Though it was late at night, the workshop never slept. While Automata needed neither sleep, nor food, the mind couldn’t stay focused forever. Because of this, Alfred, Ram, and Rom, would spend their nights quietly working on side projects or an artistic distraction. Shiro enjoyed watching them work, but since I was controlling all of the others, his attempts at group discussions would fall flat.
Alfred had been shut down so that I could free up a proxy slot, and Ram was working on sculpting a clay model of my main body, it wasn’t anywhere near as good as Merrel’s work though. Shiro would watch and interrupt with questions from time to time, which usually earned him a side-eye from Ram. Shiro insisted that we needed an Automata hero in the Battle Beast line-up, and that it should be me, but I wasn’t so sure about it. An action figure of me would be great though.
Rom had been working on prototype action figures of the Lion Knight and the Tiger Ranger for Joshua and Jacob but had lost interest in detail work and needed a break, so when Ravage slinked out of Jada’s room, heading for the rear door, she approached the cat.
“Heading out?”
“Nyaa,” Ravage said, pausing to look up at the proxy.
“What do you do, when you go out?”
“Sometimes, Ravage hunts. Sometimes, Ravage sings. Sometimes, Ravage just like the feel of the night sky.”
“What does a Robot Kitty Maid hunt for? Do you hunt Robot Mice?”
Ravage thought for a moment before answering. “If Ravage find a robot mouse, Ravage will bring it to you.”
Rom looked out the door, at the starlit sky. She was tired of looking at fine details. “Do you mind if I go with you?”
Ravage took her time stretching every possible muscle and joint before heading out the back door. She leapt up onto the table in the small courtyard, then onto a stone wall at the edge of the property. She turned to look back, and said “Ravage does not mind,” before jumping to the other side of the wall and out of view.
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Rom wasn’t built for speed or agility, and she certainly wasn’t built for climbing anything. Even the upgrades that she had gotten weren’t terribly useful outside of fine detail work. She lacked the prehensile feet that my main body had, in order to wear human sized shoes. She still had four thumbs and an Automata’s strength though.
Trying to keep up with the cat was proving to be quite the challenge, but it made for a wonderful mental break away from the constant laying of magical circuits and embedding of spell scripts. Every time that she thought that she’d lost Ravage, she would find her waiting just out of reach. As soon as Rom managed to almost catch up, Ravage would be off again.
In this manner, Rom got the grand tour through all the backyards of the area, onto rooftops, down alleyways, through abandoned buildings, and ending up in the bell tower of a large church. When Rom caught up to Ravage in the bell tower, Ravage didn’t run this time. Instead she transformed into her humanoid mode and sat delicately on the parapet wall of the tower’s balcony. She turned to look over her shoulder at Rom and patted the spot next to her.
Rom, carefully, lifted herself onto the short wall and sat with her legs swinging out over the city below. From this position, it felt as though the whole of the city lay out before you. The stars twinkled above as lights from homes, inns, and taverns twinkled below. Somewhere in the darkness, a drunk minotaur could be heard singing a bovine song, badly, while others laughed.
“This,” Ravage began, “is where Tibbins last lived. Where Tibbins was last alive.”
Rom turned to regard the tiny maid. Ravage pointed to an area below them. “There. Tibbins was old. Old and fat. Tibbins would come here all the time. The priest sometimes give Tibbins milk or food. Tibbins spotted meyouse up here and thought: Maybe Tibbins still a great hunter like when young. Meyouse quick, and laugh at Tibbins. Tibbins get myad and make foolish leap.”
She then traced a line in the air with her finger from pointing up, to pointing down to the ground.
“Oh, Ravage... I’m so sorry.”
Ravage shrugged. “Is life for cyat. Tibbins have good life. Have good friend Jyada. Have boy cyats to play with. Have babies. Have good life. But nyow. Nyow, thanks to Meyowster Prime, thanks to you,” she said, tapping Rom where her nose would be if she had one. “Ravage have good life too. Ravage sometimes checks on babies and grand babies. Sometimes they run away, sometimes they don’t. Cyats are like that.”
“Thank you for sharing this with me, Ravage.”
Ravage didn’t bother to respond and instead vaulted her tiny body off the wall and into the open air, five stories up. As she fell, she transformed back into cat mode and landed exactly at the spot she’d pointed to earlier. She briefly looked back up at Rom before darting off and into the bushes of the neighboring yard.
“I’ll, um... I’ll take the stairs, shall I? Yes. Yes, I think the stairs will be a much better choice.”
Illustration of Rom sitting on the balcony as Ravage jumps off [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/a4841759-4534-4306-bf12-0d6b15789e9a/de5cknv-526fb63d-498f-4acc-8767-0fb7e522ba5e.png/v1/fill/w_1000,h_773,q_80,strp/automata__chapter_43_by_wulongti_de5cknv-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD03NzMiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC9hNDg0MTc1OS00NTM0LTQzMDYtYmYxMi0wZDZiMTU3ODllOWFcL2RlNWNrbnYtNTI2ZmI2M2QtNDk4Zi00YWNjLTg3NjctMGZiN2U1MjJiYTVlLnBuZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD0xMDAwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.O1MpVNodQH_byu36cgXRTY96DKP5ZEzg7hjcgZDyQDs]