CHAPTER 20 ADRIA
CHAPTER
ADRIA
I don’t look back when I seal Kori inside Neo’s isolated cell.
I don’t even offer assurance that one of my soldiers will bring safe rations, though I obviously need her alive.
I let her wonder if I’ve abandoned any intent of protecting her altogether.
I let Neo be the one to attend to her broken, desperate sobs.
Nevertheless, I do promptly pay a visit to Kori’s originally assigned quarters, where Aspect will inevitably be awaiting her return.
So I suppose she was right about one thing: I’m not a monster.
And if even Neo can’t pry out the anguish of my parents’ deaths—or the cutting, deadly hope of Kori’s crash into my shattered world—I don’t know how I’ll ever become the monster the Shadowlands need.
It would be easier if Aspect were powered down when I dropped by.
I could leave them deactivated until reuniting with Kori, then send them both back to the Daylands and begin the slow, awful process of forgetting they were ever here.
But nothing is easy for me lately, so I of course find Aspect sitting, bright-eyed, on Kori’s bed, with my three-headed dog sprawled contentedly across their legs, all three heads snoring away.
My kingdom’s best technologists were able to repair Aspect’s better leg, preserving their last knee joint, but somehow, despite generations of advancing machinery and even supernaturally empowered telekinetics among my engineers, they didn’t have enough parts to replace the peg leg.
So, even now, brought back from mechanical amputation, the mech remains lopsided and utterly unconcerned.
The jointed leg simply crosses over the stiff one, my (freshly showered) dog utterly unbothered by his uneven metallic pillow.
The first robot Russ has ever met, and did he bare his teeth in my defense?
Did he growl or snarl? Tackle the intruder to restrain any threat?
Try to take a bite out of the crudely drawn face?
First and foremost, Russ was always intended as my guard dog.
And yet it seems, from the very first moment they bumped into each other, Aspect and Russ have been fast friends, the robot sneaking their way into my pet’s heart as surely as Kori invaded mine.
I don’t think I even retain the right to be angry about it.
Aspect is stroking each of Russ’s foreheads in succession, humming a little tune I don’t recognize, and so caught up in their idle self-entertainment, they almost don’t notice my presence until I deliberately clear my throat.
“Adria!” My name emerges from their simulated vocal cords as a startled squeak.
Russ stirs. Six heavy-lidded eyes open just enough to see me, determine I’m perfectly fine, and then close again, the snores resuming in earnest. “Adria’s triple dog—was triple tired—from playing—many games—with Aspect.
So triple dog went—to sleep. And Aspect does not need—to sleep. Aspect needs—company!”
“You’re welcome, I suppose,” I sigh, running a hand through my hair.
It’s grown longer and wilder with every passing sleep cycle.
And I’ve always fidgeted with it when I’m anxious, which is not what I am now.
I’m determined; I’m dutiful; I exist to carry forward my people’s purpose and nothing more.
“I considered it only appropriate to inform you that it may be … a short stretch … before you see Kori again.”
If Aspect had eyebrows to lift, they’d be stuck to the ceiling. “Is Kori—in trouble?”
Kori’s been in ever-increasing trouble since her ship first went down in my territory, but I don’t want to feed the machine’s neuroticism.
I suppose I’d be a bit of a wreck, too, if I’d gotten my entire personality from imitating Kori’s anxiety and a random assortment of memories—so I can’t entirely blame Aspect.
“Kori is perfectly fine,” I offer, which is more untrue than true; but I follow it up with “I need to be alone for a while, to focus on crushing this rebellion and stabilizing the Shadowlands,” which is more true than not.
Aspect nods. “So Adria can—keep Kori—safe.”
“Yes,” I agree, hating the honest force behind the word. “So I can keep her safe.”
“Can Aspect—help—keep Kori safe?”
“I think you’ve helped enough, don’t you?”
“Aspect was built—to help,” they proclaim, carefully sliding their legs out from beneath Russ, then moving to rise from the bed. They land unevenly with a sharp pop of their peg leg meeting the floor. “There is—no such thing—as too much help.”
I can’t help but smile at the foolish confidence. Given that Aspect’s idea of help left them missing one leg and separated from their maker, I’d say there’s definitely such a thing as an excess of that. “No such thing as too much help … That sounds like you read it somewhere.”
