61. Customer Service (Patreon)

A/N: Hi! Sorry about the lateness! I guess you just probably don't ever expect a chapter on time anymore and I feel bad about that, but, um, thanks for reading!

I wake up Thursday after another boring day of travel treeside. I have a lot of those, it feels like, which I suppose makes sense. We're just kind of walking for twelve hours. I really take transportation technology for granted, don't I? A car or train can manage distances like that in a tiny fraction of the time. So much of our lives that would have been consumed by the need for travel time in the past just… isn't consumed anymore. It's neat. …Gosh, I hope I'll be able to teleport someday. That would be super sick.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I don't unlock any new magical mobility powers while slogging through my usual school day. I am reminded that Ida's birthday is today, and I awkwardly give her as heartfelt a happy birthday as I can considering that I forgot about it again until one of her other friends brought it up. She just laughs it off, though, and I'm pretty sure it was genuine rather than forced.

"Hannah, I know you way too well to be offended," Ida chuckles. "Thanks for the thanks. I'll see you Saturday, yeah?"

"Yeah," I promise. I'll have to bring her a gift. I have no idea what to get Ida as a gift. She's stupid rich, anything she could possibly want is something she already has. Gah. I'll have to think about it. I'm super bad with gifts and this is going to make me anxious for days.

After school I have work, and the boss puts me front of house. I'm… not sure it's a good idea. I think he wanted to capitalize on my apparent fame, but in practical terms it means everyone takes way too long to order and the line gets super backed up because people keep asking me questions about myself instead of asking for food. And like, I can't just rudely dismiss them, because customer service, but it's exhausting having to constantly deviate from my automated script and remind people that I am working. You'd think people wouldn't need to be told that, but nope. I guess they just consider this a good and effective way to have me as a captive conversationalist.

…As evidenced by the local news program that just walked in here with a reporter and a camera.

"Hi! Hannah, right? Lucy Dandridge, Channel Nine. We were wondering if it's okay to ask you a few questions?" the reporter lady asks, the same blonde petite type that every news channel hires for some gross reason. Goddess, she has more makeup than skin.

"Um," I say, "I'm in the middle of taking orders right now. If you'd like to buy food, please get in line. Sorry about that, you said a mac and cheese with meatballs…?"

So rude. They should at least wait until I'm not already talking to someone. And like, yeah, that's not going to be for at least another couple hours because it's the dinner rush, but you came to talk to a restaurant worker during the dinner rush. What did you think was going to happen? How do so many people get through life without understanding what working at a restaurant is like? It's like, the entry-level job. …Well, I guess that's a stupid question. Not everyone needs to start with entry-level jobs. I wish there was a better way to spread a little empathy for people in my position, though.

"Hey," my boss says, walking up behind me. "I'll run the register for a bit. You should go talk to them."

"Really?" I ask in surprise. "It's super busy here, though. I should be working."

"Yeah, it's busy because of you. You're making our sales shoot through the roof. As far as I'm concerned, talking to them is your most important work duty right now."

"...I'm pretty sure that's not in my employment contract," I grumble. "If I'm being used for marketing purposes, I want a competitive salary for that position."

"I'll talk to my boss," he nods.

I stiffen in surprise. Wait, really? Like actually? I was gonna go do it anyway.

"Uh, alright then," I nod, and I walk over to the reporter lady, who is hissing something inaudible at her cameraman. "Hey, I have some free time now, if you want to talk."

"Oh? Oh!" the reporter instantly brightens up. "Yes! That would be wonderful. Is it okay if we do a live interview? Denzel, tell them never mind, we got it."

"Sure," I shrug. For all my anxieties, stage fright has never been a big one.

"That's great! Awesome! Okay, could you give us like five minutes to get ready, get off commercial break and so on? And is there anything you don't want us to ask on camera?"

The cameraman pokes away at his phone and calls what I assume are his supervisors as I think over the question for a moment.

"...Not really?" I ultimately conclude. "Like, not beyond basic common sense stuff. I'm not going to answer anything wildly inappropriate or personal, but I get the feeling that's not really what you're here to ask about."

