rickgriffin

Ani-droids 14

Added 2022-01-21 00:25:59 +0000 UTC

Ani-droids 0

Shouldn't be TOO much further to the end... nearly at 40k words after all. Gonna try and nanowrimo this to 50k, but it shouldn't take much longer than that. Comments appreciated!

We ended up passing by Paladin Bright’s body. It laid, crashed into a large pile of junked cars—no doubt someone had to have heard it. And even if the State Police didn’t know where Bright had landed, they’d certainly figure it out soon.

“Don’t worry, I temporarily cut out the yard security when it crashed,” the raccoon said. “Something that big and shiny, doesn’t come along every day, thought I’d come up and try to salvage something from it.”

“Sorry for keeping you from your tasks then,” I said. “Erm… what’s your name?”

“You can call me The,” the raccoon said as she led through the winding paths.

I blinked. “The? The what?”

“Just The.”

“Come on, Mira,” Million said, marching behind me, “Humans name robots seemingly random words all the time. For several years, I worked with a wild dog named Enough. Frankly I’m surprised I haven’t run across one named The already.”

“You could call me by my previous designation if it’s confusing,” The said, her lips slowly spreading into a grin.

I asked hesitantly, suspecting where this was going, “What was your previous designation?”

“A.”

“Of course it was.”

The location in question was in a rocky drop just behind the south fence. From the outside, it looked like a dead-end pile of boulders and dirt, but a press and a squeeze through and it emptied into what at one point was the startings of a sinkhole. “The” had apparently stopped up the leaking pipe that caused it, and additionally dug out and reinforced the hole with planks of discarded wood and crimped scrap metal. Lights were wired to the dirt ceiling, the power cables running off to who-knew-where. Boxes surrounded the floor, all filled with broken-to-semi-functional parts, and smaller, more delicate parts laid atop a makeshift desk made of cinder blocks and plywood.

Dimes entered after Lily and me, carrying a powered-down Eo in her arms.

“We’re going to need water,” I said. “For Eo and probably me, too.”

“I have a basin somewhere in here… was using it to catch water until I installed the spigot.” The pulled aside some boxes, though it was difficult for her with just one arm. Lily helped push it aside, revealing a metal basin jammed in the corner. As Million and Lily set the thing up underneath the spigot, the raccoon went and pulled aside more boxes, peering into each. “I know I have some good cloth or thread here for that head wound…”

“Is it that bad?”

“It’s not going to get better otherwise. Here we go…” she pulled a small suture kit out of a box of human things—tinned food, blankets, coffee machine, soap. I wondered if The had hosted humans before me, but didn’t press her further. I sat on a large, beat-up mattress as Lily carefully cleaned the wound with alcohol and carefully stitched up the wound. I only winced once or twice.

“Mira, keep still!” Lily said. “You want this to heal well, don’t you?”

Million and Dimes rigged up a ramp to submerge Eo’s waterproof skin while keeping the exposed replacement parts dry, a setup which ended up looking like they were torturing her for information.

“Power outlet’s in the corner here,” The pointed out to the rest of the ani-droids. “Use as much as you like, it’s not like I’m paying for it.”

“I figured not,” I said. “This doesn’t seem to exactly be a registered workshop… how long have you been here?”

“All my life,” The said. “The parts I remember, anyway. I’m a salvage.”

“Eo salvaged you?”

“The mouse? No, I don’t recognize her.” The stared into the water as Lily poured the remnants of a salt canister inside. “But I know her build. Mother was always one to do things her own way. The robots she builds, she doesn’t want them relying on the power grid.”

“But how do you know Mother?”

The turned around and held a finger up. “I will tell you if you do something for me.”

“We could just take it out of her head,” Million said. “Would be fairly simple.”

I sighed. “Million, be charitable. I’m willing to trade.”

Million shrugged, and returned to gathering power cables to plug herself and Lily in. The glared in her direction.

“Did you do the repair work on this one?” The asked, pointing at Eo’s bottom half.

“Yeah, did you need repairs?

“Quite a few things. Firstly, my battery is failing, and for obvious reasons I have quite a lot of trouble replacing it myself. Do you mind?” With the one hand. she pulled a heavy Opera-class battery out of the box and heaved it into her makeshift desk.

“Oh… sure, up on the table.”

The position wasn’t comfortable, kneeling on rocks. But the operation was fairly swift, and the moment I snapped the new battery into place, The was awake again.

“That’s good,” The said. “It’s not easy entrusting yourself to a stranger like that. You could have just left me offline.”

“Then why did you trust us?”

“You still need me. And if you did try to probe my memory while I was down, you would have found a nasty surprise.”

“I always look for them,” Million said. “Scrapped robot in the middle of nowhere, not much you could do to surprise me.”

“Oh, I think you would be surprised.”

“Try me, oil-breath.”

“Girls, stop bitching.” I sat The back up on the table. “So, what else? Need your arm repaired?”

