With most Immortals, age wasn’t just a number. It was everything.

  From bragging rights to different tiers of senior citizen discounts, being called “old” was a compliment on The Surface. A badge of respect. Earned and demanded by annoying elders. Thankfully, Lynn was largely spared from this ageist custom by virtue of being a princess. Still, seeing the commonfolk engage in pointless age-measuring contests was amusing. So blissfully ignorant of the systems that gave aristocrats power over them.

  On the other hand, the pendulum swung all the way to the other end for Mortis. Said to be as old as Vita, he was the undisputed champion of age now that she was gone. And considering the fact that Vita founded the kingdom in the first place, if anyone had the right to swing their seniority around like a weapon, it would be him. Her counterpart. So why then, was he so sensitive to comments about his age?

  He was at the corner of this primitive living room, sitting on a rocking chair. Even as Mia massaged his back, elbow practically drilling into his spine, he was unrockable. As if time itself froze around him just to protect his ego and stop his aging.

  The thousand-yard stare he wore was growing longer by the second. Facing the fireplace, the only light in his eyes was the reflection from the glowing embers. The intricate brass clock that sat on top of the mantelpiece seemed to add fuel to the fire as its hands insulted him with each tick.

  The desire to toss in an insult of her own flowed through Lynn’s veins. Everywhere she looked, this entire house was filled with antiquated items and objects that would be the perfect setup for a jab at his age. But she resisted the urge to rub it in his face. He was already dead; kicking a man when he was down felt too much, even for her.

  “C’mon, Dad. You’re not that old.” Mia commented as she tried to breathe new life into his shoulders with each squeeze. “Everyone else is just, really young!”

  “He’s not old.” The short robot from before entered the room with a tray of drinks. “He’s positively ANCIENT!”

  Tim didn’t move. Not even a muscle. Yet, a single tear rolled down his cheek.

  Mia failed to keep the annoyance from leaking in her voice. “Why do you keep saying that?”

  Putting the tray on the low table in the middle of the room, the spry robot immediately started to “diagnose” Tim. A small hole in its chest opened as the end of a stethoscope extended outwards to the motionless patient. Over its left camera-eye lens, a monocle appeared. The red glow from behind the glass was magnified into a beaming light aimed at Tim’s unresponsive eyes. The entire time, the robot mumbled to itself. The only thing Lynn could make out of its incoherent babbling was:

  “...100% flesh-human…Just how much did an Aberration like you sacrifice, hmm?”

  “That’s my Dad.” His daughter lifted the entire rocking chair, Tim included, away from the robot.

  Still a long way to go to match her feat of throwing a house-sized robot, but a noticeable improvement regardless. Seems like she‘s getting more used to Acritae, Lynn thought.

  Mia’s interruption of the diagnosis redirected the robot’s curiosity from her father to herself instead. Wheels deployed from beneath the robot’s two feet as it circled the girl, observing her with tremendous scrutiny. Her face twisted like a doorknob from the discomfort of having to deal with such blatant disregard of personal space. Yet, she was more concerned about her father, keeping the rocking chair and him high in the air, away from the pesky bot.

  Lynn was grateful to the father-daughter pair for sacrificing themselves to become the target of the robot’s attention. If she were in their shoes, she’d break its neck. Or whatever mechanical equivalent it had. Instead, she watched this bizarre ritual of “circling robot, lifting daughter” from her seat as she happily sipped on the freshly-served tea. The taste was serviceable. Far above what she expected for a bot. Where did they even harvest these? Do robots even drink tea?

  But the moment she put down her cup, the robot stopped in its tracks. Its assortment of gizmos retracted back into its barrel-like body. “Disappointing. And here I thought you were his flesh and blood.”

  “He is still my Dad!”

  Losing all interest in Mia, it turned to face Lynn instead. “And what about yo—”

  “Don’t even think of getting close to me.”

  The Immortal’s eyes glowed as the room appeared to darken momentarily. Even the flames in the fireplace almost blew out from a blast of wind that did not exist.

  The robot visibly and audibly gulped. “N-never crossed my mind.”

  Mia asked as she put the rocking chair and her statue of a father down. “Just who are you?”

  “Ah! Where did my manners go? I was so excited, it completely skipped past my sensors!” The bot cleared its exhaust-throat. “My ID is #ff2052. Awesome, for short. But I prefer Dr. Awesome.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  As much as Lynn felt it was more of a quack, this “doctor” was clearly more intelligent than the gatekeeper with a room-temperature IQ. How much exactly, she wasn’t sure.

  “You’re a… doctor?” Even Mia seemed iffy on the prospect.

  “Why, yes! I came scooting over the moment I heard flesh-babies were being born right out of the gate! Only to find the greatest discovery in the history of mankind!”

  Dr. Awesome wheeled itself over to the rocking chair, giving Tim a one-sided handshake. “My circuits are tingling to have finally met you, oh great Ewantree!”

  That was the same name Pris used to address him, Lynn recalled. How long ago must it be for it not to come up on the records Vita expunged?

  “My Dad’s name is ‘Tim’ now, doctor. I’m Mia. That over there is Lynn.”

  “That?” Lynn’s eyebrow curved into a whip that was about to snap. The audacity of the child to refer to her as ‘that.’ Someone needed way more training in manners, not magic.

  Mia shrugged. “You’re a shield of something, right? Why don’t you introduce yourself then?”

  “The Shield of House Veranos!” Lynn stood up. Incensed, her entire body radiated an oppressive blue light as she summoned her Noble Crest behind her just to prove a point. “Don’t you dare forget that!”

  “Neat.” The bot said.

  Lynn’s jaw dropped. The crest faded from how stunned she was. She could feel her blood boiling within her arteries. Neat?

