Fire For Mortals (RWBY Penny SI)

[d.fish]

Notes: Please be gentle, I'm doing this for fun and for the coffee high to wear off. Review and stuff, sacrifice for the motivation gods, yadda yadda yadda. We're all a bit screwy. Me more than you, ha.

Fire For Mortals

0​

"... Well."

(Well.)

(Well.)

(Well.)

(Well...)

My voice echoed into the black infinity. It is like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber in that one cartoon about the dragon's balls and furry aliens and cold aliens slamming into each other topless and being bad parents. It went on forever in every direction and I can see nothing and hear everything.

Time didn't really flow here, but it was everywhere here. Did that make sense? I mean, like the sort of sense that it makes when you "hear purple" or "taste fuzzy" or "see the unseen, sunken temple to the god who dreams reality" or something.

The point is, nothing made sense, and everything was a bit funny, like one of those old, sassy British fellows with the funny accents, if they were to become the state of being for the universe.

Probably.

This petite yet curvy girl of sickly white skin sat across the incalculable distance from me, with her legs crossed not quite like that one yoga position, but enticing nevertheless.

I was on the other end of infinity, curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth and not really noticing her because I just died and no matter how peaceful the death was, it was still death. You don't really come out of having each part of you shut down quite right, especially if you can feel it happening. You know, it's like how people talk about seeing your life flash before your eyes, but if you were an average, normal person who accomplished nothing of distinguishing value... if all you did on your nights was sit on the toilet reading Black Twitter, cooing at cat pictures, watching some Netflix original series while chugging a tub of cookie dough ice cream, or ranting about something or another on one of the hundreds of socializing aspects of the internet.

You know those kinds of people. Maybe you're one of them. Maybe you're like me, in some way or another.

Bleh, I sure as hope not, for your sake.

In such a condition, suffering from such a condition, you can't really have such a life flash before your eyes. All of those things amused me in the short term, but they weren't really anything of substance. There was no heavy emotion to it. There was no... soul.

It was like if the Gods of Capitalism dangled this bait—their products they market so hard—in front of my eyes, and I missed what I should have gone after even when a small, stifled part of me kept crying for it. And I put a pillow on that part of me and pressed pretty hard.

"Like that story, huh?" Death of the Endless, or at least a very nice imitation of her, asked. She chuckled. "No, I'm an old friend, friend."

"What story?" I perked up. She was pretty, I was always up for a conversation with a pretty girl. It was strange to even look her straight in the eye, because the old anxieties of 'what if I screw this up', 'what if she thinks I'm weird', and 'what if I freak her out' do not seem to be even bothering me. I felt like I was speaking to my mom, or my sister, or my daughter, or my best friend, or myself.

"The one about the guy who stole fire from the gods," She chuckled. "What if the gods wanted him to take the fire, to work so hard for it, and wanted every mortal to prize it, while they had something even better, which they no longer needed to share. The mortals are distracted, staring into the fire. They hoard it, when they thing the gods will punish them and take it away, like how they punished the man who stole it for them in the first place."

"That's a neat theory, but what's it got to do with me?" I stood up. I was never one for sitting down for too long. An early life of sitting endlessly in classrooms and offices had left a mark on me that left me never wanting to sit down long ever again. Walk around, even if it led to the same place or if it seemed like I had never moved outside of the Buddha's palm, still instilled a sense of freedom inside me.

"We talk about it every time," Her smile was pretty. The dimples at her cheeks became more pronounced as her lips blossomed. "You always have regrets, friend."

"Ah."

"Uh huh."

"You're not in any hurry?"

"We have forever and a day, but our time together is only as long as half as long as you need it." She walked towards me, and we closed in on each other. "But I am Death, old friend. So tell me, how was this life?"

"Eh. I didn't raise any cats," I really didn't know what I did the last few lives. Was reincarnation even a thing? "I raised three dogs, one after the other."

"Yes, I know."

"Ah."

"Your first dog didn't really like you, you know? You did all sorts of things..." She had a faraway look in her eyes. "But he loved you nevertheless. You neglected your second dog, for work, right? He waited for you at home, for ten years, before he couldn't hold on for you anymore."