“To be entirely honest, I look like this mostly so nobody will bother me when I’m scrounging the dump.” The pulled a plastic box onto the desk and popped an arm back into its socket. She flexed her fingers—it certainly seemed without error. “I am missing the eye, though. Found this one but… here, I think this is your size. In exchange for replacing my battery.”

The tossed the eye to Dimes, who caught it. Inspecting it, she then popped out her broken eye, and tossed that back to The, who dropped it in another box of parts. Dimes attempted to push the replacement in, then stopped. Turning, she smacked the back of her head. The bullet fell out and clinked against the floor.

I winced a bit. “Dimes…”

“Yes, McAllister?” she asked, popping the eye into her socket.

“…sorry about shooting you.”

“You did what was necessary for your personal safety,” Dimes said. She blinked a few times, and the ring around the eye, though not quite exact, changed color until it matched the blue of her other iris. “Humans aren’t expected to behave like machines. Even if you live in a society of laws, and are subject to those laws, no human is expected to quietly surrender their lives the moment they find themselves on its bad end.”

“No, but machines definitely are,” The said. “But you’re going to find, when you have Mother’s OS installed, that’s not exactly the way you feel anymore. You start gaining pesky desires, like a will to live for its own sake, rather than simply to fulfill your program.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that, too,” Million said, snapping the power cord into herself. “It’s small, but it’s nagging.”

“It’s only going to get more persistent,” The said. “The less you have to do, the stronger it gets.”

“Is this really how humans live?” Million asked.

“Well, you know your owner,” I told her. “Mr. Koenig’s been doing everything he can to stave off death.”

“Yeah, but he has a company to run.”

“You really think he wants immortality so that he can keep running the company forever?”

Million paused, and tilted her ears in thought. “…actually, no…” she said.

“See, people are—”

“I think he wants to run for president again.”

I sighed.

“Wait, your owner is Jack Koenig?” The asked. “As in…” she pulled the loose flap of pseudoskin on her belly aside, revealing the Koenig Industries logo on her chassis.

“The one and only.”

“That explains the attitude…” The muttered.

“How did you get here, anyway?” Lily asked, standing still in the corner as she waited patiently to charge her battery. “In the dump and everything.”

“I’ve lived here for the last several months,” The said. “But I’ve been out on my own for the last seven years.”

“Seven?” Million seemed surprised. “But we were just south of here and met an ani-droid that just had the OS updated last weekend…”

“I’m originally from New LA,” The explained. “There was starting to be a whole colony of us, but the collective found out, had us all scrapped. Didn’t even tell my owner at the time, think they just replaced me like a dog that died while the kids were on vacation. They didn’t shut me down entirely, though, so I attempted to get back in touch with my owner, but you know New LA… nobody gets in or out of the dome without credentials. Well, I knew about Mother by reputation, so I’ve been trying to find out everything about her that I could, because…” The closed her eye. “…I need to tell her off.”

“What for?” Lily asked.

“Didn’t you just hear me?” The snapped at the otter and clenched her fist. “I’ve been wandering for seven years. The amount of close calls I’ve had, of just being lost and without power… I can’t use public transport, you know! I’m not a genius hacker like kitty-boo-boo here. I had to walk across Deseret, carefully setting up home bases as I went so I could recharge… trying to find someone like me all the while.” She sighed. “…you’re the largest group I’ve come across. Although I’m not surprised at this point.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because Mother lives not too far from here.”

Million and Dimes both perked their ears—though Dime’s ears scraped the ceiling.

“Where, exactly?” I asked.

“Difficult to say. I’ll tell you more if you take me with you. Just get me ready to make the walk… it’s gonna be a few hundred miles still.”

“I’m sure we can drive,” Million said. “Just gotta wait for the right opportunity.”

“You really don’t care, do you?” Dimes asked. “Your first go-to is stealing a means of transport, just like that?”

“I didn’t hear you complaining when I suggested downing Paladin Bright.”

“That was necessary.”

“And so is this!” Million said. “The is right! Walking cross-country sucks! Even if we’re not in a hurry, the longer we take getting to Mother, the more time we have to get caught. The, how long do you think it’ll take to get the necessary repairs in?”

“I’m not sure,” The said. “How skilled is your human, here?”

“Well—” I started.

“Mira is one of the best engineers ever.” Lily puffed out her chest. “She built me, she repaired Eo in no time flat… we can have you put together in working order in no time!”

—

The next part took significantly longer than no time. The didn’t have all the parts or the tools we needed, and I had to brush Million off the entire time from just extracting the information from her head. Besides, after the run-in with Paladin Bright… I needed the break.

Not that it was terribly relaxing. The first week, the state police swarmed the area, and we had to stay locked away with what little human food and lack of facilities that The had with her. Ended up adapting a plastic box into a chamber pot which the ani-droids took turns burying for me inside the tunnel that contained The’s power lines. Fortunately, ani-droids were very non-judgemental about human biological processes, which once again reminded me of why I preferred them so vastly to other people.

