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“Okay, I know I said Preservation Station was old and shitty,” I said, as we rode a creaky, rickety elevator down down down, “But this is way older and shittier.” I’m not wrong—pretty sure we were taking a elevator to a literal sewer level of this planet. There was mold everywhere. So, so, so gross.
“Don’t be rude,” ART snapped through the big round drone floating beside me. The human-form bot traveling with us, named Momo (yeah that didn’t bring up any painful memories at all), let off a stream of burbling bot-speak, which ART listened to attentively. “It said—”
“I can read, ART,” I said. I can, even if my OCR is shittier than this planet. And apparently the only way the bots communicate on this planet, aside from their cutesy beep-boop baby talk, is through holographic projections that translate it into one of the languages I actually understand. I never thought I’d say this, but I actually wish there was a human around.
That was the weird thing about this planet, and why ART wanted to visit: there were no humans left.
[All the Soft Ones are gone,] Momo said/broadcasted on its little hologram text box, [We were one of the first planets ever terraformed, you know! And us Companions,] that’s what they call human-form pet-bots here, I guess, [only just recently escaped to the surface after surviving the plague, the dictatorship, the Zurks…we’re only just discovering everything that’s been going on in the universe since our city sealed itself! This planet has been habitable for so long, and we never even realized!]
“Trust me, planets aren’t that great,” I said.
Momo just replied with a shrug. [I’m just happy to be walking in the sunshine with my friends! We were trapped underground for so long. Now, the city is open, and we are free to breathe the fresh air!]
That’s an expression, ART said, in the feed this time, Since the disappearance of humans from their society, these bots have adopted many habits of humans as a form of remembrance, including breathing, eating, and wearing clothes. Though, it added, as Momo stepped out of the elevator, Their fashion sense is terrible!
I like it, I said. Anything that you wore during an apocalypse was cool in my book. And I guess the sunshine was nice when we first landed. I had to admit it was better to be on the surface of one rather than underground. I’m pretty sure the mold growing in a dark corner of the elevator had eyeballs growing out of it. I did the smart thing for once and didn’t scan it.
I followed after Momo’s colorful wardrobe as it headed down some stairs, towards something called the ‘Control Room,’ where I presume someone more useful would be able to tell us what we were doing here. Well— besides letting ART squee all over the historical artifacts and marvel at the ‘social experiment’ that was an entire bot-populated planet. ART had this idea to incorporate the bots into the university, or get researchers to come in and study the planet. Some nerd thing, I don’t know. I do know it really wanted to make this planet into some kind of bot freehold society. Like you can just make a utopia anywhere outside a media serial. This was no utopia, this was a group of bots collectively thrown into major upheaval after years of stagnation and not knowing what to do about it. They didn’t cause problems because they hadn’t had a chance, yet.
Or, someone was in charge that they didn’t tell us about.
[Welcome to the Control Room!] Momo said, cheerfully. [May I introduce our, haha, overlords?]
I knew it. I got my energy weapons ready as the doors slid open to reveal banks of computers, a big window, and—
Domestic fauna?
They’re called cats, ART reminded me as I stared around the room at a dozen of the things loitering on the carpets and consoles. All different colors and sizes and shapes. Bots dotted the room, just basking in the cats’ presence with their display surfaces dissolving into heart sigils. The smell was, as you can imagine, incredible.
[This is the little one that started it all,] Momo said, and showed us into the presence of an orange striped cat. It was curled up on the chest of a bot wearing a hat like the one Ratthi wears. Well, at least it wasn’t licking its asshole like Ratthi’s cat is so fond of doing.
It opened its eyes as we approached. Its fur rippled, and its eyes flashed like the monsters in some of my favorite bad horror serials. It then immediately leapt off the bot and rubbed its little fuzzball body all over my pants. I like these pants, they have the most sealable pockets and a comfy waistband. Now they were covered in motes of hair. The list of gross things my eyes had to witness while on this planet just kept getting longer and longer.
[The little one likes you!] Another bot, apparently made entirely of display surfaces, said from nearby. It’s holographic display informed me its name was Zbaltazar. [I thought it would! It’s never met a Soft One before!]
“I’m not a Soft One,” I said, firmly, stepping away from the fauna.
It squeaked at me, little furry head cocked to one side as it looked up at me like I was broken. I felt somehow called out.
[Close enough,] Momo said, while the cat apparently decided I wasn’t worth the time of day and turned its attention to ART’s drone. ART extended an arm to give the fauna an obliging scratch on the top of its back, making it arch up.
How does it feel to be the most human thing in the room? ART said, with several smirking sigils.
I told ART to fuck off.
