Bobiverse 2: For We Are Many

by Dennis E. Taylor

  Meals were held at specific times, simply because of the logistics of preparing food for that many people. But there was no organization that I could see. My best metaphor was a birthday party attended by two-year-olds—a total free-for-all.

  The adults held an assortment of jobs. The Pav didn’t seem to care about stratification of social classes. The matriarch of the house, Da Hazjiar Los, was on Mheirkva’s town council. She seemed intelligent and, for a Pav, very level-headed. I made a point of tagging her for special handling, if and when.

  I settled in for some long-term spying on people’s lives.

  69. Wake

  Howard

  January 2211

  Vulcan

  Okay, here goes. This was the third time I’d said that, but I still hadn’t opened the cargo bay door. Stage fright, for sure.

  Manny would never be mistaken for human. He was a giant step down from Mr. Data, in fact. But I had told Bridget I would be there, and I was going to keep my promise.

  I took a deep breath—Manny performed the motion, not that he needed oxygen—and commanded the door to open. I stepped out and looked around.

  I had landed the cargo drone in the parking lot of the funeral home. A small crowd of people was gathered in front of the building entrance, watching. I guess they’d been waiting for me. I activated magnification for a moment and recognized several people, including Butterworth.

  I walked toward the group, concentrating on not falling flat on my face. I’d practiced beforehand, but this was my first physical public appearance in almost two hundred years. Nervous didn’t even begin to cover it.

  Butterworth nodded to me. “Not bad, Howard. I’m sure you’ll continue to improve the product.”

  I nodded back. There wasn’t enough facial control to smile, yet, and I didn’t trust my voice right at that moment.

  We stepped into the building, where Bridget was waiting. She smiled, and my heart was almost wrenched out of my chest at the sadness there. She’d been with Stéphane for eighteen years. She stepped up to me and said, “Howard. I’m glad you came. Can I hug you?”

  “Yes, of course. Manny has full sensory input. It’ll be my first real hug since I, uh…” Died. Wow. Almost a total foot-in-mouth moment. “…since I became a replicant.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and hugged, and I could feel every bit of it, from her head against my cheek, to her breasts against my chest, to her arms around my back. The moment lasted an eternity, and a fraction of a second. Bridget stepped back and looked into my eyes, and I tried to re-engage my brain.

  I finally managed, “It’s good to see you.” A small, panicked corner of my mind wondered if Manny had faithfully rendered my imitation of a fish trying to breathe. I hoped not.

  I looked towards the coffin. “I guess replication wasn’t an option?”

  “Catholic, remember?” Bridget gave me a wan smile. “I don’t think the Archbishop would approve.”

  I wanted to ask if she would reconsider it for herself, but this wasn’t the time or place.

  This was the memorial. The funeral mass had already been held, and I hadn’t actually forgotten that Stéphane was Catholic. I would have been a distraction, to put it mildly. Bridget had been careful with who she invited to this event, to prevent any kind of awkwardness with yours truly.

  We stood around and talked, compared memories. I met Bridget’s children, Rosie, Lianne, and Howard, who answered to Howie. He would have just turned thirteen by the old Earth calendar, and seemed uncomfortable with his height, as if he’d just been through a growth spurt.

  Howie bombarded me with questions, while the two girls stood behind him and looked on with wide eyes. Turned out Stéphane had told stories about me.

  I told Howie a few stories about his father. As I did, memories of our early days on Vulcan flooded back. Stéphane had always accepted me as just a guy he talked to on the phone a lot. There’d never been any awkwardness, any reserve. It hit me that he was the best friend I’d had since well before I died. I scheduled a good cry for later, when I was alone.

  Bridget came over to stand beside me, a plate of food in her hand. I looked down at it: the usual mix of hors d’oeuvres, meat slices, and crackers. Bridget saw my glance and asked, “Can you eat?”

  “Not yet. Bill’s going to engineer Manny to be as human-like as possible, eventually. He’s been distracted with the Others thing, though. I’ll eat something in VR.”

