15
She had been formed and decanted less than a local month earlier. Born knowing much but comprehending too little. It was one thing to read “fire burns”. But those words were just empty concepts, even with synth-learning, history vids and accident-prevention training sims.
Raine-1 had no life of her own. No real experience besides wandering a great, curving shell of dark metal, gazing up at a seething and caged monster star. It was her cell, too… but there was one place where the shell was not yet complete. Just a crack in that rumbling neutronium, through which she could see distant stars and swift, shining satellites. At first, the gap had shrunk steadily, closing tight like the last bit of “open water” on something called “Polar Sea”. Each local day, every candle-mark, the crack had narrowed, freezing nearly shut until Raine gave her first official command.
“Stop!” she’d cried out to TTN-iA, the ancient electronic mind that haunted and managed the magnetar’s shell. “Don’t seal the opening!”
Her will was obeyed without static or question, and so there was still something left to gaze up at. A river of stars she was destined to rule. At least, that’s what TTN-iA told her.
~You are Raine-1~ proclaimed the AI, when first she’d emerged from the vat; blinking, chilled and confused. TTN-iA’s voice crackled onward as Raine was cleansed, dried and fed, announcing, ~You are a master. The only one left. Your genetic sources have fled. Your AI predecessor is now offline. Your progenitor will return soon. V47 Pilot-composite-being anticipates that their creation will be clever and capable; ready to assume control of the Two Hundred Worlds, bringing an end to war~
That was what she’d been met with, on leaving Home and the bright animations of Learning Curve; her school, friends and family… all swept away upon graduation. Twenty-eight local days had passed since everything changed. Plucked from music, adventure and fun, stripped of her rainbow avatar form, Raine had been dumped in a real-world body she struggled to manage; feeling terribly lonely and deeply confused.
There were robots, yes. TTN-iA, also. The AI would sometimes construct a cloud-shape of shifting and clattering parts to walk with Raine-1 on the shore of their lifeless and hissing dark sea. That was companionship, in a way. Just… there was no one in all of that world like her. No one else who was so very young and alone.
How could she rule two hundred planets or anything else, Raine wondered? How could she end a war that had raged for galactic millennia? And most of all, what would her progenitor think of their creation, when they finally returned for her?
Raine-1 did her best to prepare by watching recorded history videos (terribly dull, where they weren’t horrific and awful). She sim-learned many talents, too: from cooking to dance-fighting and basic spell-craft. Never felt ready, though… and if she was dissatisfied, how disappointed would V47 and Pilot be?
At last, on day 28.35 after being decanted, Raine’s simulated pottery class was interrupted by TTN-iA, who broke in to announce,
~The transport gate has been activated. V47 Pilot composite-battle-asset arrives shortly. It is correct protocol to greet them~
Wet clay, instructor, classroom and learning companions (Pinky and Sylph, secretly imported from Learning Curve) were only illusions. They popped like bubbles at TTN-iA’s appearance, leaving Raine standing alone in the vat room.
TTN-iA formed a loose, cloudy body from random bits it swept up. Bowed next, by simply telescoping its upper half into its bottom and legs (a feat that Raine couldn’t manage).
“They’re here? They’ve arrived?” asked the young empress, anxiously smoothing her cybernetic coverall with hands that felt covered in wet, slimy clay.
~Near affirmative, Raine-Empress. They are in transit. Speed is advisable~ replied the AI, causing that section of magnetar shell to rumble to life; making it twist and slide like a puzzle piece.
Raine-1 nodded. She emerged from the vat room with TTN-iA a few ticks later. The structure flattened itself behind them, becoming a part of the magnetar’s prisoning shell. Raine scarcely noticed, for the Mark III industrial gate was directly ahead now, and visibly active. Its enormous neutronium arch flickered with branching circuits and lights. Its gaping portal shone pure, gleaming white, meanwhile, connecting two distant regions of space.
A legion of service robots assembled around them, forming an honor guard. Raine pulled up all her best drawings, setting the holos to float in ranks at her side. Summoned a handful of glowing flowers after that. (Violets, the kind Mum liked best.) Camera drones clicked and buzzed overhead, making a record.
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Then a deep, belling tone sounded, and something big came through that portal. Raine had viewed TTN-iA’s recording of V47 Pilot many times. She’d expected a large, red-and-gold metal warrior paired with a beautiful elven-stock core.
What emerged was a massive, sparking colossus, its right leg a shredded and dangling stump. A pulse of arrival-force blasted through along with it, blowing Raine’s hair right out of its careful arrangement. She squinted her eyes against sudden wind and blown grit, seeing a damaged mech and two oddly shaped pieces of mossy junk.
There was a stench of burning metal… the first thing she’d smelled since being torn out of Learning Curve. A flash of heat tanned her face, while the roar of great engines sent unsecured objects bouncing and skittering off. Those mighty jets powered down quickly, except on the right side, because the mech was badly damaged; unable to land or stand upright.
