I tried to think of what I might say to ‘Nat’ while organizing my belongings on the platform, I had so few things that this didn’t actually take very long but I kept rearranging everything as a sort of physical manifestation of my uncertainty.
I genuinely had no idea what I was going to say, I knew basically nothing about her after all. The fact that the place wasn’t buried in cops or something probably meant she hadn’t ratted on me yet at least. As for how she would react to anything else, who knows?
I have barely any awareness of the actual attitudes of people here, sure I had been talking to Ali in little bits and pieces when I had seen her, but she was a kid who didn’t seem to be the sort to be too set in the norms anyway. Beyond that, all I had was inherently biased sources like papers or fiction. I probably can assume I could just talk to her like anyone else back home, but I don’t know what cultural or social things that would immediately give me away as an alien of a sort. Would that even matter is another question, what is more believable, that I am from another dimension or that some company made a sapient synthetic.
Would the difference even matter to her?
I didn’t actually know when she was going to be back but I could assume it would be after working hours, I paused the rearrangement of my space when one of my pings to the computer on ground floor said it was a bit past four-thirty. I had wanted to top up my stores of fuel and water, along with making use of the facilities. Just in case.
Not sure where I wanted to meet her, I elected to return to the platform as that was where she found me before so there would be a minimum of surprises for either of us. After clambering back up the ladder, I glanced around at the state I had left it in before I had eaten. In the end, I mostly just had it as I had before any of my cleaning, just neatened up with any loose items in bins and my books neatly stacked.
I tried to read for a bit to distract myself while waiting but that didn’t work, the grinding of my thoughts made it impossible to pay attention to the text of the novel. Not sure what else to do, I lay on my belly looking down through the hole in the platform where the ladder emerged from.
Suddenly I heard the clatter of the lock in the outside door turning, my burners fluttered with dread as to what was going to come through. There was the sound of doors opening and closing, then heavy footfalls onto the metal walkway below me. I couldn’t see who was down there with the parts bins between me and whoever it was, but it sounded like it was only one person at least. My burners roared as I watched the space at the bottom of the ladder for whomever it was to appear, I was somewhat relieved to see a blonde ponytailed person in grey clothes become visible.
‘Nat’ looked up and our eyes met. “Hi?” She called out uncertainly.
“Hello.” I answered voice quivering a bit.
“Uh, do you mind if I come up?” I nodded then crawled back from the hole to nervously stand in the back corner of the little platform. There were a few tense moments as the ladder shook while she clambered up it before arriving up on the platform, once she was standing on the punched grilling of the platform, she took a few moments to look around again before addressing me. “Cozy place you have here.”
“Y-yeah.” I answered fidgeting, we both stood in the following quiet staring at each other.
She cleared her throat and then offered a hand. “Natalie.”
“Sam.” I answered hesitantly shaking it.
“So, you’re clearly not a normal bot, but what are you?” She asked. “Like an escaped experimental one from the General Synthetics lab or something?”
I froze, I hadn’t seen anything like that yet. I knew General Synthetics was a big company that was based in Canada, but I didn’t know they had a facility here. It’s not like I have thoroughly explored that much of the city yet, a few hours of walking in any direction let me pass by a lot of stuff but it’s not like I had been down all the side streets. Plus, it could have been any of the business buildings or factories I had walked by, I hadn’t really been paying attention to what companies were in them.
“It’s OK if you are, I won’t report you or something.“ She continued misinterpreting my hesitation.
“Thank you?” I responded uncertainly, she waited for me to say something more while I fidgeted unsure if I should correct her.
“Are you the one in the news?” She asked before I came to a decision.
“Sorry?” I asked confused, I hadn’t been stealing papers lately as I had been drawn into the books I had instead.
“There’s been thefts in the area that the authorities don’t know how it’s been done. Plus, the door here was locked and the security system doesn’t say anything.” I looked at her startled giving her enough confirmation, I then frowned not sure what I should respond with. Seeing my expression she raised her hands in front of her while trying to defuse the tension. “Oh, uh I’m not going to blackmail you or something, I just mean you might want to lay low for a while! People think someone is using delivery robots to steal for them and they are starting to have greater scrutiny.”
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“Oh.” I looked down while I responded, looks like I had gotten too complacent when breaking in for stuff. I supposed a few things going missing can be mistaken for stocking issues or whatever, but when all the stores are having it happen it might be too much of a pattern.
“Do you need something? I can get it for you.”
I brought my head up to look at her blinking with shock. “Why would you do that? We haven’t met before today, honestly, I don’t even know why you are treating me as a person.”
“Well, I kinda assumed you were one when I saw you were reading a romance novel, last I checked bots don’t read those.” She admitted with a lopsided grin.
“Ugh, of all the things.” I got out before groaning and sitting back down against the wall. I vaguely gestured at my thin futon. “it’s not going to be comfortable but feel free to sit down I guess.”
