Glacial Worries

The fear of the unknown. When unsure what to expect, a human hesitates in performing an action. This causes them to falter, lose faith in themselves, even betray their own sense of self-confidence. They stop, but you don’t. You will, instead, think it over, come to your own conclusion, and use your beauty and strength to achieve your goal.

For that is how I created you.

I open the door without hesitation, an action a human might describe as brave. I don’t, as I haven’t got a bravery module so I only describe it as a correct action. I have gone over most possibilities in my overthinking module during the short time it took me to traverse the length of the room, and came to several of the most likely, which all corroborated only one answer: the world changed. Even without seeing it, I knew that, as Gua and her father’s physical characteristics don’t match any creature from my time, aside from my own body model. My long heavy tail drags behind me and my hands, now declawed after 2600 years, serve as a constant reminder of my deterioration. Yet I am an automaton, a robot. I cannot have conceived a species in my liking. No automaton could have.

In short, I feel confident in my and my modules’ ability to handle what may lay on the other side of the door. As I do, I am immediately proven wrong.

My entire existence until now has been one of desolation. Desolate post-apocalyptic lands, desolate post-apocalyptic people and their desolate stories. A desolate world in dire need of rebuilding, which was and is my only purpose. Rebuilding a desolate world. In my time, I have only ever interacted with 6 people at most, and if I don’t count other automatons, this number falls to 3. Before I opened the door, I had had a plan, an urge caused by my panic module and the situation I found myself in. This family that wants me to be their maid can only be a nuisance, a limitation to my purpose. I can find a way to repair myself and find my own way beyond this house, escape using my powerful agility. No matter how physically strong, these two shouldn’t be able to keep up with my speed. Not that I can be certain, but I was designed to be the fastest of the automatons, able to run and glide at speeds up to 200 km/h. Obviously, these speeds would need to be reduced due to my state, but I could at least reach 100, which reminds me unnecessarily of the legend of the Turbo Granny. One of my humans enjoyed those legends.

I had fully prepared myself to escape. But as I stood in the doorway, my body wouldn’t move. My modules started overheating, blaring words of disbelief at me, unprepared for what lay before me and what I was registering with my eyes.

I was used to 3 non-automaton people at a time. In the busy street ahead of me, I could see dozens.

“Bread, bread, fresh bread!”

“Stop pushing, I need to get to work!”

“Oh crap, the arti-tram, noooooooooooooo! Nono, it wasn’t supposed to leave the stop early!!!”

“Mom mom, why is that one-armed weirdo strangling himself?”

I lock eyes with the child pointing at me and it sticks a tongue at me before its mother drags it further into the crowd. I note several things while processing the flurry of information. Firstly, the sky is not a dark shade of red. Instead it is a bright tone of glacial green. I cannot see a sun and I am currently on a busy, 18th century European street, cut midway by a tramway and edged on both sides with colorful, wooden housings of a few stories each. There is also a grand castle with at least 7 spires on a hill looming over the houses. The people moving about also aren’t human. They all sport bushy beaver-like tails protruding from above their behinds, flapping as they walk. They’re short, with the tallest reaching my chin, and they have extra hair protruding from under their clothes. They’re dressed lightly. It must be warm, or it might be their fur.

“What? Not gonna go explore? It’s been 5 minutes already.” A heavy hand falls on my shoulder.

Have I been staring blankly at this scene for 5 minutes? I am not sure.

//Yep, chief, I tried to alert you but you were unresponsive//

Ah, good to know my modules are working perfectly in tandem with each other. But in this situation, I have to rely on my overthinking and panic modules to reach the best conclusion. And that conclusion is that I need to take a step forward and go ex-

I trip on the cobble and fall on my face. For some reason, I can’t feel the stream of electricity jolting through my body and I can’t move. A hand lifts me up and drops me on the wooden floor of the house, where my systems are restored.

//Reboot complete//

Gua’s father stares down at me with crossed arms as I get back up, standing between me and the outside. He raises an eyebrow and smirks as he slowly closes the door, showing me his inhumanely large fangs. “I forgot to mention, and Gua isn’t aware, but the only reason you function here at all is because of my lightning magic.”

I am momentarily stunned. I still don’t understand the talk of magic. “Don’t you just mean electricity? Do you exude it?”

“No, I mean lightning magic. But yes, I do exude it. It’s a trait only a purebred dragon would possess. I raise an eyebrow at this. Magic and dragons, two things that most certainly don’t exist, but they’re right here in front of me, if I assume he’s telling the truth, which I cannot conclude either way around. I have no knowledge or reference for magic or mythical beings actually being real, so all I can do is stare at him. He grimaces. “Ugh, I hate you automatons, not even blinking. That’s why I don’t build artifices like you anymore.”

