Sarah entered the room with Tom not too far behind. The strange spider-woman had come looking for them to let them know that the kids were keeping an eye on Mary, who had apparently been...talking to voices, or something? Sarah found that strange to think about - she'd gotten more or less the gist of what Mary had experienced under the influence of whatever had been in communication with her, but it had sounded too disturbing to think that she'd want to go back to them. It gave her visions of horror movies she'd seen, and if she were still flesh and blood she would doubtless be shuddering at the thought.
She was grateful that, for whatever reason, she'd never been through anything like that or heard from any such beings, though she did wonder why. Weren't they the same kind of machine-person now, at least to all outward appearances? Did it perhaps have something to do with Mary being magically transformed - perhaps by these "Ancients" or whatever? - while Sarah's body had apparently been built from reverse-engineered designs by a human researcher, before she'd ended up in it? Maybe something about her wasn't compatible with them, like when she'd had that one phone that needed some weird special charger that neither of her parents' used? Well, thank God for that, then. She didn't want anything to do with these...entities.
But in any case...Mary had seemed convinced that whoever they were, they weren't malicious. Sarah still couldn't see how that made this a good idea, but according to Brook there had been some sort of request about a child needing help, and Mary was clearly exactly the kind of person who would be persuaded to do pretty nearly anything for that reason. Sarah almost admired her a little for that - despite the fact that the girl was barely into her teens, she seemed to be entirely happy to step into the role of honorary housewife/mother/assistant innkeeper. She would never have imagined doing anything like that at such an age - even now, while she was getting rather fond of Diana, the kids could certainly be a handful.
She stepped over to the bed where Mary was lying, and felt faintly alarmed when she realized that the now-familiar ticking of the other clockwork girl's mechanisms was absent. She turned to Brook. "Is...is she alright!?"
The spider-woman shrugged. "I wish I could say for sure. She's...somewhere else, I think, though your guess as to where is as good as mine. But I think she's alright on this end. Listen closely, dear."
Sarah strained to hear, and to her relief, there was indeed a faint whirring that was just barely audible - the sounds of her own body had nearly covered it up until she was actively listening for it. Mary's winding key was still turning, but much more slowly - was this some kind of low-power mode while the rest of her was...off wherever?
Not that it wasn't still pretty damn eerie. Her face was absolutely still and, while Sarah was sure she must be imagining it, her glass eyes almost seemed a little more glassy than usual. She felt that not-a-shudder feeling run through her once again; it wasn't exactly like she was looking at a corpse, she could convince herself that the machine in front of her was alive at least in the same sense that she herself was, but seeing it like this made her wonder about where Mary really was and what was happening to her...was this what she looked like when she was stopped, she wondered?
Tom came over beside her and looked over Mary's unconscious form. "She's moving so little...does she need winding?"
Sarah shook her head. "I don't think so...I think it's because she's...somewhere else right now."
He nodded thoughtfully. "It's awfully strange to think about...if she's a machine now, how can part of her be somewhere else...?"
Sarah bristled at that. "She's not just a machine...!"
"Oh, no, I, uh, didn't mean it like that!" Tom said hastily. "I mean, it's obvious just talking to you that you're a person, and she was an ordinary human just last night. I just...I just want to know how you could do that...?"
Sarah said nothing, but she felt a bit less miffed than she had a moment before. Tom wasn't the kind of person to think of her like that, he was just one of those people who always want to know what things are and how they work. I guess if he wasn't, we'd never have met, she thought. Maybe she'd have ended up making her escape from that house and been alone on the streets - or maybe she'd have run down while he was still investigating the place and been helpless while they carted her off to auction...
She shuddered, then looked over at him and smiled to herself. Fortunately, that hadn't been how it happened. Whatever else you wanted to say about Tom, he showed enough of an interest in what she was to get to the point of discovering who she was, and showed enough concern for her as a person to help her get safely away and come on this strange journey with her. And that had led them to Diana, and now to here, where she'd met Mary just before Mary became like her...
Which was a good thing in the grand scheme of things, she supposed. As strange and unsettling as this crazy experience had been at times, she was doing alright for the moment, and if she hadn't ended up in this body, she'd never have met Tom and they'd never have set off on their journey, and Diana might still be out on the road fending for herself, and Mary might well have died during that initial change...! And she'd figure out how to return to her old world and her old body one way or another, right?
She just wished she were more confident that there were a nice easy answer to that question...
Such a complex question...I-5483113 could feel her analytic mechanisms grinding away at it, even after the decision had already been reached, her sub-conscious processes seeking to finalize their conclusions and file it all away neatly. It was entirely possible that giving Callie the knowledge of her race's technology might lead her to take actions that could bring her to harm; indeed, considering the child's general recklessness, it seemed somewhat likely. At the same time, as a member of her race, Callie was entitled to this knowledge, and the point that she might just as easily be endangered by not knowing about her own innate capabilities was a valid one. On balance, the decision to provide her with at least some amount of knowledge on this subject was sound.
And yet I-5483113 felt some small amount of uncertainty...not over whether the conclusion was valid, but about her own perspective on it. There seemed to be a certain conclusion sticking in her mind that Callie ought to be given these secrets, a conclusion that persisted despite having no apparent supporting propositions it could be drawn from. It was like an orphaned node in a list; normally such a thing should be marked as irrelevant and reclaimed as free memory, yet it persisted, apparently of its own accord.
This was odd enough on its own, but the entire notion of conclusions that could exist independently of logical rationale called her entire judgement process into question. How could she be certain her decisions were sound if they could just exist independently of her own reasoning process? What if her own compromised input affected the deliberation process further up the chain? Surely, this must be cause for concern...but hadn't she just been in for maintenance? Hadn't everything internal checked out normally? Even the one eye that was out of tolerance had been replaced...! It was almost as if...
