Lastland AU: Cybersteam

Interlocked Inc

INTERLOCKED INC. The bold, brass lettering gleamed in the sunlight, and Storm squinted as she looked up at it. This is the place?

"Yep!" Even though Iris was invisible, Storm could sense that she nodded, and she winced as she was again reminded that Iris could read her thoughts. She may have claimed she didn't pay attention to thoughts not meant for her, but sometimes Storm doubted that.

With nothing else to do except go inside, though, Storm pushed open the little, circular door to the steampunk workshop, a bell tinkling overhead as her brown boots creaked on the wood floor. The carpet beneath her feet was too thin to muffle her footsteps. The scent of metal, oil, polish, and candles filled the air, mingling with the endless tick-tock of clocks, the whirring of gears, and the soft billowing sound of a little furnace deep within the clockwork workshop.

Shiny knickknacks covered every tabletop and display case, even hung on the wall on rows and rows of shelves. Some of them contained blueprints, papyrus maps and scrolls, and leatherbound and twine-bound manuscripts and tomes. Golden sunlight streamed through the cut glass windows, casting rainbow patterns across the floor. Everything about the little shop was a mechanical miracle, every item crafted and tinkered with the utmost perfection, precision, and passion.

Interlocked Inc. was paradise, a safe haven. More than just its creators' dreamchild, it was meant to be a refuge for all of society's outcasts. The name was symbolic and emblematic on multiple levels. First was the interlocked nature of man and machine, the symbiosis of their relationship. Next was the interlocked nature of people. And interlocked with those beliefs was the belief that differences could be harnessed and understood, and didn't always have to be cause for fear or attack. Differences were not denied, they were just not always a cause for divide.

"We should use our strengths and weaknesses to help one another, as iron sharpens iron," Amelia said the day she opened her store. "Love it or hate it, we are intertwined with technology. Wouldn't it be better to understand and grow with it than to rail against or allow it to consume us?"

"Please ask about our daily discounts and deals!" Storm was nearly scared into yelping as a little, round, black bot rolled towards her from the back of the store. The letters LXS were carved on xyr smooth, metal chest, and xe waved xyr black, clawed arms excitedly.

"We got BOGOs and half-offs on all gears, gadgets, and gizmos!" A second little robot came hovering over, MLE carved on its chest. It was a little pointer than LXS, and capable of limited flight while LXS could only roll, but they were otherwise the same, MLE just a bit paler than LXS.

"What the—?!" Storm hissed and reared back, feeling Iris laughing in her head. "Shut up, Iris!"

As if on cue, a little, circular, wood door at the back of the shop swung open, and out stepped a short, slight woman, only a little taller and wider than Iris. She had short, curly brown hair, lighter than Iris'. Steampunk goggles rested in her hair, and her round, freckled face was bright. She wore a simple white work shirt with a brown smock over it, but when she approached Storm, she removed the smock and goggles, then replaced the goggles with a little black top hat. She seemed halfway between Storm and Iris' ages, though perhaps closer to Storm's age.

"Hello, I am Dr. Amelia." Her voice and expression were smooth and cocky. Storm's annoyance with LXS and MLE was obvious, but Amelia looked pleased by her little sales robot creations. She was the proud mama!

Not knowing what to say, Storm only nodded once curtly. "Iris! Help me!" she snapped.

"What? You have no command over the common tongue?" Iris teased.

"Iris!"

"Ha, ha! No worries, no worries. I already asked her." It was then that Storm learned that she was not special when it came to Iris' ability to talk to her telepathically. She was surprised by the wave of jealousy she felt in response to the thought of Iris slipping to Amelia's head.

"Come with me." Amelia's tone was gentle, but her smile was mischievous, as she cocked her head back to the back of her shop. Waiting for them there was a beautiful animatronic, made of gold. She was lifelike and human-like, and somehow not uncanny, rather, a pleasure to look at. She sat at a workbench for two, surrounded on either side by notebooks, flasks, and little glass vials, alongside the gears, cogs, and tools of gold, silver, copper, bronze, brass, iron, steel, and other metals.

"Hello." The android stood, then curtseyed to them. They could hear her joints click and whir as her eyes blinked open and shut. Her voice was low, smooth, pleasant, and feminine. "I am Aimee."

"That's my wife!" Amelia interrupted proudly. "And the co-creator and co-owner of Interlocked Inc.! And she was always the prettier one of us," the scientist added with a snort-laugh.

"Oh, Amelia!" Aimee sighed and shook her head, neck whirring and clicking, but a laugh echoed from her metallic voice box too. Then she turned to Storm. "I suppose I am technically nonbinary, capable of being whatever gender Amelia programs into me. My default, though, is woman," she gestured to her feminine outfit and form with a smile. Storm could only blink in surprise. Iris, meanwhile, smiled to herself, even though she had no mouth. As she told Storm, she remembered Amelia and Aimee from when she was still alive. They were friends of hers when Aimee was still a new creation, and far from the only one of Amelia's.

But Amelia had a strict policy of free will, and any creation of hers that chose to leave was allowed to do so, the only condition that they seek to live moral lives. Maybe outsiders would look upon Amelia and Aimee's relationship as strange, but Aimee begged to differ.

"I chose to stay. That is not to say the others were wrong, just different," she would always say with an elegant shrug, and she would refuse to say more on the matter than that. She and Amelia loved one another. That was enough. And that was the heart of Interlocked Inc. Differences were necessary, and could fit together like puzzle pieces. In fact, LXS and MLE were more cyberpunk while Amelia and Aimee were steampunk. That was also why Iris wanted to seek their aid...

"H-hey! Wait! Can I see?" Storm tried to push her way into Amelia and Aimee's back office as they glided away with the blueprints for Iris' new body. Storm felt Iris' presence leave her head, and she was instantly unsettled. MLE and LXS, however, were quick to stop her.

"But wait! There's more!" MLE chirped. "Self-cleaning swords!"

"And we'll give it to you for a discount!" LXS offered helpfully, hopefully. Storm snarled and tried to kick past them, but they were persistent little buggers, and by the time Storm finally thought of a plan to sneak past them with a distraction, Iris' new body was done.

"Voila!" Amelia shoved open the door to her private office and gestured to Aimee, who came out with a robot body that looked exactly like the ghost Storm met just a few mornings ago, even down to the glowing purple eyes.

AN: This is just my excuse to introduce a quartet of bots (well, one human) since I've had ideas for Amelia and Aimee for years but have only had the chance to write for them a few times on my other account (Irhaboggle).