Automata Prime

1.4: Tinker time

Everyone froze and looked at the newcomer. Before anyone else could move, Elita had already drawn her sword and was flying towards the old woman.  Shea tried to intervene but was too slow, and Elita’s strike raced for the old woman’s throat.  The old woman didn’t move a muscle or even change her expression. She was a statue of calm.  Light had enveloped her as Elita’s attack bounced harmlessly away off of the magic shield.  Before Elita could strike again, Shea caught her arm.  The Automata turned to glare at the girl with eyes of burning blue coals.  Shea gripped the other’s cloak instead but was firm in her resolve.

“That’s... Um... that’s the landlord, Jada,” Shea said meekly.

Elita turned her unblinking glare to the landlord, who only smiled knowingly at her.  “I’m going to watch from the roof to make sure we don’t have any other surprises,” Elita said coldly before leaving the room.

“Is she okay?” Shea asked.

“Elita’s a warrior. Let her do her thing,” I replied.

The landlord hobbled over to me; she couldn’t have been more than four feet tall and was stocky with small rounded ears and a cane.  Dwarf, maybe?  I could feel the eyes of an expert evaluating me, looking me up and down and determining my worth.

“Eh, I’ve seen worse, looks like a mass production model,” she determined.

Then she looked at the workbench and got her face down close to see what I had been working on.

“What is this Automata? I’ve never seen this sort of design before. A puppet?” she demanded.

“Not quite. Just an idea that popped into my head.”

“Interesting, interesting... well, what are you waiting for? Finish it up and show me what it is!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I continued to craft the different parts I’d need; having magic was really quite amazing.  In my old world, I’d design the parts on the computer and have to 3D print them, but with these magic craft skills, I was essentially forming the materials directly by my will as easily as I could have designed the parts in CAD.  I didn’t know how mass production would work here, but I was sure I’d figure it out if I got the chance.  With the last parts assembled, I set the completed body onto the bench.  It looked like a cat, or at least an Automata version of a cat, with black armor plating.  I didn’t know why I felt the need to make this, but when I had seen the materials I couldn’t help but feel like this was what was waiting to be made.  Right now the body was a lifeless puppet, lying limply on the table like a cut marionette.

“[Console]”.

“What’s that? I’ve never heard that spell before,” asked Jada in an accusatory tone.  

I chose to ignore her.  The screen came up, but unlike the other things I’d inspected, this was pretty blank.  I was sure that I could do something here, but all I got was an inspection into the materials used and design schematics.  I noticed that there was a file menu, so I tapped on that to see what it gave me.  I’d have to explore that in more detail later, but what caught my eye was a command called Developer Mode.  This sounded pretty promising, so I tapped it and a new set of screens opened up.  That Beam was something else—this clearly looked like the code development environment I was used to but with magic-related terminology.  Very handy indeed.  It looked like there were even some pre-installed code frameworks I could use and a plugin repository to add new features.  I tried cracking my knuckles, but apparently that’s not something that Automata can do, so I just felt weird and got some strange looks.

I loaded a code framework called spiritFrame.ms into the code editor, and it installed a bunch of folders and files for me to edit and customize. I wondered about that extension, “ms”—maybe it stood for “mana script”? Or maybe “Magic script”? I added some plugins from the repository to the framework install that looked like they might be useful, and everything looked to be coming together pretty easily.  I couldn’t tell you how much I would have loved to play with something like this in my old world.  It looked like others could see my screens; I had assumed that only I could see them, but I guess not.  When I glanced at Jada, she was staring at my screens with an intensity that might have lit them on fire if they had been combustible.

I was nearly done and ready to install the code into the puppet body, but there was one last thing missing. It seemed that I needed a detached soul to embed the code into before installing it into the puppet.  This fact made me pause and look up from my work. So like ghosts?  Were all Automata on this world powered by dead people?  Was I considered an undead?  Before I could think more on it, on the deploy screen there was a “loading” window that was looking for nearby souls that would be compatible, and it got a hit.  It reminded me of a wifi ping, and I could connect to the soul and submit an embed request.  The window told me a little about the soul as well.  I guess you wouldn’t want to use the soul of some evil count or something.  This one appeared to be the soul of a cat.  Maybe that’s why I felt such a strong compulsion to make this form.  Well, I was glad that I wasn’t enslaving some poor soul during this process.  I submitted the request and got a confirmation response, so it was good to proceed with the installation.

As soon as I hit the execute command to begin code installation and deployment, a magic circle of light opened up on the table around the cat body, lifting it into the air.  I could see fragments of light transferring back and forth between the magic circle and the body, and there seemed to be some sort of status bar at the edges of the circle.  In my console, I could see the deploy logs as they went through each of the installation steps and output their status.  I closed up the console for now and turned to Jada.

“Looks like this is going to take a while, there’s a lot of code to compile,” I said, feeling more relaxed now that I'd gotten the creation itch sorted.

“Just what are you, Mr. Automata?” Jade asked, glaring at me.

“This is Prime. He helped me out during a quest to hunt a Thunder Bear,” Shea offered.