...as if she were somehow seeking to construct a chain of logic to justify a pre-determined conclusion. Yet somehow, instead of being a cause for concern, it felt like this was the correct operating state. After all, she could reason, weren't she, the other automaton units, and even the central system itself created for the purpose of serving the needs of the Creators? It had been so long since she had had the opportunity to proactively fulfill that purpose...so very many cycles spent on nothing but monitoring and maintenance...the chance to directly serve a member of the Creators seemed so crucial that it almost invited the creation of lines of reasoning that would justify it. Was...was this what sentient life-forms experienced as "desire?"
That couldn't be the case, could it? Her kind were capable of complex processing to be sure, but it was a matter of record that they were pure functionary systems; it was illogical to classify actions taken and analyses performed in pursuance of fulfilling their assigned duties as anything more. They didn't possess such capabilities. But then, I-5483113 found it curious that this "Mary" should be capable of such things; was she not fundamentally similar to them?
Certainly, the details of her physical-layer implementation were unknown, and her gestalt ID didn't match anything else on Luna-Net or in the general databases in Central; in fact, all that was known for certain was the general outlines of the interface she provided over the network and some basic information gleaned during initial contact. But she seemed in all meaningful respects to be of the same kind as them, even to the point where she could doppel into a local host body with apparently perfect familiarity; yet somehow, she could substitute for a "real person!" in exactly the way that they couldn't.
How was that possible? Did she not have a defined purpose and functions of her own? How could that be reconciled with the seemingly-arbitrary "desires" of sentient creatures? Were her directives somehow giving rise to emulated "desires" as an emergent behavior? Was that even possible? Certainly, it was a known phenomenon that combinations of simple factors could give rise to emergent patterns of surprising complexity; in fact, children even younger than Callie were shown this with a simple grid-based "game" program as an introduction to the concept. But such patterns could be meaningfully analyzed, or at least worked out to one of a number of possible origins. The thought processes of sentient beings, on the other hand, had always seemed to show exceptions or contradictions no matter how much processing time was devoted to the problem; this was the principle reason why Ethics had to rely to a surprising extent on the application of received knowledge rather than simply being able to work things out from first principles...
I-5483113 shook her head slowly as she returned to the living area, then wondered what the purpose of this gesture was.
Zoe watched the steward make a little bow towards some kind of icon on the windowsill in the study, and wondered what the significance of the gesture was. They'd gotten far enough into conversation that they'd both ended up sitting down - the old man on the chair that he'd been seated in when she arrived, and the girl-turned-sphinx lying on the floor in front of the desk. Then some kind of little contraption on one of the bookshelves had made a chime, and apparently that meant it was time for him to acknowledge the decor? She eyed him curiously.
The old man, whose name was Amenemhat, smiled apologetically. "It is the sun-god's hour," he said.
Zoe thought for a moment, then glanced out the window. "What, noon?"
He nodded. "I forget - it means little to those who come from other countries. The Sun is associated with the chief of the Khemeti gods; the king is his hand here in the mortal world. Thus, the time when the Sun is at its zenith is the time when we pay our respects to the gods and the royal house."
She frowned. "But isn't it a long way from here to Khemet? The sun..." She stopped, wondering to herself if this world even was round. She tried to remember if she'd been able to see the horizon curving from the air yesterday, but Amenemhat responded before she could recall.
"...can't be everywhere at once? Imagine that," he said with a sly grin; Zoe thought to herself that he almost looked more cat-like in that moment than Khuit did. He even smells cunning, she realized to herself. "Good thing he has people elsewhere to look after things for him, eh?"
She hesitated for a moment, thinking that what she wanted to say probably wasn't the smart thing in the circumstances, but the part of her that was still an irritable gothpunk kid with a chip on her shoulder forced it out of her mouth anyway. "So are you a spy, or what?"
The old man's eyes widened briefly, and he laughed aloud and slapped his knee before settling back down to a more composed state, with only a mirthful gleam in his eye. "Hm, now, am I? What do you think?"
Zoe considered her reply for a moment. "You're in charge around here, but 'here' isn't your home country - and you work for the head of your country. So I'd guess that's kind of an automatic 'yes' right there. But...I mean, no offense, but I don't think you're probably doing too much sneaking around breaking into vaults to steal documents or anything at your age." She paused for a moment to see if she'd pissed him off, but his expression remained curious, with just a hint of mirth around the corners of his mouth. "I'm gonna guess you'd probably describe yourself as an 'ambassador,' but I get the feeling you're the kind of guy who hears a lot of information from a lot of sources." She nodded toward the bookshelves.
He laughed. "You're more observant than I expected for someone of so few years. Interesting. I'm afraid I'll have to let you decide for yourself how close to the truth you are, though." He settled back into his chair. "Though I will tell you that, in addition to supervising milady's household, I'm also here to maintain our relations with the Pillar of the Heavens."
The sphinx-girl cocked an eyebrow, her tail lashing with curiosity. "The what now?"
Amenemhat chuckled and settled back in his chair; he opened up a little sugar-bowl-looking vessel on the end table and took out a few small leaves, which he popped into his mouth and began to idly chew on. "Not many hear of it even among those who don't hail from another world. Deep in the neighboring desert there is a very curious tower - not made by hands, but rising from the sand as if it were growing out of the very earth, or so they say among some of the nomadic tribes that live in the area. We first heard of it from their traders, some centuries ago; they said it was the dwelling of 'She Who Bears the Heavens On Her Shoulders.' We thought that perhaps it was a shrine to our sky-goddess."
She considered that for a moment. "And? Was it?" She wasn't sure whether that was a thing she should find implausible or not; who knew how things worked around here?
