Fshh, click, click, fwoomp

”Hey, I think I heard something.” A voice said, Peter maybe? “Yeah, those were her burners, hear that noise?”

There was a shuffle of feet nearby, and the sound of clothes moving.

“I think I can hear her brain going, it’s pretty quiet compared to normal though.” A different voice said, Molly?

Great, I get to listen to them talk about me with no ability to respond for somewhere around twenty minutes. Laaaame.

“Well, I can hear her thinking about something, do you think she can hear us?” Molly asked.

Yes, yes, I can.

“Well, she said that she would be non-responsive, not unaware, so probably.”

Nice, he remembered.

Hmm, can I think a response at them? I know people have said they can sort of get an idea of my mood or thoughts off the sound.

“Either she’s dreaming or getting really annoyed at us.” Peter added a moment later.

I’m still on battery until the pressure gets up, so it can’t be anything intense.

Ooh wait, my math unit makes noises.

1+1=2

Klack… klack… cha chunk… ve… ding

“Wait, she dinged. Was that in response to me?” Peter asked.

Klack… klack… cha chunk… ve… ding

“Ok, she totally answered this time,” Molly said to a chortle of agreement from Peter. “Uh, what’s a way of confirming… Hey Sam, could you do a negative sound if you can hear us?”

1==2

Klack…

So.

klack…

Fucking.

cha chunk…

Slow.

ve…

Finally.

Erch-cha

Happy now Molly?

“Hey that was the math error sound, I call that a negative sound. Hell yeah, communication confirmed!” Molly said, a second later there was a clap of sound that I think was an enthusiastic hi-five.

Ugh.

I’m not even halfway to minimum pressure for my power turbine engine let alone operational for anything else, you people better not be expecting me to respond to everything.

“Oooh, we can ask her stuff that can have a yes or no answer, right?” Molly suggested cheerfully. “There’s a ton I can think of just off the top of my head!”

Please no.

“Hey Sam, have you dreamed since you changed?” She asked

Ugh, fine but you are totally going to owe me for this.

Klack… klack… cha chunk… ve… erch-cha

“Huh, that’s neat.”

“It would make sense. Organic brains still working away when we are sleeping, hers was completely silent before just now.” Peter said thoughtfully, then paused for a second. “Actually, I think I have a good question. “

“Sam, can you feel contact, like touching and stuff?” He then added a clarification quickly. “I mean in general not necessarily right now.”

Huh? No shit I can.

Klack… klack… cha chunk… ve… ding

“Ok, that’s really interesting because we couldn’t find any sensors of any kind in your skin or the panels beneath.” He said getting excited. “We didn’t take any of off or sampled them to know for sure, but so far as we can tell with scans, both your skin and exo-structure are just solid pieces. No wires going to them and no other method for getting signals back from them, they don’t even seem to have any impurities or patterns in them.

Weird, I dunno buddy. I can definitely feel things though, Anna feels waaay too nice for it to just be my imagination and I am pretty sure I would have broken stuff when picking it up otherwise.

“Ha, I bet I was right that it’s magic!” Molly said triumphantly

Magic what now?

Can I ask a question, please? Not being able to say anything fucking sucks.

“I mean it’s possible, but we haven’t had any confirmed actual magic users or items yet.” Peter chided. “I really don’t count that pseudo magic stuff.”

“Why don’t we just ask her?” Molly proposed. “Hey, Sam is your sense of touch magic?”

How the fuck am I supposed to know.

Hey Lilly, do we have magic senses or something?

I got a feeling of uncertainty back from the repair data-bus, doesn’t seem like she knows either.

“Uh, I can’t hear anything besides her thoughts, any guesses what that means?” Molly asked Peter to which I heard cloth move, maybe he shrugged or something.

Actually, that’s a potential response.

Hey Lilly, any chance you can shrug at them for me?

A feeling of amusement came back before I could feel her start to run up towards my face.

