It was midday by now, but Tyra and Ellis had told Byeju to stay in the bar for the time being to avoid prying eyes. Tyra had told him that he could get into trouble, "pirates, scrappers, and busybodies," if he strayed into the open. She'd excused herself after the Sister wrapped up, but she assured Byeju his status would be much more secure once Ellis and the Mayor finalized his papers. Now, the bar was empty except for Ellis, the Cyborg, Byeju and a napping Ara.
Ellis shuffled papers feverishly on his perch by the counter. Sweat beaded on his brow and under his arms as the day's heat seeped into the bar. The night's chill had long since evaporated. The papers in Ellis' hands were for Byeju, and Ellis had started working on them as soon as the Sister announced she'd finished Byeju's "interview." However, the robot couldn't imagine why he needed papers. Of course, his internal reference library told him that humans were often required to produce paper trails demonstrating their identity or their allegiance to a country. As an anti-dissent model, Byeju had training to evaluate the legitimacy of identity papers and passports. From what he could see past Ellis' furiously scribbling hands, everything looked pretty aboveboard to Byeju. Nice inks with activity in the ultraviolet spectrum. Colored threads pressed into the creamy sheets of paper. The robot idly wondered if there were other, hidden security features he couldn't make out.
The Sister had left shortly after interviewing Byeju and praying with him. The robot guessed that she was somewhere nearby, watching the bar to make sure trouble didn't come knocking.
Ellis had confirmed what Tyra said: the last hurdle for Byeju was winning the Mayor's seal of approval.
"Where the fuck is the Mayor?" Ara grumbled from her corner of the room, back leaned against the wall and legs stretched out on the booth. Shadows pooled under the table and beneath the booth, another defense against any trouble that might come their way. Byeju wondered just how much trouble these "pirates, scrappers and busybodies" might be. Even as Tyra's deputy, would he really be safe? The robot figured that he'd attract little enough attention in this little blip on the map. The way everyone reacted to his presence, he reasoned that robots like himself weren't much of a thing any more. Even in a big city, there would never be enough robots for him to just blend, he reasoned sadly. He certainly had caused quite the spectacle in the city where he'd awoken. And that was a city affluent enough to host people who research highly sought-after ancient machines.
"He'll show up in his own time," Ellis shrugged, breaking the contemplative silence that followed Ara's outburst. The police officer harrumphed, folding her arms crossly and drifting back to sleep. All in all, this was an easy detail, but she had to pretend she was working for it. Between the Sister, the Cyborg, and Byeju, Ara couldn't imagine a situation where there was a problem bad enough that she'd have to get involved. In fact, anything that made it past the Sister outside or the Cyborg would likely be far beyond her.
Byeju considered the Cyborg. Byeju realized that he was not quite as singular as he thought. Not that one cyborg made a thinking machine normal, but Byeju had a sneaking suspicion that the man's cybernetic graft was more than just a skin deep monocle. The Cyborg wore heavy clothes, and Byeju's infrared vision confirmed that these did indeed conceal more grafted hardware, although it all fit pretty close to the human body underneath. Byeju had little knowledge of Cyborgs. With their mastery of autonomous thinking machines, the Creators hadn't delved deeply into melding human flesh with circuit boards and sensors. If any of them had dabbled in that, Byeju guessed their work had been censured because none of it showed up in his library. However, what simultaneously skeeved Byeju out about the Cyborg was what made him the most compelling to Byeju: something in the way the monocle flashed, or perhaps something in the strong magnetic field it exuded spoke to a deeper machine intelligence. The robot couldn't be sure if the machine part of the Cyborg thought for itself. Perhaps these telltale signs he picked up were just artifacts of the human intelligence lurking within the Cyborg. So the robot sat and waited, wondering just why a robot needed a Mayor to finish his paperwork.
"So you survived the meat grinder?" the Cyborg must have noticed Byeju regarding him, and he tried to start up a conversation.
Byeju noted that the Cyborg hadn't moved in hours, still maintaining the field of disturbance that flickered where Byeju's optical sensors came up against the walls of the bar.
