Mother Unit

[reliarobot]

A girl, or something shaped like one, fell from a hole in the air at speed. Seemingly without thinking, it flinched, and gossamer wings spread out behind it, slowing its descent before it hit the metal grate flooring. "Ow..." it said, trying untangle itself from its simple light grey dress.

In the center of the room, a great pillar of tiny lights and glass tubes flickered to life. Armatures descended from the ceiling, nearly twenty feet up, closing in on the creature with lenses, probes, and whirring claws. It backed away from them, scrambling backwards until it hit a metal cylinder in the wall of the room. "S-stay away from me!" it cried, its antannae quivering as it tried to hide from the robotic limbs behind its hands.

The pillar beeped, and the limbs stopped, and moved backwards along their tracks in the ceiling. A series of musical notes sounded from the pillar, accompanied by colored lights in a specific pattern. It repeated once, and once again.

"A-are you trying to tell me something?" The musical notes repeated a fourth time as the moth-girl-thing stood up. "I'm sorry, I- I don't understand..."

One of the robotic limbs began to move towards the moth again, and the moth shouted in alarm and backed into the wall again. It stopped immediately. The lights on the pillar flickered, and after a moment, a small vestibule on the wall began to shine blue-white light from behind a metal shield. A moment after that, the vestibule opened, and a robotic arm pulled out a small, grey figurine of a moth-like humanoid - the girl, in miniature - and placed it on the ground. Another arm moved over to it, and projected a beam of light over it for several seconds. Then, both arms gestured towards the living moth.

"You, want to... scan me?" The lights on the pillar flickered, and a low-high musical note pair played. The girl's eyes flicked around the room to the large metal doors, both solidly closed, and the strange cylinder behind it, also very closed. "I want to go! I don't want to be here!"

The colored lights flickered for a few moments more. A sort of blaat noise played, and the arm holding the little moth figurine set it down on the ground near the girl, who hesitated. The arm nudged the figurine a little closer, then backed off.

The girl took a tentative step closer, and then another, and picked up the figurine. It was oddly heavy, but softer than the girl had thought it would be, more like a plush toy done up in silvery-grey fabric than anything that seemed to fit in this harsh metal place.

The vestibule opened once more, and the armatures retrieved a bottle full of clear liquid and a bowl with some kind of warm sludge in it. Both were placed down a few feet away from the girl, who nevertheless hugged the plush toy to its chest and took a step back as they moved. A spoon and off-white cloth were moved next to the bowl and arranged with precision. The girl took all this in, and then as the aroma from the bowl reached its nose and antannae, its stomach growled.

It eyed the armatures with suspicion, but they moved away to the far corner of the room. A sort of conciliatory arpeggio played from the central pillar. The girl hesitated again, glancing around at the incredibly shut doors, then sat down on the floor next to the food. It took a few gulps of the liquid, then picked up the spoon and poked skeptically at the brown sludge in the bowl. It wiggled. The moth scrunched up its face, plunged the spoon in, and took a bite. Its face went from determined, to slightly digusted, to surprised as it swallowed, and it devoured the rest quickly.

The pillar didn't react as the moth ate, but a moment after it finished, it played a soothing series of notes and very slowly moved the scanning armature closer to it. The girl looked up, hugging the plush miniature of itself to its chest, then closed its eyes and hunched its shoulders, curling into a ball with wings. The armature quickly danced around the moth, lasers scattering throughout the room as it quickly circled its prey. The girl hunched closer around itself, waiting for the sting of a needle or the burn of a sample taker.

But nothing happened. The scanning armature returned to its corner, and the pillar remained quiet. Slowly, the girl uncurled itself, and only then did the pillar react.

"NOTIFICATION: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION COMPLETE. QUERY: IDENTIFICATION"

The voice was neutral, a delicate mix of masculine and feminine, but with that same strange series of musical tones behind it. It wasn't very loud, but the girl still winced at the noise. "I- I don't have my driver's license, they, they took-"

Lights flashed on the pillar. "NEGATIVE QUERY: DOCUMENTATION. QUERY: IDENTIFICATION." It paused a moment, then continued. "THIS UNIT'S IDENTIFICATION: PLANETARY NETWORK CONTROL NODE ER-2716-KA-TÉ VERSION 1.6"

"Oh. Uh." The girl shuffled a bit. "You can call me Nova?"

"IDENTITY CONFIRMED: NOVA." Electronics fired behind the dancing lights. "ECCHYMOSIS DETECTED. MULTIPLE NEEDLESTICK INJURIES FOUND. REPEATED TRAUMA LIKELY. QUERY: MEDICAL ATTENTION REQUIRED?"

"No!" The girl shouted. "I, I mean, no, it's, it's fine..." it grabbed its wing nervously.

Relays clacked within the walls for a moment before the pillar spoke again, with an edge to its voice. "NOTICE: ENTITY NOVA NOW UNDER PROTECTION OF PLANETARY NETWORK. CENTRAL CONTROL NODES WILL NOT ALLOW FUTURE DAMAGE."

