Condemnation

by Kell Inkston

  Jack signals his approval. "Go for it."

  She takes a breath. "One One Three, ninety degrees counter."

  The auto makes an ungraceful limp to its left.

  "One One Three, three paces forward."

  It moves forward three paces to the table.

  "Ac-... Acknowledge potential right arm inputs," she tests.

  Nothing happens, and Clare takes another, steadying breath.

  "One One Three, acknowledge potential right arm inputs." This time, it works.

  At once, the robot looks down at the table, directing its attention to the closest arm input— a rusty extension with a few fingers missing.

  "One One Three, next selection."

  It moves its focus over to the next-closest arm— this one with a pincer claw instead of a hand.

  "One One Three, next selection."

  The auto finally acknowledges the correct arm— of the same specs and paint job as the one still caught up in the vice.

  "One One Three, accept selection."

  The auto reaches for the new arm with its left hand, picks it up, and sets the joint into place against its right shoulder.

  "One One Three, install right arm joint."

  A loud snap resounds from within the auto, and suddenly its balance corrects— suggesting that it has recognized the reunions of both limbs.

  "And there you have it," Jack concludes. "One One Three, dance time."

  The auto begins shaking its hips and shoulders back and forth in a humorous display of crude movement. "A little something I wrote for him. Don't try this with other autos— but I'm sure he appreciates your help, Miss Airineth. Look how happy he is!"

  There's a quick chuckle among the class, then Jack continues onto the specifics of the lecture— boring for the vast majority of them.

  - Chapter 21 -

  "Eject all joints," Clare instructs triumphantly.

  "Confirmation: 'eject all joints'," Carrie requests, sounding almost judgmental in its tone.

  "Don't confirmation me! Just do it!"

  She hears a disengaging sound reverberate through the other side of the thick wood— and then a din of several objects scattering onto the floor. With a final, ambitious shove, she begins moving the door open— just a crack at first, and then all the way as the rest of Carrie's parts disperse.

  "There we go," she says with a puff, proudly stepping out and around to look at her mobile door stopper.

  She winces at the sight of it. Carrie is not just de-limbed— but de-fingered, de-ankled, and much more. Every single joint it had was modular, and has now clunked out of place at her command. In fact, the only thing still fully intact is its head, and the managraph plates within.

  "Well... hah, shit."

  "Is something the matter, Clare-user?" Carrie’s voice echoes from within its head.

  "Just call me Clare."

  "Acknowledged. Is something the matter, Clare?"

  "Other than basically everything, nah. How am I going to get you back together?"

  "This system would recommend manual labor."

  "Ohh… quiet, robot," she interjects, now pushing her hands into her face in a desperate attempt to focus.

  "Okay."

  Clare repositions her hands from her face to her hips— allowing her to pace about a bit in the dim glow of her clip light, and the much-brighter managraph symbol projecting from Carrie's head.

  "Okay— alright, Clare… so this... this is the library, right?"

  "What librar-"

  "Shh, hey! It will be quiet, or it will not be reassembled." The girl chastises the robot sternly.

  It whirs with an extra level of softness while assessing her threat.

  "...System acknowledges statement," it responds finally.

  Clare groans softly as she turns back to her pacing. It seems like the only way to do it, is to manually plug the automaton’s construction back together— one joint after the next. Clare kneels down in anxious defeat and repositions Carrie's head to shine some light on its scrambled parts. "Gimmie some light, will ya'?" she requests impatiently.

  "My pleasure."

  "-and stop talking," she adds with menace.

  "Objection: You asked me a questio-"

  "Noooohhh, you asked me a question," Clare mimics back, all while folding through the dozens of different components.

  "Were you attempting to repeat my question-"

  "Yes— and I would like you to please let me think!"

  "...Acknowledged," the voice affirms simply.

  She pulls up the torso, still with its sizable breach, and takes up a shoulder-arm joint. Pressing the joint inside, she waits a moment for the sensors to automatically engage. About twenty seconds pass— and the stillness is swiftly stretching.

  "Well? W-what's wrong then?" she caves.

  Carrie is being silent like a good robot.

  Clare shifts uncomfortably, and then sighs. "Okay, look— could you please tell me why this won't connect?"

  Still nothing from the auto.

  "You can talk now, Carrie, please."

  The auto whirrs appreciatively.

  "Acknowledged,” it finally responds. “The joint is not re-engaging, because my intra-connector system has been depressurized by the infrastructural damage."

  Clare just stares at the arm in horror, a stupid, finished gaze overtaking her visage. "O-oh.. N— no."

  "Yes."

  "Noooo."

  "Objection, Clare: Your rejection to the premise of the statement does not make it incorrect."

  She pushes her hands back into her face, accompanied by a bitter vigor. "Oh, god— fuck me."

  "Objection,” Carrie corrects once more, “King Victor rarely converses with humans. That request is highly improbabl-"

  She stops it this time with a sharp, defeated sob of frustration as she crumples over. "Great. Let me guess then— we're going to need a welder, aren’t we?" She pleads for it to correct her.

  "This system does not know," Carrie answers simply.

  "And then I'm going to have to re-pressurize your entire structure, right— probably manually, too." She moans.

