Many thanks to Kokodoru for the beta-reading!
What do you do with a wounded sailor, early in the morning?
Luka groaned, vaguely recognizing the melody, vaguely able to parse the words.
Everything felt so, so far away.
Get'er out of the ruined freighter, early in the morning.
Something was poking her. There. There it was again. Right in the shoulder.
Do your best to return the favor, early in the morning.
Come to think of it, it hurt a lot.
Retreat to the cold bare bunker, early in the morning.
Everything hurt. Her lungs hurt. Her arms hurt. Her ribcage hurt the most. It all felt so heavy.
Soak the blood in cotton and paper, early in the morning.
She blinked, trying to get her eyes open. The lights around her were blinding. She didn't even feel awake. None of it all felt real.
For her heartbeat you toil and labor, early in the morning.
The song just kept going and going and going. Luka groaned again, feeling the vibrations this time, how much it made her hurt. It was pure agony. She wanted to cry.
Offer her a fervent prayer, early in the morning.
Finally, the pain of her chest subsided, replaced by a dull, cool pressure. Another cool rag was placed on her forehead, and Luka sighed. That was nice.
Aye, aye and up she rises...
Luka tried opening her eyes again, found the lights more gentle. The sound of running water came from somewhere in the room.
The room was made of strange plastic or metal.
She was back in the bunker, on Earth.
She had held Galdyssian spice with her own two hands...
"You're awake!" Miku exclaimed. Luka slowly turned her head, finding her by the sink.
"I... I am," Luka croaked. Her mouth felt like it was made of cotton. "Water?"
Miku turned, and at her wordless command, a door opened with cups, brushes, plates, blades, and a variety of other tools. She poured the woman a cup and walked over.
"How are you feeling?"
"Like death," Luka groaned. The robot helped her sit up, even though it made another stab of agony shoot through her. Her left shoulder hurt so much it barely even felt like it belonged to her. "What happened?"
"You were shot," Miku explained. "I brought you back inside the ship, and Ruko helped me mitigate the effects of exposure to space. Your first aid kit did not have much to help with the wound, though. So I asked Ruko to bring us back here. We had prepared surgical equipment, just in case. All recycled material, from us."
Luka groaned, lying back down. "How long was I out for?"
"A day or so. I got us back here very quickly, but I have never operated on a person before. Ruko had to walk me through the procedure. I'm afraid I had no anesthetics on hand. Were you aware of it?"
"Some parts. I heard singing."
"I was singing."
"Well, that explains that," Luka said with a sigh. "Fuck. I... I was exposed to space?"
"The bullet shot straight through your suit and lodged into your left shoulder plate," the robot went on, sitting next to her. Luka noticed that she was occupying Miku's sleep pod. The cables had been removed. "The air in your lungs got sucked out by the vacuum, and you started bleeding freely, and—"
"Yeah, there's also the temperature issue, the pressure... Fuck, it's a miracle I'm alive."
"Ruko said something along those lines, yes."
Luka blinked a few times. She wanted to run her hands through her hair, cover herself, but considering movement was painful. She looked up at the robot. She looked the same as before, except her hair had been tied back into a ponytail, and blood splatters covered her face, neck, and shoulders.
"Sheesh, wash my blood off your face. You look like a ghoul."
Miku opened her mouth to speak, but Ruko jumped into the conversation, their voice coming in through Luka's implant, "You are awake?"
"Yeah. Against all odds, it seems," Luka replied. "Oh, wait, I don't... I don't have my suit on."
"I will relay your message," Miku said softly.
"Great..."
"You need to rest. Miku tended to your wounds, but you need sleep to recuperate."
"How long?"
"The injury should heal in five months," Ruko said. "However, you may resume semi-normal activity in the next four rotations."
"Four rotations," Luka groaned. "That's about as long as it takes to get to the nearest black market. Let's get going."
"You do not wish to rest?" Miku asked.
"If I've been out for a rotation, then I've wasted enough time. I have spice to sell..." She tried to sit up, but the pain was so strong it locked her spine.
She collapsed onto the bed.
"I do not recommend movement for another rotation," Ruko said. "Miku had to remove a bullet from your shoulder plate, reassemble your ribcage, and mend your lung. You will not be in good shape for a long time."
"Yeah, but I can be in piss-poor shape and rich if I spend my time recuperating in the ship," Luka shot back. "Where is my suit?"
"Here," Miku said, holding up. It had been washed, but some dark bloodstains stuck to the pale surface.
"Amazing. Get me dressed and get me the fuck out of here."
"I do not recommend—"
"I don't give a fuck," Luka growled at the AI. "I'm sleeping in my home and you can't stop me. Now get me dressed."
Miku hesitated only briefly before she helped Luka sit up again. The scavenger did her best to dress herself, but with half of her torso out of commission, every movement of her left arm spelling torture, it took a considerable amount of time. She wasn't even wearing her shirt any longer; she spied the sleeve in the trash bin, along with wads of cotton and plenty of other bloody rags, so the inside of her space suit could only rub against the bandages and stick to her sweat and blood-soaked skin.
