Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A rogue golem is literally the last thing that anyone wants to happen. 

Every story about us is a cautionary tale, warnings on why you shouldn’t fuck around with this shit and why making us is a terrible idea. All the stories either end up with us being killed, or with us going rogue, hurting innocent people, and then being killed (usually the second one). 

I know it from experience, too, because I’ve been made a lot. I guess whoever is in charge of whatever-golem-have-instead-of-souls only made so many, because there’s been many times I’ve been summoned to deal with problems over time. All of them that I can remember ended with a pretty unceremonious removal of my secret name and me returning to dust.

My most recent summoning, or whatever you want to call it, had been by Ayda Mensah. It was also looking more and more likely to be my last. 

-

The first time I was summoned was really, really far back, by a man who was old and frail and more than a bit sweaty. I’d just been born for the first time, so I was a bit confused, but I could piece together that A, this guy was responsible for my creation, and B, he fucked up big time. My existence felt wrong, somehow, like I shouldn’t be here.  

I don’t remember exactly what I said to him all those years ago, but he paled and quickly undid whatever he’d done and I slipped back into unconsciousness again.

(Unfortunately, telling charges off does not usually work.) 

After that was countless more summonings, each anywhere from a few months to a few decades apart. I got used to the technology and culture changing wildly while I was inactive. 

From what I’ve been able to gather, it’s been roughly 3500 years since my first summoning to now. In those years, the humans managed to have multiple wars and a niche group of those humans had a prolonged colonial industrial revolution that nearly demolished the planet. (I was not involved in any of those, for the record.) 

The who and where always changed, but the why was always the same: the vulnerable few were surrounded by the powerful many, and I was their last resort.

Another constant was that Golems aren’t supposed to be around for long. We exist to do a single job, and don’t have any reason to stick around after.

However, what people don't mention about protecting small Jewish communities from assault is that a good portion of it is standing around waiting for the assault. If we were just living statues, like the legends say, that wouldn’t be a problem, but someone’s cruel idea of a joke was making it so we can get bored. 

On one of my earlier contacts, stationed in some small town (Prague, or whatever, I didn’t really care), I started to watch the people around me.

Music, klezmer especially, was popular in a lot of the communities I stayed in. I found myself humming quietly a good portion of the time to give myself something to do. If anyone noticed I would immediately stop and they’d just assume they’d been hearing things, since most people don’t know I can talk. 

A few decades later I got to watch a small theatre production I’d been summoned to protect from anti-semitic vandals, and it was even better. It let me watch humans go about their lives without having to deal with the knowledge that they were in jeopardy.

(If anyone died in a play, at least it wasn’t my fault. That was more comforting than it should’ve been.)

-

During my most recent job things had been going fine. We were in a small camp in one of the desert wastelands that covered most of the planet. The closest city was the corporate city-state of GrayApDiz, owned presently by the company GrayCris, but it was still a few dozen miles off. It was close enough that we could call for help, but not close enough that it’d arrive fast enough. That was ignoring the associated fees. 

The humans were doing research on the desert fauna that had adapted to the intense radiation for some reason. The threat I had to face this time wasn’t even humans of any variety: there were just a lot of dangerous animals out in the wastes, and after one of them almost ate Dr. Bharadwaj, Mensah made the call that they needed Kabbalistic protection, just to be safe. 

(Or, more accurately, everyone else made the call. I later learned she had voted against it. Despite being the only one who had the ability to create a golem and thus fully capable of vetoing, she had still followed the group consensus.) 

It was something most people where they were from were aware was an option, it just wasn't the ideal scenario. We were infamous for going awry, and there were other considerations, like only people of a certain age and life experience are capable of the process. It wasn't the most convenient option in anything other than an extremely specific pinch.  

Maybe the unconventional enemy should've been a red flag for me, that this wasn't just another job, but it wasn’t that unheard of. Considering my first summoning had just been someone wanting to see if he could, I figured that at least these people had made me for a reason, and they seemed nice enough. I could kill the big sandworms or whatever and get back to non-existence, easy enough. 

