Chapter 3: In a Bottle Part 2

"Do you want to be late for the ceremony? Get dressed already." The young man was finally facing me, staring me down with dark green eyes behind spectacles with small round glasses. I had completely understood his words. On his white cloak was a symbol. Instantly I recognized it as the twelve petaled sun, and instantly I knew—much to my surprise—that it was engraved several times on my body. The tension in his features told me he was losing his patience. He sighed. "Don't tell me the self test found a discrepancy?"

I blinked. The results of my self test were known to me. "No discrepancies," I said in a startlingly young voice with teeth that felt wrong. Was I not dead? My memory just before had been so vivid.

"Good. Now put this on." He shoved the top set of clothes in my hands and held the rest in front of the black and gold doll.

"Uhm."

"What is it?"

I had to know. "Am I alive?"

"Doubting your divine light, are you? What do you think yourself? That is, if you have any thoughts of your own."

That was enough of that. I set my jaw. "I don't have to take this from you."

"That's what they say," he said laconically in that language unfamiliar with the country of the Spartans, "Are you alive, though?"

"Yes," I said with pique.

"That answers that. Shame. I didn't intend for you to be this stupid."

I decided not to invite any more insults and looked down at the clothing articles in my hands. My robotic, gold and black hands. Like said hands, and the doll they were black embroidered with intricate gold patterns. The fabric felt luxurious.

"Looks like you haven't enmeshed the rest of your avatars yet," he said facing the doll, "Unbelievable. I'll just forcibly start it myself. Universe willing it'll grease up the stuff of your thoughts." He did something and... I was suddenly facing him at the same time I was looking at the patterns in the cloth. I looked up and to the side simultaneously. The doll was now looking at me with golden irised eyes with black sclera, and from my other point of view I saw another doll of the same design but with six arms sitting in an alcove decorated with talismans, cables running from the base of her neck and her left foot almost knocking over a small cage-like object burning something that looked like charcoal incense. She was holding some intricately patterned cloth and looked utterly confused.

"Ah," I said through the mouth of the doll standing in front of the boor who kept insulting me.

"Yes, very amusing," the boor said, "Now, as I've said before we'll be late if you don't hurry up. Ah, my apologies, but we certainly will be now."

My two armed self snatched a set of clothes, scowling up at him from my low vantage point. Why was my body—Were my bodies so childlike? Must've been some perverted designer. My bets were on it being this asshole.

"The ceremony requires three of you, so if you'll excuse me." Another viewpoint added itself to my stream of consciousness on the other side of the room. I felt at the base of my primary body's neck for the cables I had seen earlier. If I had to dress myself these had to be unplugged. I gasped in surprise as they slid out of their sockets, retracting on their own, back into the alcove. Was my mere thinking about it responsible for that? By now it was obvious I wasn't human but some kind of robot with multiple networked bodies: an impossible technology in the early 21st century. Was this the future? Judging from the unknown language it would have to be the far future. What a situation to wake up (boot up?) into. I decided to play it safe for now and not mention my 21st century memories before they were categorized as 'discrepancies'.

The clothes Trurl (whatever his name was) had given me were, as mentioned, the same limited color scheme as my near naked self. Whoever, or whatever this self was was up for debate now. As my bodies simultaneously put on the short-sleeved jackets—the one for my primary body accommodating six arms—I wondered just what I was made for and why I had the memories of Rebecca-Ann Kendarr: 21st century nobody. I was stumped.

Before I had even secured the capelets properly, Trurl broke the silence in that politely rude manner of his. "Ah, you're done? Let's not keep them waiting." He started for the door but I would have none of that.

"Now see here," I said through my primary body, still unused to the odd feeling of my teeth.

He stopped in his tracks and turned around, a quizzical look thinly veiling the overt exasperation on his face.

"Maybe this is normal where you're from but I would prefer to cover my bottom with pants or a skirt."