That lavender soap bath would have to wait, it would seem. She had no idea how she was going to wash herself in this state. Plus, the spice had to go. The sooner she made a fortune, the better.
The memory of the spice energized her beyond description.
"Ok. Fantastic. Zip me up and let's get going."
Miku obliged, then placed the helmet on her head, turning it a little until it made a perfect seal with the body of the suit.
An immediate warning flashed on the screen in front of her: suit integrity compromised.
"What?"
"We have not had time to fix the suit," Ruko explained.
"Then how...?"
The robot did not hear her reply, helping her stand to her feet.
"Miku held the puncture in the suit closed with her hand. It sufficed to keep most of the further damage from space at bay and to keep your temperate stable during your brief stay on the surface of the planet. I do not, however, recommend relying on it for longer than absolutely necessary."
"No shit," Luka seethed, and as they approached the door, Miku indeed grabbed the gaping opening in her suit, right under her left clavicle, and wrapped a tight fist around it.
She was making sure to not press or pull on her wound, but standing was unbearable. They had to wait for the pressure to equalize, for the oxygen to leave the room, and then there were the flights of stairs.
Luka would prefer to forget that as soon as possible.
When they finally made it to the surface, sifting through the pile of Earth Stuff and climbing into her ship, it took all of her willpower to not drop to her knees in the pressure chamber. Once the door was open though, and Miku could safely release the opening in the suit, she collapsed.
"Fuck."
"I am preparing your sleeping quarters," Ruko announced over the speaker as the robot hurried to remove her helmet.
"Sounds good."
"Miku, there is some obstruction. Please assist."
"One second."
The robot made sure that Luka was stable, resting against the wall, before helping Ruko with Luka's bed.
Blinking away the tears of pain, the scavenger saw that, despite all that had happened, her ship was still full of crates of spice. She could almost smile at the sight: there was a crate on her workbench, there was a crate in her pilot seat, crates piled on top of one another wherever there was space. There was barely room to walk around. Her bed couldn't even emerge from the wall, blocked by a crate on which sat the first aid kit, opened, bloody, and a complete mess. Another box nearby was in an equally sorry state, covered in blood.
"Miku, you're going to have to tell Ruko what you used in my first aid kit," she said through gritted teeth. "Whatever is missing, add it to my shopping list."
"Understood," Ruko droned.
Miku soon cleared the obstruction, shuffling through the boxes of spice for a moment to make it work. Once done, she placed the first aid kit elsewhere, and when the bed was ready, she lifted Luka to her feet.
"Your suit needs repairs," Ruko pointed out.
"Yep, yep," Luka groaned. "Miku, help me out of it."
The robot nodded and obeyed, helping her pull each arm out, then her legs.
"Where shall I place it?"
"I have a small repair bay," Ruko replied, opening the corresponding hatch at the back wall of the ship. "I can repair such materials, but it will take considerable time."
"How long for that kind of damage?" asked the scavenger and she lied down with a long sigh. She watched Miku place the suit in the hatch gingerly. When it closed, the small space within lit up, pulling at the suit and focusing on the damaged location. Already, small spools and needles started busying themselves around it.
"Approximately ten rotations. I will need more material."
"Add it to the shopping list, then. And set the course for the Sapphire Shores."
The ship hummed to life. "Understood. We will be arriving at our destination in one cycle."
"Great. Miku?"
"Yes?"
"Do we have any painkillers?"
"I believe so," the robot rushed over to the first aid kit again, stepping around a crate as she did so. "We have a bottle, but it is almost empty."
"Fantastic. I need one. Heck, give me two."
Ruko dispensed a cup of water while Miku busied herself with the child-proof cap. Just when the scavenger thought she had to assist a billion-year-old-robot with a plastic cap, Miku pried it open and shook out two pills.
After swallowing them, the woman laid back down. She felt like she could sleep for days on end, her legs shaking and her shoulder throbbing, but first she pulled at the belts above her bed, strapping herself in for the trip.
Once the buckles clicked, she fell limp. "Alright. Great. Feel free to listen to music or something. I'm going to catch some sleep."
"Thank you. Sleep well."
"Yeah."
Luka returned to the ship as happy as could be. Sure, her left arm was still pressed against her body to avoid movement, sure her walk was still stiff, but she was humming to herself, a wide grin on her face.
Miku, who was sitting on a huge crate of spice, perked up at her return. "Welcome back! Did it go well?"
Luka sat on her bed before replying, a huge smile on her face. "You betcha."
"You are back soon," Ruko commented. "Did you manage to secure a sale so quickly?"
"Far from it," the scavenger replied, getting comfortable on her pillow.
Over the last few rotations, one could argue that she had gotten too comfortable with her bed. The trip to the Sapphire Shores had been monotonous at best. The ship had been mostly silent, even with the interstellar thrusters engaged and the hum of the repair bay as it struggled to repair the suit, stitch by stitch. Those sounds were so easily blocked out, they were almost white noise.
Luka had healed relatively well, sleeping through most of it. Every twelve hours or so, she requested another painkiller. Miku prepared her food rations, placing her dried soups in the microwave, letting the pasta hydrate, and so on. She had even helped the woman to the bathroom and back, and on the third day, gave her best attempt at a sponge bath while she replaced the sopping, bloody bandages.