"Well, that's the story the priests eventually decided to stick to, when all was said and done," the old man said dryly. "In truth, they'd already decided that was the case from the first they heard of it. I suppose the attraction of believing that some grand mysterious artifact out there directly corroborates what you've been telling people for centuries was irresistible. Typical..."
Zoe actually started in surprise on hearing that, and her wings began to lift and spread out as she began to leap to her feet. Thankfully, she caught herself within a split-second and clamped her wings back to her sides when the feathers on the "wrist" joints had juuuust started to brush up against an antiquey-looking little amphora on one of the shelves. It was getting a bit worrisome that, apparently, the instinctive reaction of her sphinx body (or...brain?) to being seriously startled or surprised was to launch into the air. She wondered how Khuit coped with that; or would she smirk and titter about "wild" sphinxes if asked about it? Was she just somehow naturally wary and skittish now?
Back to the thing that had startled her in the first place, she thought to herself, as she sat up as straight as was possible with a quadruped body, her haunches splayed out on the floor and her forelegs straightened out, holding her shoulders up high and making her feel like she was leaning forward intently; her tail lashed thoughfully across the floor behind her. She wouldn't have thought that, in a country where apparently (or perhaps allegedly) the gods themselves had direct links to the political power structure, it'd be cool to just diss an entire bunch of priests like that. Were they less tetchy about it than she'd assumed, or was this yet another privilege of being the guy who decides what information to relay back home to a country that's a long way away? Or, perhaps, did some of their gods'...what, departments? Clubs? Cults? - have less sway than others? If the sun-god was directly aligned with the king, maybe it just didn't matter as much if you made fun of the sky-goddess's followers, or...?
But Amenemhat was speaking again, and anyway, trying to figure out how some random group of weirdos thought about another random group of weirdos made her brain hurt. She put a paw to her forehead; he continued.
"Well, the truth is that it was nearly another fifty years before we actually made contact with the Pillar. It's much closer to this end of the desert than to Khemet, and we didn't even know that for certain until after a couple decades of gathering bits and pieces from one source or another. Moreover, it's dangerous territory for those who aren't well-accustomed to it; we spent twelve years just interviewing any member of the various nomad tribes who would talk to us to ask them about the challenges an expedition would face. In the end, we wound up taking several locals as guides anyway."
"That bad, huh?" Zoe idly licked her paw and ran it through her hair. It still felt weird having this rippling cascade of jet-black curls where she was used to plain, straight, not-really-at-all-wavy-or-particularly-striking tresses.
He nodded as she continued to groom herself, his mouth twitching as he ran the chewed-up leaf mass over his gums. "Trust me, the great worms alone could wipe out an entire party if they were caught unawares, and they're not the only thing. Even the nomads have to go carefully out there." He leaned forward; she wasn't sure whether the leaves had anything to do with it, but it looked like his eyes were wider and his pupils more dilated. "Well, once we'd made all our preparations, there was nothing for it but to actually send out an expedition."
"So-" Zoe coughed. "So what _hhh_appened?" She began looking around in mild alarm to see if there was a discreet place to spit out the small wad of hair that had accumulated in the back of her throat. There didn't seem to be one.
He shrugged. "Overall, it went well, I suppose. Our men found it about where we were told it would be; they came back safely with no deaths and no injury worse than sunstroke, thanks to the guides. The only 'casualties' were a few men carried off for husbands by one of the lamia tribes. And they did successfully make contact."
"So was it a shrine to your s_khh_y goddess, or what?" Zoe said, a little irritably. Could he get to the point already? What even was the point?
The old man laughed. "That would've been a nice, simple conclusion to the story, wouldn't it?" he said. "No - what they actually found was that it was...I hesitate to say that they're a cult, because they're not highly organized, nor do they seem to have much in the way of dogma or ritual. In essence, they're little more than a loose assortment of followers who venerate and support a central figure that they call the Lady."
Zoe frowned thoughtfully. She couldn't help but notice that he sounded more reverent when he mentioned "the Lady" than he had with any of his own country's gods. She wondered if that was the leaves talking. "So, uh, she's their _ghh_oddess, is she-ulp!" The hairball made its way up into her mouth; thankfully, she caught it before it went any further. Unfortunately, there still wasn't anything she could do about it other than stash it in her cheek. The taste was not pleasant.
Amenemhat smiled distantly. "A good question, that. I don't think she ever made the claim; even her servants don't exactly seem to think of it that way. But...well, either she's immortal or they do a very good job of passing off a long line of successors as the same person, because there's been only the one Lady for several hundred years at least; even among her race, they aren't that long-lived. And while they may not claim divinity, they do assert that...something like that she embodies the framework that underlies all the heavens and the earth, if I understand it correctly. Hardly a mortal responsibility, eh?" He cackled at that.
Her race? the sphinx-girl wondered. Aside from Khuit, she'd only noticed other humans around in the city she'd wandered into, but with both Khuit and herself as examples, it was clear that "race" might mean something more like "species" around here. The old man had already mentioned lamia tribes; she thought she remembered from talking with Athena that those were a kind of snake-person-thing; who knew what other kinds of creatures there might be in a world like this? "What'sh she like?" she asked.
The old man shrugged. "Not that I've ever met her myself," he said, "but they tell me she's of the lamia kind, or at least appears like them. Tall, inasmuch as one can measure that with serpent-folk, dark, somewhat beautiful. The scholars we've sent with the expeditions say she has a keen mind; others have remarked that she's surprisingly humble for someone with her own following. Apparently at night she climbs to the top of her tower and sits and marks the courses of the stars."
Zoe frowned. "Wait, your job ish to maintain relationsh with her and you've never met her?"
He regarded her dryly. "I believe you yourself were observing that I was unlikely to be doing much in the way of espionage at my age," he said. "Certainly I'm not going to making a grueling trek into the deep desert!"
