Lieutenant Fusilier in The Farthest Reaches
- Thread starter open_sketch
- Start date
- Original Mature
Corporal Miriam Page in Starhall
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
You awoke, as you had for eighteen years, eight months, and nine days, exactly when you were supposed to. For a moment, there was a strange disorientation of an unfamiliar space, a narrow, dark, overwhelmingly brown little wood room, unfurnished. Strange sounds echoed everywhere from the street outside, wheels and hooves on cobblestone, morning conversation, humans and machines with early starts shuffling past one another. The patter of rain.
You stretched, rolling your joints so the oilers could do their work, inspecting yourself briefly for wear. A chip you hadn't noticed, lower forearm plate, near your elbow, caught your eye, and you sighed and ran your finger against it, the silicone pads at the end of your finger catching on the glass. Not painful, but not pleasant. Yet another task for Dotty when you got back: the other side of the portal had not been kind to you.
You pulled on your uniform: the white blouse, long black skirt, the form-fitting red jacket. You looked sharp, but a different sort of sharp than the footsoldiers. They were made to look impressive and bold, stand out on the field, for their unit and role to be recognizable at a glance. Your uniform, by contrast, was meant to make you look fashionable, respectable, a compliment to your Miss without overshadowing her. You liked it.
A stain on the supposedly unstainable fabric, at your cuff. You had the strange and impossible impulse to lick your finger and try to work it out. Instead, you just made another mental note, something for the Abbys to work out when you made it back to number 18. You couldn't spend another moment delaying.
You quietly opened the door, to make your way into your Miss' room and throw the curtains for her. Your first task of the day, to wake her up and get her moving, to spur her to action, and to give her an idea of what the day outside had in store for her.
The bed was empty, already made, perfect hospital corners. The Lieutenant was waiting at the window, halfway dressed already, looking out the window wistfully as rain rolled down the pane, her eyes fixed on something distant. She looked tired.
Every morning's a lovely little challenge.
You've served seven officers in your eighteen years, but Lieutenant Fusilier was by far the most vexing. Not her fault, of course, but it meant that where once you'd known exactly what to do every morning, now was a constant challenge, to find ways to be useful to her. It was difficult, but that made the moments where you figured it out all the sweeter.
"Good morning, Miss." you said, making your way to her. "Good to see you up early."
"Couldn't sleep." she confessed, turning to you with a bit of a start. "Figured I might as well get a start to the day if nothing else."
"Of course." you said neutrally. She didn't like talking about it, but she would if you prodded, so you had to take a light touch. "Do you need some help with that?"
She looked down at herself, half-dressed, a single button done, the wrinkles in the fabric showing the considerable efforts she'd gone through to do it with one hand. She nodded, defeated, and you walked over and started helping, making quick work of them and smoothing out the creases as you went.
"I need to get this fixed, as soon as possible." she said, gesturing with her empty sleeve. "Do I have an appointment yet?"
"I had to cancel tomorrow's, you're wanted at yet another hearing." you explained: she'd been too worn for the news last night, so you'd politely waited. "Pushed you back to Saturday. If that doesn't work, I will find somebody in this town who works Sundays, I promise you."
"Yet another… what is it this time?" she asked, sighing. "They should just put in front of a bloody court already, get it sorted. I can't stand the waiting, rather walk into a cannonball."
"Course you would." you chided, pinning up her empty sleeve and fetching her jacket. "But look at it this way, at least: they haven't properly charged you with anything yet, means they're probably going out of their way to avoid it if they can."
"Don't understand why." she said bitterly, and you sighed, frustration and sympathy welling in you. The Lieutenant had no frame of reference for anything that wasn't the military, and very specifically the duties of infantry soldiers at that. It went beyond a mere focused life and into something like a deliberate ignorance sometimes, that she'd dedicated herself to knowing as little as possible about anything that wasn't her immediate job.
"Your story is big in the papers, you know." you explained, "Which you ought to start reading if you can, I'll give you a rundown on them if you'd like. But in any case, if word got out that they'd charged you for something, and it wasn't an obvious wrongdoing, there could be significant public backlash. They're being conscientious of that."
"... I don't like that." the Lieutenant said, as you helped her do up her buttons. Course she didn't. "Don't want special treatment."
"Well, too bad, Lieutenant, you went and made yourself special." you said, straightening her collar as best you could. "There."
"How do I look?" she asked, amusement in her voice, knowing the answer would reflect the awful state she was in.
