The clean clothes meant another day of anonymous wandering. While I was covering a lot of ground just by dint of not getting physically tired, it wasn’t really that productive a use of time. I found more stores and sources of food, but mostly nothing that was immediately going to alter my situation. I did see what might have been a cellphone this time though, a big chunky thing some guy was talking on in a park.
When I was on the way back for dinner I stole another newspaper, this time off a stand. It didn’t really teach me much more than the last one as it was mostly a humdrum of normal mostly “peacetime” news. That there was a civil war happening in the middle east within a historical oil power, and the relationship between India and the US wasn’t great didn’t really seem to be presented with any particular concern. While learning these things might help me at some point if I need to blend in, without being a person in people’s eyes it mostly was just stuff that I expected would slip out of my mind.
Once it was dark, I made my way towards the automated taxi depot, curious as to what I would find if I gained entry. There weren’t any windows to peek into the anonymous concrete block but the tiny two-spot carpark was empty, so I decided to take the chance to enter it.
\Taxi return - yK5jn1\ I called out to the entrance, with a slight delay, the shutter began to rattle its way up into the ceiling to let me in.
The entrance that was revealed was a short stretch of road with walls on either side and a low ceiling that continued into the building, it was clear that this space was designed for the taxis and no more than that. I walked to the end of the strip of tarmac to look at the platform waiting for the taxi I claimed to be, it was hanging from the end of what appeared to be a stupendously large arm emerging from somewhere below.
When I carefully peeked up into the space above it looked like the front of the building over the entrance was filled with taxis waiting on platforms similar to the one attached to the end of the limb, or at least that’s what I guessed from the bumpers and rails for wheels hanging just out into the space implied. The center of the room was empty from floor to ceiling a few stories above, presumably to leave space for the arm to move through. There was a walkway running along the wall opposite me, with a trio of doors spread along it and a ladder running up from the right-most end of it to a platform far above.
Emerging from the bottom of the platform was a thin spindly arm covered in pipes that was currently bridging the gap from the platform to one of the taxis. As I looked at the underside of the platform, I realized that it also had four large insectile robots that looked a lot like giant versions of my repair buddies. As I let my vision track back down to the walkway, I noted that the space between the bottom of the platform and just above what would have been the first floor was covered in bins of various sizes and indeterminable contents.
I considered the platform where it waited patiently just ahead of me. It wasn’t a particularly complex structure just two narrow flat surfaces for the wheels of a taxi to ride upon on a heavy frame to prevent them from warping with the weight of the vehicle. It was hardly the narrowest thing I had crossed in my various excursions with Molly into abandoned buildings, and I had jumped off a roof that was higher off the ground than the fall into the pit below would represent. The consequences for fucking up were much higher though, what if I tumbled off and couldn’t get my legs under me? If I injured myself, it’s not like I could expect any help. I hesitated for a moment as a battle between my curiosity and sense of caution went on, in the end, curiosity won out.
I moved maybe a bit more slowly than I really needed to, having crouched low enough that I could have grabbed the frame of the platform if it either moved or I slipped. As it was my fears were entirely unfounded as the platform didn’t even creak under my weight, after that it was just as simple as clambering over the railing of the walkway and I was on solid enough ground again.
Electing to check out the platform at the end of the ladder later I decided to look through the doors off the platform to my left. The first one went into a tiny room that I assumed was for visiting employees, as it had a couple of lockers and a single unisex washroom off to the side. Which offered me an opportunity to break the streak of how I had been disposing of my waste in the last few days, the specifics of which I didn’t really want to think about.
I got a chance to look at myself in the mirror as I washed my hands, I looked rather disheveled compared to my usual state. My hair hadn’t really matted up or anything, but it was messy, and clearly hadn’t seen a comb for days. I had streaks of dirt on my face from the rain or whatever had been in the eavestrough when it dribbled on me overnight. A few minutes of splashing water on my face and combing with my hands had me, if not looking presentable, at least better than before.
