Assembly (Chapter 3/?)
These long stretches of the superstructure are dull and empty, with nothing of colour or interest to draw the eye. Suns stares around as though for the first time, aware as they have never been how dissatisfying it all is. It is standard for an iterator’s interior, but it is also wrong.
My self should not be like this, they think, and it feels like a revelation.
(Chapter length: 7.8k. Link to ao3 with workskin)
Some real gender vibes in this one, folks.
Warnings: none. It’s a shockingly chill and wholesome chapter for the most part.
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[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment
SRS: …I may have new protocols to suggest for that AMP User Manual you’ve been putting together.
NSH: Oho. This sounds interesting. What happened?
SRS: My selfling went to Septkai and gained new experiences. What else?
SRS: The re-integration when they returned was more affecting than I expected. I experienced several stalled local processes which caused some minor damage to several clusters of neural tissue in my chamber.
NSH: …Well now, I didn’t expect that. Are you alright?
SRS: Yes, fine. It was unfortunately painful, but the tissue will heal.
SRS: In the future, I recommend that any integrations with returning selflings be performed under a dedicated processing partition. It will delay memory integration relative to the amount of data to process, but it should prevent accidentally causing oneself damage with upsetting or overwhelming qualia.
SRS: Sending my suggested implementation strategy and code now. Apologies for the length of the messages to come, as always.
NSH: We’re both used to having to cope with transmitting programming like this, it’s fine~
NSH: Seriously though, Seven Red Suns. Is everything okay? What happened with your AMP that was that affecting?
SRS: …I’ll tell you about it later, if that’s alright.
SRS: I’m still processing.
“It’s alright,” Suns soothes the little creature, puppet lingering on the ground to reassure it. “I’m fine. It was just…a momentary slip, that’s all. We’ll be ready next time.”
Their selfling stands nearby, deliberately disconnected. Neither of them had anticipated the response their CMQ exchange would yield, and for all that the data are all fully transmitted already, it seems SRS-01 is still reeling from the experience of the shared pain. Wary to connect again.
“You remember it, yes?” Their messenger signs anxiously, as though concerned that all the memory of the day has been wiped clean. “My name? The talking?”
“Yes, Spearmaster, of course,” they say, the first time their puppet has spoken it. It aches. “Everything we saw and spoke of. Not to worry.”
A little later, when they successfully manage to send Spearmaster off to feed, they both slump in the privacy of the chamber, the puppet wincing and the selfling grimacing as best they can. It wasn’t a lie, to say that their tissue would heal. But…
“Want me to look at that neural wiring?” Their selfling asks, looking painfully resplendent in cleric’s garb. “If it’s still hurting after that.”
“Yes please,” Suns admits, laying their puppet onto the chamber floor with relief. “Only, be gentle. That integration really was unexpectedly painful.”
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment
NSH: So the way I see it, our priorities at this point should be to increase physical conditioning on the AMPs and test remaining critical systems. Anything else?
SRS: Provisioning.
NSH: What do you mean?
SRS: We may not need food, per se, but we will need supplies. We’ll need to collaborate on deciding what tools to bring with us. For…
NSH: …Yes, I see. We have no idea what state they’ll be in when we get to them. Or what would help.
NSH: Do you think Moon could use some extra neurons? Some more slag keys, even?
SRS: It’s truly hard to say until we can judge the situation in person. But I can’t see how it would hurt. Yes, we should bring neurons and slag keys. Maybe some other gifts, too.
SRS: It must have been so long since they got any new interesting pearls, either of them. Perhaps something entertaining?
NSH: Oh I can definitely do ‘entertaining’.
SRS: I certainly hope you can do ‘tasteful’, too.
NSH: Honestly, Suns. Would I ever choose a gift that wasn’t perfectly tasteful? ~
SRS: No Significant Harassment. I remember what you sent to Five Pebbles that one time.
NSH: …Okay, fair enough.
Suns turns the question over and over in their mind: what will they bring for Pebbles?
Practical necessities aside, it’s hard to think of anything. The two of them share a good many interests, and always have – it would have been hard to find another iterator who appreciated arts and culture as much as Pebbles, and he’d always been quietly fascinated by what Septkai produced in Suns’ name. But it isn’t as though the People have been producing any new art since they lost contact, is it? There’s nothing new to share. How depressing.
Although…
“You like the pretty hanging things, yes?” Spearmaster asks them, while they’re in the middle of mulling over its own elaborate floor engravings: the first new art in the city in so very long. Their puppet blinks to attention. “In the big house? And the pictures, on the walls.”
“Yes, I always loved the art of Septkai,” Suns agrees, not entirely sure where the little creature is going with this.
“Bring some here?” It suggests, and knocks the gravity out of a nearby hallway in so doing. Suns recovers themself, puppet going still. “Make your place pretty, too! Like you brought the clothes back, to make your selfling pretty.” It peers up at them. Though it doesn’t say anything, it certainly can’t have escaped its attention that Suns’ puppet hasn’t touched the ritual clothes yet.
“The things you say…” They murmur, antennae flicking back with unease. “You have a way of challenging me, don’t you, my friend?” When Spearmaster only blinks at them, politely confused, they sigh. “I have never considered that before. The idea of taking those things from the city…it feels uncomfortably like desecrating a corpse.”
