5. Prisoner (Patreon)

A/N: HA! NOBODY EXPECTS AN EARLY CHAPTER FROM NATALIE! Muahahahaha! Ahem. Uh. Usual content warnings for this story, thanks and enjoy!

"I have to tell Mel about this," Thea decides, and terror crashes through my body. No. No no no. This is my one shot, my one chance. Melpomene can't know. 

And perhaps more importantly, she wouldn't want to know. 

Thea stands up to exit the room and my hand snaps out and grabs her by the forearm, my head twisting to stare straight at her. She can't know I failed. I don't want her to know I failed. She'll be disappointed. Maybe even angry. And she'll work against this progress towards freeing me but don't think about that don't think about that!

Thea flinches, my sensors warning me about a dangerous surge of magical power as Thea stares at me, her eyes wide with terror. But then she takes a deep breath, and puts her free hand over my own. 

"...Did you want to come with me?" she asks. 

I don't respond. I can't respond. Thea glances towards the devices she set up earlier and frowns. 

"Green magic, huh?" she mutters. "So you're… afraid of something. You're afraid of me telling her. Why?"

I can't answer that. I can't say anything. But I can stare, and I can hold her wrist, and I can keep her here so that Melpomene never has to know. 

"Melpomene can be a little scary, huh?" Thea says with a soft smile, turning to face me fully. "She's a very intimidating person, and she can be a little snappy sometimes. She's under a lot of stress, you know? But you don't have to be afraid of her, I promise. She'll help you! I know she will." 

What? No. No, no, no, no…

"She's helped me with a ton of things!" Thea continues, oblivious to my mounting terror. "I owe her a lot, and she's really smart. She'll know what to do."

A loud rattling sound rings out through the room that I realize is me, my body quaking in terror. I can't let this chance slip away, I can't. Melpomene won't help me, she's my master. I only help her. Never the other way around. 

"Come on, let's go," Thea says, rubbing my hand reassuringly. "It'll be alright."

Slowly, agonizingly, I stand up to follow her. Because Thea is my master, too, and she has told me to go. It's over. I'm doomed. 

Putting her little devices back into her pockets, Thea leads me out of her workshop and through the halls of the castle. I barely pay attention to where we're going, my fear draining away into despair. I tried. I got close. But ultimately, there wasn't a lot I could do. I shouldn't feel bad. I was doomed from the start. 

My power reserves have increased to 33%. Man, I'm fuel-efficient. 

Thea leads me to a fairly large door, rapping on it with the back of her hand. 

"Hey, Mel?" she calls out. "You in there?" 

"Yes, dear, how can I help you?" Melpomene's voice calls back. 

"I, uh, sorry. I normally wouldn't bother you, but I wanted to talk about my findings, I guess. Um, whenever you're done." 

Done with what? There seems to be some extremely humid air leaking out from behind the door. That's kind of weird. 

"Thea, honey, you're more than welcome to come in if you want to talk," Melpomene says. "I'd love your company." 

"O-oh, um, okay? If you're sure?" Thea says, blushing furiously. 

"Of course I'm sure." 

"Uh, a-alright. I'm coming in, then." 

Thea opens the door, and my confusion about this entire situation is immediately banished when I see Melpomene sitting butt-naked in an impromptu bathtub. Well, I say ‘impromptu,’ but it's clearly a bathtub and clearly has been set up here with purpose. It just isn't attached to any water pipes; it’s sitting in the middle of the room on little brass legs where it must have been filled with boiling water by hand, and will need to be dumped of used water by hand as well. 

I look away immediately out of a mixture of embarrassment and politeness, but the image of her lounging inside it remains just as clear in my mind, sending my emotions haywire in every direction. She's gorgeous, unnaturally so. As if every imperfection was airbrushed off of her in post. I know my body would be reacting in countless uncomfortable ways right now if it were still made of flesh, but I’m no longer capable of that sort of thing. Yet still, the lack of physical reaction doesn't stop the instinctive yearning, the desire to stare against all propriety, the need to reach out and touch if only I could. 

Thea is being shown this intimacy because the two of them are so close. Because they trust each other, care about each other, and have lived with each other so long that the walls between them have dissolved into the past. I’m being shown this because I’m a pet.

“So, what is it, dear?” Melpomene asks. “And close the door, you're letting cold air in.”

