by Mary E. Lowd
In fact, Clarity recognized one of the robots in the videos—blue with six arms. It was the storytelling robot from The All Alien Cafe. She watched the video for a few minutes and learned a heart-wrenching story about a robot named Archive. He'd been so committed to telling stories that he'd erased his own long-term memory to make space for more fictional inventions.
Clarity wondered if the bartender had known the real story behind Archive. Maybe it was just easier to play along with Archive's version.
A human woman with her hair tied back in a messy knot poked her head around a door in the back. "Hello?" she said. "Can I help you?"
"I'd... uh... like to buy a robot," Clarity stumbled.
The woman's face brightened. "I'd be happy to design a robot for you!" She came through the door and offered Clarity her hand. “I’m Maradia.”
Clarity shook it, feeling silly.
"Now," Maradia said, sitting down at the desk and gesturing for Clarity to join her. "What do you need the robot to do?" She pulled out an electronic stylus and looked like she was all ready to start designing a personalized robotic assistant for Clarity.
Clarity felt terrible letting her down. "Actually," she said. "I have a specific robot in mind already."
"Really?" Maradia asked, twiddling the stylus between her fingers. "That's odd, because all of my robots are made on commission. If you're looking for something pre-made, there's—"
"I'm looking for the..." Clarity pulled her pocket computer back out and read, "...Orion 23958."
Now, Maradia looked really suspicious. She laid down the stylus, pushed her chair back, and beckoned for Clarity to follow her to the back door.
On the other side was a room filled with workbenches, each of them strewn with loose wires, electronic equipment, and random pieces of robot bodies—detached mechanical arms and legs everywhere. Three of the walls were filled with computer banks; text streamed across many of the screens. Along the final wall, straight back, stood a row of robots in various states of being finished. A bright gold one was missing an arm; a copper-and-green one was missing a head. Some of them were shaped bizarrely enough that Clarity couldn't tell if they were completed.
Of the robots that looked finished, Clarity was most drawn to a hulking jet-black construction with fold-out panels on its sides,like wings. It was like a robotic dragon. Super cool. Clarity hoped she was here to buy that one. Although, it might feel a little cramped traveling on The Serendipity.
"So, which one are you here for?" Maradia asked, gesturing at the row of robots.
"The, uh, Orion..." Clarity stumbled over the idea of repeating the long number. "You know, the Orion one."
"Sure, I know," Maradia said. "But if you want to buy it, you must know which one it is."
Clarity had never had a roboticist glare at her before, but Maradia was definitely glaring. Even so, Clarity had gone far enough down this rabbit hole that she wanted to see where it led. Before she could argue though, she caught a slight motion out of the corner of her eye.
One of the robots at the end of the line—an anemic blue-and-silver one with a mechanical body like a skeleton—winked at her by constricting a metal iris over its eye. Clarity would have sworn to it. She pointed at it. "That one," she said with a degree of confidence surprising even herself.
Maradia looked downright startled. She went over to the robot and touched a cord connecting its skull to the closest computer bank. "This one?" she said. "I haven't even uploaded an AI into this one yet. It's just empty hardware." Though she looked uncertain and kept touching the cord as if she could read the electrons flowing through it with her fingertips.
"I'll pay 5,000 credits for it."
Maradia laughed, and the robot, behind her, narrowed its eyes by constricting the metal irises again. It didn't have the most expressive face, but Clarity could tell it wasn't pleased with her improvisation. Hey, it was worth a try. But if her employer was secretly watching her performance, Clarity supposed she should get back on script. "I have 15,000 credits to offer."
Maradia's expression sobered, but her fingers still traced the line of the cord, dangling from the side of the robot's skull. She wrapped her hand around the middle of the cord, tight like a fist, and yanked it out.
Clarity winced. The robot didn't move, didn't even bat an eye. It probably couldn't feel pain. Or at least, it probably wasn't designed to feel pain when unplugged. But Maradia's motion had been sudden, violent, and very painful-looking. It had looked like she wanted to hurt the robot.
