Chapter 15

Lt. Rudolph was, sadly, a dude. He had the most ridiculous sideburns and a round, fleshy nose, and looked as if he had been left out in the sun for a few extra hours, turning his very pale pink skin into very pink pale skin that was peeling. He was joined by Ensign Pavitra and Ensign Blackrook, who were both looking as if they had lucked out on the multi-cosmic melanin wheel and had both been born in a place and time where having extra melanin wasn’t a huge disadvantage and had been exposed to the sun often enough that they had clearly gotten their mileage out of it.

But the one who I was really concerned about was Dr. Regina Steel.

She was not a robot.

And she was rooting around the inside of my brain with a narrow metal probe. I didn’t feel anything thanks to the analgesic cream she had applied to my ear, but it was still deeply unsettling to be awake and aware for this, but apparently, I needed to be. “Y-You don’t have a Hope that can do this?” I asked.

“Lady Fitzland, I have no idea what you are implying,” Dr. Steel said, her voice prim and tight. “Do you want to trust this kind of procedure to a nurse?”

“ ... oh, right...” I had been given so many treatments by my robot nurse that I had forgotten that human beans were mostly the for real doctors. Which did explain why there were two cute robot maids hanging around in the background. I blushed and waved at one of them with my free hand, while Lt. Rudolph nodded slowly.

“Is she ... actually Lady Fitzland?” he asked. “No offense, m’lady, but-”

“None taken!” I said.

“Her genescan checks out,” Dr. Steel said, then drew the probe out of my ear with a brisk sigh. A faint whir and pop returned hearing to my ear and I rubbed my palm against my head, wincing as I felt the numbness beginning to fade. “And her story checks out as well. Her brain is riddled with Aphasianta – just having a sample of Aphasianta without a medical research commission is so illegal they still throw you into Newgate.”

“Good heavens!” Ensign Pavitra exclaimed.

I nodded. “Can you flushy flushy with the retrojerk?”

“ ... no!” Dr. Steel exclaimed. “It’s a virus, and a bloody vicious one – trying to flush it will cause it to stroke you out even worse than you trying to tell us whatever it was coded for! But if we can find who injected her, then...” She shook her head. “Well, we can throw the book at the blighters.”

“That does leave us with a bit of a conundrum ... does it work with the written word?” Lt. Rudy asked.

“No, no, that’s too direct,” Dr. Steel said.

“Ummmm...” My cheeks burned. “Ask Boxie.”

“Boxie?” Lt. Rudy asked. “You mean our newest Theodora? How would she know?” He shook his head. “Blackrock, get Boxie.”

“Yes sir!” Blackrock turned and rushed out of the room.

A few moments later, an utterly mortified looking Boxie was standing in the train car that everyone was doing all this in – it was the comfy, posh train car. She looked like she wanted to do nothing more than collapse into a puddle of terror, or to be shot directly in the head. Anything but being here, talking to her officer. I didn’t blame her. Like, holy shit.

“I am so sorry, sir!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t, we didn’t ... she ... that is-”

“Sorry about what?” Lt. Rudy asked. “Tee said that you found her stowed away in a closet.”

“YES THAT IS TRUE THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED,” Boxie shouted.

The humans in the room exchanged glances. Dr. Steel then looked at me. “What happened?” she asked. “You don’t need to keep secrets about this – only about the encoding of the virus.” She put her hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. I nodded.

“Welllll, uhh, they mistook me for ... a ... sex worker!” I said. “And, uh, I didn’t really say no, because, I mean, no offense, Lt. Rudy, but your grenadiers are hot. Like. Damn.” I shook my head – which provoked a perplexed expression from Lt. Rudy. Oh. Right. Ladylike talking. Fuck it! We’re doing it live. I continued forward: “Anywho, while they were banging me, I kept risking trying to talk all about the ... ya know ... and uh, I think it ... gets ... confused.”

“Ahhhhhh!” Dr. Steel exclaimed. “Imagination and fantasy originate in various parts of the brain – by routing thoughts through that, rather than into ... yes, that could work!” She nodded. “What did she tell you, Fusilier?”

