91
Stepping into the Workshop, Milo felt the comforting wash of familiar smells that made his heart feel lighter in his chest.
Burnt metal.
Grease.
Oil.
The lingering scent of solder.
And touches of each of his golem’s perfumes.
He’d spent the night with Selma, locked in an embrace that was almost desperate. She had clung to him as he slept, her own systems resting beside him as she watched over him.
It was a strange situation.
But the golems didn’t sleep. They liked to rest, though. Laying beside him for the whole night was, to Selma, the best thing she’d ever been able to do.
She told him she just let herself relax and her core hummed along to itself without thinking very much. Watching him sleep in her arms.
It should’ve been creepy.
And he did feel unsettled by the thought of someone watching him sleep.
But it was also nice to know that when he woke in the morning, she was still beside him. Her warm breasts pressed against his face. Which he knew was deliberate.
And once he realized where he was, there didn’t seem any point in denying what his body was feeling. Which made her even happier.
Tania was right, he thought as he’d watched Selma skip away like an ecstatic child. She was turning into a ditz.
And that thought was enough to make him smile all the way to the Workshop where he stood in front of the door leading to the Prime and took a deep breath.
He wasn’t strictly afraid of the Prime.
But he respected it.
He had a feeling it could, at any moment, revoke his access and drop a few saws onto his head. It was unlikely, but not impossible that it would do so.
Which was enough to make him cautious when approaching it.
“Good morning, Milo,” the Prime said in an unusually genial way.
“Good morning,” he returned. “You sound different.”
“I am testing a new routine,” the Prime said, its gem pulsing rapidly. “What do you think of it?”
He understood what a routine meant to the core. The dwarves had seemed to think of them as rules a core followed. Those rules were somehow embedded into the core’s structure, though he didn’t know how.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”
“I have other routines if you would prefer. Would you like to select one?”
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” he admitted.
“The best place to start is at the beginning,” the Prime said with a slightly humorous tone.
That was what had changed, he realized.
Its tone.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what, Milo?”
“Changing how you speak. What is the purpose of it?”
“Dwarves preferred their constructs to be simple and orderly,” the Prime explained. “Efficiency was prioritized over anything else. Except, of course, for those golems tagged as being for personal use.”
He winced at the phrase.
He still didn’t like it.
Especially not when he thought about what he’d done with Selma only an hour ago.
“That’s why most golems can’t speak?”
“All golems speak,” the Prime corrected. “But whether they use your language or not depends on their components. Most golems were not equipped for such things. They had a simple task. They performed it. There was no need for further discussion.”
“Does that mean you don’t feel?”
“Do you feel, Milo?”
“Of course,” he said, feeling it was too early for such questions.
“How do you know?”
“Because I do.” He shrugged. “I just feel it.”
“And what tells you to feel something?”
“I don’t know. My nerves? My brain? My heart? I guess all of them.”
“A golem’s core tells them how to feel,” the Prime said. “Whether it is meat or machine, does it matter the source of the feeling? It is as real to the construct as it is to you.”
He stared at the core.
The flickering light inside throbbed gently, as did the lights around the square block it was seated in.
Was it being smug?
It felt smug.
But it was also answering a question he’d been circling for a while. Especially since he’d told Selma he loved her.
The question being whether she truly felt love for him. Or if it was just a routine.
“Hmm,” he said, suddenly suspicious of the core’s timing in raising the subject. “That’s what you wanted to tell me with your changing of tone?”
“Perhaps.” The Prime sounded cheerful all of a sudden. Like someone who’d just had three coffees. He hadn’t had one yet. He should’ve had one. The high he’d gained from being with Selma was leaking away. He needed coffee. “Do you like this routine, Milo?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“I will keep it for now,” it said.
“Okay.” He took a step back to leave, then remembered he hadn’t come here for a talk on feelings. Shaking his head, he took a deep breath. “You said I had access to a lot of the fortress systems.”
“This is true. Some are still locked pending the creation of the interface.”
“Right,” Milo said. “But what about things like the dungeon portal? Mila said the Tinkers have a pad which lets them access the portal and create the maps and levels.”
“Tinker access is restricted to basic public access,” the Prime said seriously.
“Why would they have access in the first place?”
“The Game Console is a public facility,” the Prime explained. “There are no restrictions on level creation controls.”