“Hey, isn’t that one of her repair bots, what’s it doing?” Molly said interrupting whatever Peter’s response would have been. “Omigosh did it just shrug at me? Oh, it did! That’s adorable.”

Hey, she prefers she, thank you very much.

“I am guessing that means Sam doesn’t know.” Peter said dryly.

“Aww, look at the little wave. Oh, you are just adorable, bye friend!” I heard as Lilly returned to her usual spot, a feeling of smug satisfaction in the data-bus.

Heh, thank you Lilly!

A pleased feeling came back and then she decided to go back to standby, evidently one shrug being about the level of effort she wanted to put into this conversation. Can’t say I blame her; I wouldn’t want to have to pantomime responses either.

“I imagine this whole mention of magic seems to be lacking some of the context we have.” Peter commented, then started to explain over some complaint from Molly. “There are a few structures that we can’t really understand in your brain, that so far as we can determine, are some kind of crystal lattice each possibly etched in some way.”

“They seem to be connected to the rest of your brain in about the same way as your eyes and ears, so we are assuming they are senses of some kind.” He continued. “But it’s possible they are involved in your thinking too. It might explain how you can fit a mechanical computer capable of human thought in your skull, they didn’t they just put enough of one in together with other systems.”

Slow down man, my audio buffer is smaller on battery. I guess it makes sense though, I have seen videos of mechanical calculators on YouTube, those things were huge and it’s not like they were doing anything nearly as complex as thinking.

He obviously couldn’t hear me, and he plowed on regardless.

“Actually, stepping back a sec, those connections in your brain are wild. Your electronic senses like your eyes and ears get hooked into the mechanical parts of your brain, I have no idea how you have the throughput to hear, let alone see-” Thankfully suddenly cut off before my audio buffer capped, wait that might have been Molly poking him or something so she could ask me a question.

Ugh, where are you at steam pressure?

OK almost good for power turbine, I need that to get my brain going faster.

“Hey Saaaam.” Uh oh, I don’t like that voice. “Did you know you have an on-off switch?”

What.

I don’t like that at all.

Klack… klack… cha chunk… ve… erch-cha

“Don’t worry it’s not like a toggle switch or something,” Peter interjected before I could get too horrified. “There’s an access panel on your back which has a keyhole labeled with on-off, and some stuff that seems to be for restarting you if you run out of fuel or something.”

“A filler port labeled for gasoline or mage-fuel, whatever that means, then one of those little pumps like on some camp stoves and a push-button labeled ignition.” He explained like he was reading off some notes or something.

Ah, I sorta knew I had something like that, as the concept of running out of fuel is concerning not life or death.

Fweeeeeeee…

I have steam! That means I can talk soon!

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Hey Sam, are you busy Saturday?” Molly asked, then paused. “Wait, I think there’s another sound, I think I remember hearing that little turbine sound when she’s awake.”

To your question Molly, yes, I am busy because I have a date with Anna!

Klack… klack… cha chunk… ve… ding

“Boo, well Ivy and I will just have to wait a bit then.” She said with what sounded like a pout.

Oh hey, pressures at minimal operational levels.

Virrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

Ok, and there’s my brain back up to normal speed, with it all my other senses started to return or sharpen. I could feel cushions below me instead of a hard trolley table, I could hear background chatter, and smell… uh I have no idea what, some unidentifiable mix of stuff. I think we must be back in the open spaces for the artifact engineers.

I opened my eyes to see a distant blurry ceiling that buzzed into focus with a slight delay.

“Oh hey, we have motion!” Molly said.

I turned my head towards where I could now tell their voices were coming from to find Molly was crouching down next to me with a grin. Peter was in a nearby office chair with a smile on his face and holding a hand with a phone in it up in a wave, the other occupied with an untouched sandwich on a plate.

“Does it take that long every time you wake up?” Molly asked without the grin leaving.

“Yeah, maybe even a bit faster than normal,” I answered my voice still a little quiet while the pressure was building, but I was grateful for any kind of speech. “Did you get useful imagining of me or mostly trivia?”