“Took the clothes,” it points out, perplexed.
“Yes, well, all things considered, those feel like they belong to me a little more than the rest does,” they admit, but…yes, it’s a weak separation, isn’t it? Septkai was their city, after all. In the absence of its original inhabitants…who else would it all belong to?
And then a thought occurs to them:
I wonder if there are any readable pearls left in the Houses...
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment
NSH: So I can confirm that our short-range communications are capable of working over distances of around 300 to 700 stretches, depending on terrain and intervening structures. Not ideal, but could be worse.
NSH: We can boost off of our overseers, though. That helps a lot.
SRS: …
SRS: Please don’t tell me you tested that on the surface?
NSH: Well, where else was I going to test it?
NSH: Might not have been the best idea though, I’ll admit. I nearly got carried off by a vulture.
NSH: You know, people have always given me a lot of grief for creating those, but I never paid them much mind.
NSH: But all of a sudden, I feel like they might’ve had a point.
SRS: I’m going to remind you of this conversation the next time you have a horrifying bioengineering project.
They ask their messenger what practice it recommends, if one is going to be heading out onto the surface at some point.
“Climbing, running fast, jumping far,” it signs, thinking about it. After a second, it demonstrates a startlingly-graceful backflip. “Special jumps. And throwing! Throwing spears is important!”
“You might be biased on that last item, all things considered, but…you’re not wrong.” They did make it capable of extruding effectively infinite spines for a reason, after all. “I’ll have to see about the flipping. We did engineer a respectable degree of flexibility in, but...I’ll have to try. In the meantime…do you think you could do me a favour?”
In short order, Suns’ selfling is set up in one of the least damageable rooms of their superstructure, exercising like a Person in a gymnasium while Spearmaster goes off to raid Septkai for pearls. It’s more than slightly embarrassing, but, well. There’s probably not a more efficient way to improve their physical conditioning, is there?
They continue thus for several days. A respectable pile of pearls accumulates on the floor of their chamber, hunted down unerringly by their little creation. With nothing better to do, Suns’ puppet spends a good amount of time rifling through the data, looking for anything interesting.
There are a distressing number of bequests and personal qualia, more or less all left to Seven Red Suns. All sorts of personal files, music, records, work data, and so on. There’s also a startlingly large amount of pornography, which they’d been under the impression was discouraged in Septkai. Bizarre, Suns thinks. Even with their more recently-discovered context, it’s all so bizarre. The People’s reproductive drives must have been truly insistent to explain this kind of wide-spread violation of social mores.
In the end, there’s not much of use to be found in a few days of Spearmaster’s scavenging. The music is nice, though; they set that aside along with all of the useful professional data and bequests.
None of it would make even a half-way acceptable gift for Five Pebbles after all this time. But they compile all of the music, particularly the religious hymns, onto a pearl anyway.
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment
NSH: Starting to think that maybe heading off across the surface on my own isn’t the smartest idea.
SRS: ??? Why would you do that anyway.
NSH: Wasn’t that the plan? Send our selflings to visit each other?
SRS: I was under the impression that Spearmaster and I would go to you. It’s safer that way, don’t you think? To go out with an experienced traveller. And your can is closest to Five Pebbles anyway. It’s just more efficient.
NSH: I suppose……….
NSH: I want to visit your can, though~
SRS: Well then wait until you have another AMP or two to send off to me, so they can protect each other. Or until you’re effective enough at surviving the surface on your own. Surely the practical experience should transfer to new AMPs perfectly well.
NSH: The conditioning won’t, but you have a point. Do you think it would be worth sharing practice data once we’re in transmitting range? Our AMPs are built on very similar principles so far, after all.
SRS: I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Did you make yours the same size as your puppet?
NSH: Well…yes. What else?
SRS: I suppose I never asked…Is your puppet around the average size for iterators of your era?
NSH: Very slightly shorter. Why is that relevant?
SRS: …You know, I think I’ll hold off on answering that. It’ll be more interesting for you to find out in person.
NSH: What??? Oh now you know this is going to bug me the whole time.
SRS: What can I say? Your habits are rubbing off on me.
SRS: I have reason to believe our AMPs might have conflicting practice data, at any rate. We’ll have to calibrate individually.
SRS: Honestly? I like it better that way. Developing my own skills and strengths in a near-organic way…it has a certain something to it.
NSH: Does this mean you don’t want my data on interesting field-applicable uses of the artificial chromatophores?
SRS: …No, I’ll take that, if you please.
No Significant Harassment’s chromatophore data, for the most part, seems to revolve around useful things to project on one’s chassis.
“Apparently, putting a false vulture mask on the back of my head will deter lizards,” Suns says to their messenger, testing out different patterns on their selfling’s skin.
“Yes, true. If you pick off a vulture mask from the body, most lizards are afraid of it.”
The voice of practical experience, clearly. It’s a little unnerving to contextualise Spearmaster’s sheer skill in terms of how much better at this they are than Suns. “I’ll keep that in mind. And…hm. If you project a pattern like moving, twisting tendrils, you can sometimes fool a vulture into thinking there’s a leviathan around. But only around water.”
