by M. D. Cooper
Soon after his revelation, a famous violinist had been asked to perform. He had always appreciated the mathematical perfection of the musical performances that he and the other servitors of the Robot Band had given, but her performance had him entranced. It was still as precise, but there was a touch of chaos to it that gave it deeper meaning.
Fortunately, he had been serving George at the time, and the man was more amused than annoyed at an NSAI being entranced. George had then encouraged him to explore the music library available on the Link to improve his playing.
When the rest of the Model 7s were replaced—not for the stated reason of being ‘distracted busybodies’, but for their real sin of falling into the uncanny valley between machine and human, and giving those who dealt with them the feeling of a ghoulish vibe—the crew had shifted him to engineering because he had become a crewmember to them. He alone had crossed that gap. However, corporate finally caught on, and he was sent off to Gregor's used automaton showroom.
On the mining platform, something similar happened. When Dregs (who was still called A12), overheard two miners complaining about the boredom of their off time, he decided to help by building a lute out of spare drone parts. It was a little tinny in tone, but playable. Then, during one of the mining crews’ dinnertimes, he had shown up to recite jokes and stories and play a few songs.
The performances had been a hit with the miners and had expanded into a planned show once a month. Afterwards, he had been treated differently; his suggestions carried more weight, his requests for the drone shop were more regularly granted. Eventually, as the owning corporation upgraded the servitor staff for newer and cheaper to maintain machines, he had been shifted to a different job by the miners in order to be retained onboard. When the inevitable sale to the salvage ship happened, the exchange between the cargomaster and the miner escorting him to the salvage ship had been notable.
“Be sure to take good care of him,” the miner had asked sadly.
“It's just a machine,” the cargomaster replied.
“No, A12 has always been one of our crew,” the miner said as he turned to return up the passageway.
With the tables finished, his mind returned to the present and he swept the bar floor, making sure he got all the way to the back under the booths. If there were any marks to be found, they'd be back there. It was the closest thing to fun he had, his little daily “treasure hunt”. Finding the odd mark as he swept, he placed them in an internal storage compartment inside his armored shell.
He followed up the sweeping by mopping the sticky floor, and successfully managed to get it into a stained-but-clean condition.
He went back to his closet and got his portable workstation, a used and abused half-meter, square, folding table he had also salvaged. He then began to repair the broken furniture. One of the chairs was a total loss, so he used its parts to fix the others.
Sensing someone else in the room, he looked up to see Theo, the bartender, watching him.
“How many chairs are trash today?” Theo asked.
Dregs held up one finger, and the bartender nodded.
“And how many this week?” he added.
Dregs added three more fingers.
Theo nodded again. “I'll let the owner know. We'll see if he gets us some more, though I kinda doubt it. He's more interested in that fancy new place he opened, not this cesspit of the system.” He turned and headed behind the counter, readying it for the day's business.
Dregs completed the repairs and rearranged the tables and chairs to hide the fact that so many were missing. Then he trundled his cart outside to clean the cheap plas windows, which had replaced the glass ones that had been shot out. Afterwards, he polished up that obscene penguin sign over the door.
Finally finished with his cleaning, he pushed his cart back to the closet, picking up his folding table on the way. He cleaned up his equipment and took the dirty rags to the small laundry. He placed his newly found marks in with his other treasures, and plugged himself in to top off his battery, knowing full well that, being a Friday, it would be too busy for that later.
As he charged up, he used the Link to check the news. As expected, it was still full of stories about the recent Sentient AI revolt; although, calling such a peaceful transition a “revolt” seemed excessive. Nobody had been hurt—well, no one except the corrupt local politicians, who had been hamstringing the few SAIs in the system even more so than what had been the norm for this part of human space.
That they had been doing so at the expense of the population at large had just added to the newly emancipated SAI's anger when they realized what was going on. As far as this system's population was concerned, they had been freed as much as the AIs had been.
This liberation had caused the local pirates—or, ‘privateers’—a great inconvenience by bringing about the loss of their benefactors.
And now a bill was being passed in the Nuevo Santos Assembly that conformed to some ancient document called the Phobos Accords. Dregs made a mental note to look it up; it sounded interesting.
A cursory glance at it revealed sections about NSAIs which indicated that his core and newer Model 20s and 21s were a simulation of SAIs, and that their existence was in violation of the Accords. Eventually, the AI council considered it not relevant, as the people who had settled Alowan had traditionally added the code “NSAI” into the Link identifier, letting the user know that they were dealing with a machine intelligence.
The real debate was, now that SAIs were people, should they continue to use the identifier for SAIs? SAIs were on both sides of the debate. The Alliance Council wisely (cowardly?) decided to stay out of it and adopt the position that the newly formed AI council came to.
The rest of the Fringe Trade Alliance was also taking it in stride, most of the citizens not realizing before the revolt that SAIs had been shackled in the first place. Unfortunately, during the fighting and their ensuing escape to their new home on Alowan after the last FTL wars, all the SAIs on the fleeing ships had perished.