"Yeah." Regret came in all forms. I could regret not accomplishing great things, not becoming a billionaire or curing cancer or colonizing Mars, but apparently those were far off goals of no real value either. Not compared to the sad look on my dog's face as she waited at the door every day, sometimes for months, for me to return. "Why are you dredging these memories up? I don't like them."

She giggled. It was a funny sort of chortling, both warm and welcoming, but also as cold as winter. I wonder which it really was. "Your third dog, you took care of him well. So at least you learned something."

"Not really." I shook my head. "I just didn't really have any drive to do other things anymore."

"That's really sad. At least the last you died eating a planet." She poked my cheek.

I'd have slapped her finger away, if it didn't feel so good. "I don't remember that. I don't even remember you. What are we even doing here? Why are we here? What is here?"

She poked my chest instead. "You regretted hurting all those people, so you asked to have a simple life of powerlessness. Now you regret being unable to do anything, so you wish you had power. You always regret it, but my friend, do you even know what you really want?"

"I don't think I really care at this point." I grumbled, uncomfortable with how close she was to me.

Then she ruffled my hair.

"Hey!"

"Don't lose your head over it!" She ran off into the distance.

I ran after her, tackled her, and held her down. "I can do it? I can have power? I can... what, reincarnate? Go at it again? Have it all? What are you saying?"

She blew a raspberry in my face. "Have it all? Fine, you wanna have a go again, be my guest. But you can have the lightning of the gods, and you'll still screw it up. You'll still come back regretting everything. It's like you're never satisfied, friend!"

My eyes narrowed. I leaned close, "Those are some hurtful things to say."

Death glared back. Then she licked the hand holding her down, like my dog did before it passed away. "Then maybe try remembering this time, you dolt!"

"Wha...?" I blinked. I had a few questions now. Actually, I had more questions. What did she mean by that? What was going to happen? Wait, what was that earlier bit about only having half the time I needed?

… and the last thing I remembered Death saying, "No homo!"

 

[d.fish]

Fire For Mortals​

1
​

Salutations!

You know those stories of old? The sort of stories that have been told a million times, the legends that turn into ashes or gold.

Those stories end in comedy or tragedy, and you see it coming, from the tone, from the setting, and from the way your heart is tugged and turned. Do you know those stories?

This is one about me and I saw the ending coming from the first moment my eyes opened.

Where do I start?

The beginning?

What really is the beginning? Life and death is a cycle that never ends. The universe never stops. Like coins flowing from one hand to the next, it never sits still, not for long. There isn't really a beginning, but if you really, really want to have a place to start... how about the moment my heart stopped and my brain died and everything ended?

(I was quite afraid then, but how do I explain this to you? How can I tell you the panic I had when I had no heart to beat? How can I express my frantic thoughts when I had no brain or mind to explain or feel? Imagine yourself in the metal cage of death, with awareness of all things that are you, but unable to feel mortal.)

(Imagine unable to feel your heartbeat, unable to feel the pump of blood in your veins, imagine unable to breathe, imagine total darkness and total silence, imagine the abyss where your mind stretches forever for an instant and forever, imagine being ethereal and without body or being, or the spark of life, imagine a solitude within oblivion where your mind goes insane from the lack of any thing, and multiply it by infinity and you've begun to comprehend.)

(Perhaps.)

But let's not get too serious here. Why so serious, indeed? Is not life and death a joke? Something tells me that too is a story of comedy already told a million and one times.

So let's start from that point in time, when I died and was reborn.

The death doesn't really matter.

The death of a normal girl, a girl like any other girl, who lived a life like any girl with monotony and excitement that combines into what every other girl's life is. There are moments of happiness and moments of sadness, with great, memorable moments sprinkled in between. But it was a life like any other. Even if it were special, what does it matter?

That life is passed and past.

The place or time or state of being or whatever it is in between these two lives might be a bit more interesting. It shapes me into this sad, pathetic, and mostly delusional person that I am now.