  She should bury this entire village in stone for that!

  “How’d you know my Dad?” Mia wondered aloud.

  “How could I not know? The other villagers might be fooled, but as a fellow man of medicine, I’d recognize the Mech Whisperer in an enginebeat!”

  Turning to face her father, she tried to wake him up. “Look Dad, you have a fan!”

  “He’s just a healer.” Lynn’s voice was laced with jealousy. “Aren’t you putting him on too high a pedestal? None of the other bots even cared.”

  The princess’s mind wandered back to the judging gazes she felt on the way to Dr. Awesome’s house. From the gate right to this very doorstep, none of the robots who called this village home welcomed them. Only this quack seemed to have some regard for Tim. It definitely had a screw loose somewhere.

  “That will change, alright!” The doctor’s enthusiasm bled through its speakers. “Wait till Old Gold hears about this! Byzantium’s savior in the flesh!”

  “Byzantium.” That word single-handedly dragged Tim back to the realm of the living. “Where is he?”

  “My, that jolted your CPU better than I thought...” The doctor muttered to itself once again before putting on its over-the-top persona. “Of course you’d wanna meet your old pal! He’s in the village square. Standing tall with the rest of the Heroes.”

  “Standing… tall?” Even with an excited Mia by his side, Tim's confusion was palpable.

  “Why, of course. Where else would we immortalize our one true ancestor if not in his rightful place with his party? Oh…” Dr. Awesome’s expression warped. Its glowing red eyes swirled around, looking for an explanation. “I swear, I said to include your statue next to his, but the villagers said you look too scary!”

  Lynn scoffed, disbelief rife in her voice. “Robots? Afraid of him?”

  “They must be referring to my Aberration form. It’s good that they didn’t do that. It’s a cognitohazard.”

  He has another form? Lynn had been so accustomed to him as a human, just the mere thought of him actually being a Pris-like entity sent shivers down her spine. How much was he actually holding back just to present himself as human? Was this what the quack doctor was referring to in its rambling from earlier?

  “Right-o! Now that we know what you look like as a flesh-human, I’ll tell Old Gold to put you there, too!”

  “There’s no need for that.” Tim insisted—though it seemed less out of humility and more out of pain. “Let’s keep things the way they are.”

  “Your modesty knows no bounds. Of course! Anything you say, oh great Tim!”

  “Oh great Dad!”

  Just a few words of praise, and Mia instantly warmed up to the bot. What a joke.

  But Lynn wasn’t the only one who was annoyed. Tim fired a judgmental side eye at Mia’s direction, prompting a sheepish smile from his daughter.

  An unseen light bulb turned on next to Dr. Awesome’s head. “Since you prefer to keep a low profile, I have just the thing!”

  The bot wheeled itself over to a shelf in the room right next door. Its stubby legs suddenly extended upwards, doubling in height as it reached for the top shelf.

  “Wait,” Tim said. “Just now you mentioned that Byzantium is your ‘one true ancestor.’ What do you mean by that?”

  “Why, all the humans you see in the village are all his descendants!”

  “What ‘humans?’ You mean us?” Lynn’s question sounded more like the start of an argument.

  “We are all human.” The bot said as it returned to the living room with a curious device in its hands. “You are flesh-humans. We, the villagers and descendants of Byzantium, are mech-humans.”

  Even more nonsense, Lynn whispered in her heart. These things do not even have souls. And not in the same “Aberration-in-human’s clothing” sense like Tim, either. None of the tin cans were alive to begin with.

  Mia asked, “So is Byzantium the name of your ancestor or the name of the village?”

  “Both,” answered the doctor.

  Putting the device on the table, it became clear to Lynn that it was some kind of Regalia. A flat, rectangular box. With the checkered pattern on its surface, it resembled an elevated chessboard.

  “But did you all know that Byzantium is also the name of a color?” The doctor raised the upper lid of its eye lenses as if they were eyebrows. “So, in honor of our ancestor, every villager’s ID is based on the hexadecimal color code. This ID Distributor will determine yours, too.”

  “I don’t see the point of this.” Lynn shrugged.

  “With your own IDs, you’ll fit right in the village, of course!”

  Tim explained, “But Doctor, we don’t plan on staying long. We’re looking for a cave.”

  “Then you’ll definitely need your IDs! Nobody knows the outside of the village better than Old Gold, and she’ll only care to talk to you if you have IDs.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Awesome.” Mia’s gratitude seemed to be mixed with suspicion. “But is it really okay for you to do this for us?”

  “I’m a doctor. The only doctor here. Who else handles the ID registration of newly-born mech-humans other than yours truly?”

  Lynn shook her head. She didn’t want to imagine what counted as “reproduction” for these tin cans.

  “Now, all you need to do is place your hand on the ID Distributor. A color will appear, and that will be your ID. Isn’t magic fantastic?”

  The robot’s enthusiasm felt more like a fork scraping against a plate. Lynn pitied the Regalia, being reduced to some child’s toy.

  But her opinion changed the moment Tim’s palm touched the surface of the device. Forget the color; the Regalia started screaming in agony.

  Almost as if it were giving birth.

  Its Wings Were the Sky!

  Usually, Thursday bonus chapters are to celebrate new paid Patreon subscribers (am eagerly hoping for the first one!) but this time, I want to share about a short story I've written for the Community Magazine Contest last month.

  While it didn't win, I'm still proud of it! If you like the father-daughter dynamic and sprinkle of eldritch horror in I Swear I Saw You Die, then this short story should be right up your alley!

  https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/147314/its-wings-were-the-sky

  https://www.patreon.com/HarmonicaWrites