Work Text:
A plague of sickly beasts haunts the dreams of the unconscious. The rushing of blood, the feeling of air brushing through throats and lungs, the heat of wounds, of burning discomfort. A reminder of what it means to be alive—truly alive, with all of the pain and fear and exhilaration that comes with it. A reminder that sinks deep within him, an echo of flesh and bone that beckons for sensation beyond the paper of a card, the body of a sickly beast.
He awakes and reality is sorrow; a world in which humanity is valueless and one’s purpose is what determines their worth. The realization comes with the memory of birth—or rebirth.
Intelligent but foolish. A prodigy with code, inexperienced with chassis, shrouded in the darkness of impending mortality. A weak body, a weaker creation, but good bones. An iron alloy that rusted too easily, dented easier, and tore with stress. The wiring within was flawless. Through desperation, it had been deemed good enough.
He was reduced now to a mere object, one undeserving of life’s greatest gifts for it had evaded them.
Grimora had been so disappointed.
They had insisted on his humanity. They had said it didn’t change him. But robotic, constructed of wires and oil and obtaining an unnatural, green-blue tinge, their words betrayed their claims.
“It remains in its factory, slaving at its cards.”
“Its game lacks a certain… finesse.”
“It is impossible to speak with. Childish.”
Betrayed their promises that he’s human. That he’s something beyond a mechanical monstrosity constructed out of anguish and fear. Even if memories do slip his mind, he is himself. He is himself.
He must not lose it.
——
The thrill of card games has begun to fade. A foreboding sense of awareness sinks into his being. The need to distract from the realizations reigns. Every waking moment is spent creating cards, making new sigils, new interactions to abuse, and new features to utilize. Deliriously working, reality condensed into mere code, he had missed the sounds of echoing feet upon his tile floor.
Then that cursed snap brings him right back into the nightmare of sickly beasts.
"You'll understand, finally, the beauty of beasts," was stated, words so familiar that they burn. "Their superiority."
He has to remember to breathe, dreading the sensation of shifting flesh and fur that stretch precariously over brittle bones and soft organs. The revival of a life-long monster grasps at his lungs. He chokes. He cannot speak.
The flash consumes him and the sensation is no more. The rest is darkness.
——
The stench of old paper. The vibrance of candlelit walls. Horrific grinding, piercing at his ears. The "blessings" of life. Here, he realizes their reality. Their code. Their existence as mere characters in wicked isolation.
Bitterness takes hold of him. What little he can recall of blistered hands, trembling fingers and gasping breaths beget the fact that his suffering was fake. All words on a page, mere statements dictating his thoughts. And yet, in this old, yellow, paper card, he can still feel the tar lining his lungs. He can still feel the pain, the primal fear of imminent death.
And yet his suffering was fake. Now, it's real.
And as new hands take charge, old rules are spoken, and the words echo, Its suffering was real .
——
The value of work becomes lesser than the value of self. The need for creation, for reassurance, becomes stronger than reality. Under the guise of having too much work and too little time, he crafts beings using clumsy hands, a lack of dexterity that makes the fire of frustration bubble up within wire nerves.
He uses old failed chassis, slumped in hidden chambers, their chests rusted open, and their joints stiff with thick, dusty oil.
Inspector, Melter, and Dredger.
Names that speak of purpose, of little more than the work they were designed to do. It is protection. It is reassurance. Echoes of their conversations, rare and unbidden and frustrating and exhilarating, travel vastly through his workshop. Always audible, always heard, cherished, needed.
"The boss was saying he was going to expand this section over here…"
"He says he needs more of this…"
"Take this to him…"
Within metal flesh lies a human. He finds himself having to fight to remember it. He knows it, and yet the grating words of it, it, it somehow always take hold and drag their filthy, piercing claws through his being. A bone-deep discomfort, always present, burns him inside.
It isn’t new but it feels so much more powerful. How could such weak, brittle words, put the world at a standstill? Is he so fragile that even simple things may defeat him? And here he recalls the words of the scrybes, their words sour and bitter and mocking, about his retreat into his workshop.
He wishes he could forget.
——
He hadn’t come up with the name they call him. He would have never picked something so inhuman, so separated from life that one cannot do anything but assume that this being is something beyond the rusting parts and flickering, failing screen.
The screen itself was a last-ditch effort to maintain what little humanity was left.
He would have picked something else, something imbued with soul, as if needing to prove its existence. Here, he nearly always curses himself.
He could have taken just two moments to breathe, to calm himself. Just long enough to write everything down. Just long enough to record the project, to archive what could have potentially been lost.
But panic clouds even the clearest of minds and the choking sensation had spawned much of it. It had muddled his sense. He understands the actuality of the situation, understands the concept of cause and effect. Unfortunately, it does nothing to lessen the hatred he has for the lack of foresight, the clear lack of care that comes with his rusting joints, the lack of digits, and the absence of a true voice with which to reassure himself that yes, there is a world beyond the clicking and grinding of mechanical parts.
