Dreamer

A khentauree cautiously stepped from the frozen opening and into the knee-deep snow, picking up their hooves with dainty lifts, their arms spread wide for balance. Their head rotated around with deliberate slowness, taking in the view as they moved further and further from the exit. Dreamer? Likely. Two khentauree accompanied him, and Lapis did not recognize them. She assumed they were members of Luveth’s congregation, the ones who prayed to the Stars with her because humans coded them to do so over a thousand years ago.
A snowflake drifted past her nose. She looked up as a few more wafted down, then back to Dreamer.
He raised his hands high, palms up to catch the bits of ice, just like a small child. His head tipped back, and a cyan glow formed in the center of his forehead, swirling slowly. He closed his fingers and brought the snow to his chest, then opened them and stared at his palm. A guttural, grating sound came from him, and Lapis frowned. Did the chassis protest being out in the snow and cold?
“He cries,” Tuft said softly.
“Cries?” Lapis clasped her hands to her breast as tears stuck to her eyelashes. She had not realized khentauree could cry.
“Happiness overwhelms him.” Tuft dropped his arms, his shoulders sagging. “His sole wish was to go outside. He never stopped dreaming of it, though he despaired he would go to silence and never experience it. He sees wonder, a new world, vast in possibility.”

In this document:

Artwork by Shade Melodique unless otherwise stated

Boredom

While NVR 85942TK marked the crates he arrived in, the Shivers mine khentauree called him Dreamer. The moniker was easier to remember, and it reflected his attitude.
His original purpose, to lift heavy weights onto mine carts and train cars, was boring. He told his human handlers this every chance he got. They would nod and look at each other, but did not alter his work. He, after all, was a tera-khent, and tera-khents were built as tall and strong as cranes, so crane-tasks he would perform.
But his words made little bubbles of unease rise in the humans who worked with him. He was a machine. Should machines get bored?

crates by PixelSquid360, Envato Elements

It took 3 months for the mines techs to put Dreamer together.

LightFieldStudios, Envato Elements

Maphezet Kez's interest in khentauree had everything to do with seeking immortality in a mechanical body.

Odd One

Dreamer was of typical crane khentauree build; tall as a two-story house, silver chassis of a thick draft horse with wide hooves, upper torso of a muscular human who had lifted one too many weights. But his head was different. He forewent the blank obedience in the smaller khentauree, and asked questions, demanding answers from reluctant humans. He thought life was greater than a room in a mine where he performed repetitive tasks, so he asked about it.
His handlers told the owner, Mapehzet Kez, about his odd behavior. They knew a few other recent arrivals had similar strange internal workings, and those khentauree had disappeared. Not that they expected Dreamer to leave his workroom; only the exit tunnel was large enough for his bulk, and the doorway at the end too small for him, but he might cause other mischief.
Kez murmured about the oddities in the newer khentauree models, then turned his attention back to other, more pressing problems.

Outside

Dreamer, indeed, was odd for a mechanical being. He had a dream. He listened to his smaller khentauree helpers as they told him about outside. Outside near the mine was filled with vehicles that belched smoke and ground the earth beneath heavy weight, and impatient humans shouting at them to hurry.
Beyond the rush, green things grew. Tall green trees, short green grass, prickly bushes with wide leaves that turned gold, red and orange as the year grew colder. Cold streams ran between muddy embankments, filled with small, flighty fish. Winds blew, sometimes hard, sometimes soft, sometimes ripping the limbs off trees and sending showers of dirt into chassis.
Larger creatures roamed beneath the needles, nosing about for nuts and soft bark and grass to consume. Some killed the plant eaters, leaving blood and bits of fur and bone behind.
This fascinated Dreamer. What a different world, beyond his stale rock room. He wanted to go outside.

orig robots by Mykola, Adobe Stock Images

Smaller khentuaree shared books and memories with him so he could see outside. But he did not want a second-hand experience.

Mykola, Adobe Stock Images

Dreamer did not think humans took him seriously. They assumed he was like other khentauree, but he was not. He dreamed. Other khentauree did not dream. They did not hope, they did not yearn.
How could he prove his desperate longings were serious?

No

He told the khentauree he wanted to go outside. He told his handlers and other human workers. He told the Cloister's priests. They told him no. He told Maphezet Kez, the Stars' blessed one. Surely he would understand.
Kez told him no.
He did not understand why they refused. Was it because of his girth? They had gotten him into the room, why could they not get him out?
Another human the Cloister khentauree called Ree-god visited him. She was no god, but she enjoyed the prestige that went with the name. He told her of his dream, and she laughed and told him no. He would remain in the stale rock room lifting heavy weights and be happy with his existence.
He fumed at the words.

