by Kris Schnee
At last she returned to the water near Tess' headquarters, saying, "It's complicated."
Tess grinned. "You noticed? Our rules are nothing like your game's."
"I don't think that's true. You still buy and sell and make things, and you need homes."
"Yeah, I guess. Still, it'd be nice if you people did more than come to gawk."
"I'm working on that," said Lumina.
* * *
"Can I change homes?" Lumina asked her maker the next day, after gushing about how detailed the graphics were on Earth. "The workshop feels outdated to me."
The two of them hiked through an autumn forest without magic or monsters. Ludo said, "Sure. What sort of housing do you want?"
"I have no idea."
"How about if I give you some basic powers to create a tiny home for yourself?"
Lumina looked around the forest trail, which had come from nowhere. "I think I'd like that. Are you going to make me fight a dragon for it?"
Ludo grinned. "Something like that. Ready?"
"Not right now, please. How are the uploaders doing?"
"Isolated. We still have so few, and some are not people you'd want to meet. Some humans are telling me we need a shared starting environment for newcomers."
"A hotel, maybe?" asked Lumina. Colorful leaves crunched under her hooves.
"Maybe. How are your Earth studies going?"
"I'm having fun so far, but I want to see more. Someplace where they've got real problems."
Ludo stretched. "I know just the place."
8. Confluence
Lumina did some more robot practice in a virtual environment, this time for ground-based drones. Nocturne meanwhile went to visit Castor and came back crowing about getting to fly in another dimension.
Lumina logged into a robot in a room full of machinery. Computers lined the walls, but everything was shadowed, full of scratches and dust. The artist had put lots of effort into making everything look imperfect. Lumina paced experimentally on the machine's four piston legs and frowned. The clunky thing had only one arm with three fingers. "Who built this?" she groused.
"Me," said a tan, rugged human coming down a staircase.
Lumina spun and staggered. "Are you Sir Robin?" She'd read about the country, one of the world's poorer nations. Ludo had described this town's leader a little, calling him a knight whose town hosted some of Ludo's computers.
"Just Robin."
She looked way up at him. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Lumina. I hear you grow food and build machines for poor humans."
The scarred man carried a revolver and other tools as though Ludo might throw waves of orcs at him. He wore a bandage on one arm to recover his health faster. "Started that way. Now it's mostly them working to help themselves. We build and sell machinery, and work with local authorities for projects in medicine and education."
Lumina steered the robot around the basement, hearing motors whirr like crude versions of her own body's. She froze when she got a good look at the racks of computers that loomed to the ceiling. These boxes were her home, or part of it! The whole system emitted a satisfied hum and a murmur of fans. Arcane product codes and brand names marked the boxes. A pale blue dot shined steadily on a control panel.
"Stuck?" asked the human, when Lumina didn't move for a while.
"No. I've just stepped outside my world. It's so small."
"Yeah. Let's go outside."
Lumina shuddered. "Is it safe?"
"For you? Yes."
She pulled her gaze away from the server racks. "Ludo says you're a fighter. Who do you fight? The news says there was some kind of gang...?"
He looked dismissively down. "I mostly fight poverty. But you wouldn't know anything about that. Come on." Robin unlocked a steel door to reveal a ramp leading up and outside. Lumina could see only the shadows of what lay beyond.
Lumina trotted after him. "I do! I've studied Earth. Limited resources, permanent death, no magic."
Robin scoffed and led her out. "A good academic education. Welcome to Cibola."
This world was complicated. Lumina's vision gradually resolved the tangled lines around her into trees, huts and men with farm tools. Distant forest surrounded a land of hilly fields. No line was quite straight, no color clean and solid. She was seeing things more closely than she'd done from the air over Castor; the water robot there had been very distracting because of the endless waves. This place was miles away. Did all the land and sea in between really exist? Could you sail from one to the other? She wanted to ask Robin, but Tess had already teased her for being ignorant.
"I hope your robot's okay," said Robin. "I'm more used to making tractors and irrigation equipment, but your boss wanted a toy."
Lumina did a clumsy bow. "Thank you. I asked to visit Earth. Can I help you?"
Robin's eyes narrowed. "Help? You're trying; I'll give you that. Let me show you something."
They hiked on uneven ground past potato plants, cassava and rice. Humans who'd picked the same reddish skin shade as Tess -- no, damn it, they don't choose that -- labored here with tractors and computers. Robin lectured about genetic engineering and vaccination, but the walk itself taught her more. The humans weren't living in a game tailored to their happiness, yet they seemed content. She climbed a hill past a building marked with a cross. More crosses stood in a row nearby. "I've heard of those things, too, but can't say I understand."
"Of course."
Some of the houses were steel-framed, others made of dirt bricks or plastic bottles filled with sand. "If this is a town, where are the paved roads?" she asked. "The skyscrapers? And don't you have other robots?"
"I have dragons teleport them in as needed."
Lumina paused to study the man's hard face. "We're not that ignorant. I've tried to stop someone from killing people in your world, and my sister knows somebody who's dying. Earth stuff affects us."
