The Golden Age
Chapter Two
"Anything is possible, if you try really hard." - Ami Mizuno
"My only daughter..."
The Queen of Mercury, her short, dark hair and usually calm blue eyes dark with grief and pain, stared unblinkingly at the child before her.
"As you see, your majesty."
Her gaze flickered to the tall man, once an attractive scientist - an artist really - now a rather grizzled, desperate looking man. Time had not been kind to the head of Mercury's bio-technological department.
There had been a time when she and this man had been...but that time was long gone.
Her eyes returned to the vision in front of her and she flinched in pain.
Standing before her was the image of her daughter, princess Hermia - a delicate, quiet eyed child, with pale skin and a sweet little mouth. Those eyes were alight with life - such a stark contrast to what she remembered only months ago.
A month ago, her only child had died.
It had been a fever, something she'd caught on her return journey from the Moon Kingdom where she'd been sent to live with the princess, as custom dictated, for exactly two years. The fever had come on suddenly - the Queen, an expert in the holistic field herself, had done everything in her power - exhuasted every resource, every new advancement in technology - she had nearly died herself in working non stop to cure the disease. All to no avail. A month ago to the date the princess of Mercury had died in her mother's arms.
"How is it possible?" The queen murmured, "I thought you hadn't tested the prototypes since the last malfunction with the domestic android."
"That's true, your Majesty," the scientist said, resting a hand on the child's thin shoulder. The Queen noted that the child didn't move or acknowledge his contact in anyway.
"But the truth is that we've made some startling new break throughs in the past weeks...I thought -" he stopped, clearing his throat and adjusting his glasses uncertainly, "I thought this would please you."
"Please me?" she repeated, her voice distant and cold.
She rose in one fluid motion from her throne and crossed to the man and the child. The scientist regarded her with wariness, taking an involuntary step away from her dark glance but instead of rebuking him she knelt in front of the child.
"What is your name?" she asked it.
In her daughter's voice the child replied, "I do not have a name, your majesty."
The Queen caught her breath and put a hand to her mouth, but soon she took it away, composed. She stood.
"You have created an android in my own child's likeness," she said, "And you have done it without my knowledge or consent. I order you to -"
She stopped. She couldn't demand for the android to be destroyed - though that was her first instinct. She looked down at it and it looked back with its calm, serious gaze.
"I order you to take it away and keep it locked away and do not - do not dare to go behind my back again."
"But your majesty, if I might just explain -"
She whirled on him, her infamous calm unsettled at last.
"How dare you?!" she cried in fury, "How dare you make this - this - thing look like my child!?"
She struggled to control her emotions to no avail. But the scientist didn't cower, instead he knelt in front of her.
"I couldn't bare to see you in so much pain," he whispered, and she turned to stare at him, amazed.
"You wouldn't talk, or eat - you were starving because of how much you miss her..." he said, and his voice shook with emotion, "I miss her too."
"That doesn't excuse -" she began.
"No," he agreed, daring to face her eyes, "But this is the only way I can help you. It's the only thing I know how to do. I can't give her back to you - but I thought - perhaps..."
He stopped and she put her hands to her eyes to block out the tumult of emotions. When she finally took her hands away the android child that was her daughter's twin was regarding her with something that resembled concern.
"Does she...can she feel?"
She felt intrigue in spite of herself. The scientist rose slowly.
"I don't know," he admitted, "all her predecessors were made specifically for domestic work and limited human interaction. I'm afraid she's different from anything we've ever attempted before. She can simulate emotion - and she can learn."
"She can learn?" The Queen knelt before the child once more.
"Yes, she processes information at the speed of any of our super computers - but she is also constructed to learn to react to human emotions - to emulate them when necessary, and to react appropriately when they are expressed."
The Queen stretched out a tentative hand to the face that was so like her daughter's, but hesitated to touch the skin.
"May I?" she asked.
The child nodded.
The Queen put her hand to the child's face. She exhaled slowly. Like most Mercurian androids, this one had the same skin grafts that were made to resemble human skin almost exactly - the only exception was that the android's skin could not be torn easily, nor could it be burned or frozen. When she touched the child's ears the android wriggled. The Queen quickly pulled her hand away.