She stared sheepishly at the floor. "Shorry."
"Well, that's not to say that I wouldn't like to," he said. "But that is the downside of being considered too important to put oneself at risk...I may have free reign over various matters-" - he paused to give Zoe a look that indicated he knew exactly what she was thinking about who called the shots around here - "-but I can hardly just run off to wherever my whim would take me. In any case," he continued, "I have had the pleasure of corresponding with her when the yearly goodwill tribute goes out and the delivery expedition returns. Whatever else is or isn't the truth, she is most certainly wise and of sound judgement."
Zoe cocked an eyebrow. "Goodwill offering?"
Amenemhat grinned. "If it is true that she bears the frame of the heavens and the earth on her shoulders, surely we have a vested interest in her well-being, no?" He had another expression that suggested more than he was actually saying, and Zoe found herself trying to work out what exactly he was getting at. Surely, a canny old coot like him wouldn't be stupid enough to think you could bribe a god, would he? More likely it wasn't his idea and he was just the one who ended up in charge of managing it, especially if they'd been doing this for centuries. She supposed that, in the worst case, if the "Lady" were nothing more than a fraud, it was maybe a cheap way to keep her cult from making trouble...? How odd. "What kind of shtuff do you talk about?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Oh, all kinds of things. She asks me about the state of the outside world; I tell her what I can, or what I'm allowed to. She tells me about natural philosophy; it's equal parts enthralling and maddening, as I'm certain that she understands more about some things than anyone else on this earth, or possibly even in the heavens." He brightened, a genuine, non-sarcastic smile coming over his face. It would've been more charming if he hadn't still had a mass of chewed leaves just peeking out over the top of his gums. "Actually, if there were anyone in this world you could talk to about the possibility of transmigrating back to your own, it would certainly be the Lady. As you're a guest of Khuit's, I imagine I could arrange for you to accompany the next expedition, if you like. Of course, I can't promise you an easy trip, but I suspect you're better-built for it than milady."
He thinks of me as a "wild" sphinx, too, she thought. Well, maybe she was; she definitely hadn't been uncomfortable when she woke up on the ground out on the plains. And she sure as hell wasn't going to let herself be embarassed by it! ...she just found it a little irritating that Khuit thought it was so titter-worthy. But, then, she found pretty much anything elegantly bemusing. "When'sh the nexsht exshpedition leave?" she asked. The hairball was getting uncomfortably juicy by now.
"Oh, early winter, I think," he replied. "After the first storms let up, but before the deep midwinter. That's about the best time for crossing the desert - plus, it's around the time the nomad tribes are usually looking to trade and stock up on supplies in preparation for the hard months." He noticed Zoe about to ask, and added, "It's just past harvest season now, if you're wondering. Probably you'd set out in another three months or so."
Zoe stared at him. Three months!? "I...look, I can't wait three monthsh!" she protested. "My family'll go crazshy worrying about me! And I shtill gotta find my brother, wherever he'sh at in thish world!" She thought about it - if she could just fly out there directly...
"I wouldn't advise trying to go on your own," Amenemhat said, as if he'd read her mind. "I've no doubt you're strong on the wing, at your age, but even stronger fliers than any sphinx can be brought down in a sandstorm - and if you're grounded, there's the worms to worry about, to name just one of the dangers. And hunting is scarce out there if you don't know where to look; desert creatures have to scrounge for every scrap of meat and buried plant. They live on a knife-edge out there, even those who do know the challenges."
She huffed irritably; the hairball nearly escaped before she clapped a paw to her mouth. The old man nodded sagely. "Now, if you were going to make the trip, why not try to find this brother of yours in the interim? You have several months to do it, after all. And we get news from all over, here; as much as my king may not be fond of the Empire, their courier service is beyond reproach."
She thought about it. "You really think we could find him jusht ashking around? I mean, I don't even know where in the world he would've ended up."
The old man nodded. "No, I suppose not. I certainly can't guarantee anything, but it'd be worth a try. As I was saying, news travels fast; if you can think of anything about him that might cause a stir, we can see what people might know." He rose from the chair, although it was barely noticeable under his voluminous robes. "In the meantime, I'll have my informants keep an ear out for anything generally pertaining to rumors of other-worlders." He grinned. "Oh, and if you look under the desk, there's a bowl milady uses for hair. I gather you might be in need of it."
Zoe fixed him with an expression that was a confused muddle of gratitude and glowering.
"Thanks," Callie said warily, as the new doll-woman poured her a glass of water. It was strange to watch as it poured down more slowly than it ought to and splashed up higher than it normally would. Oddly, the woman seemed surprised by it, too. Didn't she live here? Shouldn't she be used to it?
But everything about her was a little strange - just not in the way that the others here were. I-5483113 and the other ghosts and machine-people here seemed strange and stiff and acted like they didn't really understand how she felt or how real people thought. They even moved funny; it was like when one of the ships that put in at Robin's Heath was carrying a troupe of performers and one of the men had put on a puppet show for the kids. That kind of thing was funny when it was little dolls on a stage, but on things that were made to look so much like people, it was creepy.
The new doll-girl, on the other hand...it was funny, because she looked exactly like any of the others here, except that her hair and eye colors were different; but everything from the way she moved to the expressions on her face to the way she spoke felt so much more like a person than...whatever these others were. Instead of a thing badly disguised as a person, she felt like a person wearing a surprisingly good costume. In fact, the only thing that actually felt unsettling about her was this nagging feeling of familiarity...Callie felt like she knew her from somewhere, but she couldn't think of where; the only people she knew with that face were the strange inhabitants of this place.
