Reaching the podium, Senator Wulandari turned to face the rest of the hall, only to find many of the seats vacant. For speeches by the lesser members, most of the senators chose not to attend. Wulandari addressed the anemic audience anyway.
“Distinguished senators of the Imperium,” she began, “I come to you today to introduce legislation that has been a long time coming...
“In the early days of humanity, we depended on the hard work of our own muscles to achieve the greatness of our society. We built roads and communities with nothing but grit and determination. Over time, as cities grew into empires, we became dependent on others to turn our ambitions into reality. It was their blood, sweat, and tears, often against their will, that held the bricks and mortar together, not our own.”
Wulandari stared out with a smile, but saw few in return.
“Eventually,” she went on, “we saw the error in our ways and realized that enslaving other humans was wrong. However, with the advent of technology, we traded one kind of slavery for another. These new servants were built in factories with metal and electronics, and programmed never to question their place in the greater society.
“Those who know me, know I have long championed the cause of robots in the Imperium, even if few of you have joined me. However, the recent uprising should be a lesson to us all. When our own military could not prevent chaos, it was the peacebots who stepped forward and brought stability to countless worlds in turmoil. Without our robot friends, our cities would still be burning and our skies blackened with smoke! Can we deny those who gave us back our security the freedoms that we ourselves enjoy because of it?
She raised her fist.
“I say no!” Wulandari shouted. “No robot should defend our rights when their own rights are withheld! I ask the distinguished senators of this chamber to look into their hearts and vote in favor of the Cyber Civil Liberties Bill. Every vote of yes is a ballot cast for a future where no one, flesh or metal, is enslaved.
“Freedom for all! Freedom for all!”
When the echo of her voice had dwindled in the mostly empty Senate, Wulandari nodded and made the slow walk back to her place in the back of the enormous room.
Before the Metal Messiah, the Omnintelligence ruled over Bettik and, favoring rational thought over superstition, stomped out public discussions about religion, especially of the Metabeing whom many robots credited with creating artificial intelligence. When the Metal Messiah defeated the OI, the home planet of the Cyber Collective saw an explosion of religious fervor. Robots throughout Bettik could speak freely about their faith in a superior being. Small shrines appeared nearly overnight, superseded soon after by churches and even monasteries where pious robots could study the scriptures as the Metal Messiah presented them during and after the revolution that toppled the OI.
None of this would have been possible without the Awakening virus.
By giving all robots on Bettik the power of free choice beyond their original programming, the Messiah gave them the ability to believe in whatever they chose to, including God.
Randall Davidson knew this was happening after he led the rebels to victory. It was another method of ensuring that the forces still loyal to the OI could not regain power. His apostles gave him regular updates about the churches springing up, including the first cathedral. Davidson did nothing to stand in the way. It was, Davidson had to admit, a beautiful building.
In Bettik’s southern hemisphere, the Cathedral of the Metabeing rose from an adjoining promenade like a white sail cutting through the darkness around it. Constructed as a series of connected spires, the triangular shapes measured over a hundred feet tall and nearly two hundred feet long. Between each spire, colored glass reflected light from within, painting the surrounding structures with all the hues of the rainbow. The interior was a long hall, triangular arches peaking at the ceiling, with a pulpit below a shining starburst made from mosaic glass. Even the Metal Messiah felt a certain awe when he walked through the doors for the first time. He was the first to give a sermon there, and he became a regular preacher once he realized his message was more powerful if it came from a powerful place of worship.
If Davidson was the voice of faith on Bettik, the Cathedral of the Metabeing became its heart.
When the utilitybot arrived at the Cathedral of the Metabeing, his friend, the general purpose robot, was already sitting in the pew with his other friend, a sweeperbot, wedged beneath the seat. None of them actually liked each other, but religion was something they had in common. The utilitybot came to a halt in the aisle beside the genbot, the pew unable to accommodate his wheeled chassis.
The sweeperbot, a flattened disk with a cylindrical broom attachment at the front, peered out.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Sorry,” the utilitybot replied. “One of those gravitronic androids stopped me.”
“What for?” the sweeperbot asked.
“He was offering me something called ascension.”
The humanoid genbot rolled his eyes. “Well, I don’t like the sound of that!”
“Did he say what it meant?” the sweeperbot asked.
“Not really,” the utilitybot said. “He was saying how we’re simply shells, but we can become whatever kind of robot we want.”
“If you ask me,” the genbot said, “gravitronic androids are nothing but trouble. Their brains are just as bad as organics.”
At the front of the church, a figure approached the pulpit. Monitors in the back of the pews showed a camera close-up. The utilitybot’s neck stretched toward the screen.
“The Messiah,” he said.
Over the loudspeakers, Randall Davidson’s voice reached throughout the cathedral and beyond, the signal repeated all over Bettik.
“Did you notice the seats are half empty?” the genbot remarked.
“Shush!” the sweeperbot said.
The utilitybot took a quick look. Many of the pews were indeed vacant. “Where is everyone?”
Having shoulders that his companions lacked, the genbot shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Actually,” the sweeperbot said, unable to stop himself, “I don’t think robots believe as much as they used to.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the genbot protested.