"Did I alarm you?" she asked it.
"No," the child replied, "You tickled me."
The scientist found himself smiling, ever so slightly.
"There are many things," he explained to the shocked Queen of Mercury, "That we haven't quite figured out yet. Most importantly about life - what makes us alive? Is it our bodies, our minds? Our souls? Where is the soul located? What makes her," he motioned to the child who was following the Queen's expressions with an intense concentration, "What makes her any different from us? She has a mind, she has a fully functioning body..."
"But does she have a soul?" The Queen asked. The child held her gaze, questioningly.
"Please," she said, softly, "What is a soul?"
The queen searched the child's face and her own heart for several moments.
"I'm not sure." She replied at last.
It seemed, in that strange moment, that her heart made a decision that she would only come to understand many years later.
"I would like her to remain with me," she said.
"That is," she added, with a look at the child, "If you want to."
"I want to stay with you," the child replied.
The Queen felt something loosen in her heart - something let go and flew away. She reached down to take the child's hand.
"Say nothing of this for now," she informed the scientist, firmly, "I don't want anyone to know. We have only just ended the family's private mourning, the public announcements and ceremony for the princess's - for Hermia's passing have yet to be made."
The scientist nodded in understanding of what the Queen was really asking.
"No one knows about this experiment besides myself and my two assistants."
"Very good."
"Then for now, we will continue your experiment."
She dismissed the scientist who bowed and walked quickly from the room. Left alone with the little child that was not human or machine, she felt that oppressive gloom of the past weeks lessening - if only slightly.
"Let's see," she said to the child, beckoning her to approach her. The child came forward quietly and stood beside the Queen's knees as she sat on her throne.
"You must have a name, little one," the Queen murmured, and reached to smooth the blue hair from the fair forehead. Was it her imagination that the child-machine leaned into her hand, if ever so slightly?
"I shall call you Mercury," the Queen said.
"Mercury," the child repeated. She looked up at the Queen and smiled.
"Io!"
A young princess, about seven years of age but much taller than a normal seven-year old, stopped on the threshold of her little sister's room.
"There you are," Princess Jupiter panted, "I've been looking for you everywhere."
The red-headed, bright eyed younger princess squealed upon discovery and tried to hide in the mound of stuffed play toys on her pink bed.
"I don't want to go!" she screamed, "I want to stay here and make cookies with you!"
Jupiter sighed and dug a hand into the pillows. Finally she found the little arm that thrashed to escape her and hauled her little sister out of the pillows.
"Io, you can come and make cookies with me as soon as mother has finished making your dress, but not a moment sooner."
Jupiter dragged her sister out of the room and through the hallways to plop her down in front of her mother - the Queen of Jupiter - who was busy making stitches in her daughter's dresses. They would be bridesmaids at her cousin's wedding in a month, and the Queen would not allow anyone but herself to alter the dresses.
"Here she is, mother," Jupiter announced, gently pushing her sister toward the chair. She was surprised when the younger girl flew through the room to land in her mother's lap.
"Really, Jupiter, " her mother cautioned, "you ought to be more careful. You didn't have to push your sister so hard."
"I suppose I don't know my own strength," Jupiter replied, "I'm sorry, mother."
"It's alright, you may go back to making your cookies now."
This sent a relieved Jupiter sprinting back to her private kitchen even as her younger sister began to wail about injustice.
It was nice to be home.
Two months ago she had finished a two year long stay on the Moon during which time she'd spent only a few moments with the princess and the rest with the other planetary princesses - whom she couldn't stand for the most part. The moon princess had seemed nice enough, though a bit of a crybaby. They'd all taken turns scaring her with stories of dreaded shadow monsters that leaped out of mirrors to gobble up princesses who cried too much.
But the other princesses had been insufferable. The Princess Mars - Jupiter remembered with something akin to loathing. The girl was proud and stuck up, and extremely weird. Jupiter had often found her muttering to herself or the pet crows she kept in her room - and she acted as though she was better than the rest of them - just because she was the oldest.
