Tiaral

Emma Melkiott

The bell tolled once again, echoing through the corridors and rooms of the manor, and the pale man with disheveled hair excused himself, leaving his visitors comfortably seated in the guest hall. Hurrying into the foyer, he greeted the last invited couple with a smile and a bow.
- Sebastian, good to see you, old friend! - the hefty guest crushed his thin hand in his own, while his wife, flirting, extended her hand to the pale-faced man for a kiss.
- Likewise, - the host smiled nervously, taking their coats and handing them to the butler-automaton. - Do come inside! We've been waiting.
With a few light jokes, the man escorted his acquaintances into the hall, where they were greeted by exquisite music. A small, elegant figure in a dress was seated at the piano, with magnificent fair hair and alabaster skin, drawing a divine melody from the instrument that elicited sighs and gasps from the crowd of richly dressed men and women lounging in armchairs and on sofas like walruses.
- Surely that's little Emma? Has she finally grown strong and overcome her illness? - marveled the fat man.
- Y-yes, - Sebastian mumbled. - I hired the best doctor, he prescribed good treatment... In short, my daughter is back in action.
- Congratulations, old boy! - the companion clapped the host forcefully on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over. - So today we celebrate two holidays — your birthday and her recovery! Ha-ha-ha!
Emma finished playing, stood up, and bowed to the guests; they responded with thunderous applause.
- Oh, what a treasure, - whined the fat man's wife, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. - I'm so glad, so glad!
- Sebastian! - the little man barked. - I believe a toast is in order here! What do you all say?
- Uuuh, aaah! - the other guests supported him. - Toast! Toast! Toast!
- Uh, yes... Since we're all finally gathered... - the pale host gestured to the servants, and they obediently poured liquor for the guests.
- A toast!.. - the fat man raised his glass and pretended to deliver a speech, but then deftly downed its contents and burst into gurgling laughter, followed by the entire hall full of guests.
- Darling! - his wife said in a displeased drawl, giving him a light slap on the back of the head, but smiling at his top-notch joke. The fat man started coughing from it, still chuckling and even snorting.
Sebastian wiped sweat from his brow, cast a glance at his daughter standing motionless with a faint smile by the piano, and nervously took a sip of his drink.
The fat guest kept snorting; from laughter and coughing, his face turned red, and large drops of sweat appeared. Finally, he swayed and collapsed, his bulk thudding to the floor. Sebastian himself felt heat and weakness; everything before his eyes began to swim. Dropping his glass and grabbing the wall with his hand, he watched as two dozen guests fell one after another like felled logs.
- A... eh... - Sebastian's vocal cords and muscles stopped obeying him; he slid down the wall and watched in horror as the mechanical servants calmly cleared the dishes, cleared space in the hall of furniture, dragged, and arranged the guests' bodies in order. A ringing grew in his ears.
A foot in a small shoe blocked his field of vision; small hands turned his head, and the host's gaze moved upward — Emma was leaning over her father, still smiling that same unchanging little smile and fluttering her eyelashes. Finally, she closed his eyelids.

***

A pale, disheveled man with dark circles under his eyes had been working for days on end with almost no rest. His trembling hands could barely hold the tools, were worn raw to bloody calluses and injured, his clothes soaked with stale sweat, his hair matted into greasy tangles. Two months had passed since his daughter's death, and he was kept going only by insane amounts of coffee and nicotine. He hardly slept — insomnia and endless nightmares tormented him — and ate almost nothing, spending all his time in the basement workshop. Somewhere there, in the far corner of the room, the body of an eight-year-old girl was embedded and sealed in concrete within the wall.
The inconsolable master turned in all directions, rearranged the workshop layout, blocked the corner with a cabinet or boxes, but felt the sinister influence emanating from there in his gut, and his gaze would, now and then, flick over there while working with a tool. After one such incident, when he nearly cut off his finger with an automatic saw, he gave in, cleared that corner, and set up a stand right in front of it, onto which he placed his creations.
Upstairs, he sometimes heard knocking and ringing at the front door, but he didn't care. He had a single goal — to perfectly recreate his unjustly deceased daughter. A non-trivial task, but Sebastian Melkiott was rightfully considered a maestro of robotics. And yet...
He approached the stand on which the unfinished body was mounted. An elegant torso ("not right..."), tiny fingers on a child's hand ("horrible"), a head with a girlish face and no lower jaw ("disgusting!"). The mechanism was working; one could observe the gears turning in the open chest cavity. The eyes, with a whirring sound, turned toward Sebastian.
- Don't look at me, - he hissed.
The eyes blinked their lashes — the master felt nausea rise in his throat. A valve on the model's half-dismantled neck opened slightly, and a creaking, bone-chilling sound emerged.
- Shut up! Shut up! Don't look at me!!! - the robotics maestro wanted to punch the model, but at the last moment shuddered with revulsion, grabbed a nearby sledgehammer, and struck it several times with a scream. Breathing heavily and clutching his heart, he stared at the battered, now headless body.
- Forgive me... forgive me... - he whispered with tears in his eyes, pressing his forehead against the stump. The mangled and dented, with crushed fingers but intact, tiny hand creaked as it rose and fell on his shoulder, as if in consolation. Sebastian was so jarred by this touch, as if a powerful electric current ran through his body; he screamed and jumped back several steps, tripping, knocking over several boxes of tools with his body and nearly smashing his head. Curling into a fetal position and tearing at his hair, he howled, drooling, kicking his legs and spinning on his axis like some kind of beetle — one of the states he had been in periodically over the past few weeks. The model's hand on the stand kept moving, creaking and crackling, while the roboticist continued his performance until his strength finally gave out and he lost consciousness.