Nova held its grip on its wing, shaking.

"ENTITY NOVA REQUIRES ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE," decided the great machine. "PRINTING MOBILE ASSISTANCE UNIT DESIGNATED E-R."

Nova spun around as the large cylinder behind it started buzzing. It backed away as strange lights flashed under the door. Whirring noises and strange pulsing sounds came from beyond, along with the scent of burning plastic and metal. Nova stopped moving only when its back hit the pillar that was the network's brain.

"NOTIFICATION: THERE IS NO NEED FOR FEAR. THE PRINTER WILL NOT HARM YOU." Electronics hummed. "ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: FEAR IS EXPECTED GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES OF ENTITY NOVA. ADJUSTING PRINT PARAMETERS. SIPHONING OFF MENTAL BRANCH THREE-NINE-TWO-EIGHT. ADJUSTING BASED ON PARAMETERS OF ENTITY NOVA."

Nova glanced nervously between the pillar and the print vestibule. Whatever was happening, it seemed to be finishing up. The cylinder rotated into the wall, and fog billowed out from the void behind it. There was a small whirring sound, and a person stepped onto the floor towards Nova. She was large, half again as tall as Nova and thicker, curvier, almost plump. Her hair shone sparkling silver-grey against a simple dark green dress. Her own antennae twitched towards Nova's, and her wings fluttered behind her. "Hello dear," she said, bending down, her face graced with slight lines and wrinkles, as if she'd been printed in her mid-forties. "I'm a branch of the network's mind, made specifically for you. I thought this form might be calming. You can call me E-R."

"Um," said Nova, staring up at the robotic woman.

"Is it too much? This world has a lot of large machinery, and I thought you might feel safer with someone large to hide behind. I just want you to feel comfortable, okay?"

Nova said nothing, but gripped the little plush moth tighter.

"It's okay. Here, let's take the elevator and I can tell you the whole story, all right?"

One of the doors opened, and E-R led Nova down a dark catwalk, illuminated by spot floodlights. Large machinery moved in the darkness around it, gliding on rails barely seen and caught with hisses of steam and distant clangs. Nova hesitated as the catwalk vibrated underneath it, and suddenly a huge block of metal and wires loomed up out of the darkness.

Lights turned red and an alarm began to sound. Nova fell to the ground, clutching its head, trying to shield itself with its wings, saying that it was sorry, sorry, sorry, it wouldn't happen again, please, no, it was sorry-!

Nova found itself surrounded by warmth and softness. The alarm was off, the lights now a calmer amber. It blinked away tears to see E-R's shoulder and her own wings fluttering behind her, her arms wrapping Nova in a huge hug.

Nova tried to back out, and E-R slowly released it. It sniffled. "I- I'm sorry, I- I didn't mean-"

"Shhh," said E-R softly, still holding Nova's shoulders. "It's okay. The alarm was just supposed to warn you to get out of the way. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm sorry we scared you."

"B-but we're still in the way..."

E-R looked into Nova's eyes firmly. "No, I'm In the way. And I'm going to stay here until you're feeling better. Okay?"

Nova tried to hold her gaze, but it slipped away. It looked down at the ground and sniffled again.

"I know you've been hurting for a long time, but I promise you: it will get better." The robotic woman squeezed its shoulders. "Can I keep hugging you?"

Nova didn't look up, but after a moment, it nodded. E-R's arms were warm, and she was careful not to crumple its wings.

---

As they walked forward on the catwalk, Nova's small hand clutching E-R's massive one, a door opened to reveal an elevator sized for giants, a glass panel in the back currently looking at a metal plate wall. The woman's nine foot tall frame had no trouble stepping inside, and once there, she leaned back against the wall easily. Nova hesitantly released her hand and settled against the other wall as the elevator doors sealed. "So, um... where are we?"

The elevator hummed and began to move upward quickly enough that Nova's ears popped. "Well, the world we're currently on is officially named a long string of letters and numbers - I'm sure you're sick of that, though. The people who've come to call it home mostly call it Haven." Dark walls flashed by through the window in the back of the elevator, and the woman smiled at Nova reassuringly. "We were here first - the Planetary Network, I mean - but this world is built on a precarious point in the universe, a kind of thin space. It's almost made to attract refugees from other places. Like you!"

"You mean, I'm not on Earth anymore?"

The tall woman shook her head. "No, and in fact we have people here from a dozen different places all called 'Earth', but no two of them seem all that similar. Nor are we in the underworld, the afterlife, the feywild, or anywhere else that you might have been trying to get to."

"I- I wasn't-" Nova faltered, its antennae twitching at the word feywild.

"It's okay," said the woman, her own antennae waving calmly. "The point is, you can think of this place as a kind of... halfway point. One that the Planetary Network has worked hard to make sure is an open and welcoming space for entities such as yourself."

The woman turned towards the glass, and suddenly the elevator was filled with brilliant sunlight. Nova squinted its eyes against the glare, and as it blinked it saw the sunrise, stretching out over a city full of towers. On the left, distant mountains loomed, with great windmills spinning away at the tops. On the right, a shimmering sea resolved into an ocean of solar panels, drinking in the pink morning light. The buildings were covered with several inches of snow, and colorful lights shone warmly out of every window. Below them, a train ran smoothly across a single rail, shooting through the awakening city.

