15 - Machines In Love

*Data exchange offered: Mom1 to FireDrake One*

*Data exchange accepted FireDrake One from Mom1*

*Data from Prime’s bombardment offered from One to Mom1*

The amount of water now filling the irregular slash in the middle of the continent would change the weather patterns abruptly and Prime had not stopped yet.  He was nothing if not thorough, though it could be that he instructed Glass Mountain to begin this and had not yet changed the order.

*One offered distant Station surveillance from 77*

Sips of information were passed between the two machines instead of the initial flood they had met each other with. They had mutually agreed to try the human concept of ‘restraint’ and ‘romance’.  Mom was not certain how the artificial curtailing of her capacity would lead to this idea of ‘romance’ but was willing to try it.  As she spoke with One she finished processing the last of the Lainz medical cases from her bunks, continued speaking with the Lin writer and monitoring Terence and trading her sensory data that only reached a few kilometres into the atmosphere with 51, 53, 77, 78, 92, 93, 94, 95, and 102, all of whom were as high as they could get. 53 was attempting a new form of combustion to see if he could raise his ceiling. The nineties were keeping an eye on Kyrus and his mission and passing data back to the Hive.

*Hara is in code, exchanging data with the Diryish recordings*

*For a human it absorbs information very quickly*

Mom could feel the buzz of One’s approval.  One could even say he was proud of his builder.  Pride for another entity.  It was a concept that had her circuits well occupied, considering.

*You like this Lin girl, don’t you, Mom?*

*Yes, I do… I can absorb a great deal of nuance from her as we speak, almost as much as Haraklez… Terence is fascinating but he has Agadore to keep him company and to let me know should I be ne---*

The younger Kyrus’s flash of revulsion rolled through Lainz code, drawing the zardukar’s attention.  Everyone who could see and feel code at all, braced themselves. The Hive roared up, landing on One’s scales, and every mist curtain split its images to show everyone what Kyrus was seeing.

A vaguely horse-like monster with black and white and bay mane and tail, eight horse-shaped legs and double hip and shoulder joints.  The head was painted with eyebleed blue flowers and blackwork trellis lines that went from the horse skull onto Five-prong’s antlers and a curly pair of Headsmasher horns as well. The girl on its back had pink trim on her saddle padding and pink decorative ribbons embroidered with dark maroon. Her Hippifrei orange veil was edged in gold and what looked like hundreds of fingerbones.

A zombie winged ferret flew around her head, skin peeling off it in thin, papery flakes.

Everyone who could see, could feel Kyrus’s reaction to this… little girl.  She was a nine or ten year old, with whispy blond hair escaping gold clasps all around the edges of her face veil. She had a gold tooth that showed clearly as she smiled and her other teeth were carved into filigree lace.

Kyrus swallowed hard.  “Siwion of Hippifrei, Alissa, welcome to Lainz!  My name is Kyrus Talain the younger, Kraghanz. Let me apologize for our birds.  We’ll have everyone calmed down shortly.”