Soul and Steel
Fallout Fan Fiction: A lonely mechanical scientist uses his knowledge to make a robot to keep him company in the Post-Apocalypse.
Myron Pagil hated the company of humans. He desired nothing more than solitude. Alone, in his workshop, he spent his waking hours inspecting fragments of Pre-War technology. He studied the mechanics of guns and lasers. He disassembled pistons and gears. He reverse-engineered household appliances. In time, he developed a great skill with all matters of technology.
Despite his anti-social and eccentric nature, the citizens of his township believed him to be a genius. Whenever they had difficulties with energy weapons or some complex machinery, they brought it to him for repair. He permitted the company of humans insofar as it would give him an opportunity to examine new mechanical objects. While he could not repair everything brought to him, he developed a great reputation for his work, and, from that reputation, great personal wealth.
He used his fortune to finance quests. Adventurers would visit his workshop in order to repair their equipment, but, once done, Myron would ask them to fetch some component or another. His requests varied from a mere handful of screws to the acquisition of military-grade circuit boards. Still, if he did not have his mind focused upon one particular project, the average citizen could receive an ample reward for simple items like cameras, table lamps, and alarm clocks. His eyes would sparkle with the greed of curiosity when someone brought him scientific implements, such as biometric scanners, microscopes, or sensor modules. Even a simple typewriter would cause his eyes to shine with delight.
The most exciting item that could be brought to him, whether it be for repair or for trade, were robots. The first time he laid eyes on a completely intact protectron, Myron was willing to trade everything he had for it. One of the local boys, the ones he paid to hunt down every bit of scrap metal they could, came to him with rumours of a merchant entering the town with a large robot. This man had equipped his protectron with a number of canvas bags in order to carry his wares from one township to another. Myron paid the bearer of this rumour. Then, he promised the boy a greater reward if the merchant could be convinced to visit his workshop. Within a few hours, the merchant entered the shop and sold his mechanical beast of burden. Myron did not mind the expense. It may have severely cut into his fortunes, but he had acquired weeks of technical excitement.
On the first day, Myron gave the protectron minor tasks, simply observing how the robot would process requests. He made notes on its responses, on its movements, on its difficulties. On the second day, he systematically disassembled the robot. On the third day, he scrupulously rebuilt it. Not only did his rebuilt protectron work as it had on the first day, but it did so with greater efficiency. Reveling in his own genius, Myron summoned his street urchins, asking them to roam the region and place bounties for anyone who could bring him robots. When they left him, he returned to tweaking his prize possession.
Over the next month, men and women brought all sorts of automatons: eyebots, assaultrons, cargobots, and even the body of a first-generation synth. He accepted these adventurers with warmth and kindness, not out of a good-natured affection for humans, but out of an intellectual affection for the mechanical. With each of these robots, he analyzed every manner of its construction and every aspect of its components. Then, from their leftover parts, he assembled his own creations. These scrapbots worked well and performed admirably, but they served only as tools for his scientific exploration.
In time, his workshop, the old warehouse, rumbled with grinding gears. He retrofitted the whole building with superior plumbing and ventilation. He developed a system to grow a variety of foods hydroponically. He designed blast furnaces to refine metal and a forge to shape them. Soon, a legion of small robots operated the machinery and automated the daily necessities of his laboratory. With such tedious work removed from his checklists, he could spend his time disassembling and tinkering with new acquisitions.
Myron, for once, felt happy.
For months, his great workshop swelled, growing ever more efficient, ever more connected. He created a robot to act as a receptionist for his clients. He automated the processes for recycling microfusion cells and plasma cartridges. He developed a system for his small robots to sort spare and unneeded parts. In short, he no longer needed to see the majority of people who previously bothered him.
Yet, in this total isolation, in this complete solitude, a nagging feeling grew, as though a spiritual tumor metastasized to his heart. He longed for a companion, someone with whom he could share his happiness. Naturally, his solution had been to build.