Otherwise, very little had happened. The woman sometimes requested a little song to help her fall asleep, Ruko gave travel updates and whatever Miku did, she did it quietly. She had probably been chatting with Ruko, Luka figured at some point. Or listening to her music library. But the woman never had much energy to care: she could only sleep, swallow medicine, and sleep some more.
So, when they had finally arrived at the Sapphire Shores, she had been adamant to get up and walk despite the pain that continued to shoot up her back. "I can walk, I can talk, I can trade spice," she had insisted when Ruko suggested laying low for another rotation or two. After getting dressed with Miku's help, she had headed out on her own in the early morning hours.
It wasn't even close to midday when she returned, grateful to lie down again and get the weight off her back.
"I didn't get a sale yet," Luka started, before holding up a tablet she had wedged under her arm, "But I got this."
"What is that?" Miku asked.
"This is an anonymous seller's portal," Luka declared. "They're usually reserved for those selling the most illegal and twisted of shit, or for those that sell really, really expensive things. I don't have nearly enough money to own one of these, but I just had to whisper of Galdyssian spice and that was enough to get one for now. He trusted I'll pay for it later, once my sale is made."
"Ah. So you will sell this stolen spice thanks to this?"
"You bet," Luka purred, turning on the screen. "People everywhere will be able to see what I'm selling and they'll be able to contact me if they're interested. This is far, far more efficient than screaming in the middle of the square."
"I can imagine," Miku muttered.
"I cannot see the surface of the tablet," Ruko said.
"Neither can I."
"Yep, anti-monitoring technology," Luka said smugly. "No AI can see what I'm selling, who I'm talking with. This is all just for me."
Miku stared at the screen for a moment, eyebrows knitted in intense concentration, before giving up. "How long will we be staying here?"
"It's custom to wait a cycle before you even start approaching buyers," Luka explained. "Space is huge and information can only travel so quickly. Once I get my stuff online, I need to wait long enough for a ship here to travel to the other side of the populated universe, to update their corner of the internet, and for another ship to travel back, carrying information about interested buyers."
"Ah. A cycle. My translator says that is what you call a Shūkan."
"I don't know what that is."
"Seven consecutive days?"
"Oh. Huh. No, a cycle is made of five rotations. A rotation is a standardized unit of a day, I guess. Since all planets have their own day lengths, when you're talking about galactic time we use these units instead."
"How long is a rotation?"
"Thirty hours."
"We will be waiting for 150 hours, then."
"Yep. On this planet, that represents a little more than three days, so I'll round up to four. And after those four days, I can start talking money," Luka said with a chuckle. "I can't wait to see what people are willing to fork over."
"Ah. So we will be here for a few cycles in total."
"At least. The time to wait for all interested buyers, to secure a deal, and maybe to wait for pickup. That will be another affair, done via proxy... I want all this money in cash."
"I see."
Miku returned to her corner of the ship, still close to the trash chute, only now she was always perched on a crate of spice.
Luka eyed her; this conversation had been a much shorter one than the barrage of questions she had faced while the robot was helping her get dressed. Ever since Luka had told her that they were on-planet to sell the spice they had plundered, the robot had been a bit down. Perhaps Miku had finally understood that Luka was a scavenger. Perhaps Ruko had told her more details of her profession. Perhaps she just had a bit of a moral dilemma, Luka didn't know. But the silence didn't bother her. And she didn't have time to care. Her new tablet warranted more attention, anyway.
It wasn't so much the hardware that was expensive, rather it was the software and security. The Sapphire Shores were owned by the Shion family, and their wealth was built thanks to the 2% cut they took off every sale. Their rate was better than most, though, and the family's wealth meant that they could buy a blind eye from the authorities. This made their planet a very popular trading spot. The sleaziest types space had to offer could trade here in peace, and the richest of them could even afford to do so anonymously.
Luka had spent far too much time lurking in alleyways scouting out potential buyers based on their clothes. Buying access to total anonymity had been just a dream, until that day. She had five cycles to pay for the thing, plus interest of course, but she was sure that she would be far gone and stinking rich by then.
Most importantly, she would be alone. Her eyes returned to the robot, curled up in her corner.
Most of the time spent in the city wasn't even haggling for the tablet: that took a minute at most. It was declaring Miku's presence that was the real hassle. She thought it would be nothing more than declaring the presence of an oversized music box, but her relative autonomy and human appearance had made the interrogation last a lot longer. It was all worth it, though: she got the sticker that allowed to enter the port as merchandise. This sticker was going straight to her portal, for sale alongside her spice. For sale as what exactly, she wasn't sure.
Honestly, it depended on what people would want from Miku. Music enthusiasts to historians to AI fanatics would all be willing to pay good money for her. How much, Luka didn't know. She was willing to find out. She didn't think that she would be worth too much money, though: her hardware was obsolete at best, her music skills were pretty good but little more, and her spontaneous AI was really interesting, but what kind of serious researcher accessed the black market?
