76
Milo tossed his coat over his stool and turned back to the skeletal construct on the slab. He scratched at his hair before flipping a screwdriver in the palm of his hand.
“Alright,” he told the Machine Frame. “Let’s get you finished today.”
It was an unlikely goal, but it was good to have one.
As he started digging through a trolley of parts, he felt a buzz in his heart which made him feel good. The clocker in him was pleased to be putting together another golem.
He’d missed it.
While the little spider golems had been fun, the more complex humanoid golems were a real challenge. The process of creating them let him sink into that familiar state of absolute concentration which was like a fluffy blanket around his mind.
Hours could pass easily.
Too easily.
In the background, he played recordings of dwarves ranting. The sound of their language was helpful. He repeated sentences sometimes.
But mostly he listened absently when he could.
He looked up once as one dwarf started talking about the latest golem he was working on. He was calling it his daughter, which Milo couldn’t decide if it was creepy or wholesome.
He didn’t sound creepy.
But everything he knew about dwarves said they were perverts of the highest order so he winced and changed to a different recording.
He assembled part of the new golem’s leg when he looked up to wipe some sweat off his brow to see Mila perched on his stool. She had his coat around her shoulders and was sniffing the collar with an odd vacant look on her face.
He stood straighter. “Are you alright?”
“Eep!” Mila flicked the collar away from her face and blushed shyly at him. “What? I’m fine! How are you?”
“I’m fine, too.”
“I was cold.”
“Cold?” He didn’t think golems felt the cold in the same way as he did. He knew they had an ability to tell temperature. He’d built the little components for that himself.
But he didn’t think they actually felt it.
After all, Selma wandered around in a flimsy little mesh bikini all the time. Even out into the wind and rain. They’d also done a snow dungeon where he’d almost frozen to death and his golems had all merrily pranced through it like it was sand on a sunny beach.
Squinting at the small golem, though, he noted she did shiver a little.
“Do you want me to look at your temperature gauge?”
“N-n-no,” Mila said, hugging his coat tighter around herself. “I’m fine! I just feel cold more than normal. That’s all.”
“Okay,” he said dubiously. “But if something’s wrong, just tell me.”
“I will.” She smiled widely. “Thank you, Milo.”
He nodded. He turned his regard back at the frame. It didn’t look like he’d done all that much in the past few hours. But the foot joints weren’t easy around the toes. There were more joints than a human had.
“I’ll have to buy you a new coat,” he said absently.
“It’s alright,” Mila said. “I don’t mind.”
“But if you’re cold.”
“I don’t mind,” she repeated firmly.
He picked up a couple of small nuts and gave her one more look. “Are you my babysitter today? If you are, it’ll be boring for you. I’m not doing anything else today except assembly.”
“You’re not a baby, Milo,” She giggled. “And it’s not boring watching you work.”
“I feel like a baby,” he grumbled, thinking about how they still insisted on feeding him.
He started working the nuts onto bolts in the frame, ensuring they were greased, then tight. He used soft washers which helped soften the impact as the golem moved. He didn’t know what they were made of. Some kind of rubber. But it felt stronger and more durable.
He’d noticed even Stonks had them and they’d lasted centuries before Milo replaced them out of caution.
Compared to Tania and Mila, though, this golem had less structural reinforcement and dampening. It was clear as he worked that she was not made to be as durable as the others.
Instead, much of her frame was built around protecting the inner workings of her chest which looked like they would have a lot more inside. It made him wonder what kind of personality she would have.
Which made him pause again.
Did the Machine Intelligence Matrix define the personality?
It seemed likely.
If that was the case, did that mean if he removed Tania’s Machine Intelligence Matrix, would her personality change? Would she not be Tania anymore?
This made him glance at Mila.
Her personality when she was Fulka had been a little more reserved. Which she still maintained, though it had warped into something more like shyness.
But Fulka had been an act. A disguise she’d worn to get close to Fergus. So, Milo couldn’t really use that as an example of how the cores affected their personality.
The only way he could be sure was to remove one of their cores and replace it.
And while the idea sounded reasonable to the clocker side of him, the human side balked at it.
If he changed Tania now, he’d feel like he’d lost something.
Especially after…
He gulped. Had they really done that?
He hadn’t spoken to her about it directly. But she seemed a lot happier now. She bounced around him with a lighter step, if that were at all possible. And, he noticed, she didn’t lift her skirt as much to tempt him to look at her coochie.
It was like that had been her version of flirting.
And now she knew he was interested, she’d calmed down and was more normal. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He almost missed it.