“Aspect does not—read, as Adria—reads. They do not—consume, only—receive.”
“Memories, you mean.”
This conversation I can handle; frankly, it may be the only conversation I can handle right now.
No emotional weight, no verbal sparring, merely straightforward points assembling themselves into a predetermined whole.
When Kori is finally gone from the Shadowlands, I may nevertheless miss Aspect. It’s so much easier to talk to someone
(or something) that won’t suddenly see you differently, even in the moments you can hardly bear to see yourself.
I ask, “And which memory programmed you with the value of help?”
At that, Aspect’s bouncing foot suddenly stops. They lift one mechanical hand to scratch their mechanical head—a learned gesture, certainly, but a startlingly human one. “Aspect.”
“Which memory of Aspect’s?”
Aspect’s optical processors cycle rapidly between on and off in a flicker of artificial light. “Not—a memory. Something—else.”
“A mirroring, then?”
Time seems to drag its heels through the ensuing swollen moment before Aspect says, slowly, every syllable clipped, “Aspect—programmed—Aspect.”
My stomach drops. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Neither—does Aspect.”
In keeping with the theme of my life as of late, this is technically my fault.
Kori confided in me from the start that her mission, and what had drawn her into my forbidden kingdom, was breathing being into a synthetic life-form, awakening Aspect to develop independently of manual programming and pilfered memory installations.
Of my own volition, I led Kori to the archives and oversaw the expansion of Aspect’s mechanical mind with my own people’s history.
And when that history set Aspect on the warpath with Kori, I returned the Morpheus sphere of pure hope originally offered by Lail, Kori’s trading partner.
When the installation showed no immediate effect, we assumed the experiment was a failure. But like any person, it seems Aspect simply needed time to absorb and apply this new information. In fact, the time needed seems to be the strongest indicator of all that this is really happening.
When we installed data about the Territory Wars into Aspect, they immediately pivoted all their perspectives, a sheer algorithm update.
But the hope sphere took time to sink deeper, shimmering, settling, and slowly lighting up every corner of the mech’s simulated mind. Finally, truly awakening it.
If Aspect is telling the truth about programming themself—and for all their faults, I’m not confident the mech would be able to lie successfully even at gunpoint—then this is what we wanted. So why do I feel terrible, sickening heat washing over me, like all the air in the room is shrinking?
I look at the optical processors, slowly blinking at my organic gaze, and I swear to the Beyond, I can feel them look back.
Two thoughts spear through me in rapid succession.
One: Kori should’ve been the one to see this. It’s like a stranger being the one to witness an infant’s first steps; it feels like as much a stolen experience as every memory plugged into Aspect’s mainframe.
Two: I already have a dayfolk girl in my prison quarter who’s accessed our archives, witnessed me nearly on my deathbed, forced feelings into every fissure of my armor as surely as the rebel’s freezeblade broke through, and even charmed my damned three-headed dog (as has her robot). I cannot afford another rogue element.
A robot having independent thoughts is about the least predictable thing that could be happening. Not to mention that thoughts are a mere half step away from feelings, and if I have to reckon with a single additional emotion anytime in this sleep cycle, I’ll collapse in on myself like an old cave.
Damn it all, I was born and built for open warfare at best, aggressive negotiations at worst. All these soft, tender, malleable feelings feel alien, parasitically sucking my focus.
A proper queen would crush the robot’s head like an overripe fruit, maybe tell Kori it was an accident if she wanted to be merciful.
But if there’s one thing that’s made itself unbearably clear ever since Kori first crashed out of my star-blown sky, it’s that I am a very different sort of queen than Pagomènos has seen before.
Not a daughter of the daylight, certainly.
But not a monster either. Just because the Diakópsei and my
parents blessed me with claws and teeth doesn’t mean my impulses will always match that potential for violence.
Try as I might, I’ve already disappointed my parents’ ghosts.
I kept Kori alive. I guarded her like a beggar would her last coin.
I think I can find a way to live with that disappointment, but when I consider squishing Aspect into metallic mush, I realize with startling clarity that worse than that, worse than anything I’ve yet endured, would be the knowledge that I’ve disappointed myself.