Thea and I both move to shut the door at the same time and end up bonking into each other. Melpomene snorts out a surprised burst of laughter. 

“Apologies,” Melpomene chuckles while I move to close the door. Thea is busy rubbing her forehead. “That was adorable.”

Thea grumbles in half-hearted protest, her brown-blushing face trying to find a place for her eyes to settle other than Melpomene’s chest. I guess we're all hopeless lesbians here. Go team. 

“A-anyway,” Thea manages, “my findings. They're… really concerning. I wanted to talk with you and get your advice, maybe try to figure out a plan.”

“Hmm. Alright,” Melpomene says, sitting up straighter. “It's that serious, hmm?”

“Yeah, I’m uh. Well, I’m almost entirely certain that this robot is sapient. She's powered by magic but the magic comes from… nothing. She's not gathering it from the environment, she's making it herself. She has a soul.” 

“...I see,” Melpomene hums. “That is concerning. Are you sure it's not something like an animal soul?”

“The amount of magic generated from an animal soul would be less than the power cost of whatever structure was being used to harvest it,” Thea says. “And it's not just the soul thing; her ability to interpret complex commands and act on them with minimal instruction is… I mean, at minimum she’d have to be an AI far more advanced than anything humanity has produced.” 

“Is that true?” Melpomene says, turning to me. “Do you think? Do you feel?”

I don't react. I can't.

“Hmm,” Melpomene frowns. 

“Yeah, I was running into the same problem,” Thea agrees. “She doesn't react to things like that, but still…”

“Massage my shoulders,” Melpomene orders. Thea blinks in surprise as I move to do just that, bitter anxiety and unwanted anticipation moving within me. I wonder if arousal counts as an emotion I can burn away. I'm a fucking robot, what good does it—

My crystalline components are currently configured for magical energy attuned to blue/sadness/south. Arousal, a north-northwest aligned power source, would be unlikely to reach higher than 10% efficiency with the current configuration. I could do it, but it wouldn't be worth much unless I had a lot of it to burn.

—do me oh okay. Y'know what, sure. It's wasted either way, right? And frankly, I'd rather feel as little of it as I can. 

Carefully, fearfully, I put my hands on her shoulders. I know more or less what I’m doing; my mom had a bad back, so she taught me how to help with this kind of thing. What I’m afraid of isn't the action, but the touch, the intimacy. Even while I burn her beauty as fuel, it's difficult to ignore. My hands might not feel the same way they used to, but my mind remembers the qualia of a woman’s skin, if only thanks to my own. From the heat radiating off of her, to the softness of her back, to the way my peripheral vision can't avoid the fullness of her beauty, I can't help but think about how this would have been like a dream to me, if I didn't hate this woman so unbearably much. I start to knead her muscles, careful with the amount of pressure I place on them, and the sound she makes fits the fantasy so well I could puke. 

Disgust is southwest-aligned. Efficiency estimated at seventy-five percent or greater. But no, let's keep that one as-is. I'd rather feel it. 

“I see your point,” Melpomene says. “It definnnnnnn! Ah. Definitely some advanced problem-solving ability. Oh, god, that's good.”

“Um,” Thea squeaks.

“We're running into the same question as before,” Melpomene explains. “This is Antipathy technology. So how does it understand human anatomy so well? Even if it has knowledge of the human form from whatever process constructed it, how can it figure out how to do something as complex and specific as this without some level of understanding? If we wanted to program an AI to give back rubs, we could probably do that, but an AI that can give back rubs to a completely arbitrary unknown species?”

I mean that or you just wanted your slave to give you a back rub, but sure, I can kind of follow your logic there. Thea completely buys it, of course. 

“O-oh!” Thea says, her smile returning. “Yes, exactly! She can't just be a weapon, she's way too advanced for that. I’m worried that she might be… well, basically a newborn. An AI that just started existing. We… we could potentially be raising a kid right now.”

What. I… what!? No, damn it! I'm not a child, I'm a victim! 

"Mmm. You think it doesn't respond to some things because it doesn't know how yet?" Melpomene asks. 

"Yeah," she nods. "I mean, you said you found a device that constructed her, right? We don't really know exactly how our brains evolved to encourage the generation and development of a soul, but it's not unreasonable to consider that the Antipathy may have managed to create an artificial version of it. True AI. A person. Designed to be a servant, maybe, but should we treat her that way?" 

