Chapter Text
Chujin remembered sunlight.
His family’s home was secluded, surrounded by forest, and when he rose on clear mornings he would see the dappled patterns of dawnlight through the leaves, and on cloudy mornings how the grey light seemed to leach color from that canopy, render it subtler, less vibrant; he remembered how the light’s silhouettes would shift and turn skeletal as the seasons turned and the trees shed, and the riots of color when they budded again. When he thought of his childhood, this ebb and flow was what he remembered best – a history measured in sunsets. But the clearest memories of all were of the light in his father’s workshop.
His father was a woodcarver of indeterminate age and unmatched skill; he could take a block of hardwood the height and width of one bony hand and work it easy as clay, rendering birds in mid-flight with their pinion feathers spread and impossibly fine, or miniature trees so detailed that it was like the wood which had been cut from those trees was reborn under his chisel. He was gaunt, lean and long-muzzled, looking as though he’d been whittled into shape himself, and Chujin rarely saw him from the front, so often was he hunched over his workbench. Chujin’s mother had fallen down when he was young and his father had retreated into his work, in this unadorned and sawdust-smelling room, where light streamed in from high windows and lent every surface a honeyed veneer.
One day Chujin had approached him and meekly asked if he could try carving, too. His father had risen without a word and taken a second stool from a corner, then set it down beside his own, along with several smaller chisels and a fresh block. As though the two of them had been working side by side for years, and this was already a familiar routine.
What followed were long afternoons filled with the sound of gentle scraping and the drift of wood-shavings. The tools would slip in Chujin’s hands and he would spoil his work often, but his father never rebuked him for wasting the raw material, merely grunt out a word of caution if Chujin’s frustration grew too obvious. There was always a fresh block waiting for him the next day, and eventually he was able to produce finished, if shoddy, work of his own – archways, columns, unadorned geometry, nothing like the life-in-miniature his father could produce. Chujin would eventually set the piece down and his father would stop mid-carving, take the piece, and hold it in a sunbeam, turning it this way and that.
“Interesting,” he would usually say, and give his suggestions – smooth out the arc here, carve a deeper notch there. Chujin would accept his judgment without objection and the advice was always correct, but before long he found himself dreading that moment, the evaluation and pronunciation. Even at this young age, Chujin was arguably too smart for his own good, and convinced himself that “interesting” was just a kinder way of saying “failure.”
But it had been a good life, quiet and fulfilling, and they’d bonded in their own reticent way. He wasn’t sure when exactly his work had improved enough to warrant another comment from the old monster, but one day, as the light was growing dim, his father had put a hand on his shoulder.
“You have a sharp eye, son,” he’d said. “You’ll find your way.”
He’d murmured thanks, pride going off like fireworks in his chest.
His father’s tools were kept in a box he’d carved and sanded himself, the wood sand-colored and smooth as silk with their family crest etched in the inner lid. When he at last fell down, leaving Chujin alone, Chujin scattered the dust on that box and gone outside to watch the evening light turn to bruise.
A year later, the war came, and his seclusion didn’t save him. He was driven underground with all the others, clutching the box to his chest. He’d later turn his woodworking skills to other uses, carve out his own home amidst his people’s captivity, where the sun never shone. The tools were stored on a closet shelf and there they stayed, like a hidden heart.
* * *
There was never a moment of peace inside the Steamworks. When monsterkind had expanded past the boundaries of Home and began seriously applying themselves to expanding their new civilization, this was where the seed of all their scientific ingenuity had been planted. Except that seed had grown less like a tree and more like ivy – sprawling, untidy, and frequently hazardous to touch. The pipes, sluices, and generators here had seldom been built with any specs or blueprints in mind, with old sections being haphazardly condemned and new ones being given just enough maintenance to support the staff’s mad sprint to their next big experiment. As a result, the place made an unending, unholy racket in every possible register, buzzing electricity and hissing steam and a metallic percussion that ranged from a faint tinnitus to noise so loud you could feel it in your teeth.
