Chương 128: Book 2 Chapter 36.2: Fashion Forward

As she so often did when she felt down, Kim found her way to the beach. She sat in the sand and let waves lap around her ankles, hoping Wish Fish would show up again. As she waited, she lifted her hands and snapped her fingers idly, recalling the pyromancy texts she'd studied. Still not so much as a spark of magic. Still no proof she was more than just a machine. She watched the waves closely as a flash of silver appeared, but it was not the smooth hide of the Wish Fish.

Just the metallic surface of Himiko's prosthetic arm reflected in the waves.

"Hey Kim," she said.

"I just thought I'd check up on you."

"I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine," Himiko said.

"I'm sorry if Matsuki upset you. She just misspoke."

"It's not her fault," Kim grumbled.

"I'm just a mess."

"Oh, you're not that much different than anyone else," Himiko said. She sat down next to Kim, settling her heavy metal arm into the sand to better relax.

"If anything, you're probably one of the most normal people I hang out with." Kim resisted the urge to make a comment about that.

"Where are you from, anyway, Kim?" Himiko asked.

"We've never really talked about it, but you're from Japan too, right?"

"Sort of," Kim said. She'd been assembled there, at least, but it didn't feel like she was "from" Japan.

"I don't really consider it, um, 'home'." She didn't know what exactly counted as home, but the basement of a random pervert sure wasn't it.

"Oh. Sorry for bringing it up," Himiko said.

"I guess we're making a family business out of sticking our foot in our mouths today, huh?" Kim failed to restrain a chuckle, and Himiko relaxed. If Kim was laughing, then she hadn't fucked up that bad.

"Anything I can do to make it up to you?"

"No, like I said, you're fine," Kim insisted.

"This is all me and my problems. I'll deal with it."

"Alright. Let me know if you ever need to talk, though," Himiko said.

"We've got a lot in common, you know." Himiko stood and rapped her organic knuckles against her metal arm, before giving Kim a knowing wink. Kim's supercomputer of a brain raced with potential for a moment, and she sprang to her feet to follow Himiko after coming to the worst possible conclusion. She grabbed onto Himiko's shoulder and held her in place.

"How do you know about that? Did Harley tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"About- what do you mean, 'have a lot in common'?" Himiko stared at Kim awkwardly for a moment. Kim released her death grip in Himiko's shoulder and tucked her arms behind her back.

"I meant we both get judged because of how we look," Himiko said.

"I've seen the way guys look at you, and believe me, I get it. I got this thing-" Himiko flexed her metal prosthetic for a moment.

"-and dudes still think of me as some little waif," Himiko said.

"It's infantilizing. I get why you don't really want to parade your good looks around."

"Oh. Oh. Right. We both- we look the same," Kim mumbled. Given the reference to Himiko's robotic arm, Kim had thought she might be referring to Kim's semi-mechanical status.

"What did you think I meant?" Kim shrugged, to try and play off the moment, but could not disguise a glance at Himiko's prosthetic. Himiko raised an eyebrow.

"Do you have a prosthetic too?" It was apparently a good day for incorrect guesses, but it gave Kim good cover, so she played along.

"Sort of," she mumbled.

"Must be a damn good one if I haven't already noticed," Himiko said.

"Though admittedly, most are a lot more subtle than mine." She shrugged her metal shoulder once more and, in a truly rare display, unlatched the mechanism that held her prosthetic in place. The weighty construct fell to the beach, creating a small crater in the sand as it landed. Himiko shrugged her newly bare shoulders and re-adjusted to the absence of the oppressive weight. Try as she might, Kim could not help but glance at the scarred stump of an arm the prosthetic had been hiding.

"To answer the question you're obviously wondering about: it happened when I was eight," Himiko said.

"And believe it or not, it was something as stupid as falling out of a tree. I got a fracture, an infection we didn't find in time, and... well, ta-da." Himiko turned and displayed her very prominent absence of an arm.

"Prosthetic or no, you never really get used to it, do you?" Himiko wondered aloud. Sometimes she still had the odd sensation that her prosthetic was just an oversized glove, and when she took it off at the end of the day her old flesh and blood arm would still be there.

