Ashelia Riot is waiting by the entrance to the sewers. Watching and waiting for someone.
Aidea Lee picks up her old linkpearl. “Grand Steward? I see you!”
Aidea waves.
Ashelia Riot is so focused on what she’s come for that it takes her a moment to place the voice out of context. “Aidea! You’re in the market?”
Aidea: “Yes! I bought a coffee but now I’m not sure if I can even drink it.”
Ashelia lets out a “hm” into the linkpearl before she realizes it.
Ashelia: “Just a moment. I’ll go and find you.” With that, she leaves her Undercity vantage and walks out into the market to greet Aidea properly.
Aidea: “I’m glad to see you again! It’s been a while, I think. For both of us.”
Ashelia: “That it has. How have you been?”
Up close, Ashelia Riot is looking tired. That, and she’s carrying herself somewhat differently: a little more conspicuously somehow.
Aidea: “Well, it’s--it’s a bit of a tale.”
Ashelia Riot smiles empathetically. “Let’s hear it then. I doubt my contact will be coming, so I’ve got time to spare.”
Aidea summons something out of her hand. It’s a warm cube with soft pulsing lines, pitch black in color. She puts it on the table.
Ashelia looks at it, frowning slightly; though it clearly isn’t Garlean, she still can’t shake her immediate distrust of unfamiliar technology of any sort.
Aidea: “I was created as a prototype clone within Castrum Abania. As such, I had a set expiration date. But I still made so many memories, and so many friends. I saved them as data.”
Ashelia remembers that strange encounter outside Specula Imperatoris--and her frown deepens. But she lets Aidea speak.
Aidea: “My memory data was transferred into this android body. I look Hyuran, don’t I? But I am more artificial than ever.”
Aidea: “This black box is my core. As long as my memory is preserved, and I have a new body and core, I can never die again.”
Ashelia knows the young woman is telling the truth. Somehow, she senses it. She does not delve into it, and for a moment, she fears the Echo will take her into Aidea’s consciousness without either of their consent; then the moment passes, and Ashe breathes a small sigh of relief.
Ashelia: “I’m...glad, if it means you’ll be with us for longer.”
Ashelia smiles.
Aidea takes the black box and quickly shoves it back into her chest. It seems to melt into her.
Aidea: “Oh, thank you, Grand Steward! I was afraid you’d--no, I suppose you wouldn’t.”
Aidea gives Ashelia a big hug.
Ashelia’s eyes widen at the cube….disappearing, but her shock quickly fades as Aidea embraces her. She, too, folds her arms around her.
Ashelia: “Wouldn’t what?”
Aidea: “Never mind. You’ve accepted people of all walks of life into your fold. An automaton is hardly new.”
Ashelia: “You’ve fought alongside us, haven’t you? That speaks for itself.”
Ashelia: “Your memories--do they--” She breaks off.
Aidea: “Yes. I have memories of the subject I was cloned from, but they’re...distant. She’s more like a sister, you could say. She’s always with me, helping me along, and I’m there for her too. Even if she’s little more than a ghost in my head, I won’t stop being there for her.”
Ashelia reacts before she can fully stop herself. “That sounds…” She breathes, then says the word on her mind. “...Lonely.”
Aidea gazes upon Ashelia in deep reflection. “...I suppose it is. That’s why we have each other.”
Aidea: “Her name was Aisling, but her--our--mother was Doman. Everyone called her Anko, since that’s what our mother called her.”
Aidea points at a familiar house on the market street. “See? That used to be her house. She lived in the basement flat.”
Ashelia’s breath catches in her chest. “Which…?”
Aidea ignores the big crowd and stops in front of a door she knows from secondhand memories.
Ashelia nods. “...And my mother had a shop on the opposite corner, before I was born.”
Aidea: “Funny to think everyone grew up in such close proximity.”
Ashelia smiles at Aidea. “You’re right. Had things been different, we might have grown up as neighbors.”
Ashelia falls quiet then, even somber.
Ashelia: “One thing I was unprepared for, in coming back here…” It sounds like such a simple thing, the way she says it, as if it did not take every onze of strength she and the company had. “...the reminders of those we’ve lost, everywhere. I’ve known it all my life, especially living in Thanalan, but it’s different now that we’re here. Now that we have to make room for the ghosts.” She still has not been to the Tomb of the Errant Sword. She could not bring herself to.
Aidea: “You’re right about that, too. I thought that with my newfound time, I could undo some of the damage done. But nothing will bring loved ones back, even with a million android bodies.”
Ashelia: “I’m sorry.” It’s a pain she’s felt too. She’s felt it every time she tried to do more than her fair share, whether in Ala Mhigo or Dalmasca.