Chujin, who’d been with the Steamworks since the beginning, never got used to it. He’d spent his early days with little sound other than birdsong and the patter of chisels, and usually needed to wear noiseblockers just to get through the day (or, more often, several consecutive and sleepless days) without going crazy. But with the state he was in presently, he barely took notice of the Steamworks’ clamor. He wouldn’t have noticed if a grenade detonated next to his head.
He'd commandeered this workshop a while ago – the facility was big enough so that it wasn’t hard to find your own space – and anyone who ventured into it now would have probably backed out slowly. It was littered with a small scrapyard’s worth of miscellaneous junk, blueprints lying about like shed skins, and the errant pool of machine oil; Chujin’s labcoat was so marred with oil and grease that in places it resembled zebra hide. He was crouched behind a slumped mechanical shape in the approximate center of the mess. The robot’s back panel was open, and with infinite, trembling care, he soldered a few loose wires amidst the mad tangle inside. Then he closed the panel, latched it, gulped, and flipped a small switch below the panel.
The robot jerked and shuddered as Chujin stood up and walked in front of it – and a healthy distance away, because he’d learned from his last several attempts. He wiped at his glasses and succeeded only in marring them with more grease, but through that film he could see the robot’s eyes light up. It wasn’t particularly sophisticated, scarcely more than a couple of cubes stacked atop a wheel, but he’d put a lot of effort into the arms’ articulation, and they spasmed and wavered as the robot straightened up.
It spoke. The voice module was another work-in-progress and its words sounded like someone applying a cheese grater to a washboard, but they were clear enough:
“INITIAL DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE. UNIT OPERATIONAL.”
“Okay,” Chujin said, clasping his hands. “All right. Can you understand me?”
“YES,” it said.
“State your name, please?”
“UNIT IS DESIGNATED AS HUMAN APPREHENSION ROBOT AXIS-01.”
“What about my name?” If he clenched his hands any tighter he’d dislocate something.
“NAME AND TITLE: STEAMWORKS SENIOR ENGINEER CHUJIN KETSUKANE. ADDITIONAL IDENTIFCATION: UNIT CREATOR.” It raised one hand. “GOOD EVENING, CREATOR.”
“Okay. Okay. Hello. Okay. And your purpose? Your function?”
“UNIT FUNCTION IS THE PURSUIT AND APPREHENSION OF INVASIVE HUMANS. HUMANS ARE TO BE IDENTIFIED BY: A HUMAN SOUL. NO HUMAN SOUL IN VICINITY. UNIT ON STANDBY.”
None of Chujin’s fellow engineers were in this wing tonight. That turned out to be a good thing, because if they had heard the howl of triumph he made in that moment, they would have declared the place haunted and quit on the spot. It took a while for the echo to die away, and in that time he was doing a happy dance around the workshop, narrowly avoiding tripping and breaking his neck as Axis watched on.
“It works! It finally works! Oh, just look at you!” He rushed over to Axis and cradled its head in his hands, grinning ear to ear. “You’re such a beauty!”
“ERROR. CANNOT COMPLY WITH COMMAND: ‘LOOK AT YOU.’ NO REFLECTIVE SURFACES FOUND,” Axis replied. “BUT THANK YOU FOR THE COMPLIMENT.”
“The speech parser’s a bit literal, but I’m sure I can work that out. There’s a few more calibrations we should go through, and then we’ll be ready to test the—”
But Axis’s eyelights had already gone dim. Chujin’s grin faded somewhat as the robot’s head slumped over and the electrical hum of its inner mechanisms went silent.
“Hm. Power supply needs work too.” He scratched the underside of his muzzle. “But it’s an encouraging start.”