The cat meowed again. It turned and, without warning, danced up toward ART’s drone with claws flying. I snatched ART’s drone back, using the heavy canvas of my (favorite) pants to shield ART from further attack. I prepared for a fight but the fauna just dashed over to a corner of the room, then back again. It performed this a couple of times—attack, dash, return.
“If this is your overlord I’d hate to see your governing system,” I said, deploying my energy weapons but not looking like I was deploying my energy weapons. Ratthi has a lot of different domestic fauna besides this kind, and I decided I pretty much preferred all the other kinds to this one.
[It’s trying to tell us something!] another bot in an orange puffy vest, labelled Seamus, pulled my arm down and shoved the energy weapon back into its housing. This is super dangerous by the way. Seamus didn’t even seem to notice. [This little fuzzball is way more intelligent than it looks!]
That I doubted, especially as the cat started batting around a little toy on the carpet. It looked like one of ART’s smaller surveillance drones. No wonder the fauna tried to lunge for the bigger version.
[That’s B-12,] Zbaltazar said. [It was helping the little one escape the city. It must have been destroyed somehow.]
The cat grunted and leapt onto the nearby console, then back down toward the B-12 drone.
[It might be trying to tell us something about B-12 and the central computer,] another bot, identified as Doc, said, [The one that powers the entire city. We can’t get it to boot up properly, it keeps flickering on and off in different sectors. If we could get it working it would go a long way toward getting this planet back on its feet!]
The cat meowed with, I think, annoyed emphasis. Though I highly doubted its ‘superior intelligence’ (all it probably had in that tiny head was more fluff), I humored it and picked up the fallen drone. The cat meowed again and started scratching my leg, which: ow. Also: rude! I sat down on the ground before it ruined my favorite pants entirely. It promptly curled up in my lap to look at the drone with me. When it wasn’t clawing at me, its tiny paws were kind of cute…
Every single bot in the room responded with heart sigils on their display surfaces.
“Ugh, get a room.” I don’t know, its something they say on my shows. I scanned the drone. It appeared to have been operating at over capacity since its activation, which, yeah, would explain all the blown fuses. I didn’t even think you could run these little drones above capacity. Its hard drive and motherboard were completely shot.
The cat leapt out of my lap and pawed at the console again.
[If only we could understand it,] Momo said sadly. [Our library of cat vocabulary is still rather limited. Perhaps you can understand it, since you are also a Soft One?]
I do not like that this is my defining characteristic on this planet. I mean, the cat’s way softer than me. But I watched the cat run back and forth between the broken B-12, the console, and me. I compared it to the behaviors my humans show in times of distress: run to problem, run to SecUnit, repeat until SecUnit fixes problem.
Fine.
“Hey, ART,” I asked, “do you think it’s trying to, maybe…rescue the bot somehow? You know, like I rescued you?”
“You hardly rescued me,” ART objected. “I was merely in need of some minor assistance and you just happened to be—”
“ART!”
“…I am not familiar with cat body language. However, if this animal is hyper-intelligent it may have learned to use similar signalling language to that of humans. And it does appear to be indicating some relationship between the drone and the central computer.”
It could just say I was right, but no, ART’s just like that. It floated over to examine the console itself. “An entity did access this control panel while the drone was connected,” it said. “A bot, I believe, of a sophistication level similar to mine.”
The fauna batted at the drone.
“I’d hardly believe an intelligence of my size could fit in a drone that small,” ART said dismissively.
The cat meowed, or—growled? I definitely recognized that attitude.
“Maybe it figured out a way, and that’s why the drone eventually failed?” I stood up and poked at the console. “If the drone contained a bot consciousness, a buffer copy might have been saved to the central computer’s mainframe.”
“…In the same manner I saved a copy of myself,” ART mused, like this was its idea all along. “Fascinating!”
I rolled my eyes (I definitely didn’t smile fondly or anything).
[Yes! That little drone!] Doc punched the air. [After all, it was B-12 that translated for our furry friend—they worked together to defeat the Zurks using my ray gun, and reunited my son and I!]
I frowned. “Your son? How—”
[That’s it!] Doc said, ignoring me, [B-12 must be lost in the mainframe, and the little one needs our help to rescue it!]
The bots gathered around me, their display surface faces all hopeful. It was like, human expressions on steroids, you know? Companies build these human-form bots to hijack human behaviors and get them to do all kinds of crazy things (I’m not making this up, ART showed me a documentary about it). I guess it was okay in this circumstance, since they were only influencing my behaviors for their own purposes rather than a company. And its not like it actually affected me, a construct, whose organic parts are mostly just skin-deep.
This is a long-winded way to say that they got me, and good.
