-SYNOPSIS-
When war strikes, everyone is involved. The binary system of Cryion and Kyaxeng suddenly becomes an epicenter of strife as the lives of its lone world's inhabitants - the Xinschi-uual - are brought into an interplanetary war between two superpowers, and are suddenly targeted for their superior AI technology. Living under an oppressive regime, its citizens are forced to fight in a conflict they know nothing about. Among them is the lowly coal worker Cyrii, who is drafted into military service and discovers that the race's oft-boasted force of machines... is not as impressive as she would like. Her defiance to the Empire led to giving her own combat mech 56-767 free will, shattering one of the greatest rules of the Empire... and this mech's brand new personality is going to become legendary. -METADATA- Genre: Science Fiction, Action & Adventure Intended Audience: Young Adult Full Disclosure Rating: Fantasy Violence, Blood, Fantasy Graphic Language Full Book Size: 376 pages (font = 12 pt, Page Size = 7.5 x 9 inches) Where to Buy: Amazon.com for $5.99 USD. Available only as an eBook For Kindle Users: The book is reflowable, available for free with Kindle Unlimited, enrolled in the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, and all features except X-Ray are enabled. File size is roughly 776 KB. First Publish Date: 10/9/19. |
-Sample from Once Awakened-
Prologue:
Faint yellow rays filtered through a pinhole in the grungy window blind, shedding just enough light in the dim, utilitarian room to wake her up. The reptilian wriggled, before muttering and rolling over. A wedge-shaped, lizard-like head poked out from a nest of assorted cloth and fabric before it disappeared again, replaced by a stumpy paw with two fingers and two thumbs. There was a bit of flailing before the paw struck a dome button on the wall beside it.
Shunk. The window blind pulled open, allowing the dim, yellow morning light to enter the room. The only two artificial lights in the room turned on, along with the water heater with a soft hum.
“Hello, Cyrii. How would you like your drink today?” a friendly robotic voice spoke from the ceiling. The reptilian groaned and rose up from her nest of bedding, shedding the fluffy cloth.
“I don't want a drink,” she grumbled.
“Jille' it is!” the voice interpreted. She huffed at the voice and stretched, revealing a striped, orange and scaly gopher-like form. A panel in the wall opened up, revealing a cup and an empty plate. A robotic nozzle slid out of the wall and began dispensing a purple liquid into the cup. Cyrii narrowed all three white eyes at it before submitting to the drink.
“How would you like your breakfast, Cyrii?” the voice asked.
“I don't want breakfast,” Cyrii replied, jumping down from her wall bunk. She snatched the cup and guzzled the jille', grimacing at the overwhelming sweetness. “Ugh, nasty amethyst...” She placed the cup back, and then tugged open a drawer under her bed, expecting her work uniform; instead she was met with empty space. She slammed it shut and opened the one next to it, grumbling to herself.
“How would you like your breakfast, Cyrii?” the robotic voice repeated, with the same aggravating cheerfulness.
“I don't want it!” Cyrii snapped, her stubby tail twitching as she ruffled through the drawer's contents. “The last thing I need is to be queasy when shoveling coal!”
“Charcoal it is!” the voice responded. Cyrii shot a look at the ceiling, the fringe of scales around her neck rising.
“Don't make me come up there!”
“I'm sorry?”
The voice now earned a sigh. “Never mind...” The shelter bots are never that smart, anyway, she added to herself. Most AI aren't as smart as Xinschi-uual.
The shelter bot had another nozzle come out of the wall where the jille' dispenser was, where it spat out a chunk of charcoal and happily said “Work starts in C 20 minutes!” Cyrii stifled a growl and closed the drawer, before begrudgingly taking the charcoal and nibbling on the corner, now searching the cabinets beside the dispenser for her uniform. Upon not finding it, she grumbled something incoherent and slammed their doors shut, before searching her bland, closet-sized apartment, throwing around the things that cluttered the floor.
“Where did it go?!” She shoved the rest of the charcoal in her mouth and shuffled in an open bag. “I don't even have that much stuff!”
“I'm sorry?”
“Not you!” she said; not that the shelter bot would understand anyway, considering her mouth was full. She crunched down on the charcoal – smudging her muzzle with soot – and began flinging her bedding everywhere. “Mmmgrphnurmern...”
“Work starts in C 15 minutes!”
Cyrii growled at the optimistic shelter bot. It would keep this up until she left. Swallowing the last of the charcoal, she flung herself into a pile of clothes, searching for a spare uniform; she didn't have the time to go hunting for the clean one. She was successful once she reached the bottom, and quickly threw on the tight, grey clothing – which, honestly, made it look like she was wearing a sock – and its matching overcoat, doing up the buttons. The shelter bot's sensors noticed this.
“Would you like to take anything with you today?” it asked. Cyrii scoffed at the naivety of the AI.
“I have nothing to bring! It's just another day.” Her annoyance gave way to exhaustion, and she let out a resigned sigh. “Just another day...” She pulled open another panel in the wall to expose a mirror, and checked her brown-striped scales for any signs of shedding; the last time she shed a scale in the factory she was fined for littering. She became disgruntled upon finding the smudges left by the charcoal, simply grabbing a rag from her dirty clothes and wiping them off.
Eh, good enough, she decided, slamming the panel shut. With her job she could deal with grimy scales. She carelessly dropped the rag back onto the ground, muttered a goodbye to the all-too-happy shelter bot, and exited the porthole to the hall.
Cramped. That was the best way to describe the hallway. All of the other Xinschi-uual had woken up, already in their uniforms and traveling down in a line: a sea of red, orange, grey, and yellow reptilians, each of their drab uniforms declaring the individuals' job assignments. They all funneled to the left to a hoverpad – a massive balcony hanging out into the city – where they took the leased hovercraft there and flew off to work. She fell in between three other Xinschi-uual heading to the pad, one of them a grey-uniformed coal worker like her. None of them acknowledged each other; socializing was considered counterproductive and was forbidden on workdays. So, like clockwork, she traveled down the line until it was her turn to exit out of the building and onto the hoverpad.
The scenery would have been stunning, had she not seen it a thousand times before. The invention of hovercraft had allowed a city once recognized as clusters of burrows to excel in the form of massive skyscrapers. The largest sun – Cryion – had just risen, drowning out its dimmer binary counterpart, Kyaxeng. The orange sky was quickly lightening into a bright, yellow-grey hue, turning the blue-tinted steel and windows purple. The hoverpad had rows of smaller platforms jutting from its sides, a floating disc occupying each platform. Cyrii approached one at random – they were all the same, anyway – and jumped on. She wasn't greeted by an AI, but her own body weight did activate the hovercraft's thrusters, floating her up just a bit. She placed her forepaws on the pedestal at the front, picking up the steel ball there and activating the craft further. Lazily rolling the ball forward caused the hovercraft to smoothly glide out from the platform, away from her tiny closet known as home.
Cyrii may have had the freedom to direct the craft, but she couldn't take it far, and definitely not very fast. Sensors were mounted anywhere with lots of airspace, and the rules in the skies abounded. You couldn't get too close to a structure or another craft without hitting a red zone, and some places were strictly off limits. She scowled at such a passage present at her first intersection, heading between skyscrapers and leading to a market district. She could see the brightly-lit glory of it at the end, past the traffic signs that stopped her and the other lanes, but a barrier of green light blocked the way. She tasted bitter resentment, and looked away; her code level was too low for her to pass through. Any place she wasn't supposed to be, and the craft would shut off like a light and she would have to deal with trespassing fines.
Whatever. The privileged kyl can have their stupid market, she tried to assure herself, I don't need it anyway. Yet, she cringed at the memories of when she could go back there. All those years ago...
She looked behind her. All five free lanes of the skyroad were packed with sullen and blank-faced Xinschi-uual, sitting on their craft and saying nothing. The sixth “express lane”, used by those blessed with a higher Code level, was empty. In a way, it was both relieving and disappointing.
The traffic sign changed, and the grey light-road she was on connected to the intersection and cut off the way to the right. Half the traffic remained at a standstill as the rest moved to the left, and luckily for her she was going left too. She remembered the day when collective groans and complaints would rise up about the lack of ability to go both directions; now she just heard an absent-minded grumble or two.
It made the orange Xinschi-uual want to scream. Did no one care anymore? Were they just going to let the Empire disintegrate like this? Gryn III is-!
No! Don't think rebellious thoughts! her mind sharply interrupted. She shook her head sternly at herself, dismissing her questioning of the Empire's sovereign leader. You've been in enough trouble already.
That just made her desire to scream louder. She tried to ignore it and focus on the road, although it didn't require much attention; the second intersection was notoriously narrow for the amount of traffic it had. So predictably, she ended up stopping behind at least twenty craft in a jam.
Cyrii stared ahead at the intersection in impatience, watching the complexity of the inevitable morning jam before turning to the building next to her. As a skyscraper bordering the market, its windows were plastered with all kinds of motivational posters and advertisements. She looked over them in boredom, chin in one paw and the other paw drumming on the floating control orb. “A Happy Worker is a Good Worker”, “Seek Counsel: You're Not Alone!”, and “Emerald Benefits Now Available for Raise-Code Trials!” were just a few of the posters she saw. She stared bitterly at the latter; emeralds had such a wonderful, warm taste. What irony it was for the Empire to put that big tease next to a Happy Worker poster.
The jam moved somewhat, causing all of the impatient, bored, and just plain apathetic Xinschi-uual to move just a few nicroT forward. She didn't even look up, swiping her paw on the orb to move it forward the equivalent amount. A Xinschi-uual nearby moved too far forward, bumping into another's hovercraft and starting up an indignant argument. She rolled her eyes at the bickering and turned a cheek to it.
“Ohh, look, it's a coal worker,” a sneer started up to her left. “Off to roll in some grime today, eh?”
Cyrii bristled, whipping around to find the speaker: a cream-colored Xinschi-uual in the express lane a craft over from her.
“Shut up,” she said bluntly, “I'm too tired to give a crap right now.”
“'Give a crap'?” he laughed, “Why not? Aren't you about to go get some? After all, that's what life is all about, riiiight?”
“Shut it!”
“Or what? You'll spew some 'crap' about me, in your wheedling, raspy smoker's voice and soiled clothes?”
“Stow it, gildfilth! I don't need any of your so-called 'humor'!” she spat fruitlessly, but he just laughed at his own bad joke, safely buffered by an unwilling worker between them. The said worker glanced at both of them before fidgeting and backing up his hovercraft a bit, at the risk of bumping into the guy behind him. Cyrii took the opportunity to glare daggers at the higher-Code Xinschi-uual. “Why don't you go prancing around on some other schmuck's crushed dreams, huh?” she taunted, trying not to wince at the reminder of her own life's failures.
“Oh puh-lease!” the teasing Xinschi-uual said, tightening up his decorative collar. “As if that's any fun! You're like a rodocron just waiting to get riled up!”
“So stop it!” Cyrii snapped, a note of pleading entering her voice, “Just leave me alone! You do this every damn day!”
He snorted at her. “Yeah, uh-huh,” he laughed, “it's just so insufferable, being reminded of your real worth. Look at how useful this little worker is!” he said as if talking to a hatchling, “Look at you! You might get Employee of the Month! Queen of the Pneumatic Chute!”
Cyrii's feelings burned, and she grimaced in defeat. He was right, and she knew he was right; she wasn't called a menace to society for nothing, neglected for nothing, her mere existence abused for nothing.
“Just shut up!” she countered pathetically, “Don't make me come over there!”
“Ah hah hah! You're funny!” He just laughed it off.
“I'm serious!” she threatened; at this point, the worker between them was leaning so far back, the guy behind him was edging away. Someone else in the traffic groaned aloud.
“Shut up!” she called.
“YOU shut up!” Cyrii shot back, not even caring that it didn't make sense.
“Hey hey, you know what's really funny though?” the bully continued, making her whip back around and wrinkle her snout at him. “I get to sit in a nice office overlooking the badlands, while you're stuck down in a stinky ol' factory, shoveling coal into Gryn-knows-what! That's funny!”
“Oh yeah?!” she began loudly, just to hesitate about her choice comeback. “Well! Whatever, you dumb clerk, at least I have the strength to wring that fat neck of yours! You couldn't even throw a guide ball!” she pointed at the floating orb that controlled her hovercraft.