"Like you've had a very hard few weeks. Now come on, you're due in an hour and the cabs are slow in the rain."
---
Starhall was an exciting place, no doubt about it. By far the largest city in the British Empire, built as a mirror image of old London but grander, larger, cleaner. You'd been before, even lived here three years with a previous officer, and in better times you'd be eagerly spending your half-days just wandering the city, taking in the sights, learning the ins and outs, what sorts of things you charges might be interested in, maybe just taking a walk in one of the parks. Unless he'd found a new job, somewhere around here lived a certain Simon of your acquaintance you'd very much like to see again.
But now was not the time. You'd have to get the Lieutenant back here under happier conditions, if you could.
The lattice of Gothic Revival architecture worked into every building of the government quarter, as though Westminster had sprawled out like a weed and consumed the buildings around it, every surface worked with fine detail of a proud craftsmachine somewhere. The rain came down thick sheets, the roof of the cab rolling with the sound, and outside was an even, shadowless grey of light diffused through clouds.
"Do the weather controllers just not give a damn here?" The Lieutenant asked gloomily, leaning her head against the door.
"It's tradition." you explained, and that settled it, as it often did. Your Miss, to her credit, knew she knew very little, and her ability to simply accept those kinds of answers was one of the many curious things about her.
"Say, can I ask a question?" the driver asked, his voice halting, a bit hesitant. Probably unsure what the protocol was.
"Go ahead." the Lieutenant responded.
"So um… how'd you get to be an officer, then? Didn't think that were open to machines." he asked.
"Slept my way up the ranks." the Lieutenant replied smoothly, without missing a beat. You swore, she planned those in advance, you'd never heard her repeat one. "General Andromeda is so very gentle."
"Huh. Guess that would do it." the driver responded credulously, then there was a jolt in the cab and he slammed a hand against the dashboard. "Oi! Switch your bloody cameras on, idiot! Apologies, ladies."
"No need." you muttered quietly.
"I swear, some of these drivers need to get debugged, can't drive for anything." he grumbled, pulling the reins back with a clunk and setting the carriage rolling slowly backward, glancing to his mirrors with a sort of manic energy. "Probably a Procyon build, screws loose like-."
"I'm a Procyon build." you protested. The international city, jointly run by the French, Americans, and Britain, was renowned for its craftmachines and engineers. Like most Marias in those nations and a dozen others besides, you were made there.
"Aah, well, no disrespect meant." he said, stumbling a bit over his words.
"Just get us there." the Lieutenant grumbled, and the rest of the ride went by in silence.
Twenty minutes later, you were sitting in the waiting room of yet another perfectly decorated office, the Lieutenant tapping her feet against the marble floor to pass the time, the hall buzzing with clerks, humans, and messengers. You weren't entirely sure what this building was: it was a different one than the Army structure you'd been summoned to before, and it honestly didn't seem like an Army institution at all.
The heavy double doors at the end of the hall clicked open, and out came a rather curious sight: an Adam, a factory working machine, dressed in a fine suit. He approached the two of you with a hand held out to shake, and you very quickly slipped your Miss' hat out of her remaining hand so she could offer it in return. A left-handed shake was better than nothing.
"Good to see you, Lieutenant, wish the circumstances were better." the machine said, "Edison Wright, MP for sector nine. We're waiting for you inside."
"S-sorry, MP?" the Lieutenant asked, and he nodded as if it were obvious, shuffling her forward.
"Yes, some machine's got to do it. You're Antares City, right? Tory stronghold, that, good to hear. Do you-"
"I've never voted." she said, then she paused. "Though I plan to in the next election, I suppose. When is that?"
"Ah, well…" Edison looked a bit strained a moment, then seemed to get over it. "Two years. Excuse me, um, you'll need to leave… your um..."
"Oh, my apologies." you said, stopping. You'd followed without thinking, but of course this was off-limits. "How long will you be?"
"It's an all-day affair of the committee, I'm afraid." Edison said, and the Lieutenant waved you off.
"Go have fun for an afternoon. If you're not back, don't worry, I'll find my own way home." she said.
"Do you remember the address we're staying at?" you asked, and she paused, then nodded. Right, well, you'd absolutely have to be back here before she got out.
But you could take a few hours.
---
One of the strange things, when you reflected on it, was the way that culture had been transmitted to machines from humans. If things had developed organically, nothing like a machine pub would exist, the very concept would be laughable. You didn't drink, you didn't eat, your communities were far more artificial and often more temporary.