"Sometimes there's no getting used to it," Kim mumbled.

"You just have to live with it." Himiko nodded, and looked down at her discarded prosthetic. In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have dropped it in the sand. It was going to be an absolute bitch picking sand out of the joints later.

"I think I've already encroached on your emotional boundaries enough for one day, so I won't ask for your story," Himiko said. She bent down and hitched her shoulder back into the latching mechanism that held her arm in place.

"But I'm always willing to listen if you ever want to talk." Himiko stood up straight and dragged her arm with her, holding it in place. It always took a bit for the internal mechanisms to properly secure themselves.

"I don't really... I mean, I'm not- I don't have a... you know," Kim mumbled. After all that emotional honesty, she was starting to feel bad about misleading Himiko. She didn't know how else to explain herself, though.

"I'm not actually like you. Like that. I don't have a prosthetic." Himiko stared forward blankly as one of the mechanisms in her arm whirred.

"I don't get you, Kim."

"That's what I've been saying! No one does!" Kim groaned.

"Nobody can make sense of me!"

"Yeah." Kim froze. She had been anticipating a lot of different responses, but that was not one of them.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I don't get you. I don't really get most of the guys we hang out with, either. Sarah especially, but like, you, Vell, Harley, Kanya, Freddy, all weird. People are weird, Kim." Himiko bent down and hitched her mechanical arm back into place, shaking some sand loose as it reactivated and mounted itself to her shoulder.

"I'd keep talking if I could, but I need to get back to helping my sister," Himiko said.

"Sorry. When this is all over, though, just say the word if you need anything from me."

"Uh... sure, I guess."

"Well you could sound more enthusiastic about it," Himiko said.

"Come on, I'm not weirdly hyper competent at solving random problems like some of these guys, but I'm good at stuff! I want to have your back too."

"Uh... thanks. I appreciate it. I guess I'll let you know."

"Just say the word, any time, any place," Himiko said.

"Except, like, right here and right now. I have to go help my sister with stuff. See you later, Kim!" Himiko ran off, back towards the lab and her sister. She always surprised Kim with how fast she could move with such a heavy weight attached to her shoulder. The heavy arm should've been a burden, but Himiko carried it with ease. Her sister still needed help. Kim could help. She didn't want to help, but she could. Or she could sit here and wait for Wish Fish to show up so she could complain about her feelings.

After Himiko was entirely out of sight, Kim looked down at the sand, and the crater her massive arm had left there. Himiko's footsteps were equally deep, thanks to the incredible weight of her arm. Kim bit her lip and looked at her own footprints in the sand. They were so light they were barely noticeable. A quiet splash signaled Wish Fish emerging from the waves.

"Got to say, Kim, your friends keep getting weird and weirder," he said.

"That one was- Kim?" All Wish Fish could see were a few barely-visible footprints in the sand, leading back towards the lab. With only a handful of robots and a show to do in less than half an hour, Matsuki had done what all great artists did in the face of adversity: get desperate. The robotics lab had been half-converted into a green room for an upcoming fashion show, as robots and humans alike were prepped with their outfits for the nightly turn on the runway.

"Please? I'm sure you'll look great," she pleaded.

"I assure you I will not," Vell said. He wasn't ideologically opposed to wearing a dress, by any means, he just didn't have the hips to pull off this particular ensemble. Despite his narrow, pencil-like waist, Vell's height and scrawny physique actually made him a match for a lot of runway models.

"It'll work! You have a surprisingly nice butt!"

"Surprisingly? Why is everyone so surprised by my ass?"

"You're a bit on the scrawny side, buddy," Luke said. As their second most attractive friend, Luke had been asked to volunteer his bodacious bod for fashion purposes, and he had eagerly accepted, if only to prove that he was actually their tied-for-first-place most attractive friend. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"It works for you, though," Matsuki assured Vell.

"Tall and slender is en vogue all over Asia these days."

"We're not in Asia."

"Still!"

"I just don't think I can do this," Vell said.

"Lee's already double-timing illusion spells to get the robots looking good, I don't think she has time to fix my look."

"Oh, alright," Matsuki said.

