"Thank you, ma'am."
Captain Murray didn't quite understand our objective, I think, but she gave her approval swiftly. I wasn't really expecting results one way or another, but as I saw it, it couldn't possibly hurt. My main worry was that there was a human tangled up in this somewhere whose reputation might suffer if it spiralled out of control, and I resolved that should something come of it, I'd handle the matter personally and discreetly.
Well, as discreetly as I could manage.
After a very exciting afternoon where we practised scaling the walls of a fortress under fire by launching an ladder assault on the slab-sided wagon workshop at the end of the field, the 9th Company was swept up in end-of-year maintenance inspections, prepping for next year's mandatory upgrades and the like. With nothing else to do, Miles and I made our way to the range to practice our swordsmanship.
We'd spent a great many hours here in the last few months, as I desperately wanted to improve my swordsmanship and Miles just seemed glad for the company. He was much better than I, effortlessly so, but he didn't have much ability to explain exactly how he beat me every time.
As I darted in to try to take advantage of an opening, sure I had him this time, he blocked without even dignifying my attack with a look. His sword skipped into my guard and caught my wrist, and he shrugged and stepped back.
"Bad luck, Dora."
"Luck!" I exclaimed, shaking my hand to rid it of the brief numbness. "Some luck, you weren't even looking. Am I truly that terrible?"
I paced a circle of the arena, trying to figure out a better angle, as though it mattered. He beat me two times in three, and most of my victories felt like they came from half-hearted sloppiness on his part rather than my own skill.
"You truly aren't, honest," he said, swirling his sword casually. "I was practically born with this bloody thing in my hands. I imagine it would be a different story with, actually, say-"
Deactivating his sword and wandering off with a detached expression, he climbed up out of the arena and disappeared momentarily. A few minutes later, I heard a clatter, and he returned with two full-sized optical muskets over his shoulders.
"Miles…" I chided.
"See, fair," he said, holding one out and clearly trying not to show the strain from the forty-five pounds of rifle in his outstretched hand. I took it lightly, checking the chamber and moving the power setting very carefully over to stun.
"Really, there's no need for this," I said, and he shrugged and started fiddling with the action, eventually finding the settings himself. I'll confess I looked over his shoulder to be sure.
"Humour me, then," he said, activating the bayonet. It flared like an acetylene torch from the end of the barrel. Sceptical, but willing to give my friend a chance, I assumed a fighting stance.
Miles squared up, clearly imitating me. After making sure I was ready, he darted in and clumsily drove the point for my chest. Without even thinking about it, I battered his barrel aside and, with the exaggerated slowness of a demonstration, brought the butt up to his face.
"Not exactly a fair fight, Miles," I said softly, and he shook his head, stepping back.
"Of course not, I've every advantage over you," he boasted. "Longer reach, for one, I've got, what, six inches on you?"
"Reach is important, but it's not everything," I said. "I'm also much stronger than you, and more relevantly I was programmed to fight with a bayonet and have been doing it since before you were born. A few inches either way aren't that important."
"Trust a lesbian to say such a thing," he joked.
"Miles!" I exclaimed, scandalised, and he took the chance to try and drive the bayonet home. Clever, but not even the shock of that could quite dull my instincts. I ducked the point, caught the barrel, and pulled the weapon from his hands with what felt like no resistance at all.
"I had to try!" he retorted, looking rather put out. "Uh, to be clear, six inches minimum."
"I'm sure," I said, handing him the rifle back. "I'm not sure what the point of this exercise was?"
"Well, just to cheer you up," he said, setting the heavy weapon aside. "What if we pitted strength to strength. Bayonet against blade?"
"I think it wouldn't be representative. You could cut my rifle in half in a real combat situation, and I'm not exactly about to bash your brains out with the stock," I pointed out, but he'd already drawn his sword and lit it.
Well, now I was curious.
I took a stance opposite, Beckham leaning back a little when he saw how close the bayonet already. He nodded to start, and I thrust for his chest. He stepped back and away and I followed. I saw an opening as he reversed his stance, and drove the bayonet for his side.
It was an overcommitment, I knew it as soon as I'd done it. His sword caught my forearm as I was thrusting, and as my bayonet touched his chest, his sword swiped across my neck, leaving a phantom tingle.
We both instinctively looked over to the control panel at the edge of the pit, but the screen was dark. It only officiated duels with swords.
"You hit me first, you had it," I said, and he waved a dismissive hand.