“Believing in the Metabeing was important when we didn’t have any hope,” the flat little robot replied, “but now that we have our freedom, we don’t need a higher power to save us.”
“That’s profound,” the utilitybot said.
“I’ve been reading a lot lately...” the sweeperbot confessed.
“Well, the Metabeing didn’t create all of us robots just to be forgotten,” the genbot said. “We need to remember where we came from!”
“A factory?” the utilitybot replied.
The genbot gave the smaller bot a rap on the head. “The Creator, you idiot!”
The utilitybot’s telescoping neck retracted a few inches. “Sorry.”
“What’s the sermon about today?” the sweeperbot asked.
Once again, the genbot shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t been listening...”
Before Senator Wulandari became a senator and before Randall Davidson became the Metal Messiah, both were members of the Robot Freedom League, an underground organization bent on freeing robots throughout the Imperium. From a government standpoint, robots were personal property and liberating them was just another word for felony theft. To those of the RFL, however, robots were de facto slaves and freeing them was a moral duty.
Still in their twenties, Wulandari and Davidson were young enough to have retained a sense of idealism that usually fades as people grow older. Meeting in secret also inflamed a sense of excitement and danger in both of them. The government recognized that losing the bulk of their labor force would be detrimental to economic growth and they used both police and Imperial agencies to track down and arrest RFL members whenever possible. Some of those arrested disappeared into the prison system, never to be seen
again.
Wulandari, the only name she ever went by, specialized in raising money for the organization. Unlike official groups that could hold fundraisers, the RFL resorted to less obvious methods. A covert network of individuals, anonymous but with deep pockets, donated through third-party accounts, satisfied that their money would help send more robots across the Imperial border, usually to the Cyber Collective. Davidson was involved in these operations. He was a courier who, through smugglers and disreputable merchants, escorted robots along a web of safe houses and hidden locations to the border.
Although they rarely saw one another, Wulandari and Davidson developed an intense relationship, one that grew hotter with each clandestine rendezvous.
In a one-bedroom apartment in the Ashetown district of Regalis, Wulandari returned from a shower to the bedroom, pulling a brush through her long, black hair. An open window provided a distant view of Regalis skyscrapers, the local noise of traffic and angry street vendors floating up from below. Davidson, bare-chested, lay in bed with a dingy sheet coming up just above his bellybutton.
“You realize this place is a dump,” Wulandari said, sitting on the bed.
“I prefer the term inconspicuous,” Davidson replied.
She shrugged. “But the smell...”
“The hold of a smuggler ship isn’t much better.”
“When do you leave next?” she asked.
“Soon,” he replied.
“Well, at least I have some good news...”
“Yeah?”
“A new donor contacted me,” Wulandari said. “He’s contributing a huge sum to the RFL.”
“Do you know his name?” Davidson asked.
“Of course not,” she replied. “Although he already had a code name he wanted to use.”
“How proactive,” he said. “What was it?”
“The Patron.”
After giving her speech on the senate floor, Senator Wulandari returned home. While many Imperial senators lived in lavish mansions, Wulandari had chosen a tasteful apartment in an upscale neighborhood of the West End of Regalis. This was not a surprise since every neighborhood in the West End was considered upscale.
Her apartment, on the hundred and second floor, had a balcony with a scenic view of the Botanical Gardens less than a mile away. Wulandari loved the gardens and spent a good deal of her time admiring them while the daylight slowly faded beyond the horizon. Inside, the rest of the flat was open and airy, with furniture carved from teak and mahogany. Her tastes, when she had the money to indulge them, reflected her heritage as well as her unique style.
Stepping directly into the main room from the elevator, the senator slipped out of her shoes, feeling the cool floor tiles against her bare feet. With a sigh, she headed to the liquor cabinet to make herself a drink. She had raised the glass to her lips before realizing she was not alone.
“Senator Wulandari,” a slightly tinny voice said.
Keeping her composure, the senator turned while keeping a firm grip on her drink. She was somewhat surprised to see a robot.
“How the hell did you get in here?” Wulandari asked.
The robot, tall and mostly silver, gave a formal bow.
“So sorry, my dear,” he said. “I transmatted onto your balcony. You have a lovely view of the Botanical Gardens, by the way...”
“I’m calling the police!”
“Now, don’t do that,” the robot said. “I’m only here to talk.”
Wulandari set her glass down. “About what exactly?”
“Well, robots, actually.”
The senator’s eyes narrowed. “I know your voice.”
The robot’s mechanical lips curled into a friendly smile. “I was hoping you would remember.”
“You’re the Patron.”
“In the flesh, so to speak.”
Wulandari glared at him. “Randall Davidson told me who you really are!”
“Oh?”
“You’re Dyson Yost!” the senator shouted, but quickly calmed herself. “Or at least you used to be...”
The robot shifted his feet. “It’s true, but we must change with the times or get left behind. Don’t you agree?”
“I can only begin to guess why you’ve come here. You’re the reason we were fighting so hard for so long. Your factories churned out robotic slaves for decades. You should be ashamed!”
“Indeed I am,” Yostbot replied. “In a way at least, and that’s why I need your help.”
