Work Text:
“Why?”
The man sitting on trial lifts his head only slightly. His face expression is excruciatingly calm, and it isn’t making his situation any better.
“I’ve told you already,” he says, voice ringing contrastingly human to his behavior. “This is perfection. You, of all people, should see that.”
The trial stirs only slightly, murmurs washing through the faceless figures before subsiding. Some of them flicker blue, not actually here, just projected into the space they need to be in.
“You’ve defiled the human body.”
Caprico sighs deep, chest rising and falling. He’s starting to feel too warm in this room, stared down by eyes black and blue. He closes his eyes, wishes his face, his form weren’t so on display. He lowers his head briefly, strands of too-long blonde hair falling into his face. He doesn’t bother brushing them away.
He takes a deep breath, listening to his human heart beating frantically in his chest. But he can’t crack now.
He rises out of his chair, and it moves back automatically to allow him to stand. His mechanical leg clanks, and he tenses every muscle in his body to ensure he stands tall, to ensure he doesn’t waver even for a single second. The critical eyes follow his every move, a discarded lab rat in a white-walled cage.
His throat is dry, voice threatening to crack. “Where does technology end, and the human body begin?”
The ring leader of the trial narrows his eyes at him, blue from the hologram. “They have no connection with each other. Our laws state so firmly, had you actually bothered to read them.”
Caprico gulps down his heart, threatening to push into his throat. This is it, then. “That’s ironic, considering you’re not even here.”
The blue eyes study him for a moment, remarkably calm while the murmurs behind him sweep through the room again.
The blue-shimmering hologram fixes its glasses, clearly unconvinced. “I am projected here. My human body is whole.”
Caprico spreads his arms to gesture around the room, crawling with eyes, circuits, information. “What is part of your body? Are the glasses you wear not a remarkable piece of technology? Don’t you need them to see, like you need a limb, and you’d be helpless without them?”
“There is a difference, Caprico. There is a line. A line we have clearly stated, and that we have taken many years to perfect.”
“If it’s still changing, it isn’t perfect.”
The projected voice gains an edge, losing patience by the minute. “They are as perfect as they can be in their current state.”
“What about people that lost their limbs in other ways?”
A dead quiet covers the room, even the humm of the machines in the walls seems to still for a moment as if Glow herself is holding her breath.
The hologram rises out of an equally unreal chair. “That’s enough, Caprico. Your sentance-”
“No.”
The eyes flick back to him, sharp, annoyed.
Caprico rolls his shoulders back and straightens his back, planning to stand tall through this judgement. “Let Glow say.” He gulps, unwillingly. He knows it won’t change anything.
The room falls into a silence louder than the roar of industrial machinery.
The blue hologram tilts its head to the side sharply. “You know what? Fine. Glow, speak your judgement.”
Glow’s symbol appears on the screen at the very back, watching over the trial. “Mach-219, you have been deemed to have an anti-social personality. Your time here on the Ruin Isles is cut short, and you will return to the rest of Miraland. Your return is not expected.”
There it is. Caprico closes his eyes, softly, humanly. Even when they’re closed, the eternal, unnatural white light of the room seeps into his skull, colors his vision red.
He nods, slowly, finally allowing himself to hang his head. He’d hoped that here, of all places, he would find it, some kind of understanding for what he does, how he thinks. But the more time he spent here, the more he knew that wasn’t the case.
He doesn’t say anything more.
He follows Glow outside and to the transportation system. He pauses before the final door, glancing back. Glow stands as a full body hologram, and he takes this one last moment to engrave her into his mind, her form, part-human, part-machine, all even lines and symmetry and- and… beauty.
He knows exactly what he will make once he’s home.
He smiles to himself bittersweetly when he leaves, the smile hidden from the world and facing the cold metal wall in front of him, the only thing that will ever see it.
---
He feels empty.
Hollow. Numb.
He knows, one day, all that will crash back into him. Probably sooner than he wants it to. But he also knows that one day, one day… that numbness will be a comfort.
First, however, he has to get to designing something that will allow him to never forget what he’s aiming for.
---
Endless nights spent under the light beamed down into his factory, and dusted, wide desks and countless coding errors and broken bits of machinery make up his days.
All that pain, that emptiness, for the one thing that will make him feel more whole, cold, lone nights spent giving his all, chasing the impossible.
Chasing what he hopes, prays, begs, will make him happier.
What has to make him happier.
---
He stands, regarding himself in the mirror.
He no longer stands on display, even when hundreds of eyes are facing him, because his mask covers his human face. His voice no longer cracks when he speaks, and it’s gained a mechanical humm that is undoubtedly different.
His heart no longer clogs his chest, clogs his throat, because instead of a heartbeat is a rythmical pumping deep in his chest.
He does not need to explain himself or earn the approval of some moral code. People flock to him for his creations, for his machines. Mostly for the war related ones.
They respect his abilities, and he in turn gains all the money and resources he needs to chase perfection.
He looks over the scattered pieces of metal that consume his life, his entire being. It does not matter. When he’s finished, he will be immortal. He will have all the time in the world to explain himself then, to wave his hands and weave his words just right.
And one day, they will all be forced to see he was right. He will bring forth a new Era, a new age of progress…!
He turns back, numb. The metal does not answer his ambitions. It lays silent and unresponsive.
It’s empty. Cold. ...Lonely.
He sighs, hands going up to unclasp the mask and lay it down on one of the cluttered desks.
He’s drawn out of his musing by a confused beep as his Roomba bumps into a piece of machinery.
He snorts, hand coming up to cover his mouth, suddenly eternally glad that he’s alone right now.
He clears his throat, hand going over his reddened face, brushing strands of his hair to the side to get them into order.
He can see his face in the mirror, illuminated only by the blue light of his computer screen. It causes his features to look sharper, colder.
He smiles, just a tiny bit, making the mirror the second to see it.
He sighs, closing his eyes. When he opens them again, his face has relaxed, looking stoic and calm once more.
The computer gives a noise, signalling that it’s done with its virtual test run.
Right.
Back to work, then.