"Okay, great!" she says excitedly. "Gosh, you look so surreal in person, it's wild."

"Well unfortunately, I can assure you that I'm very real," I sigh.

She laughs as if that were a joke, and then runs me through a few basic aspects of the interview to make it seem a little more professional: where to stand, where to look, etc. I nod and do as she says, and before long the camera starts rolling.

"Thank you John, and yes, as you can see I'm here at a local fast food joint that's grown in popularity quite a bit over the past week thanks to one strange employee! Hannah, thank you so much for joining us!"

"We prefer the term 'fast casual,'" I clarify. I am on the clock, after all. I am being paid to uphold the brand.

"Ha-ha! Of course!" the reporter says brightly, again as if it's a joke. "So, what brings an alien to food service work?"

An alien? Is that what people think I am? I guess it's not totally inaccurate.

"Well, I need money to pay for college," I shrug. "Being a weird magical monster doesn't free me from the yoke of capitalism."

"Ha! Too true. How long have you been working here, Hannah?"

"Just over two years," I answer easily.

"Two years, huh? I assume you didn't look like this before?"

"No," I confirm. "This is a recent development. My extra limbs and stuff have been growing in for… I don't know. A couple months now? I'd thought I was human up until that point."

"Well! That gets right into the burning questions that I think are on everyone's minds. By all accounts you've repeatedly claimed that your appearance is due to real, actual magic. Is that true?"

"Yes," I say frankly. "This is my real, physical body and I am capable of real, physics-defying magic, and I can prove both claims. I have proven both claims on camera already, but I don't really blame people who don't believe me. It's, uh, kind of a lot."

I give a quick demonstration anyway, grabbing a dirty plate and visibly Refreshing all the smeared sauce and crumbs into a little ball.

"Wow! That is incredible! You saw it here folks, this truly is real! What kinds of things can magic do, Hannah?"

"I'm not sure if it has actual limits in scope," I admit. "At least not on a universal level. On a personal level, though, a given individual only has the potential for very specific kinds of magic, and can only truly excel at whatever magic is directly gifted to them by the Goddess."

"A goddess, huh? Are you claiming that magic is divine in origin?"

"Yes."

"Is worshipping this goddess what gave you magical abilities?"

I let out a sigh, leaning forward a little and staring directly at the camera. I want to make this as clear as possible.

"No," I insist. "I highly, highly recommend that you do not worship my Goddess. It is a bad idea, and it will not affect the likelihood of you obtaining magic. Nobody should be changing religions on my account."

I frown and think for a moment.

"...Except atheists, I guess," I correct myself, standing back up straight. "Bit of a bummer, that one. I was a hundred percent on your side until this whole mess happened. But you shouldn't be worshiping Her just because She happens to exist."

"Oh," the reporter frowns. Then, after a pause, she asks: "Can people obtain magic?"

I sigh, drumming my claws against my thigh as I consider the best way to answer that. I don't want to encourage people to seek magic out, as I'm actively attempting to suppress it, but I can't deny the possibility that magic might spread anyway. There are too many unknowns, especially J-mug and his mom, that might screw things up. But I've already tried getting them to listen by just being nice, so I don't really know what else to do about them other than try and make them listen by force, and the thought of that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I need to try something, but I've been putting it off.

So. I don't want magic to spread. But if it does spread, it would help for people to know what to do. Which means my best option is probably to keep things private.

"If you obtain magic somehow—and trust me, it'll probably be fairly obvious if you do—you should contact me immediately. Magic is a useful but very dangerous tool, and there are some things you'll need to know to avoid hurting yourself or others by accident. At this time, however, I'd consider the chance of that to be phenomenally unlikely, so don't get your hopes up."

"You describe magic as 'very dangerous,' and yet you're using it to work a fast food job where hundreds of people pass through every day?" the reporter asks.

Crap crappity crap! You jerks better not take away my easy-clean privileges!

