relia-robot

Trans married robot/doll

[Robot/doll/moth/slime/NHP]-girl. DGN-001. I like writing!

See post-cohost writing at https://reliarobot.dreamwidth.org/, on tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/relia-robot-writes, or collected long-form pieces at https://reliarobot.itch.io/


caffeinatedOtter
@caffeinatedOtter
A fic in the Apparat setting. See also:

The rush and crackle of endless air carries Heavy Snow across Parahandrar's sky. It feels like plummeting more than flying, even as she knows the vanes and suspensors of her vacuum skin are cushioning her into a long, controlled glide. She has lived her life with the edges of her physical awareness safely curbed by urban walls — even more so, in the only intellectually known endlessness of space, a ship's hull enfolding her tight within.

Groundless, unwalled, the enormity of the world slaps at her from all sides as she falls.

She tries to watch her trajectory plot and approach counter, manages to manually trigger all the inflection points and suspensor braking that would, in any case, automatically action for her safety if she failed. Ion Twelve Horizon's ship, docked by its starboard airlock to one of Parahandrar's surface slopes, opens its port lock to the smooth tail of her course; she stumbles heavily through the transition back to her own feet, fetching up plastered to the inner door, shaking, knees weak.

Hello again! mechself indwelt-ship, her erstwhile office employee, says, and she tries to gather herself, feeling as though her mind has been torn open and swept clean by the endless streaming friction of the wind. Are you here for the stakeholder meeting, Spider in the White Steel Palace?

"No," she says, forcing her knees to take her weight. "That is not for us. A job together — a data broking job — like old times. If you agree."

Of course! the mechself says. What are we doing?

"Bargaining ourselves to mechself indwelt-Parahandrar as proofs of concept for breach of its security," Heavy Snow says.


"Befucked," Virid Hessh says suddenly, in a low snarl.

The axial corridor is little more than a catwalk threaded through unused space in a cluster of pipes and conduits running beneath the shipyard's crust. They are making time just as Virid Hessh's plan projected; Virid Hessh first, catlike and watchful, Ion Twelve Horizon in the middle, stiff and stoic, and Byla Olma in the rear, monitoring their wake for anyone following.

"Everyone double-check you've closed all connections to the ship," Virid Hessh says. "Security servos just swarmed it. Song Aloft, if you can maintain a faster pace, just for now, I would dearly like to be further away—"

"Nothing following us," Byla Olma says crisply.

Virid Hessh makes a flat, unreassuring noise of acknowledgement.

Some brisk distance further on, they pass a security servo, idle in a niche to the side, one of millions of precautionary measures scattered throughout Parahandrar for quick response to any point. Virid Hessh slows and stares at it.

"There is no mechself indwelt-this unit," she says, not looking from it but obviously addressing Ion Twelve Horizon. "Just a mechanism that operates autonomously, which can sensitise mechself indwelt-Parahandrar to problems, and become an instrument for its attention. See?" She gestures to its sensory apparatus. "As an autonomous unit, it sees me, and judges me no threat. But see it notice Song Aloft — see it begin to track her movements, as something of interest, and now, see? It must receive a signal that tells it nothing to look at. Not no threat, but nothing there — see how, after it's told, it begins to notice her again, because she is here? And so its autonomous mechanism cycles continuously, noticing, being told to forget, noticing...."

"Crude," Ion Twelve Horizon says, staring at it, eyes sharp and her tone an edge of cutting cold.

"Amateur work," Virid Hessh agrees. "But then, who is there that's both competent to work on Parahandrar in such a way, and would? Evidently this sufficed for long enough."

"Evidently not enough," Ion Twelve Horizon says, all teeth and narrowed eyes, gaze still on it.

"Song Aloft," Virid Hessh says. "We are here. We are nearly there and it is nearly time. Don't waste your anger on me."

The baby makes a fitful, upset noise. For a moment it could go either way, tailing back into cozy silence, or ratcheting into a steady flow of woe; and then it begins to cry.

"If I die here today, I'm going to blame you, Virid Hessh," Byla Olma mutters. "Not her; she'd never do any different, the high Apparat are all like this."

"Blame yourself," Virid Hessh tells her. "You came."

They pause — tense, preallocated minutes — while Ion Twelve Horizon kneels on the cold mesh of maintenance access catwalk within Parahandrar's crust, and cleans, dries, and re-dresses her nameless baby, while Virid Hessh and Byla Olma watch in opposite directions for a rush of security servos which does not materialise. The child is bounced and soothed into a state, for now, of continued contentment, and they continue as quickly as they can.

Finally they reach the correct junction of the axial corridor to leave it for narrow stairs and a breath-mistingly cooled chamber full of communications hardline endpoints, switchgear, and the great redundant monoliths of racked computation machinery.

"This is the security nexus?" Byla Olma says, raising her brows dubiously at it. "I imagined more...security."

"If this were a staffed nexus," Virid Hessh says, rolling her eyes, "then there would be people attempting to subdue us."

Byla Olma puts a fist on one hip, looks Virid Hessh up and down, and says, "Attempting."

"If I have to draw a weapon in earnest," Virid Hessh says, in a tone for patronising people who already know, "today has gone terribly wrong."

Byla Olma smiles, wide and sly. "Aren't we are both weapons, Virid Hessh?"

"And hasn't Song Aloft's entire shit gone terribly wrong?" Virid Hessh says, eyes darting as she performs mysterious actions within her insystem. "Befucked," she adds quietly. "The ship. I can't look too closely without attention, but — the mechself is offline, I think."

Ion Twelve Horizon raises a fist to her lips and bites on the knuckle.

"Always forward, sweetmeats," Byla Olma says. "Bestalwart."

"I am calling down a service elevator," Virid Hessh says. "Byla Olma, less talking."

"Some of us can talk and work," Byla Olma says, opening at her feet the anonymous-looking toolbag she has carried since the ship.

"Good idea; try." Virid Hessh sounds only annoyed by rote, and only half there, carefully watching things displayed out of anyone else's sight.

"Next time, darling morsel, just come to me," Byla Olma tells Ion Twelve Horizon, unrolling a neatly bundled maintenance uniform and kicking off her shoes. "None are better than Virid Hessh, but she's so annoying."

"No," Ion Twelve Horizon says, cupping a hand around the back of her baby's head and levelling an iron stare. "No next time," and Byla Olma lets it sit for a beat.

"Only a figure of speech," she says, and pats Ion Twelve Horizon's elbow before shimmying out of her shipboard dress and, as the droning sound of an approaching elevator becomes perceptible within the room, rapidly into the uniform. Dress and shoes go into the bag; a pair of low uniform boots come out and onto her feet. As the elevator clatters to a stop and opens onto the room, Byla Olma stuffs her hair into a peaked work cap, settling it jauntily, and picks up the toolbag.

"Well," she says. "I'll let the two of you know when it's safe to join me."

"Take a gun," Virid Hessh says quietly, still deeply engaged with Parahandrar's systems.

"Virid Hessh," Byla Olma says, stepping aboard the elevator, "delectable, piquant portion; you know I can't shoot," and she touches the button to close its doors.

A fic in the Apparat setting. See also:

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