Kick the Sphere 19 (Patreon)

A/N: I will be gone for the better part of next week for my important finals. Wish me luck. (4/22~4/29).

---

Kick the Sphere

Chapter 19

-VB-

One day, the Big Boss gathered every one of the orphan members.

Turry knew that because the orphans who blabbed about what happened inside the compound weren’t invited at all. Not a single one of them.

It showed that the Big Boss saw what happened inside his own town, and he wasn’t going to reward anyone for betraying him like that.

“Good morning, guys and girls. How are all of you doing today?”

“Sleepy,” Turry replied with a bit of cheek and a grin. The Big Boss grinned right back.

“Well then, my next announcement should wake you right up. How many of you are interested in piloting spaceships?”

Almost immediately, everyone’s hands shot up, Turry’s included.

Hell yeah, this was what everyone’s been hoping for ever since they saw the mechs and the spaceships! It’s one or the other for everyone in here. As for those who didn’t… Turry noticed that he didn’t see any of the orphan members of the Marris Company who wanted to play house or cook for everyone. He supposed that was fine. Someone had to cook, someone had to clean, and someone had to fight.

The Big Boss looked surprised. “Oh. I thought a lot of you wanted to be mechwarriors.”

Who didn’t? Turry didn’t know much before, but he saw back then that battlemechs were the kings of the battlefield, and he who rules the battlefield rules the world, just as the Big Boss showed them. Now, he knew better.

He who controlled the biggest fleet of ships controlled all.

He learned about what was happening out there in the “Inner Sphere” from Janice and the others. Hell, even some of the old geezers knew about it, though they didn’t like to talk much. People fought in those battlemechs, but what use was a battlemech when Alan’s ships can just shoot them down before they even touch a planet?

Instead of a hulking battlemech, he now wanted a giant battleship that could ignore everyone’s guns and plow on through everything like a battering ram!

-VB-

Kar98k looked around.

This place possessed a mixture of science-fiction technology and aesthetics and a rundown primitive undertone that didn’t quite mash well. It was also clear who the locals were and who weren’t, even among the “crew” that the General ran.

To be honest, she didn’t see a mercenary band that wiped out a dozen bandit clans (she saw the recordings “Sabrina” gave her access to). Sure, it had all of the trappings of a military camp … at a glance. The kids all followed orders, cleaned the compound, wore uniforms (a recent thing, she’s been told), and worked toward what they were told was part of something greater than they were (at least, told to those who understood the concept). She couldn’t cal this place an orphanage because it clearly wasn’t and the five T-Dolls she managed to talk to in her short life so far didn’t think of the children as anything more than a member of their organization… or spies at worst.

So this wasn’t a heartwarming place, even though there was a lot of good being done here.

After all, bad or greedy people wouldn’t feed all of these children as much as they wanted (provided they did work).

She’s yet to meet this General that supposedly made it all happen because he was in space trying to test out weapons.

Space.

She still couldn’t get over that, by the way.

Space.

And there was supposed to be a whole human civilization spanning hundreds of worlds out there?

It beggared belief.

And … put everything that was part of her base code to be useless.

T-Dolls were built for war, and soldiers needed at least a basic knowledge of the world, especially when T-Dolls weren’t automatons like Cyclops. That knowledge, programmed into her base code, told her just how ridiculous everything was.

But it was her world now (unless this was some kind of simulation to determine her viability) so she would have to adapt.

“How are you doing?”

Kar98k turned around and saw SPAS-12. “SPA-... Sabrina,” she corrected herself and greeted the senior T-Doll with her chosen name.

“Sabrina” smiled. “Just looking around the compound?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It is … a very odd place, even by the standards of independent commanders.”

“Yes, it is very different,” the shotgun-wielding T-Doll hummed in reply. “But this is nothing compared to where the original five of us were born.”

Kar98k raised an eyebrow before pointedly looking at a giant skyscraper that was a manufacturer and her birthplace.

“Yes, even more wild than that.”

“How much…?”

“An entire underground city.”

“... That is very odd.”

Sabrina hummed. “Humans are odd. You know that.”

All T-Dolls knew that.

“So?”

“... It’ll be interesting to see what kind of leader built a town like this.”

“I know, right? The original five of us were with him from the start,” she began again. “Trust me, you’ll-”

-VB-

“You’re lost.”

Kar98k found herself disappointed with the man in front of her. He was the General, alright. He had the ambition and dreams of a leader.

However.

It was an ambition and dream without foundation, without substance, and without philosophy.

“What do you mean?” General Alan Marris asked.

“You don’t know what you want. All of this that you’ve accomplished so far was because you needed to do it, not because you wanted to.”

The General stared at her before leaning back slightly. “I guess you could call what I am a little lost, yes,” he replied, which made her tense. “I found myself with a power that goes beyond the wildest dream of most,” he began. She knew about that; it wasn’t a secret among the T-Dolls. “Yet I am also in a universe where humans would rather nuke each other than let someone advance technologically. My entire existence is antithetical to the current era. I had to survive, so I fled here to a desolate and abandoned world, only to find those threats finding and attacking me.”

“And you think sending out weapons of mass destruction is a good idea.”

“... I personally don’t think I am a good man,” he replied. “Not good but also not bad. I only act in kind.”

“Fair, but that is what I mean. You have the means to do so much as you yourself said,” she pointed out. “But instead of looking for ways to fix what you can, not everything but just things you can, you are just contributing to what you dislike and drove you here.”

The general looked contemplative.

She gave him a salute. “Thank you for listening to me, sir.”

“Don’t worry. I’m more than happy to hear some of this. The other T-Dolls are …”

“They love you and cannot find fault with you right now.”

He sighed. “I didn’t think they actually loved me.”

She shrugged. “It is what I saw. Perhaps not a romantic kind of love for all of them, but there is definitely love there. Platonic love, perhaps? Love born of camaraderie and trust? Whatever the case… they are not sources of objective communication or judgment. I am more than certain they will happily kill infants if you give the order along with very good reasons.”

“I see.”

She hoped that he truly did see it because she was leaving her life in his hands.

“Before we go deeper into this…”

“Yes?”

“For what purpose will I exist?”