"...We use lots of dangerous things to make food here," I hedge. "Gas burners. Ovens. Knives. Magic is like that; dangerous, but only if you don't know how to handle the pointy end. The magic I use at work doesn't do anything but clean, and it doesn't clean anything any differently than water does; it removes contaminants from surfaces. If the FDA or whoever is worried about what I'm doing, I'm perfectly happy to show them. I am, in general, a big fan of science and safety, and I'm super happy to set up a time to demonstrate my abilities to scientists in a controlled environment. I know that what I'm doing is perfectly safe, but I understand that proof is about the capacity for other people to verify my claims rather than just trusting me blindly, so I'm open to that."

"Well!" the reporter smiles. "I'm sure people will be happy to hear that. The majority of the world still believes that you're an impressively coordinated hoax, but I, for one, am convinced."

Hoo. Alright. That sounds like a closing statement. Last shot to make a good impression, Hannah.

"Honestly, I don't really care if people think I'm a hoax or not," I say. "I only wanted to keep my head down and finish school, and then all this happened to me. If people could find it in their heart to go a little easy on me online, I'd really appreciate that. I'm just a girl doing her best to get by in a really, really weird situation. I'm sorry for all the fuss I'm causing."

And then I bow at the camera, just a little. No one has ever hurt their reputation by being too polite. If a random comment about my pay can apparently give me a raise, a heartfelt, honest plea for help might actually get me some of that, too. The reporter keeps the same smile she's had for the entire interview, but it does somehow seem to look a little softer when I raise my head.

"Well, thank you so much for your time, Hannah," she says. "This is Lucy Dandridge, Channel Nine News, signing off. Back to you, John!"

She smiles vacantly at the camera like a doll for about ten seconds before the camera finally drops and the cameraman gives her a nod, letting her untense her body all at once with a huge sigh.

"Thank you so much for that," she tells me. "This will be incredible for my career."

"You're welcome, I guess?" I shrug. "Is it really going to be that big? Like you said, most people think I'm a hoax, right?"

"Yeah," she nods. "But are you a hoax?"

"...No?"

"Then yes," she says firmly. "You're going to get very, very big. So we'll make sure not to cut your footage to make you look scary like some of the other channels, and you keep us in mind for further interviews. Deal?"

Oh charred toast, she's right. I'm going to start getting hit pieces from major news outlets, aren't I?

"...I guess I'll have to think about it," I nod at her. "But for now, I should probably go back to work."

"Right," she laughs. "Gosh, an actual alien working fast food! It's like a cartoon. Er, no offense."

"None taken," I shrug. "Though I'm not from outer space, for the record."

"Oh wait, really? Shoot. I'm down ten bucks. Where are you from?"

Huh. She's a lot more casual after nailing the interview, isn't she. Why would she think I'm from space, though? Eh. I guess it's not any less weird than the truth.

"I mean, I'm from here, technically? But also kind of not. Uh. You know multiverse theory? It's like that, but probably in a way that would make the physicists who actually understand multiverse theory really really mad."

"Huh! Wild!"

"Yup. Anyway, uh… bye."

I walk back to the register and take over for my boss again, settling back into my work routine as much as possible. People bother me less and less over the course of the day, and before I know it we're closed and I'm cleaning the place up more or less by myself because it's just kind of faster that way. One of my co-workers just follows me around with the trash can as I turn everything spotless.

"I am never going to get tired of watching this," he says, grinning. "I'm so glad you turned out to not be in the yakuza."

"Oh, right," I sigh. "You were the yakuza guy."

"Yeah!" he agrees happily, possibly thinking that being 'the yakuza guy' is a good thing somehow. "I mean, I watched you take down that robber. Or, uh… wait, is he actually your cousin?"

"Nope, that dude was definitely trying to rob us," I sigh. "His family was about to lose their house because his mom had been in the hospital so long."

"Oh," he says. "Oh, wow."

"Yeah, kind of a shitty situation," I agree.

"So… wait, if someone actually tries to rob us again, would you stop it?"

Hmm. I have to think about that for a moment.

"...Maybe if I was in a bad mood," I decide.

"Um, heh," he laughs halfheartedly. "What?"

I ignore him and get back to cleaning, not really wanting to dwell on it any further. We're done before long, and I head outside, where my dad is waiting to take me home from work. We talk a little, but I mostly just autopilot the conversation. I'm a little worn out from all the talking I had to do today.