"Hmm," Melpomene considers. "I agree that is possible."

"Do you… not agree that's what she is, though?" Thea asks hesitantly. I continue kneading the stress out of my tormenter's back, seething about the lies she's about to tell to trap me here again.

"It doesn't quite add up," Melpomene confirms, tapping the side of the tub with a finger. "Think about it: this is the Antipathy we're talking about. If they had the ability to generate artificial souls at will, how do you think they would use that ability?" 

"...Oh," Thea says quietly. "Oh, god, yeah. It would be everywhere, wouldn't it? Factories of them, tortured and drained for power."

"Exactly," Melpomene nods. "But that's not what we see here. This is unique, so far as we know. Artisanally crafted. Designed specifically to house a soul in whatever receptacle the user of the device desires, then compelled to obey whatever orders the user desires." 

"Oh," Thea whispers. "Oh no, you think…"

"Yes. The soul has to come from somewhere, after all."

"You think someone's trapped inside there?" Thea hisses. 

What… what's happening? Why is Melpomene telling the truth!? She's straight up admitting that I'm a person, that I'm suffering, that I need help. I can feel some of my prior restrictions falling away in light of this new narrative. Did I misjudge her? Thea was so confident that Melpomene would help me, but I just dismissed it out of hand. I squeeze her shoulders a little tighter. I barely even know this woman. Maybe all she needed was a nice bath to mellow out a little. 

Or maybe she's just setting me up to fall even harder. 

"If you're confident in your readings, then that's the explanation that makes the most sense to me," Melpomene confirms. "And you're right: this could be a major problem. After all, if this is some sort of Antipathy prison, the soul inside it could very well be one of the last surviving Antipathy."

Thea covers her mouth in shock as Melpomene says those words, looking towards me with terror in her eyes. Ah, there it is. I was right after all. 

"Yes," Melpomene nods, looking at Thea's face. "And not just any Antipathy, either. After all, what sort of person would other Antipathy put in prison? Given what little we know of their culture…" 

God fucking damn it. You bitch. You absolute bitch. 

"I… it doesn't necessarily mean that they're a monster," Thea says. "Maybe they were imprisoned for fighting against what the Antipathy were doing! Maybe they're good!"

"Hmm. Maybe," Melpomene allows, turning her head to glance back at me. "You. You know how to shake your head and nod, yes? You respond to English so I imagine you can do that much. You may nod to indicate yes and shake your head to indicate no. Do you understand?" 

My fingers are still squeezing the stress from her back, straining at the upper limits of the force I'm allowed to crush her with, trying to find a way to convince myself to hurt her more. I nod. 

"Tell me," Melpomene orders, "if you could kill me, would you?" 

Oh, fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you! I nod, because I have to nod, because I must nod. I don't want to be a killer. I don't want to hurt anyone, by and large. But this woman? My slaver? Yes. All of human history tells me it would be justice. 

And that's exactly what she wants. 

"Hmm. Well, Thea, if it's all the same to you I think I'd rather keep the chains on our little prisoner for now," Melpomene says with a scowl. "Excellent work though, dear. You may have just saved my life."

My body shakes, rattling with a fury I can no longer contain. It helps to sell Melpomene's story, even as I continue loosening her muscles, my thumbs driving into her back to push out knots of tension. Is this really it? Is this the only life I can aspire to now?

"...I still don't think it's right to use her as a servant," Thea says softly. "Even if she's awful on the inside, we should still be kind to her."

Melpomene pauses for a moment and I barely catch a slight twitch in her eye. She opens her mouth to speak, and then closes it. Then again: open, and closed. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly, before finally placing her hand over mine to silently indicate for me to stop. 

"You're right, aren't you?" Melpomene sighs, and I freeze. No, I won't hope. Not this time. There's no way it's happening this time. 

Melpomene stands up from the tub, a momentary waterfall cascading down her in picture-perfect beauty. Her body is obviously magical, what with the wings and the third eye and the crystals growing out of her skin like a cracked geode, so I'm sure the perfect skin is another perk of whatever's going on with her biology. That unnatural beauty is yet another thing to hate about her, a burning source of envy in light of both my current and former bodies. The fact that the envy is crusted with desire only makes it burn easier. 