“I don't need strength,” the high-ranking Xinschi-uual grinned. “I have Superiority clearance, because I'm not a menace to society! You know what that means? I could make your hovercraft – boop – drop like a stone!”
“To Alkinest with your clearance! You keep your filthy paws off my craft!” Cyrii hissed, despite not actually owning the vehicle. He just snorted and laughed, leaving her to fume at him. She hated it when Xinschi-uual who weren't police had moderation privileges! Stupid code system, and labeling her as dangerous, and stupid Empire for enforcing it! So she asked a lot of questions and took a few things once, so what?
There was a beep up ahead in the traffic as the jam finally cleared up, and suddenly everyone began moving again, directing Cyrii's attention to more important matters. She tore her eyes from the clerk's cream scales and grabbed her guide ball with a vengeance, forcing the craft forward.
“Hey Grungy!! There's a scale coming off your head and you look stupid!” the Xinschi-uual continued, casually paralleling her.
“Shut up!” she spat back. Finally able to move again, the one worker between them rushed forward, not wanting to be caught in the middle of a fight.
“You better be careful! You might get fined, because you didn't pull off that teeny-weeny little scale!”
It suddenly dawned on Cyrii, and she whipped around to look at the brand on his uniform, scales flaring: the factory she worked at! “YOU'RE the one who FINED me!!”
“What are you going to do about it? Report me? Oh, but you gotta be Queen of the Crap Pile first! Whoopsie!” the Xinschi-uual said, before snorting some more laughter and plowing ahead through the crowd. Cyrii roared in frustration and pushed her craft forward, unlawfully passing through the lane lines and picking up speed, dinging up others' craft in the process. Unfortunately, the express lane was faster with significantly lower traffic; her chase quickly came to a full stop when she nearly flew into an airborne caravan and caused a ton of hovercraft in an intersection to suddenly halt, making her yelp in surprise and pull up into a dead zone to avoid a crash.
Vwwooouuuummmm... The craft's motor died as the zone killed its engine, and she lurched forward and wrapped her paws around the guide ball's stand for stability. She glared after the Xinschi-uual's craft as he disappeared around a corner; she let go just to ball her paws up into fists. Her passionate anger failed her again!
“AArrrRRrrggh!!” She slammed her fists on the guide ball, ignoring the indignant shouting about the new jam below. “I hate that guy! I hate him! Frickin'! Twenty months in a row! Aaaagh!” She squeezed her eyes shut and kept banging on the ball, before her tantrum quickly died into a defeated collapse “I'm still going to get flippin' fined...” she muttered. This was not her day, it seemed.
The snobby Xinschi-uual was just a tiny sliver that kept rubbing an old wound, and not as important as Cyrii let him be. Luckily for her, the police drones in the area were well acquainted with her tantrums. In a healthy five minutes a faceless, garish yellow-and-black pod flew up to her position, assessing her and the jam below while police officers sorted it out. A couple of snapped pictures, an automated tick on her file and a healthy sum drawn from her paycheck, and the pod remotely activated the hovercraft and sent her off to work as normal, if rather late now. Her digital record had been scratched so many times it would be black with ink, should it be physical; instead it was just another, painful reminder, just another little factor in Cyrii's life that added to the depression. Her best way to cope with it was to just try to ignore it; and so she did, driving the rest of the way to her workplace and parking her hovercraft at the pad. She dismounted and left it there, passing through the scanner that barred the yawning cave of an entrance, and waited for the doors to open with loud clunks and a hiss before entering.
Ah, the factory that ate up most of her life. A big, hulking concrete beast crouching low to the ground, with only a couple of towers reaching up to the sky like hungry mouths spewing dark smoke, it was not the prettiest building in the city. Then again, considering it was in the industrial sector, none of the buildings around it were very pretty either. The upper level where all but supply trains entered was a facade of a happy, cozy workplace, with rounded rooms painted warm colors and posters blessing the Empire's generosity hung everywhere; yet despite all of the seating and even the monitor in the far wall, there was only one, pink Xinschi-uual to greet her, poring over the factory's security at the sloped front desk.
She just grunted at her, not even looking up and doing something on the table's interface; no doubt sneaking a game in the meantime.
“Coal worker. Double orange,” Cyrii told her flatly, walking straight over to a door opposite of the Xinschi-uual. The pink Xinschi-uual swept a paw over some unknown sensor, and the door opened.
Cyrii didn't even say thanks. It wasn't important. Just marched right on to the elevated platform. The pink Xinschi-uual waved her paw again, and the door closed and the platform descended, down into the bowels of the factory.
The facade was gone in an instant, the smooth walls melting away into steel and crossbeams, a wall of hot, sticky air invading the senses. The lift stopped at the bottom level – the boiler room – and Cyrii stepped off to go to her post. Admittedly, she didn't mind the industrial look of the place, but the heat, and her job, and how tedious it all was... she tried not to think about it.
She walked along a catwalk to wide conveyor belt running the length of the giant room, the boilers sitting across from it with robotic arms on the opposite side. She approached an empty arm, giving it a wry face.
I remember what I first called you, she thought, 'Fun', in giant air-quotes. I can't believe how much of an understatement that is. She wearily climbed up into the driver's seat, now saddened by the primal controls in front of her. I want you to be a mech so bad.
Yet another thing she shouldn't think about, so she grabbed the controls and went to work, sorting out the coal on the belt into various bins in front of her for the boilers; yet her mind switched back to it regardless. It still embittered Cyrii how, when she reached the working age, she was assigned to this hideous thing instead of programming machines like she wanted, but there was no way she could argue against the Tribunal's decision. Tribunals of cities decided everything, even what food was available to you; all she could do was hope her Code level didn't get any lower and she could keep everything she had. So she went with the flow, pretending everything was okay and it could only become better. After all, it could only be worse if she turned criminal again, right?
Cyrii worked for barely twenty minutes before the heat began to take its characteristic, nigh-suffocating hold. She pretended it didn't exist and put in three hours, using the arm's integrated sensor to isolate bad coal specimens from the good, tossing the latter into the center boiler chute and the former down their respective grade chutes to be compressed again for proper processing. It was a hot, grimy job, and not automated very efficiently thanks to new Empiric regulations, but it was essential for powering the city, so even though she hated it every day and dreaded it every night, she couldn't argue with it. This was how the entirety of B3 Westward functioned, and apparently her interest in coding was trumped by her ability to sort rocks by how dense they were... though she felt like the Tribunal itself was dense for believing that. Not that it was popular opinion; all law enforcement was done with mechs – specifically, impressive Superiority models – aside from petty offenses like her earlier traffic jamming.
She had challenged one mech before. That was the stupidest thing she had ever done. Fighting against the Tribunal too would be even stupider.
Cyrii sighed, barely paying attention to her job. Mechs... the pride of the Empire. No AI was smarter, no weapons more powerful, no vehicle cooler than the Xinschi-uual mech. Some Xinschi-uual were terrified of them, others were unimpressed, and some – like herself – were in constant awe of them. Mechs meant a lot to Xinschi-uual and had a big impact on their lives; yet, they were reserved for government and military use because the Empire deemed them too dangerous for citizens to use. She recalled a time during her hectic school years that the mechs had other purposes too, but they were prototypes at the time, hardly functioning and kept hushed anyway. She wanted to jump in on the coding project, but the Tribunal denied her for too many reasons, and she couldn't help but feel cheated of the finer things in life. So maybe she had some aggression issues? That shouldn't stop her from rising up the ladder of hierarchy! Yet those fools at the top insist that she's still a “public hazard”... Fine after fine scratched its way on her record every day because she offended some “important” guy, or left some plastic lying around, or spent too long in the bathroom because it counted as her paid break...
“Are you still bitter about that?”
Cyrii jumped, startled by the voice to her right. She almost dropped a bad piece of coal into the boiler instead of the distillation chute!
“Huh?!” she said. The Xinschi-uual beside her – her scales a rich shade of scarlet with piebald spots – scrutinized her.
“You know, about the fine,” she said.
Cyrii snorted at the memory. “'The fine'. Everyone thinks about the fine.” She grumpily dropped the bad coal into the chute and snatched another piece of coal, remembering the costly amount and how much food she would have been able to afford.
Whatever. Didn't matter. She already lost tons of money to other things.
Her coworker, Alesia, was quiet for a bit, working the controls of her own robotic arm. Cyrii knew she was hesitant not because she had nothing to say, but because friends were deemed distractions at work. She didn't consider her a friend, but Alesia liked the company. Still, they shouldn't be talking to each other; and that alone made Cyrii want to defy the order and talk all she wanted.
“I don't know, I feel like...” Alesia began, but faltered, “I mean, you're rebellion material, so I expect you to be mad. That's why you're a Code Orange.”
“Pff, Code Orange,” Cyrii muttered, “Why do 'codes' even matter?”
“Well, it does distinguish your criminal record,” Alesia answered, “Only Reds are severely penalized.”
“The only Reds we have are the rebels,” Cyrii said, “of course they're penalized! It's treason!”
“Then why aren't you glad you're not a Red?” Alesia spoke so quietly she was nearly drowned out by the monotonous ambiance around them.
Cyrii huffed, though mostly at herself. “Because it doesn't matter anymore. They always think I'm toying with them.”
“You don't seem to care though,” her coworker said slowly.
“What do I care what they think? They're just going to boss me around anyway!”
“Because they think you're a rebel.”
Cyrii's neck scales began to flare in annoyance. “So what if I act like a rebel?” she echoed, “That doesn't give them the right to treat me the way they do. I deserve better than this! I should be out there programming flippin' tanks, not throwing compressed plants around!”
“You... you really think so?” The Xinschi-uual sounded genuinely confused. Cyrii stared at her right in the eyes, suddenly realizing her mistake, taking back her words. There were cameras watching them. The authorities were always watching, even in private homes, on the lookout for criminal activity.
“No. The city needs electricity,” she said, loudly and flatly.
“But-” Alesia began.
“We're not allowed to talk about feelings,” Cyrii dismissed, focusing back on the coal. Her fellow worker didn't respond. There was a long pause where they continued working in silence, hearing only the whirring of machinery, the rumbling of the broilers, and the hum of the belt itself.
“...I don't blame you.”
Cyrii paused. “Huh?”
“I don't care that we're not supposed to talk about feelings,” Alesia said, glancing around to make sure that the cameras weren't focused on the two of them. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “When you stood up to that Superiority model, I was astonished. Really! I admire you. You gave me the courage to stand up to my Da the other day.”
Cyrri raised a scaly brow, unsure on what to do with the praise. “Uh... thanks?” she said, though she still winced at the memory of standing up to the mech. Considering the smallest model stood just over three times the height of a Xinschi-uual, the fact that she stood her ground against one seven times her size... she still had an inner scar from that. At least it was of domestic design, and not a military one; the military ones were reportedly much scarier, designed to manage other machines. Despite her poor experience though, meeting another one sounded blissful to Cyrii; so many machines! Even their enemies fought with machines, hordes of drones that would swarm outposts and seize them in hours; but the mechs were far superior, with the brainpower of a Xinschi-uual combined with the firepower of a steel mechanism.
Ugh, I WANT to fight! Cyrii thought bitterly, If I can't program them why can't I at least pilot one?! Her mind drifted to all of the latest news on the war's status, which only made her more sour. We're being too passive. At this point we're all going to die because all of the mechs will be destroyed because the Empire is too STUPID to make use of their machines! She forcefully threw a chunk of peat into the broiler chute, not thinking.
“Cyrii! That was peat! 0 Grade!” Alesia hissed.
“I don't care,” Cyrii grumbled.
“Regulations!” The Xinschi-uual glanced at the cameras again. “You've had enough fines already!”
Cyrii scoffed. She was already giving the government the majority of her paycheck every month; an extra five hundred qit wouldn't make a difference. It still made her bitter and obstinate though. To think that if she had been given her dream job, or any other job, none of this would have happened...
“I don't care,” she repeated, sulking. “It's been twenty years, what else is new?”
“Mmmph,” her coworker let out a discontented growl, but went silent. There was no point in her being fined as well for shirking work.
The two of them continued minding the conveyor belt. Cyrii returned to wishing she was a programmer, instead of the hack she currently was. No permission, no certification, no code; everything she wrote she deleted promptly afterward so the Empire didn't have any reason to believe she was up to something. Of course, that in itself was suspicious, which only highlighted the stupidity of it all.
