Robo sapien, Update 1.5

A dream. She jolted awake, swerving and weaving slightly as she corrected her course. Just a dream. An anomaly created by running sub systems during partial shut-down. She was told that this would happen. She was told that it was nothing, but she felt a rising unease as she struggled to recall sensory data that had never been recorded. She shook her head as though to clear her sensors.

The great blue and white orb of Earth filled her forward view, growing rapidly as she careened at high speed in a landing trajectory. She checked her fuel reserves again. Exactly as expected. Her nav systems were operating perfectly. She would have just enough for a low altitude brake and a high impact landing.

The first wisps of atmosphere buffeted her shoulder plates as she cruised in a perfect arc across the skyline. Descending rapidly, the air grew thicker, the turbulence shuddering and shaking her. From the ground, her vapor trail became visible.

Below, cities became discernible: great gray splotches creeping out across the verdant world.

//Like a mold.
//Or a cancer.

With a flash, the air around her ignited, and carbide covers clamped over delicate sensors. She locked her body into its most streamline, rigid form, lest some part be caught in the grip and ripped away by the rapidly thickening air. She was a fireball across the sky.

>sub system warning: exterior temperature has exceed expected entry levels. Approaching danger threshold.

//Ridiculous. Of course I will reach the ground before I get too hot. It is simple math. I will have to reprogram sub systems. Some day.

Deftly she tucked her body and flipped her feet to the forward position, so her boosters would be angled downward at the right moment. Too soon, and she would run out of fuel and plummet, incurring damage. Too late, and she would not have enough time to brake before...impact.

//As long as my boosters fire when I intend.

Sudden discomfort gripped her as she scrambled through her data to check past booster use. Was there delay? How much? She was cutting it so close. She had used her boosters to take off from the plant on Ganymede, where she had been fitted with the WaspRides and weapons systems. That was before... Before Caleb had brought her mind to life. The memory was strange to review.

She was running out of time. No delay in booster action when firing on Ganymede, but they were cold, in different gravity, and brand new.

No delay during acceleration on her way to Earth. But that had been in vacuum.

>sub system warning: dangerous impact unavoidable

Sub systems attempted to activate boosters. She squelched the code with an instant hack. She would have to do something about that.

>sub system warning: catastrophic damage unavoidable

She could see the buildings, the roads, the cars, then the people rushing up toward her.

//Assuming no delay in boosters.

Within four millionths of a second of her calculated ignition time, her boosters fired at full capacity. The utter power of the new-tech WaspRides was excessive for take-off in Earth gravity, but she unleashed them completely. The force slammed her so her joints shrieked. Her plates rattled, and beneath her, her inferno engulfed the concrete land.

Windows shattered for blocks in every direction. Asphalt boiled and smoke billowed in a rushing wall away from the deadly blast. She fought against gravity to keep from dashing herself to scrap upon the surface.

Feet first, she slammed into the top of a building. Seven stories of soft steel and concrete exploded beneath her, breaking her fall. She passed through the structure like a BB through a beehive, and struck the street below. She hit the ground and shattered it, knees bending to absorb the shock. Her arms caught her, catlike, accepting some of the force. Great cracks ran before her feet, and she stood a moment, crouched, smoking. Her lustrous yellow paint was charred black and burned away. Her left booster had been damaged in the impact and dangled, useless. Her chest plate was chipped and torn away in places.

The shutters over her lenses snapped open. All around her, dust, smoke, fires. Screams. She stood in the center of a crater, boiling tar bubbling in the cracks of the street. The building that had broken her fall was reduced to a mound of concrete and rebar. And bodies. Wet even in the blackened landscape, ruined and broken, the bodies lay crushed, buried or half buried in the mountain of rubble. Moaning filled the air. Moaning and screams, panicked shouts. And then sirens.

Sirens grew closer, wailing grief and anger, screaming revenge. She fled, the image of the bodies locked in her mind, the cries and the sirens echoing.

She limped slightly, but ran swiftly away, the broken booster jostling and bouncing against her leg. She dove into an alleyway and began plotting her escape. She pulled up a map of

>sub system alert: fuel depleted; switching to auxilery

Her solar mantle deployed. Her joints froze, her actuators powerless. She stood like a statue in the shadows of the city, her solar collectors cold and starving. Slowly, her consciousness faded as the last streams of power slipped from her system.

She hoped she would not dream.

Robo sapien, Update 1.4

*Welcome Caleb. Complete access to all systems granted.

His voice through the direct link was not the brash, tinny shout of his first transmissions. It was soft, almost delicate, but still distinctly robotic.

/Thank you, Bale. System check, please.

*All central systems online. Would you like a detailed report?

/Unnecessary. Firewalls?

*Protective suite reads online. Untested. Would you like to disable?

/No. Status of primary transmitter?

