The Legacy of the Void

Chapter 2

By her twentieth summer, it became official that Lady Aria was to go unmarried.  Melar was forced by his father's hand to take Lesset, but Michael, as an Offworlder, was not made to marry. The weddings stretched across the summer months, but Aria was rarely seen at any of them. Instead, she was always hard at work in her lab. By a stroke of fate, Michael had been assigned to be one of her two guards, and Aria made use of them both.

"That is amazing," said Ceje, the other guard in the middle of that fateful summer. Aria had spent the better part of two years creating what sat before them, and she had begged both guards for their assistance.  The creation looked almost human, but with enough rough wires still exposed to show that it was still very much a work in progress.

"That is amazing," replied the figure. Ceje jumped, but Aria clicked a switch, and it shut up.

"How does it do that?" he asked.

"He's not fully programmed, and this is simply the prototype. I was hoping that if you both spoke, it might get its own voice patterns." She flipped the switch again and nodded to them.

"What do we say to it?" asked Ceje.

"Whatever comes to mind," replied Aria. The figure was busy switching its gaze from one to the other.  It's eyes appeared blue, but if anyone looked closely, they would see the orbs were a plethora of moving mechanical parts - the color generated from the central power sources.

"Comes to mind," the android said in a fair representation of Aria's voice.

"I'd rather it not sound like me."  With a brief shake of her head and a roll of her eyes, she gestured to the two guards again.  "Go on, talk about sports, or what weddings you have been to. Anything. Please."

Ceje and Michael looked to each other, but finally gave in, talking for fifteen minutes straight about the state of their favorite lorage teams, a sport that Aria had to prompt them to explain to the machine. After another fifteen mintues explaining the rules, regulations, and minute details of what amounted to human soccer with arial balls instead of earthbound ones, Aria waved them off and shut the machine down.

"Thanks," she said half laughing, "but any more and I don't think it'll be able to know its own name from a oorla ball."

"What is its name?" asked Michael.

"I call him Tajji," she replied. She plugged the now immobile machine into a computer grid. Looking over her shoulder, she dropped her gaze. "It was my grandfather's name."

Neither guard knew what to say to that. It was well known that handmaidens left their family to come live with the Queen. Often, their lives at court were far and above better than what their own families could provide, but many, like Aria never saw their families again. If a handmaiden was to marry, the parents might have a small say, but it was the Queen who cared for them, and the Queen who made the decisions.

Aria tapped a few more buttons, pulling up a holographic computer screen and guiding it to the center of the room. "If you two would be so kind as to just stand still for a minute?" She tapped into thin air at buttons only she saw, but they both felt the warm buzz of an imaging scanner.

"What is this?" asked Ceje.

"Don't move," she replied absently, adding a few more commands before shutting the system down. "Alright, you're good to go. Thanks."

Ceje and Michael looked to her, and then back at each other. "That's it?" asked Michael.

Aria turned back around. "Well, it'll be a few hours. If you want to come back after dinner, I should have everything completed. Besides, I'm pretty sure there are no less than three weddings happening at the Plaza today. Surely you know one of the brides or grooms?"