4. Adjustments
"Do you have a minute, Peter?" asked The Spine, leaning through the doorway of the study.
"Of course, come in," said Peter, "And please sit down."
Peter VI was lounging on the sofa, surrounded by stacks of volumes detailing Peter I's work. He spoke without looking away from the book in his hands. The Spine settled himself in a nearby chair and waiting for Peter to look up.
"I was just looking for some more answers about our guest," he said finally, laying the book down in his lap, "I assume that's what you wanted to talk about?"
"Yes, it is. Cora made a comment on the way over here about how we've been starting to have feelings. It wasn't just a guess or intuition. She knew it with absolute certainty. And then there was that whole thing about hearing something familiar that led her to us. How do you explain that?"
"Well… it appears that the colonel destroyed all of his notes on the subject of cybernetics, aside from the schematics of Verity's case, but from those I think I can speculate on that. You know how the blue matter in your circuitry allows you to interface with any sort of technology? Apparently, it can also be used to interface mechanical parts with biological systems."
"Come again?" The Spines raised his eyebrows in astonishment.
"There is more blue matter in Verity than just the little that powers her heart. Large portions of her ribcage had to be repaired and, to ensure that the metal replacements would not be rejected, blue matter was used in the attachments. However, as the substance is a living crystal, I believe that it went on to make more changes as she slept, perhaps even altering her mind to be able to receive wireless internet signals."
"That would explain why she sort of seems to know about modern society."
"And it would explain how she picked up your signals, and it led her to you."
"You mean she's reading our minds without know that she's doing it?"
"Not quite. I don't think she could communicate with you the way all of you communicate with each other. From what you've said, it sounds less like mind-reading and more like she can just sense things about you. Empathically, you could say."
The Spine sat in silence a moment to process this. He wasn't particularly thrilled that the robots he'd spent his entire life with could be voices in his head if he let them. The idea of a stranger being able to do the same was… unsettling. Just thinking about it made him uncomfortable.
"Oh, there was something else I thought of," he said, "Do you think a few of us should go back to Bakersfield and see if we can recover that cryopreservation system before the Beciles get their hands on it?"
"No, I'm sure those brown suits have cleaned all that up by now," Peter waved a hand dismissively, "And anyway, that technology is old news. Dr. Caldwell never did get it to work properly."
"What do you mean?" The Spine tilted his head curiously.
"Well, while the life support systems did prevent a person from dying of life-threatening injuries (and that part has been used in modern medical technology) tests showed that the subjects continued to age. To this day, no one is sure how Caldwell managed to make such a bizarrely specific error."
"Continued to age? But if Cora really is Verity Edgeworth…"
"Then you can see why the colonel destroyed his research. I can conclude with reasonable certainty that the application of blue matter cybernetics has essentially stopped her aging. This technology could be very dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. That is why the Beciles are after her, Spine, and why it is imperative that we see to it that they don't get her."
"Have you told her?" The Spine asked after another pause.
"Not yet. She's still asleep," Peter stood up and walked over to his desk, picking up the old photograph from the lab, "A man in a mask is going to tell a girl with amnesia that she is an immortal cyborg. What a story she woke up in!"
xXx
A few hours later, The Spine stopped Peter as he hurried down the hallway.
"How did she take the news?" the silver robot asked.
"I'm not sure," Peter answered distractedly, "She didn't say much, so I decided I should leave her."
"What room is she in?"
"The other blue room. I'm terribly sorry, can't stay and chat, I've got a new clockwork heart to build."
With that, Peter rushed off in the direction of the lab. The Spine let him go. When Peter latched onto a new project, it was to the exclusion of all else. The Spine was fairly certain he wouldn't see the inventor again until it was finished. The other blue room, was it? Blue was a common color for bedrooms at the Walter Manor. It did get a little confusing, especially once you tried to direct someone to the "other other other other other blue room". But the other blue room was on the second story, and was one of the few rooms with a door, so it was easy to remember.
"Cora?" called The Spine, knocking on the door, "Can I come in?"
There was no answer, but he opened the door anyway. Apparently Peter had left the old photograph sitting on the table. Cora stood looking out the window. The Spine thought she looked better than she had when he saw her last, but she was blank and pale in a different sort of way now. The dark patches under her eyes made her face look almost gaunt. She did not react to the sudden company, and The Spine realized that he had no idea what to say.
