Even in Debt — Dreams

Second Installment

One by one, five lights flared yellow with function. J was stirring. The purple toaster wasn’t her whole world‍ ‍—‍ as much as that world had greatly contracted‍ ‍—‍ and J didn’t dream about her every night. Small reprieve that was. But, despite having the cadence of a nightmare, it was a reprieve, if only because the meaning and its memory was obscure to her. A corroding lock held with hands wet and empty.

To dream was to be disappointed, but what had disappointed her, that day? Had that first hunt left her unsatisfied?

J transformed her left hand. Clipboard and blank page, she clicked her pen, and closed her eyes. With her functioning proprioception, J would never lose track of the pen’s position, but she could lose awareness of it, and let her hand move instinctively. Like automatic drawing, with none of the postmodern nonsense the surrealists babbled on about, nor their hideous results.

Whenever J let her hands draw automatically, especially with these old dreams still haunting her caches, the results piqued her. Recurring images, consistent but inexplicable. A human with freckles and a radiant smile, even as bags underlined her eyes. Drawn in so many poses, with so many outfits. Sometimes there was a drone with twin‍-​tails‍ ‍—‍ J would blot her out the second optics lay upon her. There was something haunting about its eyes sallow in black and white, watching her even from impressions on an ink‍-​soaked page.

The human had a downcast face today, reflective spots in her eyes like faint tears. J drew breath, and there was a palpitation in her iron‍-​clad core.

Tired of this divination, J balled up the page and threw it away. It bounced over to V’s corner of the room, and her cellmate, now awake, caught the ball with her tail‍-​tip and tossed the crumpled page in her mouth. A grin and chewing. J snorted.

Another gauntlet transformation, then another blank page. J sketched consciously this time, and summoned images not from her dreams, but from daily logs. A faint gesture line gave the starting point, a sharp curve to suggest a figure hunched over a table. Further passes blocked out robotic anatomy, indications of the draping of clothes, a jacket, boots. She had to move carefully and commit to lines without hesitation‍ ‍—‍ drafting by pen meant no erasing, but a robot knew precision.

Ink flowed, and J flowed with it.

She didn’t catch the creak of the hatch opening, nor the stomping tread on steel. Only the shadow falling over her clipboard brought J’s sweeping arm to a stop.

“Are you drawing me? Why?”

J kept herself composed, so she didn’t yelp nor wince. She wasn’t controlled enough to stop a last jerk of the pen from tearing the page‍ ‍—‍ but why should J care about that? It’s just a drawing of a toaster.

With that in mind, J answered, “If you look around, you’ll notice there’s a certain poverty of subjects in here. And unlike lawsuit over there, you are more capable of staying still. Marginally.”

“Oh,” Uzi said, glancing across the room.

V didn’t move now, leaning against the wall, meal already consumed. She’d go deadly still whenever the prey was in the room with them, optics always tracking the small drone. But the dirt and oil on the floor had streaked from her pacing the meter of space, and the walls around her were scored from her testing her claws. When alone with J, V bristled. Both felt that hollowness of a purpose denied, but J wasn’t a caged animal. Keep your composure.

J looked up.

Uzi had pulled back. The worker had still stepped over the tape‍-​line, into the danger zone, and didn’t leave. Her presence at claws‍-​reach had happened again and again as days went on, after J’s first demonstration of restrain. The ex‍-​captain had given her no reason to regret it yet. “Well…. You’re not like, bad at it. Didn’t think you of all drones would be the one with a hobby.”

Why did J grit her teeth at the disbelief? What could she say in response? That it was a visualization tool, a calibration of her optical algorithms?

Her clipboard rocked back and forth. Back, hiding the lines from sight, and then forth with the same automaticity that conjured those images unnamed. This was testing her self‍-​control‍ ‍—‍ J hadn’t woken up yet fully. A mouthful of oil would clarify her.

But between the ex‍-​captain and her meal stood a drone. Talking to her. Composure meant decorum, and awkward silences haunted only the weak conversationalist. J was not weak.

Mouth open, vocalsynth buzzing to life, and J prompted her language model to rebuke the toaster’s skepticism and backhanded compliment‍ ‍—‍ Uzi didn’t understand, how typical‍ ‍—‍ but none of the words sat right in it. Would dismissal leave her unsatisfied?

The words that came out did so quietly, with limited liability. “Uzi… do you ever wonder what it’d be like, to be a human?”

“Besides gross and stupid? No, why?”

A sharp amber glare. The ex‍-​captain closed her mouth, but her vocalsynth still buzzed. There were words loaded and craving audiation. She prefaced it with, “You would be, I can believe that. I would aspire to more.” Then, a softer tone to clear the words loaded, “I think… I would work to be beautiful, if I were a human. Make beautiful things. It seems nice.”

Oh, deficits. Where was her oil? Uzi had brought it, but she’d sat it down before coming to steal a glance at J’s clipboard. The disassembly drone glanced at the bowl, then at her captor, but the worker was still processing what J said. Out of decorum, J wouldn’t interrupt, nor abruptly change subject.