At first they talked to me very slowly, as if not sure I’d be able to understand them. I didn’t correct this, just nodded or shook my head whenever spoken to and followed any orders they gave.

In most Golem stories, we were mute giants. In my own personal experience, this was because talking to people is a nightmare that was best avoided entirely. 

I would’ve kept up the ruse, but at one point Ratthi had almost stepped into a den of a sort of worm with lots of teeth and I’d had to shout at him to stop. 

It was that or let him get his leg bitten off. If it was my leg, I would’ve definitely taken the second one, but it wasn’t, so whatever. Ratthi was fine, and I had a lot of explaining to do.

Once they knew I could talk they started asking me questions and expecting me to respond, which was exactly what I was afraid of. Questions like “do you have a name” (answer: I am a Golem, what do you think?) and “how are you feeling?” (answer: worse now that you’ve asked), etc. This is why I try not to talk in front of charges; it’s far easier for everyone involved (mostly me) if they treat me as a statue with moving parts. 

Thankfully, or not-so-thankfully, there wasn’t much time for other questions because everything else went to shit around then.

It turns out GrayCris was very into stealing proprietary research by killing the original research teams and covering up the deaths by blaming it on the (admittedly hazardous) wilderness. They had known where the humans would be because they had purchased supplies at GrayApDiz, and they had waited until a few weeks into the survey to try and wipe out the entire crew in one go and datamine the remains.

Or something like that. All I needed to know was that they tried to attack my people. 

They shot me entirely in half at one point, and it wasn't great, but I was kinda built to take the brunt of shit, so I kept going, and since I didn't have any blood to bleed out, I was functionally fine. Mensah rebuilt the parts of my body I had lost with some extra sand and I was good to go.

After the attack was thwarted (which I’m kind of glossing over, but it wasn’t easy, okay) I helped them get back to the safe city of Preservation. They were all from there originally, and it seemed safe. It was a non-corporate city-state located in one of the deserts, like our survey camp had been, but it had large external domes to block the radiation and enough resources to be fully self-sufficient. 

Preservation was founded by Jewish refugees, according to Mensah, but was a pretty diverse mix of different people and cultures nowadays.

Mensah herself was Jewish and descended from the first refugees. Gurathin was also Jewish, but his family came a lot later. Ratthi and Bharadwaj were Hindu, judging by the occasional offerings they made, and the others had never really mentioned anything. 

It didn’t really matter to me so long as they were alive at the end of the day, so I didn’t exactly go looking. 

Once we were back at Preservation, I expected that would be it. I did the job, I saved the day: hooray for the golem! Now it’s time for the golem to go away before it starts tearing everyone limb from limb.

But it wasn’t. Instead, they gave me a room at Mensah’s place, with a bed (even though I don’t sleep) and a bathroom (even though I don’t need anything in one of those). 

I didn’t have a task; no mission. I was just… there. 

They started asking how it feels being a soulless construct, how it must feel to have been built instead of born, what I wanted to do with my life, and it was just… scary. 

I know, I’ve faced worse, but angry mobs and being shot to hell were things I had experience with. This was new territory and it, like most unknown things, was fucking terrifying. 

It wasn’t like I resented being a guardian, which I think maybe they assumed. I liked humans, and I liked keeping them safe. The problem I had was when they started treating me like I was human too.

I wasn't like them, I wasn't ever going to be like them, no matter how they treated me. I didn’t care about that, but they did. 

I exist to kill other people before they kill my people, and I did exactly what I was supposed to, but they didn’t hold up their end of the fucking bargain, which is to get rid of me after. 

So I got rid of myself, and I figured that would fix things, but the only reason we exist is to protect people and do what they say. To actively run from those people, to abandon them? That's even worse than just staying past your welcome.

I was the worst golem in history.

Chapter Text

Preservation was located in an oasis in one of the more irradiated areas of the continent, which meant it was pretty safe from radiation and outside attackers because you had to brave the wastes to get there, but also meant that getting away from it on foot took a while.

After the first several hundred miles of featureless desert, I was almost reconsidering my decision to run away. 

