82
“No no no,” Selma grunted as Stonks lowered a heavy crate. “Not there! Over here!”
The big golem let out a droning brassy note.
“Alright, I’m sorry to yell at you.” Selma sighed. “I didn’t mean it. Please put it over here, Stonks.”
This time, he let out a stream of chittering gears.
“Alright. Stonksie. Please put it over here, Stonksie.”
The big golem’s pistons let out a huff of steam as he stood straight again and lumbered over to where she pointed and gently lowered the crate beside one of the manufacturing stations.
“Thanks, Stonksie,” she said, picking up a crowbar. “If you could put the others here, that’d be great. I’ll start unpacking.”
Selma carefully pried the crate apart to reveal stacked bottles of strange fluids, powders, and metals. She picked up a journal that listed which station required which ingredients, and began slowly sorting everything out.
Every item had to be poured out of their container into that station’s storage units designed to hold specific amounts of each ingredient. It wasn’t always easy to do. Especially with the fluids.
But she didn’t stop.
While she worked, Stonks returned again a few more times before letting her know that was the last crate.
She thanked him once more and waited for him to leave before continuing.
Some of the items were fun. She found one jar full of magnetic powder that made her fingers feel funny when she picked it up.
Giggling, she poured it into a vessel that sank down into the ground again under the station.
Everything automated.
Everything simple.
Just load it all up and press the button when it was done.
She was able to get a few stations started, which would please Milo in the morning, she hoped.
But some were still needing more material.
Unable to do any more for the night, she headed out of the Manufacturing Wing and into the Workshop where she saw the new golem still sprawled on the slab. It was nowhere near ready. Wiring dangled out of its belly. It didn’t look like her sister yet, so she wasn’t sure what to think.
She stood over it.
Poked the skull.
She wondered if this was what she looked like, once. Milo must have seen her like this, too. And thought of her as just a frame with some wires and gears. Maybe that was why he was having a hard time adjusting, she thought.
“Selma?”
Turning, she saw Mila, dressed in Milo’s coat over her underwear.
She wished she could wear Milo’s clothes, too. But they were too small for her. She knew that much. She’d tried.
She wasn’t quite jealous seeing the other golem in his coat.
But she did feel something stab her heart. Not that she’d ever show it.
“Hi, Mila. Is everything okay?”
“I was gonna ask you that.”
“Oh. I’m fine. I was just checking out Fed’s head.”
“That rhymes.” Mila giggled.
“It does?” Selma frowned. Then she smiled. “Oh, yeah. Fed’s head. Funny.”
Mila trotted up beside her and stared down at the incomplete golem. “Do you think he’ll like her, too?”
“He’s her engineer,” Selma said with a shrug. “So, of course he will.”
“I hope she’s nice.”
“She’s our sister,” Selma said. “It doesn’t matter if she’s nice or not.”
“I suppose.” Mila looked around at the Workshop. “It’s real messy in here.”
“Yeah. Milo was so busy he was falling asleep on his feet. Tania had to drag him out. So, he didn’t get time to put his tools away.”
“Hmm.” Mila brushed her fingers over the dwarven bronze frame. “It’s hard to believe we looked like this, too, isn’t it? It looks so ugly and cold.”
“Speak for yourself, sister,” Selma said with a sniff. “My frame is pretty.”
“Then I’ll pretend mine is, too.”
Selma put a hand around the smaller golem. “You and Tania are delicate little things,” she said. “Stop thinking ya ain’t cute enough.”
“I’ll try.” Mila sighed and shook her head. “I won’t think about it at all. I’ll think about something else. Like, how can I get out of my classes with Master Haddrow without making him feel bad again?”
“I thought you liked his classes.”
“They’re alright. It’s just he wants to teach me some spells. I don’t want to fail at them or he’ll think it’s his teaching that’s bad. Or think I’m defective.”
“You ain’t defective.”
“I know. But how can I fake spells?” Mila looked up at Selma. “We’re all gonna have to do it sooner or later. If the Mage Court forces us to do proper missions, people are gonna see what we do.”
“Milo knows that. He said he’d think of something.”