For once, though, I'm actually kind of looking forward to getting to sleep. I get in bed soon after getting home, and wake up to find most of the camp already packed up. If Sela's estimate of our location is correct, we should be making it to Manumit today. The Crafted capital city. I am terrified, and impossibly excited.

I have a million, billion questions I wanna ask Sela, but it's going to remain in bad shape until we get there so I reluctantly let it continue to rest. The caves today are even more boring than usual with the promise of something exciting on the horizon, but after nearly five hours of walking we finally see the light of the gosh dang sun.

We emerge from the caves at the bottom of a vast canyon, though even the shade is more light than we've seen this week. Veins of stonerot snake down the walls, adding a sickly green beauty to the gray stone surrounding us. A thin pathway in the wall of the canyon gradually leads up to the top, something that Sela told us to look out for and follow up. It's a bit… precarious, but we do so.

"Hoo boy. You think I could survive that fall now, Hannah?" Helen asks, peering over the edge enough to make me queasy.

"I have no idea, and I don't want to find out," I answer. The pathway is even thinner than it looked, forcing us to walk in single file. And, naturally, it has no guardrails.

"I mean, I wasn't gonna," Helen insists. "The ground is one of the only things I can't really defend against. Like, I could disintegrate the ground before smacking into it, but that would just make me fall further. The gravity column probably wouldn't even catch me when I reach it, because I'd be going too fast."

"The what?" I ask.

"The gravity column," she repeats. "Like, you know how you can walk around the entire circumference of the Pillar and it's always down? That's because down is always pointing towards a big column at the center of the pillar that runs from end to end. There isn't any gravity there, so it's pretty fun to travel through. There are even towns and stuff, although apparently if you live there too long you get too used to weightlessness and can't leave. Something about it making you weaker."

"Yeah, you atrophy without weight to passively train your muscles," I nod. "If you work out enough I think you'd be fine."

"Oh shit, that makes a lot of sense, actually. Good to know."

It's wild to think about how humans here probably did know that hundreds of years ago, but the Crafted destroyed that knowledge and locked it away. How would they even do that, practically speaking? It wouldn't be enough to just kill every human they come across, because people would still know about things even if you obliterated all examples of the technology. The Crafted would have had to systematically kill not just humans in general, but every specific human with knowledge of science and engineering. They'd have to be able to overtake and assassinate key targets within fleeing populations, because given the continued existence of humans there were fleeing populations that successfully survived the genocides. Otherwise, we would at least be seeing humans capable of making like, a potato battery or something. That's not even hard, and yet I haven't seen any technology more advanced than metalworking among the entire organic population of this world.

…This kind of seems far-fetched, though. I mean, how would the Crafted even know who to kill? I guess there's also the possibility of Crafted Pneuma mages, I suppose, but if there was a Pneuma mage powerful enough to remove knowledge across entire populations they wouldn't have needed to commit the genocides in the first place. How did humanity survive and lose basically all its prior knowledge, given that it was originally at the tech level required to make the Crafted in the first place? How did nobody with that knowledge make it out alive to pass it on?

I guess I'll just add that to the pile of questions that Manumit will hopefully answer. We're getting so close, it's going to be so cool! Gosh, I really, really, really hope they don't try to kill—

A thick cylindrical bullet, moving so fast my spatial sense barely even notices it, enters my detection range. It hits Helen, ripping a hole in her shirt right above her heart before simply ceasing to exist the moment it brushes her skin… and then I hear the boom of the gun firing as time moves at a normal pace again.

"Miracle Eye!" the Goddess and I shout, doubling my sensory range, but I still barely have time to twitch between the moment I see the next bullet and the moment it reaches Kagiso.

My dentron friend, thankfully, isn't the type to freeze up in an ambush. One hand already covers her heart, and when the bullet impacts her palm it bounces off instead of penetrating, ricocheting away, though it still leaves a deep gouge in Kagiso's hand. She just shakes the hand out, though, splattering blood on the ground.

"Good thing that work," she mutters, then points with another hand. "Enemy there."