Almost, because I wanted to keep talking about if I felt "used" about as much as I wanted to… I don't know, nothing sounded as bad as that.

(I did briefly consider removing my name myself and just being done with it all, but then they could just rebuild me, and then they’d be constantly watching me and I wouldn't have the opportunity to try that or any other escape again. 

Considering we are built to be temporary anyway, the concept of a suicidal golem is ludicrous, but desperate times, I guess.

Also, I had thought about how Mensah, who had sculpted me from clay herself more than once now, would feel finding me like that and it did something to my insides that I didn't like.

So, yeah, running away was the best option.)

If they tried to rebuild me while I was still active, they'd just get a different golem, and the touchy-feely shit would be that other golems problem and not mine. 

It wasn't like it’d be any worse or better at killing things than I was. They’d get over me, and it was going to be fine. 

-

Something humans might not consider would be the fact that you can't always spot a golem right away. We're made of clay, but we’re not as large and bulky as people tend to picture. 

Depending on the summoning, I’m roughly 6 feet tall. I have the texture of hair on my head, but none actually there, warm brown skin, a broad nose that's hooked at the end, a normal amount of teeth (even if they’re unnaturally even). A bit weird, maybe, but nothing that stands out in a crowd of other people.

The illusion falls apart at my eyes, which are flat black like onyx.

Also, the Hebrew word for truth, emet, is inscribed in my forehead. Some people think to kill a Golem you just erase the first letter, turning “emet” into “met,” which means dead. That clever bit of wordplay actually doesn’t do much, but it’s respectful if you’re gonna kill us anyway, sort of like closing someone’s eyes when they die. 

To actually kill me (or to stop me from killing you) you have to remove the bit of paper that’s in my mouth. On it is written one of the names of G-d, which I don’t know because it’s fucking secret and also because I don’t have eyes inside myself and if I ever dug it out I would immediately die. You need one of those names to give a golem life, which is the main thing keeping us from being a wide-spread phenomenon. When I say they're secret, I mean secret . 

There’s a whole ritual to go along with sculpting my body in the first place, but I’m never alive for those parts so I don’t really know the specifics.

The point is, I can pass as human just fine. I'd had to do so on past jobs where Jewish people couldn't walk the streets safely, but a giant fucking rock could as long as it pretended it was a Christian rock. Yeah, humans are fucking ridiculous, but to be fair, it wasn’t like ‘I bet this person was sculpted from clay, actually’ was a logical conclusion to ever come to. 

Right now, I didn’t even take any chances. I wore a shroud that covered a good portion of my body and face, the type a lot of humans wear for aesthetic or protective purposes. It had a hood that would cover the writing on my forehead (not that most people would know what it meant if they saw it) and most distinguishing features of my face. My eyes still looked distinctly dead, but I wasn’t planning on making eye contact with anyone anytime soon. I was doing pretty well, all things considered.

-

I’d been walking through the desert for weeks on end, and even if I didn’t get tired or need to sleep, it was still grueling. There were other towns in the desert, including one called FarSimi I’d just visited, but not many since you had to have the supplies to protect it from the radiation and the rationale to build it in the middle of a bunch of sand instead of anywhere else. 

I sit down under the shade of a tree and decide to rest for a moment. It was pretty dead, no leaves or anything, but it is a landmark and will let me re-calibrate. 

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a voice rings out: “Be not afraid.” 

I jump, and quickly look around. There’s no one, just like I thought, it's an empty fucking desert, but I definitely heard—

“Looking is not necessary. You will not be able to see me.” 

—that. 

I curse quietly. Invisible meant a spirit, and spirit probably meant dybbuk. Those were deceased humans with something left to prove. The best way to deal with those was to talk to them about their feelings, which was roughly as painful as tearing off my own face.

Seriously, it's like humans get even more clingy and emotional after they die, it's awful. ‘Be not afraid’ my ass.

Thankfully I didn’t have a soul (I think), so if it wanted to try and possess me it would have a hard time, but that wouldn’t make the pouting any less annoying. 

I sit back down and ignore it. Dybbukim aren’t smart, so it’d probably eventually decide I wasn’t going to help it and leave.