  Bridget looked at her children, at her plate, everywhere but at me. I knew the conversation we’d had before I left Vulcan was still hanging there, between us. I sighed, and experienced a moment of panic when I realized that the sigh was audible.

  “We’ll talk some other time. You’re not leaving right after the memorial, are you?” Bridget had a small smile on her face.

  “Uh, well, physically I’m about nineteen light-years away, Bridget. SCUT remote capability is making distance mostly irrelevant. Manny will go into storage when I’m done with him. So there’s no leaving as such. I’ll always be around, whether by phone or in person. So to speak.”

  I looked around. The two girls had wandered off, but Howie was glued to our conversation.

  * * *

  “How’d it go?” Bill’s posture reminded me of Bridget, the day we introduced our product to Butterworth.

  I guess I should have expected it. This was a potentially watershed moment for the Bobs. Real physical contact would change all of our interactions.

  Bill and Garfield had both popped in as soon as I came back to VR. Dexter was there, as resident Bob. And Bob-1 had shown up as well. I gathered from conversation that he’d been harassing Bill for years about the androids.

  “It worked,” I said. “It was a controlled environment, and everyone there was expecting me, of course. I don’t know about going out in public.”

  “But it’s a start. And a successful one.” Bob was nodding his head repeatedly. I wondered for a second if his avatar had gotten stuck in a loop. But no, that was just excitement.

  I accepted the inevitable, and settled into my chair for the debriefing.

  “But how did it feel?” Bill fairly glared at me with the intensity of his question.

  I had a momentary image of him reaching down my throat and ripping the answer out of me. I snickered, which got me a couple of concerned looks. “Uh, compared to VR?” I looked up for a moment, organizing my thoughts. “It’s an order of magnitude more real. I don’t know how much of that is psychological, just from knowing that it is real. But I think the VR only provides the sensations we’ve programmed it to provide, while Manny gives us everything, expected or not, relevant or not, and not under our control. Think of it as the difference between trying to tickle yourself versus being tickled by someone else. It’s an entirely different, far more intense experience.”

  “Yeah,” Bill responded. “I tried to get some of that back with the baseball games, but I think it still falls short.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Bill. It’s not like I expect us to all fall over and go crackers. The VR saved Bob-1, and it’s saved all of us. We all agree on that.” I shrugged. “But it’s not the full-on experience. We’ve forgotten what that’s like. Today just reminded me.”

  I looked at Bob, who had finally gotten the head-bobbing under control but was now bouncing on his toes. An arched eyebrow made him blush and stop the motion.

  “I think the Android Project should be bumped up in priority,” Bob said.

  Bill rolled his eyes. “There’s a surprise. You willing to help? You have the free time, right?”

  Bob looked abashed, and Bill winced at the unintentional cheap shot. “Sorry, buddy. Didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

  Bob shrugged. “I get it. And yeah, I do have a lot of free time these days. Maybe this will help.”

  Bill popped up the project notes and schematics, probably rushing to change the subject. Garfield moved in, and the conversation wen
t all technoid.

  I sighed, stood and waved to everyone, then popped back to my VR. I had some thinking of my own to do.

  70. Conversation

  Howard

  May 2211

  HIP 14101

  Bridget’s voice sounded tired. She was looking better, though, at least over the phone. Her color was coming back, she was starting to take care of herself again. I ached to say something, to take her hand, to—okay, I needed to cut off that train of thought. I silently chanted ephemeral a half-dozen times. It didn’t help.

  “But it wouldn’t be me, would it, really?” Bridget’s image in the video window smiled.

  Her sad smile was a pale ghost of the high-wattage grin that I remembered from better days. I swallowed and, after a false start or two, replied, “That’s a philosophical argument that I freely admit I’m not able to be objective about. I’m not Original Bob. I’m not even Bob-1 or Will or Charles. But I’m me, and I feel just as alive as Original Bob did.”