But you weren't just machines, not just blank forms made for a purpose. Whoever'd programmed your brain had filled it with images, a vague nostalgia for some part of a homeland you'd never seen, a life you'd never lived, like a mosaic made from snapshots of life in past centuries, assembled into an archetypal feeling. That feeling had pubs, and so now you were sitting in one, close to a roaring holographic fire, leaning against the wall and just letting the calming music wash over you, smoothing out the frustrations and terrors of the last few weeks into a pleasant hum.
You wondered, sometimes, where they got the memories, if they crafted them or took them, but there was a nostalgia for rolling hills and rainy skies, for roaring fires, forests of masts at the docks, ringing bells, nursery rhymes you couldn't quite remember the words for. You'd done a bit of research on this, curious: your accent placed you as a Londoner of the middle classes, which is probably why the streets of Starhall felt so… so much like home.
You wondered if the Lieutenant had the same memories. Perhaps not the exact same… her accent placed her fictional origin somewhere else, Sheffield, maybe. Did she remember factories and forges and hills and… and whatever that city had been like?
Why did it sometimes feel like you were living somebody else's life?
Maybe it was just the stress. You'd never been so afraid in your life, never so close to danger. You weren't made for it. To be sure, you were hardened compared to most maids of your sort, you had armour around your processors and hard drives and the glass of your frame was of a higher grade than normal, but… you weren't a soldier. You wore a uniform but you weren't, you just helped them, helped officers get ready for it and come back from it. Your job was to offer a sense of normality to humans who would have to leave it behind, and you didn't know how to handle it when it was you grasping for that normal.
You folded your arms in front of you and lay your head down, letting the gentle piano playing in the corner pull you a little deeper into a stupor. You were suddenly very aware you had a holster on your hip, for a gun, how you'd shot that stalker in the neck with it and seen it flop nearly off. How close its blade was to the Lieutenant's face. The way it tore at you to see, the fear you'd felt realizing what you were capable of.
"You okay there?"
You looked up to see a machine leaning over you, concern in his eyes. Took you a second to place his type: a butler, a Mark or Matthew or something like that. Solid, dependable sort, leaders and managers. Probably what brought him to you: he was as hardwired to check in on machines struggling as you were to help officers flagging.
"Company would be nice." you said, picking yourself up, straightening out your uniform. "Miriam."
"Lovely name. Matthaeus." he said, sitting.
"Somebody's fancy."
"I didn't pick it, old name. Fellow who did was a bit stuck up." he said. "Military?"
"How'd you guess?" you said, holding out your arms to draw attention to the red sleeves. "I'm an officer's aide, she's in for… who knows what at this point."
"Pleasant. I work for Lord Walsh, he's in some committee or another for the day… last minute thing, he was preparing to head home while the House of Lords is in recess."
"Fun." you said, and he laughed. Cute laugh. Cute guy, too. Maybe you should get his address, call him in a few days if you were still stuck in town.
"That's a word for it. I'm taking an hour to decompress before diving back in. Of all the things…"
"What's the sudden disaster, if you can say?" you asked, and he shrugged.
"Some… machine officer or something, the one from the papers, Parliament put together a hearing of some sort and he's on the committee for Army affairs. I don't know the details, though I don't get it either."
"Oh?"
"Why we even let her be an officer?" he said, "It's a bit… I dunno, doesn't sit right, does it? Like no wonder everything went to hell with her leading the charge. And she apparently made first contact with aliens too, real aliens? What kind of impression is that, sending a machine first?"
Oh.
"I heard she made quite an impression." you said neutrally, and he groaned.
"She shouldn't make any sort of impression at all. We're not… we're not supposed to do that! Can you imagine the history books, writing it out, having to put her name in for first contact? Instead of some human family getting to claim that, it goes to some Theodora Fusilier. It's… wrong."
Maybe it was the music, but this was getting to you. Normally you'd have played it off and walked away, but you just weren't in a state to.
"So what, you think she's some kind of glory-seeker then?" you asked, and he nodded firmly. He was clearly getting worked up, the frustration over his estate's disorder projected onto your Miss as the cause.
"Must be. Why else would she do that? When she asked, they should have dragged her to a deprogrammer, because she has to be glitched."
He was right, in a sense, that the Lieutenant did absolutely need help, but he was sorely, frustratingly mistaken as to why.
"I see." you said, the anger rising in you. Of course, Marias didn't feel anger. They certainly never show it. They ought to be serene. Calm. A soothing presence.