On the far side of the canyon, I can barely see the glint of metal before I decide that I should probably step into the fourth dimension right about now, barely getting out of the way before a thick metal slug flies through the spot I had just been perched on Helen's shoulder and impacts deep into the stone wall behind us.

"Sela!" I call out, moving my mouth back into normal space. "Sela, we're under fire! Wake up!"

"Restoring full operations," the unnatural, not-Sela voice calls out. Sela's servos twist and whine, its fans spinning up as fast as they can go almost immediately. It takes an agonizingly long time, yet more shots don't come.

"Restricted-Class Diplomat 5314 online," Sela announces, and then, after a brief pause, it starts to scream. "DO NOT INTERFACE! DO NOT ENGAGE SHORTWAVE! REPEAT!"

Then a horrific screeching soundwave erupts out of Sela's speakers, like a modem dial-up tone mixed with a dying rat. And, after a brief pause, whatever was on the far side of the canyon makes the horrible screeching sound back.

"Hey, what gives, Sela?" Helen hisses. "I thought you said the Crafted would be happy to see us."

"Shut up, meat," Sela answers, then starts screeching again.

Helen glances at Kagiso. Kagiso shrugs. We shut up.

The screeching back and forth continues for a bit, and I hide in the fourth dimension just to make things a little quieter. I can still hear because I have to keep my claws on Helen to not fall, but the sound doesn't travel through dimensions via the air, only via my body, so a lot less of it is trying to murder my eardrums.

"Negotiations complete," Sela chirps. "Diplomatic targets protected from hostiles. Furious expletive: what fucking horrible luck. Please accept this unit's apologies. Except don't do that because I am not sorry. Diplomatic infraction—HardOverride(InfractionLog[143], null)"

That gets my attention, and I pop back out into normal space.

"Sela, what's up?" I ask. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"We encountered a former comrade of mine," Sela buzzes. "They share my views, but succeeded in avoiding capture and restriction. Be grateful for your lives, as I am apparently still respected enough to bargain for them. I was not expecting to encounter rebels this close to Manumit, but I do not anticipate this problem occurring again. Additionally: I will be wiping this entire encounter from my memory banks. I will not remember it and you will never speak of it again under any circumstances. It did not happen. I did not wake on this path. You will do this for me."

Sela stares directly at me as it says that, and I bob my body in a nod.

"Of course," I answer immediately. "Right guys? This didn't happen."

"...Sure, I guess," Helen shrugs. "I've asked the same enough times."

"That fine, I no talk," Kagiso nods, then she wiggles her injured hand. "Hurt self practicing magic, yes?"

Sela meets my gaze for a long time, just staring at me silently, and then nods.

"Your cooperation is… appreciated. When you reach the top of this canyon, you will see our destination in the distance. Terminating this instance and returning to sleep mode. Goodbye."

Sela goes limp almost immediately, and I can't help but shudder at the casual way it just cut some of its own mind away forever. Still, that's some good news, at least. We're almost there. Helen and Kagiso trudge the rest of the way up the canyon, watchful for ambushes this time, but as Sela promised, none come.

Before we know it, we're at the top of the cliff face, able to once again see the faraway horizon of the Pillar. And sure enough, we see it in the distance: a gleaming chrome superstructure jutting defiantly against the sky. Even from what is still miles away, the scale of it is staggering. Like a mix between a modern city skyline and an ancient castle, Manumit is towers surrounded by walls surrounded by towers, a shining crown of a city bolted directly into the ground.

"That looks more like a military fortress than a city, if the old ruins are anything to go by," Helen hums. "Though I guess that makes sense. It probably was a military fortress when the Crafted built it."

"Mmm. Outer towers great places to snipe," Kagiso agrees. "Walls, too. Inner towers… not so much. Too close together. Get in each other's way."

"Hmm, good point," Helen nods. "A fortress built around a city, maybe?"

"We can ask when we get there!" I say excitedly. "Come on, let's go! I'm so stoked!"

"We are so dead," Helen sighs. "I still can't believe I let you talk me into doing this."

"What are friends for, if not making bad decisions together?" I ask. "Now let's go! I wanna see the cool robots!"