  I stood up and began to pace around my apartment. The image that Bridget’s phone displayed to her would, of course, stay centered on me. “It would be you in very real ways, Bridget. I don’t know from souls, but in every other way, you would live on.”

  “I mentioned the idea casually,” Bridget said after a moment of silence. “The girls looked horrified. Even Howie looked unsure. And you know he’s all about you and the other Bobs.”

  I smiled in response. Bridget’s son was certainly my biggest fan.

  I hesitated before continuing. “Look, Bridget, it’s not like any decision is irrevocable. Except the one that’s in force if and when. I checked with Benning. All you need to do is have her record a video call where you state your wishes. It counts as a codicil. You can record a new one any time.”

  “I know, Howard. And for the moment, at least, I’ll have to pass.”

  I sighed, defeated. “Okay, Bridget. But I’m still going to build the equipment. At least we don’t have to behead and freeze you nowadays—the stasis pods will do a much better job of preservation. And the scanners are pretty straightforward. Plus, it’s not necessarily just you. We could—” I stopped abruptly as a thought hit me. I queued it for consideration after the call.

  Bridget looked at me with an arched eyebrow, but I didn’t explain, so she dropped it. “I hope you won’t be upset at me for this, Howard. I still want you to visit and all.”

  “Of course not. It’s your decision, Bridget, and I’ll respect that. And yes, I’ll visit when I can.” I gave her an apologetic shrug. “Manny is getting a makeover right now. Bob-1 is insanely OCD when he’s motivated—no surprise to anyone—and he’s been improving the android tech at a furious pace.” I chuckled. “Bill admitted to me that he’s a bit embarrassed. He worked on the project for decades, and Bob’s leaving him in the dust in a timespan of months.”

  “So Manny will be a little more human next time I see you?”

  “Actually, Manny will look like Original Bob, from what I’m told. Believable hair and skin, and so forth. And he’ll be able to eat. Although he won’t—uh, never mind.” TMI. She really didn’t need to know the ultimate fate of the meal.

  Bridget laughed. She knew exactly where my mind had gone. Just one of many things I loved about her.

  “So we can finally have dinner together?”

  I smiled and nodded. Finally, a real date.

  * * *

  “Butterworth?” Bill stared at me, eyebrows climbing his forehead.

  “Well, granted, Riker will probably have a cow, which will be ironic. But Butterworth has got to be in his eighties now, if not more. The guy’s like an Egyptian mummy. He just gets drier and more leathery.”

  “Maybe he’s a Pak Protector.” Bill grinned at me.

  I rolled my eyes. Honestly, sometimes the early-generation Bobs were a bit weird. “Yeah, anyway, he’s military. Or ex-military, whatever. Maybe he can help with the war.”

  “Interesting thought, Howard. I’m not against it, by any means. We should run it through a moot before bringing it up with Butterworth, though.”

  I nodded, unfazed. Moots were held weekly, these days, because of the Others’ threat. I wouldn’t have to wait long.

  * * *

  I’d never seen Butterworth actually speechless before. I’d seen him trying not to explode, I’d seen him explode, I’d listened to him explode. This was new.

  Butterworth stared into the video window, his jaw hanging slightly open. Finally, he found his voice. “You want to replicate me?”

  “Well, eventually. Not like this week. The process can’t be done on a living person, not if you want to be left with a living person afterwards. But I’m building the equipment for—er, for any such circumstance, and it occurred to me that you would be valuable for the war effort.”

  Butterworth looked down at his desk in silence. Then he looked up and smiled. “Sure, why not?”

  Well, that was easy. “Um, okay. I’ll send you a file with some information. You’ll need to update your will.”

  Butterworth nodded and ended the call.

  71. Charlie

  Bob

  June 2213

  Delta Eridani

  Charlie hung in the rack, powered down and looking boneless. The Deltan android looked utterly convincing—I had put a lot of effort into getting the fur right, both in texture and layout. I didn’t want Charlie to come across like all the bad ape and werewolf costumes from twentieth century movies. This needed to be believable.