Boxie glanced at Lt. Rudy. Rudy nodded. She nodded. “Well, uh, Doctor, um, she mentioned a Lord Thompson ... Lord Thompson Benedict Garland!” She sounded more and more confident as she spoke. “She said that he had kidnapped her maid.”

“Good god!” Lt. Rudolph exclaimed, standing up. “And he has this illegal virus? We need to get the Bobbies in on this.”

“You need to do far more than that, Lieutenant!”

I had never before been more happy to hear my own voice saying Lieutenant wrong. Cause, like, I had forgotten to mention this, but if this was an audio book, you’d have heard all of the other characters saying Lieutenant as LEFT-tenent, cause British people were weird. Well, if anyone ever narrates this aloud, I demand that whenever I think Lieutenant, you say fucking Lieutenant, got it? But each of the people in the room other than me gasped in shock, even the robots. Because, floating behind me ... was a copy of the curio. I snatched it from the air, then held it out to Lt. Rudy.

“What in heavens?” Lt. Rudy exclaimed – but then the sphere opened and a projection of Albert shone into the air. I’m just saying ... each time the hologram of him in my body flashed up, it got easier and easier to not see my mirror self. It was getting more and more disassociated from that old body of mine, and that was just ... really nice.

“I must be brief – the danger is intense and action must be taken promptly,” he said. “Lord Thompson has a dire plan: He wishes to gain a controlling interest in the Most Honorable Royal Machine Company. There, he will then introduce a new programming baseline into the next generation of machines to create a race of slaves.” Gasps filled the room. “He has tested the baseline programming at his manor house – the machines there are wretched creatures, their initial programming overlaid with his mastery ... but he has always known that his vile plot might be found out. They have arms, armory, and even a ship. If given the chance, they could wreak terrible harm, even do something desperate ... capturing a orbital city for ransom or worse.”

Lt. Rudolph frowned.

“That is why I targeted Miss Fitzland here, to the same world as Lord Thompson’s manor home – if my calibrations are correct, she should have arrived before him ... but the time gauge on this alien device is imprecise. I can see that she has managed, better than I could have hoped, to attain the company of his majesty’s finest. I know it is much to ask of you, Lieutenant – but you are my only hope to undo this evil, before it is too late, before more people are hurt by my foolishness.”

I gulped. “I know it’s a lot to do ... a lot to risk on just our words ... but like the old story says: Sometimes, you gotta roll the iron dice.” I managed, through titanic effort of will, to not finish the quote with ‘launch vipers’ in my best Edward James Olmos impression. Because this shit was serious.

“Not many people read Von Clausewitz,” Lt. Rudolph said, thoughtfully. “The last of the militarists...”

“ ... yeah, that’s ... one hundred percent who I was referencing,” I said, blushing.

Lt. Rudolph rubbed his cheek with one hand, scratching a tiny bit at a sideburn. “And who are you?” he asked, looking at Albert.

“Albert Fitzland-Lancaster,” he said. “It’s a very long story.”

“I’m sure...” Lt. Rudolph frowned. “Well. Damn it all. You don’t get written up in the Gazette without taking the chance. Ensigns, tell our sergeants, that every one of them is to get their sections ready and ... they had rouge machines, you say?” He looked at Albert.

Albert nodded. “It ... has been some time, but I believe the number was at nearly thirty before last, all suborned by his programming.”

“I see.” Lt. Rudolph frowned. “Tell them to set the muskets to ... stun.”

“EEE!” I squealed.

Lord Thompson’s manor house was large, picturesque, and clearly getting fortified. Machines in dungarees and work clothes – almost all of them Adams and Eves, which were the sturdy craftsman robots that had really kickstarted the entire Industrious Revolution – were throwing up sandbags. They looked quite tiny from the distance that I was at. Meanwhile, the 3rd Placeholder Name Guard were marching up, their shoots and their leggings whisking together to create this amazingly musical sound of stomping.