She made a wry face, tossing another piece of coal down its possibly-appropriate chute. Idiocy, she thought. Alesia noticed, but didn't say anything, letting her coworker glare at the undeserving coal bricks.
The next hour was punctuated by a couple of Xinschi-uual leaving and entering the broiler room, freely taking their breaks at will and yet not allowed to be absent for more than a few minutes. The air was populated by the hum of machinery, yet none of the workers in the long room said anything to each other. Cyrii was starting to feel the heat from the broilers, scales drying up and fine, airborne soot sneaking into their crevices. She felt parched, but didn't dare to take her break. Just a few minutes longer, she told herself, and the hour will roll over, and I can take a five minute break instead of four. Five is good.
Kerclunk. A massive thud sounded from the right of the room, a sound Cyrii recognized as the vehicle bay doors. The scraping of the metal rods echoed throughout the room and some of the workers looked up. It must be another shipment of black matter.
Alesia looked up as well, wiping her brow and consequently smearing it with the grime on her paws from working the controls. She was going to reach for her damp rag, but her paw simply hovered over it. Cyrii hardly acknowledged the unusual hesitance, withdrawn into the depths of her mind, only thinking, Right, I should do that too. I can push for six minutes.
She paused, grabbed her rag, and moistened her facial scales; then she heard a definite clunking of something heavy.
No... two heavy somethings! That sounded like-!
She dropped the rag immediately and perked up from her defeated state. At the other end of the room the door was wide open, industrial lights flooding through it and silhouetting four figures; two were definite Xinschi-uual on hovercraft, and the two flanking them were huge by comparison, with shoulders mounted up high on the heads and singular glowing eyes staring stolidly ahead.
Cyrii was shaking. MECHS! Those were MECHS!
Her coworkers shifted uncertainly as the group entered, the mechs walking with the awesome sound of two thousand pounds of steel, accented with industrial hums and whirs. The sounds were amplified by the room and made them seem all the more terrifying, but Cyrii still found them incredible.
“Well, here they are,” she heard a familiar voice say, and the Xinschi-uual on the broiler's side gestured out in front of him. “The whole cast, right here.”
Cast? Cyrii wondered, feeling conspicuous. As the figures moved out of the light she then distinguished them further: the vermillion scales and flashy green suit of the owner of the plant, his expression of cordiality not entirely convincing, and the other Xinschi-uual had a blue uniform blazoned with gold, with the Empire's insignia printed on the shoulder pads; definitely not colors of the industrial sector, but gave her no leads as to where else. The machines themselves were painted top to bottom, one red and grey, the other gold with rust accents. The red one glanced at her, and she stiffened up, suddenly self-conscious. She wasn't ready for this!
“Feel free to just, look them over, see if what you're looking for is here...” The owner of the plant continued, before faltering off. The other Xinschi-uual said nothing, his posture stiff, expressionless eyes scanning the workers at the conveyor belt. Despite being included in the suspicious offer, Cyrii leaned forward from her robotic arm, keen to have a better look of the mechs.
Massive! At least eight times her size and clearly military, they had the typical mech design derived from a native avian's, with the teardrop-shaped head, seven pistons mounting that to a much smaller, trapezoidal box, and a cylindrical pelvic unit below that. Powerful digitigrade legs curled up underneath them so that they didn't tower over the Xinschi-uual, and she spotted a second pair of arms mounted above the first. Four arms! The bottom ones with two turrets, the top ones with even deadlier thermal weaponry! Rounded laser heads protruded around the eyes of the mechs like giant lug-nuts. The only thing giving these machines expression were the eyelid-like blast shields, narrowed challengingly at anyone they made eye contact with as they surveyed the area.
Cyrii's mind was buzzing, even as the intimidating machines stomped closer. She wanted to know what they were like! What was it like inside? How intelligent were their AI? How did they function? What did they do? What could they withstand?
She was so intrigued by the mechs, she didn't realize that the owner of the plant had resumed talking, barely tuning back in.
“...so of course, I highly, highly doubt that these gals are what you're looking for. Unprivileged dropouts, you know what I mean?” he chuckled nervously. The Xinschi-uual on the other hovercraft didn't take his eyes off the conveyor belt, scanning each worker in turn.
“Dropouts are fine,” he answered gruffly.
“Oh! Oh, of course! Heh, I just meant, you know, that there were, better, Xinschi-uual to be looking for...” Cyrii never knew her superior could fumble so much. The other Xinschi-uual finally looked up at him.
“The higher the Code, the better. Orders from the top. Gryn's orders,” he stated very clearly. Cyrii's heart was still fluttering at the sight of the mechs, but now it skipped a beat.
Higher.... the Code?
“Ah, yes, our grand leader! May he live forever,” the owner said automatically. “So um... did you say 'higher the Code'?”
The other Xinschi-uual looked tired, ignoring him and going back to scanning the coal workers, who had now all stiffened up and had their arms over their chests in the universal sign of respect. Cyrii, of course, was the odd one out with only her mouth agape, not even thinking about respect even as the couple-of-tons-of-walking-metal passed her. The gold mech glanced out to the side, noticing her, but didn't falter in his step.
She was rightly terrified, but couldn't help but think, This is SO COOL!!
“So! Anyone interesting? All middle-age, as you said. Some are more young and sprightly. The sprightly ones are the best workers, you know.” The owner's small talk still failed on his guest. The unknown Xinschi-uual slowed his hovercraft's crawl five workers down from her, causing his followers to stop too.
“Where's the highest offender?” he asked. Cyrii could have sworn that those words alone echoed throughout the entire room. Now she had finally straightened up out of fear: could there be anyone here worse than her? What if the guest was a prosecutor?! What if those mechs were mercenaries, out to execute unspoken charges against her?! It wouldn't be the first time someone was hunted down and killed... She flashed back to the last time she saw a military mech out in public, feeling stupid that she didn't realize it before. That girl had stood no chance; three steps and the mech had put a bullet hole the size of her head in her... No, don't think about it! That won't happen to me! It won't!
“Hm...” The power plant owner moved his hovercraft along the conveyor belt, slow, silent, and deliberate, while his guest patiently waited to the side. He moved past Cyrii, and she froze up when he looked at her; he continued on, however. She felt immense relief, still looking ahead while one paw reached for the hatch door, only for it to pull on the handle and have the door not open.
Oh crap, she thought, oh crap oh crap oh crap-
The owner stopped at the end, turned back, and drove right back on by. She timed it so he didn't notice her struggling, but her adrenaline was out of control, making her visibly shake. She fumbled with the handle once he had moved away again, panicking. Why won't it open?! These things don't have locks on them!
Despite her effort, the door didn't budge; she was stuck inside the robotic arm! She looked up and noticed the gold mech watching her carefully, and she felt faint. She hastily composed herself and avoided eye contact, but she burned up guiltily under that LED gaze, foolishly hoping he wouldn't say anything.
The owner continued his slow scan, and had counted its twelve workers twice before he stopped near Cyrii. She pressed her mouth into a thin line and stuffed her paws underneath her overcoat, trying to hide how scared she was.
Oh no oh no oh no no more peat in the boiler I promise just PLEASE don't take me out with those mechs...! she chanted in her mind. He looked just off to her right.
“Probably Alesia there,” he said it in a soft tone, and yet his voice echoed just as loudly. Cyrii's eyes widened, and she whipped around to her right.
Alesia?!
The mentioned piebald Xinschi-uual shriveled up on the spot, especially so when the guest had come over, his mechs following him, looking her up and down.
“Alesia?” he asked, floating close to her. Now that he was close enough, Cyrii could make out definite streaks and chevrons on his uniform: military general! Now she was really freaked out, losing her composure, but no more so than Alesia.
“P-Please sir. It's all in the past. I'm different now!” the poor worker was begging, “I-I won't do any of it ever again! I've renounced my ways! PLEASE SIR!” her voice rose shrilly.
“SILENCE!” the general thundered.
She swallowed her words. The mechs had their deadly green gazes trained on Alesia. Cyrii's breath caught in her throat, her eyes flicking between them to see what would happen, and many of her coworkers were slowly shuffling away in their seats. Alesia looked like she was about to either start crying, pass out, or both, scales flattened so far she looked as if she dropped twenty pounds.
Contrary to what was expected, the general simply turned to the power plant owner, looking bored. “Who else?” he said, still calm. The owner looked over at Cyrii, and his gaze followed. She felt like screaming and running away. No no no no no no no-
“Who's this?”
“Cyrii, sir. A Code Orange, just like Alesia.”
NO NO NO NO NO-!
“Any other Oranges?”
“No sir. Just Yellows and Greens.”
“Yellows are too subdued. Not enough kick to them,” the general's voice lowered to a mutter. Cyrii was utterly shocked; Code Yellow was subdued? Code Blue was the best you had, if you weren't completely innocent! Who was? Code Purple was usually assigned to hatchlings who didn't even know about thievery; that was the only way to not have cameras on you!
She tore her gaze away from the owner, daring to look at the general. He scrutinized her, but other than that it was hard to tell what he was thinking; his mouth was a hard, thin line, and his eyes gave nothing away. He finally pulled up his hovercraft and said cryptically to the owner:
“I'll take them.”
“Take us where?!” Cyrii burst out loudly. He shot a look at her over his shoulder that said nothing more than “shut up”. Cyrii wheezed, in an attempt to release all of the anxiety she had; it didn't help.
Well, if this was an unannounced execution, at least she was able to see a mech before she died.
The owner just nodded rapidly. “Yup! Okay! Sure! When can I expect that royalty check?”
The general now turned his stern gaze to the owner.
“A-Ah, okay, you don't have it yet! That's fine! I can wait...” he faltered, backing off on his hovercraft. The general turned back to the task at hand, taking his hovercraft between Cyrii's and Alesia's robotic arms and swiveling it around. He looked at both of them in turn.
“Well? Hop on. It's a long flight.”
----------
Alesia was shaking. Cyrii's jaw was dropped the entire time. She rarely saw the floor of the city, as it was an overgrown place usually reserved for unsavory types, but the mechs couldn't fly so they had to travel along the ground with them on either side.
The experience was surreal! The hovercraft moved at a speed that was illegal, just to keep up with the hulking machines! Buildings whipped by and the mechs plowed through any plants that tried growing up through the hard earth, barely fazed by them. Each footfall thundered off the concrete bases of the buildings, giving the mechs a false sense of immense power.
Cyrii loved it. Alesia couldn't help but think about what might happen if she fell off, as she clung to the hovercraft's safety rails for dear life. The general must have been used to this speed, as he was more stolid than the machines flanking him.
Despite being a greater distance than from Cyrii's home to her work, the voyage seemed to last only a few minutes. The group had broken out of the city and into the badlands – a huge, rocky waste that was both semi-natural and a product of the war – and traveled just a bit further out before coming across a military complex. Unlike the city, the complex didn't feature tall buildings, or glass features, or really even hovercraft of any type; rather, it was all built low to the ground and sprawled out, and much of it was probably underground. The buildings were bland from the outside, though a few of the older structures did sport some graffiti.
“Don't be fazed by the colorful letters,” the general said, noticing Cyrii looking at the graffiti. “We're not colorful here.”
At the opportunity of discussion, Cyrii immediately launched a volley of questions: “Do you make mechs here? What AI? How many do you have? What models? All new or some refurbished? Are they personalized? Do you paint them? Can I see them before I die-?”
The general suddenly barked out a laugh. “'Die', lassie? 'Die'?! You think we're going to kill you?”
“Well...” Cyrii began uncertainly, “you arrested us without warrant or notice.”
“'Arrested'? I didn't think I would meet anyone who took Gryn's word as a word of arrest.”
Cyrii stared blankly, glancing at Alesia as the group slowed down upon entering complex property. “Why would Gryn want us?” she pressed.
“It's not a question if Gryn wants you, lassie. It is if you want Gryn,” the General answered.
“Huh?”
“Patriotism!” he boomed, “fight for your planet, lassie! Gryn's the head of this whole thing; if you want to live, you ought to know how to use a gun!”
Cyrii blubbered for a bit, completely taken aback. “Y-You mean!? We're going to fight? WE'RE DRAFTED?!”
The general didn't answer, just huffing and facing back to the front.
“YES!! Yes yes yes!” Cryii squealed and did a little happy dance around on the hovercraft, making it sway dangerously. “Aaaaaaah! It's a dream come true!” Alesia clutched the railing, looking a little queasy. Cyrii didn't notice though; she was too busy jumping around and laughing with the sheer excitement of a two-year-old in a candy store.
