J Batt: Onliest

Together, Syn and Blip had repaired most every type of bot in the Disc: a mass of wires and electronics, translucent bundles of thread wrapped in tight configurations around anti-grav motors, primitive CPUs, and TyTech strips. She had learned each bot’s makeup and constantly tweaked them—often improving them. The hovering eye-bots now flew faster than ever before thanks to her alterations.

Behind her, something clinked. She turned and saw the red eye-bot wriggling on the bench. “Oh! Sorry. Forgot about you for a second.” She leaned in. “So, what’s wrong?”

The eye-bot stared up at her, unblinking. “Well, that’s odd—usually your iris is constantly in motion. Is that the problem? Did the crash jam your iris?” She ran a finger across the lens and saw the circular iris start to shutter and stall. Over and over. “That’s it. Okay. I think I can fix it. Must just be jammed a bit hard. I think I have a replacement one.”

She sat the red eye-bot down and looked through the scrap parts scattered across the bench. There were no deactivated, whole robots. If she could get it moving again, she would. She hated the idea of a bot just stuck on her bench because she couldn’t fix it.

She rifled through a few drawers and piles while Blip floated around nudging and prodding the companion bot electronically. Syn stole a glance but not much had changed—he just rotated clockwise around the bot as if he was stuck in orbit—the gravitational pull of the other so strong, he’d be stuck like that forever.

“Found it!” She held up a duplicate iris, a silver circle of layered pieces inside a solid set of rings and motors. “Just need to open you up and we’ll pop this in, and you’ll be back to normal.”

Syn patted the bot. “This might feel weird. Just trust me. I won’t hurt you.”

She picked up a small black metal tool and ran it across the seam along the bot’s circumference. Its case hissed and popped, and she pulled off the top part of its shell, the one housing the clear lens that made up its eye. Its internal systems were all revealed: a tightly packed collection of chips, gyroscopes, wires, and a small strip of organic tissue. The secret to all of the bots, Syn had discovered, was some portion of lab-grown brain tissue that kicked up the level of processing. Blip had said it was the only way the builders could get true AI to work—the human brain, he had said, was quantum in nature, and no machine was able to get there without some tissue assistance. Blip had called it TyTech. It always weirded Syn out a bit when she had to prod around inside the bots while fixing them.

The old iris unit popped off despite the bot’s wriggling under her fingers. Was it anxious? Did robots get nervous? She knew it was not in pain, but it did jostle more once the lens and iris were gone—discomfort probably from its primary sensor being dulled. Everything must be blurry, she thought. The new piece slid in easily.

“Calm down,” she hushed, then held a bit tight as she grabbed the top part of its shell and popped it back into place. Once she felt the give and heard the expected click of the magnetic clips joining, she relaxed her hold, patted its head and said, “There you go.”

With a nearly inaudible whirr, the eye-bot focused with the new iris. It closed and opened a few times. Then the eye-bot popped straight up off the workbench, whistled once, and then flew out of the garage door into the open air of the Disc.

Blip sighed, “Wish my counterpart were that easy.”

Syn allowed herself to relax and slid down to the ground, plopping her legs straight out. Fixing things had always calmed her. The anger and anxiety had melted away. The delicate work required so much focus—the random butterfly of thoughts just faded. “Sorry Blip. This must be frustrating you as much as it is me.”

“I’m not frustrated. I’m confused. I just don’t understand how…” he clipped his sentence short and then after a pause said, “I don’t understand how it came to be. Where it came from.”

Syn narrowed her eyes. That’s not what he was going to say.

The minutes passed by in silence. The minutes built into an hour. Over and over, Blip floated in a slow arc around the other companion, scanning and rescanning, his casing glowing green as his various sensors did their job.

Syn sat on the ground, feeling the exhaustion of the day. She yawned, surprising herself. “Oh, that’s not good.” She stood up and grabbed a scanstick from the table—an all-purpose scanner tool for bots that detected levels of various electrical activity inside, the status of their anti-grav generators, and other critical information. She walked over and began to move the stick across the bot with careful precision.

“I think I’ve searched for most everything that thing will tell you,” Blip said.

Syn smiled. “Ya, but at least it’ll talk to me. You’ve been doing your thing for a while now and haven’t told me a thing.”

Blip paused and looked at her. “What’s the stick saying? Have you picked up a reading on its primary systems?”

She glanced at the tool and was surprised to see no reading whatsoever. She thwacked it against the palm of her hand hoping to jostle it to life and then ran it back over the white surface. Grimacing, she said, “Nothing. I’m getting nothing.”

“Ya. That’s why I haven’t given you any of my readings. I haven’t any. Nothing. Not a single thing. Even for the inert systems—the default ones—there should be a basic reading even if this thing was off. Antigrav generators never cycle entirely down. But nothing is registering. Either this thing has a casing that prevents any reading, or it has never been turned on before.”

Syn ran the scanstick over it again. “That’s impossible.” She slapped it on the table once and glanced at its small screen. Nothing. She smacked it against her palm. “Oh, come on. That’s not possible.”

Irritated, she hit the stick against the bot on the table, “Come on, you stup—”

The companion bot’s case flashed red, casting a crimson glow on every surface of the garage.

Both Syn and Blip leapt back. Blip’s own white case reflected the red, causing him to look as if he had been drenched in blood. The light flashed again, and then in a grating, alarmed tone, the companion bot bleeted out “J. One. Three. Zero. Two. Room ninety-nine. She’s in J1302-99. J1302.99.”

Just as quickly as it had sparked to life, the red light dimmed, and the room was only illuminated by the sparse blue lights lining the edges.

“What was that?” Syn shouted at Blip, her back against the workbench. She had snagged a wrench and was holding it with white knuckles in case the thing attacked.

Blip was frozen, staring at the inert bot. He stammered, “I… I don’t…”

This time, the wrench Syn threw hit him with a sharp clang, and he jostled back to focus.

Syn pointed a finger at him, “Don’t say that. I’m sick of hearing you say that you don’t know. That’s garbage, and you know it.” She jabbed the finger at the lifeless bot, “That thing just rattled off some address. To a room. And said someone was there. Blip, is there someone else on this ship? Who was he talking about?”

“I…” Blip started but paused as Syn wrapped her hand around another silver-colored wrench on the table next to her. Blip paused. “We’ll find out.”

Through clenched teeth, Syn growled, “You’re absolutely right we will.”

Blip turned and looked out at the darkening Disc. “It’s too late now. We’ll go in the morning. It’s too far away, and it’ll take a long time.”

She searched her memory. J. What lift was Settlement J closest to? He was right. Her mind was tired. She couldn’t place the settlement. Couldn’t think of how to get there. It wasn’t close, she knew that. “Ugh,” she said, “You’re right.” She dropped the wrench, and the clang filled the garage. “First thing tomorrow.”