Monsters tended to have checkered careers, especially in the Underground, where their only educational materials were scrounged from the dump and their easy-going natures meant performance reviews were rare. Most of them just did whatever seemed like a good idea at the time and kept at it until something else caught their interest. This was even more true for the sciences, as their blend of metal and magic – techno-etheric studies, some called it – was unprecedented on the surface, so all of them were working without a net. In the early days, monster scientists chose their professions because they were earnest, ambitious, and preferably fireproof. Chujin met two criteria out of three.
He'd moved from wood carving to carpentry, and from there to structural engineering; much of this rickshaw pipework’s early assembly had his hands on it at some time or another. The newer engineers had outstripped his talents somewhat – especially Director Rutherford-Oscar, who picked up new accreditations like a towel picked up lint – but his move into robotics had been well-received. The Royal Guard was fine and well, he’d argued, but if they were to continue their pursuit of human souls, it would be even better if they could leave it to guards who didn’t have monsterkind’s vulnerabilities. He knew from personal experience that a human with sufficient ill intent could rip through a dozen monsters with ease, but something like Axis wouldn’t be nearly as fragile.
It had been a good pitch, and the staff were enthusiastic. That enthusiasm had wilted somewhat as the weeks turned to months, punctuated with the occasional explosion. Electronics and programming were a more dicey business than he’d anticipated. But he’d gotten there in the end.
Chujin, like most of his kind, hadn’t taken his captivity well. The first few years had been long and dismal, and he’d had trouble opening up to others after his peaceful but silent childhood. But he’d resolved to improve their lot however he could, and lately he’d come across a few more reasons to redouble his efforts. The machine in front of him was the foundation of monsterkind’s next big step to freedom.
“Go ahead and rest up,” he said, placing a hand atop Axis’s head. “We’re going to do great things together.”
* * *
Mr. Ketsukane,
This letter concerns your recent performance, as well as the repeated demonstrations of your ‘Axis’ series of human apprehension automatons.
As you know, the Steamworks has long been at the forefront of monsterkind’s scientific endeavors, particularly for defense technologies and energy production. However, we have recently encountered competition on both fronts, with the ‘Core’ facility set to come online and the innovations of its chief scientist, Dr. Alphys. Though we have reached out to Dr. Alphys with requests for collaboration, she has insisted on working alone, while continuing to earn favor with King Asgore. As you may also know, there have been rising concerns that the Core may soon render our own facility redundant. This means that remaining in the King’s good graces is crucial to both the Steamworks’ continued operation and the careers of its scientists.
King Asgore’s patience is among his more notable qualities. To have reached the end of that patience could, itself, be seen as an achievement. But in doing so, you have jeopardized your colleagues’ work and whatever benefits the Steamworks has yet to offer. You have been granted significant leniency due to your tenure here, but that leniency has also reached its end.
You are hereby dismissed from the Steamworks staff, effective immediately. At the time of this writing, your credentials and ID have been revoked, and you will no longer be granted access to the facility.
If there are any personal effects still in the facility that you wish to have returned, please reply to this message. Note that your robot is not here. I can only hope that you’ve finally discarded it and moved on to more productive endeavors.
The Underground thanks you for your service.
Signed,
Dr. Artemis Rutherford-Oscar, PhD, PE, SE, RA, CEM, MEM, MLSE, CD, PSM, CCE, CTS, MDM, MFA, AVZMT, Esq., Etc.
Steamworks Director & Chief Scientist
Tomorrow Means the Surface! ™
* * *
There had been a great dispersal after the monsters left Home. The Underground’s biomes were astoundingly varied, and while their new capital city was erected in the most temperate zone, other monsters gravitated to regions that best suited their biology or their aesthetic. Chujin had fallen in love with the Meadow instantly, the way it reminded him of his own abandoned home, and before he’d staked out a little house in that place, in his mind he was already drawing up the plans for something far grander. His father’s house had been humble, but if Chujin was going to be trapped down here, he’d at least take the opportunity to indulge himself.
