Sgt. Golem: Royal Mech Hussar - Books 2 & 3

I stepped out of the gunship onto the upper battlements of Frankenstein's Fortress, .45 in hand, ready to take the battle to the enemy. My cocksure attitude lasted about two seconds.

In front of me, two dozen meters away, was a bank of windows. They had armored slats standing open. Looking straight at me was a golem unlike any I had seen before. . This one wore an elaborate uniform, something between a 17th-century prince and a third-world dictator. Lots of gold braid, which could go either way, and shiny riding boots, though where you’d find a horse to fit a golem was beyond me. The golem might have been an inch shorter than me, but otherwise, it might have come out of the same factory or vat or whatever had grown my body. He wore a tri-corner hat with a long white feather curling up from one corner. I absent-mindedly started to hum – and call it Macaroni.

He held a microphone in one hand. A loudspeaker squealed somewhere nearby.

"Did you have the arrogance to think you could challenge me in my own home? Pathetic. I had hoped to study your brain to determine what made you different, but perhaps there’ll be enough left to dissect later. Goodbye, aberration." He stabbed down on a button in front of him. The armored shutters slammed shut with a slam, closing off the glass window with a solid wall of metal.

Behind me, the Russian troops had been jumping down from the gunship. My skin prickled.

"Get back!" I yelled and dove for the door of the airship. One of the Russians stumbled, getting out of my way, and we landed in a heap. I rolled over and ended up underneath the body of the airship itself, which sat less than half a meter off the ground on its landing skids.

The world roared. Bolts of lightning shot out of the sides of the castle and ripped through the Russian troops. My muscles clenched as the nimbus of electric current coursed through the air around me. The roar seemed to go on and on and then, abruptly, ended. My ears rang. The air was full of smoke and the overwhelming stench of burned flesh.

I forced my stiff muscles to move, rolling over and crawling out from under the gunship. Charred, twisted bodies lay all around. I guessed human bodies were more susceptible to electricity than my own.

Well, shit. The armored doors remained closed. I gritted my teeth as my rage mounted. That asshole was going down.

I glanced left and right, looking for another way in, but instead caught sight of the snout of one of the gunship's turrets. I grinned.

Inside, the gunship was filling up with smoke. There was a strong scent of burning insulation and charred electric circuits. I resisted the urge to cough as I made my way quickly to the heaviest caliber turret on that side of the craft. The weapon seemed intact. I guessed the hull had directed the electric current away from the ammunition.

The turret swiveled easily. With the shuttered window only a few meters away, I barely needed to ai. I lined it up and squeezed the paddle trigger.

The explosion rattled the gunship and spiderwebbed the turret's glass windows, making it impossible to see the results of my handiwork. I climbed back out of the gunship. Smoke billowed from the hole in the shutters. It wasn't a big hole, but the explosion had also jarred one of the shutters loose. I went back to the gunship and searched around for a pry bar.

There was a fire axe in a hatch marked with warning symbols. I set to work on the metal shutters. The armor was too thick to be damaged directly, but the hinges that pivoted them up and down had been warped, and I set to work demolishing them entirely.

I tore the hinge free using the axe as a pry bar. One whole end dropped down and hit the concrete floor of the battlement with a clang that set the dangling shutter ringing. The smoke coming out of the hole was thinning, but the interior of the room was still hazy and obscured with haze.

I stepped through the smoking hole into a control room. Small doors led off the room. The door to my left had a small viewing slot and opened back out onto the battlements. The one to the right led deeper into the fortress. Beyond was a utilitarian hallway.

A speaker box was attached to the wall near the ceiling. There was a chirp of interference, and then Frankenstein spoke.

"So, the strange golem has more to it than expected. I've heard a lot about you, but you still manage to impress. Why don't you put away your firearm and come be my guest?"

I didn’t bother to answer.

At the end of the hallway another door stood open. Beyond was a richly appointed room, like an old European mansion but compact, with a dining space in one corner, a lounge and miniature library set in another.

There was no one in the room.

Behind me, the door I had entered slammed closed. I rushed back to it to find it sealed. A hidden speaker squealed to life.

"You are now my guest, whether you wish it or not. You have two choices. You can set your firearm on my desk and step away, or you can breathe poison gas and die. I give you 30 seconds to choose. I really do want to speak with you, so please, do be cordial. Also, in case you are thinking to take your chances with the poison, may I remind you who designed that body of yours in the first place? I assure you, I know its weaknesses.”

My Colt was in my hand, but I had not bought a single Colt 1911 at the weapons shop in Budapest.

I had bought three.

One of the benefits of a heavy uniform jacket and a large, well-muscled body is that there was plenty of room to hide weapons. Both the other handguns were stashed under my jacket, along with a large combat knife and several spare magazines. This made my decision easy. I stepped forward and laid my gun on the desk.

A moment later, the door to the left swung open on well-oiled hinges. A golem stepped forward, wearing a nondescript uniform. Another golem stepped out behind that. They both looked like they could have been my twins.

