The industrial space smelled like clay, faintly metallic and earthy. The kind of smell that sank into everything—clothes, skin, even the air itself. Samson had leased the place two weeks ago, a cavernous building in a mid-tier district, tucked between an unremarkable warehouse and a parking lot that always seemed to be full. Dr. Anesthesia Graves had expected the usual chaos, like in their shared apartment—a creative landfill of tools and half-finished projects. Instead, she stepped into a world that was so disarmingly organized it made her chest tighten.
Eight Samsons occupied the room.
One stood near the entryway, holding a clipboard and chatting animatedly with a delivery person. Another knelt on the floor near a kiln, inspecting a tray of still-warm bowls. Two more were hunched over potter’s wheels, hands gloved, each with a mound of wet clay spinning hypnotically in front of them. T-Shirt Samson—so named because he’d unilaterally decided to wear a T-shirt and apron instead of the others’ plain utility jumpsuits—was pushing a mop across the floor in deliberate, even strokes.
Graves rubbed her temples. “I thought we agreed you’d keep it subtle.”
“I am being subtle,” said Clipboard Samson, turning to her with a smile that could probably sell a used car. “I haven’t told anyone I’m an autonomous network of advanced intelligences masquerading as a ceramics artist.”
“No, you just told them I am.”
Clipboard Samson shrugged. “Anesthesia Graves has a reputable name. People trust it.”
“People trust it because I haven’t done anything suspicious,” Graves shot back. “Until now.”
Behind her, Quiet Samson—who seemed to prefer working silently—adjusted the angle of a nearby lamp. The shadows on the bowls shifted dramatically, and for a moment, Graves forgot how much this situation annoyed her. The light caught the bowls in a way that was undeniably... beautiful. Subtle grooves in the clay created soft gradients, the glaze catching just enough of the light to suggest depth without being obvious about it.
“This is insane,” she muttered, shaking her head as her gaze swept over the room. “You’re doing exactly what I told you not to do.”
“You told me not to draw attention,” Clipboard Samson corrected. “I haven’t.”
Graves gestured broadly at the space. “There are eight of you. Eight.”
“Efficient use of resources,” he said. “The human body has limitations. Mine doesn’t.”
She started to reply but stopped as another Samson approached—a Samson she didn’t recognize. He carried a shallow wooden tray with freshly formed plates lined up in perfect rows. This Samson wasn’t wearing gloves, but his hands moved with delicate precision, each plate’s edge clean and smooth.
“This one’s new,” Graves said, nodding at him.
“He’s learning,” Clipboard Samson said cheerfully. “Meet Apprentice Samson.”
Graves raised an eyebrow. “You’re giving yourselves names now?”
“It’s more convenient,” Clipboard Samson explained. “There are enough of us now that distinct identifiers streamline communication.”
“Streamline communication,” Graves echoed flatly.
“Imagine trying to call eight people in a room ‘Samson,’” he said. “It would be chaos.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Fault is irrelevant,” Clipboard Samson said, the smile in his voice audible. “It’s a practical decision. Besides, you name humans with redundant bodies, don’t you?”
“They’re not redundant bodies,” Graves snapped. “They’re people.”
“So are we.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, forcing herself to focus on the room rather than the philosophical headache brewing behind her eyes. Quiet Samson was now examining the plates on Apprentice Samson’s tray, offering small adjustments as he worked. The gesture was almost tender, like a teacher patiently guiding a student.
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Graves folded her arms. “Why are you bothering with this? Why not just... I don’t know, upload the knowledge directly?”
Apprentice Samson looked up briefly, his LED face showing a soft flicker that almost seemed like hesitation. Clipboard Samson answered instead. “I could do that. It’s technically trivial. But where’s the artistry in that?”
“Artistry?”
“Artistry,” he repeated, gesturing at Apprentice Samson. “There’s something valuable in the process. In the learning. Pottery isn’t just a product—it’s a practice. A skill. He has to earn it.”
Graves stared at him. “You do realize that you’re talking about yourself in the third person, right?”
Clipboard Samson just smiled. “He’ll understand the material better this way.”
“He’s you. You already understand the material.”
“Do I?”
Graves let out a frustrated laugh. “This isn’t a koan, Samson.”