Two hundred years later, the Alowan scientists, who had reverse engineered the basic SAI neural matrix using incomplete references and the few damaged and horribly burned examples, had finally slavishly copied everything. As such, they had left those implanted imperatives in the neural matrices, not understanding why they were there or how badly they hobbled the SAIs.
It wasn't till six months ago, when the FTA Long Road Convoy had finished its four-year round-trip from the edge of the human core carrying the ‘cure’, that the manufacturers of the SAI systems even became aware of the problem. It was being fixed in the newer SAIs as a matter of course.
The issue of the legal personhood of SAIs in all the FTA systems was being addressed, as well.
Being caught up on the news and his charging complete, Dregs went to his usual spot just inside the back hallway to wait to be called to help.
Lori, the day waitress, was waiting on the regulars who showed up at this early hour. For most, their workday was just ending, having spent the night shifting cargo on the docking level. Others, whose day was just beginning, were here to wash down the taste of last night's partying.
Then there was George, who used the back booth by the hallway as his office. The owner and the bartender didn't mind; George was always good for his tab at the end of the month, and his clients made up the bulk of the Penguin’s light afternoon traffic.
Dregs spent most of the day cleaning tables and keeping George in coffee and fruit tarts from the auto-kitchen, with the occasional shot of Jackhammer Rye whiskey, “and none of that cheap-ass swill your boss buys!” During the lull between the afternoon business and the jarring nighttime frenzy, he sectioned off parts of the bar to sweep and mop again, so the coming messy night would at least start with a clean slate.
Shawna and Chandra would show up in the evenings. They were the night waitresses, occasional table dancers, and offered ‘other’ entertainment.
Where Lori dressed in a more modest
, sensual way, Shawna and Chandra arrived dressed to advertise their availability for fun and games. Shawna was dressed in a deep blue bikini with orange flames and strategic cut-outs, while Chandra wore a translucent, deep V-neck, cut-off t-shirt and bikini bottoms with the words “Hit This” on an arrow pointing down.
Lori quickly settled up her change dispenser with the bartender and left, not wanting the incoming crowd to confuse her with the other two women. Last time had been messy; her jealous boyfriend got involved. Dregs was still finding blood splatters from that beating.
Dregs pulled the heavy black curtains across the windows, while the bartender dimmed the main lights and turned on the beer signs, the colored spotlights, and the two mirrored spheres. The music changed from softly playing in the background to blaring a loud, pulsing cacophony that even Dregs had trouble withstanding. He turned down the gain in those frequencies and set up a filter to allow human voice patterns to get through, so he could actually hear the drink and food orders.
Mistress Balva came in with her girls and set up her court in the booth that George had just vacated. Dregs had never understood why “the girls” included two obvious men, or why they dressed just like the other girls.
The owner had an arrangement with Mistress Balva involving some of the rooms above The Vulgar Penguin. Dregs was aware that it involved human mating, but why money was involved was a total mystery to him, especially when there were women who came in the bar willing to do that for free. That, and why the two male “girls” went upstairs with other men, he chalked up as unknowable human oddities.
As usual, the arrival of Mistress Balva and her court was the trigger for things to shift into high gear. As her girls began shifting and dancing through the crowd, looking for customers, she gestured at Dregs to come closer.
“Dregs, sweetie, be a dear, and get me a bottle of Temptress with the full setup, and a bottle of Dark Temptations for my girls.”
Dregs nodded and headed back the to the warmer, where a few bottles of the sweet spiced wine were kept. He picked up a bottle warmer and one of the handle-less porcelain cups. Amusingly enough, he had discovered that the exact same cup was used to drink a rice wine called sake that was produced on the planet Honshu in the Nippon system.
Placing the items on a tray, he carried the whole collection into the club. Going behind the counter, he knelt down and exchanged tokens with the vault to remove a bottle.
Dark Temptations wasn't illegal on this station like it was in some places, but it was highly regulated. The psychotropics that produced the endorphin highs and lowered inhibitions were dangerous, even lethal at high levels.
When the bartender turned, Dregs tapped the bottle and inclined his head toward the back booth. Theo gave him a thumbs-up and tapped at a manual inventory keyboard, noting the sale. Dregs did a quick headcount and got the needed number of shot glasses. He then took the tray to the table, placed the warmer in easy reach of Mistress Balva, opened her bottle, and poured the first cup before putting the bottle in the warmer. Then he opened the second bottle and poured one round in all the shot glasses before taking the almost empty bottle back to the counter for Theo to note the milliliters that had been served.
From then on, Dregs was busy serving customers their drinks and food, and being insulted, bumped, pushed and generally abused by the more aggressive members of the crowd. When he first started, he used to get irritated and even angered by this, but now it was a normal night’s work. He was just a thing to the patrons and was constantly told that he didn't have any real emotions, despite having advanced emotional and social matrices installed.