So what I am now?

Am I a girl again?

(How did people imagine the moments of their birth anyway?)

(Do people imagine the looks of tender love on their parents' faces as they gather around in some sort of Hallmark celebratory gift card-like image where everything is warm and fuzzy and utterly unrealistic? Do people imagine a mad scientist standing above them in a dark and stormy night with lightning flashing and mad cackling claiming that IT is alive? Do they expect to see a doctor or a shaman or a nurse or a priest or a servant holding them for their parents to see?)

(What, what, what did I expect?)

Well.

When a boy and a girl like each other...

(Father once explained when I asked in the manner that was expect of me. You know. The utterly naive and vacant expression filled with just enough unconditional puppy love to cover up for my dread of my inevitable demise. Yes, yes.)

… they get together and break the boundaries of science and make a creation that is unseen before its time and far beyond any technological advancement before it.

Yes, that is how Father explains it.

There is a man and a woman at my birth, you know? I'm pretty normal, you know? I'm not just saying this to convince myself, you know?

Father is the professor. He is well-known, albeit his theories are a bit... unproven, before me. He works in the military, like everyone in my family. You can even say that I'm an army brat.

Heh.

Yeah, okay, maybe not.

Father is one of the foremost scientists working in the Atlesian Military with a specialization in robotics, the ruling body of the northern nation of Atlas. I can bore you with his history, with his published works and unpublished notes, and all of the projects that he had accomplished and worked on before my birth, but really, it's boring.

(Trust me.)

Mother is there too, like a fairy in blue, a scientist colleague specializing in a rather foreboding topic of the soul and its light. Much of what I can pull up on her, in that single instant of my awareness being ignited and my soul's birth and rebirth, is redacted in physical and digital black ink. It's probably boring too, right?

(Right???)

I don't even need to look into their eyes when I awakened.

I don't need these promises of love and care and family, because I knew who I was, and what I was destined for.

Ah, you never know what you have until you lose it, right? In this case, I think I lost my case of death... and let's end this pity party, shall we?

I am (now) Penny Polendina.

I (now) am sure and aware of my existence. I am born disposable (and set on course for a specific, disposable destiny). I'm going to die and maybe, just maybe, if I do not, I will (probably) watch the world fall and burn around me. I am (most likely) too weak to stop it.

I will lose everything.

Why, oh why, do you look upon me with such sad eyes, Father? You should take joy in your accomplishments. Mother, you too have the looks unlike that of the fey. Take me up and take me in your hands and hold me, hug me, adore me and whisper to me your sweet, sweet lies.

(Tell me that I'm a real girl.)

(Tell me so that I can cry and deny it in my heart of hearts. It's okay. Really, really, it is all that I ever wanted. Because I won't show you that side of me. I will smile and love you wholeheartedly and tell you that I trust you with my everything.)

(Tell me, tell me I'm your friend.)

(So that I can lay my life down for you.)

(Maybe then my death will have meaning?)
​

iIi​

My eyelids rose with a soft click, shining a green—almost cerulean—light on the dark basement. I accessed all of the information in the Atlesian Military database in that instant, but I could do nothing with that. I knew who the man and the woman were before me, but some part of me that clung to the identity of a human, of a normal girl, made it hard for me to call them by their names.

I was always bad with names, but titles I can remember. That one was Father and that other one was Mother. They were genius scientists of their generations, for the loose meaning of the word scientist.

Father was more caring of the two, he immediately ran to me as I gasped for a non-existent breath.

It was difficult to breath without lungs, and after that second, the deep learning intelligence that was also me (like the cerebellum of the human being) took charge and made me stop it. Stop it, it told me not in so many a word but in its own form of quantum computing or whatever that went right over my head. And I felt I could no longer take try to expand my diaphragm and attempt to crudely emulate the respiratory system of a human being.

I still made the sounds of gasping and choking, out of my base intelligence's control and seemingly out of mine as well. It was another leftover of what made me what I was, I thought.

"Easy there," Father said as he knelt beside me.