Ought.
"The faster they kick her out, the better, but instead, everyone's talking about her like she's a hero. It's sick. If it were up to me, I wouldn't let her back in the service at all, she's clearly proven she'd doesn't care about anyone but-"
You slapped down his hand with a crack of glass hitting glass.
"Don't talk about her the way." you said, an edge to your voice you'd never heard before, one you couldn't have imagined yourself producing. "You take it back."
"... oh. Oh God, of course." he said, the anger vanishing, replaced with the hollow horror of his mistake. He cracked first, his anger wilting, you could practically see the processes as he willed himself calm, as you stood victorious. "I'm so sorry."
You let yourself calm down, level out. Enjoy the music. Ought to be serene, calm, a soothing presence. Your frustration with him drained away, and you felt nothing but a sort of sadness, that it had gone this way.
He'd been so cute, too.
---
"How was the hearing?" you asked, as your Miss strode out of the hall. She looked cored out, like somebody had run a magnetic over her hard drives.
"Terrifying." she muttered as you walked out the door, carefully maneuvering the umbrella to open and catch the rain before a single drop could reach her. "I've learned a lot about politics today. For example, there are two houses of Parliament, and both of them had questions for me."
"Oh." you said simply, "Was it bad?"
"No, thankfully, they weren't trying to accuse me of anything. They just wanted me on the record about a lot of… equipment stuff. They're on the budgetary committees, I think?" you said, "I barely followed, but mostly they asked me about the field batteries and volta wagons and… I don't know. I think they want to buy new power supplies for the Army."
"That's good at least." she said, "Running out of charge on an alien world was pretty terrifying."
"... yeah, it was." she said, as you flagged a cab. The two of you climbed in and it started its long journey back, the driver fortunately silent this time. "Rather that didn't happen again."
"Well, it sounds like it won't." you said, and privately it was quite a relief, even if you never intended to be in a position where it would be an issue again. "You have the rest of the evening, if you wanted to see the city or anything."
"Actually, I already have plans. You said you could tell me about what newspapers to subscribe to?" she asked, and you nodded. "Well, good. I want to read through a few, get an idea of it. I felt very out of my depths."
"We've both felt that quite a bit recently, haven't we?" you pointed out, and she chuckled.
"Just a little."
The carriage shuffled on, caught already in the omnipresent traffic. Outside, the rain intensified.
"... quick question, Miriam, what's a Tory?"
You stretched, rolling your joints so the oilers could do their work, inspecting yourself briefly for wear. A chip you hadn't noticed, lower forearm plate, near your elbow, caught your eye, and you sighed and ran your finger against it, the silicone pads at the end of your finger catching on the glass. Not painful, but not pleasant. Yet another task for Dotty when you got back: the other side of the portal had not been kind to you.
You pulled on your uniform: the white blouse, long black skirt, the form-fitting red jacket. You looked sharp, but a different sort of sharp than the footsoldiers. They were made to look impressive and bold, stand out on the field, for their unit and role to be recognizable at a glance. Your uniform, by contrast, was meant to make you look fashionable, respectable, a compliment to your Miss without overshadowing her. You liked it.
A stain on the supposedly unstainable fabric, at your cuff. You had the strange and impossible impulse to lick your finger and try to work it out. Instead, you just made another mental note, something for the Abbys to work out when you made it back to number 18. You couldn't spend another moment delaying.
You quietly opened the door, to make your way into your Miss' room and throw the curtains for her. Your first task of the day, to wake her up and get her moving, to spur her to action, and to give her an idea of what the day outside had in store for her.
The bed was empty, already made, perfect hospital corners. The Lieutenant was waiting at the window, halfway dressed already, looking out the window wistfully as rain rolled down the pane, her eyes fixed on something distant. She looked tired.
Every morning's a lovely little challenge.
You've served seven officers in your eighteen years, but Lieutenant Fusilier was by far the most vexing. Not her fault, of course, but it meant that where once you'd known exactly what to do every morning, now was a constant challenge, to find ways to be useful to her. It was difficult, but that made the moments where you figured it out all the sweeter.
"Good morning, Miss." you said, making your way to her. "Good to see you up early."
"Couldn't sleep." she confessed, turning to you with a bit of a start. "Figured I might as well get a start to the day if nothing else."
"Of course." you said neutrally. She didn't like talking about it, but she would if you prodded, so you had to take a light touch. "Do you need some help with that?"