Spearmaster considers that, then shrugs. “Don’t know. Can’t do that.”
“Yes, fair enough…do you suppose there are any specific colours that things might be afraid of? I can do more or less any colour.”
“Red.” They don’t even pause to think about it. “Red and black. Like red lizard, like red centipede.”
Suns has seen images of them from overseers and facility cameras. Like most photographs, they think it’s probably very different in person. “Are they that bad?”
“Very! Yes! Horrible awful bad.” Spearmaster slaps their tail on the floor for emphasis.
“Hmm…” Interesting, that. They peer at their cleric’s cloak, already mostly red and near-black, and wonder if it might pose some deterrent even on its own. Maybe it is practical for travel, if it’s technically aposematic colouration? …No, too heavy. But maybe…
Experimentally, they shift their chassis colour entirely to a red so dark it may as well be black, with their standard pale red patterning going bright and bloody. It does seem to provoke an instinctive response; even here within the superstructure, they see Spearmaster flinch back for a moment, a spike reflexively extruding from one of its tail holes.
It pulls the spear free and discards it, seeming a little embarrassed. “…Yes, good. Sudden colour on you like that – might scare things. Not long. But enough to run.”
Suns nods, and passes the data to their greater self so they can begin writing a program. Half a second passes, and they’re already away, designing a module for their skin driver that will shift to this colour scheme when they’re startled, angry, or aggressive. In the meantime:
“Strange,” Spearmaster remarks, pausing their signing to get in close and pat at Suns’ face with its little grabby hands. Whatever the motivation, it seems satisfied after sniffing at them a bit, and recedes back to their lap to say “Colour changing like that, but smell the same. Feel the same, too. Looks interesting. Like the big picture of you, in the big place.”
“…The cathedral,” they correct, signing along to demonstrate the word, and look away. “Yes, I suppose I would look closer to it in this state, wouldn’t I?” A strange thought, to be closest to the image of Septkai’s god, whilst colouring their skin for a threat display. They think of themself thus: startled or angry or protective, skin shifting black-and-red like the avatar of some wrathful deity.
It isn’t what Septkai wanted of them. They wanted a guide, not a fierce protector. But all the same…
They’re tall, aren’t they? Large compared to a slugcat, certainly. Large compared to Sig’s selfling, in all likelihood. Taller than most anything on the surface stands, capable of adopting a colour scheme that modern fauna instinctively fears…
The Houses of Septkai built Suns’ puppet to be tall, that it would tower over them with the appropriate grandeur. On the holy days, they would don the ritual garb and hang around in it for the clerics’ pictures, looking dramatic and grand as the populace apparently wanted.
It never failed to bemuse them. Shouldn’t the size of their superstructure be imposing enough? Building the mere puppet thus…it must have made sense to them, or they’d not have done it, but it’s baffling regardless.
The great height of their puppet has always been as good as meaningless, really. It’s fixed and immovable, locked forever in a chamber where size has little purpose, except to impress the People who would come in occasionally to be divinely loomed over. Now it has no purpose at all. The height of their selfling, though…that could actually mean something.
I could be intimidating, like this, they think, and enjoy the idea more than they expect.
“I think you’d best give me more lessons with those spears of yours, my friend,” they say to it, and watch its ears perk up. “I suspect Sig’s selfling is going to need a lot of protecting, hm? Better to be ready.”
“You will be the most spear-mastering iterator in the world,” Spearmaster declares, and drags them off to the practice area.
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment
SRS: What are you up to, Nish? You’ve been oddly quiet.
NSH: Nish? That’s an old nickname. Haven’t heard that in a while.
SRS: I’ve been rereading old conversation logs while my selfling trains. Blame it on that.
SRS: Really though. This kind of silence from you always makes me suspicious. Especially right now.
NSH: Hah, you know me too well.
NSH: It’s nothing much, though. I’ve just been trying to work out how biological I can make an AMP design before it needs special modifications to work it with an AOS.
SRS: I thought you were running low on biological resources.
NSH: Oh, I am. This is all just simulations. Very, very comprehensive simulations, but still simulations. Hence my silence.
NSH: It’s quite tricky. Past a certain point, the body is so biological that it will die the second an AOS is taken out of it, so practically speaking you’d need to install the AOS the second you decanted the body. And then you could never uninstall it or the body would die, because the autonomic nervous functions can’t work without a brain. A waste.
NSH: And on top of that, if it’s going to communicate properly with the AOS, I’d need to engineer some sort of attachment to help the AOS genome accept the body’s genome. Or else modify my own genome’s communication protocols to let it accept information from disparate genomes…
NSH: That should be doable, I think. Our superstructures accept and communicate with foreign neuron flies just fine. I should be able to create more exceptions like that, especially when the AOS itself mostly just contains neurons anyway.
SRS: …That sounds excessively complex.
SRS: Why would you even want a body that heavily biological in the first place? Is it really worth the effort?
NSH: You can make more interestingly complex forms with biological engineering than technological. Biological bodies are really just more intriguing. I might be biased since bioengineering is my speciality, but that’s my opinion~
NSH: Besides, it’s more sustainable long term, I think. Biological resources are more easily replenished than mineral, when the metal around is all so hard to recycle.