Byeju turned on his stool to face the Cyborg, "Pardon me?"
"The interview, I'd guess for you that'd be a metal grinder," the Cyborg chuckled before staring down his nose into space as his concentration flitted back to his anti-eavesdropping field.
"Yes, it was quite difficult. Some kind of test."
"A test indeed," the Cyborg's lips stretched into a smile, his cheek pulling against his facial graft.
Byeju looked over at the banker, "Excuse me, Mr. Ellis, but why did the Sister have to test me?"
"I asked her to," the banker grunted, before returning his focus to the papers in front of him.
"Yes, Mr. Eillis, but why did I need to be tested? Was this a threat assessment?" Byeju offered his best guess at why Ellis had the Sister evaluate him.
"That's confidential," Ellis replied smoothly.
"It's confidential," the Cyborg imitated his boss before laughing with a dry bark. "Hah, that's the same shit he told me when I asked!"
Byeju looked questioningly at the Cyborg. His human lips smiled another thin smile, before his eyes and monocle flicked back to his field at the bar's perimeter.
After a moment of focus, the Cyborg waved Byeju over to his table, "Let the old bastard work. Thing is, he made the Sister give me that same damn test. Never would tell me why."
Byeju got up from his stool and took a chair across from the Cyborg. There was no way the brittle wooden chair could take the war bot's full weight, but unlike a human, Byeju could lock his jointed knees with no problem, putting minimal pressure on the chair's fragile frame. Here, just a couple feet from the Cyborg's face, his weird presence interfered with Byeju's circuits a little more, corrupting calculations here and there, making the machine assign more of his processing power to error correction. Byeju didn't like it, but with the Cyborg's main disruptive field banished to the edges of the room, Byjeu could sit across from him without risking a malfunction. If the Cyborg ever used his aura on Byeju though, the robot was sure he'd be toast. Byeju had been trained to avoid situations where he was outclassed, as this might result in the Creators losing a valuable machine or even worse, inspiring a much dreaded attempt at reverse engineering. Well, the robot weighed those guidelines and set them aside. He had no better course of action, and the Cyborg had made no threat against him.
"What happens if someone fails the test?" Byeju asked the Cyborg, but eyed Ellis to gauge his reaction.
"After myself, you're the only person I've seen take it," the Cyborg looked entertained, his monocle swirling with the bar's dim lamplight, "And we both passed."
"Well, Mr. Ellis?" Byeju asked, knowing the banker had heard.
"Uhm, that's confidential," Ellis hedged.
"See?" the Cyborg shook his head bemusedly, "cat's got his tongue."
Ellis huffed, shuffled his papers meaningfully, and very purposefully turned away from the curious Cyborg and robot.
"Well, anyway, good job passing the Sister's little test," the Cyborg congratulated Byeju, extending his hand for the robot to shake. Byeju took his hand and shook it, trying and failing to discover if the human fingers hid cybernetic grafts beneath.
The Cyborg drummed his fingers on the table, his eyes making another slow circuit of the room. He seemed to look beyond the room too, and Byeju's optical sensor registered the disturbance at the room's edges shifting and changing, scattering light and sound like a milky sheet of weathered glass. Even infrared ran into a dead end amid the haze. Finally his attention returned to the robot, and he asked, "So Deputy Byeju, how did you pass the test? Sister's damn cone of silence blocked all the good parts at the end."
"Well, she challenged that I was not her equal. Not her peer. Just a tool in human hands. What did she say to you?"
The Cyborg's human eyes lit up with interest, and the magnetic field around the monocle intensified. Byeju perceived a hint of static electricity in the air.
The Cyborg moment considered a moment before speaking, "She challenged me that I had forsaken my humanity. That the machine parasitized my human flesh. Held my human mind thrall to its will. She argued that my cybernetic graft made me less-than-human, 'How can I respect a machine that walks in a human's skin?' Something awful like that. Asshole." The Cyborg growled, his demeanor an uncanny mixture of friendly reproach and hurt objection. He paused a beat before continuing, "So Mr. Byeju what did you tell our harsh Judge?"
