by Kell Inkston
Racing ahead down the corridor and around the corner, Mary can hear his frantic steps gaining on her— but coming up from the front is her salvation— at least, that's what she thinks.
An unassuming automaton, brownish black from lack of cleaning, drones calmly in the dark; its glowing green managraph shines dully against the eternal blackness of the construction zone.
It notices her and starts forward like a woodcutter to a set log, prepared to split. It's slower than her, and she bypasses it around the side, forcing it to be a buffer between herself and her husband.
Zach isn't so sly when the auto turns on him. She can hear a crash behind her as he hits it, and a small struggle as he yells out administrator commands— all of which the automaton ignores as it attempts to grab ahold of him.
"Mary!" Zach yells, regaining his footing as he scarcely slips from the auto's slow, certain grasp. "Mary, please don't do this!" he shouts, blocked by the automaton's approach.
She hears him take a deep breath.
"Maryyyy!"
And that's the last she hears of him. The rest of her story will not return to her daughter with Zach; they may never know what happened to her, she realizes. Mary knew he would be okay. He deals with those stupid autos all the time, after all; but to be honest, she would allow him to die for this. She wouldn't want to admit it aloud, but she's honest with herself enough to know that she would sacrifice anyone— even him— if it meant securing a future for Clare.
"I'm sorry, Zachi," she mutters, now only a minute away from the seventh sector in the underground. While the above city may be split into eighths and quarters, there's seven substation turrets. She's almost there— past what she's certain is a fake construction project, made by a cowardly leader that refuses to let his people escape his insane social project. She passes a few splatters of blood, illuminated clearly by her bluish light. She inspects them without stopping: all giant, human-sized marks, accompanied by drained streaks across the floor as if the victims were dragged off shortly after.
There have been automatons at work, certainly.
Finally, she passes the last of the materials, molded and rusted with age. Something's wrong here— and no one, not a soul in all the city, is aware. In the dark hall, the tunnel leading to Substation 7 juts out horrifically into the blackness– untouched for hundreds of years.
She slows down, checks the way she came and the way looping back around to Substation 1, then turns in to the unhidden, but guarded passage. The thing she immediately hates is how incredibly tight it is— perfectly sized for a single automaton with barely any room to squeeze by someone else. She'd have no room to get by if she met one, and could only retreat to the best of her ability if nothing else blocked her from behind.
Mary keeps her pace slow, trusting her ears to alert her of anything behind her. The ancient, moistened slime of the cobblestone is slick under her boots, forcing her to take to a flat-footed, even slower pace inside the silent passage.
After a whole minute of the maddening, tomb-like silence, she sees a light at the end.
With scoff of disbelief, she heads forward towards the bluish glow, shining like the daytime.
She knew it: she was right.
Taking care not to slip, she quickens her pace; the end of the passage is becoming so bright now that she no longer needs her own light. The thoughts of returning to the city flash through her mind— of telling everyone about the way out, about freedom from their kingdom-sized prison. She can't wait to show Clare the outside! She can't wait to see wild trees for the first time, just like she knows there'll be! Ignorance can be bestowed from generation to generation, but so can hope— and at this moment, there is nothing but hope in her heart, just before she reaches the end of the tunnel and turns the corner.
It is not daylight that greets her, however— but the blinding white-blue light of an automaton in an error state.
She stops flat, shorting her pace the second before she can crash into its twitching form.
Mary takes stock of what she's seeing with wide eyes, and a chill runs down her spine.
She's in a compact, round room— precisely the same that would hold a magi-tech substation— large, whirring contraptions regulating magitechnical currents to offset the chance of a rare, but rarely-survived overload.
The automaton, so old that its serial designation label is rusted to naught but an orange-brown smear across its neck, is flinching back and forth in an abrupt, almost human-like speed— as if moving to save a life.
Behind the uncanny scene, she can see, just barely visible past the automaton's floodlight of a face— a rounding corner, leading to a stairwell. "Substation 7" leads somewhere after all. It’s not a dead end like the others.
The engineer simply stares at the scene for a moment, the auto making a droning preparation before each *click* that constitutes the error, again and again and again. She can't say for sure how long it's been here, on its highest power setting, but she would venture to guess since the founding of Everhold itself.
Mary Airineth— Class Five magi-tech engineer and head for the last dozen top-emblem projects in the kingdom— subconsciously strokes her left ear-lobe, holding a small, green earring; it is a tick of hers that she's afraid she may have passed onto her daughter the same week she gave her the other one of the pair.
Finally, she clears her throat.
"Administrator argument."
The auto does nothing, and she nods in self-response. Of course a non-social auto wouldn't listen to anything she says. The only way she could talk to it would be to open it up and alter its managraphy: the inner circuitry of the machine that magically dictates commands into the frame of the auto's golem-like body. She won't; she has no time, and she frankly doesn't give a damn about debugging autos at a moment like this— when it's all waiting for her, all just at the other side.