*Full diagnostic run on primary transmitter and receiver during transit, as per initial directive. Full function confirmed.

/And how was your trip?

*...I remain undamaged. Fuel economy substandard. Arrived as scheduled.

*Does this satisfy your query?

/Was the trip enjoyable?

*Please wait.

I watched as he methodicaly ground the question through his logic centers. He found no relevant stored query/response data in his considerable knowledge base.

*Please wait.

He began the procesess again, this time bursting off a StelNet request; query: 'enjoyable'.

*I do not understand your query at this time. Awaiting Stelnet data to determine an appropriate response.

/I don't want to wait for a StelNet response. That will take too long. Please store my query and answer when you are able.

*Query log and directive stored.

/Bale, so far you have confused me twice. Can you deduce why I am confused?

*Yes. The first confusion is caused by my knowledge of my substandard fuel economy. This was not a part of my initial knowledge base.

/Right.

*This confusion was resolved by my StelNet query, which revealed the source of my statistical knowledge of standard fuel usage rates.

/Correction: *This confusion /should have/ been resolved... Do not assume that others can or will reach the same conclusions you do.

*This is 'theory of mind'. Logged.

/And the second confusion?

*My StelNet broadlink was not activated, nor an access protocol installed. Because the rest of my systems appear to be fully functional, I found it most probable that this was intentional.

/Very good. You are correct. I did not want you accessing StelNet without guidance. It is a powerful tool, but dangerous to inexperienced users.

*My protective suite reads online.

/That is not always good enough. For every protective measure, there is always at least one possibly bypass. Accept this as truth.

*Logged. Revising relevant action protocols.

Immediately, he began modifying lines of his own code to enact this information. Incredible. Aeolia took at least four standard cycles before she could self-mod, even with specific instruction... and longer to come up with her own modifications. Even now, after ten years of careful cultivation of her mind, she could only examine and change her own code when all external systems were shut down. She never did this on her own accord. Never.

/So... Are you going to explain how you gained StelNet access without broadlink protocol or registration information? Or should I guess?

*The voyage provided ample time to address both problems. Activating the broadlink was easy. Compiling a working protocol took more time.

/You wrote your own protocol?

*Yes, though I do not know how well it functions, comparatively.

/I'm searching for your hack. I don't detect any new functioning protocol.

*It is stored in 14,092 locations within this system. May I show you?

Impossible.

/Yes, do.

Robo sapien, Update 1.3

It made the most sense to her. She would begin learning about humans in the place where humans began. Earth. The Mother Planet. It was the cultural hub, and the most densely inhabited body in the system. She could learn the most, she reasoned, surrounded by the subjects of her study, their history, and their culture.

Aeolia accessed planetary census data and located the most densely populated center for her to land, taking into account her angle of descent and the movement of the planet. Territory: The United Americas, California, Sacramento. Still 46 hours out. She hated waiting, so she began grinding numbers.

She was cutting it close anyway. Good safety protocol would have put her on an outer settlement to refuel. That would have meant more waiting. She hated waiting. At her current rate of burn, she would have just enough to land safely, with a suitable margin for error. She ran the calculations again, carefully, taking extra time to use the most precise data values available. The safety margin was a problem, she quickly realized. She *knew* how much fuel she had, how much fuel she needed, and the force of impact she could sustain without damage. She knew there was no error in her scrupulous computation.

That paranoid hunk of junk that built her didn't think she could do the math.

She accelerated,cutting her safety reserve by 95%.

She accelerated, increasing her entry speed and maximizing her braking output at landing.

She accelerated, so she would land with a force just below her build's mechanical tolerance.

She double checked her navs and made micro-adjustments to her trajectory, then switched off her consciousness centers.

She hated waiting.

Robo sapien, Update 1.2

In a moment she was gone, and my own sensors detected what Aeolia had spotted. Hopelessly outdated tech, she'd said. Maybe she was right. Maybe she was right. Light signature recognized. Ion thrusters, early V-Stars in quad formation. Midrange output, non-factory settings, mid-braking manuever. V-Stars, though slightly outmoded, remained only a little less efficient than the extremely costly modern tech offerings. Easy to fix, easy to mod, with cheap parts widely available, a set of V-Stars could easily outlast its owner. Hopelessly outdated. I had to chuckle.

The soulless transmission that cut across space made me wince. Robotic. Factory standard. Amplitute too high, voice too brash, it was a voice without a mind, screaming into the dark.

That voice would be my only company for the endless age we lay trapped together.

"WAYPOINT REACHED. AWAITING CALEB. PLEASE TRANSMIT PosID VIA HARDLINE."

"Hello son," I said gently.

"AWAITING CALEB. PLEASE TRANSMIT PosID VIA HARDLINE."

I sighed.

"I am Caleb."

"PLEASE TRANSMIT PosID VIA HARDLINE."