Aidea smiles. “Well, we won’t stop trying, will we? We’re still here despite everything. We will remember everyone gone, and we won’t stop doing our best for everyone still with us.”
Aidea: “No one stops!”
Ashelia: “But don’t overextend yourself. I’m learning that the hard way, and I don’t want you making the same mistakes I did. Though…”
She looks thoughtfully at Aidea. “...Do androids need sleep?”
Aidea: “...”
Ashelia: “...If you don’t know, don’t test that question.”
Aidea: “Please don’t tell the Grand Steward I’ve been trying out some, uh, unconventional ways of casting Raise in the Sandsea library. She may be a voidsent, but she’s so cute!”
>Upper CC Circuit: 100%
>Lower CC Circuit: 100%
>Manadrive Circuit: 100%
>Hypertuning Circuit Temperature: Green
>Hypertuning Circuit: 100%
>All Systems: Green
Initiate Awakening? >Yes >No
Booting system…
CA-B08 Functionality: Green
Cilia drums her fingers against the glass, annoyed. There’s another report on the remaining beta group subjects due in two hours, and there’s still no progress being shown. The clones remain as blank as ever. Dolls, she thinks. Dolls that can maim and kill and hack and spy, but dolls nonetheless. Dolls made from dead people.
“08 has completed her trial at fifteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds,” says the assistant beside Cilia. He whistles as he clicks the stopwatch. “That’s faster than everyone else, including alpha group.”
Cilia looks through the glass. Today’s trial consisted of a mock battle against Resistance terrorists on a simulation of rocky Gyr Abanian terrain. Training automatons fired spells and rubber bullets and charged at the subjects. There were traps, too—pitfalls, snares, nets.
08, a tall red-haired girl of mixed Highlander and Midlander blood, stands at attention amidst strewn machine parts at the finish line of the trial. Cilia watched her rip through the training automatons with her flimsy standard-issue blade and take down the long-range magitek bits with only one shot each from her rifle.
08 is Cilia’s favorite among the clones. She’s the youngest out of the subjects, her original self just 24 years old, and she’s the most docile. Cilia likes giving her various accessories to put in her hair. A white hairband, clip-on flower barrettes, little hats, bejeweled hair clips.
No sign at all of 08 recovering her past self’s memories. If the clone project at Castrum Abania was supposed to be a way to ensure immortality for Garlean nobles through cloning and then counting on the clones to remember who they were, then the project team had failed miserably. But Lord Aulus didn’t want to scrap the project just yet. The surviving clones, short though their lifespans were and utterly bereft of personality, were still hypertuned prototypes and therefore useful as weapons. Possibly even more useful than conscripts, due to their blank state and absolute obedience.
-------
Cilia finds that she loves taking care of 08. It’s like a combination of maintaining a valuable gunblade and dressing up a beloved doll. She pulls 08’s hair back into a bun and holds it in place with a black satin ribbon.
“We want confirmed deaths within six hours,” Cilia tells her. “Lochwatch. Follow the centurion and your team, alright?”
“Understood,” says 08.
“Nervous?”
“No.”
“Confident?”
08 looks at Cilia, trying to work out what “confident” means. Finally, she simply answers, “Operational.”
08 works like a dream and the mission goes without a hitch until the end when 08 didn’t show up at Porta Praetoria with the rest of the team. Cilia frowns, the main tracker on 08 disabled somehow, and she activates and follows the secondary tracker on 08’s hypertuned circuitry all the way to the sun-bleached piers on the shores of Loch Seld.
There she is.
08 stands barefoot in the water, wiggling her toes in the salt. She stares mesmerized at the shining lake. Her hair had fallen out of the bun and is now blowing in the wind like a red halo around her head. There’s blood caked on her face and gear.
“08? What are you doing, you silly girl?” says Cilia. She casually strides up to 08 but her left hand grips a taser in her lab coat pocket, just in case 08 lashes out. Beta group isn’t as erratic as alpha group, but you never know.
“What’s your favorite mochi filling?” asks 08 suddenly.
Cilia stares.
“Red bean is good, but I also like the chocolate filling they sell here,” 08 continues.
Cilia gapes. Is this a memory? But why now? 08 has been on missions to Ala Mhigo before. Did something happen during the fighting? Oh, how Cilia wishes she could grab 08 and whisk her back to her lab at Castrum Abania and ignore the bucket-head soldiers waiting for reports at Porta Praetoria.
And then, as if breaking from a spell, 08 blinks out her reverie and looks at Cilia with blank eyes.
“Slight malfunction detected,” 08 reports. “I will return for maintenance shortly.”
She walks across the salt sand, leaving little wet footprints in her wake.