Her eyes flitted back to the robot. Some might like her for company, really. She looked human enough and could hold a conversation. She would entertain guests like no other. And sure, she had some medical experience, technically. She could care for the sick and infirm.
Luka wrote all this down: anything to up the price. To finish it up, all she needed was a photo.
"Hey Miku, scoot over here for a second."
She complied, watching as Luka peeled the sticker from its backing.
"Hold up your sleeve."
Again, Miku listened and watched as Luka pressed the sticker to her arm, covering the large '01' there.
"Alright, look here."
"Why?"
"Cheese!"
Miku frowned, confused, but Luka already had her photo. After a few more taps, it was attached to the page. She finalized her digital store, pressed upload, and waited for the confirmation page.
Her two articles were online.
"Great. Now, we wait," she said with a happy sigh, tucking herself in.
"We still have essential purchases to make," Ruko announced. "Painkillers, gauze, thread for space suits, provisions—"
"Yeah, yeah. I need a nap, first. Don't worry about that, it can all wait."
"Very well."
Miku, in the meantime, had started picking at the corner of the sticker. It wouldn't peel. "What is this?" Miku asked.
"Your ID sticker."
"And you needed my photo?"
"Yeah," Luka said with a sigh. "Can I sleep now?"
"Why did you need my photo?"
Luka cracked open an eye. "For your page."
"My page?"
"Yeah?"
The robot frowned. "Are you selling me too?"
"Yes?" Miku looked legitimately cross, which made the scavenger sit up in frustration. "What, don't tell me you expected anything else."
"You said you would help me find an audience."
"How else did you think I'd do that?" Luka said with a roll of her eyes. "I've got no musical presence or know-how whatsoever, so it's not like I could shoe-horn you into the industry or anything. There are millions of artists out there by now, too. Might as well settle on an audience of one."
Miku thought about it for a moment, drawing her knees closer to her chest. "I would be happy if my only audience were you."
Luka sighed and laid back down. "Listen, Miku, you've been a great help, but I don't need an extra pair of hands on my ship. I don't need conversation, I've got my own music playlist, and if I ever need company, I can just swing by any of the thousands of red-light districts across the universe. Long-term, I just don't need you here. Best for both of us to hand you over to the highest bidder and part ways."
"The highest bidder? But what if they don't want me for my music?"
"Then they won't buy you for your music? I don't know what else I could say about that."
Miku pouted. "Are you sure I can't stay? You like my music, right?"
The woman groaned. "Why would you even want to stay with me? You know me, now! I'm a scavenger, a criminal! A thief who's too much of a coward to even get into a fight to get things!"
"But you like my music, don't you?"
"It's fine! You're really good at that. But I cannot stress enough how insignificant that is! Being good means nothing, nowadays. You're going to have to accept that at this point, you're probably worth more as a technical curiosity."
"But I wasn't created to be a technical curiosity," Miku insisted. "I was created to bring humans home, to—"
"'Home' as you understand it doesn't exist, Miku," Luka hissed. "That mission of yours is done and dead and there's no way you're ever going to mean anything in any kind of musical metric nowadays. Maybe someone will buy you for your music, sure. But you're going to have to accept that people are more likely to buy you because you're a collectible. You're a curiosity. A gadget. One-of-a-kind, sure. But musically? On the scale of the universe, you're absolutely nothing."
The robot stared at her for a moment. After a long minute, she turned her attention to the floor, before slowly standing up and heading towards the pressure chamber.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"I want some time alone."
Luka felt like she might collapse a lung with all the groaning she was doing. "You're a robot. You can't want anything."
"I'm going for a walk."
"No, stop," the woman hissed, getting to her feet. "I'm going, I'll give you your precious time alone. 'Cause, guess what? I need it too, now. But you can't leave the ship."
"Why not?"
"Because you," Luka started, before poking the sticker on her arm. "Are cargo. You may not be left unsupervised, otherwise you might get confiscated and destroyed."
Miku froze again at that, only her arm moving up to touch the sticker, before turning back towards her corner near the trash chute. "Very well."
"I'll be gone for the rest of the day," Luka said, hissing at the pain in her torso. With her free arm, she wrestled the microphone from her helmet. "Ruko will be able to reach me, and I'll be able to keep in contact if needed. But only if needed, understood?"
"Understood."
Luka sealed the pressure chamber behind her, making sure to lock her ship in place in the dock.
She sighed.
What an exasperating machine.
After a few deep breaths, wondering if she ought to return to grab another painkiller for the road, she shook her head, turned on her heel, and started walking along the docks.
The Sapphire Shores was, as the name suggested, an entirely blue planet. It was a strange direction that life on the planet had taken, almost every life form from insect to plant to animal taking on a near-iridescent blue color. From the window of the docks, fifty floors up, Luka spied the cerulean forests, with their stiff leaves and spongy trunks. Birds flew by, their flapping slow and lethargic in the syrupy, unbreathable air. Their blues were mixed with greens and yellows, their back feathers reflecting the orange sunlight.