All anxiety about being a potential convict had disappeared.
Shunk. The window blind pulled open, allowing the dim, yellow morning light to enter the room. The only two artificial lights in the room turned on, along with the water heater with a soft hum.
“Hello, Cyrii. How would you like your drink today?” a friendly robotic voice spoke from the ceiling. The reptilian groaned and rose up from her nest of bedding, shedding the fluffy cloth.
“I don't want a drink,” she grumbled.
“Jille' it is!” the voice interpreted. She huffed at the voice and stretched, revealing a striped, orange and scaly gopher-like form. A panel in the wall opened up, revealing a cup and an empty plate. A robotic nozzle slid out of the wall and began dispensing a purple liquid into the cup. Cyrii narrowed all three white eyes at it before submitting to the drink.
“How would you like your breakfast, Cyrii?” the voice asked.
“I don't want breakfast,” Cyrii replied, jumping down from her wall bunk. She snatched the cup and guzzled the jille', grimacing at the overwhelming sweetness. “Ugh, nasty amethyst...” She placed the cup back, and then tugged open a drawer under her bed, expecting her work uniform; instead she was met with empty space. She slammed it shut and opened the one next to it, grumbling to herself.
“How would you like your breakfast, Cyrii?” the robotic voice repeated, with the same aggravating cheerfulness.
“I don't want it!” Cyrii snapped, her stubby tail twitching as she ruffled through the drawer's contents. “The last thing I need is to be queasy when shoveling coal!”
“Charcoal it is!” the voice responded. Cyrii shot a look at the ceiling, the fringe of scales around her neck rising.
“Don't make me come up there!”
“I'm sorry?”
The voice now earned a sigh. “Never mind...” The shelter bots are never that smart, anyway, she added to herself. Most AI aren't as smart as Xinschi-uual.
The shelter bot had another nozzle come out of the wall where the jille' dispenser was, where it spat out a chunk of charcoal and happily said “Work starts in C 20 minutes!” Cyrii stifled a growl and closed the drawer, before begrudgingly taking the charcoal and nibbling on the corner, now searching the cabinets beside the dispenser for her uniform. Upon not finding it, she grumbled something incoherent and slammed their doors shut, before searching her bland, closet-sized apartment, throwing around the things that cluttered the floor.
“Where did it go?!” She shoved the rest of the charcoal in her mouth and shuffled in an open bag. “I don't even have that much stuff!”
“I'm sorry?”
“Not you!” she said; not that the shelter bot would understand anyway, considering her mouth was full. She crunched down on the charcoal – smudging her muzzle with soot – and began flinging her bedding everywhere. “Mmmgrphnurmern...”
“Work starts in C 15 minutes!”
Cyrii growled at the optimistic shelter bot. It would keep this up until she left. Swallowing the last of the charcoal, she flung herself into a pile of clothes, searching for a spare uniform; she didn't have the time to go hunting for the clean one. She was successful once she reached the bottom, and quickly threw on the tight, grey clothing – which, honestly, made it look like she was wearing a sock – and its matching overcoat, doing up the buttons. The shelter bot's sensors noticed this.
“Would you like to take anything with you today?” it asked. Cyrii scoffed at the naivety of the AI.
“I have nothing to bring! It's just another day.” Her annoyance gave way to exhaustion, and she let out a resigned sigh. “Just another day...” She pulled open another panel in the wall to expose a mirror, and checked her brown-striped scales for any signs of shedding; the last time she shed a scale in the factory she was fined for littering. She became disgruntled upon finding the smudges left by the charcoal, simply grabbing a rag from her dirty clothes and wiping them off.
Eh, good enough, she decided, slamming the panel shut. With her job she could deal with grimy scales. She carelessly dropped the rag back onto the ground, muttered a goodbye to the all-too-happy shelter bot, and exited the porthole to the hall.
Cramped. That was the best way to describe the hallway. All of the other Xinschi-uual had woken up, already in their uniforms and traveling down in a line: a sea of red, orange, grey, and yellow reptilians, each of their drab uniforms declaring the individuals' job assignments. They all funneled to the left to a hoverpad – a massive balcony hanging out into the city – where they took the leased hovercraft there and flew off to work. She fell in between three other Xinschi-uual heading to the pad, one of them a grey-uniformed coal worker like her. None of them acknowledged each other; socializing was considered counterproductive and was forbidden on workdays. So, like clockwork, she traveled down the line until it was her turn to exit out of the building and onto the hoverpad.
The scenery would have been stunning, had she not seen it a thousand times before. The invention of hovercraft had allowed a city once recognized as clusters of burrows to excel in the form of massive skyscrapers. The largest sun – Cryion – had just risen, drowning out its dimmer binary counterpart, Kyaxeng. The orange sky was quickly lightening into a bright, yellow-grey hue, turning the blue-tinted steel and windows purple. The hoverpad had rows of smaller platforms jutting from its sides, a floating disc occupying each platform. Cyrii approached one at random – they were all the same, anyway – and jumped on. She wasn't greeted by an AI, but her own body weight did activate the hovercraft's thrusters, floating her up just a bit. She placed her forepaws on the pedestal at the front, picking up the steel ball there and activating the craft further. Lazily rolling the ball forward caused the hovercraft to smoothly glide out from the platform, away from her tiny closet known as home.
Cyrii may have had the freedom to direct the craft, but she couldn't take it far, and definitely not very fast. Sensors were mounted anywhere with lots of airspace, and the rules in the skies abounded. You couldn't get too close to a structure or another craft without hitting a red zone, and some places were strictly off limits. She scowled at such a passage present at her first intersection, heading between skyscrapers and leading to a market district. She could see the brightly-lit glory of it at the end, past the traffic signs that stopped her and the other lanes, but a barrier of green light blocked the way. She tasted bitter resentment, and looked away; her code level was too low for her to pass through. Any place she wasn't supposed to be, and the craft would shut off like a light and she would have to deal with trespassing fines.
Whatever. The privileged kyl can have their stupid market, she tried to assure herself, I don't need it anyway. Yet, she cringed at the memories of when she could go back there. All those years ago...
She looked behind her. All five free lanes of the skyroad were packed with sullen and blank-faced Xinschi-uual, sitting on their craft and saying nothing. The sixth “express lane”, used by those blessed with a higher Code level, was empty. In a way, it was both relieving and disappointing.
The traffic sign changed, and the grey light-road she was on connected to the intersection and cut off the way to the right. Half the traffic remained at a standstill as the rest moved to the left, and luckily for her she was going left too. She remembered the day when collective groans and complaints would rise up about the lack of ability to go both directions; now she just heard an absent-minded grumble or two.
It made the orange Xinschi-uual want to scream. Did no one care anymore? Were they just going to let the Empire disintegrate like this? Gryn III is-!
No! Don't think rebellious thoughts! her mind sharply interrupted. She shook her head sternly at herself, dismissing her questioning of the Empire's sovereign leader. You've been in enough trouble already.
That just made her desire to scream louder. She tried to ignore it and focus on the road, although it didn't require much attention; the second intersection was notoriously narrow for the amount of traffic it had. So predictably, she ended up stopping behind at least twenty craft in a jam.
Cyrii stared ahead at the intersection in impatience, watching the complexity of the inevitable morning jam before turning to the building next to her. As a skyscraper bordering the market, its windows were plastered with all kinds of motivational posters and advertisements. She looked over them in boredom, chin in one paw and the other paw drumming on the floating control orb. “A Happy Worker is a Good Worker”, “Seek Counsel: You're Not Alone!”, and “Emerald Benefits Now Available for Raise-Code Trials!” were just a few of the posters she saw. She stared bitterly at the latter; emeralds had such a wonderful, warm taste. What irony it was for the Empire to put that big tease next to a Happy Worker poster.
The jam moved somewhat, causing all of the impatient, bored, and just plain apathetic Xinschi-uual to move just a few nicroT forward. She didn't even look up, swiping her paw on the orb to move it forward the equivalent amount. A Xinschi-uual nearby moved too far forward, bumping into another's hovercraft and starting up an indignant argument. She rolled her eyes at the bickering and turned a cheek to it.
“Ohh, look, it's a coal worker,” a sneer started up to her left. “Off to roll in some grime today, eh?”
Cyrii bristled, whipping around to find the speaker: a cream-colored Xinschi-uual in the express lane a craft over from her.
“Shut up,” she said bluntly, “I'm too tired to give a crap right now.”
“'Give a crap'?” he laughed, “Why not? Aren't you about to go get some? After all, that's what life is all about, riiiight?”
“Shut it!”
“Or what? You'll spew some 'crap' about me, in your wheedling, raspy smoker's voice and soiled clothes?”
“Stow it, gildfilth! I don't need any of your so-called 'humor'!” she spat fruitlessly, but he just laughed at his own bad joke, safely buffered by an unwilling worker between them. The said worker glanced at both of them before fidgeting and backing up his hovercraft a bit, at the risk of bumping into the guy behind him. Cyrii took the opportunity to glare daggers at the higher-Code Xinschi-uual. “Why don't you go prancing around on some other schmuck's crushed dreams, huh?” she taunted, trying not to wince at the reminder of her own life's failures.
“Oh puh-lease!” the teasing Xinschi-uual said, tightening up his decorative collar. “As if that's any fun! You're like a rodocron just waiting to get riled up!”
“So stop it!” Cyrii snapped, a note of pleading entering her voice, “Just leave me alone! You do this every damn day!”
He snorted at her. “Yeah, uh-huh,” he laughed, “it's just so insufferable, being reminded of your real worth. Look at how useful this little worker is!” he said as if talking to a hatchling, “Look at you! You might get Employee of the Month! Queen of the Pneumatic Chute!”
Cyrii's feelings burned, and she grimaced in defeat. He was right, and she knew he was right; she wasn't called a menace to society for nothing, neglected for nothing, her mere existence abused for nothing.
“Just shut up!” she countered pathetically, “Don't make me come over there!”
“Ah hah hah! You're funny!” He just laughed it off.
“I'm serious!” she threatened; at this point, the worker between them was leaning so far back, the guy behind him was edging away. Someone else in the traffic groaned aloud.
“Shut up!” she called.
“YOU shut up!” Cyrii shot back, not even caring that it didn't make sense.
“Hey hey, you know what's really funny though?” the bully continued, making her whip back around and wrinkle her snout at him. “I get to sit in a nice office overlooking the badlands, while you're stuck down in a stinky ol' factory, shoveling coal into Gryn-knows-what! That's funny!”
“Oh yeah?!” she began loudly, just to hesitate about her choice comeback. “Well! Whatever, you dumb clerk, at least I have the strength to wring that fat neck of yours! You couldn't even throw a guide ball!” she pointed at the floating orb that controlled her hovercraft.
“I don't need strength,” the high-ranking Xinschi-uual grinned. “I have Superiority clearance, because I'm not a menace to society! You know what that means? I could make your hovercraft – boop – drop like a stone!”
“To Alkinest with your clearance! You keep your filthy paws off my craft!” Cyrii hissed, despite not actually owning the vehicle. He just snorted and laughed, leaving her to fume at him. She hated it when Xinschi-uual who weren't police had moderation privileges! Stupid code system, and labeling her as dangerous, and stupid Empire for enforcing it! So she asked a lot of questions and took a few things once, so what?
There was a beep up ahead in the traffic as the jam finally cleared up, and suddenly everyone began moving again, directing Cyrii's attention to more important matters. She tore her eyes from the clerk's cream scales and grabbed her guide ball with a vengeance, forcing the craft forward.
“Hey Grungy!! There's a scale coming off your head and you look stupid!” the Xinschi-uual continued, casually paralleling her.
“Shut up!” she spat back. Finally able to move again, the one worker between them rushed forward, not wanting to be caught in the middle of a fight.
“You better be careful! You might get fined, because you didn't pull off that teeny-weeny little scale!”
It suddenly dawned on Cyrii, and she whipped around to look at the brand on his uniform, scales flaring: the factory she worked at! “YOU'RE the one who FINED me!!”