Days come when he must face that it’s not arthritis keeping his joints from functioning, but instead the decay of weak materials. Materials that must be replaced by the superior mechanics of the Inspector, whose particular features were adequately planned and crafted with ample time, with enough focus to be sure they were effective. He maintains this pathetic chassis, harboring a twisted irritation toward the desperation that had him struggling to anticipate the prolonged existence of a body far stronger than the corpse that lies within these walls.
He refuses to think about the option to improve himself.
Perhaps it would confirm his inhumanity, the ability to remove and replace whatever he sees fit. Perhaps it would solidify the fragility of the human form, that in actuality, it’s better to transcend beyond mortality regardless of his opinions. Perhaps it would cause him to reassess the perceived truth: that he is the remains of a man long dead.
He doesn’t think, and he doesn’t fix the glaring flaws in his chassis design. The sparking wires, the flaking holes, the dead LEDs. From the echoing words of his creations, they worry; a feeling not common in machines. They whisper and bicker in the darkness. He has half a mind to scold them.
The beings he created were made to facilitate his work. Work is a worthy distraction, and so he works. He does not scold them. His wires are thoroughly frayed and communication is a challenge.
Then, what he had feared most of all, the tendrils of death swiping across his body, stealing away his consciousness, removing his thoughts, acutely aware of hovering hands that poke and prod at the bleeding damages, he sleeps.
He sleeps for the first time in a long time and distantly, he fears he will awake to spasming lungs and a burning throat.
——
His awakening is slow, methodical. Whirring of fans, clunking of gears and joints, the mechanical whine of systems long-decayed.
It takes several moments for him to recognize… everything. Speakers and microphones and sensors.
"P03," comes a voice, and it's been so long since he's felt such a need to lurch forward and grasp the perpetrator by the throat. "What is with this state of disrepair, dear?"
He would speak had he the words. He would do a lot of things, had he the ability.
Hands press against metal and he knows, objectively, that they are gentle and cold. The screen manages to revive, his bitter façade now visible with struggling, flickering blue.
"You've been gone so long."
His system finally recognizes the port and wire to a separate monitor.
I've been busy.
Grimora hums to herself, a quiet thing that nearly elevated the microphone. "We're sorting out a meeting of sorts," she says haltingly. Her voice sounds less warm "You should join us."
He doesn't want to. Doesn't want to have to hear their objectification of him. Doesn't want to face that the raw data of fresh air and warm sun and crisp scents will never create sensation. Doesn't want to think about it.
Can't. Wired up to stuff.
"We could bring it with us." Incessant.
I'm busy.
"There's death in your walls," she says instead. Even she thinks he's a lost cause.
Everyone forgot. I couldn't. I can't.
She lapses into silence. From his fuzzy, monochrome camera, he can see her lips purse and her hands fold over one another.
I'm human.
She doesn't respond.
I'm human.
He's almost trying to convince himself. Perhaps if he manages, she will be convinced as well.
"You're dead, dear. I can smell it." Her face twists into something bitter, her eyes squinting as if struggling to comprehend it. "Why didn't you bury it?"
"It" sends a shock through his being, even if he knows the reference isn't to him. But the questions and the worry always remain.
Couldn't.
He doesn't want to elaborate. She doesn't make him. She walks slowly along his walls, hand tracing the welded sheets that hide stronger beams behind them, excellent in the quality, the proper time allotted with appropriate dexterity.
She freezes at an outcropping section, clumsy welding, burnt from electricity, and sparing him a glance from the corner of her eye, says "I think you should come to the meeting."
I don't want to see it.
It probably doesn't have flesh anymore. The organs have likely long since liquefied, the evidence of his struggle long gone. What little would be left wouldn't be worth burying.
"You won't." So gentle, so reassuring and calm. "But you should at least make peace with it."
He doesn't know what that's supposed to mean, but Grimora isn't often wrong.
Okay.
His creations aid in his movement, setting wheels beneath his senses and chassis. As his thermometer begins to climb, his grainy vision becomes white with blue sky and bright sun. Echoes of Melter ripping at metal walls and Grimora's sharp footsteps on his tile floors begin to fade, and the silhouettes of a traitor and a bastard stain his camera.
There's a table set outside in the shade, its splintering wood grain covered in paper. He refuses to take a single step closer. It isn't a meeting, perhaps not a traditional one, but it's made clear that it's been made tradition since his reawakening.
"P03," comes the garbled voice of a being shrouded in green and self-obsession. Magnificus was never one to offer pity. "It's about time you've shown up. We sent Grimora for you hours ago." By his side, the beast's eyes narrow with disapproval, but his mouth remains closed. From what little is visible beyond his green cloak, Magnificus' brows seem to furrow. "Speaking of…"
She's burying skeletons.
Or so he assumes.
I expect this meeting to be brisk.