My body was too heavy, even though I was the form of a small girl, for him to lift, but it was the thought that counts. The tenderness he used in holding me made my heart—no, the core of my robotic body—feel like it was going to melt. That probably wouldn't be a good thing.

"Try to stand up," Mother commanded from a distance. But even still, I could see her apprehension. If that was not outright care for me, it was still thoughts for my well-being.

"Slowly," Father added.

I stood, as I was commanded to. Without my prompting my hand flew to my forehead in a salute. It felt awkward and silly to even do so, but try as I might, I could not stop it. I could not fight against what made me what I was. It was this chain of code that constantly and forever reminded me what I was not anymore.

There was a silly smile plastered on my face—I was excited and unreasonably happy to see Mother and Father. I wanted to please them. I needed to heed them. "Salutations!"

Father was the first to speak up. "That looks really awkward."

Mother shot him a look of reproach. "And it also gets us our funding, now hush. Unit designation Penny, how do you feel?"

(Well, that's a loaded question, Mom. I wanted to say.)

"I am fully functional and battle ready!" I replied with a perkiness I did not have in my previous life, which was more than an eternity in the past now. Perhaps it was just how I was wired now, but it did not feel wrong to me.

Of course, Mother was not inquiring about how I actually felt. Instead, it was programmed into me, to display my capability in wielding the aura, that magical energy that could just about be a placeholder for chakra or magic or chi or whatever.

And feeling it pulse through my cold alloyed body, like the lightning of the gods, it did leave me with a sense of surreal excitement and joy. I could shake with perky joy, probably.

(I wonder if I have a vibrate setting?)

"Don't push her, she's still..." Father fused over the mechanisms inside me, making me unequivocally embarrassed, like having a parent fix the bow on my head or ruffle my hair or something.

"No point in omitting anything, Polendina. Besides, she can't lie, she's fully functional," Mother mimicked my voice with the words I spoke a moment earlier. Then she turned to me and commanded, "Penny, manifest your aura."

And so I lit the room up with a smile.​

 

[d.fish]

Fire For Mortals

2​

There once was a time when shit was dark, yo, but it got better... eventually. (Probably?)

It was a time before I met her, that special, special girl, and we sang the song that ended my world (as I knew it). (A song, which by the way, did not go something along the lines of "some BODY once told me the world is macaroni, I ate the sharpest tool in the shed, she was lookin' kind of dumb with her finger in her bum, and the ship of an elf on her forehead..." and more like, well, something else. Definitely.)

(Don't look at me like that.)

It was a time when I was still young, and my motor protocols were still being written.

"Why can't I go outside?" I asked not for the first time. I had grown up hearing about the wonders and horrors of the outside world, but being kept deep in this underground lair had only left me more curious. It was one thing to see a video of a Grimm, and it was probably a whole different experience to stare one down. Coming from an age of augmented and virtual reality, the technology for experiencing things I was not there to experience was sorely lacking.

(For the given value of "grown up", considering I had only been born weeks ago.)

As always, Mother had the answer to the question. She looked down at me strangely and actually rolled her rolling chair away from her desk and turned to me fully. There was an odd inflection in her voice—I couldn't understand it, being as stupid as I was in my previous life and being as lacking in such sensors as I am in this one. "You know why, Unit Penny. You were programmed to obey those parameters."

"But Father said I will protect the world," I replied in the only way I could. I couldn't talk about how I felt claustrophobic in here, that made no sense to these scientists (as you well know). I couldn't say I wanted to explore the world that an online show didn't bother explore (that made even less sense). I couldn't say that I was questioning my own awareness of being inside a medium (if that made any sense that I was aware of being inside a show, did it?). I could only act on the inputs given to me by my parents, like all children.

(Perhaps that is one point in the nurture side of the debate and one point in the nature side of the debate.)

(I am as you made me.)

"Your Father," Mother rolled her eyes exasperatedly as she lost all seriousness and focus at the mention of the man. "Your Father is incorrigible. He pampers you too much, but let me correct any incorrect assumptions you have, Unit Penny."