"There's no—"

"Even some short shorts would be okay with me, if that's close enough to your tastes." I put just enough emphasis on that last word as was politely possible.

Trurl raised his eyebrows in puzzlement, lowered them, inhaled but halted whatever he was going to say.

"Oh, and another thing I just noticed." I raised my heel off the ground and twisted it to show. An actual heel about two inches, gold of course. "These are kinda stylish but not proper."

Trurl was silent for a second, inhaled again and spoke. "What exactly is your objection? What about it is not 'proper'?"

"It's not for young girls," I said, knowing damn well how little girls of that age dressed in the era I—Becca used to live and how little they cared about the opinion of someone older. "I wouldn't want to see my daughter in a getup like this, or anyone's daughter for that matter."

Another short moment of silence—much shorter—from Trurl. The corners of his mouth lifted up just a tad in the most assured smile. "All your different parts were constructed from essentially lifeless materials and while many hands were used to put you together, no genetic material was used to create you. Are you anyone's daughter? Is it someone among the Illustrious Siblings of the Korremzha Mil Vugni? Perhaps all of them?"

"Ah." Never mind whatever the Korremzha Mil Vugni was and how it made its siblings illustrious, I could not beat that.

He left me silent for just long enough before he turned back to the door. "Square calf," he said scornfully, "Just follow me."

The corridors were empty but I couldn't help feel very self conscious about the fashion forced upon me. They showed off my hips a little too well. To be specific: my hip joints were very ostentatious. Why did they have to be colored gold, damnit?

Meanwhile Trurl seemed to be conferencing with someone else unseen. “Yes, I'm heading there right now with the prime avatar and two secondaries, the rest should be ready to be enmeshed.”

I didn't really care to listen to more, there was something I had to check on. “Aaah.” I pulled the corner of my third body's mouth down with a finger. With my mouth wide open I could inspect my teeth with my other body. As I suspected: sharp, triangular and serrated. I had seen it right the first time. Like a little shark toothed girl. Literally a little shark toothed girl. And a robot somehow. Trurl had some explaining to do.

I almost missed my next steps. It was that same feeling that almost overwhelmed me earlier. I felt myself flow out into a shape with coils at the center, a series of tubes at the back, and at the front... petals? Moreover, I almost thought I could sense the others from my dream. Didn't I have coils in my dream too? Mentally I jerked back the flow of my awareness to my small triplet selves. Being three lolibots at the same time was already dizzying enough.

Trurl stopped in his tracks for a moment to check on me. "Blood starved are we? The oath will take care of that. If you're quick enough you can eat the boarder's stew before it goes cold." I shook off my confusion, perking up at the thought of my mechanical bodies being able to process food. The idea that I potentially would never eat good food again hadn't crossed my mind but I was glad that wasn't the case.

As we rounded a corner I suddenly became aware of a room full of pale uniformed men and women observing some kind of religious circumstance. Yet another body of mine had been activated and connected to my consciousness somewhere in a different room in whatever this place was. A quick glance down with that body showed I was seated on the same kind of black and gold stool as my earlier two-armed selves. Two more followed, similarly seated, with one of them showing me a strikingly pale young man with white hair and lilac eyes making some final adjustments to my capelet before bowing and turning toward the same religious ceremony, which I now believed to be some kind of holographic projection. I was glad to know someone out there was dressing my inactive bodies, but why had he bowed? Was it just common courtesy in this society, or was I somehow important?

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Trurl opened a door that looked as unassuming as any other we passed and he entered with me following along, still none the wiser as to what function I had. The room with its low tables and cushions on the floor was decorated with an almost white wood inlaid with red and pink nacre on the walls. “My sincerest apologies for our tardiness, Captain. There were some... discrepancies.”

Captain? My ears perked up. If this place had a captain then it had to be a ship.