But things had gone wrong in the meantime. The monsters’ over-eager mining exposed the massive swelterstone at the heart of the region, and Chujin had to watch his homeland slip away from him yet again. But he kept his stake in the newly-desertified Oasis, and after falling in love again, in a much more traditional and personal way, the house was built. Chujin oversaw its construction personally, made sure every beam and joist was immaculate. He’d invested most of his considerable savings from his career at the Steamworks into it. He thought it would be a good reminder of what this land had been in the past, and had plenty of space for more inhabitants in the future.
For now, its three inhabitants were eating dinner. The fireplace was banked low – Chujin had insisted on having the fireplace, it had been part of the original blueprint and he wasn’t about to let the changing climate alter his design – and stained the room in sunset hues. Chujin sat facing the fire, his wife and daughter on either side.
The food was good as usual. A lot of Ceroba’s cooking revolved around the produce from Sunnyside Farms (Chujin liked the place too, if only because it had resisted that false sun’s heat), but she could also prepare a noodle soup that’d make the diner’s knees buckle. The café she worked at probably would have traded limbs for her recipe, but it was reserved especially for her family. Their daughter Kanako would eat so greedily they’d have to admonish her to slow down before she spattered broth across the kotatsu.
Chujin ate, waited until the others’ slurping sounds quieted, and then cleared his throat and tapped his chopsticks on the edge of his bowl. Two pairs of quizzical eyes looked over at him.
“Everyone, I have an announcement,” he said. “I’ve officially retired from the Steamworks.”
For a few seconds, his only response was the fire’s crackle. Then Kanako piped up.
“What’s retired mean?” she asked.
“Ah. Well. Retired is when you work at a job for a really long time, and decide that it’s time to move onto something else. Other ways to keep yourself busy.” That might have been satisfactory, but he foolishly added, “I should be around the house more often, as well.”
Kanako’s eyes sparkled. “Really? Can Mom retire, too?”
“Yes, dear,” Ceroba said innocently. “Can I retire, too?”
Chujin shot her a pleading look. “I’ll still be working! There’s plenty of odd jobs I can do around Snowdin and such, for our savings.” He directed his attention back to Kanako. “But I’m planning to spend more time with the two of you. I’ve been away too much, don’t you think?”
“So we’ll be able to play more?” Kanako asked.
“Well, for starters, if you finish your dinner, I might be convinced to give that video game of yours another spin before bedtime.”
Kanako grinned, finished the rest of her soup at mach speed, and then sat up rigidly. “May I be excused?”
“Remember to bring your bowl to the kitchen,” Ceroba said, and Kanako snatched it up and dashed out of the room. They listened to the patter of her feet as she zipped from one end of the house to the other, and when the sound ceased, she gave Chujin her full attention.
“What a precious moment,” she said, smiling wryly. “Now then, can I have the grown-up version of the story?”
Chujin sighed and adjusted his glasses. They were custom-made, doubling as eye protection for his labors in the Steamworks, and whenever Ceroba looked at him a certain way it felt like they were squeezing his head too tight.
“It all got political,” he said, not fully meeting her gaze. “You remember that robotics project I talked about? Turns out the up-and-coming Royal Scientist had a similar idea.”
“I think I’ve heard the name. Dr. Alpha or something?”
“Alphys. We were still neck-and-neck as far as I could tell, but the higher-ups must have sensed which way the wind was blowing.”
Ceroba scoffed. “They weren’t the ones pulling all-nighters.”
“Well, I’ve been pulling entirely too many. The whole mess made me re-evaluate things, I guess. Decided to bow out while they’d still be sad to see me go. I can always tinker on my own time.”
“You’ve been there since the beginning, right? It must not have been an easy decision.” Ceroba huffed. “Come to think of it, you have been more distracted than usual the last few months. You know that you can talk to me about these things, right? Unless you’re afraid of me giving those other uptight nerds a piece of my mind.”
“Perish the thought. As for the decision… well, I can name two things that made it easier.” He laid his hand on hers, smiled sheepishly. “Sorry to drop it on you like this. I guess I was worried that if I waited too long then I’d talk myself out of it. I don’t think it’d be a problem if you wanted a break, too.”
