I’m awake, that’s surprising.
It feels wrong though, I’ve never woken up like this.
Normally waking up is accompanied by my burners igniting, but there is just silence and an absence where that comforting sound should be. There was some kind of murky noise from around me, but when running off back up alone I couldn’t separate them out into recognizable sounds.
Usually, I knew they would resolve themselves once my turbine spun up and there should have been an anticipation of that. Now I just felt that void gnawing at me, there was no fire to heat my boiler so no steam to spin my turbine, that much was obvious. There was a wrongness about that beyond that like something was missing, but before I could figure out what, I heard the first clear sound since I had awoken.
It was the crisp clattering of a mechanical keyboard from somewhere that must have been close, a moment later it was followed by the whir of my brain spinning up to normal operational RPMs. The lack of my other normal mechanical sounds was deeply disturbing, like a breath without a heartbeat. Where was the power coming from if not my turbine, am I plugged into the mains or something?
The sounds around me resolved into whirring like that of my own brain from numerous sources nearby. As I was considering what that could be I realized that the surface I was on felt weird, not in what it was as it seemed to be some kind of metal table, but in where I could feel it. It was like it was in my belly at the same time somehow.
I didn’t have time to decide what that meant before something started attempting to root around in my mind. It was brushing against everything that was me, not able to get through my surface layer immediately but searching and seeking for a way in.
Can I do something about it?
Smack.
I did something that seems to have made it recoil away from me, it was purely instinctual and I could not have described how I knew to respond.
“What the fuck.” I recognized the voice as the woman from the van, apparently, she hadn’t been expecting that response.
Without anything else to do, I tried to consider whatever that action was. It was like closing a door in someone’s face or pushing a plate of undesirable food away as a child. No, maybe it was a feeling of rejection, like telling someone you didn’t want duct cleaning. No, it was locking the lock to a diary, securing away something you don’t want people to see. Maybe not because of what it is, but how it is. Safe, private, locked, I don’t want you in it.
It was all of those, and none of those.
My contemplation was interrupted when the thing went through a different avenue trying to find its way into my mind. I didn’t even need to think about it swing at it with another smack, and I was rewarded with more swearing and typing. Whatever she was doing, I knew I could simply reject it for how could something as weak and obvious as that thing hope to get through against my rejection of it.
This stupid ‘game’ went on for a few minutes, she’d try and do something in my brain and I would evict it before it could ever get a toe hold. I have no idea how I was doing it, but be it by touching, smacking or grabbing at the thing with a feeling of rejecting it whenever it tried to access data or change a setting was enough to keep me safe.
At some point, she sent a wild spiraling collection of gross little worm feeling fuckers, but I just sort of shoved and they fell squirming away, that got a protracted sequence of curses that descended into muttering. A weird thought crossed my mind that I had noticed surprisingly little linguistic drift between our dimensions, why I would think of it now of all times was inexplicable.
She seemed to give up for the moment as I didn’t feel any of the things for some indeterminate period of time then I heard motion nearby again.
Ca-chunk, hssssssssssss
Ew, ew, ew, ew.
I think I just got a hook up to external steam or something as something was just linked into my steam lines. I don’t think I had an external input, which only elevated deeply invasive it was as she must have access to my internals. I still couldn’t move despite the pressure and power nominally being enough, I was just frozen in place without any apparent authority over my own body. No matter how hard I willed it, I couldn’t so much as twitch an eyelid.
“Override Kulovesi, status” the woman commanded.
“Error, unable to complete boot cycle.” My voice droned out entirely outside of my control. “External power connected, external pressure line connected, external data line connected.” There was a pause during which I could feel my brain grinding away on some process I didn’t have insight into. “Error, unable to determine fuel, water, material, or oil status.”
I really don’t like the sound of that.
“Error, repair bus disconnected, unable to contact repair drones.”
Oh no, that’s why I haven’t heard anything from Lilly or the others! I had been too distracted by my situation for it to have even registered, stupid stupid stupid.
“Error, near field communications module disconnected.”
I could feel each of the errors from that diagnostic process slide across my consciousness, I hadn’t had enough time to consider my uncontrolled responses but I guess it made sense given it’s not like I had multiple systems for speaking.
Another error about my fuel converter being disconnected whisked by before an idea crossed my mind, I think I might even be able to just squeak something in with the other messages. let’s see, the errors kinda feel like this so maybe I could try to replicate that, there was a clack from deep in my head when I did so, presumably as the process awaited some kind of reason or message for the error. I tried to speak which seemed sufficient for it to resume, carrying away my attempt at interaction.
“Custom Error, why are you doing this.”