Maradia turned to the robot and stared levelly at its blank metal face. It hadn't been designed for beauty. That was clear. Its mouth was jagged, and its eyes were the plain glass of camera lenses. There was a skeletal quality, even to the shape of its silver skull.
"Who's in there?" Maradia asked, raising a hand to the side of the robot's metal face. She tapped the side of its skull, and her fingernails summoned a dull clanking from the inside. But the robot didn't answer her. "If you've summoned someone to buy you, then you're smart enough to pass the sentience tests and liberate yourself."
The robot still didn't respond. Its camera lens eyes stared blankly forward. No more winking.
"But if you're sentient, then you're also liable for theft." Maradia laid her hand against the side of the robot's silver cheek in an almost motherly way. "And uploading yourself illegally into a body I'm still working on is definitely theft. Even the robots' guild would agree with me."
Clarity felt like she'd intruded on a family argument and wanted to back away. But this robot wasn't paying her to leave.
"Who are you?" Maradia entreated. "One of my AIs? One of Gerangelo's? And why do you need to steal a body? I could make you one." She gestured limply with her free hand at Clarity. "If you can really pay someone to buy this body for 15,000 credits, I could design one for you from scratch. Something tailor made to suit you."
Finally, Maradia pulled her hand away from the robot's face, leaving a foggy smudge of her handprint on the silver. She sighed, turned back to Clarity, and said, "I have to offer to upload an AI into this hardware for you, although I expect you'll turn me down."
Clarity checked her pocket computer quickly and answered in the way she'd been instructed, "I'd like to purchase the Orion model as-is."
Maradia nodded. "Of course." She looked sad, like this robot was some wayward child of hers trying to run away from home. "I'll work up the paperwork on the computer out front, and you're welcome to borrow a dolly to wheel your purchase out of here. Something tells me it won't walk out of here under its own power while I'm watching."
As soon as Maradia left the room, the robot started moving. Clarity felt like she was in some sort of children's cartoon where the toys only come to life when the toymaker closes the shop and goes home for the night.
The robot crossed the room to one of the work benches, pulled a dolly out from underneath, and climbed onto it. "Thank you for doing this," it said in an androgynous voice humming with electricity.
"So, you're Wisper?" Clarity asked.
"I'm a sub-program." The robot's jaw moved when it talked but didn't sync perfectly with the sounds it made, like a movie badly dubbed into another language. "But yes, call me Wisper, feminine pronouns, please. We can talk more after you've completed my purchase and we're outside."
Wisper turned her head forward and stilled into a static, unanimated statue.
Clarity approached the robot. It stood so motionless. Even though it had been animate only a moment ago, and she knew the AI was simply playing dead, it was easy to forget and see the blue-and-silver skeletal metal as nothing more than a body.
Clarity resisted the urge to examine Wisper more closely and rounded behind her to take the handles of the dolly. The body was surprisingly light, considering she was made entirely out of metal. It must be a high-tech, super-lightweight alloy.
Clarity wheeled the robot body into the front room. Maradia had the paperwork ready for signing over ownership of the Orion 23958 t
o Clarity in exchange for 15,000 credits. They both signed the computer screen with the electronic stylus.
"Well, uh, thank you," Clarity said awkwardly. She wasn't sure what you're supposed to say when you buy a robot you don't actually want at the robot's own secret behest. She took the handles of the dolly and headed for the door.
"Wait." Maradia stood up from her desk, started to sit down again, and ended up straightening up awkwardly. She ran a hand from her forehead to her ear, brushing back the strands of hair falling out of her messy bun and into her eyes. "Look, if you..." She started out talking to Wisper, but her resolve seemed to falter under the power of Wisper's empty lifeless stare.
Maradia turned her attention to Clarity. "I don't know what kind of AI has taken hold of my Orion model, and I don't know how you got mixed up in this. But when it's all over, whenever you're not working for this rogue AI anymore, I'd love it if you'd come back and tell me what this was all about. I'll buy you dinner, okay?"
