Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty

Skye nodded and smiled a little "It's a little scary though, when you only see your own kind then see a city with the others."

"Starr says Asher's fine, and he's been repaired," Vestia reassured Kay. "He had Nova and Mourn with him, they made sure he was safe."

~~
James frowned. "Mourn's the best, I'm sure he can fix it. But... holy crap. I knew our creators were assholes, but still, this is pretty awful of them. I guess it's meeting time?" Yay, meetings.

~~
"Oh, I can imagine," Rhea said. "All the new foods and the new customs. How old were you when you saw a city for the first time?"

Kay nodded slowly, chewing his lip anxiously. [Tell him not to do anything rash.] Damn, looked like the android revolution had to happen sooner rather than later.

---

"Why the hell are they doing it though? there can't be much money in free upgrades!" Matt protested.

"I'll pass on the word," Vestia told Kay. "Although probably there's going to be a meeting soon, and you can probably text him if you want." She told Starr to tell Asher via Nova to be careful. Kind of ungainly, but oh well.

~~
"Hell if I know. Maybe they just like mistreating the people they create for the giggles," James said. "If there's a vote, I vote we get a big bomb and blow up their headquarters, they deserve it."

~~
The other androids, wherever they were around the ship, looked to each other in horror at the news. This sounded bad to them, potentially really bad.

Well, except Ethan. He just snorted at the idiocy of this universe, and went back to his book.

"I will, let me know if anyone wants to have a meeting, they are having a meeting on the Devil now." Starr said

~~~
Skye frowned a little then shook her head "I don't know, it was before Moone was born, so before I was 10."

"It must have been quite the experience," Rhea said with a smile.

"It was. I had only been in out town before and after that time." Skye said with a shrug

Rhea nodded. "Oh, there's a nice photo to take," she said, pointing to the spaceport, where the ships were glittering in the sunlight. "I'd love to go back to Artuvia someday. It's a beautiful place."

Skye smiled, taking the picture then looking over to Rhea "You were actually on Artuvia before?"

"Yes, I was there for a few years, employed by a merchant group, That's why I learned this form, so that I could fit in better." Rhea chuckled, "Although I guess being blue still isn't very stealthy." Blue jays really didn't blend in. They were a little too colorful, and often loud as well, for that.

"It is stealthy enough for the city." Skye said and shook her head a little. "I wonder how many of your people have hidden away in places like Artuvia to stay safe."

"I suppose it is," Rhea agreed. She considered Skye's remark, "It's hard to know. I know that plenty of them tried to hide, but how many actually succeeded, well, that's a different matter. It's possible that there are lots of them out there, maybe even blocking their telepathy to keep their existence secret." She frowned. That might even make it hard for Starr to detect them, she though.

Skye thought about that with a small frown. "I hope they hear about us and know there's hope now."

"Yes, I hope so too. If they don't, well, at least they're living their lives free, I suppose," Rhea said.

~~
Vestia would ask around the ship to find out who was interested in attending a meeting about the robot situation, and would start setting up a video call in some room for anyone who was.

Starr would head for the room for the meeting. Not something she wanted to miss.

Shane frowned a little and would go to see what was up now.

Matt would go with James.

Kay of course would attend.

So would Swarm out of curiosity.

Hewitt didn't care enough. He stayed in his room.

Armin couldn't leave his room, but he trusted the others to make sound decisions.

Ivor had no real reason to attend and was in the middle of a game of monopoly, that he was probably losing.

Silence had no vested interest either, but was nosy so turned up anyway.

ALL the androids showed up, even the ones that weren't MegaBrainTech, and Ethan, even though he looked unimpressed. They were curious, okay?

Ellie wasn't going to go, she liked the baby dragons better.

Vestia would set up the video call for everyone. (I guess we should conduct the meeting entirely on the Silver Devil thread, so this doesn't get too ungainly lol.)

(sounds good)

Asher ended the video call.

James leaned back in his chair, sighing. "Of course they'd pull this crap on us. Of course." Bleh. And the fact that his sister was in danger was starting to sink in now, which made this all the crappier. He had a sinking feeling that he they should have stopped by the space station and rescued her all those months ago, consequences or no.

Ethan got up shaking his head. "Well, we're staying on Vestia for a while I guess. No more city visits." He eyed Kay for a few moments. Honestly being in the same room as the guy bothered him more than this new situation did, the guy might act harmless, but his face still brought back memories.

"I hope Moriah's not going to get in trouble out there," Levi said softly to Bess. Bess nodded in agreement.

Kay looked miserable. He was deeply and horribly concerned.

Matt wheeled over and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "They know what they're doing..."

Kay stared at him.

"Okay, they... kinda know mostly what they're doing.. and aren't idiots. It's gonna be okay!" Matt insisted.

Kay shook his head and stomped off to go furiously clean something, or sort something, just anything to keep his mind off the massive danger Asher was about to subject himself to.

Matt sighed. This sucked, and they couldn't do much this end either.

Swarm buzzed irritably.

Silence quietly listened to those around her.

"We have to do something." Matt decided. He didn't know what, but SOMETHING.

"There is nothing we can do from this distance, except to send word to those we can. If you know of anyone that could help." Starr said with a sigh "About the only ones we could ask for help would be the guild."

James looked glum. "Yeah, there's basically nothing we can do to help. We can ask people for help, sure, but other than that we're useless. I mean, look at us." He traced the woodgrain of the table with one fingertip. "Can't fight, probably aren't permitted to talk cause Asher thinks we'd screw it up. Gotta wait while someone else fixes the situation."

Ethan frowned. "As long as the situation gets fixed, it doesn't matter who fixes it."

"My sister's enslaved and will probably be a brainwashed automaton by the end of the week, I do NOT want to stand by and trust someone else to fix this," James retorted, glaring.

Ethan flinched at the sudden anger, taking an involuntary step away from James.

"Sorry." James looked guilty, he didn't really want to freak anyone out right now. "I just have no clue what to do right now, and it sucks to be useless."

"Can you contact her? Warn her?" Matt asked. He wasn't sure what she could do, but perhaps she could put in a good case to her employer not to install the update.
Maybe?
He looked fretful. "Starr, can you contact the guild? See if you can convince those assholes to help, just a little bit?" Hey any androids they could get out of corporate hands was one who wasn't going to get an update right?

James took a slow "breath", trying to calm himself down. "Yeah. I can contact her. Asher will kill me if I tell her that we're free, but I could tell her what's about to happen, maybe even warn her about the robot rights protest. She's family, she deserves to know that much, right?"

Ethan nodded at Matt's words. "I bet Starr has more contacts at the Guild than most of us, being royal and all. Also she has star dragons. Can your dragons take some less conspicuous form, and try to protect some of the androids here on Terra when the violence starts?"

"This will all be public soon enough, I see no harm in telling her that much." Starr said with a nod. "I will contact the guild and see what they can do to help, even if all they can do is rescue some and send them to my friends in the Mimosa empire instead of keeping them safe there."