"We'll find some other workaround. Luke, are you still good to go on the menswear?"

"Me and my square shoulders are good to go," Luke said, posing proudly to emphasize said squareness. His preening posture deflated in an instant when the door to the lab slammed open. Kim stomped in and forced herself forward, not giving herself any time to second guess or hesitate on her current path.

"I want to do it," Kim said.

"I want to help."

"Really?" Matsuki's face practically lit up with delight, and that made it a little easier for Kim to keep going. It also helped that she couldn't see Luke gritting his teeth.

"Yes! Definitely, yes, for sure," Kim said. She had to repeat it a few times to really lock herself in.

"Excellent! You're going to be amazing, Kim, trust me," Matsuki said.

"Vell, get your hands off that dress and give it to Kim, stat, then go get the other dresses lined up. If we run the bots and Luke between each of Kim's walks we might be able to get her through every dress without too much hassle." The dressing room sprang into action to rewrite their already last minute plans, this time including Kim. In the middle of the hustle and bustle, Himiko found some time to pull Kim aside under the auspices of a dress fitting.

"Are you sure about this, Kim?"

"Well, not one-hundred percent," Kim said.

"But I'm at least more than fifty percent sure, which is fine. I'm just going to rush through it and everything will be fine. Completely fine." Multiple apocalypses had taught Kim the virtue of turning her brain off and rushing through scenarios both strange and unpleasant. She was relatively confident that this fashion show could not be any more dangerous or upsetting than a legion of man-eating eels or a hallway made out of eyeballs.

"I can do this," Kim said.

"Just get me in the dress and get me going."

"Alright! Trust me, Kim, you're going to love it."

"I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it," Kim chanted to herself. The fashion show was like the hall of eyes all over again. It was even worse, to some extent, because this time the eyes were actively watching, judging, examining and scrutinizing ever aspect of her appearance. They were also taking pictures, pictures that could be copied and circulated until the images of Kim were spread all over the world.

"If you're not comfortable, we can always-""No, no backing down now," Kim insisted.

"How many more of these do I have to do?"

"Well, that was the first one, so…"

"Oh no." In spite of Kim's vehement hatred of everything she was doing, she still took the dress Himiko handed her and started changing into it.

"Kim, seriously, you don't have to do this," Himiko said.

"I know I don't," Kim said. The idea of running away and never doing anything like this again was running on a loop in her mind constantly.

"I'm doing it anyway. You need help."

"Oh, thank you so much," Matsuki said. Kim and Himiko shared a look as Matsuki rushed off to get Luke prepped for his next turn on the catwalk.

"She's always a little out there," Himiko said.

"But she's my sister. What are you going to do?"

"Dress in ridiculous outfits, apparently," Kim said, as she slipped into her next ludicrous gown.

"If it helps, you look fabulous," Himiko said.

"It doesn't." Kim clenched her fists and started walking back towards the runway. The closer she got, the more she forced herself to remember the basics of modeling Matsuki had taught her. Keep a straight face, shoulders back, hips relaxed. Kim forced herself to walk like a supermodel even while she felt like a plastic doll. Gawking ooh's and aah's from either side of the runway were a constant reminder of how many people were watching her.

Between bright runway lights and the constant flash of cameras, Kim couldn't see the audience as anything but black outlines, but even that was too much. If anything, it might have been worse. It left her to imagine the way they gawked and stared, how many pictures they were taking that she could never erase. Kim reached the end of the runway and turned sharply, putting her back to most of the crowd. Having her back to the crowd made it a little easier to stomach the catwalk, as did being able to see Luke.

He was hamming it up to a ludicrous extent, in a transparent attempt to upstage Kim. She wasn't bothered by that in the slightest. The more Luke upstaged her, the less people paid attention to her. While Luke strutted and Kim struggled, one of the few robotic models Harley and company had managed to assemble in time for the show also took to the runway. It was wearing an even more awkward, oddly designed dress, with so many layers of odd bullshit that it couldn't even walk straight.

Kim tried not to pay too much attention to it as she passed by. Seeing other robots that looked like humans was uncomfortable, to say the least. It only got more uncomfortable when Kim saw a glint of red out of the corner of her eye as she passed the other robot. She turned sharp on her heel while the robot stopped in it's tracks.