The second door led into a chamber primarily occupied by a massive hopper full of coal feeding into what looked like a large-scale fuel converter. it must have been pretty much the same size as the one we had picked up back home recently, for all I knew it was even the same model. The last room had a big computer buzzing away with a handful of CRTs listing all sorts of random status details, everything from the weight of coal left in the fuel hopper to how many of a specific seal type was in storage.
I went back out into the main chamber to consider the platform far above me just barely visible through the bins above, I decided it was probably worth at least checking it out. Clambering up the ladder, I found that it was surprisingly spacious. There was a hump to one side that I assumed was associated with the umbilical arm, beyond that it was a large flat area with removable panels that would have corresponded to the big repair bots. It was a little surprising that they left it as clear as it was with how little free space there was in the rooms down below, it might have even had more square footage of clear floor space than my room back home.
I stood considering the viability of sleeping here for a while, while there’s no pillow and I need to get my other clothes and rags back from the other place, it’s so much nicer than a roof. There was more risk of someone discovering me here if someone came by to check on the equipment, but it was dry and there didn’t seem to be any place for a permanent employee here.
I also am sick of waking up damp with dew or rain.
----------------------------
I might regret committing, what with the added risk, but I think this platform might be home now, the patter of rain on the roof above me certainly helped reinforce its advantages in my mind. Beyond the waterproofing, it's unlikely any random passer-by will discover me just because of the very method by which I can get in.
Sure, there was all the noise of the taxis being picked out of their places on the wall across from me, or the sound of the umbilical working its way from taxi to taxi. Not to mention that shortly after I woke up this morning it had spent thirty minutes disgorging most of its contents out into the streets. On the other hand, it’s not like that affected my sleep and all the supporting infrastructure for the taxis meant it was also ideal for me.
Breakfast was as simple as grabbing a handful of coal off the top of the hopper and then leaning against a wall to watch taxis leaving one by one. After that, I started looking into what was here a bit closer than last night. Following the hoses down from the umbilical revealed that the space under the walkway had several large containers of some kind.
It took a bit of searching to find the path down, it had turned out to be through a panel in the floor just in front of the ‘office’. After a few minutes of poking around, I found that the large tanks had small access hatches for checking out the contents. Discovering the fresh and used oil storage was a boon, particularly after Lilly confirmed that the oil was a suitable weight for me. We had an almost discussion on it, and we concluded that it was probably like a lot of things with me in that I seemed to be designed to be relatively independent. It’s probable that I just used the most commonly available weight of oil as a just-in-case thing.
We didn’t have anything to confirm our theory, so I moved on to checking out the last and smallest by a significant degree container. It contained some transparent odorless liquid that I couldn’t identify at first glance, I could only assume it had something to do with the taxis though. Backing out, I followed the pipes that lead to and from it, before concluding that it probably was from the fuel converter. Returning to the access hatch I considered it a bit more, I concluded this must be mage fuel.
The lack of smell was kinda underwhelming, I had assumed if it was a fuel it would smell like something just like everything else did but I guess not. I experimentally dipped a fingertip into the fuel and then licked it off.
It literally tasted of nothing.
Like people would say water doesn’t taste of anything or that plain white rice doesn’t, those people would be wrong, but those have nothing on this. It’s literally entirely absent of any kind of flavor or smell at all, I could feel it pooling in my mouth when I took a larger scoop but that’s it. It felt fine going down, and it hardly was bad, but I don’t understand how I literally can’t sense it other than by its physical presence. Magic bullshit maybe, or perhaps because it’s something ready for immediate use there was no need to add the ability to taste and smell it to help with differentiation.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Lame.
Well at least there’s all the coal, so it’s not like I am lacking in food with flavor even if I might get a bit bored of it after a while.
----------------------------------------
I kinda settled into a routine in the following week, even if the idea I had been here long enough to form habits was painful. I would read or wander the city for most of the day, then in the evening going around nicking a few random items from stores using a different access code each time. A pillow here, a map there, a change of clothes or rags somewhere else.
One of the main things I could really do was learn about where I was, and for that I needed books. I had tried to go to the library, but it had staff working late and sometimes an actual human security guard, so it was out. Without access to that, I needed to turn to the private sector, in other words robbing used bookstores. There was a nice independent one that I felt really bad about stealing from, but they had a lot more history books compared to the chain one a few blocks away. I could have been going to one of the larger new book stores that were around, but I could read the used ones and return them without it being obvious.