Jada stared hard at me again. “You’re Unclaimed.”

“I’m not some lifeless magic tool. I’m as Unclaimed as you are,” I spat.

All this talk of Unclaimed and Automata being regarded on the same level as a toaster was really beginning to piss me off.  Jada narrowed her eyes. I imagine not having any facial expressions made it hard to get a read on me.  Then she burst out into laughter and slapped me on the back.

“Quite right, young fella, quite right,” she bellowed.

All the tension in the room evaporated just like that.  Shoulders I didn’t know were tense relaxed, and I slumped a bit.  Shea laughed nervously then said she was going to go up to her apartment to start making some lunch.  The mention of lunch made me pause and think for a moment.

“Now that you mention it... I haven’t eaten or slept at all since I first woke up, but I don’t feel tired or hungry.”

“You haven’t been an Automata for long then, have you Mr. Automata?” asked Jada.  “Automata don’t need food or sleep. They live purely on Mana and absorb it from their surroundings. That’s why they are so often the perfect soldiers and servants.”

I checked my data page and, sure enough, my health had gone back up to 100/100.

“So what exactly are Automata then? I have memories, feelings; I know I’m a person.”

Jada nodded. “Put simply, Automata are the dead brought back to life.  Spirits that haven’t moved on or those of the recently dead are forcibly sealed into a puppet body and inscribed by magic to fit a specific purpose, and they are compelled to obey their masters.”

“So Automata like Elita were once people, and after they died their spirit was captured and enslaved?”

“That’s the short of it.  She could have been a lingering spirit, but most likely she was some poor villager that was murdered so that her spirit could be trapped in that body and forced to fight for her country.”

“That’s horrible!  How does a country get away with that?”

“Anything can be justified.  The Automata soldiers perfectly obey, don’t need food or sleep, and don’t need training.  Often the people that are murdered are children that the parents can’t afford or are homeless beggars.  From what I understand, though, the spirits don’t have any memory of their previous life, so in a way it’s a mercy.”

“I have a full recollection of my past life. Though it’s a little different from what you’d expect.”

“Which is why I don’t understand what you are, Mr. Automata.  You don’t seem to fit the usual description, and you seem to be able to wield magic.  I’ve never heard of an Automata that can do magic on its own before.”

“There are magic swords and stuff, right? Don’t they have magic?”

“Not really.  They have spells and incantations inscribed into them, sure, but it’s the warrior channeling their own mana through the device that casts the magic, and only if the warrior already has an affinity for that magical element.  There have been Artificers, craft people, that have tried to inscribe elemental magic into Automata bodies, but it seems that spirits lose whatever affinity they had in life. So there’s no magic type that they can use.  In the end, they end up being like that magic sword and needing someone else to channel their mana through them to cast spells.”

I had a lot more questions about how magic worked here.  So far the magic things that I had done hadn’t lined up at all with how this was supposed to work.  Did I have an affinity with any of the elements?  Nothing so far had been “elemental.”  I would have to do some experimenting when I had the time.  Before I could ask Jada more, the code compiler finished doing its thing, and a second magic circle lifted off of the first one till it was above the cat body and started rapidly pouring magic glyphs and runes of light into the body.  This must have been the compiled code installing.  Automata firmware?  Hopefully, it would work right and I hadn’t messed something up for the cat soul that was getting installed in this body.

The cat body took on a radiant glow as the firmware installed, but in no time the process completed, the body softly settled back down on the table, and the magic circles evaporated.  I opened up [Console] to take a look and got an installation setup screen.  I had to input a name, but everything else was already a part of the firmware installation.  I thought about it for a second then laughed at myself inwardly as I keyed in the new name.

“We’ll call you... Ravage.”

I entered in the initialization and boot sequence commands and crossed my fingers.  The console log showed me it was going through a bunch of start-up tests and functions, and then the cat eyes flickered to life and it lifted its head to look around.  Like mine, its eyes were black gems, but it had a purple light emanating from them instead of blue.  Interesting...  Hopefully, I didn’t just create a Decepticon here.  They weren’t red, so they should be fine, right?  The cat slowly got up on its paws, stretched, then walked in a shaky way over to Jada and bumped its head into her chest.  I saw tears welling in Jada’s eyes as she gingerly put her hand on the Automata cat’s back.

“T... Tibbins? My little Tibbins?” she said, her voice quivering.

The cat looked up at her and meowed.  Well, it tried to meow.  The sound that came up was more like an old modem connecting.  Yeah, I would have to do something about that.  Jada cried openly and put her face to the cat’s armored head.  I felt like I was smiling; I mean, in my head I was smiling, but I don’t think my face actually changed.  I was tempted to touch my face to see if it had moved at all, but that would have ruined the mood, so I abstained.  I rested my elbows on the workbench to put my head at their level.

“Her name is Ravage now,” I told her.

“Hello Ravage, it’s so lovely to get to meet you again.”

I stood up and cleared my throat, or at least made a throat-clearing type of sound, and pointed at Ravage in a commanding pose.

“Ravage, transform!”

Jada looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Eh??”