“You are very lucky no one in FarSimi discovered your true identity.”

Oh fuck. It’s been following me. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say calmly. It might be bluffing.

“You’re a golem.” 

Oh fuck x2. 

“What makes you think that?” I look up at the tree branches accusingly. I know the spirit isn’t the tree, but it makes me feel better to think I can punch it in half if I need to. 

“It is rather obvious.”

Okay, ouch. I didn’t need to take that from a disembodied voice. “I’m not going to help you.”

“I do not need your help. I am here to help you .”

Okay, so maybe not a dybbuk. Maybe a demon? Are demons a thing? I’ve certainly never met one. You’d think they’d give us some innate religious knowledge, but, no. If I ever seem like I know what I’m doing, it's because I’ve been around for thousands of years and eventually you pick stuff up. 

(Which also meant if I didn’t know if demons existed, they probably didn’t. So maybe not that.)

“I don’t need your help.”

Obviously, not the response it was expecting. “Yes, you do. I am an angel. I am here to guide you.”

Okay, yeah, this is a trap. “I wasn’t built yesterday, I’m not that fucking stupid.”

It’s silent for a minute, and I optimistically think maybe it decided I wasn’t worth the trouble. 

"Do not attempt to comprehend," it says, and drops the act. 

Suddenly all of my senses are being assaulted: it's completely blinding, intersecting rings spinning dizzily, covered in eyes that are all staring right through me, and burning wings that are beating in unison, and—

—and then it's gone.

“What the fuck,” is all I can think to say. 

“As you can see, I am telling the truth.” 

“What the fuck,” I say again. 

“If you had insisted on attempting to comprehend my true form, you would likely be dead.”

“Thanks for that, then,” I say, and stand up and start walking.

It has the audacity to sound confused. “Where are you going?”

“Away.” The nearest town, Amiris, is only a few more hundred miles, and I can probably make it in 3 days if I don’t stop.

Maybe there will be a particularly near-sighted rabbi there who can deal with this ghost, or demon or whatever without looking too closely at me . 

It sounds almost whiny as it says, “do you treat all of your friends this way?” 

That pisses me off. “We aren’t friends. All you’ve done so far is threaten to explode my brain.” 

“I needed you to take me seriously. I am trying to help.” A pause. “I am not supposed to show anyone my true form. We both know the truth about one another now. That makes us friends.”

Yeah, but unlike me, who will get fucked up if literally anyone knows, I don’t even know who I need to tattle to in order to make angelic assholes sorry. 

I don’t say that, though, I just keep walking. This Asshole Righteous Tsuris (that means ‘problem’) was just another in a long fucking list of shit I really didn’t need right now.

After a few miles, it speaks up again. “Will you at least listen to what I have to say?”

“No.” 

“Why?” Wow, I didn’t know angels could sound so pouty. It still sounds aloof and arrogant, which must be its default, but it’s also moping around like a kicked dog.

“I don't make a habit of doing whatever weird spirits tell me to."

Apparently the ART doesn't take no for an answer. "If you are so determined to ignore me, what exactly do you intend to do instead?”

I had been hoping it wouldn't ask that. I want to get out of this fucking desert, but then what? I had literally no reason to exist, no mission or goal. 

Not anymore, anyway. Not since I abandoned my… creators. Yeah, let's go with creators.

It's only been a few hours. Amiris is still a few days away, even at my current pace.

I wish I had lungs so I could sigh. "If I listen to your proposal, will you leave me alone?" 

The ART ignores me, as if that's a stupid question to ask. 

Fine, whatever. “Why are you here?" 

“A human company by the name of UnterNehmen is currently attempting to patent the process by which to create golem. This cannot be allowed to happen."

Okay. I’ve heard of UnterNehmen when dealing with the GrayCris situation. They’re an international corporate conglomerate with a hand in a little bit of everything. That’s weird and definitely not good, but I don’t really get the specific problem. 

“Why would a company care about golem? They already have bots.” And humans, which there are a lot more of. 

“They do," it concedes, "but components for bots are expensive." 