At the moment, I was working my way through a dense book that was supposed to be about the introduction of magic to engineering, but the first fifty pages had been rambling on about a general history of mechanical devices and things like the Babbage machine. While I was tempted to skip it for another from the small stack I had amassed, I had found that setting myself goals of books to get through was a good distraction from having to think about home.
Honestly despite the rambling, the book was interesting anyway, it had all these little clues of how comparatively recently this world must have split from my own so far as developments go. Anna would have found it fascinating I’m sure, I knew she read some alt-history fiction in her non-cosplay-occupied spare time and this was an entire world of it.
I kinda spent a while sobbing into my stolen pillow after thinking about her again, at least the occasional clatter of the taxi machinery was far louder than I was.
After dragging myself back together and returning to the textbook, I eventually learned that magic had only been known of since the late forties. The first mages were only discovered after a mysterious phenomenon had occurred, one which ‘neither science nor magic could explain’ in the book’s words. On an otherwise ordinary day, a small percentage of the population suddenly developed the ability to scribe functionality into crystals that had appeared throughout the earth’s crust at the same time as a collection of buildings were randomly replaced with ones of a wildly different style to what was there before. It was referred to as the reawakening by some, saying that magic was returning to its place as it had once been described in myths, yadda yadda.
Now, I’m not an expert and this was only one book but that sounded a hell of a lot like a dimension clash to me. The lack of further ones being mentioned implied that whatever it was that prompted them was nowhere near as dramatic as what happened back home. Maybe someone got a moment of the FTL drive going and got one aftershock for their troubles. I suspect there were a few other differences about this dimension before that incident as some of the old buildings differed here from the ones I knew in Orchardville, but some of that could have been what ones were preserved or knocked down in the intervening years.
It seems like magic kinda screwed up the development of the purely electrical computer, but I don’t really know how exactly. I had tried a history book on the subject of how the modern mechanical one was developed but it seemed aimed at engineers and went right over my head. In general, it seemed like magical assistance in manufacturing and preserving mechanical ones resulted in alternatives being ignored, it was simple to add effects to reduce friction and wear on the rest of the machine to the crystal lattices that would be present for specialized funtions anyway.
Deciding to take a break before diving into more recent history, I went out into the world at large just for a walk or something. I found I was getting pretty used to pretending to be just another synthetic, don’t say anything, move deliberately, and don’t gawk at stuff that’s weird to me. Like the guy with an armed bodyguard synthetic on the street, or that despite it apparently being peacetime there was a tank near city hall all the time with a few military synthetics waiting nearby, their machine guns clearly loaded judging by the few bullets on their belts I could see.
I still hadn’t seen anything in the news indicating this was anything but the normal state of affairs, and there didn’t seem to be a notable crime or unrest issue. If anything, there were far fewer cops or police synthetics than I might have expected back home. I hadn’t really encountered anything in the books I had read so far to explain it either.
I had a vague destination for my wanderings today, not something that would be particularly productive as a use of my time but had been helping my mental state. I don’t know what made me look the first time, but I discovered that the park near where Anna’s place was back home was all but identical to the one I knew.
When I was making my down the normally quiet winding path some loud childish voices drew my attention, but I resisted the urge to look. Synthetics didn’t notice things after all.
“Give it back!” one voice said.
“Nope, not after what you did to my book.” The other said from awfully close.
Clong
“Ow.”
A kid had run into me!
I had already stopped in response, so I chanced looking down, hoping that it wouldn’t be out of place. The girl was rubbing the side of her head while looking up at me perplexed, with a toy truck or something in her hand. Glancing over at the sound of uncertain footsteps approaching revealed the other kid was probably her brother going off looks alone.
“Are you alright?” I asked returning to looking at the girl, realizing it might break my cover a bit too late.
“Yuh, uh I’m fine.” She answered blinking up at me confused, then seemed to reconsider. “Uh. No injuries.”