Pressing the screwdriver to his chin, he suddenly realized this might be a game to her, too. Maybe now they’d done that, she was now hiding herself from him to make him come back for more.
The idea was tempting.
He felt his cheeks warm, and his lower body was certainly interested.
It grew even more interested as the door to the Workshop hissed open and Tania flounced in with a heavy box in her hands and the look of a woman on a mission.
“Milo!” She put the box down on his workbench. “We need your help. I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s important.”
He stood, stretching his back and glanced at the box. “Is it really?”
“Yes,” she said seriously, lifting the lid open. “Please?”
How could he refuse?
He found himself smiling at her. Since that night, he couldn’t stop smiling at her. If he was a golem, he’d think he needed to check the gears in his face because they might be broken.
“Alright.”
Selma came out of the unlocked Supplemental Archive One. Milo had sent her in to see what was in there and give him a catalogue if she could. It wasn’t a job he’d normally assign to her, but she looked pleased to have been asked.
And she was taking it seriously, he noted.
She’d grabbed a little journal and a pencil and had already mostly filled it with notes and observations.
“Did you get them?” Selma moved up next to Tania and poked her nose into the box. “Oh, hey! You got the rosy one.”
“You said you liked it,” Tania said.
“Yeah, but you said it was too rosy.”
“So? Just because I think it’s gross, doesn’t mean Milo will.”
“It’s not gross,” Selma said, not taking offense. “It’s delicate. Like me.”
“Sister, you’re as delicate as Milo’s hammer. Not the little one. The big one over there.”
“Really?” Selma twisted her face trying to think if that was a good thing or not. “Thanks?”
“Did you get mine?” Mila asked, her voice barely above a squeak.
“Sure I did,” Tania confirmed. She looked Mila up and down. “Is that Milo’s coat?”
“I was cold?”
Tania stared at Mila. For a moment, Milo thought there’d be trouble.
His knowledge of women was that they got jealous easily. This was proven often when he spoke to another girl, like to Vesna.
But he didn’t want his golems to feel jealous of each other. That would become unbearable. He felt a short grip of fear clutch his heart and wondered if maybe he should’ve rejected Tania for the good of their family.
He opened his mouth, ready to cut off any argument.
But then she shrugged and patted Mila on the head. “Alright. Don’t get it dirty.”
“I won’t!”
“Milo?” Tania turned to him and smiled with a bright twinkle in her eyes. “Come over here, ya handsome lug. Help us out.”
He put the screwdriver down and stepped closer, letting her grab his arm and pull him towards the box. A heady mix of floral and citrus smells hit him hard, and he blanched. “What is this?”
Tania reached in and pulled out a delicate little glass bottle. “Perfume.”
“Perfume?” He blinked at her. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“Milo, you’re an engineer. Don’t be an oil can.” She handed one to him. “We need ya to test them, of course. Selma found some blueprints which will let us use perfume. So, you’ll need to operate on us again.”
“What?” He turned to Selma, who nodded at him.
“I found lots of stuff,” she confirmed. “You’ll be real happy, Milo.”
“Right. But, perfume is what you want?”
“Why not?” Tania asked. “A gal likes to feel pretty, Milo. And we can’t use perfume on our skin.”
“It gets greasy,” Selma explained. “And stains our golemskin.”
“And it’s itchy,” Mila put in, making the others nod.
He glanced at the golem on his table. “Yeah, but is it that important?”
Tania grabbed him by the cheeks and turned him to face her. Leaning down, she pecked him on the lips. “Milo, it’s the most important thing to us today.”
His tongue slid out and wiped across where she’d kissed him.
Selma giggled.
“Alright.” He sighed, accepting he was done with his golem building for the day. “Where do I start?”
Selma’s hand whipped out before Tania’s, and she snatched up a small pink bottle. Plucking the cork lid out, she shoved it into his face, and he was immediately almost choked by a cloud of rose-smelling perfume strong enough to knock out an elephant.
“What about mine, Milo?” Selma asked. “Is it pretty? Is it delicate? I got others, too, but is this one nice? Huh? What do ya think?”
He gazed up into her frenzied eyes which pleaded at him to like it.
Then to Tania, who was smirking.
And Mila, whose eyes were wide in anticipation.
Suddenly, he had a feeling he had to be very careful with what he said.
One wrong word, and the best thing he could do would be to wander into one of the lower level rooms and step on a trap. Because getting diced up with a buzzsaw would be better than upsetting any one of these girls.
Girls.
Not golems.
He sighed and reached out and took the bottle from her fingers. “Slow down,” he said. “Let’s just take them one at a time. Alright?”
Selma’s eyes sparkled with adoration. “Okay.”