She takes the first step forward to pass by in the close, one-meter clearance offered by the automaton— and no sooner does she pass it, does she feel the rock-solid grasp of the automaton take hold of her shoulder.
The clicking noise stops immediately. It’s almost as though it were simply acting.
- Chapter 6 -
Clare sits there at the table, clutching her glass of milk— entirely untouched from the moment he started his story.
"That hallway was the last I saw of her." Zach says, gazing forward with a numb, cattle-like stare.
"So... so she could still be alive!"
"... A few weeks later they found a broken up skeleton in the rot, eaten over by nature at the edge of the sewer system. It was only after it was stripped clean enough for the bones to begin to show that anyone noticed it was a body... guess I can't blame 'em— no one likes to go down there."
The two are dead silent, each holding onto their beverage of choice— the one strand of comfortable lies a soul can still cling to amidst the brutal, savage, demonic truth.
Clare looks up from her milk with a quiet, meek expression. "The story where she got bumped by an auto up on the mill rafters, then-"
"A lie."
She looks back down. "So, you mentioned something about a docto-"
"Doctor Petrassus. He's the Class Five medical examiner. His say is over everyone when it comes to medical opinion."
"... And he said she was crazy?"
"Just about." He takes a long breath, wrapping his hands around his bottle as if they were still holding Mary's hands. "Said she was overcome with a bout of poor nerves and wasn't... wasn't 'viable for service' any more."
"But why?"
"She started...” His gaze slides across the table, and Clare immediately gets the feeling that she’s about to be bullshitted. “-saying things," he mutters.
"What kinds of things?"
Zach looks down to the table. "A whole lot of bullshit."
"Dad—"
"It was. I don't want you hearing it. Not just things about our society, but about… everything works. She began to challenge some very�
� very precious beliefs that the people have."
"What were they? What did she say?" She demands, her tone gaining a wry edge.
His breathing picks up. She knows that's a bad sign. "Honey, I'm saying this for your own good. She had a lot of ideas… separatist ideas. She was smart— smarter than me, that's for damn sure; but when you get too much of a good thing, you start putting yourself in dangerous places. She was in a dangerous place. She believed so much that there was more outside of Everhold a-"
"She thought there was something outside the walls?"
Zach sighs. "...Yeah."
"But isn't it just ocea-"
"Yes."
Clare draws back at her father's tone, but it's clear to the both of them that the answer isn't good enough for her. She knows he hasn't seen it; no one has, except King Victor; no one else but he and the wall guardians.
"So... that's it, then?" she asks, looking away in an awkward, hurt mix of spite and shame.
"...Sweetie, I don't... I don't want you to look at your mom differently because of this. She was an amazing woman. It's just the way she left us was... harder than most. She had a lot of stress on her shoulders. Preventing the starvation of everyone in these walls was her job, her main responsibility."
"That's a lot for a person."
The two can't bear to look at the other.
"Just..." Zach scoots his chair back. "I'm sorry. I need some fres-"
"Just put my dinner next to my room," Clare says with a start, beating him out of the kitchen at twice the speed as she heads directly upstairs. "—night."
"I know you'll need some time," he says softly, scooting back up to the table with a sad frown. "I love y-."
She slams the door behind her and leans against it.
So this is how it happened. She was lied to, yes, but she can forgive that. What she cannot stand is how he just accepted it. She spares a thought it might be because he'd rather live in a comfortable lie than a horrible truth— but it's not good enough for her. She's not sure what to feel, what to think: That her mother could still be out there, somewhere, and that he was too scared to go find out, maybe.
On the brink of tears, she braces deeper into the door, not so much to keep anything out, but to push her immense frustration against something that can take it.
With a muffled sob, she comes to a decision. This is much bigger than a school project, but she can't just throw it off on the sidelines. If her father's right and there's nothing past there, if her mom really did just die for nothing, then she can always go back. She could bring back a report on automaton safety standards in low-manned locations, make a case for it to never happen to anyone ever again. It would be her thesis; but for right now, she'll expect the best.
She takes her chat stone, sends a small spark of magic into it that all humans possess, and raises it to her lips.
"Waine."
There's a pause before it lights up with his voice. "About time. Let's meet up at Jacques' and talk about it over some coffe-"
"I need your help with my own project," she says bluntly, easing off the door and heading over to her bedroom window.
Another pause, and he responds with a surprised tone. "Wait... so you have an idea?"
"Yeah, and it's a big one."
"Well damn, alright! How may I help?"
"You need to... I don't know yet. I'll see you at Jacques' at eight."
"Yeah? Why so late?"
"I need to take a look at something first."
"Where?"
"The library."
"Just some confirmation?"
"Something like that. See you."
"See y-"
She muffles the stone back into her pocket and reaches for the window. It‘ll take some time for her dad to realize that she's gone— especially if he keeps on drinking like he has been this week; he'll probably fall asleep before dinner's ready anyway.