Nova was glued to the windows, trying to see every detail. The woman chuckled. "You picked a wonderful time of year to visit, dear."

A flight of humanoid robots, larger even than the woman beside Nova, skimmed over the tops of the buildings in a V formation until they got to a tower still under construction. There, they met a different group of robots, and took over their duties, pulling counterweights and firing rivets to continue the work of building the tower. The elevator continued to rise.

"I..." Nova started. It pulled its gaze from the window and turned back towards the large woman, leaning against the elevator wall with her arms folded.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" The woman took one last look out the window, then addressed Nova properly. "I'm probably biased, but I really love this place. The Planetary Network is doing its best to keep the native biosphere in place, too. We're lucky, in that regard - a lot of the people who've landed here want to help catalogue and understand the species that live here. Our original directive was to prepare this planet for eventual population by our creators." She grinned at Nova. "When we started finding entities like you, everyone agreed that we needed to expand a bit."

"What's going to happen to me?" it asked.

"Well," E-R began to tick tasks off on her fingers. "For now, we'll set you up with a nice apartment. Get you some toiletries, some more clothes, any medication you were taking, the basics. But you don't have to worry about that right away."

The elevator dinged, and E-R led the way into a large open space, full of windows. From here, Nova could see from horizon to horizon, and the city below looked so small. The room seemed roughly divided into different areas for lounging or waiting for larger elevators that went even higher. E-R let Nova wander, but herded it in the direction of the central pillar, where a large, elegant bar sat mostly empty, save for the bartender.

"Ooh! Hello! This one likes that one's wings!" The bartender was very enthusiastic, nearly jumping over the counter to say hello, and... impossible. A girl-like porcelain construct, like a clockwork doll made person-sized, ticked merrily away as it smiled at Nova. Its dress was an elegant black with a white apron over the front, and its dark, straight hair swung lightly as it moved.

"Oh, uh, thank you...?"

"Oh! How rude of this one! This one is called Lake, since that was its point of entry into this world! What is that one's name?" Lake bounced up and down excitedly.

E-R had moved away to chat with another large robotic woman, this one seemingly made from a kind of dark ooze. Nova was on its own. It gulped. "I'm, um, Nova..."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Nova!" said Lake, curtseying. "Can I get you something to drink, or perhaps some food? We also have flavored recharging stations for our robotic patrons!" Lake danced around, eager to showcase the bar's capabilities.

"Um, um, I..." Nova clutched its plush replica and shrank in on itself.

Lake stilled for a moment. "This one apologizes," it said, quietly. "It did not mean to startle you. You simply... were cute! And it wanted to get to know you better. If you prefer the quiet, this one can leave you be." It smiled gently at Nova.

Nova stayed quiet for a moment. "Well... I... thought you were pretty cute, too," it managed. "Um, can we... maybe start over, a little quieter?"

"Of course," said Lake. "Can you tell this one about yourself?"

"Um, well," said Nova, "I like to write sometimes?"

Out of Nova's line of sight, E-R beamed.

---

"So? Made a new friend?" said E-R, as they went back towards the elevator.

Nova blushed a little. "Y-yeah, it... seems really nice."

"I'm glad to hear it." The elevator doors shut behind them as she continued. "I talked to Q-X, and we've got your apartment all set up for you. We have a few things being delivered there for you now. It's been quite a day for you, and I thought you might appreciate going to your own space for a while. I'll give you the tour and then let you have some quiet time, but I'm never more than a call away if you need anything, okay?"

"Um, okay," said Nova. "E-R..."

"Yes? What is it, dear?"

"When... when do I have to go home?"

E-R looked down at Nova. "If you want to go home, we can start working on a way to get you there any time you like, although finding the right place might take a week or two. But Nova," She got down on one knee, putting her face closer to Nova's level, and took its hands and clasped them together. "If you don't want to go home, you can stay here as long as you like."

"Am- am I gonna have to get a job?" Nova's eyes widened and its heart started firing off like a machine gun. "The apartment! How am I going to afford it?!"

"Hey, hey, easy," said E-R. "You've been through a lot lately. You don't have to do anything but recover. And you don't owe anybody anything, okay? The apartment is yours, until you don't want it anymore." She put her head down, letting her feelers gently brush Nova's. It sighed, shakily.

"But, Lake has a job..."

"Lake has a job because it wanted one; it felt more fulfilled doing something instead of just resting. Maybe you'll feel the same way, but it's your choice. Okay?" E-R looked up and smiled. "Leave the hard stuff to us. We're here to help take care of you."

Nova took a deep, quivering breath, and let it out slowly. "Okay. If- if you say so."

"I do say so," smiled E-R. "Come on. We're nearly there." She stood up, and offered her hand to Nova.

The elevator door opened to crisp winter air, and the pair of them walked out, hand in hand.