“What are you going to do about it? Report me? Oh, but you gotta be Queen of the Crap Pile first! Whoopsie!” the Xinschi-uual said, before snorting some more laughter and plowing ahead through the crowd. Cyrii roared in frustration and pushed her craft forward, unlawfully passing through the lane lines and picking up speed, dinging up others' craft in the process. Unfortunately, the express lane was faster with significantly lower traffic; her chase quickly came to a full stop when she nearly flew into an airborne caravan and caused a ton of hovercraft in an intersection to suddenly halt, making her yelp in surprise and pull up into a dead zone to avoid a crash.
Vwwooouuuummmm... The craft's motor died as the zone killed its engine, and she lurched forward and wrapped her paws around the guide ball's stand for stability. She glared after the Xinschi-uual's craft as he disappeared around a corner; she let go just to ball her paws up into fists. Her passionate anger failed her again!
“AArrrRRrrggh!!” She slammed her fists on the guide ball, ignoring the indignant shouting about the new jam below. “I hate that guy! I hate him! Frickin'! Twenty months in a row! Aaaagh!” She squeezed her eyes shut and kept banging on the ball, before her tantrum quickly died into a defeated collapse “I'm still going to get flippin' fined...” she muttered. This was not her day, it seemed.
The snobby Xinschi-uual was just a tiny sliver that kept rubbing an old wound, and not as important as Cyrii let him be. Luckily for her, the police drones in the area were well acquainted with her tantrums. In a healthy five minutes a faceless, garish yellow-and-black pod flew up to her position, assessing her and the jam below while police officers sorted it out. A couple of snapped pictures, an automated tick on her file and a healthy sum drawn from her paycheck, and the pod remotely activated the hovercraft and sent her off to work as normal, if rather late now. Her digital record had been scratched so many times it would be black with ink, should it be physical; instead it was just another, painful reminder, just another little factor in Cyrii's life that added to the depression. Her best way to cope with it was to just try to ignore it; and so she did, driving the rest of the way to her workplace and parking her hovercraft at the pad. She dismounted and left it there, passing through the scanner that barred the yawning cave of an entrance, and waited for the doors to open with loud clunks and a hiss before entering.
Ah, the factory that ate up most of her life. A big, hulking concrete beast crouching low to the ground, with only a couple of towers reaching up to the sky like hungry mouths spewing dark smoke, it was not the prettiest building in the city. Then again, considering it was in the industrial sector, none of the buildings around it were very pretty either. The upper level where all but supply trains entered was a facade of a happy, cozy workplace, with rounded rooms painted warm colors and posters blessing the Empire's generosity hung everywhere; yet despite all of the seating and even the monitor in the far wall, there was only one, pink Xinschi-uual to greet her, poring over the factory's security at the sloped front desk.
She just grunted at her, not even looking up and doing something on the table's interface; no doubt sneaking a game in the meantime.
“Coal worker. Double orange,” Cyrii told her flatly, walking straight over to a door opposite of the Xinschi-uual. The pink Xinschi-uual swept a paw over some unknown sensor, and the door opened.
Cyrii didn't even say thanks. It wasn't important. Just marched right on to the elevated platform. The pink Xinschi-uual waved her paw again, and the door closed and the platform descended, down into the bowels of the factory.
The facade was gone in an instant, the smooth walls melting away into steel and crossbeams, a wall of hot, sticky air invading the senses. The lift stopped at the bottom level – the boiler room – and Cyrii stepped off to go to her post. Admittedly, she didn't mind the industrial look of the place, but the heat, and her job, and how tedious it all was... she tried not to think about it.
She walked along a catwalk to wide conveyor belt running the length of the giant room, the boilers sitting across from it with robotic arms on the opposite side. She approached an empty arm, giving it a wry face.
I remember what I first called you, she thought, 'Fun', in giant air-quotes. I can't believe how much of an understatement that is. She wearily climbed up into the driver's seat, now saddened by the primal controls in front of her. I want you to be a mech so bad.
Yet another thing she shouldn't think about, so she grabbed the controls and went to work, sorting out the coal on the belt into various bins in front of her for the boilers; yet her mind switched back to it regardless. It still embittered Cyrii how, when she reached the working age, she was assigned to this hideous thing instead of programming machines like she wanted, but there was no way she could argue against the Tribunal's decision. Tribunals of cities decided everything, even what food was available to you; all she could do was hope her Code level didn't get any lower and she could keep everything she had. So she went with the flow, pretending everything was okay and it could only become better. After all, it could only be worse if she turned criminal again, right?
Cyrii worked for barely twenty minutes before the heat began to take its characteristic, nigh-suffocating hold. She pretended it didn't exist and put in three hours, using the arm's integrated sensor to isolate bad coal specimens from the good, tossing the latter into the center boiler chute and the former down their respective grade chutes to be compressed again for proper processing. It was a hot, grimy job, and not automated very efficiently thanks to new Empiric regulations, but it was essential for powering the city, so even though she hated it every day and dreaded it every night, she couldn't argue with it. This was how the entirety of B3 Westward functioned, and apparently her interest in coding was trumped by her ability to sort rocks by how dense they were... though she felt like the Tribunal itself was dense for believing that. Not that it was popular opinion; all law enforcement was done with mechs – specifically, impressive Superiority models – aside from petty offenses like her earlier traffic jamming.
She had challenged one mech before. That was the stupidest thing she had ever done. Fighting against the Tribunal too would be even stupider.
Cyrii sighed, barely paying attention to her job. Mechs... the pride of the Empire. No AI was smarter, no weapons more powerful, no vehicle cooler than the Xinschi-uual mech. Some Xinschi-uual were terrified of them, others were unimpressed, and some – like herself – were in constant awe of them. Mechs meant a lot to Xinschi-uual and had a big impact on their lives; yet, they were reserved for government and military use because the Empire deemed them too dangerous for citizens to use. She recalled a time during her hectic school years that the mechs had other purposes too, but they were prototypes at the time, hardly functioning and kept hushed anyway. She wanted to jump in on the coding project, but the Tribunal denied her for too many reasons, and she couldn't help but feel cheated of the finer things in life. So maybe she had some aggression issues? That shouldn't stop her from rising up the ladder of hierarchy! Yet those fools at the top insist that she's still a “public hazard”... Fine after fine scratched its way on her record every day because she offended some “important” guy, or left some plastic lying around, or spent too long in the bathroom because it counted as her paid break...
“Are you still bitter about that?”
Cyrii jumped, startled by the voice to her right. She almost dropped a bad piece of coal into the boiler instead of the distillation chute!
“Huh?!” she said. The Xinschi-uual beside her – her scales a rich shade of scarlet with piebald spots – scrutinized her.
“You know, about the fine,” she said.
Cyrii snorted at the memory. “'The fine'. Everyone thinks about the fine.” She grumpily dropped the bad coal into the chute and snatched another piece of coal, remembering the costly amount and how much food she would have been able to afford.
Whatever. Didn't matter. She already lost tons of money to other things.
Her coworker, Alesia, was quiet for a bit, working the controls of her own robotic arm. Cyrii knew she was hesitant not because she had nothing to say, but because friends were deemed distractions at work. She didn't consider her a friend, but Alesia liked the company. Still, they shouldn't be talking to each other; and that alone made Cyrii want to defy the order and talk all she wanted.
“I don't know, I feel like...” Alesia began, but faltered, “I mean, you're rebellion material, so I expect you to be mad. That's why you're a Code Orange.”
“Pff, Code Orange,” Cyrii muttered, “Why do 'codes' even matter?”
“Well, it does distinguish your criminal record,” Alesia answered, “Only Reds are severely penalized.”
“The only Reds we have are the rebels,” Cyrii said, “of course they're penalized! It's treason!”
“Then why aren't you glad you're not a Red?” Alesia spoke so quietly she was nearly drowned out by the monotonous ambiance around them.
Cyrii huffed, though mostly at herself. “Because it doesn't matter anymore. They always think I'm toying with them.”
“You don't seem to care though,” her coworker said slowly.
“What do I care what they think? They're just going to boss me around anyway!”
“Because they think you're a rebel.”
Cyrii's neck scales began to flare in annoyance. “So what if I act like a rebel?” she echoed, “That doesn't give them the right to treat me the way they do. I deserve better than this! I should be out there programming flippin' tanks, not throwing compressed plants around!”
“You... you really think so?” The Xinschi-uual sounded genuinely confused. Cyrii stared at her right in the eyes, suddenly realizing her mistake, taking back her words. There were cameras watching them. The authorities were always watching, even in private homes, on the lookout for criminal activity.
“No. The city needs electricity,” she said, loudly and flatly.
“But-” Alesia began.
“We're not allowed to talk about feelings,” Cyrii dismissed, focusing back on the coal. Her fellow worker didn't respond. There was a long pause where they continued working in silence, hearing only the whirring of machinery, the rumbling of the broilers, and the hum of the belt itself.
“...I don't blame you.”
Cyrii paused. “Huh?”
“I don't care that we're not supposed to talk about feelings,” Alesia said, glancing around to make sure that the cameras weren't focused on the two of them. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “When you stood up to that Superiority model, I was astonished. Really! I admire you. You gave me the courage to stand up to my Da the other day.”
Cyrri raised a scaly brow, unsure on what to do with the praise. “Uh... thanks?” she said, though she still winced at the memory of standing up to the mech. Considering the smallest model stood just over three times the height of a Xinschi-uual, the fact that she stood her ground against one seven times her size... she still had an inner scar from that. At least it was of domestic design, and not a military one; the military ones were reportedly much scarier, designed to manage other machines. Despite her poor experience though, meeting another one sounded blissful to Cyrii; so many machines! Even their enemies fought with machines, hordes of drones that would swarm outposts and seize them in hours; but the mechs were far superior, with the brainpower of a Xinschi-uual combined with the firepower of a steel mechanism.
Ugh, I WANT to fight! Cyrii thought bitterly, If I can't program them why can't I at least pilot one?! Her mind drifted to all of the latest news on the war's status, which only made her more sour. We're being too passive. At this point we're all going to die because all of the mechs will be destroyed because the Empire is too STUPID to make use of their machines! She forcefully threw a chunk of peat into the broiler chute, not thinking.
“Cyrii! That was peat! 0 Grade!” Alesia hissed.
“I don't care,” Cyrii grumbled.
“Regulations!” The Xinschi-uual glanced at the cameras again. “You've had enough fines already!”
Cyrii scoffed. She was already giving the government the majority of her paycheck every month; an extra five hundred qit wouldn't make a difference. It still made her bitter and obstinate though. To think that if she had been given her dream job, or any other job, none of this would have happened...
“I don't care,” she repeated, sulking. “It's been twenty years, what else is new?”
“Mmmph,” her coworker let out a discontented growl, but went silent. There was no point in her being fined as well for shirking work.
The two of them continued minding the conveyor belt. Cyrii returned to wishing she was a programmer, instead of the hack she currently was. No permission, no certification, no code; everything she wrote she deleted promptly afterward so the Empire didn't have any reason to believe she was up to something. Of course, that in itself was suspicious, which only highlighted the stupidity of it all.
She made a wry face, tossing another piece of coal down its possibly-appropriate chute. Idiocy, she thought. Alesia noticed, but didn't say anything, letting her coworker glare at the undeserving coal bricks.
The next hour was punctuated by a couple of Xinschi-uual leaving and entering the broiler room, freely taking their breaks at will and yet not allowed to be absent for more than a few minutes. The air was populated by the hum of machinery, yet none of the workers in the long room said anything to each other. Cyrii was starting to feel the heat from the broilers, scales drying up and fine, airborne soot sneaking into their crevices. She felt parched, but didn't dare to take her break. Just a few minutes longer, she told herself, and the hour will roll over, and I can take a five minute break instead of four. Five is good.
Kerclunk. A massive thud sounded from the right of the room, a sound Cyrii recognized as the vehicle bay doors. The scraping of the metal rods echoed throughout the room and some of the workers looked up. It must be another shipment of black matter.
Alesia looked up as well, wiping her brow and consequently smearing it with the grime on her paws from working the controls. She was going to reach for her damp rag, but her paw simply hovered over it. Cyrii hardly acknowledged the unusual hesitance, withdrawn into the depths of her mind, only thinking, Right, I should do that too. I can push for six minutes.
She paused, grabbed her rag, and moistened her facial scales; then she heard a definite clunking of something heavy.
No... two heavy somethings! That sounded like-!