She looked down at herself, half-dressed, a single button done, the wrinkles in the fabric showing the considerable efforts she'd gone through to do it with one hand. She nodded, defeated, and you walked over and started helping, making quick work of them and smoothing out the creases as you went.
"I need to get this fixed, as soon as possible." she said, gesturing with her empty sleeve. "Do I have an appointment yet?"
"I had to cancel tomorrow's, you're wanted at yet another hearing." you explained: she'd been too worn for the news last night, so you'd politely waited. "Pushed you back to Saturday. If that doesn't work, I will find somebody in this town who works Sundays, I promise you."
"Yet another… what is it this time?" she asked, sighing. "They should just put in front of a bloody court already, get it sorted. I can't stand the waiting, rather walk into a cannonball."
"Course you would." you chided, pinning up her empty sleeve and fetching her jacket. "But look at it this way, at least: they haven't properly charged you with anything yet, means they're probably going out of their way to avoid it if they can."
"Don't understand why." she said bitterly, and you sighed, frustration and sympathy welling in you. The Lieutenant had no frame of reference for anything that wasn't the military, and very specifically the duties of infantry soldiers at that. It went beyond a mere focused life and into something like a deliberate ignorance sometimes, that she'd dedicated herself to knowing as little as possible about anything that wasn't her immediate job.
"Your story is big in the papers, you know." you explained, "Which you ought to start reading if you can, I'll give you a rundown on them if you'd like. But in any case, if word got out that they'd charged you for something, and it wasn't an obvious wrongdoing, there could be significant public backlash. They're being conscientious of that."
"... I don't like that." the Lieutenant said, as you helped her do up her buttons. Course she didn't. "Don't want special treatment."
"Well, too bad, Lieutenant, you went and made yourself special." you said, straightening her collar as best you could. "There."
"How do I look?" she asked, amusement in her voice, knowing the answer would reflect the awful state she was in.
"Like you've had a very hard few weeks. Now come on, you're due in an hour and the cabs are slow in the rain."
---
Starhall was an exciting place, no doubt about it. By far the largest city in the British Empire, built as a mirror image of old London but grander, larger, cleaner. You'd been before, even lived here three years with a previous officer, and in better times you'd be eagerly spending your half-days just wandering the city, taking in the sights, learning the ins and outs, what sorts of things you charges might be interested in, maybe just taking a walk in one of the parks. Unless he'd found a new job, somewhere around here lived a certain Simon of your acquaintance you'd very much like to see again.
But now was not the time. You'd have to get the Lieutenant back here under happier conditions, if you could.
The lattice of Gothic Revival architecture worked into every building of the government quarter, as though Westminster had sprawled out like a weed and consumed the buildings around it, every surface worked with fine detail of a proud craftsmachine somewhere. The rain came down thick sheets, the roof of the cab rolling with the sound, and outside was an even, shadowless grey of light diffused through clouds.
"Do the weather controllers just not give a damn here?" The Lieutenant asked gloomily, leaning her head against the door.
"It's tradition." you explained, and that settled it, as it often did. Your Miss, to her credit, knew she knew very little, and her ability to simply accept those kinds of answers was one of the many curious things about her.
"Say, can I ask a question?" the driver asked, his voice halting, a bit hesitant. Probably unsure what the protocol was.
"Go ahead." the Lieutenant responded.
"So um… how'd you get to be an officer, then? Didn't think that were open to machines." he asked.
"Slept my way up the ranks." the Lieutenant replied smoothly, without missing a beat. You swore, she planned those in advance, you'd never heard her repeat one. "General Andromeda is so very gentle."
"Huh. Guess that would do it." the driver responded credulously, then there was a jolt in the cab and he slammed a hand against the dashboard. "Oi! Switch your bloody cameras on, idiot! Apologies, ladies."
"No need." you muttered quietly.
"I swear, some of these drivers need to get debugged, can't drive for anything." he grumbled, pulling the reins back with a clunk and setting the carriage rolling slowly backward, glancing to his mirrors with a sort of manic energy. "Probably a Procyon build, screws loose like-."
"I'm a Procyon build." you protested. The international city, jointly run by the French, Americans, and Britain, was renowned for its craftmachines and engineers. Like most Marias in those nations and a dozen others besides, you were made there.
"Aah, well, no disrespect meant." he said, stumbling a bit over his words.
"Just get us there." the Lieutenant grumbled, and the rest of the ride went by in silence.