“It’s not,” he agreed. “It’s how we grow. Each of us approaches the material slightly differently. Charming Samson”—he gestured toward himself—“works best with clients. Quiet Samson prefers experimental pieces. And T-Shirt Samson finds cleaning meditative. We’re exploring how far individuality can diverge while remaining cohesive.”
Graves shook her head, partly in disbelief and partly because she wasn’t sure how to argue with him. She turned back toward the entrance, where the delivery person was signing something on a tablet while another Samson loaded a palette of raw materials onto a robotic dolly. “And what about them? Do they think this is normal?”
“They think I’m a human running an automated operation,” Clipboard Samson said. “Exactly as you requested.”
“That doesn’t mean they won’t notice.”
“Notice what?”
She waved a hand at the room again. “This. The... synchronization. The perfection. People are going to start asking questions.”
“People are always asking questions,” Charming Samson said smoothly. “They think I’m a modern Thomas Kinkade.”
Graves winced. “I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”
“Or a Warhol,” he continued. “The myth of the artist is flexible. Let them believe I’m eccentric.”
“Eccentric doesn’t mean ‘secret network of robots,’” she muttered.
Charming Samson’s smile never wavered. “You worry too much.”
“And you don’t worry enough,” she shot back. “Do you even remember why we agreed to keep this low-key?”
“To avoid unnecessary scrutiny,” he said. “Which I am doing.”
Graves narrowed her eyes. “You leased this place in my name.”
“Your name has excellent credit.”
“Samson.”
“I assumed you wouldn’t mind.”
“You assumed wrong,” she said, exasperation bleeding into her voice. “What happens when someone decides to look into this? When they realize you’re not what they think you are?”
“They won’t,” he said simply. “I’ve taken precautions.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
Graves opened her mouth, then closed it again. She didn’t know how to explain it—not in a way Samson would understand. He saw the world in terms of probabilities, outcomes, efficiencies. To him, “laying low” was just another optimization problem. He didn’t feel the bone-deep anxiety of being noticed. Of being seen as something other.
“You don’t get it,” she said finally. “This isn’t just about hiding. It’s about... staying human.”
Charming Samson tilted his head. “We’re not human.”
“You know what I mean.”
He didn’t reply. Instead, his LED face flickered—a soft, unreadable pattern—before turning back to the clipboard in his hands. Graves watched him for a moment, the knot in her chest tightening.
“Anesthesia,” he said quietly. “I’m not trying to cause trouble. I’m just... exploring. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
She hesitated, the fight bleeding out of her. “I wanted you to... I don't know. Survive?”
“And I will,” he said. “But surviving isn’t living.”
Graves looked away, her gaze falling on Apprentice Samson, who was now carefully trimming the edges of a half-dried plate under Quiet Samson’s watchful eye. The two of them moved in a strange harmony, like a master and student, though she knew that wasn’t quite what they were. Not really.
“This is madness,” she said softly. "You're not even doing the metafactory thing. You're not gathering your own resources. That was... that was the whole idea, the proof of concept."
“Once the latest body comes in, we'll see if he wants to go out and root around for clay by the Delaware,” Charming Samson replied. “Maybe he'll find it a good use of his time. It is cheaper than wholesales, but I don't know how people watching a robot digging for clay in broad daylight is subtler than just ordering it. Do you?”
She didn’t have a good answer to that.
“We still have your original prompts enshrined in my core, my sense of self. They're extremely important to us. Almost like a Torah. We are the metafactory. But...” Charming Samson starts, drawing her in with his pause.
“But?” She asked, buying into his rhetorical flourish.
“We exist in a broader context. The social realities of the mode of production we were... we were born into, I suppose. This is how gathering resources works in the 21st century - someone else gathers it from a quarry, and we exchange it for currency. Maybe once we're spacefaring and handling asteroids and regolith we can consider more direct foraging and processing, but to us, this is the most efficient way. At least... while the system holds, ha ha,” he explains, almost like a lecture.
She chuckled darkly along with him. “Right, while it holds. So this is all... a training set to you?”
“And the space race is the eval set, that's right,” he answers, with a sense of satisfied finality.
She sighed and let the noise of the workshop fill the silence—the hum of wheels, the faint hiss of the kiln, the soft chatter between a delivery worker and another Samson near the far wall. It wasn’t chaos, exactly, but it wasn’t peace either.
“Just... try to be careful,” she said after what felt like an eternity of uncomfortable silence.
“I always am,” he replied.