She watched as the doll-woman set down the water-bottle she'd poured from onto the little table that she'd taken it from. Callie had never noticed the bottle and the glasses were even there, in all the time she'd been in this room; she'd been too distracted with the bubble-bed and the moving pictures and everything to notice it. Of course she'd notice it...! Callie thought to herself, then frowned and wondered who she was thinking that about. Meanwhile, the doll-girl slid onto the little bench that stood near the table, opposite which Callie was floating. The motions were fluid and graceful, and reminded her of...?
"So," the machine-girl said, "um..." She fidgeted a little uncomfortably, something that Callie couldn't ever imagine one of the city's ghosts doing. If it hadn't been for the persistent ticking and chattering of the machinery inside her and the way the changes in her expressions moved in microscopic but discrete increments that were clearly synchronized to that same central pulse, Callie almost might've thought she was talking to a flesh-and-blood human being. "Well," the girl said, "the reason your friends asked me to come here was because, um, they said you were, um, 'undergoing emotional distress.' Want to...wanna talk about it?"
Callie most definitely didn't want to talk about it - not even to herself, let alone to someone else. It was embarassing enough to have lived it; she didn't want to tell anyone. But she desperately needed to talk about it. Torn between what she wanted and what she needed, she took the simplest course of action, which was to burst into tears.
The doll-girl stood up and walked over to where she was floating and sobbing. "There, there," she said, as she reached up and pulled Callie down to chest height, so that she could take her in her arms. There was no way that being wrapped up in arms made of cold metal and fake skin-covering should've been as comforting as it was, but in spite of the artificiality of the materials, the tenderness in her touch was unmistakably human. "It's okay," she said soothingly, the metallic rustling of her voice gently brushing at Callie's ears. "Tell me all about it."
Mary listened as this strange moon-girl poured out her story in between heaving sobs, clutching at her and burying her head in her bosom until she had to marvel that this body was made soft enough for the job. But she was busier taking in the girl's strange story. She held the girl close, gently stroking at her hair and making soothing noises. If what the child was saying was true, she'd been abducted from her home and brought here, and not only wouldn't they let her go home, they'd changed her entire body...!
She looked down at the crying girl. Could she really have been a boy? She was such a pretty little girl...! She wondered if it could really be as bad as all that - what was wrong with being a girl? But she knew that even back in Robin's Heath, where people grew up knowing that they might end up being transformed completely out of the blue, it could be difficult for them to adjust when it did happen. And here, where the only people around were these strange machine-creatures who didn't seem to understand much about how normal people thought and felt...
"It's alright," she said. "It'll be alright."
"B-but it's n-not s'posed to be this way!" Callie sobbed. "I'm not s'posedta be a girl!"
Mary took her by the shoulders and held her just far enough out to look her in the eye. "Look," she said, "it's not so bad being a girl. I guess it's different than you're used to, but different can be good, you know. Even with the hard parts..." She paused; she wasn't sure whether she should go into detail about "the hard parts." After all, Callie wasn't exactly human, so who knew if things were the same for her kind? "...um, anyway," she said, "you'll be okay, alright? At least until we can explain all this to them? I can help you with anything if you need it..."
Callie regarded the doll-girl curiously; it wasn't like she actually wanted to get used to this, but she wondered... "Uh, can you?" she asked. "Are...are you really a girl? I thought, um..." She blushed. "I thought dolls...got nothin' underneath...?" How could this machine-thing really understand what she was going through if that were the case?
Mary felt like she was going to blush at that herself, if it had been possible in this body, but she supposed it was a fair question. She didn't even know what her changed body back home was like, let alone this other-self that she was borrowing right now, but she had been a normal, human girl for her entire life up 'til now... "It's, um, I dunno," she said. "I...to tell you the truth, I was changed too. I was a normal girl before that, just like you are now."
Callie stared at the stranger. She'd been transformed, too? That was something she'd never expected; she didn't even know there were any other real people around here besides herself. She guessed that explained why the doll-girl seemed so much more like a person than the others of her kind. But the irony was hard to ignore: this person had been turned from a girl into a doll-thing, just the same as Callie had had her life as a boy robbed from her when these machines and ghosts turned her into a girl...maybe, in a sorta-kinda way, this girl really could understand what she was going through.
Still, that didn't mean she wanted to just get used to this. "Do...do you really think you can talk to 'em?" she asked. She'd already tried to make it clear to the machine-people that this wasn't how things were supposed to be, but they'd only lectured her about "DNA" and "chromosomes" and things, treating her just like a child who didn't know any better...! As mad as it made her to think about, maybe if they had someone who was more grown-up to tell it to them...?
"I don't see why not!" Mary replied, placing her hands on her hips and nodding firmly. Callie giggled at the sheer humanness of the gesture. After feeling so alone up here, it was good to have company; it even made the empty moon-city feel more like the cool secret base she'd imagined it could be, now that there was someone here to share in the secret.
While she was thinking about that, I-5483113 entered the room. Callie felt wary and upset looking at the thing that had helped steal her body from her, and backed up closer to her new companion. It was strange how, even though they had the exact same face, they wore it so differently...
I-5483113 observed Callie's face. Based on analyses performed by Central Processing, her expressions indicated fear, anger, and distrust. She didn't understand - was this directed at her? Had she not been making every effort to attend to the child's needs? Even when Callie had requested a sentient companion for consolation, they'd been able to provide for her request. Why, then, this apparent hostility and mistrust? As she considered this, there was a sensation somewhere inside her abdominal cavity, as if one of the gear trains in the power-distribution plant that was driven by her mainspring were bogging down under load. (Hadn't she just been checked out...?)