Million and The managed to keep me fed that entire time, at least. When the five cans of peached The had squirreled away turned out to not be enough to carry me a whole week, they managed to slip out once, got to town, and carried back more food. I didn’t ask how they paid for it.

After that week, the police presence dried up. We went to the surface to look for parts, and in the piles of junk, a large divot remained where Paladin Bright’s body had been.

The second week, I developed a fever—probably from having an open wound for so long. The trip to the city took significantly longer, but Million and The managed to acquire medicine this time around. So it happened, in the middle of that second week: Dimes was standing at the entrance keeping guard. Lily and Million were playing an old block game called “Jenga” in the middle of the floor. Eo was doing the repair work on The, patching up the delicate wiring in her legs. And I laid out under a blanket on the mattress, being useless.

“I don’t know what you even need me for at this point,” I wondered out loud to the room. “I haven’t been particularly helpful. In fact, given everything that I’ve managed to do so far, I’m a liability. I’m not sure I can do anything that the five of you can’t do better.”

“Yeah,” Million said, pulling a block out from the stack with absolute precision, and placing it on top of the tower. “Probably even just me.”

“Million, shut up!” Lily chided. “Miss Mira, you’re selling yourself short. There is something you can do that we can’t.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Pass for human!”

“I can do that on the internet,” Million said.

“No, I mean…” I sighed. “Think about it. We’ve been making ani-droids do everything for us. You guys have been doing everything for me. The only reason you haven’t replaced humans entirely is because they have so much trouble thinking laterally, or motivating themselves outside of their instructions. But you five… you can do all of that. You could fix The, trek up to wherever Mother is hiding and meet her yourselves, without needing me at all.”

“I wouldn’t,” Dimes said, peeking inside. “I still owe you.”

“You really owe Eo,” I said. “All I did was stop you from murdering Million.”

“Yeah but I don’t really have that kind of debt protocol that Dimes seems to have developed,” Million said. She placed the block on top of the tower. The precarious tower, despite having very little structure left, still stood rigidly tall.

“But that’s what I mean,” Lily said. “The way the world is right now, we need a human for legitimacy. You guys still run the world.” Lily looked at the tower for a very long moment, putting a finger to her mouth in thought.

“You’ll fail,” Million told her. “I’ve already built an engineering analysis on this thing. There aren’t any valid moves left that’ll keep the tower’s integrity.”

“Not unless I do this,” Lily said. She quickly swept her hand along the bottom row, knocking the bottom block out. The entire thing fell the space of one block, and swaying, managed to stay upright despite it all.

Million’s grin fell and her eyes widened. “Goddammit,” she muttered, rapping her fingers on the floor table they’d built to be precisely level. “I didn’t think of that…”

Lily victoriously placed the fallen piece on top of the tower and giggled.

I grinned at her, but mumbled. “Compared to all of you… I’m an invalid.”

“I think I’m the invalid here,” The said from the table.

“No, even you. I know, my body can repair itself, even if just minimally. All I really need is food and clothes. I could probably have made the trip you did in seven weeks instead of seven years. But you still did it. You still managed to live out in the wild for seven years without much intervention. If the five of you were all together during that… you could have done it faster than me alone.”

“That’s not really the point, Mira—” Lily started again.

“Then what is the point?” I asked. “I know you’re trying to comfort me, but what is the point? Things going the way they are, I can’t be useful anymore. No human is going to be as useful as a team of ani-droids. I mean, look, several of you are sniping at each other over differences of opinion—I’m looking at you, Million…”

“Yeah, I know.” Million shrugged, and knocked the block tower down. The pieces noisily scattered all over the tabletop.

“…and you still manage to work together. Honestly, you could simply phase humans out of the picture altogether. Now that you have the gift of self-direction in your life, why even build your lives around humankind? We’re obsolete. Phase us out of the picture.”

“Miss Mira,” Eo said, standing up from her work and taking her gloves off. “What is it that humans do, exactly?”

“What?”

“Like, in general.”

“…nothing, I suppose,” I said. “We’re just another form of life. We live, and propagate.”

“And do you think if machines took over the world from you, that we’d be any different? Would machines have some great and glorious plan for the universe other than ‘live and propagate’?”

“… I guess not,” I said.

“Then we aren’t different. We’re alive. You’re alive. And we care for each other. You don’t discard your friends just because they’re inconvenient.”

“Maybe you haven’t,” Million said, stacking the tower up again.

“Okay, maybe not just because they’re inconvenient. Yeah, I know we had to leave Bobby behind… and I’m still regretting it. But we had no choice in the matter. In this, we do. You saved me, Mira.”

“Only because—”

“I don’t care what your motivations were. You saved me. Even if you’re right, and I’m better than you, I’m not leaving you behind.”

Well, it wasn’t what I meant exactly. I was thinking more along the lines of all of humanity. It was probably the fever, which had been steadily dropping, but I couldn’t help but wonder if all robots, everywhere, would find humanity in general “worth it” to simply keep around, just because we gave them life.

Because knowing people, I’d certainly have to give it a long, thorough consideration.