By David C. Daoust
There are many, many bot forms in the Onion. New designs being made every few years for centuries, is bound to bring about variety. Some designs, pretty standard fair. Standard enough that they can still be found walking about, being used by whatever datasphere was lucky enough to acquire them. Others —fads, long forgotten in some cases. Just things that were made in the past, a lot of people really liked them, but those that did like them, really only liked them for a little while. And, after, most were embarrassed that they ever did.
Way back before the Ark Age came to an end, there was a sect of bots known as ‘Potters’. This sect favored a bot-form based on a variation on one of the earliest designs. Ultimately, these bot-forms were humanoid-like mechanical bodies, only minus the mechanical head. In place of it, they actually projected the bots head as a hologram. This way they could still look the same as they did in the Hub, at least from the neck up. That was the idea anyway, though many of this form’s users did not bother to turn the holographic heads on!
This style became known for its strange tentacles sticking up out of the body. There were five of them, the first allowed them to speak, two were used as eyes, and the last two as listening devices. These tentacles were meant to be hidden by the holographic head. Or they would be, if they turned them on. Nope. They just wandered around with these tentacles wavering out of the gaping hole, that led to vast cavity in their torsos, where their neck and heads should be. No human knew why the bots did this, just a style that caught on among bot-kind, or whatever…
Yet, this was not the fad; these were not the ‘Potters’. These types of bot-forms still wander the Onion, though far less popular. The ‘fad’ was when some of these users started packing that vast cavity with soil, and planting ferns within! These were the bots known in the Ark Age as ‘Potters’. These were the bots that had not been seen since the last age… and really one of the earliest fads that went out of fashion almost as fast as it was in.
Potters loved caring for their plants. Grooming it like a pet or maybe just a head of hair, one may suppose. Huge leafy plumes jutting out in all directions. The eye tentacles could be found peering out as the bot made their way through the vast city-stations flailing plant life in every direction.
Often times insects would make these plants their homes, especially the ones that were beneficial to the plant within. In fact, Potters would actually go and seek these insects out. Butterflies, even bees… became more and more of a common sight flying from Potter to Potter, in the most unusual places.
When Wilford powered back up, he did not feel right. In fact, he felt a pull from elsewhere in the hold. His DataStream did not meet up with the Mining-bot he was expecting; the mining-bot he knew he was loaded within. Instead, he felt himself enclosed within a container. He picked up audio, though muffled. He could hear men outside, ordering someone to come down. They did not sound very friendly.
When he heard his wife’s voice in response to these angry commands, Wilford suddenly pulled himself together– and burst out of the Junkbot he had no idea he was actually within.
The lid popped up and Wilford popped out, starting out as a mass of glowing Sun Particles, he quickly took his true form.
So, bots tend to appear, in the Hub, the way they see themselves in their mind. Often times this shape would change to match, or just be influenced by, the bodies they used out in the real world. Truth was, the way Wilford saw himself, was not as a standard bot, or even the ‘husband-bots’ he had used over the years.
Despite not thinking of it in years upon years, Wilford, deep down, saw himself as a Potter– because that’s what he was, way back when.
So, albeit unwittingly, a Potter is what he pulled himself together as when the Sun Particles inadvertently synched with him– huge pluming leaves and all.
Needless to say, the two thugs were taken aback. Guns left their holsters, any kind of command for the looming plant-monster to halt were quickly replaced with gun shots.
The bullets did not harm this form in the least.
Wilford approached swiftly; his fists shifted into great big boxing gloves. The old one-two! The two thugs did not know what to do as they were attacked by a seemingly impervious, if somewhat ostentatious, fern.
They were knocked out cold within moments.
Wilford had to push his leafy plumes back for his eye stalks to take in the full scene. He did not really have time to think of his current form, or why exactly he was a mass of what he knew were the younger bots Sun Particles instead of the towering mining-bot —he had a more pressing concern.
That concern being, Olivia was in a heap on the ground!
Wilford rushed forward, once again unwittingly shifting– this time into his normal ‘Old-man’ look because that is how he saw himself when he thought of his wife. He may have given her a heart attack! What was he thinking popping up like that?! She was much more fragile now; he should have thought of that. If he’d harmed her, Wilford would never forgive himself! He lifted her tenderly— found that Olivia had only fainted.
Wilford was relieved as she started to come to, though knew… he was going to get an ear full.
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