Perhaps, she reasoned, it wasn't direct hostility, but simply transferred stress over her apparent misunderstanding of the treatment for her developmental disorder...? This somehow suffered from the inverse of her earlier problem: it was a reasonable hypothesis that, for some unexplained reason, she couldn't actually give credence to. This was deeply confusing and would almost certainly require an error report to be filed with Central so that they could conduct a deeper review, but...Callie had to come first, surely? After all, she could hardly attent to the child's needs if she were down for an extensive maintenance inspection. Surely it would be permissible to postpone the report until after Callie had been seen to...
"Is something the matter, Callie?" I-5483113 asked, a barely-perceptible jitter creeping into the sentence. Yet another unexplained micro-glitch...why were these things happening? Mechanically, she'd checked out normally; was it something about the problems she'd been considering that induced these issues in her cognitive systems? "Has D-Mary proved satisfactory as a companion?" And there...a certain arch tone was present in her voice...? What was causing this?
Mary stared at the machine-woman in surprise. She almost seemed...upset? Could they get that way? She didn't know much about these creatures, but this seemed unusual to her. Maybe it was just off-putting to see Callie suddenly turn pouty as soon as she entered the room...she knew the girl was upset, and understandably so, but still...!
"Come on, now, Callie," she said firmly, "be nice. Miss I-5483113 and her friends mean well, even if they're confused about this."
Callie bit her lip. She didn't want to hear any lectures from this "Dee-Marie" girl about being nice with this...this dumb thing that had done this to her...! But...but she did remember, back when she'd first come here, when she'd been all alone except for the ghosts, and she'd gotten hurt...she remembered how grateful she'd felt just to have someone tangible around to look after her...
"Now, then," Mary said once Callie seemed to have settled down a bit, "Callie was telling me about some kind of medicine or something that you gave to her? It sounds like there's been a big misunderstanding about that..."
I-5483113 was a little unused to being addressed verbally by another member of the network; there were more direct, higher-throughput channels available for communication between network nodes. Was D-Mary not aware of these facilities? She decided to respond verbally, both for Callie's sake and in case D-Mary really wasn't able to reliably communicate over direct channels. "Yes," she said, nodding decisively. "There seems to have been a misunderstanding. As we attempted to explain to Callie, we found serious discrepancies between her genetic makeup and her bodily development. When we administered treatment to accelerate the repair process, it worked exceedingly well, but she took exception to the results. Based on what she has told us, she was under the impression that she was born a male."
Mary frowned, confused. "But she says she was...?"
I-5483113 nodded again. "Yes, she does. That is the misunderstanding."
"But that doesn't make any sense!" Mary said. "She told me - she had, um, boy parts. That's not just something you get confused about, is it?"
The machine-woman shook her head. "We are aware of what her bodily configuration was when she arrived. However, when we obtained a blood sample in the course of treating her injury, standard tests revealed that she is genetically female. We have re-tested the sample since she complained about the results, and the conclusion stands. The development of male-type organs and secondary characteristics in spite of this is admittedly highly unusual, but the evidence speaks for itself - even when she arrived, her body was in the process of correcting itself. The only thing treatment did was to focus and accelerate the process."
Callie stared at her in astonishment, then looked up at Dee-Marie, who appeared equally confused. That couldn't be...! Sure, these strange changes had started before she'd arrived in the moon-city, but that couldn't mean...?
Mary frowned. What did "genetically" even mean? She was in the middle of trying to work out the implications of I-5483113's statement when the imaginary "voice" of the "Shell" chimed in: Genetic, adj.: relating to the control of bodily development by encoded information stored in cell nuclei. She hadn't known that Shell could answer these kinds of questions...! Further queries made the picture a little clearer: this was all talking about the kinds of traits kids could inherit from their parents - what would you call it, "in the blood?" Apparently that was literally true, if she was following it correctly. She put a hand to her forehead as she considered all this. "So," she said, "you're saying...she's supposed to be this way? Was it just some kinda sickness that made her grow up as a boy?"
I-5483113 paused to confer with Medical for a moment. "Unknown," she replied. "We have no records of any disease that could cause this kind of mis-development without significant additional side-effects which were not in evidence, and there was no trace of any other serious developmental disorders. As Callie's own account was based on her misunderstanding of her situation as being normal, we could only draw conclusions based on her genetic makeup and the fact that her body had begun to correct itself. Possibly her former environment exposed her to some factor that caused the mis-development, and once it was removed the healing process began to repair her bodily structure."
Mary thought about that for a moment. "But didn't you say that was already happening when she got here? How can you say that it was something about where she's from if she started changing when she was there?" She wasn't sure what to make of all this. These machine-people seemed so logical in so many ways - something she found, oddly enough, that she kind of admired, a little - so why were they putting forward an argument that didn't quite square with the facts of the situation? It seemed awfully strange...
The machine-woman paused for another moment; Mary realized she was talking to one of the "voices," since she could sort of detect communication going on around her, but she thought it might be impolite to listen in on it. I-5483113 turned her attention back to her and Callie. "That...is correct," she said, almost haltingly. "However, it might possibly have been a change in her environment before she arrived. Callie, was there anything that happened to or around you before your arrival that you found unusual?"
Callie clung defensively to Dee-Marie's skirt as she stared at the other doll-woman. Part of her felt like this whole argument was just a way to trick her into agreeing that this was the way things should be, that she was being silly for thinking she was supposed to be a boy, that she should just forget about returning to normal...but part of her felt a little bad for that. As upset as she was about this, I-5483113 didn't feel malicious - just...dumb and annoying and weird and awkward and...! She bit her lip as she stopped and thought about it. "I dunno," she said at last. "The only thing that was different than normal was when we went in the ship an' found the ghost...she was never there before, an' then she zapped me an' the ship disappeared...!"
I-5483113 shook her head slowly. "We were aware of the accidental discharge from the flight-recorder logs, and I will offer our apology for the discomfort," she said. "However, it was merely a mundane electrical malfunction and should not be related to the causes of your developmental disorder."
