The alarm went off, quiet at first, then louder and louder. Jane 64 woke up slow, like always. Morning was never easy for her. Jane 23 waited for 64’s eyes to open all the way before she got up. They made their bed together, as all the girls did, before getting in line for the showers. They put their sleep clothes in the hamper, got wet, scrubbed down. A clock on the wall counted minutes, but Jane 23 didn’t need to look at it. She knew what five minutes felt like. She did this every day.

A Mother walked through the doorway. She handed each of the Janes a clean stack of work clothes as they went out. Jane 23 took a bundle from the Mother’s metal hands. Mothers had hands, of course, and arms and legs like girls did, but taller and stronger. They didn’t have faces, though. Just a dull silver round thing, polished real smooth. Jane 23 couldn’t remember when she first figured out that the Mothers were machines. Sometimes she wondered what they looked like inside, whether they were full of good stuff or junk. Had to be good stuff; the Mothers were never wrong. But when they got angry, Jane 23 sometimes pictured them all filled up with junk, rusted and sparking and sharp.

Jane 23 entered the sorting room and sat down at her bench. A full meal cup and a bin of clean scrap were waiting for her. She put on her gloves and pulled out the first piece: an interface panel, screen shattered in little lines. She flipped it over and inspected the casing. It looked easy enough to open up. She got a screwdriver from her toolkit, and took the panel apart real careful. She poked at the pins and wires, looking for junk. The screen was no good, but the motherboard looked good, maybe. She pulled it out slow, slow, slow, taking care not to touch the circuits. She connected the board to a pair of electrodes built into the back of her bench. Nothing happened. She looked a little closer. There were a couple of pins out of place, so she bent them back right and tried again. The motherboard lit up. That made her feel good. It was always good, finding the bits that worked.

She put the motherboard in the tray for keeping, and the screen in the tray for junk.

Her morning continued much the same way. An oxygen gauge. A heating coil. Some kind of motor (that one had been real good to figure out, all sorts of little bits that spun ’round and ’round and ’round . . .). When the junk tray was full, she carried it to the hatch across the room. She tipped the junk in, and it fell down into the dark. Below, a conveyor belt carried it away to . . . wherever junk went. Away.

‘You are very on-task today, Jane 23,’ one of the Mothers said. ‘Good job.’ Jane 23 felt good to hear that, but not good good, not like she’d felt when the motherboard worked, or when she’d been waiting for Jane 64 to wake up. This was a small kind of good, the kind of good that was only the opposite of the Mothers being angry. Sometimes it was real hard to guess when they’d be angry.

Local folder: downloads > reference > self

File name: Mr Crisp’s Beginner User Manual (All Kit Models)

Chapter 2 – Real Quick Answers To Common Questions Many of the points explained here are covered in greater detail later on. This is simply a quick list to answer the questions I get most often regarding new installations.

– Your body has been given a three-day ‘booster charge’, which will give you the energy needed to start moving (and, of course, to support your core consciousness). By then, your onboard generator will have harvested enough kinetic energy to keep you going. You’ll be able to power yourself by that point. Unless you spend several days completely motionless in bed, you’ll always have enough power.

– You are waterproof! Fun party tricks include sitting at the bottom of a pool, or sticking your head in a globe of water in a zero-g environment. Don’t do this around people you don’t trust, obviously.

– You don’t sweat and you can’t contract diseases, but practising hygiene habits comparable to those of organic sapients provides many benefits. For starters, you need to do it to keep up appearances (you will get dirty!). Most importantly, you may not be able to get sick, but whatever’s on your hand can be passed along to your organic buddies. Ask a friend to teach you about hand washing.

– You can safely ingest food and drink. Your false stomach can store a total of 10.6 kulks of foodstuffs for twelve hours. Beyond that point, bacteria and mould growth is an inevitability, and you don’t want to pose a health hazard to your friends (plus, your breath will smell gnarly). As you don’t have a digestive system, you’ll need to empty your stomach when you get home. Refer to chapter 6, section 7 for instructions.

– STAY AWAY FROM LARGE MAGNETS. Small ones are fine. Industrial strength ones are a problem. Keep this in mind if you plan on spending any time in shipyards or tech factories.

– Your hair, nails, claws, fur, and/or feathers do not grow. You’re welcome. (Note for Aandrisk models only: I recommend spending three days at home twice a standard. Aandrisks commonly take time off during a moult, and no one will question it. While you won’t suffer this problem, bowing out for a few days will keep people from getting curious as to why you haven’t shed your skin.)

– Your strength, speed, and constitution are on par with that of your chosen species.

– Your body can withstand a vacuum, though the cold of open space will begin to negatively affect your skin after an hour. Feel free to enjoy an unsuited spacewalk, but mind the time, and again, don’t do this in sight of people you don’t trust implicitly.