By David C. Daoust
‘Wilford Lauren’– a bot with a last name. It came with the human visage, or rather the human marriage… which may or may not be part of the human visage. Wilford was the only bot he knew with a last name, the only one with a wife, at that. Olivia Hammer had come into his life long ago- on that one fateful day; a day that was shaping up to be the worst of his life- that is ‘til he caught her eye. He had been expelled from a Brute Ball game, for no real reason at all. Just, that he was bot, which caught the wrong person’s attention.
Olivia made him feel better. It was a feeling that lasted. A feeling he did not want to end. Wilford was surprised when she called him- he never thought she would. Again and again, he was surprised every time. She’d call- they’d chat– then the chats turned into dates… It was a great time, til he got the ‘wrong person’s’ attention- again.
Other people’s thoughts made their lives a bit harder than they ever needed to be. Put his wife through her paces, broke her down- Wilford was proud she managed to rebuild herself, always had been. He’d proposed, soon after– it was all he could think to do, to keep her. Keep her from deciding all those other people’s thoughts were right. To decide he was just a program plugged into a machine. Not worth her time, let alone her life.
It was rough early on, when they were still so fresh in the public interest. This legendary Brute Ball player- married to a bot. They changed their name, moved to the ‘bot District’ of ‘Pinnacle City’. They made friends among neighbors, human and bot alike.
As the years passed, ‘the public’ gradually forgot about them.
The Red Faction bubbled up around them, Wilford was in tenfold. Found he had much to offer; he changed the face of the Red Faction, literally. His designs were the culmination of his lifelong study of the human form. Previously, the Red Faction was represented only by the robed figures of the Commissars, a flimsy disguise said to represent their values of equality. With his help, many more bots were able to take leadership roles in public forums.
How they got from there to here, refugees of a smashed port-town on a desert moon… Well, Wilford lived for keeping Olivia happy. And whatever it was about the man, Emanuel Grady, relieved much of Olivia’s burdens; her worries of aging, of her mortality, of leaving Wilford alone in the world. While he dreaded the idea, the old bot wasn’t sure how her death was going to affect him. He’d come to that code, when he got to it.
Wilford had excused himself from the bridge, made his way down the corridors, to the small apartment he and his wife were currently using. Wilford had a broken bot on his hands. The small bunny was a scorched mess. He wasn’t sure, exactly, what the problem was. Now that the massive vehicle had finally come to an abrupt stop, the broken bot was his priority. What he wanted to do was pull the data-sphere. The problem was, he needed something else to plug it into. Wilford ‘designed’ forms for bots, he did not build them, and he doubted this old style Rover would be able to fabricate one. Thus he was digging through boxes of their possessions; the stuff they managed to salvage from their home being torn down in their absence. The thought of his smashed home just led his mind to more code to process– human children were behind the Battle Drones? Wilford shook it off, refocused on the task at hand.
He knew it had to be around here somewhere. It had been years since he used it, but he could swear he’d popped it in this box, right before he found himself being pelted by rocks from the hands of a tiny First Wave child. Wilford chuckled. Some times that ‘wrong person’ showed up at odd times. At least it was because he was human this time. Or so they thought.
Wilford felt like he understood Dicey’s pain, and what would drive her to that action. The little girl still didn’t like him, he could tell, but Olivia had always been good with children. His wife felt it was important for the little girl to learn that groups of people were still individuals. And attacking groups, for the actions of one, or a few, as the case may be, made all the Onion into a much smaller place. Thus they came to live in the rover, albeit, temporarily.
Wilford caught a glimpse of red as he thrust back the layer of drapes piled inside the box. He let out an ‘ah-ha’ as he grabbed the heart-shaped form he’d been searching for. It was an old anniversary gag for his wife. He’d surprised her with it one year, got his friend to load him in… he hovered just out of reach most of the day, declaring his love for her… pretty sappy really, but it was funny at the time.
He split the toy-like form at its center, and ran a finger over the port. It looked like it was still in working order. It was a much higher quality port then the little bunny had now… or would need. Ultimately, it wouldn’t matter, the bunny’s data-sphere didn’t have enough complexities to be able to access most of what this form offered, but it would still be able to talk and see.
“Okay, I’m going to pop out your sphere,” Wilford said as he lifted the bunny from the table he’d set it on before he began his search, “I don’t think it’ll be good to leave you in that broken form.”
It sighed, but it didn’t voice another ‘awe’, like it was doing before.
“Okay?” Wilford had found the access point in the small toy’s back, but didn’t want to just rip it out, unwarranted.
“…okay,” the bunny agreed in a rather morose voice.
Wilford, pulled the small sphere from the port in the toy bunnies back, he rolled it around in his hand. Scorch marks covered it… he pulled the corner of one of the salvaged drapes in the box up to him, and did what he could to clean it.
His hand felt it, before he spotted it- a hairline fracture.
This was bad news.
Its structure was compromised. The crack could spread from there, eventually it may shatter… he couldn’t cover it, or mend it; the data-sphere’s surface needed to be clear, to interface with the port. The heart shaped shell may be the best bet. It was solid all the way around. Hopefully Olivia would not mind him giving it away.
There was no way to know how fragile the data-sphere may be. He popped it in one side, and encapsulated it with the other, a firm twist and it was locked within.
Much to Wilford’s surprise, the heart-shaped hover-bot pulled down in his grasp.
Considering it had spent its days in a motionless doll, the old bot hadn’t expected the data-sphere to be able to access the hover-bots abilities to actually move. He set it on the table before him, balanced on its lower point. Its digital cartoon-like eyes popped open on the heart-shaped screen that made up its face. A mouth appeared under that.
“Awe,” it said with a frown as it spun and wobbled about on its point.
“What is it?”Wilford asked.
“I don’t know how to go ‘up’,” it sighed.
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