“Oh please, I’d lose my mind if I didn’t have something to do. And Kanako’s not the only one who’d like you around a bit more.” She got up, gathered their bowls, and leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. “Just don’t let her monopolize all your new leisure time, all right?”
“I’ll be sure to spare you a minute or two.”
“That famous Ketsukane generosity. Go see your daughter, it’ll be impossible for us to put her to bed if she doesn’t wind down a little.”
“I need to check something in my study first. Won’t take long.” He rose and made his way to the corridor.
“Chujin?”
He paused and turned. Ceroba was still there, both of their bowls in hand. She raised an eyebrow at him.
“You would have kicked that other scientist’s ass,” she said. “In case there was any doubt.”
He chuckled and turned away again.
His study was slightly tidier than his old workspaces, in the sense that the floor was still visible and mostly its original color. Machine parts and files lay scattered in precarious heaps; lifeless plasticine robot eyes winked at him from within the murk of a shelf or a cardboard box. His computer desk doubled as a drafting table and there were carpentry blueprints obscured by wrenches and circuit boards. His long and wandering career, summed up.
Chujin shut the door behind him, walked to the stool in front of his desk, and sat down. He pulled his glasses off and buried his face in his hands, took long and shuddering breaths.
This year had tested him.
He’d known from the start that the Axis project would push his engineering skills to the limit, but hadn’t expected the oratory. His opening pitch for the project had been nothing compared to what came after. Every failed trial had been accompanied by increasingly frantic promises and entreaties to give him another chance. Axis’s power supply had been a recurring issue. His AI spawned three new bugs for every one that was squashed. King Asgore’s genial expression had wilted and darkened a bit more every time Chujin had brought Axis into the throne room, and when that traitorous battery had sparked off (he’d quadruple-checked all the wiring beforehand, he would swear it) and caught fire to the flower garden, Chujin had seen the shift on Asgore’s face. He’d made a few last weak pleas, but knew deep down that he was just as cooked as those flowers.
Flowers. A lifetime of work for this place, gone up in smoke because of a garden. Even if he hadn’t been fired, he never could have stayed there. His reputation was shot.
Dr. Rutherford-Oscar had been right about one thing, at least – Axis was no longer in the Steamworks. There was a basement level to the house, and in fact it predated the house itself; Chujin had dug it out and wired it up when he’d first moved to the Meadow, some paranoid whisper in the back of his mind insisting it was good to have a secret place, somewhere only he could go. He’d picked up that voice during the war and couldn’t shake it off no matter how hard he tried, but indulging it every so often would shut it up. So he’d made the basement, and because a hole demanded to be filled, over time he’d brought home little things from the Steamworks that wouldn’t be missed, or at least wouldn’t be missed for long. Where he could run his own tests and keep his own records away from prying, judging eyes.
Axis was there now. After that final disastrous demonstration, he’d brute-forced the power supply back to functionality and half-led, half-dragged the robot home, careful to avoid the main roads. He knew Ceroba and Kanako’s schedules and when they wouldn’t be around, prepared a few handy excuses just in case, and stashed him in the basement. He still had the blueprints and sufficient parts. He could see the potential waiting to be unlocked. Regardless of whether the Steamworks survived, his project would continue – and if Ceroba caught a glimpse of Axis, he could just tell her that he’d asked his old team to ship it back here. After all, they’d parted on such good terms.
All this deception. It was exhausting.
At least now, he thought, he could improve the Underground on his own terms. Even before the Axis project, the other engineers had started to view him as a relic, a country yokel coasting on seniority; he’d felt their condescension as the younger monsters took over. Well, look where that had gotten them. He hadn’t met this “Alphys” character, but she apparently didn’t have any more patience for them than they did for him.
There was a knock at the door and he bolted upright, the stool nearly flying out from under him.
