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“Come in”, a suave smile touched Escher’s lips as he opened the door.
“No need... Hisahide-san only asked me to deliver a note for you”, Kabukimono replied with a swift formal bow of his head, - considering how smooth this movement looked, there was quite an effort he's put, - and petrified unnaturally upon regaining a normal posture. Without knowing there’s nothing wrong with it, one could be put on a higher alert by these kinds of movements. The artificial skin, inhumanly plain, completely bereft of pores, healthy blush or any radiancy, seemed pale white in the indigo twilight - nearly the same colour as its tidy kimono.
Escher nearly threw a glance onto the piece of paper: his gauging, calculating gaze fixed on Kabukimono’s face immediately. Seeing it with no Niwa or Katsuragi’s escort was a rare opportunity, but still, Escher wasn’t quite sure if he was curious enough to explore.
“I see where do you look.”
Kabukimono, who was indeed peeking into the house behind Escher’s back, fulminantly turned away – it was an anomaly-like, bird-like rapid movement. His hair swinged in front of his face – a stark contrast between nearly white and nearly pitch-black; long lashes lowering to briefly touch their own shadow under the eyelids.
So obviously artificial. A porcelain one. A real one could never be this-
The first picture to associate with it were some cracks. Some seceded, calved pieces of the broken. Would this cute, harmony-filled face be cracked in the same way if-
-this beautiful.
“I’m sorry. Hisahide-san says staring is inappropriate, but I-”
“And what does he say about you using such a formal way to name the one you’re living with? If I understand correctly, this postfix expresses some distance.”
“Not quite... well, it is, but... I used to live in Katsuragi-san’s house, and it’s not-“ doorstepped as he was, Kabukimono drowned in desperate attempts to explain itself. This defensiveness made clear something about the way information was proceeded inside its head. The question was personal – so the puppet has been living with people enough to understand it, but still not enough to calmly get out from an uncomfortable social encounter:
“I still struggle with these... things. But I do my best”.
“Yeah, exactly. There are whole rituals every time you get to eat or greet someone. Anyone would be struggling”, Escher’s tone changed into a heartening, raffish one. Now, as Kabukimono’s lips were closed, but no longer tense, this expression started to look more like an unhappened courteous smile. Seemingly, the last line has also successfully achieved its objective – the puppet appeared slightly more relaxed. Its inner analyzer, whatever it was made of, had the ability to process human emotions.
“Isn’t it all the same in Fontaine?”
“Nothing like this”, the mechanic moved aside and back, freeing the path. The distance has changed, so now Kabukimono was unable to carry out his little mission without stepping over the threshold. “So. What is so interesting for you here inside?”
Of course, the beautiful doll ate this small not-even-a-manipulation and proceeded forward. Then again and again.
“Can I?”
Oh, no problem.
Escher slammed the door behind its back.
With a certain probability all its gestures and its manner of moving could cause some irrational discomfort, something akin to a fright – either unreachably quick for a normal nervous and muscular system, either too discoordinated. Looking like he was locked in a very own timeline, sometimes sped up and sometimes sophisticatedly paused, Kabukimono seemed to be also struggling with making himself seem more human-like. Conscious effort failed to help with this (if “conscious” was a propitious word for a programmed creature. If it is a programmed creature). Moreover, puppet’s motions, which were often segmented, had a distinct start and end: a new one was not initiated until the end of a previous one. Perhaps, it was the most eerie picture to see: step, step, stop, a very fast head turn, about sixty degrees to the left, stop again, and a second turn, right down at exactly the same angle, stop. A slight eye narrowing, a facial expression change. It all must be the reason for these villagers to call him "a bizarre one", or whatever that name means. Unlike Escher, they must be really freaked out sometimes.
What a pity this thing is unable to tell how does its striatopallidal system works.
Evidentially and surely, Hisahide doesn’t keep it in his own room. Even in he had tried, he most likely changed his mind after. Waking up in the middle of the night and seeing it somewhere nearby could be quite an experience. Most likely, this Kabukimono never sleeps; even if it does, the situation doesn’t get any better – corpse-like object in the bed, or a statue, so human-like that it stops looking like an actual human, would be a delicious fuel for prolonged nightmares.
“So, you’re just interested to see how do humans live?”
“Not all humans.” The small pause. The next step.
“Ah. Aren't you flattering me, little one?”
Kabukimono answered by throwing a quick gaze, like he didn’t quite get what he was told. Most likely, he actually did, but couldn’t bring himself to give a proper answer. He made his way through the room, guiding his hand over a thin fusuma – artificial fingertips landed onto their own greyish shadow, spreading around a soft lingering rustle of the continuous touch. It- he- took these small steps as if someone was sleeping right nearby and i- he didn’t want to disturb.
There was nothing to see here (before Kabukimono stepped inside). Escher kept his house temperate, nearly ascetic – not that he wanted to drag more attention and hear questions from whoever asking. But still, there was something that he couldn’t deprive himself of.
Isn’t it a normal thing for a foreigner to collect some souvenirs from the trip? Nothing unusual, huh.
Kabukimono quickly made its way into the darker part of a house. Most likely, the dim scintillation and the continuous electrical whirring caught its- his attention from the start. Wall partitions weren’t as diaphanous here, and, soaked in thicker shadows, the white kimono turned into a light, nearly luminescent sole stain again.