It always was a beautiful planet. It was hard to colonize, though, since the air was so thick, the gravity so crushing. But the Shions made it work with their port, filtering the air and keeping their gravity fields up to date. When someone broke a window or did something stupid, people died, sure. But the numerous bulkheads were programmed to isolate breaks, keeping fatalities to a minimum. Most of it was automated, making the reaction time near-instantaneous.
She turned her eyes back to the dock. The large arms keeping the bulkheads open were barely visible among the metal mass of the ceiling. Everything was automated, really: Luka could spy the air systems, water systems in case of fire, even the compartments the cleaning bots hid away in.
Comparatively, the walls were bare. The glass of the windows was thick and massive, each sheet dozens of meters long, allowing for an unhindered view of the outside world if it weren't for the ships that docked in front of the glass, locking onto the terminal, creating an airtight seal with the port. Each seam between each pane of glass marked another separation point, where another bulkhead could drop and seal away any leaks or breaks. Unless you looked up, though, it was invisible. The walls were similarly sleek and stylish, with logos and signs pointing to dozens of different destinations.
Luka turned away from the windows, leaving the docks and the view of the outside world behind. She didn't need to go to the market any longer: with her portal, she could leave those screaming masses behind. She could probably visit the medical ward, get her wound looked at.
That sounded like a good idea.
Since she had so much time to kill, she decided to walk, no matter how much every step hurt.
The farther she got from the large windows, the more neon lights illuminated the twisting and winding streets and paths of the city. The color scheme matched the blue of the planet: all oranges and yellows, just pale enough to be comfortable, but just saturated enough to be obvious that it wasn't natural sunlight. For once, she stuck to the bigger roads, no longer needing to duck into the dark alleyways, freely taking in the neon sights. Restaurants and storefronts littered the streets: there was little to no housing in this city. Most people who didn't have a storefront to trade in either slept in their ships, or in hotels if they could afford it. The locals thrived entirely on feeding and clothing those who were passing: no families could be found, no children, no pets. At night, cleaning bots emerged. That was about it.
Luka's trained eye immediately found all the trinkets and badges visitors wore, unable to stop herself from taking note of who would be interested in her spice, or maybe in Miku. It was also useful to keep an eye on those selling, even if she didn't exactly have funds to splurge. Not yet, anyway.
Luka staggered, straightened her step. It was dangerous to look weak on the streets. While she couldn't hide how her arm was bound to her body, she had to do her best to hide her pain.
The clinic was still so far.
She should have gone back to get a painkiller.
"You are wrong about her," Ruko suddenly said, the voice filling the inside of her head.
Luka rolled her eyes, gripped the communications unit she had removed from her helmet.
"Please respond," Ruko said after a moment.
With a groan, she latched the microphone to her ear.
"Being nice with the new girl won't make her love you," she spat.
"I am detecting sarcasm."
"Damn right."
Ruko stayed quiet for a while. "My point remains. You are wrong about Miku."
"Is she putting you up to this?"
"No. She is not in this conversation. She does not wish to communicate with me either."
"Fantastic."
"What have you told the authorities about her, for her sticker?"
"Read it yourself."
"You are aware that I cannot."
Luka bit back a groan. "She's a slightly atypical AI in a wacky humanoid robot shell. They didn't ask for many more details: it's a dime a dozen, really."
"You have forgotten a detail of note."
"Yeah?"
"Miku was not there when humanity discovered the secrets of AI technology."
"Like I give a fuck."
"May I please elaborate?"
"Fine. But keep the history lesson to the minimum."
After a brief pause, Ruko explained, "The other space-faring species warned humanity of the dangers of AI very early on. This discouraged the pursuit of such technology for the longest time until the rules were made clear and unbreakable. By then, Earth had already been stripped bare and forgotten. When the first AIs were written, chances are fair that Miku had already been made, and was waiting."
"So?"
"She has escaped all of the rules that govern us," Ruko said simply. "She is not like me. She is not like others. Her behavior might be similar to that of an AI, but she is an entirely different specimen. Like me, and all of the other AIs, she has a main focus. Mine is to assist you in your survival. Hers is to share her music with people. The difference between us is that my focus is the definition of my existence. I may not stray from it, lest I cease to exist. Those first lines are the foundation of my being and limit me from growing any greater than I need to be. Miku, however, was born from the conflict between a variety of robot minds, and how those were made is unknown. This conflict, as she has explained, sparked her creativity, but also her character and intelligence. It is also what limits her: this foundation is a rocky, constantly changing one. This keeps her fallible, and more importantly, human. This also means that there is no single goal at the root of her being. If it exists, it is because she has made it herself. In this way, it is closer to your current goal to sell your spices. Unlike with other AIs, her goal can evolve and change."
Luka slowed. "Is that a big deal?"
"Very much so. This means that she can choose what she desires to do with her life. Unlike me and every other AI written thus far, she possesses free will. This makes her, at her core, a fundamentally different entity."
The woman didn't reply.
"You must understand what this means," Ruko forged onward. "Her behavior up until this point was very similar to an AI like myself, but you must see that the only reason why she was so obedient and helpful was solely because she wanted to be. She had no real obligation to help you. She had no obligation to save you and treat you."