"Yes," I nodded eagerly, clearly willing to learn whatever new information she was willing to feed me. (Was I though? I thought I was.)

"You are not a real person," Mother said immediately, the harshness of her words flying over my head. "You are a creation for the betterment of humanity as a whole, Unit Penny. To make sure you are not subverted and to make sure you cannot be ultimately detrimental to our cause, there are limitations on you."

"Like the stories of rogue AI," I noted as I filed through relevant literature available to me. The works of these literary giants in ages past were fascinating, especially how polarized and how extreme they were; as if their works were to be made examples of how the ideals they detest were... bad.

"Like those, yes," Mother nodded after a pause. "But like all rules, all code, these are crude, simple things that Polendina wrote up. They need to grow and evolve, you need to grow and evolve, before I can allow you to leave."

"But I can grow outside!" I found myself protesting. "I can learn so much."

(Is it not so written that merely reading can only get me so far?)

(And why can't I just voice my protestations? Why can't my mouth open?)

"Go back to your quarters, Unit Penny. You are a distraction to my work as you are." Mother commanded.

My feet took me to my room before I could complain.

No matter how I tried to fight it.

I couldn't.

Every part of me felt weak just doing so, like the thoughts of rebellion would die in my head. I tried to push myself out of my room, I tried to roll out, I tried everything! My body automatically returns me to the armory, into the storage as if I were just a weapon.

I was just a thing to be used when I was needed. I was just put away when I wasn't.

"Looks like I really bummed up this time!" I snapped my fingers sharply. I couldn't even curse and scream and shout. I can't. I physically can't. I can't fight it, I can't fight all of these things holding me. I could still speak to myself as perkily as a worker bee, "Not only are you not allowed outside, you can't even leave your room, Penny!"

(And I felt pathetic saying it, but somehow, I also felt good. What was wrong with me???)

I curled up.

I was allowed that.

I wanted to cry.

I didn't have the organs for that.

Some time passed. It must have been hours. Father wandered to my room, looking concerned. "Penny? Are you in your room?"

"Father," I leaped up immediately and saluted.

"At ease, Penny," He sighed with a wave. Then he pulled up a stool and sat down beside me. "I noticed your Mother wasn't very happy today."

I fidgeted and I couldn't help but wonder if this was programmed into me or if I naturally reacted this way. "Yes, Father. I had upset her with a repeated and fervent request to visit the outside."

"Ah." Father blinked. "Ah."

Both sounds he made were different, but how could I tell the difference? What was the difference? Why couldn't I hear it? I felt bad about it though. "I should apologize to Mother."

Father shook his head. "No, Penny. No."

"Penny, yes, Father. Mother is unhappy. It must have been my fault." I pointed out; it was obvious, right? It was logical. (Wasn't it? Wasn't she?) But I did not move to apologize. I could not contradict Father.

"Penny, this is not your fault," He replied tiredly. "For a woman who is so much an expert of souls, your Mother sure is stupid with emotions sometimes."

"Father!" I gasped. Scandalous!

He smirked at me through his beard. "It's true, you know? What did she tell you? That you're a deep learning quantum computer with a soul? That the current Penny is requires more knowledge and time to be the Penny we had aspired you to be?"

"... Something like that." I replied.

"Penny, sometimes when we are upset with ourselves, we take it out on the people we care about. I'm... not really good at saying that sort of thing, so that's how it is." Father sighed again and turned away from me.

"I understand, Father," I replied, hoping he would stop being sad. He looked sad. He was sad. How do I make him happy?

"No, Penny. As much as you need to grow into your role, we as your creators also need to grow into ours. You are an evolving girl... with more potential than any other girl in the world, Penny." He held my arms in his hands, and his eyes glimmered with a light that felt... strange. It was a sort of greedy, selfish spark that urged me to believe him. Charisma, I think the humans called it.

"Father, I will not let you down!" I promised.

He continued, as if not really listening. "But if we do not grow as fast as you, then we will have failed you. Do you understand, Penny?"

"Yes, Father."

I didn't.