Clare opens the window wide and crawls through. She's surprisingly agile for her lifestyle of studious pursuits, and is able to navigate the small porch roof with little difficulty. She closes the window back with just an inch to spare, leans over the porch roof, and swings herself down with no more than an easily-managed meter-high fall to await her.
Her shoes making a delicate clopping sound upon the brick, she lands and crouches down in the same movement to avoid being spotted from the window. She sneaks along until she's out of the pitch of the windows— and then she's free. The library is just a quick ten minute walk away; she should be able to get all she needs to confirm her suspicions.
- Chapter 7 -
Jacques' coffee shop is their preferred place of meeting. It has a calm atmosphere— but, more importantly, it's close to the central castle of the Royal Quarter, where they both spend the largest chunks of their waking hours. There has been worried discussion around the kingdom that in a few harvest's time, there won't be enough coffee to go around to keep all the shops running— which is news that the roasters are indeed troubled by, but they're mostly happy that they're getting more business because of it. "Last time you'll ever have the drink" is a strong advertisement, after all.
"No sugar okay today? They've been charging out the ass for it." Waine says, bringing the two tin cups to their table in the most comfortable nook of the store.
"Yeah," Clare responds with a nod, taking her cup from him while still focusing on her notes.
"So what's this big idea of yours?" He asks with a genuinely interested, positive look.
She takes a sly glance around, as if it were secretive in nature. He scoffs at the dramatic sight.
"Come on," he adds with an arched brow. "It can't be that bad can i-"
He stops himself, seeing her unfold one of her copied diagrams of the magi-tech substation blueprints.
"Oh...." He clears his throat. "That isn't the substations, is it?"
"Keep it down," Clare whispers.
"R-right."
"It is," she reveals, flipping the blueprint to make her notes legible to him. She points at different sections of the diagram as she explains her case. "I have not one, but two theses I could use. First one would be about an improved social blueprint that could be simply printed onto the autos down there. They're fully anti-social, don't even recognize humans and other forms of life."
Waine's smile starts dying out, steadily losing any humor to his features. "So, it's definitely illegal."
She gives him an annoyed glance. "Well, you don't have to he-"
"N-no," he corrects. "I got you."
She smiles. "Thanks, Waine. I'm glad I have a friend li-"
"But you're just going to have the substation chief go and take reports, right?"
"Nope, I'm going down there myself."
From his look of concern, a new smile is born; this time, it looks positively demented. "Y-... Clare, listen to yourself. Everyone knows what non-social autos do to people."
"So? Why not fix it?"
"Because we don't need to. It’s not a problem that’s pertinant, like, at all! If they were never given social programming, they won't obey any commands; if they won’t obey any commands, they'll just continue to do what is already in their programming— which is all they need to do. Clare, substation autos have two things in their programming: to ensure that the substations are maintained, and to remove anything that might impede that goal. Do you know what that makes you, Clare?"
"I know, b-"
"You're a way better student than I am, Clare. Everyone knows you're the best— but you can't just overlook the basics. Autos are nothing to mess around with. You remember year one of undergrad?"
She looks away, taking up her bitter coffee for a sip.
"Luis died, in front of everyone in the classroom. You were a sophomore at the time, but you were in the academy when it happened. I bet you heard the uproar, though. I was there in the room. The second he turned on his auto it-"
"I know," she blurts out.
"Then why?"
"Are you going to
help me or not?"
"I... This is suicide! You could be expelled, imprisoned, killed! Clare, you have no reason to do that. You'll just be throwing yourself away, and I don't want to see another friend, let alone my best friend get her head torn off by some senseless pile of shit." He leans in, just like at the library. "There's a better way to do it. Once you set one of those in motion, they're impossible to stop if their chassis is closed! You're not actually talking about opening a live one up, are you?!"
She glances aside. "Maybe that's necessary."
"Clare. If you're going to be interfering with an auto, you might as well just design one to protect you and hold the other one at bay while you-"
"That's... actually a pretty good idea," she says, looking down and jotting a note.
"Uh... No, but that would then be stealing. You said yourself... Clare— Clare, are you listening?!"
"I'm listening," she responds, eyes still down at her paper.
"Look, I know you're stressed, but this is no time to ruin your life. You have a father Clare, and friends! You’re... damn, you're like one step away from meeting Victor! You're making waves! Don't throw it away."
"I'm going to do this, Waine. My mind's made up."
"Then let me change it! We all love you, Clare... I love you!"
Only now does she glance up from her notes with a raised brow.
"A-as a friend."
"Mmm." She looks back to her notes.
"Look, I... I've had enough friends die for no reason. Wouldn't you rather just not be a Class Four, as opposed to dying? Are you absolutely crazy?"
"I must be."
"Then why won't you listen to the advice of a sound person?"
"You said so yourself," she leans in and picks up her cup. "I'm absolutely crazy."
"Wh- you..." Waine groans, rubbing his face and throwing a weary, agitated gaze to Clare. "Just... okay, just let me come with you, then."