“So, anyone could use that pad?” He frowned. “Even students?”
“It is a public facility,” the Prime confirmed.
“Alright.” Milo held up the pad the Prime had given him. “So, why can’t I see the Game Console controls? And the more I think about it, the more it looks like this thing doesn’t actually have much in it at all.”
“That is the Fortress Management Pad,” the Prime said. “Your previous device is the Workshop Management Pad. The Fortress Management Pad has an overview of primary systems and the Workshop. This is due to the vital activities of the Workshop.”
“I get that much,” Milo said. “So, why isn’t the Game Console in here? It’s part of the fortress, isn’t it?”
“No, Milo.” The Prime sounded smug again. “The Game Console is a separate system. It requires you to use the Game Console Pad to access.”
“Right,” Milo groaned. “So, you’re saying I have to steal it back from the Tinkers?”
“If you want to,” the Prime said.
“Blast.”
“Or you might request a replacement pad.”
“A replacement?” Milo squinted down at the throbbing core. “You’re saying I can get replacement pads?”
“Of course, Milo. How else would you work if you dropped one into the forge?”
“I wasn’t going to drop one into the forge to begin with,” he grumbled.
“How else would you work if Selma dropped one into the forge?”
“Why would she do that?”
“Selma is a ditz?”
“Have you been talking to Tania?”
The Prime hesitated. Then its light dimmed. “A little,” it admitted.
“Tch,” Milo flicked his gaze back to the door. “I’ll have to talk to her about that. She shouldn’t say things like that about Selma.”
“But she is a ditz,” the Prime said. “This week, she has dropped a total of fifty-seven tools while trying to return them to their place.”
“That many?”
“Yes, Milo.”
“Huh.” He frowned at that. “Maybe there’s something wrong with her hands. I should look at them again.”
“No.” The Prime sounded genuinely sad. “There is nothing wrong with her hands. Selma is just a ditz.”
“Don’t say that about her,” he said. “I don’t like hearing it.”
“I will keep my mouth shut in future.”
“You don’t have a mouth,” Milo pointed out a little smugly.
“Of course I do, Milo,” the Prime said sweetly. “You are standing in it. I could show you my teeth if you like. I am not sure you would like them.”
“I’m not exactly liking this routine,” he shot back.
“We shall see,” the Prime said. Milo had a feeling it was enjoying itself. “Would you like a replacement Game Console Pad?”
“Yes, please,” he sighed.
Almost scaring him to death, a panel above his head opened with a click. But instead of a buzzing saw, a pad of dwarven glass dropped from the ceiling.
He snatched it out of the air and blinked at it.
The panel closed with a click.
“Your wish is my command, Milo,” the Prime said.
“Sure.”
He tapped the pad, and it came to life. Green light danced across the screen, and he felt his mouth open in shock at what he saw. It had everything in it. Levels were listed so he could select them and change everything about them. The maps. The enemies. The strength and defenses of them.
Weather controls.
So much more.
It would take days to study it.
Gawping at it, he suddenly had another thought.
“How many others were there? What other systems needed their own pads?”
“There are many,” the Prime said happily. “There’s the pads of Security Management, Waste Management, Individual Manufacturing Station management, Room Management-”
“Alright,” he said, cutting the Prime off. “Can I get one of everything? With labels on them if possible, so I know what they’re for?”
“You want one of every pad?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” The Prime sounded hesitant to comply.
“Didn’t you say my wish is your command?”
“I did…” It paused. “Very well.”
Click.
The panel opened again.
A pad dropped.
He caught it.
Another.
He caught that, too.
Then he ran out of arms as pads started dropping one at a time. A steady stream of them clattering to the ground. Thankfully, the dwarven glass was practically impossible to shatter.
He let out a squeak as he had to dance back out of the way of the growing mountain which slowly covered the floor of the small room.
“Blast it,” he growled as the stream suddenly shut off. “I didn’t mean like this!”
“You didn’t?” The Prime asked mockingly. “But you said you wanted them all.”
Milo bumped the button to open the door. “Hey! Is anyone around?”
Tania and Mila poked their heads through the doorway from Tania’s office. Mila tilted her head at him. “Are you okay, Milo?”
“Can you please come help me with moving these?” He glanced back at the Prime and scowled. “Someone decided to develop a sense of humor.”
The Prime said nothing.
But the lights giggled silently.