“Dad!” Kanako called. “Are you still in there?”
“Just a minute, sweetheart!” He fumbled his glasses back on.
“Mom says I gotta get ready for bed in an hour!”
“Then I’d better hurry, eh? Be right there!”
He listened to her footsteps receding and then went quickly to one of his filing cabinets, pulled open a drawer. Inside were Axis’s blueprints, clipped and collated. He gave them one last glance, ran a fingertip over the papers as if soothing them to sleep. Then he shut the door and went to see Kanako.
* * *
Waterfall was more treacherous than it looked. In certain ways it was the most beautiful of the Underground’s biomes, especially now that the Meadow had dried up, but anyone who got too caught up admiring the sights and wandered off the trails had a bad day ahead of them. The marsh-mud here stuck to you like cement and was reluctant to let go of visitors. The Royal Guard patrolled here often, and occasionally had to help extricate monsters who had stumbled into in the muck and couldn’t pull themselves free.
Chujin ran panting through these dripping and grassy caverns, his toolbox banging against his leg. His gaze was trained down. He was following wheel-tracks.
After his “retirement,” everything had gone as he’d intended for a while. The general population didn’t know about the incidents with Axis – apparently the Steamworks staff hadn’t spread the news, worried about it damaging their image – and while he’d usually kept to himself when he wasn’t working, he’d been around long enough for a bit of name recognition. The Underground’s residents greeted him warmly when they saw him coming, listened sympathetically to his story about why he’d left his engineering work, and promised to let everyone know that he’d gladly help with any jobs that needed doing. In Snowdin especially, where most of the architecture was still made of wood, he could fix a roof, install a fireplace, or construct a whole annex with relative ease, and whatever he built would stay put. Just the other week he’d started putting together a balcony for a new resident, and she’d been taking a keen interest.
Progress on Axis had also continued apace. Ceroba went to work, Kanako stayed out to play with her friends (she was becoming more and more independent) and Chujin would wait until they left and quietly head to the basement. He’d covertly rigged cameras at the front entrance and motion trackers at the gate, so that he would always know if his family returned unexpectedly. That hadn’t happened yet, but if it did, he could scramble topside again and conceal the entrance with no one the wiser.
So the days rolled on and he worked in seclusion, one eye on the camera feed and the other on his blueprints. By the time Axis-10 was complete, he was ready to bring him up to his proper study, with less sneaking about. When he made it to the twelfth revision, the power supply was stable enough so that he’d start bringing Axis on his trips across the Underground, both to test the battery’s durability and for an extra set of hands. It hadn’t been until Axis-13 that Kanako peeked under the dustcloth covering him in Chujin’s study, and he’d introduced the two of them. Ceroba didn’t take much interest in robotics, but Kanako had been delighted by him, and his last few trips had been as a unit, Axis wheeling along beside his daughter.
He’d heard through the grapevine that the Steamworks was languishing. That had been another little pleasure.
Today’s excursion was supposed to be simple. The Snowdin rabbit family, who commanded a healthy portion of the town’s business, had asked him to check on some roofing work for the Snowed Inn. He’d gone there with toolbox in hand – not his father’s, but a standard cherry-red metal affair that contained some simple carpentry tools along with a few extras for Axis, just in case of a breakdown – and climbed up top to give the place a once-over, as Axis stoically held the ladder and Kanako made a commendable attempt to hide her boredom before asking if she could go and explore. He’d said she could go but not to wander too far. Standard protocol. The same routine.
Then came frantic shouting from the town’s outskirts. The momentous news. Another human had been spotted, and this one was vicious.
He’d been there for all of the fallen but seen none of them. These strays and invaders tumbling into their kingdom-in-exile. Two had been acquired without incident, one had resisted, but this one was wreaking havoc. Dust clinging to the soles of its feet. And it had found Kanako.