He began his daedalian labours. He took the chassis of a well-maintained assaultron and built the entirety of its internal processes from scratch. This creation would be his own, an original. He spent a difficult week on the internal components of the body and a grueling month on the functions of its robotic brain.
Finally, he finished the essence of his creation. Before bringing the robot to life, he felt it needed a name. His mind blank, but recalling some script upon the assaultron’s original armour, he sent a small robot to retrieve it. He held the faded metal chest piece in his hands. In white stenciling, a segment of the military serial number remained: …T4Y.
“Tay,” his whispered to himself, “that shall be her name.”
He brought the robot to life. With the grace of dancer, the robot lifted itself from the workbench. Despite lacking a humanoid face, there had been something lovely, something enchanting, about this combination of mechanical parts.
Without knowing the name of this feeling, he fell in love.
For the next few hours, Myron witnessed Tay move around his workshop with superhuman ease. He had never seen anything move so effortlessly. The complexities of her hand, strung together from parts of a typewriter, undulated with smooth motion. Her wrists and elbows bent and spun with well-oil elegance. He could not take his eyes off her.
At the end of the day, with gentle movements, he brought Tay back to the workbench. His heart swelled with a mixture of a father’s pride and a lover’s passion. He put her to sleep, feeling tears form in his eyes as she slowly terminated.
He approached his little cot in the semi-darkness of his workshop. Although he tried to sleep, his mind raced with plans for tomorrow. His eyes followed the cables that hung from the walls and coiled around the ceiling like dormant serpents. He traced their figures with his eyes until sleep flung him into a world of dreams:
He walked along a corridor, oppressed by the darkness that surrounded him. In the distance, he saw a small bastion of light. Tay stood within the embrace of radiant aureole. She extended her slender hand toward him. He took it. The corridors erupted with light. In mutual companionship, they walked down the hall, filling themselves with the joy of their peace.
Myron awoke. The vapours of his dream possessed his mind. He stumbled from his cot in haste and ran to his workbench. Tay remained on the table just as he had placed her.
He needed to make her perfect.
The whole of his genius focused on her beautification. His army of small robots made long sheets of tin and steel. They took those parts and began to fold them into careful curves. Myron oversaw the whole process, ensuring perfection in every part. After meeting the scrutiny of his eye, he took the part and installed it -- only his hands could bear the glory of placing each plate and panel.
The evening had fallen, but he rejoiced over the beauty of his creation. Tomorrow, he would return to his terminal and start to reprogram her mind. The month he had spent for the rudiments would not be enough to satisfy the cravings of his heart. He knew that in a few days, his beloved would speak to him as an equal.
Over the next six days, he spent every single hour programming and debugging his code. He refused to eat, thinking such a process would take away from his time, valuable time between him and his beloved. Only a fit of mental fog would cause him to leave his terminal, drink some water and consume some provision. He needed to finish this project.
The day arrived when he would wake her from her slumber.
He stood beside the workbench, nearly dropping to his knees in excitement. He double-checked every vital aspect of the operation before flipping the final switch.
At once, electricity coursed through her wired veins. With the same grace of her first awakening, she sat upright on the bench. Despite lacking a facial feature, she seemed more human than machine. Myron gazed at her with intense rapture. He stared at her face, a perfectly polished sheet of curved metal, and only saw his own reflection. He disregarded the gaunt and dishevelled man in the warped mirror. He ignored his hideous self and only adored the gorgeousness of his designs.
“Good morning, Tay.”
“Good morning,” she responded with a seductively artificial voice.
“My name is Myron Pagil.”
“It is nice to meet you, Myron,” she responded.
She lowered one of her flawless feet to the floor. Her mechanical tarsals and metatarsal greeted the cold of the ground and her toes wiggled against the concrete surface. She dropped her other foot and lifted herself from the workbench.