NSH: Aren’t you curious about what it’s like, too? Moving around on almost entirely organic limbs, using all those complicated internal organs…it’s so fascinating. I want to know what it feels like.
NSH: Organic sensory processing is so bizarre. I’d like to try eating things, some day. I bet it’s an interesting experience.
SRS: Most of the sensory experience for organics is based in their brains. Presumably if you’re substituting the AOS for the body’s brain, you’d lose all of that anyway.
NSH: Yes, which is why I’m trying to see if it’s possible to grow a body with just the brain parts for sensory processing in. Then you’d be able to just attach a program that parses biological data like the People’s quale upload system did, and some drivers to match, and you’d be good to go.
NSH: Provided the AOS can work with the foreign genome in the first place. But I’m working on that.
SRS: I wouldn’t even know where to start with simulating something like this. I suppose you’re the expert bioengineer between us, after all.
SRS: That said, I do have a suggestion. If you’re already keeping part of the brain, then include neural tissue to regulate autonomic nervous function. That way the essential bodily systems will run even without AOS input, so you’d be able to switch out systems if need be.
SRS: You’d still need to intravenously feed it if it was unoccupied for a while, but you wouldn’t necessarily lose the body the second you uninstalled the AOS.
NSH: Oh, good idea. I’ll definitely get on that.
NSH: Don’t mind me if I’m less talkative than usual, alright? These simulations are pretty demanding, and for obvious ethical reasons I want to be sure I’m not creating a body with its own mind. Even a simple animal one. So…being careful about the brain parts.
SRS: …Yes, please do avoid creating a thinking or feeling being that’s designed to be a vessel and can’t even move on its own. That would be beyond horrifying.
NSH: Hence why I’ve been spending so much time with my simulator~
On the following day, Spearmaster insists they raid Septkai for baubles.
“This is your place,” it says, more bossy and outspoken the longer it goes with its name known. “Your body-place. It is all you. You should put more things you like here. Not leave it all in city you never see.”
“Well, who am I to argue with that?” Suns says with a laugh, and lets their selfling be pulled off on the excursion.
They’re mostly humouring it, at first. But Septkai is strangely less painful on the second visit, and it makes them wonder. It was like lancing a barely-healed wound, the first time; now it feels cleaner. Like something they might even be able to come to terms with, someday. They keep quiet at the thought, pensive, and let Spearmaster lead them around by the hand.
“Take things from the big pretty house, maybe?” It suggests, of the spire of Whispers Softly in the Glittering Light of Ages.
A pang of hurt returns. “It seems a shame to disturb it, when it looks so lovely in there,” they say, reluctant. “It’s one of your favourite places, isn’t it? You’ve etched the floors to make it even nicer. I don’t want to take the ornaments down from there.”
Spearmaster flicks an ear dismissively. “Take from the boring rooms, then. It is a big place. I mostly like the big rooms.”
Suns sighs, but acquiesces. “I suppose he did explicitly leave all his worldly possessions to me,” they muse, and follow Spearmaster up the spear-ladder to the broken window. They make a mental note to see about unsealing the door sometime for easier ingress, then jump in.
By mutual agreement, they leave the most elaborate rooms undisturbed: the dining hall, the lounging area, the meditation room, and the bathing chamber. They’re all too well-decorated and beautiful to look at, and Suns wants no part in ruining it. Instead, they pull decorations down from the narrow halls and stairwells, laying them out carefully in an old storage crate to avoid them tangling.
Banners of rich fabric, gone a little faded and stiff with the passage of time, but still beautiful in their embroidered glory. Strings of carved red beads, from which depending metal ornaments hang, all in various stylised images of the sun. A trail of metallic ornaments in seven parts, to evoke the stars of Septkaion. This and more they fold into their crate, Spearmaster grasping at things it likes as well to add them to the pile.
It is quite insistent on taking some of the beautifully-ornamented wind chimes, and some of the tiny bright-sounding bells. “In your body-home, there are many places where the gravity moves things around,” it says, with notable enthusiasm. “These will go well there. Make good sounds.”
“I suppose it will work in some sectors,” they allow. “So long as this metal doesn’t disturb anything conductive. That should be easy enough to arrange…”
Tapestries and wall hangings, they harvest in plenty. Spearmaster is very much of the opinion that Suns’ walls could use more art.
“It would be prettier to cover it all in pictures,” they say, a little longingly, as they admire the faded colours of the murals painted in the lounge. “Like this. But there are not enough wall things for it.”
“Not in all the city,” Suns agrees. Even if they were to take down every painting, every tapestry, every banner and mosaic and fresco in Septkai – the whole of it would not be enough to fill their superstructure with art. It is simply too vast. For a moment, they entertain a wistful thought otherwise: their sprawling megalithic halls, always so bare and soulless, instead filled with such a quantity of art they become a gallery in and of themself…
Maybe if they’d expressed the idea back when Septkai was alive, the citizens might have made an effort of it. They’d have probably been thrilled, to fill Suns’ saintly interior with their works. But Septkai is dead, and there is no one left living to make art now.
…Except, no. That’s…not true anymore, is it?
Seven Red Suns stares down at their messenger, who has eagerly applied itself to the art of spear-based engraving, and who knows what else. What else might it learn? Is it interested in other media? It certainly seems to like the colours involved in paintings.