  "This system also does not kno-"

  "And then,” she interjects more intrusively, “I'm going to have to repair your stupid Victor-damned momentumizers so that you can move in the first place."

  "… This system believes that is correct, though the order would not matter between pressurizing me and finishing my momentumizers." Carry calculates helpfully.

  Clare joins her hands together— drawing in a deep, patient breath. "...Okay. So, if this is like Everhold, and this is the library— then it shouldn't be far from the

  Academy of Engineering."

  "Based on this system’s understanding, it should be about two hundred meters away."

  Another long, long breath. "I'm going to have to carry you all the way there,” she notes. The girl falls silent as she mulls it over and works to absorb the reality.

  “This system believes that is the most effective course of action.”

  She nods. “O-okay… well look, then. If I’m going to put all this time and effort into restoring you, you need to start working on that ego. Start referring to yourself. ‘This system’ is getting pretty grating to listen to over and over. You’re going to have to do better than that if I’m going to haul your shit all the way to the academy out there."

  Carrie pauses, the register clicking away in thought. "If you wish to repair this… system, it would be… my recommendation," it answers experimentally.

  Clare just leans against the wall for a moment. This is going to suck. In fact, it's going to suck a lot more than she expects it will— and she's moved auto parts around the student workshop before, so she already has some fair idea.

  "Okay. Let's do this."

  She picks up Carrie's head, glowing out with a bright green, and stuffs it into her pack.

  "I cannot receive meaningful optical input when placed in this bag," a muffled Carrie
says with a slightly depressed inflection.

  Clare scoffs, pulls Carrie's head up just high enough for it to see, and ties the pack's tightening cord around it to hold it in place. "And how's that?"

  "I can now better judge our location. Good job, Clare."

  She raises her brows with some sarcasm before taking up the legs. At least this way she can use the light coming off its managraph to see. With trudging, struggling steps, the student limps along, hauling the two enormously heavy legs. She grows too weary with the two large appendages after only a few seconds, and soon switches to only one. Now properly encumbered— at least, relatively speaking— she downs the stairwell, crosses the library, and steps outside. The wide, open darkness of the lost kingdom greets her— and the vastness of it reminds her of the other automatons. She stares circumspectly across ominous gloom for a moment. Anything could be waiting out there.

  "Is something wrong, Clare?” the automaton punctuates her angst, its head poking out of her pack like a relic. “Enemy systems could spot us more easily from here."

  She sharpens her gaze with wide, perceiving eyes— and finally moves to do the smartest thing she's done since she first arrived here. Without a word, Clare shoves Carrie’s face into her bag to cover its glow, and turns off the clip light. No matter how faint the clip’s brilliance may be now, it’s still visible enough to be spotted at a distance when on.

  Carrie makes a small click from its register, angry sounding, but she knows it’ll have to get over it.

  Engulfed within the pitch blackness, Clare starts out from the doorway with Carrie's leg in her arms.

  Such a burden now rendering her hands useless, she is forced to feel about everything with her splinted foot— gently brushing along objects every few steps to reconstruct her mental picture. As time progresses, she discovers the layout of the Inner Echelon of the Royal Keep. Its academy, library, and otherwise, are all exactly as she remembers them— despite objects being in different places. These are the halls she walked just days ago in pursuit of her education— transformed into a theoretical nightmare scape which she must traverse for survival.

  Now in the academy's class halls, she knows she's close. The temptation to turn on her personnel light is great— as a palpable, looming dread is crawling up on her. She keeps herself from it, only with the sheer certainty that it could end up killing her. She can't wimp out and use the light; it would be the end of it all.

  She steels herself and starts forward, feeling along the wall until she hits classroom six: the workshop. She brushes around the side of the doorway, and sure enough the number 6 can be felt clearly on the brass panel next to the opening. No sooner does she step inside, however, then she steps in something.

  Her nose has gotten into the habit of ignoring all the horrible things it’s been dealing with for the past several hours— so she wasn't really privy to the dull, disgusting smell of ancient detritus. Clare's foot doesn't slip, or hurt when she comes into contact with it— but rather, it passes through the object.

  Understandably, she lets out a peep. It wasn't terribly loud, and it doesn't sound like anything nearby heard her. She waits an extra minute to be certain— then she reaches for her personnel light. She has to know.

  The light clips on— and the bare, thin outline of what she stepped in is revealed. She turns the light back off again with an empty gasp. She stepped into a human rib-cage. Very slowly, the lass pulls her foot up and out— and then passes the body. She hits another with the tip of her foot— and then another— and another as she walks on. She flicks her clip light on again, to discover a vast mess of old corpses— the flesh long off their bones. The shattered, crushed specimens are sprawled all across the entry floor— looking as though they all died just a few feet from the door.

  The clothing, tattered and drained of color, is recognizable as academy students.

  As if sharing in her consternation, this is as much as her clip light can handle. Its dim rays die out into the full blackness once more— this time, for good. There will be no more partial lighting. Unless she can find a magi-tech charger, she'll have to use Carrie's glow if she wants to see from now on.

  "Great," Clare snaps under her breath.