“It's quite alright. Stuffy rituals like these can easily be extended without anyone noticing. And don't call me Captain just yet, I might still get rejected.” A woman was there, pale like the people in the other rooms, with violet eyes and white hair with a few streaks of a pale red almost pink, not at all like Trurl who looked positively swarthy in comparison. Her uniform was the most fancy I had seen so far and exuded authority. Already I liked her better than anyone here. Not that there was much competition. But, hey, she was potentially a captain and who doesn't like captains?

“I don't think that will be a problem, what with your history with Elanansur.” Three more bodies activated on different decks of the spaceship. This had to be a spaceship, right?

“In the end it's up to the Ship.”

Ship. The word had so many connotations in this language that I instantly grasped upon hearing it. More than just a vehicle, 'Ship' implied divinity. Ships were like suns that provided the protection and comfort normally found on planets to vulnerable crews. And like the ships from Becca's time they were exclusively female. I wondered if this was a holdover from the now ancient Western civilization, or if the notion had developed separately after the fogging up of historical memory.

“Oh? I think she's already happy to see you. A good sign for once.” Trurl's voice shook me from my musings. He gestured to me just as two other bodies somewhere on the Ship came online.

The Captain smiled and bowed toward me. "Your fate, our fate."

"My fate, your fate," I replied without understanding why I knew exactly what to say. Wanting to be proper, I bowed in return with all three of my bodies present here.

Something poked my forehead—my main body's forehead. It was the Captain's finger, coaxing me back upright with a small push. That smile of hers was imprinting on me. “You don't need to do that.”

“S-sorry!” I was stammering like the shy kid in class having to give a presentation. One more body came online, then two more.

“No apologies needed either, you're so new you're still in the process of attenuating to the waking world. I think that warrants some leniency.” I realized she was talking to me almost like I was a child, but I didn't feel looked–down–upon at all. I was smiling, in fact, bearing those crazy teeth of mine at her. Only Nicole ever managed to do this before.

“You hear that, Trurl,” I said with my body closest to the man, smile on my main body uninterrupted, “Be lenient.” Four more bodies, including one where I had talismans jangling from my arms.

“Trurl?” The Captain looked understandably confused. Two more.

“We were in such a rush I hadn't the opportunity to introduce myself,” he said, “I don't know where she got it from. Must be a discrepancy in her mental stream.”

Crap! I resolved to be more careful from here on out lest they delete me and start over. Right then I just so happened to find the Twelve Petaled Suns on my prime avatar: etched on my calves in glittering gold, with the downward pointing rays extending almost halfway to my ankle joints. Curiosity got the better of me and I squatted with one of my secondaries to get a closer look. I ran a finger over the inlay and discovered it was sensitive, sending a shiver through all my conscious bodies. Honestly it was very beautiful and made me feel pretty almost like I was some kind of living artwork.

“Leave her be. For someone who has just seen the light of life she's doing fine.” Captain to the rescue! Her voice had sounded just the right level of commanding, too!

Trurl threw up his hands with that assured smile of his on his face, but I could see it wasn't as sharp as before, like it could be peeled off with a decidedly rude gesture. Quietly he grabbed the capelet of my squatting secondary and pulled that me up and away. I grinned sheepishly as five more bodies came online in a burst.

“In case Dzayiss has forgotten to mention my name on the way here, it's Shubesh Velteragni.” So, his name was Dzayiss? And hers was Velteragni? I liked the sound of it. Velteragni. Six more bodies got added to my consciousness. Just how many did I have?

“Pleased to meet you, I'm Vulilognan Shissurna.”

. . .

The name I had just blurted out without thinking wasn't what I expected. Not Rebecca-Ann Kendarr, but that. Too damn regal sounding—at least to my 21^st century American ears—and too damn long for a person such as myself. Considering my situation I reckoned I was going to be stuck with it for a very long time. Still, it had been fortuitous that my processor, or whatever, queried that from my database, or whatever, so smoothly.