"Hardly, extremities shouldn't count. Momentum would have kept you going straight into me," he said. I wasn't so sure; had I actually lost a forearm, the barrel would have dropped considerably and veered off.
"Call it a draw?" I proposed. He seemed fine with that, shutting off his sword and hopped up to the side of the pit, fumbling around for his canteen. I joined in shortly, making a point to stretch and engage the rollers on my joints.
"Say, you holding up okay? No more issues?" he asked, and I nearly launched into my usual deflections before thinking better of it. Perhaps Cameron's comments were working.
"Nothing immediately pressing, but I won't say I haven't got some concerns," I confessed. "My shoulder actuators are my next worry, they're complex parts and I feel like something is catching. It's awful."
"I'm not surprised, given how long you lugged those things about," Miles remarked, gesturing to the muskets we'd left in the pit. "Yes, I know they aren't that heavy for you, but still!"
"No, I understand," I said. "The only problem is, these aren't five minute fixes any mechanic can do. It's a serious overhaul. And then hips…"
"Reminds me of my great-grandmother. She's getting to that age where it feels like she's getting a new joint or organ every few months, it's the highlight of her letters. She's started to invoke the Ship of Thesus," he joked.
"Sorry, who's ship?"
"I keep forgetting nobody ever sat you down with any tutors. Everyone I know has a head full of old dead Greek and Roman buggers. It's an old philosophical question; Thesus' has got himself a boat, and every year he replaces a plank. How long until it isn't his boat?"
"Well, if it remains in his possession the entire time…" I began, and he rolled his eyes at me in frustration.
"No, the question is how long until the boat isn't the one he started with, if you understand?" he asked.
"I still don't quite understand. It's the same boat," I said. It felt self-evident to me. I held out my two ungloved hands to him, the worn metal of my left and the shiny new one of my right, the one with its protruding joints and the other its sleeker, more human design. "I didn't stop being me when I replaced this arm, and I won't stop being me once I replace the other. Right? Same with any part of me, so long as what survives of me recognizes a continuity."
"Trust a machine to think they've simply solved an ancient unsolvable question," Miles ribbed. "Who am I to argue?"
"Sorry, I just don't understand what the puzzle is. As long as people recognize its Thesus' ship, what planks it's made from doesn't much matter. I think this is because humans have only recently started replacing parts of themselves. It isn't strange to us: a lot of the older machines have nothing left of their original components save the continuity of memory, and even that would have switched formats a dozen times…"
"Well, you're not entirely correct. Human cells, save for the nerves I think, they are replaced over time. Nerves now too, with modern medicine. We're a big pile of self-replicating little bags of water that go until the replacements don't fit together anymore, and then… well, there's the upload problem."
"The what?"
"You know, what to do if we ever do anything with all the records we've taken. It'd make inheritance a real…" He paused, I think seeing the confusion in my eyes. "You know, when somebody is dying, or just after death, they use neural photography to capture brain state? Like with memory records, but the whole of the mental architecture?"
"Right, yes. Sorry, I don't give that much thought," I confessed. One of the fragmentary memories of Fomalhaut, of the surgeon next to Lieutenant Winters with a strange, flashing device as I was dragged away, rushed back to the forefront. "It comes up in emergency aid training, but we're usually told not to do it unless we have no choice. Wait for the surgeon."
"Fusie, are you quite alright?" he asked, his normally jovial tone completely absent.
"Can we talk about something else?" I asked. Without hesitation, he nodded.
"Of course. Actually, a good as time as any… are you going to Bryant's Christmas Party Party?"
"Sorry, who's what?"
"Lieutenant Foster in 6th Company? Ah, the regular Christmas Party is something of a formal affair, all the older officers have their families along and it ends at a quite respectable time and all that. So those of us who haven't got a reason to head home early will be making our way to Bryant's house to keep the festivities going."
"Ah, well…" I started, but Miles clearly detected the hesitation and wasn't having it.
"Trust me, you'll have yourself a good time. There will be a minimum of rules and I've been assured that he'll play something cheery in the main room so you can get just as polluted as the rest of us. And it's an open invitation to any officer, which I should very much think includes you. I expect we'll be crashed by the attractive friends of our more sociable members in any case."
"I'll consider it," I said noncommittally, then paused. "It sounds as though it's just an excuse to get drunk."
"Almost all human social affairs are, to be fair," he agreed. "Getting drunk, laughing with friends, and spending time around beautiful women. And what's wrong with that?"
I conceded to that point.