The bodyguards stood aside as the third golem entered. Unless there were two sartorial Napoleons roaming this fortress, this was the one I’d glimpsed behind the shutters. His face was far more expressive than the others. "Welcome, welcome!"

The two bodyguard golems had holsters at their hips but did not draw them. This was the master in his own lair, full of confidence.

The clothes, the manner -- I realized with a shock that Frankenstein had transferred himself into a golem body.

The infamous doctor studied me, his grin widening.

"Ah, I see in you genuine human expressions. I am proud of my creations, but they do lack a certain flair of human expressivity. I consider this an asset, for the most part. Not always.” He shrugged before continuing. "Tell me, are you quite stable? Your actions so far seem to indicate so."

"What do you mean, stable?"

He nodded, smiling as if I had answered the question.

"Very good. You are confused by the meaning of my question and seek clarification. You have not growled or lunged for my throat, and you do not stare at me, mute, confused by the question. All these things provide me more than enough answer. So tell me." He leaned forward. "You claimed on our last meeting to be a sergeant. Is it true, then, what my sources have told me, that you are actually a person imprinted on a golem body? I thought I was the only one that knew that secrets. Please tell me, who was your creator?"

He asked a lot of questions but did not give me time to answer them. "My sources tell me you consider yourself a person. Some kind of reincarnation? Since you have broken your compulsions, allow me to observe the usual social niceties. I will offer you a drink, and you will answer my questions.”

When the man finally paused, I jumped in. “How about you just take them one at a time, and we'll go from there."

Frankenstein smiled as if I had just agreed to tell him everything.

"Very well. Is it true that you really think you are the reincarnation of someone, some sergeant?"

I resisted the urge to fold my arms defiantly. I wanted to keep my hands free to go for a gun.

"That's right. My name was Sam Anderson of the United States Army." I shrugged. "I go by Sam Golem now."

"Fascinating. So you believe, what, that you died in America and somehow were reborn in a body here? From your serial number, you were made by a Skoda Works machine in, where was it, Rezkow, Poland?"

"You're well informed."

He made a dismissive gesture that reeked of false modesty. “I am a doctor, after all.”

"I propose a deal," I said. Frankenstein looked genuinely surprised. "I have a few questions of my own. So I propose we trade answers."

He nodded and seemed to consider this. “Mm. Interesting. I suppose it can do no harm. You have no chance of escape, so why not indulge your curiosity? I believe your questions will reveal even more of what I wish to learn about you. Ask away, Sergeant Golem.”

This man in a golem, the first I'd ever seen beyond myself, had very strange mannerisms. I was betting this was his personality even before he had gotten himself placed in an artificial body. I had noticed very few changes in my own personality since being moved into an artificial body, although it's hard to see changes in oneself. I had noticed that I was less affected by the horrors of war. The things I had seen since coming to this world should have caused me considerable psychological trauma, but I wasn't having a hard time sleeping at night.

But this Frankenstein guy was just weird. He was considering me as though I were a specimen under his microscope. I decided to keep talking.

"You’re right, the machine that created me was a Skoda Works. Not from your company. So why did it load compulsions in me? Do all golem-making machines everywhere do that?"

When the secret phrases had been used on me, they’d caused me to recite my life's history, or frozen my muscles. I had been able to break free of the compulsions using sheer willpower but I wasn’t eager to try another round of who’s-in-charge-of-Sam’s-body.

Frankenstein nodded thoughtfully. "All machines based off of my patents are equipped with those features. It's an important safety system to ensure golem controllability. Most people that buy those machines don't change the settings from their factory configuration.”

“Left the admin password as default. Got it.” I cocked my head at him. "Do they even know about those settings?"

He shrugged with a wan smile. "Maybe. Not everyone reads the manual. My turn again. The individual sets of data that can be loaded in a Golem. How many do you have? Have you achieved over six?"

"That's two questions. The answer is I don't know the total. But it's definitely over six. The Polish technician who I paused created me, for lack of a better word loaded at least eight."

Frankenstein's eyes widened. "And then the Hungarians. They loaded more, didn't they?"

"Another eight, or maybe more. They were doing them one at a time, but I lost count when you showed up."

Frankenstein let out a long breath, almost a sigh. He appeared excited by my answer. "Amazing."

He opened his mouth to ask another question, but I held up a hand. "No, no. My turn."

He frowned, and his eyes flashed with anger. This man had a temper problem.

"Do you know why I was able to load so many?"

The anger vanished as quickly as it had come. This was clearly a topic that interested him. He stepped forward and took up a seat behind the desk, as if settling in for a long discussion. I felt like we were wasting time with the battle raging outside, but I genuinely longed for some real answers about just who and what I was.