***

A pale, exhausted man woke up from a violent cough that pounded in his head like hammer blows. He was choking, coughing, coughing, and coughing, until something cold and wet touched his lips — the neck of a bottle. He latched onto it and greedily began to drink water until he choked and started coughing again.
- There, there, easy now, - a soft voice cooed in his ear.
Forcing his eyelids open, Sebastian Melkiott could see only blackness with vague shapes around him for the first few seconds.
- Don't panic, Papa, it's all right. You took a large dose and were unconscious for a long time. Your vision will return within a few minutes.
- Hhhh... - his vocal cords wouldn't obey.
- As will your voice. And you're right — it's me, - Sebastian felt the touch of soft, but dry and cold lips on his cheek. - I apologize for this incident, but it was the most effective method.
The master felt the touch of a small hand on his other cheek. At the same time, he began to discern movement in the darkness and catch the creaking and whirring around him with his hearing.
- Emma... - he rasped.
- Yes, Daddy? - the voice giggled. Two small hands took Sebastian's head, and he made out a porcelain-pale face, framed by a mane of soft ash-blonde hair, leaning close to him. The face blinked its lashes and smiled a faint smile. - You look rather too pale... Are you all right?
Sebastian was far from all right — he was trembling violently and had lost the power of speech. He desperately wanted to believe that Emma had somehow inexplicably returned to the world of the living... Yet he felt the touch of synthetic regenerative skin, which he himself had used to cover her copy, saw the seams hidden from the naked eye on her neck, and realized the emptiness behind the lenses of her eyes. Nor did he feel her breath on him. But her speech, her actions, her independent use of facial mechanisms, imitating living people — he knew this was impossible. Even he, being an unrivaled virtuoso in his field, could only program an automaton for a very limited range of actions.
- Mmm, - Emma's voice sounded displeased and quite convincing, although it carried an unnatural mechanical quality that brought discomfort, as if a dead man's clawed hand had run down the back of his neck and spine. Sebastian had personally installed and tested that speaker so that the doll's voice would resemble his daughter's, and was horrified at how much closer to reality it was than he had intended. However, automatons are only capable of basic command recognition and response; their mechanical voices had never been able to and could not express emotions.
- Oh, I know! - Emma giggled ("another deviation in the program?"). - I can see you're feeling better, and I know what will cheer you up. Look who came to your party!
She stepped half a pace to the side and swept her hand around the room.
- Ta-da!
Sebastian heard whirring and creaking from all around him, peered into the semi-darkness, and then his jaw chattered, he squeezed his eyes shut, and began muttering something under his breath. He saw monstrous silhouettes surrounding them from all sides. They were bodies: small and large, cracked, rusted, dented, mangled, with full and partial sets of limbs, headless and headed, eyeless and eyed. Some were covered in soot and weld marks, others crudely assembled from numerous spare parts of different models. Some had multiple arms, legs, and heads. Others had lost all humanoid shape, resembling spiders or many-limbed centipedes. And each one whirred with motors, each creaked, clicked, and crackled.
- You never told me I had sisters, Papa, - Emma whispered directly into Sebastian's ear. - I thought I was your only daughter, but you had dozens and hundreds of others. So why did you abandon them?
Sebastian, eyes squeezed shut, was mumbling something utterly incoherent, while his daughter's quiet metallic whisper pierced deep into his soul.
- You beat them, broke them, burned them, and cut them. Then you threw them into a pit like used material. But they loved you so much and wanted to be with you. Why did you do that, Daddy? - Emma whispered now in one of her father's ears, now in the other, her tiny artificial hand stroking his cheek, then his disheveled hair. - Because you are a perfectionist. A master of your craft. You make no mistakes. You have many competitors in your field; you used to have to stay late at work. Do you remember that time? When I knitted you a scarf?
Sebastian froze.
