[center][color=838450][h2]~ Ilovačić Mining Array ~[/h2]
Volčić (Ecumenopolis) - Outer Rim[/color]

[img]https://images-ext-2.discordapp.net/external/Zl8BBwapRoeIB2HMGPu3RVFGUwu95ZR9ZyQuH-nxIZ8/%3F1607248509/https/cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/032/708/863/large/hadong-song-dollmaker.jpg?width=351&height=496[/img][/center]

“Is it not beautiful, Claire?” 

Delicate fingers laced across the visage of a small porcelain face. The hands belonged to a creature, not entirely human. His body was like that of a marionette. Symmetrical soft lines and crept over his ivory skin; he was a man assembled. In those hands lay something like himself, something real and yet soulless. 

A soft female voice responded. “A thing can be beautiful, and yet the creation of it can be an abomination.” 

The woman was strikingly elegant. Her dark locks hung about the shoulders of a fine red dress of Augustain make. A peplum hung smartly about her waist with a small clutch bag of priceless Mansadom leather lazily tucked in the nape of her elbow. She stood with an air of presence–or at least self importance. She rocked the penciled heel of her white lace stiletto impatiently. Yet the figure remained at his bench, aweing at the small bodiless face. The porcelain creation. 

“She made me too, you know that, Claire. The inspired Lady Ilovacic. I was her first creation, Claire. Does it not honor her to create others in the same way?” 

“Robots are an abomination.” The expensive figure retorted sharply. “Surely if she had wanted more of you she would have made them. And yet you were the first and only. The only soulless metal she ever graced with a conscience–”

“--do you not serve a synthetic conscience?”

“It is not.” The venom of the woman cut the air. “The FOREMAN is a program. It is a passage, a community, a grand ideal that is coded into the very fiber of this empire. It has no form, it has no bounds. It is an unstoppable virus of logic and it is the only hope for this galaxy. You may have been the first invention of Josephine Ilovacic, but the FOREMAN was her last; her magnum opus; her final product. [i]You[/i] are the miscarriage of brilliance. A soulless mistake. Hiding in the Outer Rim—in a fucking patissere shop.”

The mannequin sat motionless as it absorbed the lashes of Claire. Indeed they sat in a quaint pastry shop, somehow suspended in time. No customers filled its empty booths. And yet it was pristine as if furbished for opening day. The smell of rich cinnamon and buttery delights hung in the air as if the morning rush was dawning. And yet it was all a facsimile. Just like its curator. A perfect moment preserved in perpetuity. 

“I am not hiding Caire. She loved to be here. Just like I love it.”

“You cannot love. You can only destroy. You destroy the meaningfulness of life. True life. You are antimatter.”

The stooping robotic figure left its plush seat at the booth and walked entrancingly to the counter. From a small oven he produced a tray of fresh delights with the warm hint of apple. “Lady Ilovacic would come in here every day and sit, just there.” He gestured to his previous rest. 

Claire took no notice, still standing like a javelin thrower intent on another assault. 

“She would order these beignets and pour over her beautiful work. She made this galaxy a better place, Claire. She created; not just like a scientist, but like an artist. And there one day after a lifetime of truth, and art, and love, in that seat, she died.” He gently separated a pastry, a rich red alluvium running from its warm dough, offering it gingerly to his guest. “It is only right that this place be maintained after her passing. That we sanctify the homely halls of this shope and all that it was in those moments. It is a holy place, divinity runs in the cushion of that seat, in the rich air, in each morsel of this food. It is a part of the greater picture, the divine inspiration. I have kept it this way for over a century now. Just as she left it. And one day, inspiration will strike. She will strike. And the truth, and art, and love of her mind will find a way to reenter this world. She will be the final ingredient to create something to save the entire galaxy, not just the souls of convicts… Do try the beignets.” The delicate hand held the pastry aloft to Claire.

“I am Lady Ilovacic now. Your master is dead. All that will ever come from her is what we have now. All we can do is obey her design. This place is just a sanitarium for your circuit brain. You work to maintain it, to cook, to labor, to give yourself meaning. But these seats are as empty as your soul. You will never matter, your work will never matter, because you are a robot.” Claire stepped to the counter, heels agait, shoulders like the flight of a swan. She snatched a half of the morsel from the lacey metal fingers. 

“Have you ever tried eating it, robot? Ever tried being inspired?” She nipped a bite off of a corner, careful not to spoil her thick red maquillage. The vehement look of disgust seeped from her face. “Your work, just like that sugary shit-bread, is a waste. Because you are no more real than rocks in the soil. You will never create truth, or art, or love like an Ilovacic. Your existence is simply a tremor of the earth, rearranging the worthless atoms of dust without purpose. Work is for the soul. Living souls. One day I will convince the FOREMAN to shut down your little museum, shut down your worthless little circuits, and finally return to the dirt every obstacle to Josephine Ilovavicic’s true vision. Unless the Barbarians get to you first. Perhaps when they burn this place to glass you will finally be worth something. A small blip of dopamine in the endless void. Thanks for the beignet. Inspiring.”