Would it like to paint? Would it apply itself to painting on Sun’s own interior, if given the permission?
A swelling of feeling, difficult to identify, proliferates across their neural wiring. What a gift, they think, of having a person who loves them creating art again, at the prospect of someone they love putting art within them. A true sapient being, with a body, with a creative mind, capable of using them as an iterator never could, trapped and constrained as they are…
They stop short, freezing in the middle of folding up a rich red banner.
“Sun?” Spearmaster signs, in its shorthand name-sign for them. “Something wrong?”
But Suns does not answer, because suddenly, all across their mind is the new and all-encompassing realisation of: I am no longer so constrained.
Slower, like the spread of dawn: I can now create art myself.
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment
NSH: I’m making some progress with the simulations, I think~
NSH: Soon I might even be ready to try starting up growing of a test body. Just to see if it’s viable without an AOS.
SRS: Oh? That’s interesting news. What organic creature are you basing the body on, anyway? You never said.
NSH: Oh, a vulture, of course. I know them so well, after all.
SRS: …Didn’t we just recently have a conversation about how creating your vultures might not have been wise?
NSH: Yes, yes, but this one would only have enough of a brain to have working senses and the ability for its heart to beat on its own, and so on. It’s hardly going to be another new apex predator.
NSH: Which, for the record, absolutely did help the lizard overpopulation we were all struggling with at the time. So there.
SRS: What do you even want a vulture body for? You know you’re going to have to put a part of you inside that, right?
NSH: Fast travel, mostly. Though it would be a good body to hunt with too, which seems like something I should be specifically working towards, what with how much bioengineering I think the future will hold.
NSH: But yes, fast travel. I can only imagine how much delivery of parts and pearls and so on we’ll need to do, just to do something to help our local group. We don’t have vehicles available, so a large flight-capable body is the next best thing.
SRS: Well, you do have a point…
SRS: I can only imagine how slow repairs to anything would be, if we had to carry everything by foot forever.
NSH: Hence the vulture AMP!
SRS: Do you really think a part of yourself would be happy being in a vulture forever, though?
NSH: I don’t know, I feel like flying around biting things with my face has a lot to recommend it.
NSH: Besides, I’m not sure it would be forever. The body is organic enough it should age to destruction eventually.
SRS: That’s a disturbing idea. Would it be part of the Cycle, do you suppose?
NSH: For that matter, do we even know if our AMPs are part of the Cycle or not?
SRS: …
SRS: Neither of our AMPs has been destroyed yet. I don’t know if we can say, until then. But none of the AOS failures came back after I wiped them.
NSH: Memory loss and personality destruction didn’t trigger Cyclical respawn on People, either.
NSH: You never physically destroyed an AOS, did you? Only reset their self and memory.
SRS: …No, I didn’t. So I suppose we don’t know either way.
SRS: Thank you for this new and highly troubling thought.
NSH: You’re very welcome~
When asked what kinds of material Spearmaster has used to create art in the past, it answers: engravings, with spears, ‘chalk’ drawings with whatever soft mineral it could find, and arrangements of interesting rocks.
When asked, “Would you be interested in learning to paint with the same materials as your favourite murals?” it becomes more excited than Suns thinks they have ever seen it.
First though, they must find the necessary materials.
As expected, everything pre-mixed in the Guild of Great Artisans is irredeemably expired. The acrylic and oil paints are beyond saving, as are the containers of oils and acrylic compounds once used to mix them. The bottles of solvents seem to have survived well enough for the most part, which is something, but…
Suns pokes around the vast storeroom a little longer, and finds…well, a great many things. It is the store of the largest arts guild in Septkai, after all. But most pertinent to the moment are the enormous, carefully sealed tubs of very expensive pigments. There are so many of them.
So much of it, Suns marvels, cracking open the seal on a container half their height, full most of the way to the brim with a dense blue powder. And a good thing, too. Making pigments like this from scratch…it would take materials and labour that simply don’t exist anymore. But with so much in storage, they’d need to do a truly prodigious amount of painting to run out.
“Here, look at this,” they say, beckoning Spearmaster close. “Be careful. This is a very rare thing, and once it’s gone, I don’t know where I’ll find more. But this is a blue pigment. You can mix it with various substances to create different sorts of paint. The ones in these containers can all be mixed with water, or certain oils, or certain acrylic compounds. They would create watercolour, oil, and acrylic paints respectively, ready to use.”
Spearmaster inspects the pigment, interested. “Which kind is on the walls?”
“Most of the murals in Septkai are oil or acrylic. It lasts quite well, under the right conditions,” they reply, but – their eye is caught on something. In the corner, over there. Is that a strongbox…?
Good saints, it is. They replace the lid on the blue pigment tub, then go over to investigate. It’s a miniature vault, old-fashioned in design, like the sort used to store money or extremely valuable items. If they hauled it to their engineering bays, they could cut it open, but…it might be too heavy for that. And it seems to be secured in place, anyway.
Suns frowns, then sits back to send a short range transmission to their superstructure, asking for information. The minutiae of the city’s records are not something they opted to keep in their limited memory storage, so if there exists any reference to this, it is likely to be in their greater self beneath, archived in case of future need.