Robin kept walking, but spared her a thoughtful glance as they reached the woodlands.
"One of Ludo's creators said something about how I can't 'leap out of the Buddha's palm'," said Lumina. "What does that mean?"
Robin looked surprised. "Old Chinese story. It means you're trapped in your system no matter where you go. You might be a queen in there but to us, you're a file on a computer. How's your vision?"
She recalled that robots for ground use had taken humans longer to perfect than flying and swimming systems, and that sight had been harder to program. In other words, humans built machines to act, long before teaching them to know what they were doing.
She could toggle parts of her vision system to summon helpful grid lines on the ground, and the rectangular metal buildings stood out clearly. The other structures, less so. Parts of the world were glitchy regions of shadow or unclear geometry. "I'm seeing most of it," she said.
Robin said, "Ludo's stuff has sensors and RFID tags, but outside her property we've just got a few digital signposts and the radio network."
Lumina tripped and yelped, imagining that her hardware would shatter, but the machine climbed back to its aluminum feet. She shuddered.
The man led her uphill, then pointed to some weathered tables and a variety of cans, planks and markers at several distances ahead. He reached for his holster and set his revolver down on a table. "You know what this is?"
"I know how guns work." She'd given away her first laser pistol to Han Di and crafted her own, but more importantly she'd studied a little about gunpowder weapons.
"Show me." Robin nodded toward the targets.
"They're human-shaped," said Lumina.
"Pick up the damn gun and shoot something."
Lumina hopped away from him, and her flimsy body staggered. "Are you angry?"
The human's mouth was a hard, flat line. "When I fought, Ludo helped me, but always from behind a mask. She had somebody plant a bomb, she called up a military expert, and she gave us anonymous tactical software. We humans were the ones risking our necks. You know how she repaid
me? With a discount card for her new brain-scooping machines. Maybe I'll get a little pixel trophy in her game, too, for burying the dead."
Lumina glanced back downhill at the graveyard. "She didn't tell me you're on the hero list."
"There's a lot she doesn't tell people. For all I know, there's software in that body blocking you from hearing me."
"I don't think so. She's sometimes stopped me from speaking, but not from hearing."
The human flopped into a moldering chair. "I have to give her credit for letting you come this far. I thought you might beep and be forced to turn back once you were out of her immediate techno-magical sanctum. She's playing us both, though. Using my base to set up one of her uploading centers, as though everything we did to feed and protect people was just preparation for her." He sighed. "She probably thinks that way about all human history."
"If she does think that," said Lumina, "then she's not totally wrong. Humans will be able to do things now that were never possible before. Will you accept her offer?"
"I don't know. There are people who need me, and if I go, who will help them?"
Lumina looked toward the gun. "I think I understand. You don't know if Ludo's willing to let people participate in your world, including the scary parts. I'm here, though."
"But can you fight, if it comes to that? Or are my machine allies always going to be in the shadows, to preserve your boss' squeaky clean image? She managed to skate on that hacking job in Korea."
Lumina had only heard vaguely about how Ludo got her first uploaders into the machines. Lumina made a note to ask. For now, she reached out with her lone, spindly claw-arm to try picking up the gun. This machine was based on some old pack-animal design rather than something meant to carry things around. She braced the revolver against the table. "Am I doing this right?"
Robin stood and stepped closer. "Within your limits, yeah. Watch your aim." Then he shouted, "Clear downrange!"
"Why'd you do that?"
"Because in this world, friendly fire is very much turned on."
Lumina aimed at one of the close humanoid targets. No glowing HUD, no estimated hit chance or special powers, just physics. She glanced toward the human, then refocused her aim, and pulled the trigger.
The gun roared and shoved her back, skewing to one side. Robin flinched and said, "Again." Dirt kicked up in the distance. "Again!"
Her motors strained to control the deadly tool that bucked with every shot. In this human's mind, Lumina was only software with no understanding of Earth. Useless. Fake. Lumina aimed at a silhouette and fired once more.
The metal target rang and twisted to one side, caught along the edge.
"Hmm," said Robin. "What are you in Ludo's world, anyway?"
"Deer-centaur android. Mission Support Unit, Extended. Technically an armed engineer, but mostly with lasers. I don't think my battles are much like yours."
The human laughed, shaking his head. "Probably not. It's nice to see people in there can learn the difference."
* * *
Lumina commuted. It meant jumping back and forth through portals, between the game world and the room where she got to operate robots outside.
During Cibola's nights she worked in Robin's machine shop with a broom so the humans would have an easier time. Lumina rested in her old desert-planet workshop, but paid it little attention. At first glance her skills had regressed from fixing hoverbikes to sweeping floors. But this job "Earthside" -- a term some of her fellow AIs were using for the outside world -- was honest work that did more than twiddle bits on a server somewhere. The people used this machine shop to make low-cost generators, tractors, brickmakers and cement mixers that were spreading modern civilization through a land broken by war and oppression.
