By David C. Daoust
At the very moment the small swarm of flowing lights were coalescing into a humanoid form, not only on the faraway space station, Iopa XIX, but also before the very eyes of Harper Blue and her kid sister, Grace, not two floors below, within the very same Rover’s hold, Margo the Stunt-bot, was getting a lightshow of her very own. In fact, the column had formed and become that strange woman of light right before her eyes… maybe ‘lenses’, considering Margo was still plugged within the blue ‘junkbot’ the two Firstwave teens had built for her.
If her ‘lenses’ could grow wider in disbelief, they surely would. As it were, the strangely animated bucket could only gasp audibly, as the woman stood before her, taking in the sights.
“Well, this isn’t right either,” the glowing woman announced, then added, possibly sarcastically, “Lucky we have all the time in the world…”
Whether the voice was sarcastic or not, Margo could not truly say. The runaway bot did however recognize the voice, and whom it normally belonged to. Chalk it up, to her being memorable, maybe, or possibly the simple fact that the voice was the only characteristic bots carried over from body to body, but Margo’s guess was spot on…
“Dakota?” Margo asked, “Is that you?”
“Margo!” the glowing being was taken aback. In fact, unlike the junkbot Margo, her glowing unnatural eyes, indeed did have the ability to grow wide in disbelief, as they successfully portrayed that very emotion as the woman figured out who was standing before her. “Margo, I can’t believe it! I never thought I’d see you again. I have it– I have your bot-form!”
“You do??” Margo suddenly came to life, at least as much as an oversized cast-iron bucket could, “Really? Do you know where Colin is? Is he on his way?”
“I’m… no, actually,” the woman suddenly digressed, “I’m trying to find him now…” she shook her head and forced herself back on topic, “Listen, I gave your body to Vincent…”
“You, WHAT?” Margo was not happy to hear that. Vincent was a menace, of this Margo was sure.
“Well, I thought it was you! His data-sphere I mean, I was trying to load you back in…” Dakota explained quickly, “Listen, he’s got the Chalice now, but, honestly, it’s going to be a long time ‘til I can return your body to you…. Like a really, really long… errr wait…”
As she spoke another swarm of light bulbs began to appear from everywhere. Moments later it formed into a long crazy column that in turn formed into another glowing woman.
“So that’s what that looks like,” the first said of the second.
“Just go try again,” Dakota said to herself, “I got this.”
“Any hints?” the first-comer asked the new arrival.
“It’s always the last place you look,” the new form stated just as the first collapsed into separate bulbs and then vanished like a doused flame.
“Dakota?” Margo asked again. And again, missed the ability to convey her bewilderment.
“Yeah, it’s me again,” the glowing woman confirmed, “So, hey, it took me a while on account of not being able bring anything but my ‘Sun Particles’ back, but I created a way I can sync them up with your data-sphere,” as she spoke, many of the glowing orbs that made up her body, started to flood around the junkbot, “Especially considering the amount of space within this structure…” As she said that last part, she opened up Margo’s lid-like head and allowed the Sun Particles to flood into the bucket. “they will make more sense once you are synced up… but, you know, put simply, they are self-replicating nanites, though they project a solid light ‘cell’, which, ultimately, allows them to adjust to the structure of an ever-expanding universe… Basically because going back in time is a lot more about being shrunk back tiny enough to fit into the past, than, well, –other theories-. It’s all super interesting to me… but not a lot of people can follow it…”
“Oh, okay!” Margo had no idea what she was talking about and was just wondering how and when she was going to get her -real- form back. Something that suddenly explained itself as her very being shifted from the ‘junkbot’ the kids had loaded her into, and the sudden scattering of her –very being– between the syncing Sun Particles.
“Might feel a little weird at first,” Dakota advised, looking at the mass of particles forming away from her and the junkbot, “You should be able to pull yourself together, pretty much into whatever shape you want. You can expand or shrink down tight, at like a particle level. Honestly its kind of fun. Mass stays the same so… getting big is more like turning into a cloud of balloons… and getting tiny can turn you dense as a diamond. But, I kind of assumed you would want your normal form, so I set it up a little bit better than this glowy thing I use.”
It did start to make more sense as she was loaded in. Margo found that she was looking at the junkbot —which entailed, pretty much, looking at herself, from outside herself. Which felt weird. As she did so, she pulled herself into how she actually saw herself in her mind. She looked down and witnessed her hands, looked down at her body, fully clothed, further down– found legs and feet covered with her favorite sneakers. She scrunched up her nose simply because she could and at long last looked at Dakota, eyes wide with bewilderment… disbelief. All of it conveyed as easily as she could within her missing stunt-bot body.
“Well, this is perfect,” Margo was ecstatic, “Thank you so much!”
“So, I can still get you your body back,” Dakota reassured her, “But this should be good enough to hold you over ‘til we finally break free. It’ll all still be functioning with this bucket-thing you had going on. It will be able to replicate more particles within… and, if all else fails, you’ll always be able to return to the junk-bot.” Dakota winced, “Sorry, is that rude?”
“Nope,” Margo was pretty happy with her new digs, “That’s pretty much what we call it, Junkbot. Honestly, I’m just glad I got a neck.”
“I was wondering about that,” the glowy Dr. Sun agreed, “Probably had to turn your whole body just to look side to side?”
“Yeah, well beggars can’t always be choosers,” Margo said, then added- absolutely beaming, “Unless you got a friend that can go back through time and right wrongs!”
“Well I can’t actually change anything, what ever I do is what I did… but, speaking of, I got a lot more to do…” Dakota suddenly collapsed into a cloud of bulbs which, each, vanished like a doused flame, again.
“That was amazing!” a tiny voice suddenly projected from the small heart-shaped bot-form that was pretty much stuck on the floor. “Wait, what? What’s happening now?” a little excited, and somewhat baffled, as the small bulbs formed around the small heart as well…
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