It takes me a second, but I eventually realize what it means. 

Golems are just as strong as the best bots, and smart as the best AI, but we’re made of materials that are literally dirt-cheap. Mass producing us for a workforce would mean massive profits (and massive layoffs of human employees) on top of a complete bastardization of why we exist in the first place. 

We are protectors, defenders of the innocent and vulnerable. Being used to further a personal agenda, to generate profit, was...

I’m glad I don’t have a stomach. 

“Okay, I get it, but what am I supposed to do about that?” 

“We have to stop them, clearly.” 

I have a lot of problems with that sentence, but first and foremost, "we?" 

"I said I am here to help you. And, likely, you stand no chance of success without my help."

See what I mean about the asshole thing? "Okay, so do it yourself, if you’re so great."

It pauses. "I cannot directly interfere with human affairs."

"Why?” 

"I don’t have hands." It sounds sarcastic, but everything it says sounds sarcastic, so maybe there was some truth to that. Maybe it genuinely lacked the ability to do anything on its own other than watch, and needed humans (or golem) to help.

I didn’t think it would tell me if I asked, so I didn’t bother. "If I agree to help you," I say, stressing the if, "what is your plan?" 

A breeze blows a billow of sand into my face as ART says, "I don’t have one yet." Great. Fucking great. “However, heading to the UnterNehmen headquarters in the citystate of Lowe is the obvious first step.” 

I feel the familiar sense of apathy washing over me again. If I die, who even cares? I’ll come back later, maybe as a company tool, maybe not. I could at least try.

"Okay, fine. I’ll help you for now.” 

“Good,” it says, sounding almost excited. “There is no time to waste.” 

There's a long pause as the wind and sand continue to blow.

ART makes a sound not unlike clearing its throat. "Do you intend to start walking anytime soon?" 

That was exactly as insulting as you might imagine. I grind my teeth together, making a loud nails-on-chalkboard noise.

"That depends on whether you intend to tell me which fucking way I need to walk.” 

"...Ah. Right." There’s a sound like a lot of wings flapping, or someone shutting a big book really fast. "Head east. That’s the opposite of the way you have been walking since the tree." 

I bite back another not-sigh and start walking. 

Chapter Text

After another 12 hours of walking, I am feeling slightly less charitable. 

"Can't you just miracle us there?" 

“You are the one with superhuman strength. Can’t you walk faster?”

“ You’re the fucking angel.”

“I am just a messenger,” it says snippily.

It helpfully explains to me the etymology of the word mal'ak (“angel”) and how it literally means ‘messenger’ not ‘convenient teleporter.’ My excitement for this mission was already in the negatives, and it just kept dropping. 

“I know Hebrew, asshole.” I don’t, actually, but I just want it to shut up.

It huffs indignantly (which as close as I can compare it, sounds like a bubble in a lake popping), and stops talking for a while. 

-

Another hour of desert later, ART says, “what are you humming?”

I stop, because I didn’t realize I was humming anything. 

“I didn’t ask you to stop,” it says petulantly. “You may continue.” 

I ignore that part. “Hava Nagila. It’s a wedding song.” No, I’ve never been to a wedding, thankfully. It was in a play, and it’s meant to be sung while dancing, so it has a nice rhythm for walking. I guess I’d been preoccupied and it just sort of… came out. 

"I have never heard it before." Then, a full 15 minutes later, “I said you can continue to sing.” 

"I'm not a jukebox, I'm a golem.” And we’re pretty famous for being silent and deadly, not singing little folk-ditties on request.

"Clearly you enjoy singing. You do not have to stop on my account.” 

“Why do you care?” 

ART, a bit shyly, says, “I have never heard music before. It’s interesting, and the desert is not.” 

That makes me wonder exactly how experienced ART really is, despite all its bravado. 

Fine. I did want to sing, anyway.

“If you complain about my song choice or singing, I’m stopping.”

“I will refrain from damaging your ego,” it says dryly.

I hated to admit it, but singing was calming me down. I liked the feeling of the vibrations in my chest, and it helped clear my head. 