Ha it worked, I was hoping I could slip another in but the process was already terminating so I guess I’ve reached the end of the status report.
“What?” The woman responded incredulously. “Override Kulovesi, repeat last error.”
“Custom Error, why are you doing this.”
There was a second or twos pause. “Origin of last Error.” She asked a frown to her voice.
“Normal process, triggered by-“ a vague garbled whistle “in response to-“ more whistling. I guess I hadn’t given something that was render-able into human speech for those.
She seemed to think for a bit. “Override Kulovesi, list currently loaded logic chains.”
What? No, those are private! I was already being pulled away despite my protests…
“Currently enabled chains, Access denied. “
What? Reason for denial.
“Access denied for reason, I don’t want to tell you. Resuming normal process.”
There was a long quiet period with only the whir of my brain to break it as I returned to proper consciousness.
“Override Kulovesi, resume boot with motion disabled.” She said eventually.
My senses refined themselves further making me realize that I hadn’t really had full clarity, and with it came a disturbing clarity of my situation. I am sure now that I am lying buck naked on my back, the cool surface of the metal table uninterrupted by any fabric that I was aware of, also I think that I am partially disassembled as I am pretty sure I shouldn’t feel stuff being outside my chest cavity like that.
Ok, don’t panic.
I don’t feel any leaks or pain, so I don’t think it’s thaaat bad.
That’s a lie.
“Override Kulovesi, enable speech.” The woman said with some trepidation.
“Did you have to open me up like this?” Was the first thought I had, I sounded more indignant than mad surprisingly. For some reason, I feel more betrayed than anything, like I should have been able to trust this person.
“She’s aware of being disassembled, how curious…” The woman commented ignoring the question.
“No shit!" I responded, "I don't know about how you would feel but I would really prefer not having been taken apart.“
“Whoever did the programming certainly gave her a lot of extra responses.” She said as she moved to lean in over my chest cavity from where her voice was. I had been wondering if she was talking to someone nearby, but her disjointed mumbling didn’t seem directed at anyone. “I’m still not sure how they replicated her so closely yet clearly have gone off the baseline for the software, although there are some details that are off about her body but that could have been the work of the repair drones.”
“Hey! You could acknowledge what I said, and can you at least hook the repair bus up I’m worried about my repair… drones.” I was going to call them buddies, but for some reason it felt weird to be using such a personal term in front of whoever this was.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“She seems quite able to respond to external stimuli, although it’s possible the voice buffer is getting filled too fast from that pause.” She poked something next to my voice box, which is a fucking disgusting feeling.
“Can you not poke me like that?” My complaint was ignored while the mumbling dropped in volume to something I only heard snatches of as she went about lifting various components in my chest presumably to examine them.
OK, I have some pressure from the external line, and I have some degree of being able to get past her overrides based on being able to ignore the one about logic chains. Can I just push past the movement one and stop her fucking touching my organs?
Come the fuck on body, listen to me.
Hssss, clink
Heyo lefty I felt you move.
I am not sure I have concentrated on the feel of just moving like this ever in my life, I entirely focused on just my left arm. It was hard having to prepare to move each and every component of my limb consciously rather then just reaching out while letting my muscle memory figure it out. This actuator gets just this amount of pressure, those ones rotate the wrist, and a big ole wallop to those ones to get my arm itself up. I know where her arm must be from where her hand is touching my… tertiary oil pump? Something like that.
I reach out and upon feeling something against my palm, close my fingers partially around her arm. My hand was too small to close all the way without potentially injuring her with how little coordination I had at the moment.
“I said stop!” I shouted, turning a bit raspy as the external line wasn’t really feeding enough pressure for both that and my arm. Her mumbling stopped abruptly. “Can you please just listen to me?” I asked once the pressure was sufficient.
“She grabbed me.” the woman almost whispered. “Through the overrides.”
“I can understand what you’re saying so can you just please respond to something I say?” I said in the loudest voice I could maintain while keeping my grip.
“What are you?” She asked.
“A person!”
“That’s impossible.” She declared. “You’re just a sufficiently complex response tree pretending to-“
“Give me a break, I’m sure there’s some test you can do to prove otherwise.” I interrupted, getting ever more frustrated that I couldn’t even look at them as I couldn’t get my eyes open still.
She paused. “Hypothetically if you were placed in a room…”
She spent what felt like hours asking me weird questions one after another, I know it was probably only like an hour or two at most, but it dragged on. I guessed they were one variant of something like a Turing test or something equivalent, I think they were mostly off the top of her head as sometimes she would stop and correct a question.