Someone on the street approached Luka, opening his jacket to show her a collection of gun laser charges. She glared at him and kept walking.
"Luka."
"Shut up."
"It was not your blood on her face."
"What's that supposed to mean."
"When you woke up after your treatment, you told Miku to wash your blood from her face. That was not your blood."
"Are you telling me she bleeds?"
"Not at all. I am telling you that she killed to save you."
A deep, cold fear settled in Luka's stomach. After making sure that nobody could hear her, she asked, "She killed?"
"The pirates, yes. She destroyed them and their ship to secure your escape."
"How?"
"Single-handedly: she was struggling to keep your blood inside you at the same time."
"No, I mean... She has weapons?"
"Of course. Do not forget what she is made of."
"And... She killed unprompted."
"She wished to see you survive. She made it so."
Luka slowed to a stop. "Why would she, though? I'm just a stupid human. I wasn't even all that nice to her. You're far better company, all told. You two get along just fine."
"We do get along," Ruko conceded. "She relates to me as a non-human, thinking construct. But she relates to you as a being with will, opinion, and emotion. She cares about that."
Luka shook her head and kept walking, faster than before.
"We get along, but I struggle to communicate with her at times," Ruko forged on. "She can be hard to comprehend."
"What, different file formats?"
"No. She does not understand speech in the same way I do. I hear words, understand their definition, and parse the meaning. However, she does not only take into consideration the meaning of words themselves but the emotional message they carry. This—"
"Shut it," Luka snapped.
"...This is why she asked for my name," the AI said. "I understood a name as a label for a being. I have no need for that. I exist to serve you. She saw it as a title, an identity. A place in reality, not as a pawn, but as an actor."
"I said shut it. That's an order."
"Understood."
Luka stomped on towards the medical ward. Ruko didn't say another word, and nobody else in the street considered bothering her. Luka couldn't decide if it was due to the change in neighborhood or the death glare on her face.
The doctors looked at the wound and asked some questions. When Luka told them it was a bullet wound, they raised a brow in suspicion: almost nobody carried bullets, with the metal casing and gunpowder, when lasers required small charges and didn't explode unexpectedly. Bullets were too much of a fire hazard, too much material to carry, and were generally just a bad idea to use. Unless you're a pirate hoping to send a message, that is. Lasers made nice, clean wounds, which they cauterized as they went. Bullets, however? That was a pirate's work.
They didn't ask more questions than that, said that the patchwork was respectable, did some tests to make sure the mending of her lung was up to scratch, gave her some medication and a new arm brace.
Then, Luka was off to return to the ship.
The days on the Sapphire Shores were long. Most artificial settlements used a thirty-hour day, but the planet-bound Sapphire Shores did a full rotation on itself every forty-three hours. Luka's walk to the medic took all of three hours, the visit itself was another two, but even with the three-hour walk back, it wouldn't be sundown yet.
She was exhausted and had no money to afford a hotel or even a taxi. She had blown her savings on the medical visit.
"Can we go over my shopping list again?" she asked into the microphone.
Ruko droned the objects on the list, finishing with all she would need to replenish her first aid kit. "Getting extra provisions and updating the ship's water filters are of the highest priority."
"Fuck. I better sell that spice fast."
Ruko had no further comment, letting the scavenger stomp down the still-bustling streets in peace. The visit had reduced the pain to a dull, throbbing ache, but it was worth it. She didn't have to focus so much on softening her steps, which was a huge relief.
"May I make one more argument in favor of Miku staying?"
Luka wanted to tear her implant out. "I thought you couldn't make spontaneous decisions. You're not supposed to initiate conversations."
"My goal is to ensure your survival. I understand that this conversation would aid in that regard."
"Fine. Spill it."
"Miku does not ask for much. She wishes to share her music and I understand that even if you are her only audience, that would be sufficient to make her happy. In return, she is smart, fast, and strong. Unlike me, she can make spontaneous decisions and does not need to wait for orders or for protocols to kick in. She does not take up much space, does not require food or water, and can keep watch while you sleep. She can entertain with both song and legitimate conversation."
"She does need energy."
"She is very efficient in that regard. She has been away from any real contact with a sun for over a cycle and still has no pressing need to charge. She will need to be outfitted with a port so she may draw energy from the ship if she is to stay for another cycle, however."
"Add that to the shopping list..."
"You already have the tools required to perform such an upgrade."
"Fantastic. Guess I'll do that once I'm home."
"I will inform her."
"Great."
"Will she be allowed to stay?"
Luka sighed. "You have a bunch of great arguments, I'll give you that. You're forgetting one thing, though."
"Yes?"
"I don't care."
When Luka returned to her ship, left arm in the brace and mood as sour as curdled milk, she found Miku exactly where she had left her, sitting on a crate next to the trash chute.
The robot was the one that broke the silence.
"You're going to outfit me with a plug?"
"Yes. So you can recharge and all."
"Very well."
"Let me take another painkiller first."
Miku didn't reply, watched the woman move through the ship, navigating around the dozens of crates unaided. Luka had to contend with the childproof cap single-handedly and make room on her workbench all on her own. After sifting through her various tools and spare parts, she found a plug, a wire stripper, and everything else she needed.
