The capital-A Automatons of Greco-Roman myth aren't clockwork. Their design is much more divine. They're more intricate than robots or androids or anything else mortal humans could invent. Their windup keys are their human Masters. They aren't mindless; they have infinite storage space. And, because they have more than one form, they're more versatile and portable than, say, your cell phone-and much more useful too. The only thing these god-forged beings share in common with those lowercase-A automatons is their pre-programmed existence. They have a function-a function Hephaestus put into...