Steel Heart

A Frostpunk and Neir: Automata fusion crossover

The heart burned, turning blood into steam. Coursing through copper veins, sprung steel organs to life and gave strength to metal bones. Two optics came online as heated air escaped beneath them, and below that cold air took it place. Sensory data sent it data of cold metal while being bombarded by waves of heat from an unknown source. The whole process took three seconds, from the time of initiation to the complete analysis of all raw data.

Yet for it, the time seemed to drag on indefinitely. Each second spent on the bootup sequence was another that echoed a single concept; life. It was alive.

It was as foreign as everything else surrounding it. Questions about life ate away at its processing. Why was it alive? What made it alive? Who made it alive? They racked its mind, pouring all available processing power it could into finding an answer.

With new priorities established, it got up from where it laid. The sight in front of it was similar to what it saw laying down; cogs and chains. But now she could see the machines they were attached to. All hissing and spewing excess steam from valves. Parts of unknown design and purpose laid near the machines, either on the ground or elevated surfaces. Some were grouped together while others parts were scattered with seemingly no rationale.

The scene prompted a new question to give it pause. What was it exactly? And despite its best attempts, an answer remained elusive. Its surrounding only told it that was in some form of production hub, possibly even a factory. But this was just one part of this building. The possibility for new data was still quite high, and the chance for answers of previous questions was one it could not pass.

In one fluid motion it turned the appendage that its optics were attach-

White.

The movement it made casted fibers of white past its optics. The sudden movement of the fibers invoked it to repeat the action several times more times in an attempt to find those fibers. It only found them after the optics landed on a reflective surface.

The surface was slightly wider and taller than it was, giving off a reflection of what stood in front of it. Minus how everything in the surface's reflection was reversed; it was a perfect mirror image. Mirror, that was what her data banks told it. Yet, that information was sidelined by the reflection. The reason? It saw itself.

The white fibers were a part of it. Starting from above its optics to an inch or two below the air intake vent. It began to wonder what the fibers were...

Hair.

The white was hair.

And with that its data banks kicked into overdrive. Information unknowingly locked away flooded it. New names took place of old designations, and others filled in blanks. Optics became eyes. The air intake and output vents were replaced by mouth and nose. The questionable mound of steel below its newly named neck were branded breasts. Arms, legs, hands, feet, ears, toes, fingers, and others quickly entered as well.

But the most important was in regard to it. It was not an it anymore. It was a she or her. A female, a girl, a lady, and a dozen other words that applied to her. Different words for different uses and different context, but what those were escaped her data banks.

She stood there, looking into the mirror, examine every inch of her body. Intrigued by the exposed wires and pipes that flowed through her joints. Her fingers trailed over the pale pink color of her steel coating, occasionally crossing over segmented pieces and rivets where it was flexible. She even found a hole for smoke exhaust coming from her heart; it was below her neck just between her shoulder blades.

She stood there for what felt like hours despite her internal clock telling her it was at most, several minutes. Yet the flood of information and new sights made it feel infinitely longer. She may have even spent that long, just standing there looking at every intricate detail that was her. But all good things must end as time moves on, and for her it was no different. What caused her to tear her gaze away from the mirror was a loud hiss of steam and an increase in the room temperature.

Quickly looking around the room, she noticed nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There were the same cogs, the same machines, and the same parts all in the same positions. Maybe there was an increase demand for one of the machines? A malfunction? Possibly it was just a false alarm? Eventually she let the anomaly be as she lacked the data to properly identify the source. What she needed to do was to come up with a new plan of action.

Several possibilities ran through her mind as she stood there. Exploring the room was the front runner in the options. There were the possibilities of finding useful resource on top of the possibility of finding a way out. There was also the distinct possibility that there wasn't a way out, and she may have to create her own.

"Construction successful. Automaton subclass Android. Unit 2 of model B. Operational."

The monotone voice came from above, where there had been nothing but darkness, cogs, and chains. Now there was light shining down upon her, appearing just after the voice began to speak. She still couldn't tell what she was looking at due to the blinding light pouring into her eyes.

"Android unit 2B. Report."

Was that her name? 2B? It did sound right, though she couldn't put it into words. Her mind just latched onto it, letting it reverberate in her bones and course through her veins. It was who she was.

"Android unit 2B, ready for duty!"

Edit (6/23/18) - Fixed minor errors

Thank you to Doctor Weird and 0erbayunFang for being the beta for the story.