She dropped the rag immediately and perked up from her defeated state. At the other end of the room the door was wide open, industrial lights flooding through it and silhouetting four figures; two were definite Xinschi-uual on hovercraft, and the two flanking them were huge by comparison, with shoulders mounted up high on the heads and singular glowing eyes staring stolidly ahead.
Cyrii was shaking. MECHS! Those were MECHS!
Her coworkers shifted uncertainly as the group entered, the mechs walking with the awesome sound of two thousand pounds of steel, accented with industrial hums and whirs. The sounds were amplified by the room and made them seem all the more terrifying, but Cyrii still found them incredible.
“Well, here they are,” she heard a familiar voice say, and the Xinschi-uual on the broiler's side gestured out in front of him. “The whole cast, right here.”
Cast? Cyrii wondered, feeling conspicuous. As the figures moved out of the light she then distinguished them further: the vermillion scales and flashy green suit of the owner of the plant, his expression of cordiality not entirely convincing, and the other Xinschi-uual had a blue uniform blazoned with gold, with the Empire's insignia printed on the shoulder pads; definitely not colors of the industrial sector, but gave her no leads as to where else. The machines themselves were painted top to bottom, one red and grey, the other gold with rust accents. The red one glanced at her, and she stiffened up, suddenly self-conscious. She wasn't ready for this!
“Feel free to just, look them over, see if what you're looking for is here...” The owner of the plant continued, before faltering off. The other Xinschi-uual said nothing, his posture stiff, expressionless eyes scanning the workers at the conveyor belt. Despite being included in the suspicious offer, Cyrii leaned forward from her robotic arm, keen to have a better look of the mechs.
Massive! At least eight times her size and clearly military, they had the typical mech design derived from a native avian's, with the teardrop-shaped head, seven pistons mounting that to a much smaller, trapezoidal box, and a cylindrical pelvic unit below that. Powerful digitigrade legs curled up underneath them so that they didn't tower over the Xinschi-uual, and she spotted a second pair of arms mounted above the first. Four arms! The bottom ones with two turrets, the top ones with even deadlier thermal weaponry! Rounded laser heads protruded around the eyes of the mechs like giant lug-nuts. The only thing giving these machines expression were the eyelid-like blast shields, narrowed challengingly at anyone they made eye contact with as they surveyed the area.
Cyrii's mind was buzzing, even as the intimidating machines stomped closer. She wanted to know what they were like! What was it like inside? How intelligent were their AI? How did they function? What did they do? What could they withstand?
She was so intrigued by the mechs, she didn't realize that the owner of the plant had resumed talking, barely tuning back in.
“...so of course, I highly, highly doubt that these gals are what you're looking for. Unprivileged dropouts, you know what I mean?” he chuckled nervously. The Xinschi-uual on the other hovercraft didn't take his eyes off the conveyor belt, scanning each worker in turn.
“Dropouts are fine,” he answered gruffly.
“Oh! Oh, of course! Heh, I just meant, you know, that there were, better, Xinschi-uual to be looking for...” Cyrii never knew her superior could fumble so much. The other Xinschi-uual finally looked up at him.
“The higher the Code, the better. Orders from the top. Gryn's orders,” he stated very clearly. Cyrii's heart was still fluttering at the sight of the mechs, but now it skipped a beat.
Higher.... the Code?
“Ah, yes, our grand leader! May he live forever,” the owner said automatically. “So um... did you say 'higher the Code'?”
The other Xinschi-uual looked tired, ignoring him and going back to scanning the coal workers, who had now all stiffened up and had their arms over their chests in the universal sign of respect. Cyrii, of course, was the odd one out with only her mouth agape, not even thinking about respect even as the couple-of-tons-of-walking-metal passed her. The gold mech glanced out to the side, noticing her, but didn't falter in his step.
She was rightly terrified, but couldn't help but think, This is SO COOL!!
“So! Anyone interesting? All middle-age, as you said. Some are more young and sprightly. The sprightly ones are the best workers, you know.” The owner's small talk still failed on his guest. The unknown Xinschi-uual slowed his hovercraft's crawl five workers down from her, causing his followers to stop too.
“Where's the highest offender?” he asked. Cyrii could have sworn that those words alone echoed throughout the entire room. Now she had finally straightened up out of fear: could there be anyone here worse than her? What if the guest was a prosecutor?! What if those mechs were mercenaries, out to execute unspoken charges against her?! It wouldn't be the first time someone was hunted down and killed... She flashed back to the last time she saw a military mech out in public, feeling stupid that she didn't realize it before. That girl had stood no chance; three steps and the mech had put a bullet hole the size of her head in her... No, don't think about it! That won't happen to me! It won't!
“Hm...” The power plant owner moved his hovercraft along the conveyor belt, slow, silent, and deliberate, while his guest patiently waited to the side. He moved past Cyrii, and she froze up when he looked at her; he continued on, however. She felt immense relief, still looking ahead while one paw reached for the hatch door, only for it to pull on the handle and have the door not open.
Oh crap, she thought, oh crap oh crap oh crap-
The owner stopped at the end, turned back, and drove right back on by. She timed it so he didn't notice her struggling, but her adrenaline was out of control, making her visibly shake. She fumbled with the handle once he had moved away again, panicking. Why won't it open?! These things don't have locks on them!
Despite her effort, the door didn't budge; she was stuck inside the robotic arm! She looked up and noticed the gold mech watching her carefully, and she felt faint. She hastily composed herself and avoided eye contact, but she burned up guiltily under that LED gaze, foolishly hoping he wouldn't say anything.
The owner continued his slow scan, and had counted its twelve workers twice before he stopped near Cyrii. She pressed her mouth into a thin line and stuffed her paws underneath her overcoat, trying to hide how scared she was.
Oh no oh no oh no no more peat in the boiler I promise just PLEASE don't take me out with those mechs...! she chanted in her mind. He looked just off to her right.
“Probably Alesia there,” he said it in a soft tone, and yet his voice echoed just as loudly. Cyrii's eyes widened, and she whipped around to her right.
Alesia?!
The mentioned piebald Xinschi-uual shriveled up on the spot, especially so when the guest had come over, his mechs following him, looking her up and down.
“Alesia?” he asked, floating close to her. Now that he was close enough, Cyrii could make out definite streaks and chevrons on his uniform: military general! Now she was really freaked out, losing her composure, but no more so than Alesia.
“P-Please sir. It's all in the past. I'm different now!” the poor worker was begging, “I-I won't do any of it ever again! I've renounced my ways! PLEASE SIR!” her voice rose shrilly.
“SILENCE!” the general thundered.
She swallowed her words. The mechs had their deadly green gazes trained on Alesia. Cyrii's breath caught in her throat, her eyes flicking between them to see what would happen, and many of her coworkers were slowly shuffling away in their seats. Alesia looked like she was about to either start crying, pass out, or both, scales flattened so far she looked as if she dropped twenty pounds.
Contrary to what was expected, the general simply turned to the power plant owner, looking bored. “Who else?” he said, still calm. The owner looked over at Cyrii, and his gaze followed. She felt like screaming and running away. No no no no no no no-
“Who's this?”
“Cyrii, sir. A Code Orange, just like Alesia.”
NO NO NO NO NO-!
“Any other Oranges?”
“No sir. Just Yellows and Greens.”
“Yellows are too subdued. Not enough kick to them,” the general's voice lowered to a mutter. Cyrii was utterly shocked; Code Yellow was subdued? Code Blue was the best you had, if you weren't completely innocent! Who was? Code Purple was usually assigned to hatchlings who didn't even know about thievery; that was the only way to not have cameras on you!
She tore her gaze away from the owner, daring to look at the general. He scrutinized her, but other than that it was hard to tell what he was thinking; his mouth was a hard, thin line, and his eyes gave nothing away. He finally pulled up his hovercraft and said cryptically to the owner:
“I'll take them.”
“Take us where?!” Cyrii burst out loudly. He shot a look at her over his shoulder that said nothing more than “shut up”. Cyrii wheezed, in an attempt to release all of the anxiety she had; it didn't help.
Well, if this was an unannounced execution, at least she was able to see a mech before she died.
The owner just nodded rapidly. “Yup! Okay! Sure! When can I expect that royalty check?”
The general now turned his stern gaze to the owner.
“A-Ah, okay, you don't have it yet! That's fine! I can wait...” he faltered, backing off on his hovercraft. The general turned back to the task at hand, taking his hovercraft between Cyrii's and Alesia's robotic arms and swiveling it around. He looked at both of them in turn.
“Well? Hop on. It's a long flight.”
----------
Alesia was shaking. Cyrii's jaw was dropped the entire time. She rarely saw the floor of the city, as it was an overgrown place usually reserved for unsavory types, but the mechs couldn't fly so they had to travel along the ground with them on either side.
The experience was surreal! The hovercraft moved at a speed that was illegal, just to keep up with the hulking machines! Buildings whipped by and the mechs plowed through any plants that tried growing up through the hard earth, barely fazed by them. Each footfall thundered off the concrete bases of the buildings, giving the mechs a false sense of immense power.
Cyrii loved it. Alesia couldn't help but think about what might happen if she fell off, as she clung to the hovercraft's safety rails for dear life. The general must have been used to this speed, as he was more stolid than the machines flanking him.
Despite being a greater distance than from Cyrii's home to her work, the voyage seemed to last only a few minutes. The group had broken out of the city and into the badlands – a huge, rocky waste that was both semi-natural and a product of the war – and traveled just a bit further out before coming across a military complex. Unlike the city, the complex didn't feature tall buildings, or glass features, or really even hovercraft of any type; rather, it was all built low to the ground and sprawled out, and much of it was probably underground. The buildings were bland from the outside, though a few of the older structures did sport some graffiti.
“Don't be fazed by the colorful letters,” the general said, noticing Cyrii looking at the graffiti. “We're not colorful here.”
At the opportunity of discussion, Cyrii immediately launched a volley of questions: “Do you make mechs here? What AI? How many do you have? What models? All new or some refurbished? Are they personalized? Do you paint them? Can I see them before I die-?”
The general suddenly barked out a laugh. “'Die', lassie? 'Die'?! You think we're going to kill you?”
“Well...” Cyrii began uncertainly, “you arrested us without warrant or notice.”
“'Arrested'? I didn't think I would meet anyone who took Gryn's word as a word of arrest.”
Cyrii stared blankly, glancing at Alesia as the group slowed down upon entering complex property. “Why would Gryn want us?” she pressed.
“It's not a question if Gryn wants you, lassie. It is if you want Gryn,” the General answered.
“Huh?”
“Patriotism!” he boomed, “fight for your planet, lassie! Gryn's the head of this whole thing; if you want to live, you ought to know how to use a gun!”
Cyrii blubbered for a bit, completely taken aback. “Y-You mean!? We're going to fight? WE'RE DRAFTED?!”
The general didn't answer, just huffing and facing back to the front.
“YES!! Yes yes yes!” Cryii squealed and did a little happy dance around on the hovercraft, making it sway dangerously. “Aaaaaaah! It's a dream come true!” Alesia clutched the railing, looking a little queasy. Cyrii didn't notice though; she was too busy jumping around and laughing with the sheer excitement of a two-year-old in a candy store.
All anxiety about being a potential convict had disappeared.
Part 1:
Booting...
Loading BFCS... 100%. Loading successful. Initializing.
Loading AAI base drivers... 100%. Loading successful. Queuing.
Loading AAI subneural drive layers... 100%. Loading successful. Queuing.
Loading AAI neural drive layers... 100% Loading successful. Queuing.
Initializing queue... initialization successful.
Loading mapped CaPL... 100%. Loading successful. Initializing.
Preliminary loading finished. Loading consciousness interface....
There was a pause. While the terminal scrolled across my vision, I felt something shift in my head... a presence. An authorized presence?... Yes. I immediately launched into the default tutorial mode, speaking privately to the presence using internal speakers:
Hello. Welcome to the experience of piloting your first mech. I am-
“Model 56, ID 767!” The voice that greeted me was unexpectedly happy. “Oh boy!! I've always wanted to interface with a mech! What do your internal processes look like? How do they function? Do you really think, or is it just a bunch of trinary?”
I was so taken aback, I was shaken out of the tutorial. Um...
“I'm Cyrii!” the voice continued. “Aaaaah! This is going to be so much FUN! Tell me, what are your statistics like? They wouldn't show us the actual numbers you know but I imagine they're pretty crazy! Heh, I received the weirdest looks when I picked you out because your power potential is through the roof but hey who cares?! We needed a damage-dealer so I picked it! And look you're huge! So what are the numbers? What are they what are they??”