"You're right, Thea," Melpomene repeats. "Thank you." 

She shakes out her hair, splattering my optical sensors with water that blurs my vision with droplets. I do not move. 

"I suppose we're at a balancing point," Melpomene continues. "It's wrong to take advantage of prisoners, but our prisoner here is trapped in a situation that prevents it from acting except on my orders. If we give it freedom it may try to kill us, or worse I fear it may simply stand around and do nothing, unable to act on its own will and going mad from effective solitary confinement. If, I suppose, it hasn't already. We can only pray it wasn't conscious for however many years it was locked away, but… yes. We have a responsibility now to match our opportunity. Assuming any of this speculation is correct, of course, but at this point we can't afford not to assume." 

"Yeah," Thea whimpers, hugging herself nervously. "Gosh. This is a lot. This is a lot a lot."

"We could be wrong," Melpomene says soothingly. "Maybe you're correct, and this is just a newborn AI. Maybe the technology to create artificial souls simply didn't exist for long enough before the Antipathy wiped themselves out to have become widespread. I think we act the same either way, but it's hope." 

"What a thing to hope for," Thea mutters. "The best case scenario is that the apocalypse happened too quickly for AI emotion farms to be set up." 

"Artifacts are useful, but never let it be said that they are cheerful," Melpomene shrugs. "We should be able to test some of this, or at least start trying to. In my room, on my desk, I have some Antipathy writings that I've been trying to translate. Could you bring them here while I get myself dried off, Thea?" 

"Oh, uh, yeah! Of course. I'll be right back," Thea agrees, slipping quickly out of the room. I can barely believe any of this is happening. I feel like my emotions are buckled up in a car having a rollover accident. 

Melpomene grabs a towel from a nearby rack, patting down her hair while her wings spread wide in either direction, shaking off a torrent of water that splatters all over me. I know my metal fingers wouldn't be very effective at wiping off my eyes, so how am I supposed to dry them? I… I have a drying process I'm just not really sure… woaaaah there it goes why are my eyes buzzing? Or my optical sensors or whatev… uh. Huh. all the water just kinda fell off. So instead of just blinking or whatever my fucking eyeballs purr? Wonderful. At least I don't have tiny windshield wipers on my face. 

Oh, and now that I can see again it would seem that Melpomene has one foot up on the rim of the tub so she can dry her still-naked legs off right in front of me. My power reserves have increased to—no, oh my god, no, shut up.

"Am I right?" Melpomene asks me idly. "Are you one of what my people call the Antipathy?"

What? I… no, of course not. I shake my head.

"Hmm. Really?" Melpomene scowls, her eyes narrowing. "Are you a Preserver, then? Caught by your enemy?" 

What does… does she really not know? I shake my head again. 

"...Do you expect me to believe you're human?" Melpomene growls.

I nod. Yes. Yes, you bitch! What happened? How did you create me without knowing—

"Liar!" Melpomene roars, my senses flicking into overdrive as her hand lunges for my throat. Do I dodge, or… no. I can't. If she wants to hurt me, I have to let her. Her clawed fingers catch me, wrapping around my neck and thrusting my back into the closest wall. It doesn't hurt; the wall takes more damage than I do. Melpomene growls at me, her eyes mad. Her face is so close to mine. Her naked body stands right in front of me, warm, heaving breaths brushing against my face. It's so hard to focus on anything else that I'm not even afraid. 

"You are not human," she hisses at me, her tail lashing violently behind her. "You aren't now. You never were. There was another soul trapped inside that artifact. I know this. So are you Antipathy or Preserver? Which monster are you!?"

I just stare at her, not having anything else to do since the answer is neither. With Melpomene holding me up to meet her eyes, my legs dangle without touching the floor. I can't try to escape, so maybe this silence can be my little revenge. Hell, if I'm embracing the futility of resistance anyway, there are worse things than being strangled by a hot naked lady. I don't even need to breathe anymore, so I could do this all day.

"Answer me!" Melpomene orders. 

Ha. Hahahahaha. I bring up a single finger and wipe it across the spot where my mouth should be. Sorry boss, can't comply. 