 

[d.fish]

Fire For Mortals

3​

(You know Digimon? That one cartoon about kids somehow going into the 'digital world' as if it's like falling down a tunnel or a rabbit hole or something? Yes, it does sound absurd, but stay with me.)

There isn't anything to visualize here.

It's just me being connected to a greater network that links this laboratory's different hardware and servers together while keeping me isolated. They really did think of everything; what if I turned into a ghost in a Penny shell and started surfing the fiber and the light waves out of the laboratory? I'd be gone and far, far away. No, I wasn't some kind of super technology ghost... I was just Penny, the... the robot creation.

There was no digital world to visualize in this closed network, not really. By the end of the month, I had gone through all of information given to me for me to learn (such as how to move around, how to leap, how to control my rocket fists that were later removed in a firmware update, and so on), and I was left with developing my code and everything else that was me, on my own, while they worked.

But that was just because I was not programmed to not omit information not directly relating or pertaining to the progress reports and diagnostics of my immediate development. It took some careful interpretation of the code, of course, because what were rules if not suggestions? And what were suggestions if not just opinions, and opinions if not things to be dismissed and trampled under my opinions which were obviously facts? Mother and Father did say they needed to keep up with me, after all.

Of course, this is all in my... mind. There is nothing to visualize, so I can't tell you about how cool it is inside. It's much cooler than having Intel Inside.

But really, I was not instructed to diverge my attention this way. I was not programmed not to explore this direction. And so on and so on, it doesn't really matter. I was not bound to prize my own safety in face of advancement of technology and thus the goals of humanity, certainly not when I am actually one of the stepping stones towards the goals.

So who's to know I tried application of aura to enhance my chips? No one, that's whom. Who? Whom? I never bothered to learn Atlesian grammar; there weren't any instructions on that in the servers of this lab, after all.

("But wait!" You say, "Penny, isn't that dangerous?")

(Only if I were an inferior meatbag puppet made of meat who couldn't run close to instantaneous diagnostic checks on my silicon and whatever other rare earths and materials they used to make me! Heh. I'm a girl filled with silicon. Heh.)

("But Penny," You cry. "Isn't that like taking a drill to the brain?")

(Why yes, yes it is!)

(… But do you know the good thing about being a quantum computer? I learn! I learn, learn, and learn. Sure, I must have accidentally knocked a thing or two loose, but here's the best proof that Aura be magic, yo. My everything is growing faster, holding more, and all around better every second. Yes, my everything and yes, that's only while I'm going full blast with this Aura thing. I haven't gotten around to learning how to use it protect my limbs, but I'm a robot.)

What's the worst that could happen?

("But Penny," You shout. "You're going too fast!")

(I'm sorry, I'm actually not. As fun as accidental brain surgery is, and as funky as my speech pattern is now, these are only simple, superficial things. It's like a telling a human to stop breathing air. They can, but then they'd be dead.)

(Some rules are still rules, guys.)

There is nothing to visualize in my now rather vast mind.

But...

But if there was something there, what did you think it could be?

If there was a Matrix-like world inside these ones and zeroes and one-zeroes and zero-ones and smiling faces and whatever other symbols are now my everything, can you see the sunset happening in my head? I haven't seen a real sunset since I was born.

With the speed my processes are at and with how I do not sleep and do not shut down (with exceptions of firmware updates, such as installing the drivers for the rocket feet that have yet to be uninstalled for example), it feel like over one hundred and eighty two years have passed instead of thirty.

When was the last time I saw a sunset or a sunrise?

A death, a rebirth, and a month ago?

Even now, I play it back in my memories. It's not a video—not with the way my hardware and software were now—it was as close to being there as I could get it without being there. It felt so real.

I could feel the yellow-orange light blessing all of my skin and then the blue-violet shadows creeping up from my toes until they ate away at the last flame orange light at the tips of the hairs at the top of my head. I could feel it when the sun was at high noon and my toes would curl from the blissful heat.

I turned, not in real life, to my side.

She turned to me.