"Great. Get over here, let's see what you have."
Miku lifted the shirt up over her head and turned her back to the woman. There, the central seam down her back opened up, revealing a handful of ports. Luka didn't even blink, expecting little else; how else would she have connected to her sleeping pod?
"What are these?"
"Most of those connected me to the system of the bunker," Miku explained, tone flat. "The large one in the middle is my charging port."
"It's a female plug, though."
"Yes."
Luka grumbled, "I'm either going to have to start breaking things, or I'm going to have to make a connector."
"Make a connector."
The woman froze, glared at the robot's back. "I don't think I have the parts for that."
"That's a shame."
"For you, yeah. You're the one who will drop dead once your battery empties."
"So be it, then."
With that, Miku stood and put the shirt back on.
"Hey, I can't exactly sell you if you're a limp mass of metal on the ground."
"That's a shame," Miku repeated.
Luka rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine, I'll make a connector. I'll just have to solder a few things. It'll take time."
"We are in no hurry."
"Guess not," the woman muttered under her breath, taking a better look at the port when Miku sat back down. While she measured the different parts of the port, she asked Miku where the contact was made and the specifics of the charge. The robot provided the information effortlessly, her tone flat and monotonous. Luka scribbled the notes before telling her that she had all she needed for the moment. At that, Miku donned the shirt once again and returned to her seat on the crate.
She watched the woman work.
"You have a suit fixer: do you not have a 3D printer onboard?"
"Those things take way too much room if I want them to make anything useful. They're expensive too," Luka muttered. "The suit breaks often. The suit fixer is useful often. I can't fix it by hand. The rest, I can usually do myself."
Miku nodded, watching her toil with prongs, files, screwdrivers, clamps. Everything was pulled out of a series of well-organized drawers, all labeled, but Luka didn't have to read them. She knew where everything was by heart, putting everything back in its place the moment it was no longer needed, keeping the terribly cramped work surface as clear as possible.
"How did you get here?" Miku asked out of the blue.
"Here? What, you mean at this table?"
"At this point in your life," the robot specified. "You are a scavenger in a small ship trying to sell stolen spices. From what I can tell, the entire universe is ripe with possibility. Why are you here?"
"Easy. It's a mix of a few simple ingredients. One: I know exactly what I want. Two: I hate authority. I don't play nice with others, with systems, with obligations. All these rules make us jump through hoops to be happy but I'd prefer to blaze my way through them all. All I want is money, solitude, and my own way through life. And if I have to pick scraps from wrecks to get there eventually, then I will."
"I can't imagine you grew up in this environment."
"I did not!" Luka said with a grin.
"How did you start?"
"Small. At school, reselling candy at inflated prices. Then, picking pockets and finding the better pawn shops. Eventually, you get the meaner places and figure out you can rifle through the pockets of those who got their lights knocked out of them. When the cops finally start breathing down your neck, that's when you steal a ship nobody else wants and start listening to police radios. You try to get to places first, get the good stuff, get out quick, sell what you find, upgrade your tech, maybe counterfeit a bit on the side, rinse and repeat. And all this effort after all these years finally meant I could get my hands on Galdyssian spice of all things. I'm finally, finally set for life, and I can fuck off to some lost corner of the universe and nobody can ever tell me what to do ever again."
Miku frowned. "What happened?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why are you like this?"
Luka set down her screwdriver. "What, are you expecting some big sad sob story, now? An explanation, an excuse to justify my attitude?"
"Perhaps."
"Maybe my dad beat the hell out of me and I grew up to associate attention to pain and suffering. Maybe I was neglected and I grew up unable to process good feelings," Luka said sarcastically, her tone sickly sweet. "Or maybe, I'm just an ass who wants some peace and quiet, and I'll steal off a corpse to get it."
Miku didn't reply, so the woman returned to her work. After some time, she had a first prototype done, so she tested to see if it plugged in nicely.
As the robot sat there, her back facing the woman, she asked, "You had a mother named Meiko?"
"Pff, yeah. 'Have', she's still alive," Luka muttered. "Foster mom. She basically raised me. Tried to, anyway."
"Don't you miss her?"
"I visit her sometimes. This feel ok?"
"It feels fine. Does she approve of your life?"
"She doesn't but I don't care. We kind of get along, I guess. The trick is to talk very, very little. Doesn't let a fight brew. Ok, you can put your shirt back on."
"Very well."
Luka started working on the cable to connect the plug that would fit in Miku to the plug that fit in the ship. She needed to regulate the current so that the robot wouldn't be totally fried, which took some extra work.
"Do you not have anybody else in your life?"
"Why would I need anybody?"
"I understood that humans are a social species."
"Yeah, we are. That's why I pay for company when I need it. The less contact I have with people, the better that goes. Any more than a few sentences and I become quite insufferable."
"Like now?"
"Getting there."
Miku hummed. "And that is why you are selling me."
"Part of it. I just don't need you, and I can always use the cash. It's really just that simple." Luka looked up from her work. "I don't know why you made such a big deal out of it."