“Tons!” Peter said excitedly, before launching into another of his almost lectures. “While I would hesitate to describe any part of you as simple. It does look like your lack of sensors greatly reduces the complexity of your limbs at least, they are mostly just wildly complex instead of complex and stuffed with cables and electronics too.”

“Not only that but excluding the lack of impurities most of the materials involved appear to be fairly mundane too, so we are going to try replicating one of your arms to see if it works once hooked up to you.” He finished and sat back before another thought seemed to cross his mind as he sat forward again, the sandwich attempting to escape the plate in the process.

“Your repair bots were actually really helpful!” He exclaimed. “They stood still in places to point at connection points or parts which are important, did you know they were like seriously intelligent? They seemed remarkably aware of what we were doing without us explaining anything.”

“Yeah, I’ve let Lilly, the one you saw a bit ago, play games on my phone once or twice,” I confirmed. “Oh, and they mostly prefer she and her too. Other than Crocus in my left leg, he prefers male pronouns.”

“Wait, they have individual personalities?” Peter asked eagerly. “That’s so cool.”

“Yeah, Lilly is the most proactive about stuff. The others mostly just like waiting in standby if nothing is needed.” I shrugged.

“Uh, they might actually be the most advanced thing in you honestly.” He said sheepishly. “One was off, I guess, for a while so we got a good look at its, ah, her internals. They are bewilderingly dense, so we haven’t even started to understand them.”

“Well yeah, they are the best.” I said proudly while sitting up, the pressure finally where I needed it to get moving properly.

“Heh, you really like them, don’t you?” Asked Molly.

“Yep!” I said cheerfully before I remembered I intended to be annoyed at her earlier and started waggling an accusatory finger at her. “You totally owe me for having me answer questions when I’m not even fully awake.”

“Of course!” She agreed with a laugh. “What do I owe you?”

I stopped the finger drooping. “I uh haven’t figured that out yet, I will get back to you.”

----------------------------------------

“Hey Peter, you said something about magic not being a confirmed thing earlier, I thought there was stuff believed to be magic associated to changees already?” I asked while swinging my legs back and forth off the side of the table I was sitting on.

“Sorta? Like there’s stuff people call magic, but most of them are more like broad abilities.” He said while turning away from the computer he had been working on. “Do you know of that guy in the states calling himself a wizard and trying to be a vigilante?”

“Yeah, he went for a like a blue robe and pointy hat thing, right?” I said vaguely remembering him from a year or two ago.

“Yep, well it seems like he has a shit ton of ‘spells’-“ Peter said with air quotes when saying spells. “But it is a finite list, around a hundred and fifty I believe. Interestingly from the interviews, he claims that he understands how he does each and every one of them.”

“Here’s the key thing though,” He said holding a finger up. “He is unable to alter them at all, nor can he create new ones!”

There was something triumphant about the declaration, and I guessed Peter didn’t like this guy for some reason.

“You’re in CS, right?” He asked to which I nodded. “The analogy for magic versus an ability is a Turing complete machine compared to a number of single-function machines.”

“Makes sense.” Then I paused for a second to formulate a question. “So, if someone was able to make a spell, enchantment, or whatever that’s letting me feel touch, and it wasn’t done with a specific ability then that would mean true magic is a thing in at least one dimension?”

“Yeah basically!”

“How would we prove that it’s not by an ability?” I asked curiously.

“Uh, well that’s the issue.” He started sheepishly. “We don’t know what’s going on in your maybe magic crystals from scans, and I am not exactly going to ask you to let us perform brain surgery on you to only maybe find out.”

“I would prefer my brain stay assembled thank you very much.” I agreed, and he turned back to the computer with a grin.

We spent the better part of the next hour where he would ask me to do a motion with my hand and then try to replicate it with pieces in the CAD software he was working in. It was kind of a weird experience because I could tell the motion was wrong watching the screen but that it was close enough to cause uncanny valley feelings in me.