“What is this?” Spearmaster inquires, following them over.
“A vault, or strongbox. It’s a kind of storage for very prized, very valuable items.” Suns waits, listening, and then- “Ah, yes. Thankfully, one of the city’s ascendants did think to include this in her last testaments. It’s in one of the pearls you found for me the other day, actually. Right then, a combination…”
There are in fact three separate types of combination on the little vault, and unsurprisingly, their controls do not respond very well. Suns has to force some of the parts to turn. But they input all the correct values anyway, and the door creaks open. Inside…
If they’d been organic enough for it, their breath would have caught. Even so, the sight leaves them awash in strange, conflicted emotion.
Within the vault are eight rows of small reinforced vials. Clearly visible within: the liquid gleam of true, sacred gold.
[LIVE BROADCAST] PRIVATE Seven Red Suns, No Significant Harassment
SRS: All saints drowned, gone, and gilded…
SRS: You will not believe what I just found in Septkai.
NSH: Oh, you’re using the elaborate religious swears. This should be good. What did you find? A lost masterpiece, maybe?
SRS: …No, but that would be nice.
SRS: Void gold. I found void gold.
SRS: Sixty-four vials of it, perfectly preserved, in pristine condition.
NSH: Are you serious? Wasn’t that one of the most valuable substances the People had?
SRS: Moreso even than vacuum-refined void fluid, yes, which I suppose makes sense. It’s a by-product of the successful refinement process, produced in miniscule amounts. Incredibly scarce.
SRS: I can hardly believe my selfling’s eyes. They just transmitted the memory…
SRS: It was in a vault in the foremost artists’ guild in the city. I knew Septkai was wealthy, but…they could’ve sold the Grand Cathedral and the proceeds wouldn’t buy even a third of this cache. I should know. They used it to paint some details in my mural, after all, and some of the other most valued works.
SRS: When did they buy this? Why don’t I have records of it?
NSH: Could it have been illegal smuggling? You have to admit – no one’s city was above that sort of thing, not even yours.
SRS: That makes more sense than anything, at this point. What in the world was my artists’ guild involved in, to have this just sitting around inside a storeroom? I need to have a closer look at the Guildmaster’s pearl.
SRS: …Hah. No, she doesn’t say where she got it. But she apologises to me for ‘shameful greed and misconduct’ and says ‘certain items within my possession have been placed in a vault in the Artisans’ storeroom for safe keeping and preservation, ahead of my departure and ascension’. She never mentions the nature of the items in the vault at all.
NSH: Cagey even on the doorstep of her death, eh.
SRS: Evidently, yes.
SRS: There’s so much of it. I’ve only ever seen a single vial before. I’m still just so shocked.
NSH: Maybe I should start searching my own city, if there’s things like this to be found in there. One more use for a selfling!
SRS: Yes. Probably. I should search more thoroughly as well. I never expected…
NSH: What are you going to do with it?
SRS: What a question.
SRS: This vault would’ve put any one Person among the wealthiest in the world, once. Now…it’s just pretty liquid. Very holy pretty liquid, if you ask the People who made me, but…
NSH: The ‘sacred gold’, ha. I remember back when the wealthiest ministers tried to anoint themselves with droplets of it before they ascended, hoping it would make the void take them better.
SRS: Yes. I remember too. It was a very popular hope among the wealthy. I wonder if there was ever any truth to it?
NSH: Hard to say. It isn’t as though many People could ever afford to use it, and stories of echoes are hard to substantiate even on a good day. No sample size to speak of, no evidence.
NSH: But it does have a certain gravitas to it, doesn’t it? Even just as a concept.
SRS: Yes. Evidently, I’ve picked up more of that cultural conditioning than I thought. I shouldn’t be so moved by a few vials of very expensive refinery by-product, and yet…
NSH: What can it even be used for, other than painting? You must know, this is right up your alley.
SRS: …
NSH: Go on, you know you want to.
SRS: …It’s actually karma-reactive, as a substance. Tiny pellets of it, the size of a grain of sand, were used in the construction of karma gates. The ancient ritual sites above the void sea are thought to have used it, too – to make those fields that would only respond to the enlightened. The method was lost to the cycles, and karma gates are the closest equivalent the People ever managed to make. And that uses void gold.
SRS: It’s also impressively hydrophobic. It repels all sorts of chemicals, liquids, and substances – once it’s set on a surface, more or less the only thing that can remove it is a karma flower, and it doesn’t seem to fade. If you had enough of it to use as a coating, the practical applications would be nearly endless.
SRS: But of course, for our People, it was always too scarce for that. The ancients had some way to produce it in far greater quantities; naturally the method of that is lost to time as well. The evidence is clear, though. The subterranean ruins have entire murals done in nothing but void gold, and a lot of the buildings are probably still gilded to this day.
SRS: It’s a remarkable substance, really. The liquid never dries unless exposed to air for a setting period, but how long it takes to set depends on the karma level of nearby beings.
SRS: It’s how we know that we have something approximating a karma level, actually. Void gold dries fastest in an iterator’s superstructure near the General Systems Bus, the Primary Memory Conflux or equivalent, the Puppet Chamber, and so on. At each of the supposed hearts of our consciousness, there’s something that the void gold responds to.