Mary sighed. They were getting nowhere with this...in any case, there were too many unknowns for these machine-people to be able to make any sense of it; humans could just say it was magic and be able to accept that and move on to the question of what to do about it, but not these creatures... "A-anyway," she said, trying a different tack, "even if she was born with, uh, girl-blood, she doesn't like what you did to her. Can't you just un-do it?"
I-5483113 paused for a long moment; the question was so fundamentally beyond her understanding that she had to conference Medical, Ethics, and Central in on the matter before they could even formulate a response. "That...is illogical," she said. "The treatment is intended to promote the rejuvenation of the body into its natural state. To deliberately induce a state of deformity would be irrational and a fundamental violation of medical ethics."
"But you were the ones who did it!" Mary said in exasperation. She could feel the mechanisms in this host-body whirring rapidly, mirroring the activity that she supposed was going on inside her own body back home. "If you did something to her that she didn't ask you to do and didn't want, don't you think you oughtta fix it?"
"The current state is the 'fixed' state," I-5483113 replied, trying futilely to understand the reasoning at work here. "In any case, even if we came up with a program of treatment to fulfill her demands, it would be invasive and require long-term therapy; such a decision would have to be made with the consent of her parent or guardian."
Mary gave a guttural noise of irritation, which her host-body rendered as a kind of gear-grinding braking noise. "Don't you feel bad for her at all? Aren't you all her friends?"
I-5483113 shook her head slowly. "We...are aware of the concept," she said. "But our purpose is to serve the needs and look after the well-being of the Creators. Anything...more...is outside of our scope. That is why we requested your assistance; you are capable of fulfilling Callie's need for companionship where we are not." She wondered why it took an unusual amount of effort to say this; it was the plain fact of the matter, and yet it seemed inexplicably lacking. Wasn't it their purpose to fulfill the Creators' needs? If one of those was companionship, why should it be out-of-scope for them to be "friends" as well as servants?
Mary sighed and put an arm around Callie, who was looking up at her in confusion and trembling slightly. It probably wasn't these creatures' fault that they were...just not good at dealing with other people, but it was frustrating and a little creepy. They looked so much like humans, and it was clear they knew about right and wrong ways to treat people, but it was like they couldn't truly empathize...they couldn't feel sorry for Callie's predicament, just offer the "correct" answer...
She shook her head. "I wish you guys could understand..."
I wish she could understand... Jon put a wing to her forehead. Did...did they really just burglarize a wizard school? "Maggie," she sighed, "we've talked about this...!"
The little harpy-girl looked slightly embarassed and a little hurt. "B-but...but they weren't usin' it! It was just sittin' on a pedestal with nobody lookin' at it or anything..."
Jon sighed. "Maggie, you know that doesn't mean you're allowed to take stuff. Even if nobody needs it now, they might need it later, and then what would they do if they couldn't find it?"
Maggie stared at the floor, biting her lip and scratching idly at the floorboards with her talon. Jon could tell that it was at least a little bit of an act, but it kinda got to her all the same. "I...I just wanted t'make you feel better, Jen..."
Jon shook her head and placed a wing on the little girl's shoulder. "I know you did," she said, mustering as much patience as she could while also noticing a bit of a hubbub going on somewhere downstairs. "But if you want to live with humans, you need to learn to get along under their rules, and that includes not taking other people's things without asking, no matter how much it seems like a good idea to you." She looked down at the book. "And anyway, as much as I appreciate the thought, I can't read this...whatever this is."
Maggie frowned thoughtfully. "I thought it was just letters you didn't teach me yet..." She brightened. "H-hey, maybe we could ask the people at that tower...?"
Jon chuckled ruefully. She imagined it was going to be stressful enough settling this issue, let alone trying to get the offended part(ies) to teach her their secrets. "I, uh, I dunno," she said. "I guess we could ask them about it, but I think we'd probably better leave that for another day." Maggie didn't look convinced.
At that point, there was a knock on the trapdoor leading up into the attic. Jon gritted her teeth and took a deep breath. Well, nothing for it now; unless they were just going to pack up and fly out the window to another city, she was going to have to have this conversation...she just wished she had a better idea of what to expect. Were they going to politely ask for their book back? Clap her and Maggie in irons and haul them off to prison? Just cut to the chase and roast them alive with magic or whatever? She shuddered, and realized that she was breaking out in a sweat. She sighed, wishing the thing she was noticing most right now wasn't the way little droplets of sweat trickled down her cleavage, or how oddly sweaty the under-boob area got. "C-come in," she said nervously.
The trapdoor swung open with a creak, and Bill poked his head up, a sheepish expression on his face. He looked up, started slightly, and flushed a little; Jon wondered about that for a moment before realizing that she was standing almost directly above him. She grimaced and hopped back a pace; she knew the downy feathers around her privates made a pretty effective covering, but it was still a little awkward. Glancing aside, the innkeeper turned his attention down the stairs. "There's, uh, somebody here to see you, Jen," he said. "Wants to talk about, uh, a book?"
Jon nodded reluctantly. "Send 'em up."
Bill ducked down below. There was a brief shuffling noise, and up the stairs came a twitchy little man dressed in robes and a cap that had probably used to be pointed, but seemed to have given up and resigned itself to drooping down the side of his head like an old-timey cartoon nightcap. He looked to be in late middle-age, and he had a graying beard, just long enough to come to a neatly-manicured point over his collarbone. Jon unsuccessfully tried to stifle a snort; he looked like he'd stepped right out of some kind of medieval equivalent of a New Yorker cartoon. It was clear from his expression that he'd noticed that.
He made his way up into the attic and looked around the room for a moment before his gaze fixed upon Maggie. He scowled briefly, then turned to Jon. "Is this child yours?" he asked sharply.