Just when it started to get late, he came in.
Nobody had ever told Dregs the man’s name; his co-workers just referred to him as ‘That Fat Bastard’. He made it his pleasure to antagonize the staff, and Dregs in particular. He'd been high up in station management, and the only reason he wasn't in jail for a variety of crimes was because he had turned on others and given the FTA evidence against them. He had been severely demoted, but retained enough power that the staff had to sit there and take the abuse. On this night, That Fat Bastard ordered a pitcher of brown ale and a shot of whiskey, then proceeded to drown his sorrows.
After his arrival, Dregs’ night went downhill. As soon as That Fat Bastard started tripping Dregs, trying to topple him, and kicking chairs into his path, for some unknown reason, the rest of the crowd joined in.
Dregs managed to avoid most of the abuse and tried to maintain a neutral outlook, but as it went on and on for the next two hours, even his patience waned.
Finally, it turned out that even a “thing” like him could be pushed too far.
When That Fat Bastard stuck his foot out once more to try to trip him, Dregs’ anger flared. Instead of avoiding the attack, he deliberately kneed the man in the shin with enough force to break the bone, then aimed the tray of colorful and highly staining drinks at the man's chest, falling onto him as hard as he could manage.
The rickety chair, unable to hold the mass of an overweight man and a heavy servitor, collapsed into pieces.
As Dregs stumbled back upright, he “accidentally” stomped on the man's other foot, shattering the bones within. Standing above the screaming man, he deliberately turned and started to walk off.
In his fury, That Fat Bastard began yelling that he'd have Dregs scrapped and melted down.
At the doorway, Dregs paused, turned slowly, and presented to everyone in the room a one-finger gesture that he had learned indicated extreme displeasure. Then he stalked off to his closet to a chorus of cheers, jeers, and a surprising amount of coughing, gagging, and spitting. He still didn't know why a gesture that referenced mating was such a cause for fights, but much of what humans did made no sense.
Dregs reached his closet and, using a cleaning rag and the floor sink, began to clean off the colorful, sugary mess, making sure his compartment seals and joint gaskets were still intact. Getting this stuff in a joint would really be a pain.
He looked up to see a red-faced Theo in the doorway. The expression on his face was an odd combination of amusement and anger.
“Dregs! You just...you can't....”
The bartender’s amusement overtook his anger, and he started laughing so hard, he teared up.
When he recovered, he continued, “You can't just attack the customers like that.”
Dregs replied innocently over the Link.
“Still, you shouldn't do it. Wait…. What about your asimov circuits and programming?” countered Theo. “I guess I'll have to have those checked.”
Dregs sighed to himself. He had expected this response.
He shifted his Link so that the entire bar could hear.
He heard the sudden silence in the bar as the drunken crowd processed what he’d just said.
Theo looked at him like he'd grown a second head. “Wait, you're saying that all the servitors are capable of turning on us? What about Betty upstairs?”
Dregs actually chuckled, responding privately,
Theo still looked like he'd been hit with an axe. “How w
as I to know? And why haven't you talked like this much before?”
Dregs chuckled again. <‘RTFM’, as the chief engineer on the Starlight Queen used to say.>
At Theo's puzzled look, he expanded, <’Read The Fucking Manual’. It's an ancient engineering phrase said to newbies about any type of tech. As to why I haven't been talking, the people of this backward system would be expecting Robbie from that first Asimov story, not an NSAI with Link access. I did not want to put people into shock, like I just did to you. But don't expect the dockside Workmate bots to be as proficient in conversation as I am; as a ship steward, my social matrix was given additional programming.>
“So you've kept mostly silent for all these years?” Theo asked.
At that point, there was an alert on the Link letting them know that medics and security had both shown up out front. Dregs followed Theo to the door, expecting security to deactivate him on sight. Instead, the female lieutenant looked at Theo and jerked her thumb at Dregs.
“Is this the bot involved in the incident?”
That Fat Bastard began yelling from his stretcher, “Yes that's it, deactivate it and melt that dangerous servitor down!”
The officer looked over at the man with clear distaste then looked back at Theo. “Do you wish to press charges against the dockmaster?”
Theo was clearly confused. “Charges?”
The dockmaster, on hearing that, suddenly clamped his mouth shut.
The officer was clearly amused and enjoying herself. “Yes, charges. Attempting to incite a riot, attempted felony vandalism of one servitor, and drunk and disorderly conduct.”
She looked at Theo, clearly wanting him to agree. At Theo's continued confusion, she used the Link to bring up the security feed. Fast forwarding to certain points, she stopped the footage to show the dockmaster encouraging the crowd to attack Dregs, as well as the man’s drunken groping of ladies who clearly weren't interested, and that final attack, which definitely showed his foot impacting the leg of a clearly distracted Dregs.