"That's an excellent question. Another clear sign that you are a very different creation than the usual golems. And therein also lies your answer. You have, apparently, a strong personality already in your body. A human personality is created by processing information through their own preconceived notions and filters. While this process has many drawbacks, such as stereotypes and bigotry, or the inability to accept facts that contradict their own preexisting notions, it's a powerful tool. It allows us to take in seemingly contradictory information and integrate it into our own knowledge base. We can reject information that doesn't fit with what we already know or even hold multiple contradictory viewpoints." The man was warming the subject and I let him ramble. Anyone who’s watched James Bond movies knows never to interrupt when the villain starts monologuing.

“My theory, which has been borne out by my extensive research, is that as more and more information is loaded into a golem who starts off as a blank slate with no real personality or framework for how the world works, numerous small inconsistencies start to build up. When a golem has a single data set, then the facts in that data set, the knowledge that was loaded, is the gospel. Everything fits together.

"But as more and more sets are loaded, the tiny inconsistencies start to build. Even unrelated items can seem contradictory information for a brain that has no frame of reference.” Frankenstein spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. "At some point, the mind of a golem can't handle all the little disagreements. It cracks and begins to behave erratically as the data in its mind fragments and becomes disconnected."

He made a hand gesture to indicate two things that were connected and then broke apart. "All those little parts of our mind that connect one fact to another, one memory to another start to unravel. They become unhinged. Now tell me, how does it feel to have all of those sets of data in your mind? Do you notice any of these…" He waved a hand in the air. "Contradictions? These disconnections?"

I nodded. This was taking too long, but the subject was quite interesting and more than relevant to me personally. "Yes, it's particularly difficult to reconcile something from a data set that was loaded into me," I raised a hand and tapped the side of my skull with one beefy finger, "when it contradicts or clashes with the things that I already knew."

Frankenstein nodded eagerly. "Of course, of course. You believe you were a sergeant, and now you are in a military setting. Whatever personality remnant you hold must be causing a great deal of these clashes, as you call them."

I smiled. "More than a few.”

“But you're able to resolve them," he said, leaning forward eagerly.

"They give me a heck of a headache. But yes, I've been able to resolve them so far."

He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, seemingly overwhelmed by the implications. "This explains," Frankenstein said, "why I've been able to load more data onto a specimen loaded with a complete personality template. Or even a mostly complete one."

My eyes widened as the realization hit me. The thought made me feel ill. "You've loaded people's minds into these?" I tapped my own head.

"Certainly." He sounded confused by the question. "In a way, all golem datasets are loading someone's mind into one. They're just an extremely..." He made a chopping motion. "...pruned down version with most personality elements removed completely."

My mouth was dry. The implications were revolting.

"And these minds that you trim down, where do you get them?"

"No, no," he smiled, clearly finding nothing disturbing about the line of discussion. "It's my turn, is it not? How effective would you say you are at using skills you've integrated, particularly ones after the first eight? The ones that give you headaches? Do you feel you are able to use these skills at or near the expertise they were based off of?"

I tried not to let my disgust show. I needed to stop this. This man was a monster who would use any information I gave him to perpetrate even more evils.

"Yes, I think so. After the initial headache has passed, I feel like I can make effective use of them."

"Ah, very good," he said, nodding with satisfaction. "And to answer your last question, they are taken from the mind of carefully selected experts and then trimmed down to remove extraneous personality elements. Often a few of those must remain to provide context for certain facts. Any true master on a given subject will usually make that subject their whole life, making it difficult to separate the particular topic from the rest of their mind."

"But you have loaded intact personalities?" I had to satisfy my own morbid curiosity.

He nodded. "Of course. Myself, for one." Then he waggled a finger at me. "But now I've given you two answers for the price of one. Tell me, what makes you so loyal to the Poles? Why are you serving in their military? Why do you risk your life? What can I do to entice you away? I wish to examine, that is, question you in more detail."

"That's a lot more than two questions. I don't think I would care for your examination. As for my loyalty to the Poles," I shrugged. "That's my own business."

"Come now, Sergeant, or should I call you Sam?"

"Sergeant will do."

"I can offer you great inducements. In return for letting me scan your mind, I promise to load you into a far superior body. The Mark 6 is an impressive specimen, to be sure. But I've done better since."

"Are you offering me immortality or a job?"

He smiled. "A bit of both." He leaned forward, his eyes boring into me. "A man in my position can't afford to be too trusting. My golems give me unquestioning loyalty, but they lack agency. I've been forever trying to find the right balance. But with the material in your head, I would be able to perform an entire new round of experiments."

My stomach roiled. "Experiments on my mind?"

"Not on you particularly." He waved a hand dismissively, as if it was a perfectly reasonable request, or a perfectly reasonable concept. "You, I will load intact into a new body. In the copies, we will try to trim out certain bits that are a distraction and create a more useful and pliable subject. I need something that has greater autonomy and ability to innovate. You may have noticed I'm running a bit of a war here, and I'm severely lacking in commanders I can trust. Should you prove your loyalty and utility, I could make you, say, a general."

I smiled without humor, and shifted my weight subtly. This had gone on long enough. "A general? I'm already a sergeant. That’d be a demotion."