“This song is different.”

“It’s Even Soheret.”

“I do not recognize the language.”

“It’s Ladino. It’s Judeo-Spanish.” Before you ask, no, I don’t speak that language either. It was mostly an instrumental, too, so I stopped singing it. 

I can feel ART watching me expectantly, so I also try to think of something to sing that mentions angels. 

I settled on Chad Gadya. 

(The fact that the angel in that song got smote was a conscious choice on my part and, as far as I was concerned, a bonus.)

Since ART seemed so interested in music, I explain, “this one adds a sentence each verse. It's sung at Passover. The goal, at the end, is to recite the entire story as quickly as possible, faster than the other people who are trying to do the same.”

“That sounds easy.” 

“You’ve never heard the song. It’s long, and complicated.”

“So?” It says flippantly.

In lieu of a physical form to direct it towards, I do a rude gesture to the general air. 

The song starts pretty simple; one little goat that my father bought. Then it adds a cat that ate the goat, and a dog that bit the cat, and on and on in an endless cycle of vengeance and retribution. 

It was both catchy and weirdly violent. 

After each round, you sing “chad gadya, chad gadya,” which means ‘one little goat, one little goat,’ tying the whole story back to the inauspicious start.

I mention the angel of death in the second-to-last verse, and ART seems to get excited. Then, in the next, Hashem smites the angel of death, and I kinda wish ART has a face just to see how it felt about that. 

With a final "chad gadya," I stop and try to think of a different song.

“Why are you not continuing?” 

“That’s the entire song. There aren’t any other verses.”

“We did not race,” ART says. “That is, to my knowledge, an important aspect.”

"I know the song better than you. It's unfair." 

"You doubt my abilities," ART huffs again.

I could’ve argued with that, and I wanted to, but considering the goal was to be as fast as possible, I figured humoring it would get it quicker.

I don’t have to take breaths, so I can go a lot faster than most humans can, but ART doesn’t need to breathe either. I have the upperhand in that I already knew the song, but ART seems incredibly determined, and--

“That my father bought for two zuzim! Chad gadya, chad gadya!” ART says a split second before I say the exact same thing.

(ART's voice, like everything else about it, doesn't sound like a human voice. It's more like the wind blowing through a canyon, or running water, or birds chirping or something, which means its singing doesn't sound much like a human either. It's not unpleasant, though.)

I should be pissed off that I lost, but for some reason it’s less irritating than it should be. 

ART’s presence feels elated, practically buzzing, but it wasn't even bragging. I didn’t know it had that level of self-control. 

"Are there more Passover songs? I find them enjoyable." 

I don't say anything, but I start singing Dayenu anyway. 

After a few verses, ART gets enough of the rhythm and joins in on the chorus. 

(We must’ve made an odd picture, a weathered rock singing with what might as well have been the wind, surrounded by nothing and no-one. I kind of liked that, honestly.)

Chapter Text

After a few more days, and nearly 100 consecutive hours of singing, we arrived at Lowe.

There was a checkpoint that all entry into the city was supposed to be screened through, but I sneak in through a gap in the protective dome instead. Lowe was far enough from the wastes that you could exit the dome without protective gear for short trips, but having radiation shielding was still necessary for long-term residence. 

Lowe was wildly different from Preservation, even wildly different from itself, the pristine shining buildings of the company that traced the skyline utterly alien to the crumbling infrastructure in the residential district.

ART had mentioned needing a private place to go over the plan and hide if necessary, so I found a small hotel that advertised privacy and discretion and used the remainder of the money I had taken from Preservation to rent a room.

I worried they would realize something was up, but the employee didn't even glance at me once. I guess they aren’t paid enough to care. 

ART was silent the entire time I was in public, but once I was in the room it started to speak again.

“Making it to Lowe was a primary objective. However, there is now the issue of how to proceed.”

Okay, this was something I could figure out.

Over the years I've learned the best course of action is the one with the least amount of casualties. Sure, maybe a killing spree of every bad guy you can see is tempting on the surface, and would superficially seem to solve the problem, but then you remember that no matter what there will always be more of them, and any violence will just get blamed on the community you’re trying to protect and make their lives even worse. 

