary both of any escape attempts and of possible mecjacks. The fouled streets, dilapidated buildings and scurrying people were a stark contrast to what she had become used to. Eventually the child brought her to a tumbledown tenement building. Cracked bricks and crumbling mortar held windows coated in grime that softened the harsh candlelight from within.

"My family. They are here." The girl climbed the worn stone steps that rose to the building's front door. Yves followed her and reached for the doorhandle, but the girl stopped her. "No. It would be better if you didn't go in. But you can look."

Yves did as she was told, and looked through the window by the door. On the other side of the dirty glass, Yves could see hunched forms clad in rags; sunken eyes in gaunt faces; looks of despair and hunger. The words of the Chevalier Toussaint rose from the cells of her memory.

"Justice is more than just the application of the law, Yves. It is also tempered with wisdom, compassion and mercy. True justice ensures that what has been made wrong is put right. That is why I do what I do, and why you should do the same."

Yves looked at the girl, and allowed logic to lead her to a conclusion. "There must be justice," she said.

It was late when Yves returned to the Chevalier Toussaint's townhouse. The chevalier was still up, reading a book from his library. "Where have you been?" he asked. "I would have thought you would have been back hours ago."

Yves considered her response. "I went to pay Monsieur Martin, just as you instructed me to."

"Indeed." The chevalier put down his book and looked curiously at Yves. "I heard there was an incident?"

"There was."

"And you failed to settle my account with Monsieur Martin?"

Yves bowed her head. "I regret to say so, chevalier. But there was another matter that was more pressing, chevalier. I had to use the money you gave me for that."

Toussaint nodded thoughtfully, then smiled. "Ah well, Yves. I am sure you acted in a manner that will not disappoint me. You will tell me all about it over dinner."