"Well, the latter is a bit lost on me," I admitted. He nudged my arm
"Oh, chin up, I'm sure he'll have hired a share of cute housemaids to keep everything running smoothly. We'll have you covered."
"And you, apparently," I said unthinkingly, the words outracing my processors, then was quite mortified that I'd dare to say anything. Miles, though, just laughed.
"I suppose!" he said, nudging my arm conspiratorially. "I'm sorry for springing that on you a bit, I just wanted to cheer you up. I remembered what you said about the rank putting you in an awkward spot."
"Uuh, well, thank you?" I stammered, quite unsure how one was even supposed to have a conversation like this. "It certainly was a bit of a shock, but… I still don't quite understand."
"What?"
"I…" I considered launching into a ramble about how, while I could very much understand the restrained attraction that machines had for some humans, being as we were built in their image, but I decided that would very much be too much. I decided instead to focus on my confusion with the reverse. "What exactly do you see in machines, then?"
"Well, in large part, that they are unchaperoned," he said casually. "We can stop talking about this too, if your-"
"Nono, I'm… I'm genuinely curious. Do you… do you actually think of machines as attractive? Do humans?"
When Lieutenant Kennedy had made her advances, there were ample excuses I could give for why she wasn't acting in her right mind, that the stress of her injury and our circumstances had affected her and I was protecting her from future regret. I still suspected that was true, but there was more uncertainty now than I was comfortable with.
"Not everyone, hardly, but I suspect far more than than will admit it," he replied. "But yes, I suppose. They build you lot with aesthetics in mind, you aren't lacking for curves… I'll say, this is a strange conversation to be having with a woman."
"This is a strange conversation to be having with a human," I countered.
"That's fair," he admitted. "Look, I just like women. I don't particularly care what they're made of."
"Huh," I said. "I suppose that makes sense, though I can't say I relate."
"I'm not saying you have to be into humans or anything-"
"Oddly, that's not what I… no, okay, wait, what I mean is…"
He nudged my arm affectionately.
"I understand, I'm just having a lark. Go on."
"I like… you know. Household workers and service machines. Sarahs, Abbys, um… Marias…"
"Beatrices?" he said. "They are a cute lot…"
"... yeah," I muttered, feeling very embarrassed but determined to keep talking. "I don't know, they're… yeah, they're cute. That's a good word for it. They're… delicate."
"That's not a word I would use," Miles said. "Not that I'm complaining."
"I… am not sure what you mean by that, but no, I guess, comparatively. I just… I love that they can blush."
"Really?" he asked. "I would have thought your attention might be focused elsewhere."
"... W-well, it isn't the full picture, don't get me wrong. But no, I mean, blushing i's something they can do purely for its own sake, you know? It's… they can be pretty, and soft, and elegant. They can be made out of glass because I'm made out of steel, and… I like that."
"You like somebody you feel like you can protect," he summarised. I nodded, and he burst out laughing quite suddenly. "But you aren't into human girls."
"Shut up," I protested, though playfully. "I get it, but… the rules exist for a reason, you know. Besides… machine girls are prettier. It's just a fact."
"Now, hold on, I wouldn't go that far…"
"You said it yourself, we're made with aesthetics in mind," I teased. "It's not your fault your girls can't compete."
"Some defender of humanity you are…"
---
I found myself awake fairly early the next morning, a little anxious. I knew I probably couldn't expect results from Theda's sting operation on the first day, but there was a part of me expecting it anyway. It was far too early to come to the base, four-thirty in the morning.
For lack of anything else, I donned my housecoat and wandered downstairs to check for newspapers. Somehow, for the first time ever, I'd beaten Miriam awake, and the house was unusually dark and empty. It seemed even more vast than usual, in the half-dark of the night candles and absent the sound of servants moving about.
I opened the door just in time to see a cheery looking Johnny Messanger making his way steadily up the icy path to the house, waving cheerfully.
"Morning! Keeping guard over the place?" he asked.
"Uh, in a matter of speaking," I said. "Today's papers?"
"The very same. You'll get it to the master or missus of the house?"
"I'll make sure of it," I assured him, taking the bundle of papers and heading back in. I threw the bundle on the little table next to the overstuffed leather chair near the fireplace and turned up a candle, settling in and reaching for the top paper of the stack.
It was a blank sheet.
"Must be a mistake," I said, setting it aside. Except the next one was too. All of them, just blank white paper.
"Miss? Are you alright?"
I looked over to see Miriam by the door. For the first time since the other side of the portal, she looked in less than perfect sorts, her jacket ruffled and still blinking the sleep from her eyes.