Occasionally we were interrupted by Drew or Alica coming over from their own computers to ask me to confirm the functionality of some organ of mine, to which had a bit of a random hit rate. It’s like you know you have a liver, but you don’t necessarily remember everything it does, because you can’t feel it working.

At one point Molly dropped by with a bowl of wood chips and some cookies, as usual, there was a mixture of reactions from the others as they watched me eat. The engineering-orientated bunch seemed more on the admiration and curiosity side of things though, concerningly Molly was more curious to see she could have me try biting through random things to test my bite strength.

I declined to humor her on that one.

“So just to check, you two-“ I said roughly pointing the wood chip in my hand at Drew and Alica. “Are full-time employees, right?”

“Yep.” Alica confirmed around a cookie.

“Cool, now how do you two balance this on top of school?” I asked turning the chip on Molly and Peter, who at the moment were holding hands thus confirming couple status in my head.

Peter nervously laughed.

“Uh well, I am actually only doing a half course load and supposedly this job is a weird coop as far as the school is concerned.” He said scratching his head.

Buddy, you still have a cookie in that hand. Those crumbs are totally in your hair now.

“I usually only come in a couple of evenings in the week, usually Monday and Thursday. Then a random day on the weekend or whatever.” Molly piped up with a shrug, then brushed cookie crumbs out of Peter’s hair. “Since I’m more of a problem solver than someone with ongoing projects it flexes around a bit, I will probably start spending my time I’m training you for a bit instead though.”

“Oh, sorry if I’m dragging you away.”

“Nah, it’s mostly pretty rare that I need to be explicitly doing something, given how clashes were slowing down and all.” She then grinned a little guiltily. “A lot of my time is spent working on assignments or watching anime in my office.”

“You have an office?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Technically yeah, I am in charge of field agents even if that’s just me right now.” She admitted with a shrug. “As for my office, it’s just a random empty one I started squatting in a few months ago after Mary got annoyed that I was bumming around her office too much.”

Suddenly she looked like she had realized something, and a big grin formed. “Actually, it’s not just me anymore, you are with me now!”

“How common is it that you actually do have stuff to do as a field agent then?” I asked curiously, as she wasn’t exactly making it seem like a busy job, she grimaced a bit the subject apparently being a bit of a sore spot.

“That varies a lot, normally everything is concentrated around clashes as new changees and artifacts pop up around the wave itself, then usually any super villain wannabes are a few weeks or months later.” She explained. “This wave was really quiet actually, not much in the way of either. It was just you and a handful of boring items I picked up with Alica in the last couple of weeks.”

“Makes sense,” I said with a nod then continued into another question. “You mentioned you are the only field agent, right?”

The grimace returned.

“Yeah, with the clashes winding down our budget has slowly got eaten away, and then the last not-me agent left because they got a good opportunity.” Then she sighed. “We used to have a few dozen agents spread through Ontario, some here at the department main site, then in Toronto, Ottawa, Waterloo, Hamilton, London, and even a couple up in Thunder Bay.”

“Now though? It’s just me for all of Ontario, which in practice means that I handle whatever is close to us and then everything else is either begging for a flight from the military or letting the cops and whatever local authorities are around handle it.” She was clearly annoyed at that concept. “They aren’t even in the same ballpark for de-escalating agro situations or helping people. Summers gets pissed off every time we hear of some fuck up a few hours away that we could have peacefully handled, you know like that guy who was shot up near Ottawa a few clashes ago?”

I nodded, remembering seeing that in the news at the time.

“From my talks with him, it really does seem like there’s some pretty high-minded stuff Summers is trying to do.” I commented. “It sounds like he is trying to get that into here too from what you’re saying now and at your initial employment pitch.”

“For sure,” Drew cut in before Molly could respond. “He’s basically making use of the fact the whole department didn’t exist four years ago to let him make up a culture wholesale. It’s probably why we are someplace weird like Orchardville instead of Toronto or Ottawa though, they want us out of the way and not influencing any other organizations.”