  I realized that I was stalling. The android had been checked out every which way, and it was now time to put up or shut up.

  Sighing, I ordered the cargo drone to open the hangar door, while I activated Charlie.

  I turned my head and looked out the cargo bay doors. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the bright daylight outside. I undraped myself from the support rack and, staggering a little, walked to the doors. I stood for a moment, looking around at the forest. I’d seen all of this many times, of course, from the various drones, but there was something viscerally different this time. I was here in some undefinable way. It might be as simple as the feeling of the breeze lightly ruffling my fur, or the smell of the damp leaf layer that formed the floor of the forest. I spared a moment to grin with unconstrained joy, which the autonomic interface converted to a spread-eared, wide-eyed expression appropriate to a Deltan.

  Stepping out onto the surface of Eden, I looked down at the ground, feeling the slightly slimy texture as the decaying leaf fragments squished between my clawed toes. Dappled sunlight flickered as the tree branches and leaves moved in the breeze. With an effort, I brought myself back on task. I triggered the heads-up display and pulled up a local map. The image hovering in my line of sight showed my location, and the location of Archimedes relative to me. I turned to line him up, and began to walk.

  * * *

  I spotted Archimedes through the underbrush, the observation drone hovering near his shoulder. He casually worked a small flint core as he waited. It appeared I was far more nervous about this meeting than he was. Or maybe that was his way of coping.

  Well, whatever. Showtime. I walked towards him, and said his name as soon as I was within conversational distance. He looked up, and his eyes went wide. Springing to his feet, he squeaked, “Bawbe?”

  I grinned at him as I approached. I opened my mouth to respond, but stopped in surprise when he jerked back and exclaimed, “Woof! Wow!”

  “Problem?”

  “Sorry, Bawbe. You smell. Kind of like the drones, especially when a new one is delivered. And also a bit like the ashes from a cold fire. You definitely won’t fool anyone.”

  “Aw crap.” I rolled my eyes in frustration. “I didn’t think of that. Deltans depend much more on the sense of smell than humans do. Is it really bad?”

  “Not as long as I’m upwind, no.” He grinned at me.

  “Gotcha. Okay, I’ll go work on it. How about the re
st? Does it look okay?”

  Archimedes cocked his head one way, then the other. “You move in a sort of jerky way. Like a pup when he’s learning to walk, but maybe that’ll go away. What’s more weird is that your fur pattern is exactly the same on both sides of your body. No one is like that. It stands out.”

  Of course. I’d made Charlie completely symmetrical. I would have to fix that. And the odor. I needed to smell like a Deltan, and more importantly like an individual. I took a deep lungful of Archimedes, cataloguing his odor and the lingering essence of what had to be Diana. It wasn’t insurmountable, thank the universe. Just chemistry.

  “Got it. Okay, Archimedes. I’ll go away and fix this stuff. I can see you trying to stay upwind of me, even though you’re being polite about it.” I chuckled. “Having been downwind of a couple of people who needed showers, in a former life, I can relate.”

  Archimedes looked slightly confused, but nodded. I waved goodbye and turned to walk back to the cargo drone.

  * * *

  Charlie the android, Take 2. I walked up to Archimedes and spread my arms, palms forward, in a Well? gesture.

  He took a deep sniff, cocked his head, and nodded. “You’re walking better, as well. I guess that’s just practice, like with children. And your fur pattern is better. It’s very simple, but I know a few people like that. You’ll just be forgettable.” He grinned at me.

  I laughed in response. “Well, that’s fine. The last thing I want is to attract attention. Now, will I be questioned if I enter Camelot?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Archimedes turned and gestured towards the village, and we began walking. I silently ordered the drone to return to standby.

  “Camelot is so big, now,” he continued, “and Caerleon is growing as well. Even with the tension between us and them, a certain number of people still move back and forth. It’s not like there are rules about it.” He gave me a sideways glance and a knowing grin.