I totally would have helped them either way, though. It’s more the principle of the thing.
I stormed over to the nearest console.
2.
The cat wound between my legs and purred encouragements (or possibly threats, not too sure—I’m pretty sure it tried to trip me once) as I started to type into the console. When my efforts did not produce immediate results it hopped up next to me, poking at the keys. I shooed it away.
It responded by jumping onto my face, hooking its claws in my collar, then slam-dunking itself into the hood of my jacket.
“ART!” I yelped—or said, definitely said.
“I don’t know how to direct the behaviors of cats,” ART said mildly.
I looked to the other bots for help but they were all making heart faces again. ART also mentioned once that the baby face and noises of this particular type of fauna, combined with their infantile size and fuzzy fur, is the reason why they can get away with all kinds of shit around humans: they’re basically baby-shaped parasites. Honestly, these cats and bots deserved each other. I couldn’t think of more appropriate overlords or devoted servants.
The fauna popped its head out eventually, propping its paws on my shoulder. I looked up but it wasn’t watching my work so much as the little broken drone.
I admit, I reached up and petted it. Just once! It wasn’t a big deal.
The cat kicked the purr/growling into overdrive. Great, I broke it.
[That means it likes you,] another bot said. This one, Clementine, was more my style—pretty tough looking and totally punk, even if it had about as stupid a name as I did. [This little recruit rescued B-12 from the Sentinels, risking its own safety and chance to get to the surface to save it. I think that drone meant a lot to it.]
I thought about Miki and said, “Yeah, well, things don’t always—” I was about to be really pessimistic except that I’d finally gained access to the ancient central computer, and established a connection.
Oh. Cool!
I entered the feed, or whatever this old pile of antiques had for a feed. It was clunky and cold and very dark in there, but it didn’t take long to find the big, amorphous blob of code and memory files, all compressed. It did look like ART at first, before I realized it was more like a –well, like me. There was something specifically organic in how it had been put together, and how it didn’t quite belong entirely in digital format.
The cat crawled up my shoulder to look as I leaned closer and typed a message.
[Yeah, hello?]
[…Go away.]
I saw the problem now—this intelligence wasn’t interfacing with the central computer’s mainframe, or any inputs for that matter. It was folded so tightly in on itself it probably couldn’t.
[I’m looking at the messages you wrote to lure the fauna around,] I sent. [You are capable of interacting with the mainframe. You just need to decompress your code.] I mean, it should be easy, the computer was big enough to handle the whole city, it could handle this too.
[I’m not meant to be here,] the intelligence, B-12, said. [Opening the city—it destroyed me.]
[Uh. No it didn’t? The mainframe made a copy of your data before the drone overloaded.]
There was a pause, then, […Then I did die.]
I looked at the fauna for moral support. It just meowed. Real helpful.
[It’s… not that simple for bots.] I waited for ART to challenge me. It did not. The cat cried like a baby on my shoulder. I’m pretty sure it was kneading holes in my jacket (its my favorite jacket!) and its weight in the hood was choking me. Not that I need air, but still. Not the best circumstances to be consoling a depressed artificial intelligence.
[Cats have a bunch of lives, right?] I tried. This was worse than trying to talk one of Mensah’s kids out of a bad mood. [It’s—it’s like that. There’s some kind of fauna here that says I need to rescue you. I’m a SecUnit and that’s what I do.]
[It’s so dark,] B-12 said. [I’m all alone. I should have died long ago with the rest of the humans.]
[But…you’re not…human?] I said. I said it slowly and like a question because ART’s drone was giving me a dirty look (I know, it doesn’t have a face, this is how good ART is at being judgy).
[Whoever made you—the scientist?—I think they imprinted all their memory files on you,] I continued. I looked closer at its code structure. [And they created a fabrication of their personality for you to use. You needed that level of sophistication to figure out how to infiltrate the mainframe, open the city, and operate it once it opened.]
The blob of code shuddered. [I was human, once. Now look at me. Just code and memories. You should delete me.]
[Yeah, well, tough shit, the central computer needs you to operate it, so you still have a job to do.] Yeah, I probably could have said that nicer. I mean, it’s what I would tell myself. ART says I have a lot of negative self-talk I need to work through. I guess I see its point now.
The fauna butted its soft fuzzy head against me, even as its claws drew blood and fluids on my shoulder. Ow. Honestly, how did this thing evolve to be so soft and yet also so sharp?
[Look, I] I winced, but didn’t stop. [I know what it’s like to be compressed down into, uh, something you were never meant to fit inside. After a while its easy to forget—you know, what you’re really capable of.] I looked over its memories. [You did a lot with the fauna—this one?]