It- He froze still in front of the lengthy, cluttered table. Above it, the wall displayed an array of messy sketches and notes – some sheets of various shapes and sizes interconnected, overlapping, forming comprehensive diagrams. A directed electrical current from the discharge stone filamented through several relay stones, encircling the table and ascending to the wall. In the glass vessel filled with a preserving dielectric solution, a tiny fox cub floated motionlessly, as if it was in zero gravity: nearly intact, with a faint purple glow flickering behind its clouded, half-lidded eyes, and with a bundle of thin, flexible wires threading from the exposed brain. For a moment, Escher wondered if Kabukimono would react if he began explaining something about these small pieces of electro-crystals, which were embedded into various parts of the creature's body and its elongated hemispheres. About the way the animal could be forced to move again by applying electro charge to the wires... Just these movements would not be the same as they used to be a while ago, when the cub still wasn't stripped of that bothering ability of performing an independent synthesis or catalysis.
In the center there were some tools, alongside books and notes, more or less scruffy ones. Darkened specimens rested on some short stands and needles - animal organs soaked in solutions, barely recognizable in the dim phosphorescence, - and several models of mechanisms, all assembled from fragments of broken automatons.
Upon recognizing the vertical spine of a Ruin Destroyer in the dark corner beneath a cumulative stone, Kabukimono jolted and recoiled. Again, it was one of his unnaturally abrupt, stridently inhuman movements, as if he was propelled by an invisible explosion. He collided backward right into Escher, who had been calmly and silently observing him from behind with the same suave smile.
Fragile. Thin, sharp elbows - as if no effort would be required to break these bones. If these are bones at all.
As cold as a corpse. A porcelain doll, a ningyō from the upper tier of a festive hinadan.
If there's any mechanism inside, it either operates on reactions Escher knows nothing about... either doesn't function at its full capacity. Yet.
“Hush”, he caught Kabukimono by his shoulders, offering a gentle help so the puppet quickly regained i- his posture. This second was enough for another quick assessment: the clavicle, humerus and thickly exuding acromial part of the scapula were a sheer similitude, an equivalent of a normal human joint and bone structure. The rest might as well be an analogue of a same kind. “It’s alright, there’s no danger here. This thing is... defanged, I would say.”
“I’m sorry!” Kabukimono spilled out, clearly restricting his voice from being too loud. He bowed his head again, and this time his words even fit into the same second with the movement. “It’s just... something is glistening inside.”
“Indeed. It doesn’t mean that this thing is in operating condition.”
Kabukimono’s gaze drifted from the mechanism to the mechanic and back, so Escher decided to be more specific:
“The generator which is set into it was taken from the miniature detector.”
“What?”
“It lacks voltage. The component which is supposed to power it, was withdrawn from a low-capacity mechanism. So, this automaton can analyze space and maintain the position, but unable to do any more. Additionally, its contact relay is damaged. The movement signal can’t be transmitted, even if it could be generated.”
Next several seconds flew by in silence.
“So... alive, but paralyzed?”
“If you prefer this way to formulate.”
The machine let out some barely audible screeching, but didn’t really move when Kabukimono’s pale fingertips, enclosing, danced alongside the corrosion-touched metal. Then, the puppet lifted his head, rising his arm, and the whitish sleeve fell to i- his elbow, opening an angular joint to see – neither a dollish, nor a typical human one.
“Stop-” Escher commanded, but it was too late. Kabukimono put his bare hand onto the high voltage of the cumulative stone.
A normal human being would have been sewn through by a tremendous shockwave, but this Kabukimono seemed to be made of some isolating material. If not purple strands of Electro energy, running smoothly through refulgent relay stones, one could assume that conductors were broken. But the electric contour was intact and integral as it is.
Now, that started to look interesting.
“Sorry”, he repeated nervously, his hand fussily jolting away. Not because there was an unpleasant sensation, but only because he was told to. He glanced at Escher, eyes glimmering faintly in the semidarkness, and it wasn’t a reflective shine of an animal tapetum. It looked like these irises were able to strike charged sparks.
Oh, it was no dielectric. It was a... superconductor?
“How did it feel?”
“Was it supposed to?”
How strong should be the amperage to really strike Kabukimono in the same way the lightning strikes organic bodies? What was this skin made of? What kind of programming causes such a conscious behavior, like the puppet was a lucid, curious person? How much energy produces and consumes this brain?
“No worries, forget it. Just put this note of yours to the table.”
There hang a second-lasting pause between the moment when these words melted into thin air and the moment when Kabukimono nodded with a polite smile, following the given instruction.
Clearly, the addressee couldn’t care less about Niwa’s little letter. Armory officer had something much more captivating to show.
“Why have you... done it?” Kabukimono traced the shape of the glass around the exanimated critter cub, sliding up to the dissected head. For a quick minute, his fair face conveyed such an expression – like he got lost alone in the forest.
Does he understand what this is? He used the word "alive" about the machine. Does he even have a concept of “being alive” in his head? What about “being dead”? What a strange wording prompt in response to the visible stimuli.
“Well, let’s call it a hobby. A little research, maybe. I just… take things apart in my free time.”
“Research”, Kabukimono echoed. Slender fingers skimmed over the sheets and tools laid out on the table and went rigid upon encountering a bleached cat skull. “What exactly do you study?”
Escher gazed at him for several seconds. Emissive voltaged stones rayed barely audible crackling sounds.
Kabukimono remained motionless - not like people standing still, but like an alabaster statuette. He didn't blink, didn't breathe, had no pulse nor involuntary saccades.
The porcelain, the silk, the electricity.
He looked at Escher as if he knew that the man was calculating how long it would take for "Hisahide-san" to notice the puppet absent. Just for the case.
He stood in the middle of the improvised workshop - a subtle figure outlined by colourful electric coruscation, gleaming in the somber murk, frozen amidst formulas, tweezers and clamps, submerged organs, motionless miniature detectors and dead animals next to an immobilized automaton, incorrigibly deprived of its functional abilities. A small makeshift kingdom of controlled energy impulses and halted biological processes surrounded him, enveloping him in a light-absorbing backdrop.
He fit in perfectly here.
“Life”, Escher finally smiled.