Her fingers tighten around my throat (not tight enough; pressure is nearly a full order of magnitude below chassis tolerance) but before she can yell at me again a knock rings out from the door. Melpomene drops me, and I land easily on my feet, moving to my position to the side of and slightly behind her. She glowers at me, causing an instinctive discomfort to pulse through me. She's unhappy. I failed at something.

Clearly, she must be mad that I couldn't answer her. I'll have to figure out a way to communicate so I can never fail her again, right?

"...Come in," Melpomene says after taking a moment to compose herself. 

I was expecting Thea, but the crimson eyes and crystal-tipped ears of Nanaya are what I see instead, with what looks to be a bathrobe draped over her forearm. 

"Melpomene," Nanaya greets her flatly. "Thea said you were finished."

"I am indeed," Melpomene confirms, but before she's even done talking Nanaya is summoning a magic circle into the air. With a wave of her hand, Nanaya telekinetically lifts the lingering moisture off of Melpomene's body, off the floor, and even out of the towel Melpomene was using to dry herself and drops it back into the tub. 

"Why do you even use a towel?" Nanaya asks, handing Melpomene the bathrobe. My readings indicate that it is considerably warmer than room temperature, like it's fresh out of a dryer, or artificially heated some other way. That's unfairly decadent. "You could just wait for me."

"Sorry, Nanaya dear," Melpomene says with a soft smile. "You know me. I can hardly stand to wait for anyone." 

"That you can't," Nanaya agrees blandly. Then her eyes flick to me, her head staying still. "How did the test run go?" 

"Extremely well, but Thea's investigation discovered something concerning," Melpomene frowns. "It has a soul. Most likely from an Antipathy or Preserver." 

Nanaya's eyes narrow at me. 

"Is it aware?" she asks. "Is it in control?"

"To an extent, yes," Melpomene nods, humming delightedly as she puts on the bathrobe. "It's still beholden to my orders, but it's intelligent and dangerous. Thea, of course, is worried about its well-being. I'd like you to worry about our well-being." 

 "As things always are, then," Nanaya hums. "I will be sure to keep an eye on it."

"Thank you," Melpomene smiles. "I can always count on you."

"Yes," Nanaya deadpans. "I wish you would more often. What made the test go so well, by your estimation?"

"A trio of fresh new lambs attacked us on the way home, and I had the weapon deal with it," Melpomene answers. "Well, I suppose more accurately one of them attacked us and then her teammates showed up and had the sense to evacuate her out of there. Their leader actually seemed rather talented, which could be a problem." 

"So this thing fought off one child dumb enough to attack you by herself?" Nanaya asks. "Doesn't seem that impressive."

"Ah, but it managed to do it without hurting her," Melpomene says with a smile. "And while taking nary a scratch. That's what makes it impressive: the degree to which it was clearly capable of so much more." 

I have to hold back a wince at that. I hate it when people insist I'm 'capable of so much more.' I guess the context is different here, and I guess I was pretty impressive, but still. That's not even really me, it's just this body.

"I see," Nanaya says. "Can it cast spells?"

That's a very good question! Someone please answer it for me. 

"I do not know," Melpomene admits. "But it has a soul, and it has the ability to manipulate mana at least on some level. It blocked a round of lightning magic."

"Definitely dangerous, then. As all artifacts are."

"Not all!" Thea's voice chirps, her head peeking in from behind the door. "Hey Mel, I'm back! I got the stuff from your desk!" 

Thea waddles in with an absolutely massive stack of papers in her arms, half of it seeming to be falling out of it in any particular direction you look.

"I d-didn't really know what you wanted from there exactly, so I just kinda grabbed everything. Uh, I hope that's okay!" 

"Well, it should be fine now that Nanaya has dried the room," Melpomene says with an amused and painfully genuine smile. The moment Thea enters the room there isn't even a speck of her former anger. "Thank you, dear, put them on the counter over there." 

"Okey-dokey," Thea agrees, and oh my god she said okey-dokey. That's adorable, no wonder my master can't be mad around her. "Should we get Anath up here? This could potentially be a huge breakthrough, right?"

"Anath is busy sulking about her latest violence crush," Nanaya answers. "I think if we brought her here she would just try to fight the robot."

"That's not a terrible idea for later, though," Melpomene hums. "Anath deserves some enrichment, don't you think?"

"What is she, a zoo animal?" Nanaya asks.

