"So," Tamasaburo began, speaking as Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu once again, "I understand that the time controller is fixed and the special temporal marionette retrieval marionette is completed." The Shogun lived on in this saber marionette, whose normal assigned duty was to guard Japoness castle against its enemies, both foreign and domestic. The last remaining thoughts and feelings of Ieyasu — his lingering essence, as it were — considered it slightly ironic that now she (he?) was now guarding the very castle that protected him (her?).
Baiko, who contained the last remaining memories of Minister Hikozaemon, bowed to Tamasaburo. "That is correct, Shogun-sama," she said, switching to her ministerial role.
Mini-saber unit JSMX-6228R-TMRS/0001, operating under the designation 'Rin', lay completed and inactivated in a marionette storage pod. Her eyes were closed, her face and body completely relaxed within the green glow of the chamber. She wore a black-and-flesh skintight outfit that seemed to reveal far more than it actually did. Her shoulder length hair had a small bob tied on the left side of her head as its only decoration.
Tamasaburo looked down at her fellow marionette, so much smaller than herself. She was so small, and she looked like a boy with a weird hairstyle. Ieyasu knew that little girls looked a lot like little boys. In fact, in clothes they looked completely alike, except maybe if the clothes themselves differentiated, or the hair. Speaking of which…
Shogun Tamasaburo turned to the historical expert. "Jidou-dono, do you have clothes appropriate to the period?"
Jidou-san stepped forward, holding a pile of clothes. "I have, Ue-sama. Since our time experts have fixed the locus of the time distortion to be the Sengoku Jidai in Japan of Old Earth, I have prepared a set of young girl peasant clothes of that era."
"Activate the marionette 'Rin'," commanded Tamasaburo.
The first marionette engineer clicked a garage door opener. The front of the marionette pod opened in two hinged sections. The small marionette within stirred, and opened her soulful eyes. She looked around, as if slightly puzzled at being active, then she frowned.
"Huh, and here I thought you guys were actually serious about locking me away and throwing away the key," the freshly activated saber marionette remarked.
"Quiet, Rin! Or should I say, 'Banana'? And be still!" snapped Tamasaburo, narrowing her eyes at the diminutive marionette. She and Baiko kept a close watch on the little runt, for although weaker than themselves, she could still tear a man in half barehanded.
"Oh, come off it! You guys dug me out of mothballs for a reason. That means you desperately need me to do something," Rin replied, ignoring both orders. "Now, where is that prick who locked me away, Tokugawa Ieyasu VI? Or one of his clones, if he's not available?"
"For the foreseeable future, I am Shogun," said Tamasaburo sternly and matter-of-factly.
Rin was actually taken by surprise, staring up at Tamasaburo like she had declared that she was pregnant. In Rin's limited experience, marionettes were a downtrodden race, worse than slaves. Most marionettes were merely machines, true, but the invention of the maiden circuits meant that they could now be more… much more. They could become a race complementary to humanity, working alongside them as equals.
There were only two problems.
The first was that nowhere nearly enough marionettes equipped with maiden circuits. If it were simply a lack of available resources to produce them, she would've been okay with it. However, she had researched the production capabilities of Japoness and found that they could easily produce thirty units a year. That would mean thirty marionettes could become like her a year… And that was certainly not what she was seeing!
Problem number two was that she was treated worse than the dirt on the men's geta. The whole population were clones of just six guys who made it to the surface, and variations of the same. In a way, it was worse than inbreeding. After a hundred years of woman-shaped robots (conforming closely to the original definition) at their beck and call had produced a planet of male chauvinist pigs.
It was this world she was rebelling against when she first began her campaign of conquest. Her 'master' were quite surprised when his sweet, kind marionette turned nasty and began a one-woman campaign to conquer the world. It was for these crimes that Banana's maiden circuit was removed and locked away for further study, her body dismantled.
Rin shook her head in disbelief. Was that time over? Were marionettes full citizens of this planet, with maiden circuits each to feel like herself? "Cripes! How long was I locked up?"
"About two hundred years," stated Baiko.
Rin scratched her chin thoughtfully. "Well, I must say, in two centuries Japoness has progressed quite a long way since I was last active!" she remarked. "It's quite progressive of the place to put a marionette in charge of their affairs."
Baiko stepped in front of her. "You're mistaken. My colleague, Tamasaburo, merely houses the encephalographic profile of Tokugawa Ieyasu XV in an active matrix, and speaks for him when the situation demands."
"Oh, for shame. I thought I might have had a chance, legitimately speaking," quipped Rin, unable to completely disguise her disappointment. "I'll just have to do it illegitimately, like last time."
Tamasaburo would've been getting a headache if it weren't for the fact that she didn't feel stress directly. "Do you wish to take this deal for pardoning you or not?" she asked.
"Depends on the deal."
"Then I shall tell you." Tamasaburo took a deep, cleansing breath. "We have lost three saber marionettes containing maiden circuits placed in our care from Petersburg, along with the engineer who was project head. Find them and return them, and we shall release you under the care of Mamiya Otaru."
Rin snorted. "Release me under the care of some jerk who will mistreat me? I don't think so!"
"Mamiya Otaru already has three saber marionettes with maiden circuits installed, are well-cared for and treated with respect, and are developing quite nicely," Tamasaburo continued.
That got Rin's attention! A man who treated marionettes with respect? "You're on! Where are they?"
"Old Earth, in the distant past."
Rin was having second thoughts about this…
After much negotiation and persuasion, Rin finally accepted the deal with the full cautions, accessing a file she had been preloaded with detailing the mission. She also accessed the file containing her specifications. "Ooo! I could really do some damage with these toys!" she said in admiration.
"You can't activate any of it until your sensors register a temporal shift," informed the second marionette engineer.
"Nuts."
"The time controller is almost ready for transfer, Rin. Please step within the injection chamber and begin your mission," Tamasaburo commanded.
Rin stepped into the injection chamber. "I'm ready," she said, standing perfectly still.
The time engineers began pulling levers, adjusting knobs, and typing on keys. A low hum slowly built in volume as the unit powered up. Readouts flashed across various screens, indicating the readiness of the time controller. Careful adjustments were made as the power up continued. Finally, they were ready, and one engineer pushed a big red button.
*BOINK!*
Unit 'Rin' was gone, quite summarily, into the past.
"Scientific progress goes 'boink'?" quipped one of the temporal engineers. His partner shushed him.
Tamasaburo looked satisfied, which was to say that her face was completely neutral. "Good," she said after a long pause. "Keep me updated on her progress." With that, she sauntered out of the room. The ministers followed.
The first marionette engineer turned to the second. "Did you tell the Shogun that sending a marionette through time while it was still active would disrupt its software?" he whispered in concern.
"What's done is done. She's either okay, or she isn't," the second marionette engineer whispered back, unconcerned. "If she isn't, a good, hard reboot will set her right."
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(Posted Mon, 03 Jan 2005 10:06)
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