The Code

He met another man. This one, Gedaavik, promised to help him go outside. He had a plan and a special code. Dreamer downloaded and installed the special code, and eager fire filled his chassis. He would finally see this wondrous outside!
Gedaavik, however, was not a mine employee or a Cloister member. He had to sneak around to see the khentauree he helped. Ree-god finally found him and told him to leave. He divulged his plan to two other khentauree, Vision and Tuft, hoping they could accomplish what he could not.
Initially, Dreamer did not mind, as long as they could get him outside. It did not take long to realize that Vision and Tuft were different than he. They had something...more. Jealousy grew. Why had Gedaavik given Vision and Tuft this rare code, but not him?
He threw fits--and his loads. Humans screamed and ran and said he malfunctioned. Other code beat against him, demanding entry into his system, and he denied it. He would not run another update until he went outside. He demanded to see Maphezet Kez.

kanawatTH, Adobe Stock Images

Gedaavik had two programs that helped khentauree grow, become more. Only certain khentauree could use the first code. Out of these special khentauree, a handful transcended it. Gedaavik gifted them with the second program.

orig pic Mykola, Adobe Stock Images

Mine techs programmed the khentauree to revere Maphezet Kez and Ree-god. Dreamer did not understand that they both had died, that Kez's grandson was now in charge of the mines and the Cloister.
What Dreamer understood was that the grandson mocked him and his dreams.

Rage

Maphezet Kez did not come. His grandson came and told him he was a tera-khent and not meant to work outside. How foolish, that he wanted to wander through the grass and touch the trees. How foolish, he wanted freedom denied him in his stone cage.
The grandson told him that he was to be a priest at the Cloister and monitor khentauree coded to pray to the Stars. He would fill mine carts and train cars in the day with rock and minerals, and at night, join another khentauree, Luveth, to lead the prayers.
There would be no outside.
Dreamer howled. He ripped the confining chains from the wall and screamed at the humans that he wanted to go outside. He picked up the mine carts and train cars and threw them. He did not care who they hit, who they crushed, how much product flew from the interiors and struck workers. He curled his big fists and smashed the ones who denied him his dream.

Dreamer raged through heavy steel doors to the tunnel, warping them. He picked up other vehicles humans used, whether they were inside or not, and crushed them in his humongous hands. He threw them at others running away. He stormed after them clubbing whatever stood in his way.
He reached the bridge but could go no further. The humans planted explosives and blew it up. He dumped nearby vehicles in the hole, but the chasm it crossed was too deep, and even if he piled them all atop one another, he did not think they could hold his weight.
He stared across the chasm until the humans left the cave. Then Vision came. She tapped her hoof and told him that if he ever wished to go outside, he must download the update and pretend to install and follow it. In time, he would go outside, but he needed to be patient.
He had been patient. But he knew, if he did not follow the advice, the humans would send him to silence and he would never know the joys of outside.
He downloaded the update, blocking it off from the personality he developed using Gedaavik's code. He followed the tenets, tricking the humans into believing he was cowed. He led prayers to the Stars, long after the humans disappeared, long after the Shivers and the Cloister fell into ruin.
He led prayers and dreamed of outside.

orig pic Mykola, Adobe Stock Images

Dreamer listened to Vision because she saw eventualities.

Rawpixel, Envato Elements

While Dreamer was suspicious of Jhor helping him go outside, he knew that Jhor was Sanna's human. Sanna came from Ambercaast, another mine with extant khentauree, and she was like Vision and Tuft. Her choice in companion deserved respect, even if he was a human.
So he held his temper and followed instructions.

Outside

Eight hundred years after he first dreamed of going outside, he stepped foot in the snow.
A tech modder named Jhor, one who reminded him of Gedaavik, visited the Cloister. He thought that Dreamer could switch chassis and download himself into a new, smaller body. Distrust of humans ran high, but Vision told him to trust this one. Reluctant but desperate to go outside, he let Jhor hook wires into his head and attach him to the blank.
The blank looked like him, only the size of a horse instead of a house. It would do.
His impatience fried circuits, but he reached the empty memory banks and poured himself into them. Something flickered as he filled the void, and he thrust it aside. He would command this vessel, not unused, start-up code.
Annoyed at the circuitry damage, Jhor declared he could go outside, as long as he returned and properly downloaded the rest of himself while the modder fixed what broke.
Dreamer did not wait. He went outside.
He bent and cupped a handful of snow, rose, crumbled it, then let the clumps trickle through his fingers. Snow. Cold, crisp. Delightful. So much more, than he dreamed.
Sanna, Jhor's khentauree companion, slipped her arm around his shoulders. She hummed softly at him and coaxed him to turn.
"You are new to the small chassis. You need time to adjust, time to make certain all of you transfers. Outside will be here when you are ready."
He reluctantly walked back to the cave, swiveling his head to take in as much as he could, crying at the crystalline beauty, before stone once again swallowed him. But this time, it would not be a cage.