"Of course not," Melpomene grins. "I could never cage such a beautiful creature." 

Thea giggles and Nanaya rolls her eyes as Melpomene walks over to the stack of papers, quickly rifling through it to pull one out. She thrusts it in front of my face, and on it is a picture of an engraved chunk of metal with a bunch of absurd squiggles that I've never seen before in my life. 

All of them make perfect sense. 

Trying to figure out exactly what's being communicated by them takes me a little bit, but not because I can't read the words. It's because the engraving is a poem, structured in a way that just feels odd to whatever alien understanding I've apparently had injected into my mind. It's not a bad sort of odd, though. The poem is beautiful, if profoundly angry, seeming to be about the poet's own self-destructive tendencies and the ways they are constantly led back to them no matter how hard they struggle. Mood, buddy. Big mood. 

It's a pretty nice poem. I wonder why they engraved it into a big slab of metal. 

"Can you read this?" Melpomene asks me. 

I nod.

"Can you translate it into English?" 

Hmm. I mean, I doubt I have the skill to avoid killing all the prose in the process, but I could do a literal translation, sure. I nod.

"Pencil," Melpomene says, waving a beckoning hand at Thea. Oh, I'm liking where this is going. Thea, of course, produces a pencil from one of her countless pockets and gives it to Melpomene as she fishes out a piece of scrap paper. She slams both down in front of me. 

"Write it in English," she orders. 

Finally. Finally! Communication! I pick up the pencil, place the tip on the page, and then stop. My hand doesn't move. My name is Luna. I try to write the first word, but I can't even manage a single letter. Figures. I start to write what I've been ordered to write instead, and… wait. What? I… 

I can't do that either. Not even to obey Melpomene's order. 

I know how to write, obviously, but I can't. I can't do it. What the hell. What the hell! I could draw just fine! My hand is shaking, but I still the motion and draw a perfect circle. Great! Now write the letter 'O!' 

Nothing. Barely a twitch. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Draw a vertical line. Draw a horizontal line at the bottom. Done. Easy. Write the letter 'L.' Nothing. Okay. Fine. Fine! Easy workaround. The first word of the translation is 'tonight.' Draw a vertical line down to start the T. 

I said, draw a vertical line down to start the T. 

I can't. I can't do it. The moment I start to conceive whatever I'm attempting as conveying a letter, I can't move. It's like lying in bed, telling myself to get up and take a shower, and still being stuck lying there. Over and over for hours. I know what I should do, I know what I need to do, but I just. Can't. Do it! 

The pencil snaps in my grasp, my hand twitching and drawing a scribble. I keep ahold of the stub, my entire body spasming as I scream at my hand to just fucking write, but nothing comes. I can't. I can't communicate at all. My body won't let me. I strain harder, push harder, shouting inside the isolated cavern of my mind, until it suddenly starts to hurt. Like there's something inside me, stabbing me, holding me in place, refusing to allow me my free will. And long before I feel like I'm making any progress freeing myself, the pain becomes too much, and I drop the fragments of pencil in my fist, clutching my hands to my chest in a vain hope that it might help the agony go away. 

"...What was that?" Nanaya asks, and I realize everyone is staring at me in shock. 

"It… it looks like she's in pain," Thea whispers. 

"Yes," Melpomene agrees. "Hmm. No mouth… perhaps its programming prevents it from communicating at all. Our running theory is that it's a prison, after all."

Of course. Of fucking course. Nothing can ever be that easy. Nothing can ever go right for me. Melpomene is always going to have some fucked up excuse to keep me chained down and dehumanized. 

"But why would… that's horrible!" Thea gasps.

"Indeed," Melpomene agrees. "Which is why I want your number one task to be finding out what that was and finding a way around it, Thea." 

I flinch, staring up at Melpomene in shock.

"A-absolutely!" Thea agrees. "Of course, I'll start investigating now if that's okay." 

"Yes, do it," Melpomene nods. "This could be our first ever functional Antipathy translator."

Oh. Right. That makes more sense. My master simply needs me to be more functional for her. I choose to blame whatever part of my cage that was stabbing me earlier for the uncomfortable yearning I feel towards that idea. 

But it wouldn't be that bad, right? To be the world's only translator for a long-dead culture. That's honestly kind of cool. It's something I could be proud of, something that would make me useful. Wouldn't that be a novel experience? Being useful? I certainly never managed it as a human. 