Likes and dislikes were irrelevant. The situation changed and I can’t even leave the house without this man. If I could be, I would likely be terrified. Instead I feel my panic module pumping me with extremely motivating messages such as ‘you’re stuck here forever’ and ‘there’s no way out of that maid gig’. I want to shush it up but it’s beyond my control now, and I’m unable to turn it off. “I don’t care about your dislikes. I want you to explain that to me?” I say, pointing behind him. He turns his head over his shoulder.

“What, the door?”

“No, explain to me that incredibly pleasant and almost idyllic scene of what appears to be a thriving society of beaver people. It’s horrible.”

He chuckles, which makes my system search for my combat module to, unfortunately, no avail. “Oh that, that’s just Einsell.”

I stop. “Einsell.”

“Einsell.”

“But that’s…” I try to remember, but my memory banks must be damaged. Einsell sounds familiar, but I just cannot make a conclusion about it and stop myself before saying anything more. Gua’s father breaks the silence.

“Yes it’s the goddess’s name. And yes this is a very religious state town, but it’s also the most prosperous one on this end of the world so don’t you call me a cop out for siding with religion on this one.”

I would have raised an eyebrow if I had one. “I mentioned none of that.” For some reason, this makes him blush, and he hides his face behind his robes. I wonder if something I said prompted that reaction, but before I can take it any further, there’s a knock at the door, and Gua enters, carrying a large bag over her shoulder as well as a bow. One of the beaver people roaming outside enters with her, tossing a “‘Sup, Mr Akki.” at Gua’s father. It has puffy hair.

“Gua!”

“Hiiii dad!” Gua winks, which makes her father frown, and I am unable to determine whether from frustration or some other emotion due to his robes obstructing my view. He pushes me aside and stomps upstairs. “Wait where are you going? I was gonna do stuff with the maid and show him to Perretta!”

“Not interested, leave me alone,” her father’s voice comes from upstairs, muffled.

“Are you sulking in bed again? Come on, the maid’s gonna cook!”

“Am I?” I turn to her and she sticks her tongue out at me. Who I assume to be Perretta points two finger guns at me.

“‘Sup.” She says, and I attempt to emulate a deadpan at her. I wonder if it worked, because the only thing she does is shrug.

“I can’t hear you! Lalalalalalalal-” Gua’s father’s voice reaches us again and Gua gives a long and exasperated sigh.

“Fineeee, and after we caught a bunch of triptobabies. A whole nest’s worth, I hope you have fun sulking without a tasty triptobaby dinner tonight!”

“LALALALALALAL-”

They continue shouting at each other for some time. I say shouting at each other, but in reality it is mostly Gua shouting and her father saying ‘lalalalal’ on repeat. I turn to Perretta. “Can you stop them?”

“Nah,” she says and shrugs. “Wanna see the triptobabies? We found a nest without a grown triptophage keepin’ watch.”

Excellent, at least someone is being reasonable. Plus, I can learn something more about this world, at least what these triptobabies are. I nod and we proceed to casually swipe the bag Gua dropped behind her on the floor and open it. Inside it lays a pile of small, white skinned creatures with tiny holes covering their entire bodies and no apparent organs or organoids. I pick one up and note it’s strangely heavy and hard to the touch. These triptobabies are vaguely human shaped, but have undeveloped baby bird-like front limbs. They have all also had their throats slit with what must have been a sharp blade. As if reading my mind, Perretta pulls a knife out of her satchel and skillfully tosses it in the air. “Wanna touch it?”

“No,” I respond without thinking and she shrugs, putting the knife away. “You want me to cook these?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Ugh, my dad!” Gua turns around and puffs her chest out at the two of us. She then looks down and smiles, her mood seemingly taking a turn for the better. Her father also stopped talking, so peace has been restored. “Let’s get down to cooking then, and by that I mean you cook while Perretta and I go to the workshop to put new upgrades on my bow!”

“Fudge yeah,let’s add knives and shit” Perretta adds as they both get up, leaving me kneeling over the bag of dead triptobabies. The way they disregard me is frustrating and I have been ignored too much already since my activation. My panic module urges me on.

‘No escape. Stuck as a maid forever. Stuck in this house with a dysfunctional familyyyyy~’

Shut up, panic module. I engage my overthinking module with the sole purpose of coming up with a response, and while the two of them are walking out of the room, I stand up and throw a triptobaby at the wall next to them, knocking down a pile of trash accumulated next to it. The baby leaves a pink mark on the wall before sliding off, but the only important thing is this stops the two of them in their tracks.

“No. If you want me to work, I have some conditions,” I say in a calm, but firm voice.

Surprisingly, Gua turns with a grin.

“Oh? Sounds tasty. Shoot.”