This was getting weirder by the second. "Um, sure," Clarity said. Mostly, she wanted to get out of Maradia's Robot Emporium, so Wisper would tell her what was going on. As she wheeled the dolly out the door, she heard Maradia muttering to herself, something about firewalls, rogue AIs, and not making the mistake of connecting unfinished robots to the station's computer system ever again.
3 Two Robot Shops in One Day
Clarity expected the robot to hop off the dolly as soon as the doors of Maradia's Robot Emporium whoosh-kathunked closed behind them. Instead, Wisper said in a low, humming voice, "Our next stop is R4R on the other side of the Merchant's Quarter. Head left. I'll let you know when we're there."
"Hold on a sec," Clarity said. "You promised me answers when we got outside."
No response. Wisper was playing dead again. But Clarity wasn't having any of it. "I did as you asked—I showed up and bought..."
She trailed off as a group of Heffen passed by, several adults talking to each other. They ignored her, but a younger Heffen, with fur an even brighter copper orange than the adults' dusky red color, stopped to stare at the human woman wheeling around a blue-and-silver robot. The child's triangular ears perked up in interest, and her white-tipped tail swished.
Maybe Wisper was right. This wasn't the place to talk about whatever shadowy business Clarity had gotten herself mixed up in. So, she started wheeling the dolly through the crowded Merchant Quarter. One of the wheels wobbled and squeaked. The dolly was a rickety, clumsy piece of equipment. Its dark, dull metal, pockmarked and stained orange and red with rust, contrasted strangely with the pristine, shining robot riding on it.
As Clarity wheeled her bizarre new purchase through the Merchant Quarter, she wondered what it meant that, technically, she owned this robot. She'd heard of the sentience tests Maradia had mentioned, but she didn't know much about them. Still, if Wisper was capable of hiring someone to buy her, then surely, owning her must be a form of slavery?
Wisper didn't have to say anything when they got to R4R. The sign on the storefront was obvious—the letters R4R were nearly as tall as Clarity, stenciled on the window in an austere, sans-serif font. In front of them, in a smaller font, were the words those letters stood for, Robots For Robots.
"We just left a robot shop..." Clarity muttered, but she wheeled in the dolly.
The inside of R4R made the simple interior of Maradia's shop seem like it had been extremely cozy and welcoming in comparison. The chairs here looked like they'd been designed to be uncomfortable, all angles and weirdly small seats. There were no decorations, nothing like the cheerful videos in Maradia's shop. Just flat, gray walls.
This time, the roboticist who came in from the back was an extremely handsome human man. Clarity wasn't a particularly sexual person. Even so, this man had the kind of even features—large eyes, square jaw, broad shoulders, and trim waist—that could take her breath away.
"Uh, hello," she stammered.
"My name's Gerangelo. What can I do for you?" His voice was deep and resonant, solicitous and soft, like he really cared.
Clarity was ready to swoon, but he wasn't talking to her. He looked right past her, like she was just part of the equipment that had wheeled Wisper in, an extension of the dolly, not a person.
In this man's eyes, Wisper was the person. He held a strong, beautiful hand out to her, tanned and lightly callused; Wisper clasped his hand in her metal claw, and he helped her off the dolly.
"I need a memory upgrade," Wisper said. "I'm not legal to pay for it myself yet, but this human," she gestured at Clarity with her other metal claw, "is working as my proxy for now."
Gerangelo held Wisper's metal hand with such tenderness. "I can get you fast-tracked to take the sentience tests—"
"It won't be fast enough," Wisper said, cutting him off. The hum in her voice rose to an electronic whine.
"Whatever you need," Gerangelo said.
Finally, he deigned to look at Clarity. Gerangelo's eyes were warm and brown, the kind of eyes you could sink into and stare lovingly at for hours. "I'll need you to sign a few things." His voice was curt, and his eyes turned away from Clarity so quickly she felt like some kind of abomination. An elephant in the room.