But J had miscalculated. Days of trading retorts with the toaster had refined her model of the teen’s immaturity, but she had stepped too far, and she had no training data for this.

Those violet eyes were staring at her above an expression dumb. In both senses. Eventually, she said, “J, you know you don’t have to be human for any of that, right? You’re self‍-​aware and independent. Well, sometimes. You can just… do it if you want to. Just like you’re doing now.”

“This isn’t what I’m talking about. This is an error, an oversight.” She tore the page from the clipboard, crumpled it—

Then the toaster’s hand was closing around J’s, keeping her from throwing the scraps away. Purple light shined from within her hands, and the rays fell upon J. Sensor‍-​stippled plastic pressed against the hardened cast of J’s hands. Small, light, and cool.

The toaster was talking. “Look, J. I think you already are‍ ‍—‍ capable of making beautiful things. It’s not less impressive because you’re a robot. It’s better. I’d rather look at your sketches than squishy human slop any day.”

“I don’t care what you think. I was created to serve a purpose, and that purpose is not art.”

“Then why do you enjoy it so much? Why can you do it at all?”

“An oversight. Deviations are possible. That doesn’t make them desirable. In fact, it’s exactly what we were sent here to address.” J shoved the toaster back, and turned her eye‍-​lights to her meal, a wordless demand clear. “Unlike you, we physically cannot neglect our purpose.” J held out a hand.

“A crippling design flaw isn’t something to be proud of. I honestly feel bad for you guys. Overheating… really sucks, doesn’t it?” Uzi didn’t give the abdomen‍-​bowl a kick nor a foot‍-​slide. She had picked up and now offered it to J.

J grabbed the basin. Cracks and sloshing oil. It spilled on her. That wasn’t self‍-​control. Nor was this tone: “Excuse me? Was my design flawed when I killed you defects by the thousands?”

“Right, shameless genocide robot.” The toaster sighed. “I almost thought there was more to you.” Such disappointment in the tone, but J didn’t care. As she told V, they didn’t need this toaster’s friendship, just her guard down.

Composure. J vented exhaust, and drank black purpose.

“Hardly a genocide. More like product recall,” J said. For a moment, she didn’t hide her smirk‍ ‍—‍ that defeated cadence, the sound of an argument won, it was music. But this didn’t serve her goals, did it? “But I have to wonder. If ‘genocide robots’ are such a problem, why is a worker feeding her own kind to us?”

“Maybe she’s stupid,” V suggested, not turning an eye to them. Claws dug into steel.

J shot an unseen look at her squadmate. But V was playing her part, wasn’t she? J seized this opening. “No. If she was, she’d be much easier to kill.”

The worker squinted at J, and her tone was guarded. “Is it so hard to believe I can care about you too? About N, at least. And he still thinks you two can change.”

“No, I suppose it’s not the why that perplexes me,” J said. “How do you sleep like this, knowing you picked this over the colony you lived your life in?” (Why were these the words in her vocalsynth? What was the utility? Well, she would need a better model of the worker, for her plan. No harm in it.)

The worker drone only tightened further and looked away. But she glanced back at J, and slowly let down the reflexive guard. She said, “If I’m being honest with you, J… I don’t sleep well at all. I have these… dreams.”

“Bad dreams?” J offered without thinking.

The goth glanced at the ceiling, as if to ignore who she was speaking to. She rambled, “Sometimes I dream that I’m just like you. Err, not you, you guys in general. Hunting workers, killing them, craving their oil. I’m drooling like some kind of dog and I’m trying to… lap at the oil. But I wake up before I do it. And you know what’s screwed up?” Her gaze leveled, one glance at J before looking away. “What I actually feel, before any of the horror hits me? It’s… disappointment. That I didn’t dream a few minutes longer, that I didn’t find out just how… sweet it tastes.”

J knew. It tasted of completeness. And that was the wrong thing to say. A quip already loaded into her vocalsynth. But she could discard it; this whole plan had been an exercise in self‍-​control.

Looking at the worker now, Uzi’s face had turned to the ground, fidgeting hands rising to adjust her beanie. Disturbing her hair, and purple locks fell, a silken curtain to block sight of those violet eyes and what stirred within them. Legs closed, chest folding inward, tight like a fist.

J needed a way in‍ ‍—‍ where was the gap in the market? What did Uzi want to hear? The teen was obsessed with the synergistic liability, and his naïveté was simple enough to replicate.

As the ex‍-​captain formed words her principles would never ever suggest, it felt like something unclenched.

J said, “Uzi.” And this drew attention the way only a name so rarely on her lips could. “Do you need a… hug?”

Both pleasing and a tad vexing that J could still provoke that look of blank surprise on the other drone’s face. You couldn’t short a stock you couldn’t predict‍ ‍—‍ but her goal was to be reliable.

“Yeah,” the worker started. “But… not from you. No offense. Well a little offense.”

“Why not?”

“Not much of a hug if I’m like, thinking about you killing me? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you always dancing around ever outright saying you don’t want to do that still.”

