Mother took him away from his old mother when he was just a young one. Mother was looking for bright little boys who would help protect the city from the bad people that wished to harm Mother and the city. Old mother and old father were screaming for him as Mother's men took him away but he doesn't miss them much. He was just a little boy when it happened. He doesn't even remember what they looked like. The sound of the voices. Good god, the sound.
So much sound. It just hurts… so much… he wants nothing but silence. He just wants a small bit of silence. For everything to stop hurting him. The sound is like a knife. But his head makes him hear everything. Everything.
From the first day he was strapped to a long table. Mother's men were cutting him open, hurting him with their shocks and their crows and their fires. They made him listen to the recordings of Mother and the Prophet, they made him learn of his importance to the floating city and his role in its eventual assault on the corrupted bottom world. They dragged him to the kinetoscopes and made him watch for hours on ends the glorious history of the Prophet's floating city and his successor. Mother. It hurt so much at first and he spent so much time crying for his old mommy.
But gradually he forgot about his old mommy. She didn't matter anymore, she was nothing more than a blip in his hazy memory of the time before he met Mother. Soon he wasn't scared anymore. Soon he looked forward to the daily experimentations and indoctrinations. He wanted to do everything that he could to help Mother. He was the first of her children and he loved her so very much.
It was scary at first when they forced the helmet on him. He had been dressed up like he was going to school. Mother personally showed him the helmet before her men made him wear it. It was so heavy, it was so dark. There were no eye sockets for him to see, but he still could. The sounds became his sight. But perhaps it was the other way around. But it didn't matter. The sounds hurt him so much. They were so loud and they frightened him in the darkness that shrouded him.
Mother scolded him for the cowardice. And he stopped being afraid, for he didn't wish to fail Mother or the Prophet. He wanted to make them proud of him, and this pleased Mother very much. She spoke sweet words to him. She called him her precious little boy, her boy of silence. No sin would evade his gaze.
He was afraid of the sounds no longer. He still heard everything and it still hurt him very badly. But he accepts the pain, for it is for Mother. He spends all his days lurking in the Comstock house. He spends his hours waiting. For the moment when a sinner tries to escape his gaze.
Mother prepared him for the moment when a sinner arrived. She had her men cut off small bits of him, leaving them behind in other worlds she had claimed. This was her gift to her beloved children, a small taste of Mother's wonderful powers. She had taken other boys, those that weren't as good as him. Those that didn't deserve to be her children. But they were good enough to serve as his help. She dressed them up as the good men who the Prophet wanted him to love. Father Jefferson. Father Franklin. Father Washington.
They were just waiting for him, trapped in between the worlds. From a distance, they seem perfectly solid but the closer one would get they would see the hazy bodies of these boys, the intangible physicality. His boys are tormented, screaming silently and banging on the walls. He is glad that he is not one of them for the sound hurts him enough. He is glad that he cannot hear the agony of his boys for it is loud enough as it is.
Is that something he hears? Footsteps... the sound makes his ears ring. The sensation is horrible.
He whirls around and he sees someone.
The man in front of him has short-cut hair, the outlines of facial hair forming around his mouth. He has a desperate look in his eyes. The tie, pinstriped suit, and vest are so disheveled. Mother wouldn't approve of this messiness. But that is not what concerns him. The man is carrying guns on him, and even worse he sees the markings on the man's hand.
AD. The sign of the false shepherd that the Prophet had warned everyone in the city about. He was the man that had hurt mother long ago. He had returned, no doubt planning to steal Mother and destroy the Prophet's great city. He had heard tales of the False Shepherd when the men were cutting him apart. Mother's bird had stopped him, and now it was his moment to protect Mother.
For a moment, he and the False Shepherd are locked in an untrusting gaze. Then his mouth opens. Gathering all his concentration, the way Mother showed him, he lets out a piercing scream shocking the False Shepherd. His own noise hurts him so much, and the man is pulling out a pistol firing at him. The bullets don't hurt him, not even denting his big metal head, but the sound does. The sound! Oh the sound hurts so very much.
But it doesn't matter now. He's bringing in his soldiers and they'll no doubt overwhelm and beat the False Shepherd to death with their wooden clubs. They were specially engineered, to withstand more punishment than the normal people. The last thing he sees is the False Shepherd blasting his boys with lighting from his fingertips while crows hold them in place. But the False Shepherd is preoccupied now. He can't hurt Mother's first son now.
Mother taught him other tricks if someone tried to harm her sweet little boy. He sends himself away, into the other world where he kept the other boys. They're gone now and he's all by himself. Here the False Shepherd can't reach him, and he'll stay until Mother needs him again. Here nothing can hurt him. For there exists nothing but the sound of silence.