That seemed like some memorized response, weird, probably meant that synthetics had canned responses to incidents like this.
“That’s good to hear.” I said offering a hand, I was already speaking, and I hadn’t actually heard how robots should respond vocally as the ones I had seen weren’t even really acknowledged or were just ordered about silently. I think it might have been a mistake to do so as she gave me a weird stare, but took the hand after a moment and pulled herself up.
“Thank you?” She answered uncertainly before stepping back a bit, her brother still hadn’t done anything but stare at me up to this point but now hid behind her. She was maybe a bit taller than him, but there can’t have been more than a year or two between them. I have no idea how to tell the age of kids but I would guess she was ten or something like that, definitely well before highschool at least.
“You’re welcome, now if you will excuse me.” I said with a slightly inclined head before straightening and returning to walking towards the bridge. I don’t have a clue how I am supposed to have responded to that incident, but I am sure what I did was the wrong way. The best thing I could do now was just continue like I was going about some task .
Another ten minutes of walking brought me to the bridge, I went part way across it then did a crisp turn to face out towards the lake.
Anna and I had only been to that version of the park a few times, mostly just when we weren’t really sure where to go but wanted to get out of the house for a bit. That didn’t change that right here with the view I had I could completely imagine I was back home while listening to the birds and watching the stream flow by undisturbed. it was so similar that I could have just been stopping by before heading over to work on a new costume, cuddle, or something normal and pleasant. I wasn’t of course, I was just escaping into fantasies while avoiding learning about someplace where I’m not even a person so far as anyone here is concerned.
The time slipped away a bit as I watched the stream, then my contemplation was interrupted.
“What are you doing?” The girl from before asked, and I tried to ignore her, robots didn’t answer questions like that after all. “Er, what is your task?”
Fuck.
“Observing.” I answered which isn’t a lie, but also not really a great answer. I remained looking at the river, in an attempt to at least appear like I was focused or something.
“What for?”
Shit uh, how do I answer that?
“Fluid dynamics.” Sure, fuck it good enough, better then saying ‘looking at a nice stream, not something in particular’.
“You’re strange.” She declared; I chose not to respond to that.
“Ali, what if it’s a weird murder bot.” her brother said from a distance. “It might attack or something!”
“I would not.” I said, getting annoyed but keeping my tone flat.
“Ahhh! It understood me!” He said. “Mom said robots don’t!”
“She said most don’t Connor, there are fancy ones remember.” The girl said addressing her brother, then I felt a tug on my hand. “Why are you watching the stream?”
I glanced down at her, trying to keep my expression neutral.
“It is an intermediate task.” I answered, also not quite a lie it was something I wanted to do before starting something else.
“How much can you understand?” She asked straight forward in that way kids can be.
“A sufficient amount.” English is my native language, but I know but Jake’s is probably better and it’s his second.
She gave me a stare with an expression that attempted to be serious but was more amusing than anything. “I like you.” She declared with a self-satisfied nod. “What time is it? we need to be back by five.”
“I do not know.” I answered, a lie could be easily uncovered, and I don’t have any way of knowing besides it being late afternoon. I had found I could ask other robots or the taxi computer, but without any nearby, I had nothing to go off.
She startled. “Why not?”
“It is not a function I am equipped with.” Nothing I had ever tried revealed it to me anyway. “However, if you wish to be on time, I suggest you return now.”
“If you don’t know the time what makes you say that?” She said crossing her arms and frowning at me.
“Arriving here takes approximately forty minutes, when I left the time was three-twenty-three thus I have been here since four PM at the earliest,” I explained. “I do not know how long I have been here, but I would assume no less than twenty minutes. I do not know how long your return trip takes but you will not have much time left regardless.”
“You use ‘I’ too much for a robot.” She declared, apparently deciding to ignore my answer. I resisted the urge to sigh, pretending to be a robot is hard particularly when I have no idea how they are supposed to sound. “Alright, see you later weird robot.” She said before turning and walking away without waiting for a response.
I turned back to the water and tried to ignore the sadness that accompanied the thought that I just had the closest thing to normal human interaction in more than a week.