"I heard you talked to Peter," he began.
"I don't like him," Cora's tone was dull and quiet, "He kept calling me Verity."
"How are you doing?"
"It turns out I'm someone I can't remember who should have died almost a hundred years ago, but didn't because someone decided to make her a deathless machine."
"I realize this is a lot to accept all at once, and I can see you're taking it to heart-"
"What heart?" Cora shouted suddenly, grabbing the photograph and whirling to face him, "And what made this man think he had the right to decide that for anyone? I hate him!"
She flung the photograph at the wall, the glass shattering with a violent crash. The Spine stared at her for a moment without speaking.
"I see," he said finally.
There was another moment of silence. Cora turned back to the window. When she spoke again, her voice shook slightly.
"I'm sorry," she said, "That was a very unfair thing for me to say."
"Yes, it was."
Cora did not reply. The Spine picked up the photograph, carefully gathering the shards of glass. He left the room.
Down in one of the workshops, Matt was working on oiling the hinges of Hatchworth's hatch, which had been squeaking as of late. He looked up as The Spine entered and went over to the trash can. The silver robot gently extracted the photograph from the wrecked frame, throwing the glass away.
"What happened?" Matt asked.
"Cora threw it at the wall," sighed The Spine.
"That doesn't sound like her."
"Why would she break a picture, The Spine?" Hatchworth asked, "Did something make her angry?"
The Spine shrugged, brushing some dust from the photograph and looking at it closely to see if it had been scratched.
"It's because she's scared, Hatchy," Matt answered.
"I don't understand," said the bronze robot.
"Sometimes when a person is afraid of something and they don't want to be scared, they think it's easier to just get angry."
"Oh. Does that help?"
"No, not really."
This was a lot to mull over, the silver robot thought as he walked back out of the room, especially since he probably wouldn't get much help from Hatchworth and Rabbit. Lost in thought, he nearly ran into that very automaton in the hallway.
"Hey Spine!" said Rabbit, "Look what I made!"
His arms were full of what appeared to be a tangled up mess of metal, wood, and some suspicious pink goo. The Spine raised an eyebrow.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's art!" the copper robot declared proudly.
"It certainly is… something."
"Why are you being such a spine in the mud?" Rabbit pouted, "M-maybe I'll go show Cora."
"She probably already knows," The Spine muttered.
"Oh, is that what you're so bothered about? What's the big deal? She's almost a robot, too, y'know."
"It's just weird. It's like Heath Barkley showing up out of nowhere."
"That's from a western, isn't it," Rabbit asked flatly.
"What's wrong with westerns?" demanded The Spine.
"You're boring today. I'm gonna go show Paige my art. I b-bet she'll appreciate it."
"I'm sure she'll be thrilled," The Spine called after him, then added under his breath, "that you made another mess for her to clean up."
For the rest of that day, and for the whole day afterward, Cora did not leave her room. Food was left for her at mealtimes, which she did not touch. If asked direct questions, her answers were monosyllabic. The Spine looked in on her that evening. She was curled up on the bed with her eyes closed, but he could tell she was only feigning sleep. He closed the door and left her without a word.
The next afternoon, the human members of the band had gathered in the first floor sitting room. The Walter girls were still finishing up some maintenance on the robots, so the boys sat around to wait.
"So, nobody's heard anything from Cora?" Steve asked.
"Nope," said Michael, not looking up from tuning his guitar.
"When do you think she's going to snap out of it?" said Matt, "I mean, I don't know if I'd take the news she got any better than she did, but she can't stay up there forever."
"It better be soon," said Steve, "I don't know what they'll do with her if she doesn't. She wouldn't last a day on her own, not with the Beciles looking for her."
Michael stood up suddenly and walked towards the door, taking his guitar with him.
"Where are you going?" asked Matt.
"Out back," said Michael, "There's something I want to work on."
xXx
In the silence of the other blue room, Cora noticed a sound coming from the garden beneath her open window. It took her a moment to recognize it as the humming resonance of someone strumming a guitar. She went to the window to look. Michael sat on a bench in the garden. He strummed a few chords, stopped to tune a string or two, then strummed some more. In a little while, he began to sing:
"Here I go again,
I'm breaking up,
I'm shutting down now.