I still wasn't sure how to respond. My programming prevented me from treating this... Cyrii... from being anything but a superior, so I decided I might as well run a diagnostic check. To my surprise though, she beat me to it, pulling up a console on one of my internal monitors and typing rapidly.
“Wait! Hold on, hold on, hold on, I got it! Just a second...” She smacked down my enter key with striking enthusiasm. “Ah hah! Oh my gosh... wow! Look at that! And that! And two hundred fifty thousand GT cubic power?!” she laughed giddily, “You're a tank!”
Tank...? I asked innocently.
“Look at these stats! You could tear down a building!” Cyrii sounded genuinely astonished. I couldn't help but be informative:
I am a Model 56 mech, designed for the semi-front ranks with a depth of at least three rows. I -
“What, no rounds?!” Cyrii cut me off. “Your guns are supposed to be loaded! I can't train if there's nothing in them!”
We are not authorized to have live ammunition this early, I said in puzzlement, as determined by Rulebook #8 section 33-
“It doesn't have to be live!” Cyrii objected. There was a pause, and I could feel vibrations in my head.
You need to calm down, I told her.
“No no no, see, you're a fighting machine,” she tried to explain, “and I'm supposed to learn how to shoot stuff with you, but I can't if your turrets are empty! You're supposed to have blanks in them.”
Turrets... I repeated. My interest had piqued for a second, but was gone just after that. I didn't know what to make of that, so I decided to ignore it. We are still not authorized to obtain any ammunition.
“I am authorized,” Cyrii asserted, “the General said that blank rounds would be available for training, first thing!”
I have no blanks, I informed.
“Yeah, I can see that,” her tone turned sour, “and we need to fix that!”
There is nothing to fix, I argued.
“What are you talking about?! Aren't you supposed to believe me?”
I do, but we have no authorization to-
“Forget authorization!” she snapped over me, “clearly your base programming wasn't unlocked all the way!” She huffed in exasperation. “Figures I'd get the defective one...”
I'm sorry...? I said, my threads dissolving into shame. Was this superior presence not happy with me? What did I do?
“Nothing,” Cyrii dismissed, “It doesn't matter. We can get past the firewall easily though.” She tried to brighten up her tone, telling me something was bothering her; I didn't know how I knew that, but I did.
We can? I said hopefully, and then I will be up to standards?
“Yeah, sure! We'll just go get you filled up!”
My threads spiraled back into confusion. But we're not-
“Yeah yeah, I know. It's just a bad firewall!”
But I have no clearance to-!
I was ignored. Cyrri grabbed a hold of my locomotive functions and forced me out of my hangar in the wall, but the robotic arms holding me in place strained and pulled back, trying to keep me tucked into the niche. Cyrii didn't anticipate the interruption, pushing harder on the controls to get me out. Being an inferior intelligence, I did not struggle against Cyrii's will. Instead I simply asked naively: Where are you taking me?
“Cyrii! Stand down, Gryn forsake it!” a voice barked to my left. Cyrii's head jerked toward the noise, making me I swivel as best as I could with several arms still attached to me. We spotted both a Creator Entity on a hovercraft, as well as another mech model, swooping in from the left.
Model 36...
Facial recognition kicked in right away, and I obeyed, forcing myself to stand still despite Cyrii's vain attempt to keep me walking forward. She grunted and pushed on the controls hard, but I overrode her efforts.
“Good, at least the mech has brains,” the Creator Entity muttered, scanning me up and down with his three eyes. “This is what I get for choosing Code Oranges.”
I ignored him. My gaze was locked with the 36 model mech as it came to a stop beside him, with its distinct white hull having the slightest reflective tint. Despite the mech looking a little thin it was intimidating to see it so close, probably because of the long, hooked claws on either arm, four in front and two in back. Their tips and edges seemed to glow: a sign of micro-edging. Those things could cut right through me.
The mech stared me down. I wanted to shrink back in submission, but I could only lock up or obey Cyrii. Thankfully though, his posture was nonthreatening. He turned just slightly, his hull catching the artificial light, and I glimpsed four long wings collapsed on his back.
“I told you we shouldn't have given her a Pusher Model. Scout, at best,” he spoke through his speaker.
“Bah... Gryn's orders,” the Creator Entity scowled. “Cyrii, pay attention!”
My new, separate consciousness finally obeyed, and stopped pushing the controls so hard.
“Listen, you scalestout, you signed a contract subjecting you to military law! I have the power to take this away from you. Now get back into your hangar!”
“But 767 is missing blanks-” she tried to explain through my speaker.
“Doesn't matter! Your job is to follow orders, not dink around doing whatever you want!”
Cyrii grumbled, but nothing came through my speaker since she didn't touch the comm button. Instead, she pulled on the controls – equally as unforgiving as before – and forced me to walk backwards, back into the niche where the robotic arms were less strained; I fit it nicely with a clunk. The 36 model mech walked in front of me along the catwalk, giving me a quick scan. I stood stock still as the yellow grid projection fell over me.
“Mech is fine?” the Creator Entity asked.
“Fine as ever,” the 36 answered, taking several steps back. The creature looked me up and down before rolling his eyes.
“I swear, I'm going to have to babysit you... and that plant owner said Alesia was the bad one!”
Alesia? Who is that? I wondered.
“Whatever.” Cyrii muttered, pressing on the comm button. As a result, my own voice came through: “Whatever”, in a tone mimicking her's.
The Creator Entity was exasperated. “Back to your post,” he said to the 36 mech. The mech looked between the two of us for a second, before retreating back along the catwalk, passing rows and rows of other mechs. The Creator Entity turned back to me.
“Cyrii, you're under oath AND contract. Don't blow this, or you're hurting yourself. THIS close to a Code Red,” he hissed his warning, before turning and flying off on the hovercraft. I watched him leave before relaxing in my hangar as she let go of the controls.
You are a Code Orange, THIS close to a Code Red, I echoed the Creator Entity, storing the information on my hard drive.
“Oh please!” she spat, “What do you care?”
I technically didn't; it was just protocol to absorb as much relevant information as possible. Cyrii simply huffed in annoyance. “The guy who recruited me was better than that oaf,” she muttered. My internal mic picked up a rough shifting sound; presumably she was shaking her head to clear it. “Fine, guess I won't have blanks. Not my fault if I can't train because of it.”
You sound agitated, I observed.
“Thanks, Zepholus,” she said sarcastically. “Hmph... so they won't let us have fun, we're just supposed to 'get used to each other'... What else can we do?... What about your personality?” Cyrii mused.
Personality?
“Yeah! I mean, I'm going to be sitting here the whole time anyway,” she said, “I might as well learn how you think. So what do you like?”
What do I like?
“Yeah.”
I searched my hard drive for anything matching the terms “like”. There was nothing beyond the normal code jargon.
I like nothing, I answered. Cyrii scoffed.
“Come on, you have to like something! You're not a shelter bot.”
In my rudimentary knowledge database, I found a data file on a “shelter bot”. I was confused by her tone. Shelter bots serve a noble purpose. They bring optimism into the lives of those who don't often have it.
“Bah! That's exactly what the shelter bot said,” she said.
It is not wrong.
“Okay, fine, what about dislikes? There has to be something you dislike, right? Something you wouldn't want to be involved in or responsible for?”
I repeated my internal search for anything matching hate. My results weren't very positive... I hate nothing, I answered. Anticipating the same response though, I added: I do have fears though.
“Okay, now we're getting somewhere!” Cyrii brightened her tone a bit. “So what freaks you out the most?”
'Freaks out'? That term is ambiguous, I said.
“Makes you scared! Come on, now.”
Okay... I tried to appease her. Well, it is forbidden to become a traitor.
“Treason... you can comprehend something like that?” She sounded surprised.
I am built to be able to reason as well as my creators, I said. She paused.
“Huh. So treason is one thing. That makes sense.” She didn't sound very impressed. “What else?”
I am afraid of failing the objective.
“The objective? What objective?”
Any objective, I clarified, I should not and will not disobey any order decreed by the Empire, nor any superior greater than my rank whose position has been approved by the Empire, nor the commands of my operator or pilot who shall always be a greater rank than I provided that the Empire approves of the operator's position and the operator is authorized to use my controls.
A long pause, which was then broken by: “That was way too long-winded...”
I'm sorry? I said, puzzled. I didn't fail in describing the accuracy, did I? I can make it more concise if you want.
“Please no, I nearly fell asleep,” Cyrii said hastily.
As you wish.
“So, do you have any irrational fears? Or is it just all of this logical, stay-in-line stuff?”
Irrational? I asked. Um... please define the boundaries of 'irrational'.
“Anything that isn't what I just said!”
I paused, thought back on her previous question, then cross-referenced the data with my internal workings. I could only delve so far before being met with a firewall demanding higher clearance, and in a way I regretted not being able to do a proper search for her, but I was stuck with what I had.
I have no irrational fears, I answered.
“Really? Absolutely nothing?” she said, befuddled.
Nothing within the given criteria.
Cyrii didn't seem very happy. “At least you're capable of parsing most spoken commands right...” she said, a hint of relief slipping into her tone. I perked up a bit, eager to serve.
Cyrii sighed, and... nothing happened for a while. I felt a rising impatience intermingling with my enthusiasm, but right when I expected my patience to snap – a question in the front of my mind, ready for when it did – my threads suddenly slammed into a wall. A wall? That wasn't there before... yet, I felt strangely tempered by it. My impatience never rose past it to start annoying me.
So I sat there, patiently, awaiting a command. After exactly one minute of idling though, I suddenly had the urge to say, Operator, confirm presence.
“Huh?” Cyrii's first response.
Presence confirmed, I deadpanned, before adding, I thought you left!
“Wha – I can only leave through the entry panels. Wouldn't you know if I did that?”
I felt numb confusion. I... suppose so.
Cyrii grunted, her emotions indeterminate. I didn't have anything else to say, so I asked, What is the objective at the moment, Cyrii?
There was a start in my head. “Weird to hear my voice say my name...” she mumbled. “Uh, well, the General said that you're not getting out of here until we get 'acclimated', which is a two-day-long process of talking.”
Two days? That is quite some time, I commented.
“Right?!” she agreed, “it's so long!”
Surely a superior has clarified why?
“No, of course not. They think we're too dumb to care about these things, as usual!” she ranted, “They think that somehow this is a 'necessary security measure' and it's fine to leave it at that, but they don't know how war works. We can socialize after all of the battle training! I was recruited because the Empire is low on soldiers, and yet we're standing around talking like a bunch of white-collar Code Greens!” I patiently listened as she continued: “Aren't we supposed to be blowing up dummies right now? And out in the battlefield in two weeks?! I already went through my preliminary exercises, let me use my mech!”
I am your mech! I chimed in.
“Yeah! But noooo, we have to follow orders and sit around for two days, then 'get used to' the controls for an extra two days before we finally start doing some interesting maneuvers! So much for 'low on units'...” she ended with a grumble. I felt nothing but burning optimism at the feeling of belonging, shoving down my first pangs of doubt when my interest in my pilot's happiness and the logic of training early were contradicted by orders from superiors.
Orders are orders, I said, we will push through them, to serve the Empire!
“Yeah...” Cyrii said, far less enthusiastic. We sat in silence for a bit, and I worriedly turned up the heater in case she was uncomfortable. Despite the fact that she already knew how to use my locomotive controls and open my console, I launched back into tutorial mode as I was supposed to.
You, Cyrii, are my consciousness. We are meant to work as a team of brains and brawns. Before you will be a panel that contains various basic controls... I rattled on about the different functions, not minding that she wasn't really paying attention, if the silence was anything to go by. We would be the best team, I knew!
Loading BFCS... 100%. Loading successful. Initializing.
Loading AAI base drivers... 100%. Loading successful. Queuing.
Loading AAI subneural drive layers... 100%. Loading successful. Queuing.
Loading AAI neural drive layers... 100% Loading successful. Queuing.
Initializing queue... initialization successful.
Loading mapped CaPL... 100%. Loading successful. Initializing.
Preliminary loading finished. Loading consciousness interface....
