"Archived Mecabacus publicity photograph" © Daniel Walker

Efficiency and security are the watchwords of the modern Bank of England and as part of their array of security devices which render the building inpenetrable they employ Mechabacus automatons.

Combining duties that would take three regular members of staff to discharge, the mechabacus is a mobile part of the Bank's Camera Obscura network, able to investigate holes in the Camera coverage and produce further clarification of unidentified signals registering on the system. The mechabacus patrols a cycling route through the bank preventing intruders relying upon gaps in the more regular human patrols for opportunities. During its patrols, the mechabacus is fed further instructions from pneumatic ports at stations located throughout the building and is able to immediately report back or clarify any instructions recieved via these ports.

Carrying a custom made babbage engine within its body housing, the mechabacus is capable of rapid and complicated calculations, allowing for the banks accounting and financial calculation to be verified and continue on throughout the night when its clerks have retired. Clerks can allocate specific calculations to be processed overnight so that they are ready for their attention in the morning and thus the bank, whilst a living breathing organism during the day, is a ticking whirring device at night and never sleeps. The mechabacus also delivers reports, paperwork, filing and other essential messages throughout the buildings network of offices on its regular patrols.

The Mechabacus' limbs resemble poise angle joints with bare metal bone framework and taught springs acting as tendons, its head and face being the mirrored semi-spherical dome familiar from the Camera Obscura network. The body is made up of the custom babbage engine and carries a rack of pneumatic delivery cylinders on its back, bearing its instructions or important documentation for delivery. These cylinders can be selected for processing in the babbage engine or for delivery, either to a workstation or to the pneumatic security stations, via a highspeed track running down its right arm. In an emergency this can delivery a rapid series of projectiles at intruders whilst more traditional forms of security are being summoned.

Standing as tall as a man and eccentrically fashioned to appear to be wearing a metal bowler hat (housing photographic equipment) and a metal shirt front, waistcoat and tie (armouring its front, but mostly the designers whim), the sound of the tapping of its feet as its jogs its way around its destinations has become a part of the nightly routine of the Bank's operations