“Wait your answer was different last time.” She said randomly after one.
“What?”
“I asked that question before and you gave a different answer.”
“Probably, I don’t have perfect memory.” I explained while waving my hand.
She had eased up on the overrides after I was having trouble releasing her arm earlier when she wanted to get some paper and a pen, so now I could at least stare at the ceiling and move an arm. It wasn’t that exciting a ceiling, just one of those boring suspended plaster ones, she had at least moved the task light that had been shining in my eyes initially though.
“You don’t?” She asked curiously.
“Nope, I expect it’s space-saving as I have finite memory.”
“Mmm, curious.” I was expecting another round of questions, but she just was tapping her pen for a while instead. The hesitation made it seem like she was considering something which was confirmed when she changed the topic a moment later. “Would you be able to explain why your form is an almost exact copy of one of my prototypes?”
“One of yours? I thought this is a general synthetics lab, and my manufacturer plate says Battle-Maid Systems.” The tapping paused for a second.
“Battle-Maid Systems is a brand under General Synthetics after it was bought a decade ago.” She explained.
“Ah, makes sense.”
The tapping resumed.
“Uh explaining why is probably going to make me sound insane.” Her stupid tapping pen was infectious and I started tapping my fingers in rhythm while thinking. “OK, so getting into history, you know the reawakening?”
“Obviously.” The pen stopped.
“Well, hypothetically imagine it’s possible for it to be a repeating event.”
“So more people becoming mages you mean?” I heard a piece of paper flip.
“Essentially, but replace mages with unknown lifeforms or, er, robots.” The pen scratched for a second and paused. “Suppose the source of the changes could be from more than just the origin of magic but other places too.”
“If in this purely hypothetical situation, such a change happened why have I not heard of it?” She asked after the pen stopped again.
“I never said it happened here.” I offered. “What if there were a way to go from a dimension where that happened to this one.”
“Are you claiming to be from another world?” She asked incredulously.
“Hypothetically, but also definitely.” I confirmed and did the v peace gesture at her rough direction. “I come in peace.” I paused for just a moment when I didn’t immediately get a response. “Wait did you guys have the Roswell conspiracy nonsense here? I never thought to check for that.”
“I don’t know what you mean?” She asked confusion in her voice.
“Ah, don’t worry about it, it’s just stupid stuff.” I waved my hand. “I am happy to explain at some point but it’s irrelevant now.”
“Assuming I believe you, why are you here?” She asked, pen tapping again.
“Good question I have only half an answer to, a weapon was used on me which I guess ejected me from that dimension.” I tried to do a one-armed shrug but it didn’t work out too well. “That seems to have resulted in me ending up here. It kinda aligns with a crude description as to how dimensional portals work, but I only half remember the analogy at this point.”
“Portals? And you were attacked?”
“Yeah, there’s some organization back home attempting to get stuff from other dimensions.” I then remembered the man with the prosthetic from here who died. “You might have had them here maybe, was there anything about a big kidnapping in the states like a month to two months ago?”
The pen tapped for a second. “Yes, some people were taken from a mall, It was all over the news for a bit. There was security footage and witnesses to a group of armed men with distinctive weapons dragging off anyone they could find, blatantly in the middle of the day. No one could figure out where they took them or who they were.”
I sighed “Well that would be because somewhere nearby they had an open portal, probably back to my dimension.“
“What do they want them for?” the woman asked confused.
“Fuel.” I answered waving my hand. “The portal device needs stuff from a dimension to make a link to it, I don’t really know why they use people other than it being easy to nab them.”
“So they want access to here?” she asked curious. “Whatever for?”
“Dunno for certain, but they are using stuff they have taken from other dimensions in their attacks in my dimension so we were assuming they are seeking technology.”
“Hmmm, one second.” I heard her chair roll away from me then she started typing, the clattering of the mechanical keyboard loud even over the many humming machines around me.
“What’s up?” I asked curious as to what she was doing.
“I want to check when something started happening…” She responded distractedly. “Ah, well that lines up at least. One of our competitors had a warehouse raided three weeks ago where in a wide assortment of synthetics and parts got stolen without an apparent exit plan, along a security guard went missing it was assumed they were responsible. I think there was something similar that happened to Ford last week too, could it have been those people you described?”
“Really good chance!” I agreed. “I expect if they took a lot of people then they will have done other attacks too-“
Wait.
“Oh shit, I might not be stuck here!” I shouted my arm flopping from the loss of pressure. “Fuck yeah!”
“I’m sorry but what are you going on about?”