Twenty minutes later, you were sitting in the waiting room of yet another perfectly decorated office, the Lieutenant tapping her feet against the marble floor to pass the time, the hall buzzing with clerks, humans, and messengers. You weren't entirely sure what this building was: it was a different one than the Army structure you'd been summoned to before, and it honestly didn't seem like an Army institution at all.
The heavy double doors at the end of the hall clicked open, and out came a rather curious sight: an Adam, a factory working machine, dressed in a fine suit. He approached the two of you with a hand held out to shake, and you very quickly slipped your Miss' hat out of her remaining hand so she could offer it in return. A left-handed shake was better than nothing.
"Good to see you, Lieutenant, wish the circumstances were better." the machine said, "Edison Wright, MP for sector nine. We're waiting for you inside."
"S-sorry, MP?" the Lieutenant asked, and he nodded as if it were obvious, shuffling her forward.
"Yes, some machine's got to do it. You're Antares City, right? Tory stronghold, that, good to hear. Do you-"
"I've never voted." she said, then she paused. "Though I plan to in the next election, I suppose. When is that?"
"Ah, well…" Edison looked a bit strained a moment, then seemed to get over it. "Two years. Excuse me, um, you'll need to leave… your um..."
"Oh, my apologies." you said, stopping. You'd followed without thinking, but of course this was off-limits. "How long will you be?"
"It's an all-day affair of the committee, I'm afraid." Edison said, and the Lieutenant waved you off.
"Go have fun for an afternoon. If you're not back, don't worry, I'll find my own way home." she said.
"Do you remember the address we're staying at?" you asked, and she paused, then nodded. Right, well, you'd absolutely have to be back here before she got out.
But you could take a few hours.
---
One of the strange things, when you reflected on it, was the way that culture had been transmitted to machines from humans. If things had developed organically, nothing like a machine pub would exist, the very concept would be laughable. You didn't drink, you didn't eat, your communities were far more artificial and often more temporary.
But you weren't just machines, not just blank forms made for a purpose. Whoever'd programmed your brain had filled it with images, a vague nostalgia for some part of a homeland you'd never seen, a life you'd never lived, like a mosaic made from snapshots of life in past centuries, assembled into an archetypal feeling. That feeling had pubs, and so now you were sitting in one, close to a roaring holographic fire, leaning against the wall and just letting the calming music wash over you, smoothing out the frustrations and terrors of the last few weeks into a pleasant hum.
You wondered, sometimes, where they got the memories, if they crafted them or took them, but there was a nostalgia for rolling hills and rainy skies, for roaring fires, forests of masts at the docks, ringing bells, nursery rhymes you couldn't quite remember the words for. You'd done a bit of research on this, curious: your accent placed you as a Londoner of the middle classes, which is probably why the streets of Starhall felt so… so much like home.
You wondered if the Lieutenant had the same memories. Perhaps not the exact same… her accent placed her fictional origin somewhere else, Sheffield, maybe. Did she remember factories and forges and hills and… and whatever that city had been like?
Why did it sometimes feel like you were living somebody else's life?
Maybe it was just the stress. You'd never been so afraid in your life, never so close to danger. You weren't made for it. To be sure, you were hardened compared to most maids of your sort, you had armour around your processors and hard drives and the glass of your frame was of a higher grade than normal, but… you weren't a soldier. You wore a uniform but you weren't, you just helped them, helped officers get ready for it and come back from it. Your job was to offer a sense of normality to humans who would have to leave it behind, and you didn't know how to handle it when it was you grasping for that normal.
You folded your arms in front of you and lay your head down, letting the gentle piano playing in the corner pull you a little deeper into a stupor. You were suddenly very aware you had a holster on your hip, for a gun, how you'd shot that stalker in the neck with it and seen it flop nearly off. How close its blade was to the Lieutenant's face. The way it tore at you to see, the fear you'd felt realizing what you were capable of.
"You okay there?"
You looked up to see a machine leaning over you, concern in his eyes. Took you a second to place his type: a butler, a Mark or Matthew or something like that. Solid, dependable sort, leaders and managers. Probably what brought him to you: he was as hardwired to check in on machines struggling as you were to help officers flagging.
"Company would be nice." you said, picking yourself up, straightening out your uniform. "Miriam."
"Lovely name. Matthaeus." he said, sitting.
"Somebody's fancy."
"I didn't pick it, old name. Fellow who did was a bit stuck up." he said. "Military?"
"How'd you guess?" you said, holding out your arms to draw attention to the red sleeves. "I'm an officer's aide, she's in for… who knows what at this point."