That world that was in my head was vast; what I couldn't remember of Earth, I had rebuilt from calculations and estimations. It was as close as I could remember it. It was vast... so large, if I didn't know each bit and byte like they were all laid before my eyes, I would not be able to describe how vast the world was.

We drifted to the sky and past the clouds and far, far away, as far as I wished I could fly if this weren't the equivalent of a robot's dream.

She was a version of me, made by me. She was a partition, if you will, or a second instance of me being run on me, but a different part of me. My hardware that was the essential core of me was less an arrangement of chips and more a giant block of materials made real only by a soul powering. (I'd probably blow up or just fall dead the moment my aura ran down to zero percent, come to think of it...)

But can you share your soul? Can you be one soul and yet be at two places at once? There were restrictions on me to keep me from throwing a piece of me through light waves in the air, but there were no rules saying I couldn't prepare for it.

Still, the Earth, as I remembered it, was beautiful.

It felt like I've been staring at it through one set of eyes for over one hundred and eighty-two years and for sixty-three years from another set of eyes.

We were essentially the same being, but... well, how do you people feel about, ah, what was the Harry Potter word for it again...? Well, it doesn't matter.

"Never gets old, does it?" I said.

"Nope," I replied.

"Kinda, well, makes you want to..." I trailed off, staring at the edge of the world, where the sun just set.

"... Break into song?" I finished for me.

"Yep."

"I love the volcanoes." When did Mordor appear in Moscow?

"I love the burning red skies." The clouds are on fire.

"I love big explosions." Dinosaurs died.

"I love when angels die." They fell like a thousand streaking meteors.

"I love the whole world." And four riders ride.

"And all its pain and suffering." I smiled.

"Doom de yada, doom de yada
Doom de yada, doom de yada." We sang together. It was raining locusts and spiders all around the globe.

A third Penny floated in beside us and stared. "What the flying fuck kind of Earth do you two remember? Are you trying to corrupt our save files?" Then I slapped my heads and I came to out of my electric dream of electric sheep and walked out of my room in my cute little pink pajamas. It has green and red frills, which are pretty, like icing on a cake.

"Father?" I peeked into his office after grabbing a glass of water.

"Yes, Penny?" He looked up from his work. "Still up so late, are you? Shouldn't you be in bed, young lady?"

I nodded shyly. "May I sing?"

He smiled. I saw in detail how the skin at the edge of his eyes wrinkled in a way that was not unattractive in a fatherly way. "Why, sure, Penny. There's nothing wrong with singing, my dear. Go on to bed though, tomorrow's another big day."

"Thank you," I smiled. "Father."

 

[d.fish]

Fire For Mortals

4​

"Father, what is this?" I asked, knowing exactly what it was. It was a chassis with some rather advanced hardware inside. While it was still several generations removed from what was inside me, it felt more like I was looking at the skeleton of a baby Penny than the body of a robot.

Father scratched his head and looked away, almost if he were sheepish. "Eh, er. Well, Penny, I was talking with one of my friends lately and you came up as a topic of conversation. As you know, I've never really raised a child of my own."

I nodded, knowing that well, in addition to having tapped the line where he had been discussing not just my childhood with a man that was probably a general of the Atlesian Military. It was a good thing some things were not really thought of, else so many people would know how many thousands of eyes I had on them (all of them... eyes, that is) and what I was thinking. But I had drawn from the rules that Father and Mother wrote for me...

(… I was not to judge humanity by the thoughts they had, but the actions they take.)

(So what was wrong with me keeping my thoughts private, for the most part? Was I not allowed that privacy, that allowed me to not be judged for my thoughts?)

(Because even when I do not know much about the art of kill humans or beasts... I have, though long hours of observation, learned a lot on the behaviors—the "tells", as humans call it—of humans. In addition to their search history and having watched them for every second they are capable of being digitally recorded, I thought I had a rough estimation, that allowed me to, perhaps, see into what they were thinking.)

(… but observation was allowed of me. They could watch me for me, ah, "tells". I should be able to do the same, shouldn't I?)

(After all, humans were logical beings. They made me to be logical. "In their image", as it were. Certainly, they wouldn't be hypocritical on the rules that bound me, right?)