Princess Venus hadn't been much better. She wasn't stuck-up or a prude, but she certainly was bossy. Every game they'd wanted to play, she had to be the leader. It had been she who had gotten them into trouble more often than not with her cocky, half-baked ideas, and it was she who always managed to get out of it and leave the others with the blame. She was also ridiculously air-headed at times and interested in boys, of all things.
Disgusting, Jupiter thought.
And then there was the sickly and prudish Mercurian princess. She had mostly kept to herself, and had made it rather clear that she didn't like the others. Jupiter didn't think that Princess Hermia was proud or vain, but she suspected the girl was weak minded and easily led. She had been timid and non-threatening, but very wishy-washy. Jupiter had tried to defend her from the others, but after a few days of this Princess Hermia had informed her that it wasn't necessary. The child was so quiet and so wraith like that Jupiter wondered at times if she was nothing more than a ghost.
Jupiter sighed as she pounded her cookie dough into smooth lumps. At least it would be another seven years before she had to go back to the Moon Kingdom, and maybe the others would have improved significantly by then.
She could hope, at least.
The Priest of Mars slapped his granddaughter's wrist with the slim bamboo rod for the fifth time that day.
"You must keep your hands held gracefully, slightly curved, - this is the only way to carry the flame and tongs."
Princess Mars said nothing, but set her painfully straight back even straighter and took a better grip on the tongs.
She wanted to please her grandfather. The Princess of Mars had to be a princess and a priestess - because the blood of Mars combined royalty with daimonic blood - with the blood of the demi-gods. This blood flowed in her veins and manifested itself in her various abilities - her sixth sense, her ability to banish lesser demons and evil spirits, her ability to sense auras and even predict the future.
These auspicious gifts were her legacy and her destiny. And a pain in the ass at the moment.
"Concentrate, otherwise how can you hope to become the Queen you must someday?"
Princess Mars gritted her teeth silently and focused on her projected goal. Passing the sacred fire by tongs from the wood to the ceremonial pyre. She calmed her rebellious emotions and tried again.
"How do you like this gown?"
The youthful Queen of Venus laughed as she spun for her daughter's amusement.
"It's lovely, mother," her daughter replied, laughing along with her.
"I thought so too, it's sure to catch the eye of the King, dont' you think?"
Venus suppressed a sigh. In her heart she knew her mother's light banter and flirtatious ways hid a sad woman who was in love with a husband who didn't love her back. Venus had watched her mother's endless quest for youth, beauty, allure - anything that might get her father's attention, but all her efforts only seemed to push him farther away. When she dressed to impress him he complained of her vanity - when she planned romantic evenings for him he complained of the cost. He was convinced that the Queen was a vain, silly woman - and Venus had to admit that even she felt her mother's actions were sometimes over the top.
But Venus also knew that her mother understood what it meant to love other people. And her father did not.
"I'm sure father will be very pleased, " she lied.
Her mother's face grew sad for a moment but soon the light look flashed again.
When I am Queen, the man I marry will have to love me.
But then, Venus reflected, as she watched her mother preening, It's better to be alone than unloved.
She had inherited her mother's beauty, as well as her cheerful personality - but she also had her father's determination and almost natural ability to lead. The two sides of her personality, similar to the two people so prominent in her life - sometimes seemed to be at constant odds with one another.
She sighed.
But it wouldn't be long before she could enter society and then - finally - she could find other people more her style. Not like the stuffy princess Mars, the outlandish princess Jupiter or the wallflower Hermia. The little moon princess showed some promise; she and Venus had gotten along relatively easily. But even the princess might be a bit boring after a while.
Venus knew excitement lay outside the world of childhood. If only she could unlock the gates of time and leap through to her future self. That was where life really waited.
A.N. I told you it might be a bit weird. The idea to make Ami an android actually came from something I read about Takeuchi's original ideas for the series. She had thought at one time to make Ami a robot - the idea has stuck with me, and I thought it might be an interesting take on the story as well as some of Ami's personality quirks. As for Rei's daimonic heritage - this is something I got from a quote of Takeuchi's in which she says something like Rei has the ability to use 'black magic' or has power over it. I thought it might be fun to take it in this direction. Anyway, thank you for reading.