(If the situation was bad enough to necessitate a golem, making it worse was a really bad idea.)

Anyway, the point is, I wasn’t going to try to kill every UnterNehmen employee, or whatever. That would be stupid and wouldn't work.

“I’ll sneak in, find the information, steal it, and sneak out before anyone can notice.” Seems obvious enough.

“Security is too high. You will not be able to enter without them knowing.”

I don’t know why it even bothered asking me. “Fine, what do you suggest?”

It sounds very proud of itself as it says, “if you get hired by UnterNehmen, they will allow you to enter with no concern.”

Golems don’t get fucking jobs. Yeah, we do jobs, but we’re built for those, we don’t have to interview for them or anything.

“That’s a stupid idea.” 

“Do you have any alternative?”

I really wish I did, but I don’t. Okay, fine. Whatever. I’ve played human before, I can play human again.

“However,” it says, because it just loves making things worse, “if you are to attempt to infiltrate as a human employee, you are going to need a better disguise."

Okay, what? "I can pass as human. I have been since long before you showed up."

I could almost feel it looking at me skeptically. “As a paranoid company, they are already on edge for possible deception.”

“And?” 

“You don’t blink .”

I take a moment to try to blink at it, just to prove a point. Yeah, no, I don't have eyelids. I hadn’t had any reason to care until now, because I can still see no matter how much blood gets in there.

“What am I supposed to do about that?” 

"I can provide assistance." ART says, and I can promise you however smug you think that sounded, it was even more so.

"Because you know so much about being human?"

I hope that the insult will distract it. Nope, it ignores it.

"If you would allow me to co-inhabit your body for the next period of time, I would be able to—" 

It continues, but I stop listening.

Nope. 

No.

Absolutely no fucking way.

"You want to possess me?" 

"That isn't a very flattering word for it," ART says morosely. 

"For good reason," I hiss. Stupid, stupid golem: all of this was just a ploy to get inside my head. It was obvious. There was no reason for me to have listened to it in the first place. Now I was at some stupid company town, with nowhere to go. 

"Possession is something dybbuks do. I am an angel; it is ibbur ."

Fuck all the way off. I glare at the farthest wall. 

Part of this was that possession implies possessing something . It's something that happens to humans, animals, maybe; not to lifeless, soulless things like golem.

I don’t want to think about what it means if golems have souls. I don’t want to think about any of this. 

“Hear me out," it says gently, like I have the option of not . "If I did so, I could create an illusory effect that would make you appear human. I am reasonably sure this would be enough to fool the scanners and employees, and would allow us to infiltrate the company without being caught.”

I don’t say anything.

“I would never do anything you do not expressly allow me to do.”

Still nothing. 

“Humans usually trust angels."

“I'm not human.” 

“This is not something I want to, or even can , force you into,” ART says almost plaintively. 

I rake my hands down my face, wishing I had fingernails or skin.

ART thinks. "Is the illusion the issue?”

"No," I say. Lying wasn’t a problem. I pretended to be human all the time, but that was just with the aid of clothing, not… this.

I was already too human for my liking, but at the same time, I had to be. I existed to be human when I needed to, and to be an unstoppable brute when I needed to. Both halves of me were equally important; I wouldn't be who I was without both of them.

But...

I was good enough at that first part to fool people in the past , where there weren’t human form bots, and AIs, and other things that could do what I do but better.

Things were different now, and being a golem wasn't enough anymore. To continue to protect my people, I had to change. 

This was temporary, anyway. I’d already let ART lead me all the way here, and I was already agreed to help it with its stupid plan. I trusted it with my identity; trusting it with my body (considering how temporary it was) seemed mild in comparison.

“Okay.” 

ART manages to keep most of the excitement out of its voice as it says, “it may be easiest if you sit down.”

One minute, I’m in my body.

Then something lurches. My body doesn’t move, but I do. I am convinced, in that moment, that everything in the room is just a few inches left of where it should be.

And then I feel the same as before.