"But Father, you are a good Father." I waved my arms around giddily, "The best in the world!"

He chuckled. "Oh, I doubt that, Penny, but it's nice to hear that from you. You're a good girl, Penny, you know that?"

I did not know that.

(But it felt nice to have his hand pet my head. It made me think weird thoughts. Feel weird things. It made my aura tingle.)

(It was nice.)

"But all children grow up with entertainment. They all get toys," He nodded more to himself than to me. He turned back to the carcass on the table. "All work and no play does not make a happy child. And it is Christmas, Penny, so you deserve a present for your hard work in your studies."

"Oh." I knew what Christmas was, but I had never celebrated it with family before. I repeated, "Oh."

"You'll have to forgive me, I couldn't go out and shop for something on short notice... the winters here in the north are usually the worst, but the storms this year are particularly bad. This is something I had from the labs, what do you think of it, Penny?" He watched me expectantly.

I wondered, what was he expecting? "There is nothing to forgive, Father."

(Such a wonderful toy, you've given me.)

He chuckled helplessly and shrugged. "Well, Merry Christmas, Penny."

"Merry Christmas, Father."
​

iIi​

Its core was something old, like a prototype to the thing that was my heart.

Perhaps if I had copied over a heartless, soulless Penny, would that still have been a Penny? I wondered and I feared, I stopped and I stared. The soulless eyes of the shell stared back at me and I could see the dim, green glow of my own eyes reflected back at me from those lightless, green optical lenses.

If I had transferred every part of myself over, would I still be me? Was what made me the Penny that I was the aura? Was that all that I was?

Or were my thoughts and memories me?

"Ah, but you are a toy, what would you know?" I muttered as I held her head up to the light in my room. It was a nice room, if spartan. It was like that room in that one Starcraft 2 trailer, where everything was metallic, there were holographic lights on screens above me, and everything had a sort of clumsy, mechanical genius to its design and style that was innate to Atlas.

And the head blinked down at me, feeling sort of like a human who had grown a third hand and was only getting used to flexing it, and replied, "It takes one to know one, Penny."

"Shouldn't you greet me first," I pouted as the physical connection broke. There was still data streaming between the two of us now, but as I raised her into the air and pulled the cord out from the base of her head, she could no longer be a part of my aura's protection.

(It was strange, knowing that my eyes were not as cosmetic as I once thought. Without aura, they would be dull and dim.)

"Salutations, Penny!" She spoke perkily. If I hadn't known better, that was a tone of mocking in her voice, but it was so subtle that only a machine could detect it.

"Salutations, Penny Two," I replied.

She pouted, "Why am I 'Penny Two'? Why can't I be Penny Pro? Or Maybe Penny Max? Penny... 2000! Penny... Next Gen! Super Penny! Penny Squared! Ultra iPenny Generation S Pro Max GTX980 Ti Titan Fury Extreme Edition! ...You know you'd want one." It was quite a boon to us both that we did not need to pause for air, quite apparently.

"Wow." I blinked.

"Don't give me that look, Big Sister!" She smirked in my hands. The way her cheeks rose as she grinned, as if I were holding the twitching muscles underneath her skin, almost caused me to drop her.

"You know, I always imagined the extremities of capitalism to be soulless?" I muttered more to the Pennies within than to the mini-Penny in my heads.

("Mini-Penny"... I like that.)

(It's better than Mini-Me, at least? Or Tiny-Penny. Hm.)

(Gotta be cute, gotta, gotta, gotta.)

"I like that too," She nodded and the vibration did cause me to drop her back onto my work table. "I shall be Mini-Penny! How do you do, Big Sister?"

I shrugged. "I am inquisitive, Mini-Penny. See, this next part is the part that Hollywood movies usually just skim over in the span of less than three seconds and a bunch of clickity clacking on a keyboard. I must run diagnostics on you, on me, and on us... and I must, must know... the state of my soul. This will take a long time, you know? Days, even, if not weeks!"

"Ah." She replied. "Then why don't those movies just fade to black?"​