“I knew that,” the Captain said without letting up her radiant visage, “Can I call you Surna or Shishi?”

Those were far more manageable and cuter. “Uh, sure. Shishi sounds nice.”

“It's settled then!” She spun on her heel and with just a few strides she was at a fancy looking cabinet, black with decorations in gold (what a surprise). Something resembling a tall staff was displayed in it, ornate and delicate looking in (what else?) in black and gold. “Almost time to play our part. You must be blood starved.”

As Velteragni explained more of me connected, including one in... A park? People viewing that same ceremony in the distance, shades from old-looking trees and bushes that I somehow knew were recently planted, the fragrance of flowers very nearby, and the distant croaking of a frog that had to be massive. Instead of a stool that me was sitting on a platform—almost a throne of sorts—made of branches, surrounded by larger branches dug in the ground that made a sort of hut open in the front. The same talismans I had seen before were hanging from the branches. Where they curved together at the top was a canopy of flowers slowly raining petals on me. I was bothered by something in my field of view there, something in my hair. I reached for it with one hand and felt something thin, delicate and soft. Someone had put flowers in my hair.

It made me smile all the way to my main body in front of Velteragni. “What's this?” The way her crooked smile sat on her face, the tilt of her head, I got that expression like I'd known it for years. How strange.

“It's nothing. Someone put flowers in my hair and I felt...” I glanced to the side. “I felt like I could be living a worse life than this.”

Velteragni tilted her head to the other side, mouth curled up in a smile that seemed perfectly genuine, but it wasn't like her previous ones. Something was wrong. I grabbed her hand. I had to. She looked somewhat bewildered and I gave her hand a gentle squeeze. When—after my silence had lasted long enough for her—she silently put a hand on my head and I finally realized she felt like a mother to me. Why did I not want to protest that? Her true smile returned. “You ready?”

I gestured at the staff-like object—a spear, she had said—in the cabinet. “All I have to do is accept that spear thing from you? Hekkamuk you said it was called?” She had told me but I asked just to be sure.

“You'll know exactly what to do after that but only if you truly accept me as your captain.” Her tone was serious. She had been adamant about this all during her explanation.

“Why wouldn't I?” Maybe I was too casual about this.

A smile sort of of relief and gratefulness. She bowed, gracefully and controlled. “Thank you.” Her voice had gone soft. "Allow me this small gesture, Shishi." She reached out and ran her fingers through my hair, eventually settling on my bangs at the left side of my face and started to braid them, in her other hand a red ribbon with two ornamental beads at the end which she worked into the braid. There was apprehension on my part, but I leaned in to afford her easier access regardless. It was okay. I could tell. “Now I wanted to do this after the feast but I couldn't wait. You don't mind me doing this, right?” She finished just as she said that. Had she been this eager to braid my hair? I shook my head, the braid following with a little click from the beads. She smiled. “There. Cute. Very cute.” I looked for a mirror, as my other two bodies had been corralled by Trurl to the bulkheads at the sides of the command center. I was sure I was blushing.

We were interrupted when the door slid open to let in a man and a woman in uniforms that implied importance but not at the level of Velteragni's. Officers, perhaps? They bowed at us, walked over to the cabinet, closed it, and lifted it together in perfectly practiced unison by two handles at the sides. Velteragni placed a hand on my shoulder. “It's time,” she said with that smile of hers and disappeared it from her face when she turned to the officers. “Do not let this get kettlenecked, it has been nearly 700 years the last time this ceremony was held and I will not have it botched on my watch. Understood?” It was surprising how quickly and effortlessly she switched from casual and friendly to strict and commanding. And 700 years? What kind of ceremony was this?

“Aye, ma'am,” the two said in unison as they carried the cabinet out.

Velteragni led me to another door in the back of the room. I had squeezed my hands into tiny metal fists anticipating a large audience. Steady, steady, I told myself. A few excruciating moments passed before she opened the door and we stepped through.

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