Jaune and the Real Girl.

Chapter 18

The android almost seemed to be sleeping in the pod. Naked and still without a trace of movement. Vasily couldn't help but wonder why anyone would design a weapon to look like a little girl. Was the designer trying to play God in creating something in their image? Or was there something more deviant reason for designing as a young member of the fairer sex. Vasily supposed it was probably a bit of both. There was no reason to make a weapon look like a person, but Vasily supposed that it hardly mattered to him, he would use it for what it really was.

"How much longer?" Vasily asked Bonnie as she typed away on her laptop programming.

"Not long," Bonnie reported, her fingers were a blur as they went across the keyboard.

Vasily turned his attention to the other pod which housed his captured huntsman. He actually was sleeping with the help of the concoction Bonnie had brewed up keeping him quiet. He looked at the machine his assistant had built with the help of blueprints she managed to procure when she robbed the research and development labs in Atlas.

He had idly wondered how those eggheads in Atlas created a machine with an aura but he hadn't expected anything like this. Taking aura from someone and forcing into this weapon masquerading as a little girl. If the public knew just how Miss Polendina was bestowed this facade of life the outcry would be immense. And that Ironwood had been secretly building a new model could only mean he intended to have another cleave their very soul to power this automaton. And why stop there?

Vasily chuckled at the thought.

"What's funny?" Bonnie asked, looking away from her computer as her fingers continued to dance across the keyboard.

"I was simply musing that Ironwood is far smarter than I gave him credit for," Vasily explained, "I really should commend him for having the will to create such androids, to rend the very souls of others, leaving them permanently crippled for the sake of power and military might. He is far more cunning than I expected."

The typing finished with Bonnie striking the enter key with a loud and distinct tap. "Here we go!"

The machinery hummed with life as it activated powering the two pods. The red aura of his captured huntsman glowed. The cables connecting the two pods began to light up with the syphoned aura pouring it into the artificial body.

Vasily watched the machine stole the aura from the captured huntsman and forced it into the empty vessel. The huntsman squirmed in the pod despite the generous dose of sedatives, clearly he was in some form of pain as his soul was fractured. Vasily smirked at the sight.

In a mere minute it ended and the glowing cables darkened as they finished their task. He watched the android in its pod as the aura around it glowed and faded. Slowly the eyelids fluttered open revealing emerald green eyes just like the other one. The vacuum seals on the pod snapped open and released with a hiss.

The lid opened with the hum of hydraulics and the android stepped out looking around and observing the surroundings. Eventually it settled it's gaze upon him.

"Hello," it greeted him, "I am Penelope."

Penelope, a silly name for a weapon. Doubtlessly it was another habit of her sentimental creators desiring to pretend this thing was an actual person. "Hello Penelope," he greeted back, "do you know who I am?"

The android observed him for a minute. "Vasily... my master, how do I know that?"

"Because you're programmed to know that," he explained to it, "give me a diagnostic report!"

Penelope nodded, "Aura levels are currently at twenty three percent and rising, my internal systems are operating at peak efficiency and my power cells are fully charged. I currently have no internal weapons, my dust and ammo levels are empty, I am not combat ready."