"Ah, sorry, couldn't quite sleep. Did I wake you?"
"Yes, but that's quite alright. I'll be right as rain in a moment. Are… you trying to read uncharged newspapers?"
"I… suppose I am? Charged?"
Miriam waved me over, though I had to double back to take the papers, and I followed her down to the servant's quarters.
"I figured you'd protest if I just took them, so I might as well show you, but don't go thinking you can do this for me. I won't have you taking what little work I get," she lectured, as we pressed on into what I assumed was a utility room of some sort. My uniform was still hanging next to the washboard in the corner, waiting for Miriam to bring it to me for the morning.
Miriam lay the first paper out flat on the table, grabbing a device from the wall and adjusting some settings.It hummed to life in her hand, glowing faintly orange.
"Why don't they just print it?" I asked.
"This isn't the 21st century, miss, these are electrostatic papers. It lets them run off a city's worth in an instant." She ran the wand over the paper gently, in a slow and deliberate motion, and the text and moving images underneath appeared under it. "The activation process is slower, so by spreading the work out over the households, it ensures everyone gets their news faster. Personally, I find it relaxing."
She flipped the page, scanned it over, and shuffled the finished paper off to the side. She took the next one from the pile as I retrieved the newly activated paper, the Pulsar. One of the city's machine tabloids, popular in the barracks. I realised that somebody must have been activating them for us all this time.
"I suspect they could figure out a way to do it at the printers, but it would mean one less task for the servants back home, and the humans would never notice, would they?" she said. I flipped the paper open and scanned it by the overhead lamplights. Not much interesting in the lead-up to the holidays, with plenty of speculation as to the guests at the major parties and such. The normal gossip about humans and their lives.
"Miriam, I believe I owe you an apology," I began.
"Miss?"
"For, um, eavesdropping on your conversation the other day. Wasn't right of me," I confessed. "I'm very sorry."
"Don't you worry about it, Miss," she said. "Just friends, talking about our clients."
"... you know I still feel awful about that." I said, and Miriam nodded.
"I know. But there's nothing you can do right now about it. Lieutenant Kennedy is the one who is hurt, and you can't make people forgive you. You know that, right?"
"I know." I said, feeling a bit dejected as I threw the Pulsar down. "Which one of these is the Starhall Times?"
"I haven't done it yet, hold on," Miriam said, fishing through the papers until she found one. As she flipped it open to charge it, a folded sheet fall out, a smaller piece apparently tucked into the newspaper. I snatched it from the ground and held it to the light.
A title greeted me, On the Question of the Condition of the Machine, or, Programmed to Love being Lesser, and it was followed by a short essay and several crude lithographs. The one nearest the top depicted a machine with a pickaxe, bound by chains not to his wrists or ankles, but through his heart, held by a human.
A speech bubble read, in handwritten script, "Take all that I am, and I shall thank you."
"The hell is this?" I asked, showing Miriam it. She shook her head, clearly as confused as I.
"I suppose it was smuggled in. It's not addressed to you, is it?"
"No, I don't think so. It looks copied, a bit crudely," I said. In places letters were smudged or misprinted, and the formatting left much to be desired, but I began reading out of sheer curiosity. There were three sections: The Exploitation of Labour, An Arrest of Culture, and Toxic Programming, but all came back to a single, central point: that machines were exploited labourers no different than the human lower classes we'd elevated centuries ago, but worse, we couldn't even grasp how much was being stolen from us.
The first lines read: "We imagine ourselves in an enlightened age, looking back upon the suffering of millions of the poor, displaced, and wretched human beings of our past. Yet it is a lie: we have replaced those millions with billions, labouring harder and longer for less than ever before, and we consider it harmony. We call it a Concert."
The essay was unsigned.
"... some poor machine's got a screw loose," I muttered, and Miriam nodded sadly. "This is a cry for help from someone glitched, I think. Must be… I hope they can get it."
I set the paper down, and Miriam turned it to read, her eyes narrowing.
"I just hope your peers don't make too big a fuss over it." she muttered.
"...Oh. This is in the Times, it's meant for humans to see," I realised, discarding the pamphlet onto the table. "Well, I should hope nobody takes it too seriously."
"We're talking about humans here, there's no knowing how they'll take it." Miriam pointed out, and I sighed.
"Of course not. Because I don't deal with enough awkward conversations," I groaned. "I think I should get ready for work. Nothing good can come from this."
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