"Pleasant. I work for Lord Walsh, he's in some committee or another for the day… last minute thing, he was preparing to head home while the House of Lords is in recess."
"Fun." you said, and he laughed. Cute laugh. Cute guy, too. Maybe you should get his address, call him in a few days if you were still stuck in town.
"That's a word for it. I'm taking an hour to decompress before diving back in. Of all the things…"
"What's the sudden disaster, if you can say?" you asked, and he shrugged.
"Some… machine officer or something, the one from the papers, Parliament put together a hearing of some sort and he's on the committee for Army affairs. I don't know the details, though I don't get it either."
"Oh?"
"Why we even let her be an officer?" he said, "It's a bit… I dunno, doesn't sit right, does it? Like no wonder everything went to hell with her leading the charge. And she apparently made first contact with aliens too, real aliens? What kind of impression is that, sending a machine first?"
Oh.
"I heard she made quite an impression." you said neutrally, and he groaned.
"She shouldn't make any sort of impression at all. We're not… we're not supposed to do that! Can you imagine the history books, writing it out, having to put her name in for first contact? Instead of some human family getting to claim that, it goes to some Theodora Fusilier. It's… wrong."
Maybe it was the music, but this was getting to you. Normally you'd have played it off and walked away, but you just weren't in a state to.
"So what, you think she's some kind of glory-seeker then?" you asked, and he nodded firmly. He was clearly getting worked up, the frustration over his estate's disorder projected onto your Miss as the cause.
"Must be. Why else would she do that? When she asked, they should have dragged her to a deprogrammer, because she has to be glitched."
He was right, in a sense, that the Lieutenant did absolutely need help, but he was sorely, frustratingly mistaken as to why.
"I see." you said, the anger rising in you. Of course, Marias didn't feel anger. They certainly never show it. They ought to be serene. Calm. A soothing presence.
Ought.
"The faster they kick her out, the better, but instead, everyone's talking about her like she's a hero. It's sick. If it were up to me, I wouldn't let her back in the service at all, she's clearly proven she'd doesn't care about anyone but-"
You slapped down his hand with a crack of glass hitting glass.
"Don't talk about her the way." you said, an edge to your voice you'd never heard before, one you couldn't have imagined yourself producing. "You take it back."
"... oh. Oh God, of course." he said, the anger vanishing, replaced with the hollow horror of his mistake. He cracked first, his anger wilting, you could practically see the processes as he willed himself calm, as you stood victorious. "I'm so sorry."
You let yourself calm down, level out. Enjoy the music. Ought to be serene, calm, a soothing presence. Your frustration with him drained away, and you felt nothing but a sort of sadness, that it had gone this way.
He'd been so cute, too.
---
"How was the hearing?" you asked, as your Miss strode out of the hall. She looked cored out, like somebody had run a magnetic over her hard drives.
"Terrifying." she muttered as you walked out the door, carefully maneuvering the umbrella to open and catch the rain before a single drop could reach her. "I've learned a lot about politics today. For example, there are two houses of Parliament, and both of them had questions for me."
"Oh." you said simply, "Was it bad?"
"No, thankfully, they weren't trying to accuse me of anything. They just wanted me on the record about a lot of… equipment stuff. They're on the budgetary committees, I think?" you said, "I barely followed, but mostly they asked me about the field batteries and volta wagons and… I don't know. I think they want to buy new power supplies for the Army."
"That's good at least." she said, "Running out of charge on an alien world was pretty terrifying."
"... yeah, it was." she said, as you flagged a cab. The two of you climbed in and it started its long journey back, the driver fortunately silent this time. "Rather that didn't happen again."
"Well, it sounds like it won't." you said, and privately it was quite a relief, even if you never intended to be in a position where it would be an issue again. "You have the rest of the evening, if you wanted to see the city or anything."
"Actually, I already have plans. You said you could tell me about what newspapers to subscribe to?" she asked, and you nodded. "Well, good. I want to read through a few, get an idea of it. I felt very out of my depths."
"We've both felt that quite a bit recently, haven't we?" you pointed out, and she chuckled.
"Just a little."
The carriage shuffled on, caught already in the omnipresent traffic. Outside, the rain intensified.
"... quick question, Miriam, what's a Tory?"
- Location
- Connecticut
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
Somebody should make a list of all of these responses, they're great.