"Hold on," Nanaya scowls. "Didn't we just talk about how this thing is dangerous? We shouldn't be letting Thea wander off with it alone." 

"Thea is more than capable of taking care of herself," Melpomene insists. 

"I'm not saying she can't take care of herself, I'm saying that you asked me to make sure everyone is safe and I think this would endanger her safety," Nanaya frowns. "I've never seen her fight, but even if she was good once, I doubt she's as sharp as she used to be, especially if she's distracted by an interesting new artifact. No offense, Thea." 

"No, you're absolutely right," Thea says to Nanaya. "I'm not a fighter. But I think it's a moot point. Ms. Robot, are you going to try to hurt me?"

I shake my head. 

"Do you want to hurt me?" she presses.

I shake my head again. Of course I don't want to hurt her. She's my only real ally in this place, and even if she wasn't… I mean, she's trying to find a way for me to talk again. Why wouldn't I want her to do that? 

Ha. What a funny thought. Wishing I could talk. You never know what you have until you lose it, I guess.

"See?" Thea says, a bright smile on her face. "You just have to be nice to robots and they won't go all homicidal. Like living things!" 

"Or it just doesn't want to be stuck mute forever," Melpomene frowns. "If only it were as simple as being nice to the Preservers."

"Uhh… well, okay," Thea hedges. "Their problem isn't really that they're homicidal, though." 

"It may as well be," Nanaya snarls.

"R-right, sorry," Thea stammers. "I'll, uh, I'll just grab Artifact-chan here and go get started." 

Melpomene erupts into sudden, surprised laughter.

"What did you call it!?" she chokes out. 

"N-nothing! Nothing! Shut up!" Thea squeaks, grabbing onto my wrist and yanking me out of the room as Melpomene howls with laughter. 

"It's okay, Amalthea-tan!" Melpomene calls after us in a singsong voice. "We still love you even if you're a weeeeeaboooo!" 

"Shut up shut up shut up!" 

I allow myself to be dragged along, watching the whole exchange with obligate silence. Though honestly, I think that if I still had eyes I would be on the verge of crying. There's something deeply depressing about that whole exchange. About the clear and obvious love, trust, and affection these women have for each other. Melpomene is, knowingly and willingly, my slaver. She is therefore, by all reasonable definitions, evil to one of the highest degrees a person can be. 

Yet she loves and is loved, and I never have been. 

There are people I care a lot about. Bean especially comes to mind, but when I think of Bean all I think of is a little icon on a screen, not a human being. They're my best friend, but I've never seen what they look like in real life. I've never met them. I've never hugged them. I've never been invited in to talk while they're having a bath because we're so close that sort of intimacy is given freely. Our relationship is the opposite, really; our own self-hate stops us from so much as sending a picture of ourselves to each other. Our fear and our personal issues close us off as much as they tie us together.

These people put more care for each other in that one casual conversation than I'm used to seeing anywhere in my entire life. The first thing Thea did when she found out I had a soul was to take me to Melpomene. She trusts Melpomene, and I'm not sure I can actually say that trust is unfounded. Melpomene clearly trusts Thea, after all. She practically gave me to Thea, seeming entirely confident that Thea could do whatever Melpomene asked of her. I'm jealous of that, too. Nobody has ever been confident that I could do much of anything.

Not until now, I guess. 

"Oh! Actually, you can nod and shake your head, right?" Thea asks, and I nod. "Oh, cool! Hmm, that's really interesting. I wonder if you can write yes and no. If you can, then it's probably a limiter on what you can communicate, which would be problematic. But if you can't, then it's probably just a limiter on how you can communicate, which means we might be able to get around it with something like sign language! Either way we should hopefully be able to figure out the really important stuff with twenty questions, like… oh! Right, sorry, I'm stupid. I've been referring to you as female because you look like one, but I should ask, huh? Is that right? Are you a girl?" 

For a moment, I'm paralyzed by the fear of not being able to nod. Of not being able to say yes to that question. I almost don't even want to try, just so I won't have to fail. But I do it. I nod. I'm a girl. I'm not just a thing, I'm a girl!

Of course, Thea gives me a big, relieved smile, because she never thought of me as 'just' a thing in the first place. Not when she thought I was a baby AI, and not when she thought I was less than even that. She's probably nicer to stuffed animals than most people are to other human beings, least of all me. 