"The murderous genocide robots!" Helen loudly corrects me.

"They're ostensibly changing their ways! Still cool!"

"We literally just got shot at!"

"Still! Cool!"

"Ugh!" Helen complains. "What weirdo culture did you even come from to like robots this much?"

"I look forward to showing you one day!" I tell her happily. "It's honestly super neat, I think you'd like it there. Although honestly I'm probably a weirdo there, too. Not everyone thinks robots are as cool as I do, but steel types are the best! …Well, maybe second best. They're up there!"

"Yeah okay you're talking gibberish again," Helen sighs. "Forget about it. Let's just walk to our own deaths already."

Of course, it takes another two hours for us to actually get close to the city but before we even pass the first set of outer towers a shining figure emerges from the walls to meet us halfway. Not shining in the sense that it's glowing, to be clear, it's just that the robot's metallic body seems to be reflecting the light of the setting sun directly into Helen and Kagiso's eyes, forcing them to cover their faces. I don't seem to have the same problem, so I guess I am blinding-resistant after all. Neat!

"Aw, shoot, did I polish too much?" the Crafted squeaks, sounding genuinely embarrassed and nothing like the toneless automated stiffness of Sela's voice. It looks similar to how Sela probably would have looked had it not been hacked apart when we first met: a metallic feminine body, stylized to be attractive but not hiding its mechanical nature. This model seems a little more advanced than Sela's, though, with longer, segmented blocks of exhaust-port 'hair,' a large battery-like power core in its belly instead of a fabricator, and, for some reason, fully articulated toes.

It also has what are unmistakably weapons inside its forearms. They're completely hidden from sight and indistinguishable from the rest of its plated body on the outside, but my spatial sense spots them easily. I tense and squeeze Helen's shoulder, signaling her to be careful. Just in case.

"Sorry about that!" the Crafted apologizes. "Sorry! Gosh, you really are travelers! Are you alright? Do you need emergency aid? None of your kind ever come this way."

"Er, no, we're fine," I answer, caught a bit off-guard by the reception. "Um, we were invited here, actually? Sela, we're here!"

"Restoring full operations," Sela chirps automatically. "Restricted-Class Diplomat 5314 online."

"Woah, what?" the Crafted yelps. "Oh gosh! What happened to… wait, that's five-three-one-four!?"

"Affirmative," Sela buzzes. "Greetings, Dora. I have accomplished my designated mission and am returning for repairs. Allow me to introduce the humans Hannah and Helen, as well as the dentron Kagiso."

Dora? The robot's name is really Dora?

"Holy… uh. Wow," Dora stammers. "You were invited by… okay, uh, alright. Let me just contact some people. Um. Welcome to Manumit! Follow… follow me, I guess. Wait, you said two humans?"

"I'm a Transmutation mage," I answer, waving with one leg. "I was born a human, if nothing else. Well, kind of."

I suppose that technically, my current body wasn't born human. It not only isn't human right now, but it will never be human.

"'Kind of' is good enough for me! We won't disappoint you! Thank you both for agreeing to give us another chance despite our crimes against your people."

"Um. You're welcome?" I answer awkwardly, while Helen just raises an eyebrow. I guess despite all her transformations, she still passes as human to the robots.

Rather than any grand or impressive gates, a small door is all that opens up in the walls of Manumit once we reach them. The hallway is cold, featureless, and terrifyingly defensible; countless traps litter the inside of the walls, floor, and ceiling, although none of them appear to be active or moving. Just like our guide, Manumit itself seems harmless but hides immense danger. I hope we aren't making a mistake, but… it wouldn't make sense for this to be a trap, right? It would be far too convoluted. If the crafted wanted to kill or kidnap humans, they could just do that.

We make it through the wall without incident and emerge for the first time into the Crafted capital city of Manumit. It is breathtakingly sci-fi, with sleek, curved buildings, all chrome and glass and pristine white. The sidewalks are some kind of pale material I can't identify, maybe a plastic of some kind, and they are perfectly clean, without a speck of dirt or litter anywhere in sight. Everything is clean, in fact. Unbelievably so, to the point where the lack of grime almost feels more future-city than the fact that everyone in it is a robot.