It had taken all his willpower not to leap off the roof in his haste to find her. She’d been huddled against a cabin with another resident, a purple-skinned and sharp-toothed young man who’d been clutching his side, dust trickling through his fingers. The human had only struck a glancing blow before apparently losing interest; others hadn’t been so lucky. Kanako had run up and clutched at him, and as he’d felt her small fingers digging into his back, he’d turned to Axis and snarled in a voice he did not entirely recognize as his own: Find it. Deal with it.
Without a word, Axis had spun and bolted off toward Waterfall. It was only after he’d disappeared over the horizon that Chujin realized his command might have been too hasty. Even disregarding the history of battery problems, Waterfall’s terrain would not be kind to Axis’s style of locomotion. The human could be stronger than anticipated. All that work could disappear into the mud or be reduced to scrap.
So as other concerned monsters had approached, Chujin had gently unlatched his daughter from his neck and promised he’d be back soon. Then he’d taken off after Axis, toolbox in hand, with Kanako’s protests trailing behind him.
Under the crackling static of panic in his mind, other questions fizzed and burst. He wasn’t sure how Axis had determined the human had gone here, if they even had – points of ingress into Waterfall were few, and the most obvious cut straight through Snowdin, where it would have most certainly been noticed. Did human souls leave a residue Axis could track, some foul imprint on the air? It barely even left footprints, as though its steps were impossibly light. Down here, in the kingdom of monsters, everything about these creatures seemed wronger than ever.
No one bothered him as he slogged through Waterfall. The residents in this part of the Underground liked their privacy, and a lot of them kept to the water anyway. Chujin paused to catch his breath – the arm carrying his toolbox felt like it was going to fall out the socket – and noticed that Axis’s wheel-track veered right, into the deep marshes. He winced. This was exactly where he wasn’t hoping to go.
Was that a sound in the distance? An electric crackle, cutting through the white noise of rushing water.
He moved the toolbox to his other arm and hurried on.
The Underground’s veins of exotic gemstones, as well as the effects of latent magic, gave it all sorts of geological oddities, and Waterfall’s were among the best-known. The water here gleamed arctic blue as though lit from within, with motes of that color drifting around the mud and reeds like sparks from a furnace. It illuminated the path as he moved along, carefully, because the mud here was especially deep and the boardwalks that the Guard installed to stabilize the path weren’t particularly well-maintained. He kept anticipating the sight of Axis sprawled face-down and sinking into the muck, but the wheel-track continued on.
The trail ended in a grotto where the reeds grew halfway to the ceiling. Axis was there, a pewter gleam amidst the cold blue. His back was turned to Chujin and his head was slightly bowed, arms at his sides. Chujin sighed with relief, gulped fresh air, and made his way over.
“Axis!” he called out. “Are you all right?”
“AFFIRMATIVE. I AM UNDAMAGED.”
His reply was prompt, but he didn’t turn or change his pose. Chujin set his toolbox down and came closer.
“What happened to the human?” he asked. “Did you…”
Then he followed Axis’s gaze. There was something else sprawled in the mud, laid in its pale garment, limbs all akimbo like a castaway doll and its dainty shoe-soles claggy with mud. Chujin’s breath hitched, and he looked from those shoes, to its bent legs, and finally to its face.
He reeled back and fell, hands clapped to his mouth. Small, hurt sounds emitted from somewhere deep in his throat. Axis finally turned around, his eyelights burning in the grotto’s gloom.
“You weren’t supposed to kill it!” he cried.
“THE HUMAN RESISTED. THREAT LEVEL: HIGH. APPREHENSION WAS JUDGED NON-FEASIBLE. PERMITTING RETREAT WAS UNACCEPTABLE. THE ONLY AVAILABLE OPTION WAS NEUTRALIZATION.”
He staggered to his feet and circled around, putting Axis between himself and the body. His mind was spinning with questions, but eventually one of them shoved to the front of the throng.
“The soul.” He looked wildly around the grotto. “Where’s the soul?”
