It was a well known fact that the single most important thing for a member of the Incuuri household were profits and efficiency. In neighborhoods where every house and building had decorations, flairs of personality, color, paintings, and engravings, the Incuuri stood out exactly due to the lack of any such needless wastes of resources.
They were large blocks of metal and stone, maximum utility, efficiency, and austerity. And if not for the tax exemptions that came from living in such parts of the city, the edifices would have fit far better within the industrial areas. Outsiders would have claimed such due to the near robotic aesthetic of the place, and the Incuuri would have done so because it would mean less time wasted by needing to have the workforce split into two locations.
Heliot Incuuri, second scion of the household, began his day exactly an hour before sunrise. With the presence of consciousness, his first thought was a sense of disgust at the sleep his brain was forced to go through every night.
At least he no longer needed to struggle against the needless lethargy of his body. Those days were, thankfully, long past.
His cranial grafts peppered his mind with reminders from his schedule for the day along with updates from the many information sources the family had. He spent exactly ten minutes organizing his day and confirming the schedule for the week.
Today it seemed there were several potential ways his schedule could be disturbed, and thus had allocated the corresponding time to handle them if or when they emerged.
The door slid open with a quiet squeak, a necessary inefficiency to ensure it would be impossible for an intruder to sneak into a room unheard. The familiar entered, a box with wheels on the bottom and a tray on top.
Breakfast. A slushy of proteins and grains, many of the ingredients having been grown in the extra space the household had that was otherwise of no use.
Heliot drank and walked, his room lacking the space for anything other than the bed itself. His wheels guided him through the house as his body moved on its own. Heliot was focused elsewhere, utilizing the cranial grafts and communicating with the employees of the household. Many of them were devoid of the necessary grafts to be able to utilize their hymns to send or receive information in an exact manner, but that was just another list of the things to improve upon eventually.
As is, the delay in confirmation and reports was an average time loss of twenty minutes.
The time wasn’t crucial, however, as Heliot spent most of it shuffling around the delivery orders for certain highly dangerous materials while using the rest to go through a routine check-up and warm-up of his grafts. He confirmed the containment cylinder holding what organs he had left was devoid of cracks as well as firmly coupled into place. That the support disks and wheels ran smoothly, that his eight robotic grasping limbs reacted to commands efficiently, that his two main grafted arms kept the fine-control necessary for micrometer width precision. And above all, that the armor and containment platings had no loose bolts. Bit by bit, piece by piece, he ensured every part of his body was operating as it should. The Master had once confided to Heliot that even they would do routine checks on themselves every day.
If the Master, the most efficient being in this wretched planet of ugly flesh and rot was doing such, Heliot saw no reason not to as well. The fact that his efficiency had increased by a handful of percentage points since then was a clear indication of the wisdom the Master had.
Today everything was perfectly efficient. And the day was almost guaranteed to be another profitable one.
Exactly thirty five minutes after sunrise, right as Heliot was in the process of reviewing the supplies the main branch in Three Spire city had sent them, he received an alert of an anomaly. There appeared to be some kind of new robot that was making its way through the city and causing a ruckus.
Considering robotic designs were highly competitive, and profitable so long as one remained on the bleeding edge, Heliot spared a minute to review the handful of images his agents provided.
A user was walking next to a robot that had been designed to move like a person. The design was bulky but it moved far too easily. Heliot threw a small note to send details to the forging branch for them to assess whether this new robot potentially held a new kind of servo or hydraulic system. After a second of hesitation, he threw an added order to investigate where the robot had come from, who might have made it, and who was the person seen next to it.
And left it at that, returning to his work.
The second notification came an hour later. The robot and user had been spotted moving closer to the upper housing district. Heliot allowed himself to review the information on the user, and his eyes narrowed.
Han was a name that had emerged in several priority reports as of late. A rather troublesome user that seemed to be attempting to sniff things out involving the illegal axon acquisition program. Heliot bumped the priority of the request to the employees.
Forty one minutes later came a high priority update.
The user and the robot were approaching the Incuuri household.
Heliot pondered on this, now allocating the entirety of his attention on the information provided. He weighed the possibilities, the user could be approaching with the intent to sell the robot and its designs, it would be quite the payday indeed. But things had not been going well as of late, and user Han’s name had been in the orbit of such events.
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The scion sent out four priority orders for protection and combat, within seconds the household had entered second level alert, contracted high-end users within the city were already en-route, and forty eight knights that were in his pocket would be nearby, as witnesses if nothing else.
It wouldn’t do if this was no attempt at negotiation but an attack of some sort. The best form of efficiency and profit was through the avoidance of loss.
As his cranial grafts tapped into the surveillance feed of the household, he felt a presence. It was faint, and were Heliot his younger self, he would have missed it entirely, mistaken it for noise in the system. But he now knew better.
The Master was watching. There was no need for frivolities, greetings, or acknowledgements. If the Master wished to speak, they would.
Han and the robot had reached the main gate to the household in quick order. “They request an audience, young lord.” The guard informed him through the communication channel.
Heliot felt a twinge of doubt. “They?”
“The… robot… claims he is a user, one named Damon.”
> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: SCAN
Heliot shuddered, a wave of anticipation washed over him as the Master spoke directly through his skull-grafts. He did not waste a single moment to use his hymn and remotely trigger the secondary scanners near the gates.
The first user, Han, presented a stereotypical low to mid level graft layout. Protection, healing, and nothing else that would even be worth Heliot’s attention let alone the Master’s. The axon pinged back as a fourth generation reused model.
The second, the robot, came back blank.
> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: SCAN DAMON
Heliot felt a twinge of frustration at the scanner’s lackluster performance. He sent the scan command once more, and, again, came back blank. If the thing were a robot, it would have at least acknowledged machinery, but it was not returning even that.
Was there truly someone within the moving pieces of metal? Someone without grafts or an axon?
> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: NEW SCAN PARAMETERS
“Sir, they are-.” The guard spoke through the communication channel.
“Tell them to wait.”
Heliot did not bother to explain further, rushing to access the scanner’s program and installing the new parameters. He tried to make sense of what he was looking at, but it was a matrix of numbers, the raw information was meant to interact with it. Though what that would do, he couldn’t tell.
Still, he obeyed.
The output was not text, but an image. One with a spread of seemingly random white and red dots upon a black background. There were several large red circles, but Heliot couldn’t-.
> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: INTRODUCE
“Master, I already sent an order for reinforcements to come in case they wish to cause problems. Should we wait?”
> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: INTRODUCE
Heliot nodded, he would rarely allow anyone to look upon his true form, but the Master was insisting. He sent the command down to the guards through his hymn, and waiting as he allowed his grafts to reach out to the… guests? He wasn’t sure what the Master’s goal was, but he spotted several priority messages being sent through the comms system with his signature.
Han’s hymn was a simple one. In moments Heliot had picked up the forced calm with an underlying layer of calmness and an underlying layer of anger. The sasin was skilled in how he tried to hide his aggressive intentions, but there were no secrets that Heliot’s grafts could not pick up on.
But his focus was on Damon’s hymn.
…or the lack thereof.
Heliot confirmed the video feed, watching the armored entity walking next to Han while security surrounded them. He could pinpoint the blond user’s exact location, trace his every step through the sound of his hymn. But without the video-feed, the other one was invisible to him.
Which meant the Master would likely order him to capture and dissect them. Those who’d been hurt in such a way that their hymns failed to manifest entirely were a subject of great interest to the Master. “Should I prepare for acquisition?”
> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: INTRODUCE
Something was different this time. Maybe the Master was impressed by the ability to move around with such weight? If it was indeed a person inside the metal, then they must be incredibly powerful. Was the Master considering this… Damon to be a potential instrument to utilize for his plans?
Heliot did not receive more orders, and thus he waited. Introductions it is, then. He would attempt to figure out what might be of worth from them. Patiently he remained within his office, marking the seconds as the ‘guests’ approached. The loud clanking steps of the metal man made the room shudder.
The door opened, and Heliot got his first chance to look up at the two users.
“HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!”
The suit of armor had lunged backwards and away from the room, knocking down several of the guards with such ease Heliot had no choice but to increase the danger level Damon represented. He sent several other communications requesting further backup.
Still, being surprised to such a degree at his appearance was… tiring. Certainly, he had forsaken the need for bipedal movement and introduced robotic limbs along with his own grafts. But this had to be the strongest reaction of clear abhorrence he’d seen to date.
“Welcome user Han, and user Damon.” Heliot spoke through the speakers, keeping himself still and waiting. “I am Heliot scion of Incurri. Be seated.”
“What did they do to you!?” The armored man had spoken slowly, then froze. “No, I mean, sorry, I… this is the first time I’ve ever seen…”
“It was quite expensive, yes.” Heliot replied, now edging towards annoyance. He made the feeling clear in his hymn. “Be seated, or leave.”
“Uh… right.”
Damon and Han exchanged looks and moved forward. Han’s hymn had taken a stronger undertone of nervousness, one he was not able to suppress. Damon, however, remained entirely silent, lending stronger evidence to some kind of past injury or deformation that rendered him mute.
The moment Damon removed his helmet, Heliot’s mind was bombarded with the Master’s voice.
> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: QUERY SPECIES
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> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: QUERY SPECIES
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> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: QUERY SPECIES
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> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: QUERY SPECIES
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> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: QUERY SPECIES
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> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: QUERY SPECIES
It had taken considerable effort not to grimace at this, trying to make sense of what was going on and not quite able to until he’d regained his ability to focus. Damon was a sasin bereft of silver ears, his were flesh and pink. No species matched that.
“Before we begin, what race would you happen to be?” Heliot attempted to keep his words even and controlled, but the Master’s attention was so fiercely upon him he’d be trembling were his limbs made of flesh and blood.
Han had noticed something odd, making a gesture at Damon.
“Human. We’re not exactly common around these parts.” The response came despite the odd looks from his companion.
> C̷O̴M̵M̸A̸N̴D̵: INITIATE PUPPETEER
And the next instant, Heliot Incurri’s consciousness was gone. A snap of synapses and to him, the world had gone dark.
But to the others within the room, the scion of the richest household in the city let out a shrill scream and thrashed his arms wildly before going completely limp.
“Hello.”
Though it was Heliot’s body that spoke, it was not Heliot who was in control.