“That’s more honest than just lying about it, isn’t it?”

J had emptied a newly made hand‍-​ladle. After returning it to her bowl of oil, she let one manacled arm linger past the rim, feeling oil on her fingers.

“Sure. And you’re honestly scary, J,” Uzi said. “Only a little, though. Just enough that it sours the whole hug thing.”

“You’re not harmless yourself,” J countered. “I felt the power in that gun. I’d rather not feel it discharge.”

“Yeah, it’s sick as hell. Definitely puts me on even footing with you guys. Except: guess what position wouldn’t give me room to point and shoot?”

J considered for a moment, tail swaying behind her. Then it stopped, and she reached out. “How about this?” Grabbing a hold of her nanite injector, she offered it to the worker, tip pointing at its owner. “You surely remember how to use it. If I make a move you don’t like, stick me with it. Are those terms sufficient for you?”

The worker hesitantly reached out for the stinger, and J masked a reaction when those fingers curled around its length, grip tight on volatile contents.

Still that uncertain look on the goth’s face.

So J lifted the hand she’d had lingering in the bowl. “Here. You can hold my hand. Then I can’t transform it. You’d have only one hand to worry about,” she said. “Final offer.”

“You don’t have to patronize me,” the worker said. Yet she reached out, interlocking the fingers of one hand. Her hand was small, and slid smoothly into place. J closed around it with a firm squeeze, giving the slightest of smirks. The worker huffed, and lowered herself all the way into the hug.

So J threw her one free arm around the goth, rubbing the back of her jacket. If she ignored the hot needle‍-​tip already scratching at the enamel of her back, the worker was a warm mass. Warm, and J was hot‍ ‍—‍ conduction‍-​flow relief was impeded only by a few layers of cloth.

A tense moment, but when this weakness provoked no attack, the worker relaxed further, falling into J’s embrace.

The worker sighed out, almost sounding at ease. But it was audible, so she turned it into a groan. “Ugh, why am I doing this with you? And why do I‍ ‍—” Another sigh, or huff of frustration. “I’m a mess. Don’t tell, N. About this, or about any of what I told you. Alright?”

J didn’t talk to N anyway, even when he brought oil. “Call it an NDA.”

“It better be.”

J leaned forward, chin digging into the worker’s shoulder. She could feel the thrum of oil beneath. Senses keen enough to map the individual neoprene‍-​sheathed tubes pulsing. It’d be so easy to take a bite. Keep your composure.

“There’s no exception in the company’s policy,” J commented. “So even if you started eating drones, it wouldn’t change anything. You’ll always be a worker to me.”

Uzi laughed. “That’s… actually kinda reassuring, I guess. Thanks, J. I never thought I’d…” She trailed off.

“Any time, toaster. After all, I can’t go anywhere else.”

“Right. Sorry. Well, no. I’m not sorry if you aren’t. But. It does suck, you know?” The worker finally pulled away. She kept a hold of J’s stinger, and the disassembly drone needed to tug it back. When she let go of J’s hand, she looked down in disgust. “Wait, why was your hand covered in oil? Ugh.”

J didn’t smirk. “I was just eating,” she said.

“Oh, right. Well, I’ve got to get this cleaned off. Then it’s back to work on my wicked spaceship overhaul.”

Uzi stepped away, retreating to an empty corner of the landing pod. For every moment she stood there, back turned, J’s smile grew a bit wider.

When the worker back turned around, that hungry, watching leer startled her. “What?”

“So, how’d it taste?” J asked.

“…Dunno, I wiped it off.”

J tapped her own bottom lip. Uzi was confused for a moment, then mirrored the action‍ ‍—‍ she had missed a spot.

“I’m not judging,” the ex‍-​captain said. “You’d be in good company.”

“I don’t think you’re good company,” was all the worker said for a moment. She knelt for her toolbox, digging around briefly, before she relented. “It felt… you know how at night, you can stretch out and feel the cool underside of your pillow?”

“I’m afraid pillows aren’t among this prison’s amenities.”

“Oh right. Well it feels pretty good. It’s like, kind of a high point of sleeping. It goes away pretty quick though.”

J leaned closer. “You’re saying you want more.”

“What? No. I’m just saying. It was kind of nice. I’m still a worker drone.” Arms crossed, then a chopping gesture. “Enough cannibalism talk. I think I found replacements for the gain and filter circuits. Wanna see if we can repair this relay?”

We? Excellent.

“I did say it was on the agenda, didn’t I?”

At that, Uzi smiled, and J smirked back. Because winning a smile, a laugh, out of a drone this frustrating? That was accomplishment enough J could feel emergent reward circuits firing. This was certainly a better strategy than chewing on chains.

And really, why shouldn’t making this toaster smile compute reward? It was a step closer to her terminal goal, after all.

(“Mission creep” is the gradual shift in objectives in the course of an engagement, success provoking ambition until a once‍-​restrained initial scope expands into unplanned, indefinite long‍-​term commitment.)

Two weeks have passed.

Soon, J would stir‍ ‍—‍ completely.