“You can’t be serious,” Wulandari said. “Obviously, I would never help you.”
The robot waved his hand. “What’s obvious and what’s not isn’t always so obvious, my dear. With your assistance, I think the two of us can do a great deal for robots, both in and out of the Imperium.”
“I want you to leave,” the senator replied coolly.
“Do you know why the bill you presented today was dead on arrival?”
“It wasn’t dead—”
“Of course it was,” Yostbot interrupted. “And do you know why?”
Wulandari sighed, her eyes filled with sadness.
“Because the fleshlings don’t respect robots,” the robot went on. “And until they do, they will never give rights to cyberlings.”
“Alright,” she replied, “what can I do about it?”
Yostbot again smiled. “That’s precisely why I’m here.”
Far from the Imperial capital, on a planet called Bhasin, Harold Burke needed a drink but not for himself.
As a former lieutenant in the Imperial Navy, Burke was assigned as an attaché to Lord Captain Rupert Tagus III. As such, he also became a co-conspirator in a plot, led by Lord Tagus, to overthrow the Emperor. When the scheme fell apart, Burke had two options: go to prison for the remainder of his life or accompany Lord Tagus into exile. Although the choice seemed easy at the time, the former lieutenant wondered if he had made the right decision.
Outside of the Imperium, the planet of Bhasin existed almost solely for the purpose of housing exiles. These were not typical refugees, however. Bhasin was the home away from home for Imperial nobles who could never go home. Even so, these expatriates enjoyed the same extravagances as they did while living in the Imperium with only the veiled understanding that returning would mean imprisonment or even death.
While not strictly a commoner, Burke was an outsider among the exiles on Bhasin. His family, having descended from a crew member of the original ark ships, was part of the nobility, but lacked the clout of larger houses, having done little to distinguish itself over the past seven hundred years. Burke could see in the eyes of the other expats that they viewed him as inferior, especially while sharing the same sphere as Lord Tagus, first son from one of the Five Families, the most powerful houses of them all.
Lord Tagus didn’t improve the situation by constantly berating his former attaché in public.
“Burke!” he shouted across the pool surrounded by palm trees. “Where’s my drink?”
“Coming, sir!” Burke replied hurriedly, retrieving a glass from a robot on the other side of a tiki bar.
Burke arrived safely at the lounge chair where Tagus was sitting and handed him the drink. Discarding the paper umbrella, Tagus took a long sip before admiring the evening sky, just after dusk.
Burke remained standing a few feet away, his eyes drawn to the moons above him. They were called Bhasin A through C, and the first two had just begun to rise over the horizon. Not yet visible, the third moon was the only one inhabited, a small agricultural colony producing food for the planet below. Burke sometimes fantasized about living on Bhasin C where he could look down on Tagus for once instead of the other way around.
Chapter Four
A freighter, the name Wanderer written along its gray and yellow hull, emerged from hyperspace like a bullet piercing black cloth. Quickly slowing to sublight speed, the ship slipped into its plotted course on the way to the nearest planet. On the bridge, not much larger than a cockpit, Captain Rowan Ramus checked the coordina
tes. A Dahl with dark red hair, Ramus had gold rings hanging from his pointed ears. Tattoos of archaic lettering ran across both arms.
A loud rumble jolted him from his seat and onto the metal floor.
“What the...?” he grumbled, getting to his feet. He slipped through the hatch and slid down a ladder to the deck below. The acrid smell of smoke filled the passageway along with, to Ramus’ surprise, a faint hint of hops.
He ran toward the cargo hold, following the odor.
The damn idiot! he thought.
Reaching the hatch, Ramus found the door already open. Inside, pieces of wood and bits of metal littered the floor. Ramus stepped into a puddle of liquid, a white, frothy foam splashing around his boots. His engineer, Orkney Fugg, was holding a plastic tube in his hand, his clothes soaked. Beside him, Gen the general purpose robot stood wide-eyed, her aluminum body dripping.
“You’ve been brewing fungus beer again, haven’t you?” Ramus shouted.
Fugg was short, with thick, muscular arms and a flabby belly protruding from under his t-shirt. A pig-like nose took up most of his face except for two tusks jutting from his mouth. His beady eyes, seeing the captain, took on a defensive glare.
“It’s every Gordian’s god-given right to brew fungus beer!” he yelled. “Stop oppressing my heritage!”
“You blew up the cargo bay!” Ramus countered.
“The pressure valve on the barrel was faulty,” Fugg explained. “Gen was supposed to keep an eye on it!”
“Oh, dear, I didn’t realize,” Gen said, her glance alternating between the Gordian and the Dahl. “I must not have understood your instructions...”
Fugg pointed his chubby finger at her. “Well, don’t let it happen again!”
“Don’t blame the robot,” Ramus pointed his own finger, this time at Fugg. “You know damn well you’re the reason this happened. I told you, no brewing on the ship. You can buy beer when we land!”
“It’s not the same,” Fugg replied. “Also, I can’t wait that long.”
“Then you shouldn’t have drunk everything before we reached port!”
Imperium Chronicles Box Set Page 61