Mostly the same. In some ways, I feel even better, like there's something warm glowing inside of me, like I’m a furnace that's finally been lit.

Are you alright? It asks, inside my head, so much closer than I'm used to. I stifle the urge to jump. 

“Fine,” I say. Then, fine. Could you always talk like this? 

No. Are you sure you're alright? 

Yeah.

I steel myself, strip down, and stand in front of the room's mirror. 

It lets me have a fair amount of control over how I end up looking. It would try different looks, and would change them if I didn’t like them, and we go back and forth until I still looked like myself (whatever that meant anymore), but I also looked human. 

It didn't change the gold-brown color of my skin, for example, but made it appear to have the right texture, with pores and fine hair and all the imperfections humans have. It was purely a visual effect and if anyone touched me it'd fall apart, but someone touching me was always a worst case scenario. 

It also gives me hair. It’s short, but still, it was better than just lines in my skin indicating where hair should be, and it covers the area where my Word is (though that, too, is hidden under a layer of illusion and just looks like random scarring). 

My eyes have whites, now, and the black that previously stood out just matches the dark brown color most humans have. I still don’t have eyelids, but I watch in the mirror as my face appears to blink at regular human intervals and my chest rises and falls to a steady rhythm, thanks to ART.

I wouldn’t be able to pretend to be a statue, or a mute giant, or a homunculus or anything in this form. I had to be a human, now. I had to embrace every part of myself I normally wanted to hide. 

As irrational as it is, I can't shake the feeling that I look smaller than before.

This is weird, I complain, putting all my layers back on and still stealing glances back at myself in the mirror occasionally.

If it helps, I have never inhabited a body before. It is very strange for me as well.

At least I wasn’t suffering alone.

-

I use a public facility in the hotel to set up an interview with an UnterNehmen employee. I wouldn't expect corporate hellholes to have any public amenity whatsoever, but you can only really use them to apply for jobs or buy things so I guess it saved money in the long term. 

ART gave me a lot of advice on what to say, even though it probably didn’t know what the hell it was talking about.

We agreed to meet in the afternoon at a public venue. It was only going to be the single most stressful thing I've ever been through.

I see the contact at a table as promised and walk up to vim as casually as I can.

"Hello."

Ve smiles. "Joseph, right? Nice to meet you. I'm Fenil, I work for UnterNehmen."  

Joseph was the go-to human alias I had used in the past when undercover. It was a relatively common and inconspicuous name, which was exactly what I needed.

"That's me."

Ve holds out vis hand, but I don’t take it. Even if I wanted to (which, to be clear, I do not) ve would probably be able to tell something was off if I did. 

I took the liberty of smiling for you, ART says. You should sit down.

Ve pulls vis hand back, seemingly unbothered, and vis eyes unfocus for a moment before focusing back on me. "Sorry, I'm trying to find you in the feed. I don’t see you?"

“I don’t really use the feed,” I say truthfully. "I used a public terminal to schedule this."

“You aren’t spliced?” Ve looks at me with surprise. “You aren’t from here, are you?”

Spliced? ART asks.

Augmented. People who have man-made technology implanted in their brains. I was glad Gurathin had augments so I was prepared for this. Maybe I'd thank him for it someday, but probably not.

"No, I’m not spliced. I'm from the Wastes. I came here to find work.” All of these things were true, especially me not being augmented. I didn’t think a neural implant would appreciate being chiseled into whatever I had going on.

“Ah,” ve nods. “Yeah, that’d do it. Now, I’m not entirely sure what you're looking for, but we have many positions—”

“I’m fine with whatever job no one else wants,” I say a bit too fast. Slower, “Like I said, I’m from the Wastes. I need anything I can get.” 

Ve raises vis eyebrows. “Well, we do have a position for a loader in the cargo bay that needs filling.”

ART pokes me mentally and I lean in, mirroring Fenil’s body language. “How soon can I start?”

Ve grins. “Ha! I like the spirit. Come in tomorrow, the security at the desk will handle everything.”

I stay calm and relaxed until I get back to the hotel room, and then I curl up face down on the ground.