There was a pause. While the terminal scrolled across my vision, I felt something shift in my head... a presence. An authorized presence?... Yes. I immediately launched into the default tutorial mode, speaking privately to the presence using internal speakers:
Hello. Welcome to the experience of piloting your first mech. I am-
“Model 56, ID 767!” The voice that greeted me was unexpectedly happy. “Oh boy!! I've always wanted to interface with a mech! What do your internal processes look like? How do they function? Do you really think, or is it just a bunch of trinary?”
I was so taken aback, I was shaken out of the tutorial. Um...
“I'm Cyrii!” the voice continued. “Aaaaah! This is going to be so much FUN! Tell me, what are your statistics like? They wouldn't show us the actual numbers you know but I imagine they're pretty crazy! Heh, I received the weirdest looks when I picked you out because your power potential is through the roof but hey who cares?! We needed a damage-dealer so I picked it! And look you're huge! So what are the numbers? What are they what are they??”
I still wasn't sure how to respond. My programming prevented me from treating this... Cyrii... from being anything but a superior, so I decided I might as well run a diagnostic check. To my surprise though, she beat me to it, pulling up a console on one of my internal monitors and typing rapidly.
“Wait! Hold on, hold on, hold on, I got it! Just a second...” She smacked down my enter key with striking enthusiasm. “Ah hah! Oh my gosh... wow! Look at that! And that! And two hundred fifty thousand GT cubic power?!” she laughed giddily, “You're a tank!”
Tank...? I asked innocently.
“Look at these stats! You could tear down a building!” Cyrii sounded genuinely astonished. I couldn't help but be informative:
I am a Model 56 mech, designed for the semi-front ranks with a depth of at least three rows. I -
“What, no rounds?!” Cyrii cut me off. “Your guns are supposed to be loaded! I can't train if there's nothing in them!”
We are not authorized to have live ammunition this early, I said in puzzlement, as determined by Rulebook #8 section 33-
“It doesn't have to be live!” Cyrii objected. There was a pause, and I could feel vibrations in my head.
You need to calm down, I told her.
“No no no, see, you're a fighting machine,” she tried to explain, “and I'm supposed to learn how to shoot stuff with you, but I can't if your turrets are empty! You're supposed to have blanks in them.”
Turrets... I repeated. My interest had piqued for a second, but was gone just after that. I didn't know what to make of that, so I decided to ignore it. We are still not authorized to obtain any ammunition.
“I am authorized,” Cyrii asserted, “the General said that blank rounds would be available for training, first thing!”
I have no blanks, I informed.
“Yeah, I can see that,” her tone turned sour, “and we need to fix that!”
There is nothing to fix, I argued.
“What are you talking about?! Aren't you supposed to believe me?”
I do, but we have no authorization to-
“Forget authorization!” she snapped over me, “clearly your base programming wasn't unlocked all the way!” She huffed in exasperation. “Figures I'd get the defective one...”
I'm sorry...? I said, my threads dissolving into shame. Was this superior presence not happy with me? What did I do?
“Nothing,” Cyrii dismissed, “It doesn't matter. We can get past the firewall easily though.” She tried to brighten up her tone, telling me something was bothering her; I didn't know how I knew that, but I did.
We can? I said hopefully, and then I will be up to standards?
“Yeah, sure! We'll just go get you filled up!”
My threads spiraled back into confusion. But we're not-
“Yeah yeah, I know. It's just a bad firewall!”
But I have no clearance to-!
I was ignored. Cyrri grabbed a hold of my locomotive functions and forced me out of my hangar in the wall, but the robotic arms holding me in place strained and pulled back, trying to keep me tucked into the niche. Cyrii didn't anticipate the interruption, pushing harder on the controls to get me out. Being an inferior intelligence, I did not struggle against Cyrii's will. Instead I simply asked naively: Where are you taking me?
“Cyrii! Stand down, Gryn forsake it!” a voice barked to my left. Cyrii's head jerked toward the noise, making me I swivel as best as I could with several arms still attached to me. We spotted both a Creator Entity on a hovercraft, as well as another mech model, swooping in from the left.
Model 36...
Facial recognition kicked in right away, and I obeyed, forcing myself to stand still despite Cyrii's vain attempt to keep me walking forward. She grunted and pushed on the controls hard, but I overrode her efforts.
“Good, at least the mech has brains,” the Creator Entity muttered, scanning me up and down with his three eyes. “This is what I get for choosing Code Oranges.”
I ignored him. My gaze was locked with the 36 model mech as it came to a stop beside him, with its distinct white hull having the slightest reflective tint. Despite the mech looking a little thin it was intimidating to see it so close, probably because of the long, hooked claws on either arm, four in front and two in back. Their tips and edges seemed to glow: a sign of micro-edging. Those things could cut right through me.
The mech stared me down. I wanted to shrink back in submission, but I could only lock up or obey Cyrii. Thankfully though, his posture was nonthreatening. He turned just slightly, his hull catching the artificial light, and I glimpsed four long wings collapsed on his back.
“I told you we shouldn't have given her a Pusher Model. Scout, at best,” he spoke through his speaker.
“Bah... Gryn's orders,” the Creator Entity scowled. “Cyrii, pay attention!”
My new, separate consciousness finally obeyed, and stopped pushing the controls so hard.
“Listen, you scalestout, you signed a contract subjecting you to military law! I have the power to take this away from you. Now get back into your hangar!”
“But 767 is missing blanks-” she tried to explain through my speaker.
“Doesn't matter! Your job is to follow orders, not dink around doing whatever you want!”
Cyrii grumbled, but nothing came through my speaker since she didn't touch the comm button. Instead, she pulled on the controls – equally as unforgiving as before – and forced me to walk backwards, back into the niche where the robotic arms were less strained; I fit it nicely with a clunk. The 36 model mech walked in front of me along the catwalk, giving me a quick scan. I stood stock still as the yellow grid projection fell over me.
“Mech is fine?” the Creator Entity asked.
“Fine as ever,” the 36 answered, taking several steps back. The creature looked me up and down before rolling his eyes.
“I swear, I'm going to have to babysit you... and that plant owner said Alesia was the bad one!”
Alesia? Who is that? I wondered.
“Whatever.” Cyrii muttered, pressing on the comm button. As a result, my own voice came through: “Whatever”, in a tone mimicking her's.
The Creator Entity was exasperated. “Back to your post,” he said to the 36 mech. The mech looked between the two of us for a second, before retreating back along the catwalk, passing rows and rows of other mechs. The Creator Entity turned back to me.
“Cyrii, you're under oath AND contract. Don't blow this, or you're hurting yourself. THIS close to a Code Red,” he hissed his warning, before turning and flying off on the hovercraft. I watched him leave before relaxing in my hangar as she let go of the controls.
You are a Code Orange, THIS close to a Code Red, I echoed the Creator Entity, storing the information on my hard drive.
“Oh please!” she spat, “What do you care?”
I technically didn't; it was just protocol to absorb as much relevant information as possible. Cyrii simply huffed in annoyance. “The guy who recruited me was better than that oaf,” she muttered. My internal mic picked up a rough shifting sound; presumably she was shaking her head to clear it. “Fine, guess I won't have blanks. Not my fault if I can't train because of it.”
You sound agitated, I observed.
“Thanks, Zepholus,” she said sarcastically. “Hmph... so they won't let us have fun, we're just supposed to 'get used to each other'... What else can we do?... What about your personality?” Cyrii mused.
Personality?
“Yeah! I mean, I'm going to be sitting here the whole time anyway,” she said, “I might as well learn how you think. So what do you like?”
What do I like?
“Yeah.”
I searched my hard drive for anything matching the terms “like”. There was nothing beyond the normal code jargon.
I like nothing, I answered. Cyrii scoffed.
“Come on, you have to like something! You're not a shelter bot.”
In my rudimentary knowledge database, I found a data file on a “shelter bot”. I was confused by her tone. Shelter bots serve a noble purpose. They bring optimism into the lives of those who don't often have it.
“Bah! That's exactly what the shelter bot said,” she said.
It is not wrong.
“Okay, fine, what about dislikes? There has to be something you dislike, right? Something you wouldn't want to be involved in or responsible for?”
I repeated my internal search for anything matching hate. My results weren't very positive... I hate nothing, I answered. Anticipating the same response though, I added: I do have fears though.
“Okay, now we're getting somewhere!” Cyrii brightened her tone a bit. “So what freaks you out the most?”
'Freaks out'? That term is ambiguous, I said.
“Makes you scared! Come on, now.”
Okay... I tried to appease her. Well, it is forbidden to become a traitor.
“Treason... you can comprehend something like that?” She sounded surprised.
I am built to be able to reason as well as my creators, I said. She paused.
“Huh. So treason is one thing. That makes sense.” She didn't sound very impressed. “What else?”
I am afraid of failing the objective.
“The objective? What objective?”
Any objective, I clarified, I should not and will not disobey any order decreed by the Empire, nor any superior greater than my rank whose position has been approved by the Empire, nor the commands of my operator or pilot who shall always be a greater rank than I provided that the Empire approves of the operator's position and the operator is authorized to use my controls.
A long pause, which was then broken by: “That was way too long-winded...”
I'm sorry? I said, puzzled. I didn't fail in describing the accuracy, did I? I can make it more concise if you want.
“Please no, I nearly fell asleep,” Cyrii said hastily.
As you wish.
“So, do you have any irrational fears? Or is it just all of this logical, stay-in-line stuff?”
Irrational? I asked. Um... please define the boundaries of 'irrational'.
“Anything that isn't what I just said!”
I paused, thought back on her previous question, then cross-referenced the data with my internal workings. I could only delve so far before being met with a firewall demanding higher clearance, and in a way I regretted not being able to do a proper search for her, but I was stuck with what I had.
I have no irrational fears, I answered.
“Really? Absolutely nothing?” she said, befuddled.
Nothing within the given criteria.
Cyrii didn't seem very happy. “At least you're capable of parsing most spoken commands right...” she said, a hint of relief slipping into her tone. I perked up a bit, eager to serve.
Cyrii sighed, and... nothing happened for a while. I felt a rising impatience intermingling with my enthusiasm, but right when I expected my patience to snap – a question in the front of my mind, ready for when it did – my threads suddenly slammed into a wall. A wall? That wasn't there before... yet, I felt strangely tempered by it. My impatience never rose past it to start annoying me.
So I sat there, patiently, awaiting a command. After exactly one minute of idling though, I suddenly had the urge to say, Operator, confirm presence.
“Huh?” Cyrii's first response.
Presence confirmed, I deadpanned, before adding, I thought you left!
“Wha – I can only leave through the entry panels. Wouldn't you know if I did that?”
I felt numb confusion. I... suppose so.
Cyrii grunted, her emotions indeterminate. I didn't have anything else to say, so I asked, What is the objective at the moment, Cyrii?
There was a start in my head. “Weird to hear my voice say my name...” she mumbled. “Uh, well, the General said that you're not getting out of here until we get 'acclimated', which is a two-day-long process of talking.”
Two days? That is quite some time, I commented.
“Right?!” she agreed, “it's so long!”
Surely a superior has clarified why?
“No, of course not. They think we're too dumb to care about these things, as usual!” she ranted, “They think that somehow this is a 'necessary security measure' and it's fine to leave it at that, but they don't know how war works. We can socialize after all of the battle training! I was recruited because the Empire is low on soldiers, and yet we're standing around talking like a bunch of white-collar Code Greens!” I patiently listened as she continued: “Aren't we supposed to be blowing up dummies right now? And out in the battlefield in two weeks?! I already went through my preliminary exercises, let me use my mech!”
I am your mech! I chimed in.
“Yeah! But noooo, we have to follow orders and sit around for two days, then 'get used to' the controls for an extra two days before we finally start doing some interesting maneuvers! So much for 'low on units'...” she ended with a grumble. I felt nothing but burning optimism at the feeling of belonging, shoving down my first pangs of doubt when my interest in my pilot's happiness and the logic of training early were contradicted by orders from superiors.
Orders are orders, I said, we will push through them, to serve the Empire!
“Yeah...” Cyrii said, far less enthusiastic. We sat in silence for a bit, and I worriedly turned up the heater in case she was uncomfortable. Despite the fact that she already knew how to use my locomotive controls and open my console, I launched back into tutorial mode as I was supposed to.
You, Cyrii, are my consciousness. We are meant to work as a team of brains and brawns. Before you will be a panel that contains various basic controls... I rattled on about the different functions, not minding that she wasn't really paying attention, if the silence was anything to go by. We would be the best team, I knew!
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