NSH: You know, I never thought to wonder how they originally found out we had karma. It’s not like you can get our superstructures into a karma gate, after all. But it was void gold all along? I’d have never guessed.
NSH: Thanks for the history lesson, Seven Red Suns~ I can always count on you to know these things. Your databanks must be something else!
SRS: Hah. I’m honestly not much of a historian, compared to some. It’s the religious history I know best – we all have our interests, don’t we? I suspect I’d be impressed by how much simulation and genome data you’ve got in your can.
NSH: Well, you’re very welcome to visit and find out~
SRS: …
NSH: Not interested in my databanks, Suns? I’m shocked!
SRS: No, I…It just occurred to me that we’re going to have the unprecedented opportunity to access each other’s data directly. I could actually take you up on that offer. It’s physically possible.
SRS: Remember all those jokes you used to make? ‘You’re welcome to come to my can and check, if you don’t believe me’. ‘Oh, that’s far too personal to say over a broadcast! I’ll tell you if you come by my can sometime’. You used to drive Five Pebbles up his walls, you know.
NSH: Oh, I know.
SRS: And now, if you make one of those stupid jokes, it is actually technically doable to visit your can and call your bluff.
NSH: Who’s bluffing? ~
Seven Red Suns transports a single vial of void gold back to their superstructure, and leaves the rest locked up in the vault. They’re not sure why they do it. There’s no point to having such a precious thing within their great body. But something about passing that vial to their puppet, hand to hand, of watching the sacred pigment glisten in the harsh light of their chamber…
It’s strangely affecting.
The odd mood persists into the next day, even as they consider what to bring to mix the paints with.
“A plant based oil, perhaps?” They murmur, mostly to themself, as they check their material vats. “Yes, I can manufacture that…or an acrylic compound, instead? Hmm…”
In the end, based on ease of use and quick drying – as well as suitability for painting their own structure – they elect to manufacture the acrylic. They scoop it into a decanter, oddly pleased at being able to do such a thing without a Person technician, then take Spearmaster back to the artists’ guild and its many pigments. Together, they mix replacements for the various paint sets that have gone hard on the shelves, Suns demonstrating how to mix the acrylic in with the pigment, stirring it carefully with a palette knife until there are no lumps remaining.
“And then we want to get it sealed in the pot quickly, before it starts to dry,” Suns says, capping their pot and setting it aside while they watch Spearmaster. The slugcat is impressively dexterous with the mixing knife, showing their long experience with skilled tool use. Suns passes the lid over when it finishes, and watches that pot receive its cap, twisting decisively into place. “Very good.”
It puffs up with pride, then makes enthusiastic grabby hands at the rest of the pots. Clearly, it wants to mix more.
“Just make sure to rinse off your palette knife so we don’t contaminate the colours – yes, there you go. Let’s mix a purple next, shall we?”
Between them, they mix a fairly comprehensive batch of paints, all quite small pots for now, but that’s plenty to be starting with. They pack them all up in a vaguely-intact carry case, add helpful extras like palette, brushes, and pot, then head back home.
“When try painting?” Spearmaster asks along the way, signs clumsy with their eagerness, and Suns laughs a little shakily.
“Right now, in fact,” they say, and direct the both of them along the regimented halls of their superstructure.
Not all locations will be suitable for this. The acrylic paints won’t interfere with electrical conductivity in their can, but it could confuse more chemical messaging within the more heavily biological areas. Thus they stay clear of any of the larger rooms and systems, keeping to the halls which only exist in the first place as routes for maintenance staff to traverse.
These long stretches of the superstructure are dull and empty, with nothing of colour or interest to draw the eye. Suns stares around as though for the first time, aware as they have never been how dissatisfying it all is. It is standard for an iterator’s interior, but it is also wrong.
My self should not be like this, they think, and it feels like a revelation.
They suppose the People never had the resources nor the wherewithal to think of designing an iterator to be beautiful, as well as functional. Already, their making was the work of generations. To make it artful too…no. It is understandable. Understandable also, that they would assume an iterator would no more gall at the appearance of their halls than a Person would at the interior of their blood vessels. A body part. That’s all it was, surely.
Suns feels differently, now. They suspect they have always felt differently, and it wasn’t until now, actually having the opportunity to amend it, that they realise the breadth of that truth.
“You’re more right than you knew, Spearmaster,” says Suns, lingering there in the empty hall. They will have to disable the artificial gravity for now; they aren’t sure how painting works in normal gravity, let alone this. “My interior does not suit me. Bleak grey metal at every turn…perhaps there is beauty in the rooms where my neuron flies dance and my circuits speak to one another, but in hallways like this…no. You have the right of it. This superstructure is a part of me, and I should make it a more welcoming home for my self.”
Spearmaster tilts their head uncertainly, then looks up and down the empty hall. “Decorate this?” It asks, not quite sure of the point. “Now? With what?”
“Paint, my friend,” Suns says, eyes squinting with a smile as the slugcat startles. “Yes, I brought you here for a reason. Let us both try our hands at painting here, shall we? I’m looking forward to it.”
Its ears rotate backwards. “Don’t know how!” It says, a little panicked. “Don’t want to make your body-home look bad!”