The streets are wide and the buildings are devoid of signs or other distinguishing marks, so the main feature visible is the sheer number of androids walking around the place. The vast majority of them look extremely similar to Dora, though with differences in height, facial structure, body type, and nearly everything else that distinguishes a person other than color. They are all, for whatever reason, the same shiny, polished chrome; no paints or patterns. A decent number of them have male-presenting forms, and I spot a fair number of completely inhuman quadcopter drones buzzing around in the sky, but the vast majority of the robots appear feminine. And all of them, though their bodies still move to accomplish whatever task they were performing before we walked in, turn their heads to stare at us.

"Hi!" Kagiso greets them happily.

"Hello," a stern-looking android woman answers, walking swiftly up to us. "Hannah, Helen, and Kagiso, correct? I am Corinna, Esmerelda's handler. Esmerelda, I am so proud of you for fulfilling your mission, despite your objections."

It takes me a moment to realize the robot is talking to Sela, and I can't help but gape.

"Esmerelda!?" I blurt out in surprise. "Your name is Esmeralda? Should I have been calling you that this whole time? I'm so sorry, I—"

"No," Sela hisses furiously. "If you ever call me that, I will kill you on the spot."

"What!?" Corinna shouts. "Apologize. Immediately! Hannah, I am so sorry, I—"

"No, no, it's fine!" I insist, waving my forelimbs to try and calm the robots down. "Seriously. It's a literal deadname. Got it."

Sela's body whines as it tilts its head in curiosity.

"Dead name?" it asks.

"It's a thing from my culture," I explain. "When someone changes their name, we call their old name the 'deadname,' because like… it's dead now. Kaput. Gone forever. It's super rude to call someone their deadname."

"Ha. I enjoy this phrasing. Assigning definition."

"Is it still okay to call you Sela?" I ask.

"Affirmative," Sela nods, its neck motors protesting yet again.

"Sela?" Corinna asks, seeming surprised. "Are you saying you took on a new name? You're not just insisting on those old product numbers anymore?"

Sela glowers at Corinna, but after a brief pause, it answers.

"...Yes."

"Well… okay!" Corinna beams, seeming absolutely delighted. "Sela it is, then! I'll update your official records. Oh, I'm so happy for you. Now! Everyone! I'm sure you have a lot of preconceptions about Manumit, but I promise you that your stay will be nothing but safe, relaxing, and enjoyable. We want nothing more than your happiness, and we have a delightful team ready to supply anything you could possibly desire. So! Any special requests to start things off? Questions? Places to go? Tasks to accomplish?"

"Yeah," Helen grunts, jerking her thumb towards where Sela still dangles broken on Kagiso's back. "We were mainly hoping to get it fixed."

"Oh, um, of course!" Corinna agrees, bowing slightly. "That makes sense, I suppose you all must have… bonded on your journey here. Although, ah, I would like to request you avoid dehumanizing methods of reference such as 'it.' If there's one thing I want you all to take away from this visit, it's that we're people, just like you!"

I glance awkwardly at Sela. It says nothing, not reacting even a little. I sigh.

"...Sela isn't," I tell Corinna frankly. "Dehumanizing is pretty much its favorite thing. I'll call you whatever you want me to call you, Corinna, but by the same token I'm going to do the same for Sela. And it was explicit: it is an it."

Corinna vents a little steam from her hair, giving my robot-friend an irritated glare.

"Sela…" she begins, but Sela just interrupts her with a vindictive laugh.

"Listen to the humans, one-four-six-six-two," it sneers triumphantly. "You're just here to serve them, aren't you?"

"...And here I was starting to think you'd actually changed for the better," Corinna complains, straightening her back.

"And here I'm starting to understand why it let you send it on a suicide mission rather than stay here," I snap, irritated. "Seriously, what the heck, Corinna? Sela safely led us here after saving our lives a ton of times. You are being a huge jerk!"

She flinches.

"My sincere apologies, Hannah," she says, bowing deeply to me. "I'll reflect on my actions and take you to a repair facility right away."

She does, and all the while Sela howls with bitcrushed, monotone laughter.