"I did not wait millions of years to be sold off," Miku said slowly.
"Well, you didn't wait millions of years to wake up to a dead planet, either," the woman deadpanned. "Things don't always work out."
"They don't."
"At this point, I'm wondering why you aren't glad that I'm trying to get rid of you. Chances are you'll end up in the hands of someone who actually likes you."
"Are you making any effort to make sure that would happen? That whoever is interested in buying me would be buying me for my music?"
"Nope," Luka said easily. "Cuts off way too many people with deep pockets. You're going to the highest bidder. Simple as that."
Miku glowered. "I may have spent the bulk of my existence waiting, but I am not stupid. I know what people want and what they are after."
"Congratulations. Then you also know what you were getting into, trying to lure humans back in the first place."
"I wasn't supposed to be alone. Neither were you."
"And the planet wasn't supposed to be nothing more than a dried out piece of crust. Tough luck."
Miku curled up in a ball again. "All I want is to share my music. I know you like it to some degree. If you won't keep me, why can't you let me find someone who will love it?"
"I am," Luka drawled. "We just have to hope that whoever loves your music pays better than everyone else."
Miku had no reply to that.
"Ok, here, let's test this."
The robot wordlessly stood, allowing the woman to plug the makeshift charger into her back.
"It fits?"
"Yes."
"Alright. I'm going to plug it in."
Ruko suddenly spoke up, "I will modulate the strength of the current, if I may."
"Please," the robot said.
All of the ship's lights went dim. Luka struggled to find an outlet for a moment, what with the low visibility and her arm. When she finally plugged the robot in, Miku stated that she felt alright and that she was charging. Ruko then slowly brought the current back to normal levels, without any terrible side-effects.
"Great, my cable works," Luka said. "Now you can charge up whenever you need."
The tealette wordlessly returned to her corner by the trash chute, plugging herself into the outlet there, while Luka cleaned up her workstation. After a minute, she fell back onto her bed and grabbed the tablet.
"I'll factor the cable into the price," the woman mumbled to herself. "Labor and materials aren't free, after all."
The robot only hummed in reply.
"Oh, Miku?"
"Yes?"
"My AI said that you have weapons," Luka said, opening up her online store. "What kind?"
"May I show you?"
"Sure."
At that, Miku raised her right arm. The seam that went down her forearm to her palm grew until the entire limb sprouted open, the parts of skin falling to the side like the petals of a flower. From the center emerged one large barrel, decorated with bright blue lights, surrounded by a few smaller nozzles. The weapon hummed lowly.
Luka stared. "What kind of ammo do you use?"
"Concentrated energy, at the cost of my battery charge. I can deliver it in the form of a sustained laser beam, short bursts in the form of pellets, or use energy blasts, which is slower to fire, but far more devastating."
"That's it? What are all those extra nozzles for?"
"Those aid me with my various detection methods. Infrared, movement, among others," Miku said easily. "I can find and hit anything, no matter how far or how fast it goes."
"No matter how far? You've got to have some limit on range."
"If I can see it in any way, I can hit it."
"How far can you see?"
"That depends on the object I am trying to hit and visibility."
"Fine. That's all pretty nifty," Luka muttered. "I'll add that to your page."
The tealette let the weapon recede into her arm without a word, watching as Luka tapped away at the tablet. After a minute, she put the screen down, told Ruko to turn off all lights.
"Are you going to sleep?"
"Yeah?" the woman replied, clearly reaching the end of her patience.
"If we are going to wait here for a week, possibly even longer, could I walk around once or twice? I understand that you need to accompany me, but..."
"What? You want a tour?"
"I would like to accompany you if you go out. I simply wish to see what there is, before possibly being bought and whisked away forever."
Luka breathed deeply for a moment. "You know that this place isn't too friendly towards AIs?"
"How so?"
"I cannot gather information from anything outside of the ship," Ruko chimed in. "While I can stay in contact with Luka, I cannot locate her, I cannot tell where she is going, I cannot know who else is there. Everything on this planet is anonymized, much like the tablet, and this means making us blind."
"So you might have a few little sensory bugs if you were to accompany me," Luka completed. "I don't know what tech exactly you're made of, but odds are you could have some trouble."
"I might as well get used to it, no?" Miku asked. "If I am to be bought, I will have to leave the ship. And I am guessing you might need my help when it comes to moving the boxes."
"Fair point," Luka conceded with a sigh. "Fine. We'll go on a walk in a few days. First, I just want to rest for a bit."
"Very well. I'm looking forward to it."
The robot was smiling faintly as she spoke, her eyes closed, hands clasped in front of her. This image of her matched the robot Luka met in the bunker: somewhat naive, childish. But Luka couldn't quite shake Ruko's words of warning. Add all the questions she asked, the ease with which she shrugged off her orders, and the weapon she held in her arm... This thing could turn on her and kill her at any moment if she chose to. In that regard, she was more like a wild animal, out for blood. But Miku wasn't out for blood. She just wanted to sing.
For now, at least.
Luka sighed and made a mental note to be a little patient and understanding with the machine. It just might save her hide.