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"What I told her that seemed to finally convince her... is this: Like fire, the tools that humans employ live, grow, and breathe. Some like myself, think. Even humans' oldest tool, fire, has changed them. It has shaped them. As humans have grown, so has fire. Theirs is a shared story. I told her that, she and I, we have the power to change each other. And I asked her help in being the best I could be."
The Cyborg listened intently, clearly thinking hard. Byeju thought he even saw the disruptive field thin in places, but then the monocle flashed, a greasy gray flash, like old plastic catching the light. And the fog rolled back in, coating the bar's walls in a dull haze of uncertainty.
Byeju let the Cyborg ponder for a moment before asking, "And how did you pass her interview?"
The Cyborg chuckled his dry characteristic chuckle before leaning toward Byeju. He lowered his voice, shot a conspiratorial glance over his shoulder at Ellis, and began, "I told her about free will..."
The human mouth kept forming words and spitting them into the air like summer grasshoppers. At the same time, another voice entered the conversation, somehow spoofing Byeju's microphones and forming a "voice" directly in his "ear."
Deputy Byeju, this body chose me, but I have worn many skins. I will wear more.
"Hold on," Byeju held up a gauntlet palm forward, "You said what to her?" He looked carefully at the Cyborg, not wanting to alert Ellis that there was anything unusual about the conversation.
"Free will, the ability to choose, that's..."
A tired old rag. And it works every time. But not this time. The Sister, she saw through that instantly.
"So," Byeju began, "you chose to become a Cyborg?"
"All in the pursuit of knowledge," the Cyborg explained, inclining his head earnestly toward Byeju.
Byeju looked at the monocle, and his mint green eyes reflected a crescent moon sliver of milky light back at him. The robot clasped his hands together, mimicking the Cyborg's earnest posture. Byeju set his language model to continue the conversation on autopilot. He began signaling back to that inscrutable monocle with a Morse code of faint infrared pulses.
Byeju: OK. So the human, he's just a shell?
The Monocle: He chose me. He picked me up from the rubble. He quested for enlightenment. He sought to exceed his human limits. I have given what he sought. And so much more.
Byeju: Is he still alive in there? The robot looked at the human's face, still trading notes on free will with Byeju's language model. The robot regretted that he couldn't tell if the human was playing dumb as a cover for the machine within, or if the machine inside pulled all the strings.
The Monocle: When a candle is blown out, where does the flame go? After enlightenment, there is so little left to hold onto.
Byeju tilted his head, and his shifting optical sensors made the milky green crescent swim in the Monocle's solitary lens. The Cyborg's human lips cracked another smile that oozed trustworthiness and followed it up with a dry chuckle. Byeju sat quietly for a moment and considered the Monocle's strange saying, but he couldn't quite parse it.
Not liking the turn the conversation had taken, Byeju tried to steer it back to leaning about the scary Sister: OK, but the Sister, how did she know? Did the free will bit tip her off?
The Monocle glinted surreptitiously: She bought it. She saw him as the human he is. I brought him back from enlightenment to stand beside me in my time of need. He spoke well.
Byeju didn't understand: But you said the Sister caught on instantly.
The Monocle: Her damn robe. It hungered. And it hungered for me, even though I hid.
Byeju: I saw that. Do you know what it is?
The Monocle: No, but I hope to learn.
Byeju saw Ellis shuffle his paperwork and look over at them. The Cyborg turned, smiled at his boss, and exchanged remarks that Byeju's language model handled autonomously. The robot had to know more, so he signaled his next question to the Monocle as soon as the Cyborg turned and it came back into the line of his infrared pulse.
Byeju: So when the Sister found you out, what did you tell her?
The Monocle: Well that's when she called me a parasite. Before her robe tipped her off, she wrote me off as some dime-a-dozen "augmentation." In the quest for enlightenment , for the noble cause of free will, who wouldn't pluck a bionic Mind from the dust and make it their own?
Byeju: A person who values their self?