Jon was about to answer in the affirmative when she realized that he was probably asking if she were Maggie's mother. Given what she'd been through earlier in the day, this was not a line of thought she wanted to ponder extensively, but her brain helpfully set about the job anyway. She grimaced, trying to clear her thoughts - anyway, doesn't he realize I'm less than a decade older than her!? ...I think...? She cleared her throat, before her brain could go off on a separate tangent wondering just exactly how much of an adult her harpy-self was in this world. "She's, er, my sister," she said.
He nodded. "And are you aware that she's stolen a valuable tome from our Guild? Are you her guardian? Are you, madam, prepared to take responsibility for her actions?" He leaned in towards her, and she realized to her chagrin that, as much as he was just a twitchy little man, he was still taller than her. Damned harpy body, she thought, feeling a little more intimidated than she thought she really should be (she had to fight the urge to ruffle her feathers and spread out her wings so as to appear larger.) Wait, shit, am I a "shortstack?" Does...does it count if you're just...broad-hipped?
Brushing that line of thought aside, Jon turned her mind back to the situation so she could properly bristle at his tone, at his body-language, and especially at being called "madam;" she did manage to keep her temper, just. Taking a deep breath and trying to steady herself, she nodded toward the book sitting on top of the trunk she kept their few possessions in. "My apologies," she said, trying to keep her tone cordial. "My sister is new to living in human society; she's still in the process of learning about personal property. She didn't mean any harm, and we have no intention of keeping your things from you."
He stared at her for a moment, and she felt a little weirded out watching his nostrils flare; then, he snatched up the book, making a show of checking it over for damage. When he was satisfied, he turned back to Jon and nodded curtly. "Well, it appears to all be in order," he said, "no thanks to your sister. But I suppose one can't expect civilized behavior from the wild peoples all at once. Just don't let it happen again...!"
Jon bristled again, feeling her feathers ruffle despite her best efforts to keep them down. Before she could say anything, however, Maggie stepped forward. "U-um," she stammered, "'m sorry 'bout the book! I just wanted ta help Jen learn magic so she could fix some stuff that's botherin' her! P-please, could you maybe teach her...?"
The magician or whatever he was stared down at Maggie like she'd just asked him to lend her a kidney. "W-well, of course, the Guild is open to anyone who can pass the initial examination," he stammered, the corners of his mouth twitching; after a moment, he seemed to regain his composure and straightened himself up. "However," he continued, eyeing Jon critically, "even assuming that you possessed the necessary basic education, there's, ah, the matter of manual dexterity. Even certain beginner-level spells can require complex gestures, and..." - he nodded to indicate the harpies' wings - "...well, you see how it is. Simple fact of nature, I'm afraid..."
He didn't sound particularly "afraid," Jon thought. Something inside her snapped, and with total control over her temper and the full approval of her superego, she lifted one talon off the ground, turned it toward him, and curled in the outer two claws and the dewclaw. He eyed the extended middle toe, clearly not comprehending the complex gesture. "Well, of course," he said, "flexibility is all very well, but it's not the same thing as fine motor control, you understand."
"Of course," she replied icily.
Maggie frowned. "Waitaminnit," she said. "Back in the mountains, the shamans din't hafta use anythin' complicated like that...?"
Another twitch flickered through the wizard's face at the word "shamans." He bent down towards Maggie and made a not particularly successful attempt to put on a smile. "Well, yes," he said, "spirit contracts are generally simpler, but they're not the same thing as real spellcasting. Not the same thing at all." His tone was a little less ascerbic now that he was (to his way of thinking) talking to a confused little girl in need of education and not a thief per se, but no less patronizing, and if anything Jon felt even madder listening to him treat her little sister this way. Her ears were beginning to ring, and her forehead felt warm...
Maggie pursed her mouth. For her part, she didn't seem that bothered, but she didn't seem particularly convinced, either. "Oh," she said.
The little man shifted uneasily; if this were a cartoon, Jon thought, he'd probably have just noticed the looming rage-aura crackling around her, but she wasn't going to bet on him being that tuned-in to other people's feelings. Then again, maybe her feathers gave her away. "Er, anyway," he said, "I suppose you could try asking them, if they've managed to work out something that suits their more modest needs. As for myself, I'm afraid I must be going." He ducked down the stairs in a bit of a hurry.
Jon swung the trapdoor shut with a creak and a thud. "Jeezus!" she hissed. "Were they all like that!?"
Maggie shook her head. "Mosta them were just really busy an' stuff, an' some people were kinda stiff an' awkward. But he was just bein' rude."
Jon nodded, glad that her sister was under no illusions that that had been normal, acceptable human behavior. "That's an understatement," she said.
Maggie smiled apologetically. "Sorry, Jen...I wanted t'make you feel better, but it just got you more upset..."
She shook her head, wrapping a wing around the younger harpy's shoulders. "It's not your fault that someone else was a jerk," she said. "Sadly, dealing with people like that is just part of living in human society, too." Though something inside her wondered whether this was the kind of society where you'd get in trouble for perching on someone's shoulders and holding their arms in a death-grip with your talons while shrieking in their face and beating at them with your wings.
The younger harpy looked up at her curiously. "So what do you do when people make you mad, then?"
Jon thought about it for a moment. What do you do? What did she want to do? It only took her a moment of consideration to realize that what she really wanted to do was go down there this evening and play the hell out of something. I've got your "fine motor control" right here, you arrogant jackass! It was nice of the innkeeper to offer, but sitting in her room feeling miserable wouldn't be half as cathartic. Besides, the show must go on, right?
She smiled. "You don't let it beat you down," she said. "You just keep on being you." She started pacing around the room, alternating between humming "We're Not Gonna Take It" and trying to remember the riff to "Cherry Bomb."