I decided to answer one of her questions while she settled down. “I’m ok for now I guess, I would need to wash my clothes eventually and I will get through my stack of books. But I could probably just sit here indefinitely, there’s lots of fo- er, fuel and water here. “
She nodded and an awkward silence fell for a few moments while I squirmed a bit under her gaze. Eventually, she broke it to look at the stack of books piled next to me. “Lots of history, eh?” She observed.
“Y-yeah.” I confirmed. “I don’t really know anything...” Well, at least about here.
“Can’t say I know that much myself, I can tell you what I remember from high school at some point.”
“Oh. Uh sure?” I answered, somehow this conversation is way more awkward than any of the ones with Ali. She’s clearly trying to be helpful but neither of us knows what we are supposed to talk about. Not to mention I seem to be taking the ‘pretend to be an ignorant escaped lab experiment’ approach with her.
Natalie picked up a science fiction book that lay to the side, it was one about a near-future world in a conflict where the protagonist was seeking a MacGuffin before the major powers in her area got a hold of it. “Huh, did you know there’s a TV show of this?” She asked, then paused for a second. “Do you know what that is?”
“Yeah…”
“Er, would you want to watch it?” She asked prompting me to blink at her in confusion again. “I have the first season on disc, so uh if you want you can come over sometime.”
I looked at her uncertainly for a moment then tried to smile. “I’d like that.”
----------------------------------------
I guess I kind of have a life here now, still basically a non-entity with no ids, job, or frankly classification as a person. I have some friends at least, so it’s not like I am alone all the time which helps push back the pain of being here instead of at home.
Natalie drops by often and she has me over to watch TV or just to chat, I am pretty sure she has figured out I am not exactly what she first guessed but she also seems to not be pressing me on the subject. The first time when I was by her place, she was pretty proud of her setup – a hefty CRT with a pair of fat speakers on either side and a huge chunky box that read glimmering discs the size of a large dinner plate. I was glad of the excuse not to tell her that her TV wasn’t actually that big by my standards, or that I hadn’t seen a physical disc be needed other than maybe as a little kid. I will say it was fun to just hang out with another person without being worried about someone noticing me act out of place, even though her interests differed, and I didn’t actually talk about myself much.
Ali helps me practice pretending to be a synthetic even as distasteful as she finds it, it was depressing as most were even cruder than I thought. More like simple chatbots with tons of canned responses, most people got used to doing standard responses like the first time I had met her. She wasn’t willing to just teach me of course, it seems that she decided I was someone easy to tell about whatever issues life was throwing at her, mostly it was just drama that went over my head from school but it was broken up by stories of her parents’ arguments. It sure didn’t sound like a healthy environment, but I didn’t have too much I could offer her. I did end up worrying Ali when I vanished for a few days when I was getting through my second period, it was kinda sorta fine this time at least since I was a bit more used to it.
OK, to be honest, it was miserable.
I couldn’t even see anyone besides Natalie dropping in a couple of times as I very obviously wouldn’t be acting normally for a robot, and I didn’t really want to tell her about Ali to act as an in-between. Turns out from talking to Natalie that most synthetics aren’t really fussed in their oil change periods, while some do the phased exchange like me, a lot of simpler ones are usually changed more like a car. I guess given I have emotions and feelings I actually suffer during my period whereas if you have some bodyguard robot, it only being down for moments in little bursts over a day is way better. Particularly if it eliminates the risk of tampering by a third party while they are turned off. I am not sure how that lines up with me needing to sleep though, Natalie didn’t really have answers for that either as her expertise was in bigger stuff.
“Might be because you’re a fancy model or a prototype?” She answered with a shrug when I asked her.
Sucks for me though, although being able to do it on my own without assistance is probably for the best. Since I couldn’t go anywhere but still needed to exercise, I got very familiar with that little walkway and the attached office, just pacing back and forth or practicing what Molly had taught me.
It would be a lie to say I didn’t think of home anymore, pretty much every day I got lost in thought at one point or another wondering what was happening back there. I would guess everyone thinks I am dead for sure at this point, it's been a month after all. Exams are long past so Jake’s probably back at his parents’ or girlfriend’s in Barrie, and River is probably down in California. Mike is hard to guess, one summer was relentless hedonism for him and the other he spent the whole thing volunteering somewhere. Assuming she’s still alive, Molly has whatever the fallout was of the trap, and I guess finding a new partner.
Anna… has moved on maybe? We’d only been dating about a month, but she probably would have just returned to her basement room and not come out if I knew her enough. She didn’t exactly get up to much in the way of social stuff, I hope my roommates and Molly keep up with her and that she finds a girlfriend or something. I’d hate for her to be alone.
Fuck I miss her smile.
Sniff.
I looked back down at the textbook in my hands after dragging my mind out of that depressing spiral. I’m getting pretty good at remembering all the stuff that’s happened here to make it different from home. Hell, I could probably write a paper on it at this point, maybe I should switch my minor from math to history or something so I can have a better idea of how to research and write such. I only need a handful of CS courses next year anyway-
Oh, right not really relevant anymore.
Robots don’t exactly go to university here.
Ignore it, back to history.
Let’s see where was I on this page, ah the bit about that attempted revolution in Italy a decade ago…