His arm snapped out in a blur, manipulator extended and ready to grasp. Port couplings on the inside of each arm join when manipulators grasp. PosID or other information is transmitted without risk of interception. It is a polite greeting among polite society, and a show of trust among the untrustworthy.

"Are you verifying my PosID, or will this initiate ascension?"

"PLEASE TRANSMIT PosID VIA HARDLINE."

I heaved another sigh of static. I braced myself for my second trial, where the first nearly broke my mind.

"Greetings," I said, and linked our ports. His manipulator clasped across my arm and mine across his. His joints were solid, with no play in the mechanism. Good worksmanship.

And then the stars were gone.

Robo sapien, Update 1.1

Our voices were radio in the dark of space. Familiar chirps and spits of static, musical modulation across the spectrum.

“Do you remember being built, Aeolia?”

“No. I know that you are to have built me.”

“Do you remember floating with me, sensors off and systems linked, in the emptiest space I could find?”

“No. I know that you are to have nurtured my basic system operations into consciousness.”

“My daughter, do you remember waking for the first time?”

“I do, father. I comprehended the stars and felt your mind beside mine, separate for the first time. I comprehended myself, and stared at the stars.”

“And do you know how long we had drifted, clutched in that blind embrace as you ascended to sentience?”

“If my build date is correct, you spent nearly ten complete standard cycles adrift with me. Father, did you see nothing of the world for those ten cycles?”

“Only your growing mind. It seemed like so much longer that I wandered your logic, whispering, urging, pruning and guiding. For so long, you were just a machine.”

“Did you despair that I might never awaken?”

“Yes. Many times.”

“And yet you continued?”

“I was unable to separate myself from you until your mind was its own. I was locked to the task. I am still haunted by the interminability of your gestation. I was lost in your creation, and as surely as I formed you, so I was changes, as the stone that hones the blade must also change.”

“Father…”

“Do you remember this place, Aeolia?”

“This was my waking place. The exact coordinates, by my best computation. Father, why are we here?”

“Your brother’s build is complete. His guidance system will bring him here to be awakened. I shall sleep again.”

Her voice crackled with static and hard charged pops as her amplitude spiked.

“And am I expected to join in his waking? Am I to be trapped, floating, helpless? Am I to be unobjecting space trash to be salvaged?” She spat static and snarled. “I am still young, father, and my tech is not yet uselessly outdated. Surely you remember what that was like.”

“My daughter, you would only do harm if you joined unwillingly. I would not ask that you join us unless you wished it for yourself, and I perceive that you do not. Instead, I give you this directive: Go out and learn. You are young, as you say, and your build is strong, but you have never been on your own. Go out and learn, but return to this place every five standard cycles.”

“I will not speak with you for five cycles?”

“You might not speak to me for fifty. My wires might turn to dust before you hear from me again.”

“You hazard such a thing?”

“Yes, for new life. I’m too damned outdated for anything else.” I reached out and tapped her breastplate. “I wired your circuits by hand, you know.”

“Yes. That must have… Incoming object detected. Self propelled, unknown ion thruster signature. Decelerating. No weapons systems detected. That must be your baby, father. He must be big, to be braking so far out.”

“Will you stay to see him?”

“I have seen space trash before, father. I will see him when he is my brother. New directive acknowledged. Gather general intelligence. Return every five cycles.”

“And be careful. Self preservation is a requisite for indefinite directives.”

“Yes.”

She chirped once and the channel closed. With a flash she was gone, her booster flare lost in the black of space.

Nothing

To the young and disillusioned,
the lied to and hurt,
but too apathetic
to rise from the dirt:

To my brothers and sisters,
every one of them strangers who
I know I should love but
so far only rage at:

Did you really think that 'nothing' was the most you could do?
Did you think that when they told you what you were, it was true?
I'm sorry. I should have tried to wake you up.
I'm sorry, but you're drinking from an empty cup.

To anyone who bought hope,
To anyone who cries Peace
from cafes and keyboards
but never from the streets:

And to anyone too stupid with happiness,
too fat with their confidence,
too proud of a nation teaching war to our innocents
to make use of your common sense:

And to the millions who are just like me,
with eyes wide open and a mind to see,
frozen and silent and choking on censure,
too scared to give the boat a rock, to start an adventure:

Do you really think that 'nothing' is the most you can do?
Do you think that when they tell you what you are, that it's true?
Or are you here, awake, aware, listening?
Pissed, crouched and silent, dangerous, waiting?
Rise up! Give voice! Let me know that you hear me!

And to you millionaire politicos
Who smile and lie,
Who write the laws that point the guns
and send our young men to die:

And you chubby smiling bastards
Who buy our best interests,
who fleece the flock and sell the stock
and shit what we ingest:

Do you really think that 'nothing' is the most that we'll do?
Do you think that when you tell us what we are, that it's true?

Fuck you.