“But he’s got heaps on his head,” Mila said. “We oughtta help him, right?”
“I don’t know how, Mila. I ain’t an engineer.”
“Well, I was thinking. If we try making what we do look magic, it’d be better for us, right? It doesn’t have to be magic. It just has to look like it. Like what I did with the grenades. They look like rocks so they blast apart. We need more ideas like that.”
Selma scratched her head. “Well, I’m supposed to be a lightning mage, right? What’s it called?”
“Electromancer.”
“Right. That.” Selma tapped her chin. “Belt’s one of them. He’s been doing all kinds of things with lightning. Like, he makes it go up and down his arm and then into his fist. And that guy, Jin. He had it all over his weapon.”
“See? Maybe we can try doing that!”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” Mila said, shaking her head. “But I bet there’s all kinds of stuff in the new archive. Maybe we can find something Milo can use to modify us?”
“Ya think?”
“Sure. Why not? Tania and I have blades in our arms. And Tania’s got some poison darts. There’s gotta be some other tools we can adapt.”
“She’s supposed to be an earth mage…”
“Geomancer,” Mila corrected. “And I’m an arcanomancer. So, no one expects much from me, but I was thinking if I put some kind of mana rifle into my arm, I could shoot mana bolts from my palms, and no one would know that it wasn’t magic.”
“Huh.” Selma smiled at Mila. “That’s kinda smart.”
Mila blushed brightly. “Do you think so?”
“Yeah, I do.” Selma glanced at the archive. “We could start going through it some more, I guess. Tania and I catalogued a lot of it, but I don’t think we were checking it from that angle. It’s a good idea.”
“Right?” Mila grinned. “And Milo would like it, wouldn’t he?”
“He would.”
“So, let’s find a few options and see what he thinks.”
“Let’s do that.” Selma felt a warm feeling fill her heart. She’d begun to think she couldn’t help Milo with anything except cleaning and lifting.
She knew she was a bit of a ditz, but also hoped she could prove she wasn’t entirely a ditz.
If she could find some modifications for herself before he had to go looking for them, then he’d know she wasn’t as dumb as she felt when she was around him. It wasn’t her fault that her brain stopped functioning near him.
He just smelled nice.
Looked nice.
And acted nice.
It drove her crazy.
It was an opportunity, then. A great opportunity, in fact. And, while she wished she’d thought of it herself, she was still proud because Mila had thought it up and shared it with her instead of with Tania.
Tania didn’t need those kinds of advantages.
Tania had her own.
Scooping the smaller golem into a hug, Selma squeezed Mila until she let out a little squeak.
“Eep! Selma! Can’t breathe!”
“You don’t need to breathe,” she reminded her.
“Not the point!”
Letting the other golem go, she patted Mila’s head. “Thank you, Mila. I’m real grateful.”
“For what?”
“Letting me in on your plan. You coulda just done it all yourself and taken all the credit. I mean, it’s your idea.”
“Why would I do that?”
The genuine tone made Selma smile again. “See? You’re cute as buttons.”
“You’re teasing me now,” Mila pouted.
“No. I ain’t.” Selma put an arm around the smaller golem and sighed contentedly. “Alright. Here’s the plan. We tidy up the place. Put all of Milo’s tools back. Hopefully, we’re smart enough to put them where they belong.”
“I can do that.”
“We can do that. Together. Then we go check out the archive. Together. And in the morning, together, we show him what we got.”
“Do you really think he’d like it?”
“Sure.” Selma lifted her finger adamantly. “And then we extort him.”
“Extort him?” Mila’s eyes bulged. “I can’t do that!”
“Of course you can.” Selma tapped her chest. “You just follow my lead, sister. We’ll show him what we did and what we got and then, while his defenses are down, we pounce! Like panthers!”
“Huh?”
Selma showed her fingers like claws. “Because I figure it’ll be worth at least two.”
“Two?” Mila looked more confused.
“You think three?”
“I gotta be honest. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Selma.”
“Kisses,” Selma said seriously.
“You want to extort him for kisses?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Mila gulped. Then she nodded just as seriously. “Okay. I can do that.”
They high-fived, because now they had a plan.
And then they went to work.