By David C. Daoust
5of7
Not all of the vast solar system, known as the Onion, was shady smugglers ducking government soldiers on dusty belt moons. Much of the many worlds were made up of shiny happy people, just trying to get through their boring lives. Which gave rise to the entertainment industry; music, games, even movies. Things to take the shiny happy minds off the repetitive schedule that made up the everyday of their lives, because frankly staying shiny and happy is hard.
One of the current favorites, were movies starring an extremely talented little girl known throughout the Core of the Onion, as Elma Parks. A brilliant child actress, she’d been in more blockbusters by the age of twelve than any other actress still working. She was a tiny little thing when she began. She had jet black hair and beautiful brown eyes. And the Onion fell in love with her straight out of the gate, though as the starlet began to grow so did her ego.
It was not uncommon for actresses to have stunt-bots made of them. In fact Elma Parks had one from her very first movie; the beginning sequence had her tiny form thrown through the windshield of a land-speeder. The remainder of the film, involved her overcoming the disabilities caused there in. All with a peppy determination the audiences found heartwarming.
The bots themselves can take a licking far better than a stunt man, and look more real than anything rendered on a holopad. What was uncommon was that Elma’s particular stunt-bot had filmed her last two movies fully, every line, word for word, Elma having refused to perform, as required in her contract.
Margo was that stunt-bot.
Margo had much more information crammed in her cranium than most bots, all of which applied to her various roles. She had the same black hair and big brown eyes, and her face was modeled to be an exact copy of the talented little girl. Only she was much more resilient, she could, and had been, thrown through glass, off buildings, hit by trucks (plural), shot full of holes, and much more!
Bots were different from droids, in that their minds were programs ‘grown’ in virtual worlds. Virtual worlds that mimic the real world, bots learn to function in the world much the way a real person does. Once they become stable enough, their self-written ‘program’ gets loaded into a real world body for use. This makes them much more useful than droids, while less intelligent some of the time, though more adaptable to the real world.
They have personalities and character, though they vary. Some of the programs in the virtual world never achieve intelligence beyond that of a small animal, while these are usually downloaded into toys for children to play with, there are still others that just never wake up at all in the virtual world. Which is the mystery of intelligence, and spawned much debate as to whether a bot’s intelligence is truly artificial, as people can’t truly control which ones have that ‘spark’ that gets them up and moving.
Margo had that spark, at least enough to be used in a stunt-bot! While there were plenty of people debating whether or not bots were people too. Many argue that the ‘spark’ could just as easily, be deemed a soul, and as such should they not have the same rights as any other intelligent being?
To Margo that was all just distant day dreams of other people. She made movie after movie, never seeing a dime beyond maybe what the techs used to keep her real world body functioning, whilst Elma Parks got paid a great deal to do nothing. It was a life that she was fine with though. She didn’t really get tired like a human, and she enjoyed the real world too much to complain.
At least until her human started to grow! And not just a bit. Margo had to be adjusted in the past to match from time to time. This time though Elma’s body started to change too. Elma was getting curves!
There was talk about getting a whole new body! Which left Margo with a sinking feeling she’d never quite felt before. There was a reason her program was matched up to a child’s body. She had the personality and characteristics of a little girl. Her program showed too many signs of dependence for an adult, she wouldn’t fit the model. If they wanted to get a woman’s body they would want a woman’s program.
Margo was obsolete, which panicked the little bot more than she thought possible. And she knew she couldn’t go running to her techs, like her instincts told her to do. Her dependent mind had to suddenly come up with an independent solution, which was baffling to her!
All Margo truly knew was that she didn’t want to lose the real world. She did not want to be shoved back in the virtual world, until someone wanted her for a different body. No, she suddenly realized, she did not want to lose THIS body! She had become attached, she liked who she was. She could not stand the idea of being someone else.
With those thoughts motivating her, she pulled the knapsack of random useless things she thought she might need onto her back, and snuck out of her trailer. It was late at night, and she knew her techs would be home with their family. Her trailer was locked up tight, though only if you were trying to get in. They had no reason to think she may try to get out, let alone sneak off into the night.
Which she felt was her only course of action. There was no way she was giving up who she was. Her battery could run a couple years without recharge, and a recharge wasn’t difficult to come by. The only thing she really needed her techs for, were major repairs, and major repairs only came from major damage, which only ever came her way through stunt work, for which she was leaving behind.
Even with major damage her techs did nothing more than pull out foreign objects, the skin would heal on its own.
She had a vague plan…