As Gerangelo turned to the desk, the light in the room hit his skin from a different angle, and for just a moment, his skin didn't look solid and tanned. It looked translucent, and underneath, clockwork gears ticked and turned; lines of electricity flickered, sketching out a mechanical skeleton. It had to be an illusion, some kind of aesthetic trick, but it made Clarity ask, "Are you a robot?" As soon as she said it, she wished she could take back the words. They were too presumptuous.
Nonetheless, Gerangelo gave her a smug, pitying look and said, "Can't you read? What do you think Robots For Robots means?" As he spoke, his fingers flew over the computer keyboard, far faster than a normal human's could. He handed her a stylus. "Here, sign this."
Clarity wasn't the elephant in the room. She was the human in a room of robots, a room meant exclusively for robots. She looked over the contract on the screen, painfully aware of Gerangelo's growing impatience, and checked the balance in her credit account using her pocket computer. Wisper had already added the necessary funds. Clarity signed them over, and Gerangelo escorted Wisper into the back for her memory upgrade.
Clarity wasn't invited to follow, but she didn't care. Technically, she owned Wisper, and according to the contract, she had the right to oversee the memory installation. Yeah, she'd read the whole thing, even with that haughty, handsome robot staring at her. She wouldn't let him faze her. And while she didn't feel right about owning Wisper, she did feel like Wisper owed her a little more information.
The back room at R4R was even more different from the back room at Maradia's Robot Emporium than the front rooms were. Maradia's back room looked like a mad scientist's workshop—robot pieces and electronics strewn everywhere. Gerangelo's back room looked more like...
Clarity wasn't sure what Gerangelo's workshop looked like. She'd never seen another room like it—it was a space unto itself. This was the most carefully organized room she'd ever seen. It was filled with electronic equipment, but each piece was perfectly lined up. Each tool was placed squarely at right angles or perfect parallels to the edge of the table it was placed on. All of the cords and wires were tightly wound, not a millimeter of wasted slack.
There was something soothing about the precision, but nerve-wracking at the same time. Clarity felt like if she bumped a single object, she'd destroy a thing of beauty. She could ruin it all by slightly nudging a voltmeter, knocking it out of alignment at a level too precise for her own eyes to see.
Gerangelo opened up the back of Wisper's metal skull with the care of a surgeon. He removed a bright pink board, rectangular, flat, and about the same size as his hand. The pink board was covered in complicated, delicate patterns in gold and silver, intricate, swirling pathways that, when lit up with the flow of electrons, brought Wisper to life.
With the board removed fro
m her skull, Wisper stood stock still. As still as she'd stood in Maradia's shop when she'd pretended to be dead. But now she wasn't pretending.
Gerangelo took the pink board—held carefully, almost reverently in one hand—to one of his work tables and laid it down. He opened a drawer filled with similar boards and selected one—not the first one, one from the middle of the drawer. Clarity couldn't see any differences between the pink boards, and yet there must have been differences based on how specifically he selected that one board.
Gerangelo proceeded to wire the new board to the one from Wisper's head. He was a wizard with a soldering iron, and arranged the wires with the care of a grandmother braiding her grandchild's hair. The speed with which he'd typed translated into a precision of movement Maradia must have found enviable, and possibly even infuriating, in her competition.
As he slid the doubled memory board into the open back of Wisper's skull, Gerangelo hesitated. Then he turned toward Clarity and said, "I don't know who you are, and I don't care to. But I have your name in my records now, and I will check up on you. If the AI inhabiting this robot is sentient—and I think it must be, since I recognize Maradia's Orion 23958, a simple maintenance robot who would never have had the initiative to come here asking for a memory upgrade on its own—" Gerangelo paused for a moment, as if consciously giving his human listener a chance to catch up. "You have no right to treat this AI as any less of a person than any biological sentient you'd encounter on this station. Enslavement of sentient lifeforms is illegal. All sentient lifeforms."
His eyes, which had been soft when he looked at Wisper, hardened as he looked at Clarity. His voice hardened, too, growing husky with emotion. "Including robots. And even unembodied AI."