"New protocols engaged."

"Oh no."

"Calibrating termination metrics," the robot said.

"Kim E. Komi: ten out of ten."

"Cut it out," Kim snapped. She grabbed the robot and tried to turn its head away from anyone else, but it was too late. Red eyes had already latched on to Luke.

"Luke Fennel: Nine point nine out of ten."

"Hey! I am not-" Luke's offense was intense but brief, as the robot lunged at him and wrapped its hands around his throat, replacing any and all aesthetic concern with the overriding concern of "don't get strangled to death". Luke kicked at the robot's gut and tried to get it off of him as the room flew into a panic.

"Aesthetic termination protocols engaged," the robot model droned.

"Only perfection can be tolerat-" The robot's highly judgmental and more-than-a-little eugenicist speech came to a very sudden end thanks to a one-hundred pound metal fist crushing its head like a grape. Everyone had been rushing to help -except Vell, who for some reason was sprinting into the rafters of the showroom- but Himiko had gotten there first. She'd been backstage, and therefore the closest. Unfortunately, the other robots had also been backstage.

While Himiko used her massive prosthetic to fend off some of the attacking robots, Kim got improvisational. She ripped one of the blinding stage lights off the edge of the runway and slammed it down on a robots head, sending a surge of electricity coursing through the murderous model's body. Himiko swatted one of the remaining robots away, then grabbed another and crushed it in her grip.

Kim bashed in the head of a second bot while Himiko destroyed another with a crushing grip, and then swung her fist in the direction of the next approaching target.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Matsuki held up her hands, and Himiko managed to pause herself mid-punch.

"Sorry. Kind of got into robot-punching mode."

"Yeah, okay, I get it, but there were like five of them," Matsuki said. She gestured downwards to all five broken robot husks. The 3D printer staying broken had made the robot uprising a very short affair.

"Yeah. Yeah, I get it, just whoof, adrenaline, you know?"

"You always were a bit of a thrill-seeker, Miko," Matsuki said.

"But why did this happen?" Kim picked up one of the broken robot's heads, and stared into its red eyes. Harley had supposedly taken steps to ensure the robot's never went rogue, and yet it had happened anyway.

"Sarah, you were supposed to get rid of all the red eyes," Harley snapped.

"And it was done. These eyeballs are not mine."

"Then whose are they?" No sooner had Harley finished her question than a body plummeted from the rafters above the catwalk, landing between Kim and Himiko with a dull thud. Matsuki took one look at the dead body and shrieked at the top of her lungs.

"Oh relax, Matsuki," Harley said.

"It's not that kind of dead body." The body that had dropped into their midst let out a quiet groan and started to rise up, prompting Matsuki to shriek again. The impromptu resurrection came to a decisive end when Vell jumped down from the rafters after his opponent, and landed on top of them.

"Sorry about the scare," Vell said.

"But there's nothing to worry about." Vell grabbed the dead body by the hair and lifted up its head. Harley let out a loud groan of frustration as her suspicions were confirmed.

"Undedison!" The undead plagiarist scowled defiantly as Vell showed his face to the crowd. The resurrected "inventor" and annual thorn in Harley's side had apparently decided to ruin the show by any means necessary. Vell had happened to catch a glimpse of him fumbling around the catwalks above the stage as the chaos broke out. Edison's elaborate schemes always tended to fall apart for him at the last minute.

"That's right, 'twas I who-""Did you just say 'twas'?"

"I- yes," Undedison mumbled.

"Dude, you're from the 1800's, not the 1600's," Harley said.

"Talk like a person."

"Fine. Yes, I sabotaged the robots," Undedison said.

"If the robots went haywire you'd get expelled and I could take your work no problem."

"Fucker. Vell, keep sitting on him until I think of a worse thing to do to him."

"Fine by me," Vell said. Harley began deliberating on myriad torments for her undead nemesis while the rest of her team started cleaning up the wreckage of the robots he had hijacked.

"Terribly sorry about your show, Matsuki," Lee said.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Matsuki said.