“IT IS HERE.” Axis slid open a panel in his chest, revealing a small glass canister. Inside was a spark of light – a far deeper, brighter blue than the swamp-motes, swaying gently as if to unheard music. Chujin rushed forward and pulled it from the compartment.
“Oh, thank goodness. At least there’s that. At least we have this.”
Human souls were far more resilient than monster souls, but they would still dissipate quickly once they no longer occupied their vessels. That is, unless they were placed in one of these canisters – one of monsterkind’s first post-war innovations and also one of their bleakest, the exact sort of thing that would have been invented by the soul-stealers that humans feared them to be. The canisters reflected a human soul’s vitality back into it, cycling it perpetually, so that the soul would always remain intact.
Chujin turned away from Axis, running his thumb over the canister. The spark reflected twofold in his glasses.
“CREATOR.”
“Hm?”
“CREATOR,” Axis repeated. “HOW IS MISS KANAKO?”
He started and looked back. Axis was expressionless as always, but somehow radiated anxiety.
“She’s fine,” he said. “She’s not hurt. The others are looking after her.”
“THAT IS GOOD. I LIKE MISS KANAKO.”
He nodded and again regarded the soul. This was what all the Underground’s endeavors built towards; the pulse of these lights and of the barrier was always in the back of every monster’s mind. And this one’s owner had been a menace. If Chujin presented the soul to Asgore, then the King would…
Well.
Thank him warmly, for certain. Invite him to tea, maybe give him his old position. He’d stash the soul with the others, and go back to watering his garden. Everyone would cheer. And then business as usual.
The frantic spiral of his thoughts slowed, regulated. Then they clicked into place, one after another, as if keeping time with this swaying soul.
“Axis,” he said. “Do you still have the Steamworks’ passwords and security protocols?”
“YES.”
“And how’s your battery life?”
“ESTIMATING… APPROXIMATELY FOUR HOURS REMAINING.”
“All right. We need to hide the body. But not too well. Just so that someone passing by will stumble across it. At least then the others will know they don’t need to be afraid of it anymore.” He looked up, cradling the soul against his chest. “Then go back to the Steamworks. Assuming there’s anyone still around, tell them I sent you there to help with security. They might just place you in storage, but that’s fine, too. Only resist if they try to dismantle you.”
“WILL I SEE YOU AGAIN?”
He blinked; that question had been unexpected.
“Of course,” he said after a moment. “I’ll come back for you. I’m sure Kanako wants to thank you as well.”
“CONFIRMED,” said Axis. “REQUESTING POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT.”
Another moment passed. “Excuse me?”
Neither Axis’s tone nor his body language changed – emotional subtlety hadn’t been high on Chujin’s priority list during his many revisions. But in the silence that followed, there was a rapid tick-tick-tick from the relays in that crude head.
“UNDERSTOOD. REQUEST WAS UNCLEAR. REPHRASING AS QUERY.” A few more ticks, and he said, “DID I DO THE RIGHT THING?”
He stared into those flatly shining eyelights. Then he peered around Axis, to the body in the mud. The scorchmark where its face should have been. How close had it come to Kanako? How much further would it have gone?
“CREATOR. MAY I REPEAT THE QUERY?”
“No need,” he said. “You followed your programming. I hadn’t anticipated it, but… this can work. We can make this work.” Axis didn’t reply. “One more thing. After you’re finished here, encrypt all memory of this incident except for my instructions. Just in case someone decides to go rummaging through you.”
“AFFIRMATIVE.”
“And remember this.” He walked up to Axis and put a hand on his head. “You’re the best of them. None of the other robots helped us as much as you did today.”
For the last time, he heard the relays ticking over. Then Axis said, “THANK YOU FOR THE COMPLIMENT.”
“Morality doesn’t factor into this. Only necessity.” He went to his toolbox. “We do what we must.”
Chujin unlatched the box and tossed several of the tools into the marsh, making room. He carefully placed the soul inside. Its shine stained his face and clouded his glasses, and then he shut the lid.