There was an uncomfortable laugh shared by the four of them.

“Fuck, I wish people with his attitude ran more stuff,” Molly commented a bit glumly. “Like the guy isn’t a saint or anything, but he sure tries to get the best outcome. Hell of a lot better than the shit you read in the news about some other climate disaster or tragedy out of the States or something they have done.”

There were a few moments of awkward silence as cookies were eaten a little more reluctantly than before as the depression of reality weighed upon us, then Molly piped up again.

“This stuff with the portal is out of left field though, we’ve never seen anything like it.” She commented. “When Summers heard there were, what he assumed to be anyway, other dimension hostages, he threw anything he could get towards where you were.”

“That machine is something else too,” Alica added. “There’s a weird mishmash of crudely plugged together off-the-shelf equipment or hand fabbed stuff combined with what looks like specialized equipment out of a large production run.”

At my curious glance, she explained.

“You know from the fit and finish? That dais was something standardized, no hand fitting or witness marks like you would expect out of a small workshop.”

“I was wondering if it might be an artifact itself, but if it is, they were being pretty blasé with it.” Peter commented to nods from Alica and Drew.

“Are you guys still just saying it or machine when talking about it? It’s almost a week I would have thought someone would have a name for it.” Molly asked with surprise.

“No one has gotten anything to stick yet,” Peter said with a shrug. “It’s mostly lame references so far.”

“My roommates called it a Screamgate.” I mentioned off-hand while grabbing another chip.

“There’s worse names.” Molly snorted.

“Oh yeah, I didn’t see you that night. Was it because everything was over already?” I asked curiously before nibbling on it.

She winced. “No, I was at my parents and by the time I got back here, you were already home. Sorry about that.”

“Nah, it’s fine. It’s not like I had been expecting anyone I knew to turn up, and I was still under the impression you weren’t into being a superhero.” I said giving her a grin.

“I uh, yeah, still not really intending to be one its just I am good at preventing people from meaningfully attacking.” She admitted a bit red with embarrassment. “My gravity powers are pretty applicable to restraining or disabling people without significant injuries, and I can protect myself from stuff pretty well too.

“Really, really good at it!” Peter cut in. “I’ve seen her handle people with guns by applying a gravity to deflect them around her or just yank the bullets into the ground.” He said while doing a ballistic Arc with one hand into the other.

“Woah.” Bit better than my solution to people with guns so far, given that it essentially just maim them until they stop.

Molly cleared her throat and then tried to change the subject.

“Would having me drop by to pick you up at ten on Sunday work for you?” She asked me. “Mary would prefer earlier but I’m not likely to be up much before that.”

I thought for a second then nodded, it’s not like I have been sleeping in anymore. “Yeah, that works for me, is there anything, in particular you want me to wear or bring?”

“Something you feel comfortable moving in for the bit I am training you and your laptop so we can get you set up. Uh, I guess something to eat, since I am not sure what will be available for you.” I nodded and made a quick note on my phone as she finished answering my question.

“Good luck with training Sam,” Alica commented before she grabbed a few more cookies from the plate beside Molly, then started to head back to her desk. “Don’t break her before we have spare parts Molly.“

Yikes.

“It’ll be fine, and Summers already gave me that warning!” Molly called back, getting a wave in return.

“It’s getting pretty late,” Peter said glancing at his phone. “You were going to head out soon anyway right Molly? You could give Sam a ride back.”

“Yep!” She confirmed then gave Peter a peck on the cheek and got a quick one-handed hug in return. “See you tomorrow, Peter. Later Drew”

“You know it.” Peter agreed with a chuckle and Drew said bye as she started walking towards the doors back out into the rest of the facility.

“Come on Sam.” She waved at me to follow, I snatched my bag off the desk beside me and after biding a quick farewell to the two of them I ran to catch up.