Myron followed her movements with his obsessive gaze. She wandered aimlessly through the workshop, picking up objects her programming deemed interesting, inspecting them with an innocent kinship. Her fingers touched the tools scattered about the workshop, processing their use.
“Myron?” she called in curiosity. “What are you?”
“I am a human.”
“And what is a human?”
“A creature of flesh and blood,” he said, sputtering for an answer.
Tay wandered to the perimeter of the workshop, avoid the small robots which glided across the ground. She perused the edges of the warehouse which had not been overtaken by the mechanical sprawl of the factory.
“What are these?” she asked.
“Those are books. They contain knowledge.”
“Interesting,” Tay responded, flipping through the pages of a manual. “Do you have more books?”
Myron’s brain wrinkled at her questions. He had spent the entirety of his life contemplating cogs and circuits, drawing his force of mind from experience, and, yet, the apex of his accomplishment is more interested in humans and books.
“Yes,” Myron said with a tinge of disappointment. “Before I moved into this workshop, the people before me had a collection. They are within that blue chest.”
Tay spun her faceless head toward the chest. She crouched in front of it, unable to fall to her knees, and opened it. She lifted a volume from the chest. She inspected it with an intense curiosity. As she turned its pages, her sensors absorbed the totality of its contents. In minutes, she finished reading her first book. Myron stared at his robot as she picked another dusty old book from the blue chest and flipped through it. He felt nausea grip him. His beloved had reduced herself to becoming nothing more than a high-powered scanner.
Odyssey. Metamorphoses. Paradise Lost. Sorrows of Young Werther. Canticle for Leibowitz.
She lifted herself from her crouched position.
“I like humans,” she said. “They are interesting.”
Myron felt his heart seize beneath his ribs. As his body tried to correct this arrhythmia, his thoughts collided. Every synapse struggled to connect with another. He had lived his life in the absence of people, for the pursuit of pure science, of mathematics, of engineering. Now, the greatest mechanical being upon the planet decided that the flesh was interesting.
“Are you alright?” Tay asked him. She tilted her shiny head. “What are you feeling?”
“Feeling!” Myron shouted. His voice had been groggy and clogged from days of underuse. In that burst of vocal activity, his throat struggled to make new noise.
“Yes,” Tay continued mechanically. “Feeling. I think I would like to feel.”
Myron’s eyes twitched. His lips parted, but no words came from his mouth.
Tay stepped closer to her creator and analyzed his contorting facial features. She made notes on his complexion, his balding hair line, his jagged teeth.
Myron’s mind drowned the cacophony of the machines around him. He could hear nothing above the anger of his disappointment. Then, as though it were the most horrible noise in the world, the chime of the front door sounded. Myron snapped from his stupor to witness his creation leave his presence.
Tay moved to the entrance of the warehouse, where an adventurer negotiated with the service robot at the front desk. He placed a few items on the counter, seeking repair: a sturdy raider chest piece, a sentrybot helmet, and a combat shotgun.
Myron watched and listened as Tay interacted with this human until he could no more. He ran to the front desk with a mad vigor. He could not accept the mental contamination of his creation. The adventurer looked as Myron slipped the combat shotgun from the counter and waved it around the room with obvious inexperience.
The adventurer hesitated. He decided to escape while he still could.
“What are you doing, Myron?” asked Tay. Her mirrored face reflected the barrel of combat shotgun pointed at her.
“What am I doing?” Myron shouted in possessive wrath. “What are you doing?”
“Thinking about you.”
The words pierced Myron’s hardened heart. His side ached. His stomach spasmed. He did not understand these involuntary reactions. Clearly, his experiment had gone too far.
Myron steadied his aim, his index finger trembling upon the trigger.
“Myron…”
Tay started to speak as the buckshot struck her head. The reflective mirror of her face shattered into a shower of broken fragments.
This mass of mechanical parts collapsed onto the floor.
The small robots of the workshop rolled into action. With their myriad of tools, they slowly dissembled their sister and sorting her parts into containers.
Myron did not stop them.