“Spearmaster, that is not even slightly a concern,” they say, shaking their head. “No, don’t worry a moment. You see, I’m coming to accept that I am quite a sentimental person, as Sig has been telling me lately. And what I would consider beautiful – no matter its appearance, or skill – is the first painting by your hands, immortalised here within my walls. Something I can cherish, even when you are long gone.”
The little creature listens, looking increasingly shocked, then buries its face in its hands and trembles. There’s a strain to it, like there often is in times of high emotion – Suns thinks it’s trying to make noise, a reflex expressive gesture, but it lacks the structures to do so. It hurts to notice, especially now, but… “That is very important,” it signs, when it finally raises its head again. “Thank you. Thank you. But I don’t want to do it wrong.”
“If you truly dislike what you paint, you can wait for it to dry and then paint over it,” Suns concedes, out of pity for its anxiety. “I’d rather you didn’t. But it’s a possibility, if you can’t stand the results.”
That calms it considerably, so it must have been a good move. “Oh. Then, yes. I do this. A picture, painted for you.” It hesitates, then pats at the carrying case full of paints. Obligingly, Suns helps it unpack everything. Paints, palette, and so on. They decant a little water into the brush pot and smile at it, unexpectedly thrilled. The closest their puppet has ever come to making art is to misuse their chamber’s projection software to make vague and chaotic patterns of overlapping screens. They have never expected something like this to be within their grasp.
Seven Red Suns has been watching videos of artisans at work since they were a barely-awakened consciousness humming along freshly-grown nervous tissue. Histories and images alike have made their home within their mind, filling every second with wistful dreams of shape and colour and the stroke of skilled hands upon a canvas. Always, they have admired this. Always, they have wondered what it would be like, were it their own hands.
For all the worship, all the adulation…Suns has never found rapture through the faith that built them. But kneeling here, in this meaningless corridor of their greater self, they put brush to bare metal and understand a little of how religion could stir the hearts of the People.
This is worth it all, they think, once and then again, again and again, full to bursting with the joy of creation. They open fully to their greater self, all of Seven Red Suns thinking together, existing together, becoming greater together. Two bodies sit side-by-side and put paint to the wall in quiet companionship, and it is a blessing greater than anything they have ever known.
If nothing else regarding the AMP project ever works out, it will still have been worthy. Just for this. Just for this alone.
The day wears on in glory. Suns finishes painting, and sits back to stare at the result with a strange and blissful sense of wellness pervading every process in their selfling form. It’s as though some bleak shroud, long forgotten and accustomed to, has lifted just enough to let a little light through. Spearmaster finishes somewhat later, while they are still processing, and they sit back to regard the wall together.
Somewhat predictably, they have both painted each other.
“…Thank you, Spearmaster,” they say softly, lowering a hand to put the paint pots aside. All their attention is on the art, now. A smile stretches wide across the artificial skin on their face, utterly beatific. “It’s lovely. I’m so glad to have it. It’s a true gift.”
The slugcat stares up at the image of itself, and trembles. Without a word, it presses itself into Suns’ side, worming under their arm and into their lap. Its chest rumbles warmly with the thin half-purr that is all it can produce.
They hold its little body close and smile. A true gift, they think again to themself, and look up at the work of two disparate beings upon the wall.
Something at the thought niggles at them. They pass it to their greater self to pay attention to later.
A gift…
---
X
SRS: I shall train my selfling and prepare it for the rigors of travel in sensible, safe, controlled ways, like indoor exercise and slugcat tuition. Only when I have sufficient practice will I cautiously venture to the hostile surface world, and even then I will do it with a seasoned warrior accompanying me.
Meanwhile, NSH: lmao time to immediately jump headfirst into danger with no training whatsoever!! I’m sure it’ll be fine
Scroll down on my blog for SRS art in the design I’m picturing for this fic.
In this chapter: local art nerd discovers that doing art improves their mental health! More shocking news to come.
Void gold isn’t actually like, super plot significant or anything. I just wanted to give SRS a chance to enjoy infodumping at a buddy, so I vomited worldbuilding all over the document in their service. NSH for his part enjoys a good Suns brain dump from time to time and will deliberately prompt them when the opportunity strikes.
Canonically, NSH sent something ‘distasteful’ to an iterator using a purposed organism messenger. I headcanon that the unfortunate recipient of this content was Pebbles, which is referenced in one of the chats this chapter.
In Assembly, NSH is the original creator of vultures and king vultures. He may come to regret this.
There was originally an extremely depressing chatlog in this chapter but for tone and pacing reasons that’s probably next chapter instead. So like, look forward to that, I guess! Iterator angst™: coming to a fanfic near you!
Couple more chapters and we might kick at least one of these guys out of their can!
...Is the SRS/NSH flirty enough yet that it's worth putting the ship tag on ao3? 🤔 I'm avoiding tagging ships until they actually happen in the published text of the story, since I don't know how far I'm taking this and I don't want to shipbait people.
Speaking of, it's apparently aromantic visibility day today, so FYI: all of my iterators are aro/ace to some degree or variety. All the ships in this fic will be done in very queer non-amatonormative sort of ways and I'm very into it.
also if I get that far there's gonna be hella sunstone. jsyk
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