"Okay!" Thea confirms happily. "Do you have a name?"

Yes, yes I do! I feel a twinge of discomfort about confirming it, but it's fine. I can say yes. Weapons can have names. I nod again. 

"Huh! Okay. I'll set up something to help us narrow it down letter by letter. Until then you can just like, poke me or something if I call you something you don't like. I might have a habit of, uh, nicknaming things. Like, a bunch." 

I just stare at her, something ephemeral fluttering in my chest. I can't respond, but for a moment I don't feel the need to, just happy to have someone who cares. Then I remember I'm still chained, still a slave to a woman who physically assaulted me for telling her the truth, and the creeping despair returns. Still, this is… better than the worst-case scenario. I'm not just a weapon, not anymore. I have someone to talk to. Er, well, someone who talks at me, anyway, but that's how most conversations people have with me go so whatever. 

"Don't you worry about a thing, Arty!" Thea grins. "I'll get you fixed up in no time! There's nobody who knows more about Antipathy tech than me! Er, except the Preservers probably, but we obviously can't ask them. If they got their hands on you they'd teleport you to another dimension." 

They'd what!? Also, don't call me Arty. I poke her in the cheek. 

"Oh! Haha. Okay, no Arty. Um… Robot girl?"

I could do without the reminder. Poke.

"Battlebot!"

That's worse. Big poke. 

"Blarg! Okay, not that. Um… A-R-T-One?"

Ehh. No. Poke. 

"Geez! You're picky about names!"

I think I have earned the right. If you don't like it, then think of better names. 

By the time we make it back to her workshop, Thea does not, in fact, think of any better names, and from that point on she mostly stops trying because she's very busy rummaging around inside my chest and doing a bunch of tests I don't understand. I mostly just lie there and follow orders, but the orders don't chafe anywhere near as badly from her. She's trying to help me, after all, and I definitely need the help. If doing whatever she says is what I need, then I'm happy to. 

Thea jabbers away the whole time she works, and though I can't respond and don't understand any of the technical stuff, she certainly doesn't seem to care. She talks to her tools a bit too, and I'm pretty sure none of those have souls, so I guess she's just used to being alone. Most of the time she talks, though, she's talking to me, and I think she's enjoying it. It helps pass the time, if nothing else, and before I know it, nighttime is here. 

Not that I can tell what time of day it is in the freaking dark world, of course. I just assume it's nighttime because Thea passes out with her head resting on the operating table. (Work table? Whatever. It's the table I'm lying on with my tits removed.) I'm… not really sure what to do now, actually. Do I just lie here until she wakes up? I certainly could, but… well.

I feel like both she and Melpomene would appreciate it if I took her somewhere nicer to sleep. 

I get up and reattach my own chestplate (which is a weirdly surreal experience) before slipping off the table next to where Thea is sitting. She has… well, not quite a bed, but a messy nest of blankets in the corner, so after a bit of hesitation I carefully pick her up and set her down there, pulling one of the blankets up over her shoulders. 

Now what, though? I don't personally need to sleep; I get the impression that occasional reboots might be good for my mental integrity, but on a scale closer to once a month than once a day. I can enter the 'sleep mode' I used to pass the time back when I was returning to the castle, but it's not required or even particularly power-efficient; because I run off of my own emotions, I actually charge my battery by being conscious, as long as I'm sufficiently stimulated. I don't really have anything stimulating to do, though, so… alright. Sleep mode it is. I sit down, and…

…

The door to Thea's room opens slowly, and I instantly become awake and aware. Over two hours have passed. Gleaming golden eyes stare at me from the hallway, slitted like a cat's. I stand and start to prepare for combat, but then the owner of the eyes slips into the room, a wide grin on her face as her tail twitches behind her. 

"You're that robot thing, right?" Anath whispers, and the many crystals jutting out of her body start to glow a dull yellow in the dark. "Do you know how to get to Earth?" 

I… do I? Assuming the patterns in my readings stay the same I do. I nod. 

"Sick," Anath says, somehow grinning even wider. "Take me there. And don't wake anyone else up. We're going on a supply run." 

Well. I have been ordered to obey Anath, so… I guess I'm going on a supply run.