Chapter Text
The early morning sun filtered through the treetops and the rich gray clouds that hovered permanently throughout the planet's atmosphere, casting small golden spots on the rudimentary, cobblestoned streets of Norma's main square. It was the day of the weekly market, and the small town came alive like a festival: colorful stalls of fresh fruit, exotic spices, mechanical tools, brightly colored fabrics... and of course, people. So, so many people. Of every type and who alternated in a sea of voices, broken only by the calls of the vendors.
Weisz had put on his usual jacket with welding goggles on his head, even though he wouldn't be working that day. Hermit, in a very worldly white suit and with blue hair in two long braids, walked beside him with one of his usual tablets in his hand, keeping track of the things on the list they had to get. Mother Irma, on the other hand, seemed at home among the stalls: she knew almost all the vendors by name and chatted with a naturalness that neither Weisz nor Hermit could ever have imitated.
They had already bought some new fabrics for the cushions in the living room that needed changing and mending and a couple of bottles of local spiced oil that the blonde woman swore was "the salvation for every dish that was too sad." While the woman was buying some local wine donuts, the couple in love had been attracted by a stall full of old gears nearby, perfect for some project in the back room.
It was there, while they were considering what to get, that they heard them.
Three women were sitting on a stone bench, with bags on their knees and their mouths sharp. They could have been Irma's age or maybe a few years older, and they spoke in that low voice but not too low, low enough to make the outburst seem unintentional… yet perfectly audible to the recipients, who were still too far away to care.
Weisz recognized them by sight. They lived in one of the upper residential areas of the town, the ones full of old villas and ornate gardens, where people had too much free time and too many opinions about others. Instinctively he put a hand on Hermit's back, caressing her affectionately, partly to ease her tension, partly to distract her in case she hadn't heard or noticed anything yet.
The pale blue girl had stopped to look at a broken vintage lamp displayed on a flowered tablecloth and was negotiating the price to take it home and fix it. It was at that moment, however, that those damned voices, still low but no longer as before, unfortunately made their way through the noise of the market.
"...I tell you, that Irma is one who lets people walk all over her. If he were my son, he'd be anything but at home with his mommy... I would have kicked him out a long time ago!"
"Not to mention what he did as a kid. I remember him well. Always stealing from the yards, taking apart things that weren't his... and then he'd sell them for who knows what."
"And now he's a mechanic, they say. But where? In a shack made of scraps? Please, come on."
Hermit took the bag with the lamp inside and said nothing other than a "Thank you" to the seller. His face was still, but his fingers, holding the change he'd received, had stopped moving. Irma slowly looked up from the bags of wine donuts she was getting, then lowered them again, without saying a word. The blond boy remained completely still, his eyes fixed straight ahead as if he were looking beyond the stalls, beyond the crowd, beyond the entire world.
No one said anything
The robot turned and came back to him, a small smile on her lips, fragile but kind. The boy recognized him, she was hurt but she didn't want to give satisfaction, proud as she was.
"I saw they have caramelized strawberries over there," she said in a normal tone, as if nothing had happened, "Shall we go get some?"
"Mh, sure, let's go." He replied, a little rougher than usual, pulling her closer with his arm.
Behind them, with a calmer pace, Irma observed everything with the eye of someone who had lived there forever, greeting with discreet smiles and nods the acquaintances who crossed their path, but always keeping an eye on those vipers who from what she saw had been watching her child and his girlfriend too much.
“...yeah, I tell you, he hasn't changed at all. And now he's always out with that… that thing.”
“You mean the girl?” another one intervened, a little younger than the other two, but with the same pedantic tone.
“Girl?” the first one said, ironically. “If you can call it that. It's a machine, dear. A piece of junk, but without a soul and without a heart. And he… he's actually in love with it. How cute.”
To that "piece of junk" callback, both Weisz and Hermit stopped. One with her heart in her throat remembering her past and who was saying those words to her, the other like a loose cannon ready to send those three hags to the hospital without regrets. The blue girl lowered her gaze, her lips closed in a thin line. The boy, next to her, had stiffened so as not to turn around and create a cataclysm.
However, there was someone more hot-headed than him around at that moment.
Irma, a few steps behind, showed no visible reaction. She moved towards them with an almost immobile upright posture, her face neutral, as if she were attracted by a distant song.
The sound of her heels resounded like gunshots on the pavement. The three women looked up only when the shadow of the blonde woman projected itself on them. The silence that fell was instantaneous. Old Irma, no longer Weisz’s sweet mother but the one who once scared away thieves and molesters with a look, was back.
“Oh… Irma, dear… we were just—”
“Just chatting,” said another. “Nothing personal, eh!”
Irma smiled. A thin smile. Dangerous.
She slowly opened her purse, theatrically, and reached inside. The women stopped breathing and turned pale. She pulled out a polished, chrome pistol and held it low but visible, as if showing off a new lipstick.
“Do I need to remind you why they called me Irma the Terrible?”
The silence that followed was almost surreal. Even the nearby vendors stopped talking, sensing the tension in the air. Some turned to look, others feigned interest in the potatoes.
Irma took a half step forward.
One of the women stammered something, but Irma raised her hand, the one with the gun, to silence her.
"One more word about my family... and I'll show you that I still have the aim I had when I was twenty."
The three women, pale as rags, half bowed almost by reflex, then quickly walked away, staggering between the stalls.
Irma calmly put the gun away, closed her purse, and returned to Weisz and Hermit as if nothing had happened.
Her son looked at her with his mouth half open. Her daughter-in-law, on the other hand, smiled slightly.
"Mom... do you still have that gun?" the boy murmured, still shocked.
"Always in my purse," she replied. "But don't worry. I only keep it for special situations."
The blue robot approached, hugging the blonde affectionately. "Thank you..." she whispered as the woman held her close with one hand.
"You're part of the family, Hermit. And if anyone says otherwise, I'll shoot them. That's how it works in the Steiner house."
The blond sighed. "Can we go buy strawberries now, or do you want to challenge someone else?"
His mother giggled as they walked away together, leaving a silence full of shocked looks in their wake. Because in Norma, no one forgets things like that easily.