Inside, outside, decommission -
Wonder if it's painful.
Reading love and writing love,
Technically the same.
I am a living thing.
I am not a human being,
But I'm alive, I'm alive-"
Without warning, one of the strings snapped, causing Michael to flinch and nearly drop the guitar. Cora laughed before she could stop herself. Michael looked up at her and smiled, waving.
"'What light from yonder window breaks?'" he called, "Hey, Cora!"
"Did you write that song?" she asked.
"Yeah, that's one of mine. It's called 'Prelude to a Dream'."
"It's very pretty."
"Thank you," Michael grinned, "Hey, we're eating supper after we finish practicing, probably sometime around six. You'll eat with us, won't you?"
"Well, I…" Cora hesitated.
"The dining room is on the first floor. You can't miss it. It's the only room on that floor that's painted bright purple. I'll see you then!"
Without giving her a chance to refuse, Michael waved once more and walked back inside. He passed The Spine leaning in the doorway. The silver robot had been watching the whole exchange.
"You did that on purpose," he said. There was the hint of a question in the statement.
"If you're talking about busting a string, then no, that wasn't part of the plan," said Michael, glancing ruefully at his guitar, "But I did think that a song might help a little. At least it couldn't hurt."
xXx
Cora set out for the dining room before 6:00. She hadn't seen any of the manor aside from her room, but it felt huge, and she didn't want to get lost. She crept as quietly down the corridor as possible. This seemed like the sort of house where anything could jump out at you, and she was not anxious to draw any attention to herself. In the center of the hall was a giant, impractical spiral staircase.
As she reached the bottom of it, trying to decide which direction she should start off in to look for the purple room, she noticed music drifting down the hallway. Michael did say they were practicing. Curious to hear what this band of robots and humans sounded like, Cora followed the music to the door it spilled out from. She was careful not to be seen as she stood outside to listen. First came a jazzy piano intro, and then Rabbit began to sing:
"Come with me,
I'll show you how to be a metal man,
When the gears are turning and the fires are burning…"
Cora was amazed. This was so fantastically different from her vague, general notion of what a band would sound like. It was spectacular. If she thought she liked it at first, she knew she loved it as the rest joined in on harmonies:
"Now the war is passed and over.
We're left to sit and wonder –
What is life, and what is real?
And why do living things need feeling?"
Cora listened in silent, rapt attention as the song ran on. Granted, she could not really remember ever hearing music to begin with, but she could not have imagined it could be like this. The way this song felt and how Michael's song had felt earlier was indescribable. Cora realized that, for the first time she could remember, she was happy. With a wild laugh from Rabbit, the song ended. Cora hurried away before anyone knew she had been eavesdropping.
She found the dining room quite easily. It was indeed an alarmingly bright shade of purple. Her nervousness was somewhat lessened by the friendly welcome the others gave when they arrived. When she asked if Mr. Walter would be joining them, she was very relieved to find the answer was no, he would not.
In addition to the people she already knew, Cora was introduced to two more pretty girls with the same complexion as Paige. She learned that Brianna, the one whose hair was worn in a bob, was assigned to look after The Spine in particular and that Carolina, the one whose hair had not yet changed to black with blue highlights, was new and had been hired to look after Hatchworth. When they had finished eating the humans headed off to their own homes, the Walter girls went to finish some work, Rabbit and Hatchworth disappeared to who knows where, and Cora hung back to talk with The Spine.
"Spine," she began, finding it difficult to look him in the eyes, "I wanted to apologize. You've been nothing but kind to me, and I shouldn't have taken my frustration out on you. And I don't hate him. Colonel Walter, that is. I understand if you're angry with me. He is your father, after all, and I'm sorry for the things I said."
"I'm not angry. I understand now, you were afraid. I had some help from a human figuring that out," he laughed a little at her questioning look, "And it's a lot for us to take in, too. Well, maybe just for me. The other two tend not to question things like I do. You're a part of this… family that we didn't know existed, and from a part of my father's life I didn't even know about. But we'll figure it all out, because you're one of us now. Alright?"
He held out a cold silver hand, and Cora shook it warmly.
"Alright."