"It's not like there's any way you could've seen this coming." Lee tried very hard to stop herself from cringing. Being murdered by incredibly judgmental fashion robots made it hard to do detective work, yes, but she still couldn't help but feel they should've been more vigilant.

"It would've been nice to get through the entire show, but we got a decent portion," Matsuki said.

"I'm sure I can spin this into extra publicity easy enough. How often do fashion shows get thwarted by undead inventors?"

"This is a first," Himiko said.

"And that's coming from us."

"Being fashionable is all about being a trendsetter," Matsuki said.

"If I spin this right they'll be staging zombie attacks in Milan and Paris before the year's over."

"Uh…"

"Hey, Himiko, you free? We need your big metal arm," Harley said.

"What do you want?" Himiko snapped back.

"If you've decided on pulverizing him, I'm in."

"Nah, I got bored," Harley said.

"We're just going to go chuck him in the ocean and then go make some mimosas."

"Ooh, mimosas," Himiko said.

"I'm even more in. Let's toss the bitch." One march to the ocean and a quick toss later, the matter of Undedison was settled, and priorities shifted to cocktails. Kim still couldn't get drunk, so she sat on the sidelines as everyone else toasted to a show that, if not successful, was at least survivable. Not every campus event could boast that. Matsuki regaled the group with tales of other fashion mishaps while Kim tried to entertain Botley, which was, thankfully, an easy task.

The only other truly intelligent machine on the planet was entertained by Kim flipping a coin. As the coin spun in the air, Kim wondered what had Botley so enthralled. It might just have been as simple as watching a shiny object fly around, or maybe, like Kim, he was trying to guess which side the coin would land on. She had leagues more computing power than the little robot, but even she could only guess which side the coin would land on about seven out of ten times. Better than most, but still not perfect.

There was always an element of chance. Including, apparently, the chance that someone would come up and snatch the coin out of midair. The quarter made a soft 'clink' as Himiko snatched it between metal fingertips. Botley's tiny head sank in disappointment.

"Hey Kim. Thought I'd come and say thanks for helping out, again," Himiko said.

"I know that wasn't easy for you."

"I've done worse things for worse reasons," Kim mumbled.

"Still. I appreciate it," Himiko said.

"And I'm glad you got the chance to show off the real you during the show."

"Those ridiculous outfits weren't anything close to the real me," Kim scoffed.

"Whatever that is."

"I meant the part where you kicked ass," Himiko said.

"That's the real you." Cheesy as it was, that managed to put a smile on Kim's face. Himiko shifted the coin in her fingers, held it for a moment, and then flipped it upwards with a massive metal thumb. It landed in front of Kim, heads up.

"I- thanks," Kim mumbled.

"Just glad I could help."

"Me and Matsuki both appreciate it," Himiko said.

"And I repeat, let me know if you ever need help with anything."

"I'll keep it in mind," Kim said. She picked up her coin and looked up at the giant metal arm Himiko had used to flip it.

"Uh. Can I ask you one question, for now?"

"Shoot."

"How do you lift that giant arm?" The construct looked like it weight a hundred pounds or more, and Himiko herself was barely above five feet tall. Kim had no idea how she lugged around the massive weight.

"By lifting it," Himiko said.

"Sure, but like, with anti-gravity, or some kind of magnetic thing, or-" Kim's questioning came to a screeching halt when Himiko started taking her shirt off. The inexplicable action became quite explicable in short order. Himiko flexed, showing off a six-pack that could cut diamonds and rock-hard deltoids. Even the short stump of her severed arm had a bulging bicep on what remained of it. Himiko struck a few poses, and Kim had to put a hand on her chin to stop herself from biting her tongue.

"Does that answer your question?"

"Uh-""Yes, of course it does, now put your shirt back on," Matsuki said. She shook her head and looked at Harley.

"She does this every time."

"I know," Harley said. Himiko had pulled the same move not long after they'd met.

"At least she had a bra on this time."

"Excuse me?" Himiko buttoned up her shirt and ran off to do damage control with her sister, leaving Kim behind. She didn't mind the solitude. Her question had been answered, and she'd learned a few new and exciting things on top of that. She definitely understood why everyone liked to stare at pretty people now.