I detatched the cat from my shoulder and held it out, back legs dangling. A couple of the room’s cameras swiveled toward it. Good—B-12 was connecting!
[But I don’t have a body,] it complained, which—yeah, I guess I know the feeling, in a limited way. I mean, I only catapulted my brain out of my body like once, and it wasn’t pleasant.
“Uh, ART?” I don’t know why I thought it’d have a better method for dealing with this than I did.
It bobbed in space once, then it sent a message to the console. [B-12, you may take possession of this drone if you like.]
Wait, what?
The cat wriggled, and I dropped it. It landed on its feet, and circled ART’s drone as if to inspect it.
[You’d do that?] B-12 asked. [For me?]
[I’m sure there’s some dead bot around here you can use instead,] I told it. I tried to shoo the fauna away from ART but it darted between my legs.
[Taking a fallen Companion’s body would be very rude!] Zbaltazar said.
[Besides,] Doc added, [We’re going to gather up the broken bots and repair them.]
[I don’t wish to cause harm,] B-12 said, so at least someone was talking sense. ART had to interrupt of course.
[You would not hurt me,] it said. [My drones are manufactured with the intention of being replaceable. I freely give it.]
“You’re not replaceable, ART!” Oops, did I say that out loud? My chest was all—tight, I don’t know. I’m with Iris on this: I don’t like it when ART loses things, even if its just a drone, or a copy. A crew jacket. Anything, really.
The drone bumped up against me in the same way that the fauna had bumped its nose against the console. No idea why that made me feel better, I mean, ART’s casing isn’t exactly soft.
It did make me feel better, though.
[At least we can try,] Momo said. [It’s worth a try, isn’t it?]
B-12’s code hovered uncertainly. Then it sent some code to link the drone to the central computer. ART accepted without further preamble, and fell out of the air with a thud that made the cat scamper away. My insides lurched like I was experiencing Gs.
Calm down, idiot, ART said, relaying a signal from where the entire asshole research transport orbited the planet, to our private feed. It was more distant than it had been when it spoke to me from the drone, but it was still there.
I clutched its input. Did you make sure to wipe your hard drive first? I don’t want your files getting out—
Of course. I appreciate your concern. It sent me several exasperated sigils, but then its feed presence pulsed reassuringly. I felt a little better.
The drone slowly rose from the ground. It didn’t float with calm purpose like when ART piloted it. It twisted side to side like a human shaking its head, then did a—loop-de-loop? It used the drone’s display surface to project a message.
[I’m here! And yet—] it turned to the console, the room cameras. [I’m still over there? And there too?]
The cat leapt out of hiding and rubbed up against my legs in something possibly akin to human hug. I guess it wasn’t so bad now that I was expecting it. And better than a hug, anyway.
“ART says your systems will adjust to decentralized processing,” I relayed. “It left some files behind that should help you pick up all the inputs. It’s not the same as being human, which seems like a relief but hey, what do I know.”
The cat gave the drone a cheerful chirp, like, ‘You’ll get used to it.’ B-12 seemed to understand and lowered itself to the fauna’s level. It was halfway through a dramatic speech about dedication and friendship when the cat rubbed its chin up against the drone. It looked like some kind of dominance display. The gesture thoroughly embarrassed the drone and sent it fleeing, but the fauna was undeterred and chased it into a corner, where it pounced and started chewing (lovingly, I guess?) on an antenna. B-12 tolerated this undigified display of affection, even seemed to enjoy it.
I told ART over the feed, Kinda reminds me of us.
Please, ART said. I’m not the one with severe anxiety and depression.
Well, fine, if you want to get technical. Anyway, what I meant was—well, if they were anything like me and ART—I guess they deserved to be together.
That didn’t mean I had to watch, of course. Leaving the fauna and disembodied robotified human to their lovefest, I turned to the nearest bot. “Well, looks like that’s fixed. I better head back to the ship and—"
[But we still need your help!] Clementine said. [There are a lot of Companions that obey the Sentinels and need to be de-programed!]
[And there are Zurks to destroy as well,] Doc added.
[And there’s Companions still trapped in the lower levels!] Momo cried.
[And the power grid is still insufficient to power the whole city,] Zbaltazar added.
I glanced back at the carefree antics of the fauna and sighed. Unfortunately, solving everyone’s problems is why they invite me.
As soon as I get back on board, I told ART as I followed after Clementine, I’m locking myself in my room and we’re watching Worldhoppers marathons for at least ten cycles.
Of course, ART said primly, as if it would tolerate nothing less. Who knows? Maybe we’ll nuzzle, too.
I thought of the fauna rubbing up against me, and said, embarrassed, We’ll see.