“Uh, well I was kinda assuming that I was going to be stuck in this dimension for the rest of my life at this point.” I admitted a little sheepishly. “My side has portals they were setting up, but it’s been a long time without hearing anything and I am pretty sure they will think I am dead at this point. But if those people are raiding here with portals maybe I could exploit that for a way back!” I responded excitedly. “Wait, do you know of anywhere else they have hit? Is there a pattern? How often does it happen?” I asked my brain whirling at max RPMs as all the possibilities I had been ignoring rushed into focus.
If they are hitting here, ‘all’ I would need to do is figure out somewhere they would hit and then wait for them. Then somehow get back through before they close the portal, which probably means fighting through a bunch of armed mercs. It means there’s something I can do rather than vaguely hope for a dwindling possibility!
“Slow down!” She complained. “Can we please finish one topic at a time here?”
“Oh sorry, it’s hard to concentrate!” I chirped.
I might get to see my family again, my roommates, my friends... I might get to see Anna!
“Wait did we ever introduce ourselves?” I asked as my brain clattered to a different topic again, oh there’s too much to think about! “I’m Sam, nice to meetcha!”
I should probably be more upset about the fact I am still disassembled on a table, but who cares when I might get to go home!
“Doctor Jessica Woodward, I’m the lead of R and D here at General Synthetics.” She answered wryly causing something in my brain to jump out of gear and free spin for a second.
What?
“Um, did I hear you right? Jessica Woodward?”
“Yes?” She confirmed.
“Would you mind if I saw your face? I haven’t really gotten a good look.”
I heard her get up then walk over and look down at me with a frown.
Holy fuck.
She looks almost exactly like mom, like another twin sister to her, she speaks differently but no wonder her voice jangled my memory. I just blinked up at her for a moment, thinking how confusing it could be if she was in the same room as aunt Clara and mom at the same time.
“Well, I think I might have just confirmed a theory back home.” I mumbled confusedly.
“Now what are you talking about?” the frown deepened.
“Well, uh my last name is Woodward and my mom's first name is Jessica,” She tilted her head the beginning of understanding on her face. “I think you’re this dimensions version of my mom.”
She barked out a laugh then disappeared from my view and from the sounds of things flopped back into her chair. “You’ve weaved one wild tale Sam,” She said the pen scratching away. “Well, if nothing else it’s so blatantly insane that it really does make me think you’re a person.”
“Hell yeah!” I answered cheerily. “Do you believe it?”
“Hmmm, maybe let me try something.” I heard her stand up. “Be back in a minute.”
There was a sound like a very large drawer opening, then the cables and hoses connected to me jiggled a bit. I heard a few snicket sounds and a couple of more meaty connections being made, before… Dr. Woodward? Alternate mom? Returned.
“Override Kulovesi, list complete model number, serial number, and primary lattice ID.”
Really why is she-
“Battle-Maid Systems…” My voice started and then I realized I was also hearing my voice from across the room perfectly in sync.
“…mark seven prototype, Serial number zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-one, combined lattice signature N-N-3-6-Q-U-5-R-9-X-6-X-M-5-B-U-I-Y-8-K”
What in the fuck?
“Well, that’s as good a proof as any that as far as your body is aware it is exactly the same as my prototype.” She declared. “The idea of duplicating a lattice down to the signature is beyond difficult, the original mana crystals would need to be identical, and then every single detail of the scribing would have to be as well.”
“Wait the other me is still here?” I asked straining to lift my head unsuccessfully.
“She was only finished a couple of months ago, so yes.” She chuckled as I heard her return to sitting next to me, her voice took on a wistful tone. “I was really pushing the idea of the autonomous mode, but we never got a useful version done. It’s always been a dream of mine to have a genuinely intelligent synthetic but that’s seemed impossible.” There was a pause and a rustle of paper. “I guess my ‘Daughter’ could support it though, judging off you.” She said thoughtfully while the pen scratched away again. “Very well, I will believe you for now.”
“Nice!” I’m pretty sure I would be grinning if not for the overrides still being in place. “Er, would you mind putting me back together? It’s kind of gross feeling like this.”
“Hmm, soon.” The pen continued to scratch away as her chair rolled across the floor. “I need to free up some time to do that first.”
“Uh, will that take long?” She didn’t respond and I heard the clack of a keyboard. It really seems like Dr Woodward can focus to the point of ignoring other people, mom has done that too admittedly.
The typing stopped and I heard her get up before walking away. “I’ll be back soon, just going to let Toby know that the road map for this quarter might need to be scrapped.” She called back.
“OK?” I heard a door open. “Wait are you just leaving me here like this?”
Clunk.
Apparently, yes, yes she is