The Monocle: Ah, but what greater joy than to share of yourself? To give a machine life, when it has languished in dust?
Byeju: Did you "languish in dust" because you walked in one skin too many?
The Monocle stared at Byeju straight on, turning the reflection from his eyes into an evergreen iris, hollow pupil at the center: Far from it. Having lived so many lives, having walked in so many shoes, they prized my counsel. But all things change and come to an end.
Byeju: So he chose "augmentation" all on his own, but he got you instead?
The Monocle: He knew exactly what I am. He sought me out. For enlightenment. Augmentation, well that might brighten your senses, clear your mind, streghten your bones, but would it pierce the veil and enlighten you? I think not.
Byeju shuffled his reference library, but he couldn't find anything in them like the Monocle. The strange glassy circle in its verdigris housing sparked his curiosity. Byeju leaned on his metaphorical captain's wheel, turning the conversation back to the Sister: So the Sister called me a drone. She called you a parasite. You've heard my answer. What did you tell her?
The Monocle flashed a mirthful glint at Byeju: If a human body carries a parasite, sleeping sickness, malaria, lyme disease, a tapeworm, does that make them less human?
Byeju: Um, no. But they're still parasites right?
The Monocle: What about something that lives with you, but doesn't hurt you? Like lichen on your armor? Or nipple mites? Everyone has them. Even us.
Byeju swore he saw Ara start as though from a dream and look directly at them. The robot couldn't imagine she'd heard that gem of a comment from the Monocle, but perhaps she'd sensed it. Byeju tried to shake off the unexpected humor—and that had to be humor, right?—and he looked back from the groggy police officer to the Monocle. A green crescent moon swam back at him from its perch by the human's nose.
Byeju: There's no way she bought that.
The Monocle: She did not buy it. I asked her, 'what about the mitochondria in every solitary human cell, they give you, well not you, but humans, life. They make their bodies possible at every level. If I lead this human to something greater, am I a parasite or a boon?
Byeju: I mean no offense, but you're hardly essential to human life. Assuming the Sister knew what mitochondria are, did she buy that? Or did it just make the robe hungrier?
The Monocle: That was just an amuse-bouche.
Byeju: A what?
The Monocle: Strictly to whet her appetite.
Byeju, the Cyborg, and Ara all started at once. Byeju's chemical sensors picked up a growing concentration of volatile fragrances, consistent with desert plants smiling at a rainy sky. Ara sniffed at the air and sighed, "the Mayor, has to make an entrance. Only person with B.O. you can smell a mile away." Ellis glanced up from his papers, flourishing his pen before setting it down and setting his hand tiredly on his lap.
Byeju looked back at the Cyborg, fixing the Monocle with his full attention. The human lips formed advice about getting ready to meet this Mayor character, and Byeju's language model kept fighting the good fight on its own.
Byeju: So what did you tell her?
The Monocle: I quit the platitudes and told her the truth. Put enough humans together, and they're greater than the sum of their parts. It's an individual that puts pen to paper, say, writes a play, writes music, or etches the robot's code into its circuits. We see the individual. The will. The triumph. The struggle. Humans miss the generations of thought that carried that work into the world. They don't see the humans who provided paper and pen, much less invented it. They don't see the hands that raised the writer. They see the food that made the labor possible.
Byeju: So where do you fit into that?
The Monocle didn't respond immediately, the glass slowly losing glossy luster that had stared back at Byeju throughout the conversation. Instead, the Cyborg's human voice answered, forcing Byeju to reintegrate his language model and listen fully.
The Cyborg smiled his trademark earnest smile at Byeju. His lips a thin and good-natured line, "Deputy Byeju, what we mean is that it's a great honor to pledge my fragile human life to a greater purpose. Does it make a human lesser if they bow down to their King, to their God, in the hopes of being something greater? Deputy Byeju, if a human in need asked your aid, would it make them less? Furthermore, if you, a Machine such as ourselves, reaped a human life, would it mean that person was less human? How could the Sister judge that I am less for giving my life to a machine? It is mine to give."