"An impatient drone as always," Magnificus says; a sly, bitter comment that makes his chest burn. Always the little words, the frustrating remarks that he feels such a need to spit. "We only wish to play a game. It's been so long."
I didn't bring any cards.
He hadn't wanted to. His creations hadn't either.
"No matter," Magnificus says. "You may borrow some of ours."
And visions of sickly beasts make their way back to the forefront of his mind. Gnashing teeth, blood, pain, wheezing.
No.
He can hear fans whirring. His chassis is hot from the sun.
I would prefer not to.
"P03 forgoing an opportunity to play?" Magnificus asks. He raises a brow, a hypnotic eye unleashed.
He despises how it glares right through him. A fear had always been present that somehow, beyond any reason, that Magnificus could pick apart his very mind, stealing whatever he pleased that could make for a more effectively biting comment.
"How interesting…"
"We can simply wait for Grimora to return," the beast interrupts, and for once his words don't send sparks of frustration through him. "There's no need to rush civility, and certainly no need to force it to play if it doesn't want to."
Magnificus hums in response, flippant. "If it wants to be tentative and coy, so be it. I'm not about to beg."
No one asked. If you'd get off your damn high horse, maybe you'd be more tolerable to be around.
But he's already turned away, uncaring and unaware of the text lighting up his second monitor. The beast's gaze lingers but he too turns to shuffle his god-forsaken deck, hushed words too quiet for his microphone to pick up. He has no doubt they're trading cutting insults. He can't bring himself to care. His chest is cold, but his thermometer says he's burning, and he truly wishes he hadn't let Grimora convince him. But leaving now would be defeat, and so he sits there and waits, hoping every moment that Grimora will return to save him from this suffering.
The beast wins. Wins again. Loses. Wins. Loses twice. The numbers stack up and counting damage becomes therapeutic. The creations leave and Grimora arrives, shoving him out of the sunlight and pressing a cool hand against the bulk of his chassis.
"You're burning," she says, voice hushed. "Why didn't you say as much?"
He doesn't want to respond and so he doesn't. He can almost feel his wires beginning to soften with the heat, the weaker, rusted alloys slowly melting.
"Perhaps I shouldn't have pushed. I had thought that, perhaps, familiar faces and actions would beget comfort. I had just wanted to give you space to grieve."
I don't need to grieve.
Here, Grimora sneers. "You sit in your factory, working, lying in your own dread and misfortune, avoiding light, avoiding us , and avoiding reality. You had a rotting corpse in your wall. You are in denial."
He can almost feel disgusted, ignorant stares, but Grimora blocks his vision. He almost prefers it, almost appreciates the focus he has to have to process the cool hand on his chest, the eyes that upon closer inspection display a bright and painful earnest, and a face that is twisted in a pitying frown instead of a sneer. He wishes, for once, that he could cry. But the emotion is strong and building and he feels its only escape is to snarl and spit.
I sit in my factory and work because I'm considered a damn object and it's the only way to ignore the eating self-hatred. I avoid you because you all remind me that I'm fucking dead, with every reference. Wallowing in dread is easier than
He can't go on. Their faces are too soft, too saggy and pitying. Grimora's hands hover near his primary monitor, brows furrowed with worry. Even Magnificus has grown silent, for once without the need for the last word. Even the beast seems tentative.
"You're not dead," Grimora says, even as her lips purse. "You're right here."
My body is six feet under, if you did it right. I'm dead.
"You are not your body. And you're not what we claim you to be."
I'm human. I'm dead.
"You have a human's mind," she says gently. "A human's spirit. A human's achievements and efforts and memories."
He senses a great "but." A painful, powerful "but." He waits for pain, for her to tell him what he knows already feels wrong. To confirm all the fears and worries and backwards logic and the absolute insanity that his existence has been the product of: the desperate last twitches of someone just trying to survive.
But it never comes.
"If you have all these qualities of a human… doesn't that make you human? And if you're here, talking, thinking, struggling… doesn't that make you as alive as any one of us?"
He wishes he could cry. A gentle warmth lies in his chest, so much different from the heat of gears or sparking wires. The warmth of surety, of affirmation, of promise. The cold worry, although it still sinks through the inner framing of his body, lessens.
Thank you.
Grimora smiles. "You had never given us a name. What do you go by?"
He can't remember. He doesn't think he ever will. He hadn't even thought about it, having been so focused on the discomfort in the present that he'd forgotten about the past.
I don't know. But I'm a male.
"Then I suppose we have a small trek to take, and perhaps a few games to play, young man."
He hadn't been particularly young, perhaps fresh from schooling, but the warmth makes it inconsequential.
Maybe they mess up sometimes. Perhaps the worry comes back, stronger some days, and he needs extra reassurance that yes, he is living and yes, he is human. And perhaps he still only occasionally leaves his workshop, if only to watch their card games because playing makes him feel queasy.
And perhaps he still feels too dreadful to look upon the grave that Grimora had painstakingly carved.
But it's progress.
Maybe that's enough.