It and TTN-iA communicated, transmitting too rapidly for Raine to follow. She couldn’t overclock her brain’s processing speed to match theirs. Not without cyborg enhancement, which was forbidden to masters. (Though she'd snuck in some transmission, creation and game circuits.)
TTN-iA gestured beside her, causing a biomechanical scaffold to rise, swarming that monstrous robot and holding it upright. A few ticks and further communication passed. Then a small, gleaming gem flipped open on the giant’s scarred chest. Raine gaped in surprise, longing to shrink back into the vat room or find a way Home.
The battle-mech’s engine noise dropped to a throbbing rumble, as jet-flare and heat sputtered off. Its pilot emerged, scanned them all, and then began drifting down to the surface.
Raine-1 could not adjust her eyes’ focus for panorama or magnification. She could squint though, and did so reflexively, trying to see that glittering, helmeted figure’s face. It… he. The cyborg core of V47 was male; silver and white with a silly lavender chest-decal that reminded her rather of Sylph. Raine-1 bit her lip, daring a shimmer of hope.
The pilot removed his helmet as soon as his booted feet touched the dark metal ground before Raine and TTN-iA. He bowed, then. Not the way TTN-iA did. His body did not collapse in on itself. Instead, he tucked his helmet into the crook of one elbow, then lowered his upper half, bringing it forward and down. Straightened again, after some comm-flash with TTN-iA.
Raine’s throat felt scratchy and dry. Her hands shook, causing her to press them tight to her sides. She didn’t know quite what to say… everyone already knew her here and in Learning Curve… but the cyborg saved her by acting first.
“Good day and Glad tidings. It is good to finally see you, Majesty. I am V47 Pilot, and I am bound to your service.”
His voice was not electronic! It was created by flesh, bone, flexing membranes and cavities, just like hers. Deeper, though. There was a slight buzz of amplification, too, but that came from his armor, Raine sensed. She took a deep breath and held it, gazing intently at the first biological person she’d ever seen beside herself.
He was elven-stock, with blond hair and grey eyes that flickered with circuitry. His ears came to a point, where hers (she felt them again with both hands to be sure) were rounded and blunt. Then that beautiful face shifted again, its muscles converting to ‘smile’.
She hadn’t… in flesh didn’t know how to…
Quickly, Raine dismissed the flowers, then seized one of those floating holo-screens and erased it. Tipped it toward herself so no one could see, and then drew two dots and a curve with her forefinger, like this: 😊
Next, Raine turned the screen back so he could see it, all the while working to make her own facial muscles do the same thing.
“Progenitor,” she said, in a voice that shook. “I accept your offer of service… but I hope that we can be friends. Like…”
Well, the way she’d been friends with Pinky and Sylph, when she was still at School back in Learning Curve. It had come as a terrible, gut-wrenching shock to discover that all of her friends, Mum and Da, the School and Home were not true. That real life was bare metal, cold feed-stock and robots.
“Please… may I touch you?” she asked him, causing the glove to peel back and away from her shaking right hand. The cyborg elf nodded assent.
“Of course, Majesty,” he answered, as metal and plastic retracted from flesh with a bright, chiming clatter.
Raine-1 extended her own small hand to his slim, long-fingered one. They touched fingertips and then palms; her first contact with anything else alive and organic. Mum’s soft kiss, Da’s proud hug on graduation day were the last time Raine had felt the warm skin of another. She clasped the pilot’s hand reflexively, squeezing tight.
“You will take me with you,” she whispered. “That is my first command to you, V47 Pilot. You are my friend and progenitor, and you will bring me to OS1210, just like the message said. You will help me to be a good ruler.”
He bowed over her hand, which was feelingful, tugging her forward a bit.
“What little I know about ruling, I am glad to share, Majesty,” he said in reply, sounding warm and… relieved? Had her progenitor worried as much about her reaction as she had done about his?
The elven pilot straightened up with a smile that Raine-1 struggled to match. He laughed, but not at her. At some similar thing of his own.
“Expressions come with practice, Majesty, and looking at drone-feed or your own reflection,” Pilot assured her. Then, “By your leave, I have V47 to introduce, as well as Right-Left-Top-Flip of Block-World, and Red-Blue-Gamma of Long Spar.”
That last seemed to spark worry, for he went on to ask,
“Have you…erm… two drones or robots that you might deploy while speaking with Red-Blue-Gamma, Majesty? Its people are triad in nature, and…”
Raine nodded happily. Laughed for the first time in real life as she caused two bouncy, cartoon-bright figures to take shape and solidify.
“Me first, Pilot! This is Pinky the Mathicorn… he’s made of bubblegum… and this is Sylph the Magical Speller! They’re my triad, and you make four of us.”
TTN-iA flickered amusement, but V47 Pilot welcomed each of her school friends in turn, inclining his head and sending a greeting.
It was her very first, very best day since leaving Home. Much would come afterward. Long struggles and many close scrapes would follow that meeting. But there and then, master and asset made contact. They buried the past and became a family.