You Need Hands
When Luciana woke up, she couldn't move. The factotum told her that she'd had an upgrade, and they needed to get her feedback while they enabled her systems. They would start with her arms.
"You are requested to touch the back of your left hand, using your right hand," the factotum announced.
Luciana wondered how else she could touch there, but she did so, and was surprised that she could feel the contact, and not just see it. What was more, the feeling was coming from both her hands. The fingers of her right hand were telling her they were touching something, and the back of her left hand told her it was being touched.
The new hands didn't look like the old metal ones, and didn't feel like metal, either. That was another revelation, it meant that the new sense of touch in her fingers could tell the difference. She informed the factotum of her findings.
"That is useful information," she was told. "It means we can move straight to the next test. Close your eyes, and examine this piece of metal with your fingers. You may use both hands if you wish."
"I can feel that it is a casting that has been machined on several surfaces," Luciana replied. "There is a rougher texture where the material has not been machined, and some parts appear to have been polished, as well. This part is flat, at the end, and is not polished. The curved part is polished, or perhaps worn. It is most likely a small pipe connector."
"That is a correct analysis. Now use your hands to compare the back of your hand with your cheek."
"The surfaces are very similar. I feel something moving beneath the surface of the hand when I move the fingers, and there is no comparable structure in the cheek ... wait a moment. Do I have actual skin on my hands now?"
"It is synthetic; it has not been removed from anybody, if that is your concern. The cables that operate your fingers run beneath it, just as they did when the surface was metal. However, the hollow structure has been replaced by a metal endoskeleton, so that the surface is available as a sensory receptor. Some padding is also included to form the correct shape.
"At this stage, only your hands have been upgraded. You appear to have retrieved enough of your sensory memory to process the new data source, and without overload. This successful progress has been reported to Sotha Sil, who will determine the next phase. He recommends that you continue to test these new hands, and report any anomalies, or concerns, as soon as you encounter them."
With that, the rest of her systems were enabled, and she could walk out of her charging frame. Although she had no reason to disbelieve what the factotum had told her, she still ran her hands over the rest of her body, to check if anything else had been changed. The factotum left her to it, and went back to her other duties.
Half-way through, she had the thought that she wouldn't know anyway, as she didn't have any tactile memory of 'before'. She carried on, as this was giving her that record, for when other changes did get made. The factotum had mentioned a 'next phase', so it seemed that further changes were going to happen, and she wanted to be prepared.
Varuni came in to see how she was doing, just as she was scratching the back of her hand.
"They're real enough to itch?" she asked.
"No, I'm just checking if I can tell the difference between types of contact. Rubbing, scratching, stroking should all feel different, and so far they do. And they match what I remember, which is quite amazing, as my memories are centuries old!"
Luciana showed her the new hands. Varuni thought they felt very realistic. "I wonder what Lord Seht used to make them?"
"All I know is that it's not metal," Luciana replied. "Not even the fingernails, which probably could have been made that way. The rods and joints inside would be metal, though, and likely the cables that operate them, too."
"They're a little smaller than the metal ones, which matched the size of gauntlets. And that means I could wear gauntlets over these, when I need to do so. But now I get to choose," she added.
And she noticed that a pair of gauntlets had been left on her desk. Of course they were her size. With them on, she looked just the same as before. If she didn't want anyone else to know about her new hands, They couldn't see any change. Luciana decided that she'd wear them in public, in case there was any advantage in keeping that to herself.
She asked Varuni who else knew. Obviously she did, and the factotums all shared the same knowledge. But did any of the other Apostles have any idea?
"Probably none of the Apostles," Varuni replied. "Clark knows, but I don't believe Fyr does, or any of the group that helped him at the beginning. The upgrade was all done by Sotha Sil, through factotums where appropriate, so no mortal technicians were involved. If you want to keep it a secret, you most likely can."
"I think I probably should do so," Luciana decided. "I haven't had any instructions from Lord Seht as to whether I should reveal it, so I'll play safe. It makes sense to wear the gauntlets as part of my patrol gear anyway. I just have to think before I remove them when I get back here."
Luciana would have liked to ask Clark what he knew, but she didn't see him around the Clockwork City at all, and none of her patrols had reported him, either. Perhaps he'd left with Fyr, who seemed to be able to come and go as he pleased. There was a time when that worried her, as it meant there was a way in and out that she didn't know, and that equated to a security risk in her thinking. But Fyr had always been an exception, and took delight in being one. That was one of the things Luciana didn't like about him.
Varuni hadn't seen him, either, and she was perhaps the most likely to do so. She was the only one, apart from Clark, who knew about her hands. But she was busy all the time these days, helping to train a new replacement for the late Chancellor Gascone Dusant. Varuni had taken on the Chancellor's duties when he fled to Brass Fortress, so she needed to hand them back off to someone else.
Luciana had wondered if Sotha Sil would decide to promote her to the job, and find a replacement Provost. Varuni wouldn't have turned it down, but it wasn't the right job for her, and so of course Seht made the proper choice and found someone more suitable to the position. Hopefully more suited than Gascone had turned out to be, too.
Varuni was excited, to say the least.
"My two greatest hopes were to meet Sotha Sil himself, and to see the world outside the Clockwork City. The first one just happened, and he told me that he had a mission for me that would take me outside!"
Luciana asked if she had any details of this 'mission', suspecting that she didn't, or she wouldn't have called it that.
"No, but he did say that he'd explain it closer to the time. He's making some equipment that I'll need for it, so I imagine I'll need to be trained to use it, and that's when I'll find out more. I have no idea where I'll be going, and when I asked, Lord Seht just pointed out that if he told me, it would just be a name of a place. It wouldn't mean anything, until I went there."
"He did say that Clark would be coming to fetch me, because I couldn't find the way on my own," she added. "Which suggests that he did leave the Clockwork City with Fyr, or at least around the same time. If Clark was still here, he would have phrased it another way. 'Coming to fetch me' implies he's already where I'll be going."
"But it's no more specific than 'outside the City', so not much detail there, either." Luciana pondered a moment. "No mention of Divayth Fyr, so that means that Clark knows how to get here, and out again, without him. That could be a useful bit of information. Did he tell you when this all happens?"
"No, but I imagine the equipment will take some time to produce, and he'll tell me when that's ready. There was no suggestion that there was any deadline to meet, either."
"There's a new clue," Varuni announced. "I'm getting fitted for a new outfit that I'll need for the trip. This isn't the 'equipment' that I mentioned before, just that my regular outfit won't be suitable for the climate where I'm going. When I get that, we'll know if it's hotter or colder than it is here."
"I think we can say hotter," Luciana pronounced when she saw Varuni's outfit. "If it isn't already hot, it will be when you arrive in that!"
"Well, it's making me feel cold standing around here, even in my room. I don't feel this cold when I'm just in my underwear in the morning," Varuni replied.
"Talking of underwear, what are you wearing under that?"
"Nothing. Everything I have would show somewhere. The bottom part does have something built in so I'm not completely exposed when I walk, or sit down. The top stays in place if I don't move too quickly, so I'll manage."
"Lord Seht's obviously not sending you into combat. Have you learned anything new about the mission?"
"Just a hint that it has something to do with your upgrades. I haven't a clue how this outfit relates to that."
Part m |