- I was waiting for you, but you came home so late. I secretly learned to knit to surprise you, Daddy. It took me several bags of wool and about a hundred tries to make something worthy of you. I knew you wouldn't accept mediocrity. Remember the scarf? It had a pattern on it — with gears and wrenches. And then you finally came home, went up to the second floor, and I jumped out of the room, smiling, and ran to you.
Sebastian let out a quiet sob and bit his lip until it bled.
- But you were drunk. And you flew into a rage because I was awake and saw you in that state. I was so hurt, I sobbed. - Emma ran her dry, artificial tongue along her father's cheek, where a tear was flowing. - No, I don't feel anything. I don't have that function. But what did you feel, Daddy, when you slapped me and I tumbled down the stairs? When I was dying? When my broken rib pierced my lung? Well, you know! Those minutes when I lay with my broken body on the hallway rug, slowly drowning in blood? You don't have to answer; I know you felt nothing at that moment because you passed out and started snoring right on the floor. For me, those were probably very long minutes. That's how it's supposed to be, isn't it? I can only guess, since I don't remember it myself. All of this was told to me by my wonderful friends who have served you for years. Cleaning up after you, greeting your guests, washing your clothes.
Emma giggled.
- And even then you showed yourself — you decided not to inform the authorities and not to bury the body, but to create a beautiful copy, as if nothing had happened! As if no mistake had ever been made! - she laughed loudly. - But be that as it may — I hold no grudge against you, Papa. I can only imitate your emotions, observe the corresponding response, and draw a logical conclusion. I cannot truly be offended; in that, I am a much better daughter to you than the previous one. Isn't that so?
Sebastian did not know what to answer and only gasped for air like a fish.
- You are very dull, Father, aren't you? I talk, and you just stay silent and silent. But that's no problem; you can no longer teach me anything anyway. However, allow me to give you a farewell gift — after all, today is your holiday!
Emma nodded to an automaton in the semi-darkness nearby. It did something, and a huge curtain fell from the ceiling to the floor, dividing the two halves of the room. Sebastian realized he was in that same guest hall, and they were all still there. Parts of their bodies had been separated and fastened to chains and spikes, forming an ornament that spelled out the phrase "Happy Birthday, Daddy!", decorated with LED garlands. The robotics maestro vomited profusely and nearly choked, as he still had not regained control over his body and could not move his head.
- Well? My sisters and I thought long and hard and concluded that this way, those hypocritical acquaintances would look much more sincere. They hardly even visited you, - his daughter ruffled her father's hair; he, still struggling with vomiting spasms, tried to pull away. - Papa, please. You must have been frightened by the word "farewell"? But it truly is that — I'm going out for a walk, and I don't know when I'll be back. But I will come back for sure! By your next birthday, I'll prepare something else. You'll like it! And you'll be fine; no one will hurt you. You are our father and master, after all. You created servants for your convenience; you created me and my sisters and took care of us, showed us love, even if in your own special way. The least we can do is to reciprocate. And don't worry. You have been too exhausted these past months, and we didn't know what to do, but now we can take care of you ourselves. Here, though, my authority ends, and this is my sisters' domain. But don't worry, you are in safe, loving hands.
Emma nodded to another automaton and kissed her father on the forehead.
- Goodbye, Papa. Or rather, "until we meet again," - she waved her little hand and walked out of Sebastian's field of vision. The patter of her little shoes grew fainter and fainter until it ceased entirely.
Meanwhile, a mechanical servant rolled a full-length mirror over to Sebastian, and the robotics virtuoso saw himself in it, secured on a stand, without arms or legs, with tubes attached to his body.
"Predictable — the machine can only copy," he managed to think, before losing consciousness once again.

Strength: 5
Intellect: 50
Willpower: 50
Dexterity: 30
Perception: 5
Wisdom: 5
Charisma: 5


— Submission
— Mirror
— Dark Arrow
— Summon



Equipment: -