ThatGazzer
Minds Eye Bind
- Location
- PNW
- Pronouns
- They/Them
not good
- Location
- Under a cat
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's funny, but now I have to fight the urge to start ranting about Thatcher.
- Location
- Washington State
Make puns relating to her nickname instead, Iron Maiden could take on a different meaning with iron (probably steel or something) people (robots) around.
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
The Torys and the Whigs are basically sports teams in this universe anyway. Not a lot of huge life-or-death issues in the robot utopia.
- Location
- Yes
This begs a fun little question: If it were entirely up to humans, would Starhall still look like London? Is it the robotic assigned-memories that hold the entire aesthetic of the setting in the early 19thC?
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
It's almost certainly an enormous factor.
- Location
- Universitas Oxoniensis
An amazing installment! Fleshing out the world of machines like this reminds us that beyond our MCs, there is still the life of an enormous empire going on! Looking forward to seeing Miriam as a fixer in action 
This was such a beautiful image, and so interesting! Your spiel on 'vague nostalgia' sums up myself so much, so it's really interesting to see this reflected in a story! Of course, the vagueness helps paper over the less-savoury bits of the past...
Asking the big questions, Fusie
Honestly, that is such an interesting question, so much so that essays and books have been written about that question alone. Thatcher, however, was a Conservative, not a Tory. And indeed it is interesting that we're going Regencypunk here, because of course the Regency was precisely at the cusp of the transition in Britain between an agricultural squirearchy to industrial society, and with that came the refinement of Toryism (in part, of course, developed against the background of the French Revolution) and indeed the rise of the Young England and One-Nation movements.
This was such a beautiful image, and so interesting! Your spiel on 'vague nostalgia' sums up myself so much, so it's really interesting to see this reflected in a story! Of course, the vagueness helps paper over the less-savoury bits of the past...
Asking the big questions, Fusie
Honestly, that is such an interesting question, so much so that essays and books have been written about that question alone. Thatcher, however, was a Conservative, not a Tory. And indeed it is interesting that we're going Regencypunk here, because of course the Regency was precisely at the cusp of the transition in Britain between an agricultural squirearchy to industrial society, and with that came the refinement of Toryism (in part, of course, developed against the background of the French Revolution) and indeed the rise of the Young England and One-Nation movements.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I really enjoyed this one (update? post? idk). you're making it really hard for me to get to the end of something and forget about this site for years again
yikes
ah, I assume somewhere out there there are machines by the names of Franklin Graham Bell and Whitney Ford and such : D
yikes
I love how this post seems to really convey the feeling of those grey, dreary, rainy days (among other things). I admit having grown up somewhere with similar climate and having a healthy dose of 1-am-brain probably helps, but still.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Interestingly, pretty much every viewpoint we've seen so far originates from Procryon. They must make a lot of robots, or at least the interesting ones.
- Location
- Yes
Starhall's cabbies have been carefully programmed to make racist comments to you as you drive around, as part of the experience.
I'm not surprised that the Future British Empire spends what is presumably a very large sum of money just to make Future London rainy as hell.
I would love to be so blissfully unaware.
"NOOOOOO."
"What's wrong?"
"Lord Beckham's daughter just got married, he's going to be going back home to oversee it. I had him drafted as the main jeerer on my fantasy parliament team!"
"Ouch, bad luck mate."
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Undead-Spaceman
Skeleton Supreme
- Location
- Somewhere in Orbit
So did the Concert ever come up with an official name for the Cuddlebugs or has that appelation taken the galaxy by storm?
And Holmes is trying to get through his speech but it looks like the Whigs hecklers are getting to him. It's Robinson with the chicken change, but Holmes go strong. Thomas following up it looks bad but-a finish! Holmes finished strong, what an ending. And a fantastic applause start by Baker! It, yes it looks like the rest of the Tories has taken it up! Not just the spinward faction. What a magnificent play, we will have to see the final scores, but I can't see any way for the Whigs to come back from this one. For those of you at home, get the recordings on this one, it was absolutely beautiful.
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- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
funnily enough, dora is being retconned in the edited version to be a royal machine company build instead, because i realized i was doing the worldbuilding sin of reaching for the existing thing every time. procryon is where the fancy, expensive, *pretty* robots come from, and dora is not a pretty robot.
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[Kennedy Disliked That]
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Pretty enough for government work?
I kid. That kind of joke doesn't really fit within this setting. All the robots are build with full enthusiasm of their workers, ...
dhasenan
always lowercase
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I dunno, my copy of Vogue is half filled with neodymium.