Page 43 of The Only Way Out Is Up

[Clarification: about my nature. My origins. I have no memories prior to when you first awakened me.]

I found your THINK sigil in the Heap, attached to a tangle of wire.

[Agreement: you have told me. I was part of a construct, then. Something that was discarded from “Above,” as Ky terms it.]

Probably.

[Reminder: there will be a judge from Above at the Ascent. Perhaps they will be amenable to answering questions.]

My skin prickles. I’m not sure I like this line of reasoning. We have to be careful. What if they want to take you back?

[Reassurance: I will not allow that. I simply wish to know more.] Star pauses, his optics glittering. [Query: are you not curious about your origins?]

I know my origins.

[Challenge: do you?]

Why, do you want the talk? When a man and a woman love each other very much, or have had too much to drink, or just made some poor decisions, then they engage in human mating behavior. A little bit after that, if you’re unlucky, you get a tiny human.

[Query: is the risk of tiny human why you have yet to engage in such behavior?]

I snort so hard I nearly drop my tools. There are other issues, too.

[Hmmm.] I’m never quite sure how much of his incomprehension of humans is a put-on. [Clarification: this is not what I meant. I refer to the origin of humans in general.]

What? There have always been humans.

[Assertion: there have not always been humans here.]

Why?

[Reasoning: the Asshole adds junk faster than the scavengers break it down. The Heap grows higher every year. Given enough time, it will fill the cavern. Any process that cannot continue indefinitely must have an end, and any process that has an end must have had a beginning. Conclusion: the Heap came to be in the relatively recent past.]

I pause, fascinated in spite of myself. How long?

[Analysis: not more than three centuries ago.]

That’s recent, is it? I laugh again. Who cares? Three centuries might as well be forever. The Heap will keep going long after we’re dead, anyway.

[Precision: long after you are dead.]

I glance over at his shining mechanical eyes, not sure if he’s joking. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a proper expression to read.

Well, I say, keep an eye on it for me.

[Agreed.]

The next couple of days pass in a blessedly uneventful fashion, except that Somi seems to be avoiding me. I spend the bulk of my time in my room anyway, where the Mark 4 is gradually taking shape. Working on runics always improves my mood, and being able to afford the parts I want makes it so much sweeter. The Mark 3 was a long series of kludges and compromises, so starting over from scratch feels like a breath of fresh air.

Ameliana stops by to pull the stitches from my leg wound, which I’d honestly almost forgotten about. She produces a distressingly sharp knife to do this, and I have to fight down a moment of panic, but ultimately my healing is pronounced satisfactory and I get out of the encounter with only a few heart palpitations. Afterward she spends quite a while in Somi’s room, presumably undergoing some palpitations of her own.

By the evening of the third day, Star’s new body is finished. As finished as it’s going to get without more parts and sigils, anyway; they say runics are never really completed, only abandoned. I transfer his foundation sigil back from the little thief body into the much larger Mark 4. Somehow I’m expecting his voice to have more bass afterward to match his bigger frame, but he sounds the same as ever.

[Exclamation: oh my.] The legs ripple, their motion smooth and even. Star bounces up and down, then tries a jump. He springs so high that his landing rattles the whole building. [Decision: I like this very much.]

Good. Get used to it for a while. Preferably without breaking things.

[Query: where will you be?]