Брендон Сандерсон - Cytonic

However, as I looked M-Bot over, I was pretty sure I caught Nuluba watching me. So…this was a test of some sort, maybe? That made sense. The Broadsiders had probably been expecting me to ask to use the drone. Still, it seemed odd they’d allow it after such a short time of us working together.

Maybe they’d placed a bug of some sort on him. Would trying to talk to him alert them?

They don’t think he’s an AI, I reminded myself. They think he’s just some kind of spy bot.

Regardless, I had to take the chance. I knelt and opened the side of the drone where the controls were and acted like I was engaging some programs. Then I whispered, “Hey.”

“You should know,” he whispered back, “they’ve installed some very basic monitoring software on me.”

“That’s actually a relief,” I whispered. “I worried it was too easy to get them to let me work with you. I assume you can deal with the software?”

“Obviously,” he said. “I’m trying not to be too offended by the AI scrubbing they tried to do. It’s basically the equivalent of feeding me poison. Fortunately, in this case that ‘feeding’ involved a comically large spoon and a big sign that said ‘not poison.’ I was able to circumvent it with ease, but—as one might say—it’s the thought that counts.”

“Right, then,” I said. “I need you to make it appear as though I used a code to access some of your hidden programming, then spoof it so they think I set you to monitor and record what is said nearby. That will give them something to find that isn’t too suspicious. After that, make it seem like I activated your deep cleaning and repair protocol.”

“Great,” he said. “Um, what deep cleaning and repair protocol?”

“The drone’s original… Oh. We deleted that, didn’t we?”

“What you didn’t delete, I did when uploading myself,” M-Bot whispered. “I wasn’t about to keep cleaning protocols when I barely had room for myself, my mushroom databases, my backup mushroom databases, and my backups to the backups.”

“Well, start pretending to clean alongside me and at least spoof the existence of some cleaning programs. I told them it would take weeks to fix this destructor without your help, but I honestly have no idea. I was just looking for an excuse.”

He complied, and the two of us set to work. Fortunately, he quickly identified the burned compound and suggested a specific kind of solvent for cleaning it. Even though he didn’t have his cleaning routines, his chemistry database proved extremely helpful. Which was good, since the truth was that I had no idea how to repair a broken destructor. That went far beyond the basic maintenance Rig had taught me.

I kept us to the corner and chattered away—mostly talking to myself, keeping up my act. When nobody else was close, M-Bot could respond. He did have in his databases plenty of detailed starship schematics. So as we removed more of the black gunk, he could point out the problems with the machine. The multiple serious problems.

“I feel like I should be offended by proxy for this gun,” M-Bot said. “Continuing to fire this was the machine equivalent of…um…”

“Of forcing your poor warhorse to keep galloping after it has thrown a shoe and taken an arrow in the flank?” I asked.

“Good metaphor,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said. I was lying on the ground, delicately trying to get some of the gunk off without ripping out a set of coolant hoses. “It’s really good to hear your voice, M-Bot. Sorry I got us captured.”

“Well, I did find some interesting molds in the other hangar. They’re basically diet mushrooms, so that part was pleasant. What happened to Chet?”

“Got wounded,” I said, “but escaped. I can talk to him with cytonics. He’s recovering, and will be glad to hear that you and I have made contact.”

“Are you certain?” he said. “He still thinks I’m an abomination.”

“He’s getting better about that.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t be,” M-Bot said. He already kept his voice very soft when talking to me, but something seemed even more…hushed about this question. “The way the pirates checked to make sure there wasn’t an AI in me—going so far as to inject scrubbing software—indicates Chet might be right. What if I am an abomination?”

“People think humans are abominations too,” I said, getting a big chunk of the gunk free. “They consider that as verifiable as military protocol or personnel records. But it’s flat-out wrong.”

“The rumors about AIs must have started somewhere.”

“Sure,” I said. “Like the rumors about humans. I mean, we apparently tried to conquer the galaxy three times. Doesn’t mean we’re monsters. Just inefficient tyrants.”

It was growing increasingly difficult to reconcile what my ancestors had done with the stories Gran-Gran told me. It was easy to think of yourself as the hero when you were fighting back against a vengeful enemy bent on extermination. But what about when you were the ones conquering? How many people like Morriumur—ordinary diones trying to prove themselves—had died in the wars my people had started?

It made me uncomfortable. I quoted Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan because when faced with annihilation, we needed that kind of courage. Yet both of those men—confirmed by M-Bot’s databases—had been mass murderers on a terrible scale.

My life had been so much simpler when I’d been fighting the nebulous “Krell” and not real people.

“Spensa,” M-Bot said, hovering in close. “Thank you. For continuing to be my friend. Despite the potential danger.”

“Thank you in return,” I said. “I mean, think about it realistically. If one of the two of us is going to end up being responsible for the other’s death, who’s it going to be? The fiddly little robot who loves mushrooms? Or the meter-and-a-half-tall terror who once tried to get her best friend to agree to be scalped so she could put her first notch on her toy hatchet?”

“Oh dear,” M-Bot said.

“In my defense,” I said, “Gran-Gran didn’t explain well, so I thought scalping someone meant cutting their hair real short, but while using a sword or an axe. It sounded pretty cool.”

M-Bot fell silent as Nuluba came walking by with a tablet, tapping away. I muttered to myself, talking as if to the black gunk while M-Bot sprayed solvent.

Eventually he spoke again, very quietly. “Spensa, something is odd about this destructor.”

“Other than the fact that it seems to have been fossilized in a tar pit?”

“Other than that, yes. Those two boxes installed on the sides of the weapon? They’re output modifiers. Normally you’d use something like that to increase the heat of a weapon for, say, cutting through metal shielding. Or maybe to modify it to lower shot intensity for training.”

“And what do these do?”

“There’s no way to tell,” M-Bot said. “They’ve been completely fried by the overuse. But haven’t you noticed how the Broadsiders have never lost a ship?”

“I’ve noticed,” I said. “But maybe the Broadsiders are just lucky. They’ve only been out on a couple of sorties since we arrived here.”

“I suppose that’s true… Huh.”

“What?” I asked.

“I just counted the number of sorties I’ve observed. I came up with ten.”

“Impossible,” I said. “Ten fights in four or five days?”

“Yeah, strange… Oh.”

“…Oh?”

“I just reconciled my internal chronometer,” he said. “We’ve been with the Broadsiders for nearly two weeks, Spensa.”

My cleaning rag dropped from my fingers. I blinked, trying to remember… How many times had I slept? It kind of blurred together…