  "I don't see what's so great about all these bodies. Do you dislike people, Clare?" Carrie asks, its face poking cutely from the sack once more.

  "Quiet." She steps forward. "I know it's around here somewhere."

  After a bit of searching with her hands, she finds the frame equipment. It's in a different location in the room than it is within her own Everhold, but she's just glad she's found it.

  "Alright." She piles the leg and her pack up on the table. "That's the first load," she adds with a puff.

  "Are you leaving this system, Clare?" Carrie asks.

  "You'd be crazy if you think I'm gonna carry your head around each trip."

  "It may be dangerous."

  "I can find my way just fine, thanks." Clare starts off for the next round.

  The first trip back is a little difficult; finding her way in reverse in the perfect blackness has a few bumps along the way. She uses her feet and hands gently to find the path however, and before long she's back in the library with a large amount of Carrie's junk. She takes another leg and an arm this time— proving to be a little more manageable now that she's not carrying around that shockingly heavy head. Clare takes a smart moment and remembers to bring along the knife now that Carrie isn't hogging it. It makes her feel just a little bit better.

  The second trip is a success, and doesn't take nearly as long as the first now that she knows what to expect in her blind trail.

  "Welcome back, Clare," Carrie greets helpfully as she pops in.

  "Bye again," Clare retorts back simply with unceremonious humor. Her body is in notable pain at this point. She is starving, tired, and cold. Even still, there's a part of her that feels strong enough to see this through.

  Taking great care all throughout, she creeps for a second, third, and forth trip. There's a few occasions in which she hears a noise— but she couldn't possibly know what the sources are. There's a few dripping sounds, one or two scuffs, and... she's almost certain of it, the sound of something falling into the water of the shallows below. She can't know what it is and doesn't much care to at the moment. All she's focusing on here is being quiet. She's taking the torso now— the final trip with the heaviest part.

  The stairs are difficult to do quietly; she eventually decides on a half-drag while using her coat as a cushion. It diminishes the noise by a great deal— but the thumping still rattles her spine. She's so terrified of being heard, that she starts losing her cool again. Spending this much time about in the dark is not just scary— but maddening. In the last stretch of the academy, she hears just one more noise— this one just outside. Clare bolts as fast as she can, her breathing picking up with her already extreme heartbeat. The torso, once intensely heavy to her, suddenly becomes an afterthought resting on her shoulder.

  Like bared teeth out from the dark, Clare sees— or thinks she sees— shifting, readying figures manifesting. She thinks she can see, just barely, the merging, thin outlines of gray horrors— pulsating and writhing with disgust at her very presence.

  Clare considers herself a scientist— well-grounded in the realm of the observable and empirical— but even she believes in souls.

  "Please," she mutters in a solemn terror. "Just let me finish," she adds, as if speaking to the immense weight of the ten thousand ghosts pressing down on her.

  Almost expecting to be grabbed at any moment, she reaches her destination— and is met with the soft light of Carrie's green managraph.

  "I'm..." she gets up to the table and heaves over the torso. "I'm back."

  "Good job, Clare."

  She scoffs, looking behind her just a second with trepidation. Carrie's so much like a person now, it’s helping to calm her down somewhat. "Thanks."

  "Of course. Now this system assumes you are going to begin the repa
irs."

  She takes a moment and manages to close the door, lifting up on the handle to prevent the rusty hinges from creaking too loudly. Again, she feels safer. Despite everything, the mere psychological benefit of closing a door and sealing a room is enough to put her at ease. "You assume correctly."

  Operating under Carrie's light, Clare begins tinkering with the workshop tools.

  At an incredible turn of fortune, the mana batteries are still at high-capacity— still holding their charges for however long it’s been since they’ve been used last. She tries out the arc welder's trigger a moment with a mixed look of surprise and relief. She realizes she can probably recharge her clip light here too, so long as she can find the right equipment for it.

  She gets to work, her risen spirits helping distract her from the sucking pangs of hunger while she fuses together Carrie's pressure systems with methodical, slow crosses.

  - Chapter 22 -

  Oswald Carrington returns to the constabulary to find a group of eight of his cohorts waiting with concerned, covert gazes. Everyone stops the moment he opens the door, looking at him like he's intruding.

  The young man takes a breath. "Afternoon, everyo-"

  The white-mustachioed Police Chief, leaning into the front desk, addresses the boy with a nod. "We were just talking about you, Mister Carrington," he starts.

  Oswald snaps to attention. "Sir."

  The Chief just nods his head off to the side, leading to his office. "Let's talk."

  "Sir," Oswald says again, this time with an inflection of agreement, rather than addressance.

  The two step away, a few mumbles to the side from the other police officers. Creighton doesn't look all that perturbed, but most of the older gentlemen look completely beside themselves with disgust.

  Oswald and The Chief stop at the office door, far enough to be out of earshot. The older man offers his hand to the younger.

  "I'd like to be the first to congratulate you, special chief," he pulls his hand away and leaves Oswald with a key.

  "What's this?"

  The Chief's handlebar curls like a good-natured elder. "Why, it's your office!" I don't imagine that room's been opened in a few decades at least!"