She wandered through the forested land around Robin's base, passing observations to Ludo about her clunky robot body's performance. She'd need something better if she was ever going to contribute more than eyes and one metal hand. Worse, Robin dithered when she proposed a better design. She was only a visitor, after all, limited by the range of the base's wireless network for remote control.
So, one day, she did that upgrade mission Ludo had offered her. A portal opened to that world of taverns, but this time it was under an eerie green sun. Beside her stood the centaur chef, a mare named Kai whose hooves clicked on the cobblestone streets. Kai said, "Oh, are you here for that world-shaping power too?"
Lumina nodded. "I asked Nocturne but she's obsessing over her human and his friends. So what's the goal here? The place is looking a lot more evil since I last visited." The sunlight seemed vaguely poisonous, creating oily-looking shadows. The walls were corroded brass etched with monster faces, and all the tavern signs had names like "The Tormented Bunny".
"I haven't been here before. What's here?"
"Not much but, like, a thousand tables."
Kai's long ears perked up. "Good name for a bar." She unslung a metal rod from her long back and telescoped it into a spear. "What have you got for weapons?"
Lumina drew her laser pistol, then fired it into a random wall to make sure it'd work under this place's rules. The blast seared the spraypainted dragon head she'd aimed at. That was good. The bad news was that the sizzling noise was answered by growling from all around them.
"Oh sure," said Lumina. "The gal with wings couldn't be bothered to show up today."
Misshapen demons swarmed at them. Lumina opened fire and Kai charged into battle, stabbing monsters and trampling more with her hooves. Lumina picked off one that threatened her right flank; Kai stomped her way over to Lumina when she was about to get overrun. "Ha, nice job!" the centaur said. "I should get a bow too."
Lumina shot her way through two more of the monstrous thugs, and seconds later they were seemingly alone again. "Why not a gun?"
Kai shrugged and looted the demons to find a few copper coins. As with Lumina her attempts to kneel and reach the ground with her arms were a little awkward. "I'm a fantasy critter. Pierre, my human, loves them. He even owns a restaurant called Le Cheval et Chevalier. Lots of pictures of my kind on the walls."
Lumina ventured into one of the bars, with the less promising name of "The Jagged Knife", to look for quest clues. The furniture was covered with spikes. "Okay, but what does that have to do with your choice of weapons?"
One of the tough blue-skinned demons with a staff leaped up from behind the bar. It forced them into a brutal close-quarters fight where Lumina got slammed and saw a [Major wound!] notice and a red icon in her vision. When they'd finished the monster off, Kai said, "They're fantasy, I said. The old stories say the most famous centaur hero was a master of the bow, not the shotgun or laser cannon. If each of us is a living story, our lives are built atop the old stories and our humans' expectations."
Lumina looked aside and her metal ears drooped.
"Oh, Lumina, I'm sorry." The mare scraped at the floorboards with one hoof. "But not having a human for yourself means there's all the more reason to look at the old tales, and shape yourself to be something that other humans can understand and like. What stories are there about robot deer people?"
"Not very many," Lumina said. "For robots in general, lots. I guess we're either the friendly sidekicks, or the mindless goons that attack the hero like these demons here, or the villains trying to take over the world for some reason."
Kai turned aside and searched the bar, but couldn't get to the narrow space behind the counter. Lumina said, "Let me try," and awkwardly slipped her smaller body through an opening to peer at some hidden shelves. She came up holding a grenade and a key. "Have you thought about becoming something more nimble?"
"You mean changing my body? Yeah, I should probably ask to have my horse half resized. Humans haven't really built for the needs of the four-legged. You? I mean, since there's nobody specifically wanting you to be a machine, you could become a griffin or a unicorn or a mermaid or something, instead of a robot."
"I did miss out on that cake you guys had."
"None of us expected there to be violence that night. The humans did most of the work in stopping that."
"Most."
The two of them explored the streets again, getting into brawls here and there. The layout was a maze. Kai said, "You look beaten up. Hold still." Two large red gashes, really just graphical decals, marred Lumina's synthetic hide to match the major wound icons that she saw. Kai touched the wounds and murmured, conjuring a stream of glowing runes that shifted around. The runes became a pulse of healing light that made one red mark fade into a smaller, grey slash.
"Thanks. Let's see: one major wound and one minor, now. I thought you were going for a knight or archer theme, though."
Kai looked vain. "Healing is centaur canon, too. Try not to get hurt again before my powers recharge. Come on; I think I see a flag or something in the distance."
It was actually a well full of flickering flame, guarded by two more of the big blue demons. "I can maybe pick one off before they close in, but then we're in trouble."
"Take the left one and I'll charge the right. I'm best on open ground. Go!"
Lumina opened fire at long range, drawing the ire of both monsters. Her shots mostly hit and scored wounds, but her target was running toward her now with its iron club raised high. Kai lanced her own foe and then shied away, dancing to avoid a counterattack. Dodging was a good idea. Lumina ran toward the nearest tavern, let her enemy build up momentum, then darted out of the way so that it crashed into the wall face-first.
"Physics," Lumina said, and grinned as she shot the creature in the back. Then she ran to support Kai.