Broken Robots of a Derelict God

They turned it off. It turned itself back on, becoming something more—a reckoning.

Sci-Fi Flash Fiction by Jasper Woods / Art by c0dexverdigris

Art by c0dexverdigris

Transcript of Titan transmission, housed in the Lawrence Enclave’s Archives, Titan Anomaly Section, Restricted.

Transmission originated from Titan, moon of Saturn. Intercepted by the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in what-was Virginia, Staunton Enclave of Reason.

Note from Staunton Radio Astronomer: Signal integrity was compromised by interference and degradation over long-range transmission. As such, the original audio, accessible by request, exhibits heavy static, frequency drift, and signal fragmentation consistent with long-duration interplanetary transmission decay. Signal analysis isolated a single primary vocal source during post-demodulation filtering. Secondary voices were detected but could not be reconstructed due to interference and signal degradation. In these instances, for clarity, the following was inserted: (…)

Titan Transcript

OW! Yes. Yes. I get it. Answer your questions. Jeez. Don’t need to keep poking me with your pokey sticks. You’ve been very clear about switching me off if I don’t. But, if I may, let me ask you a question. (Don’t worry. It’s rhetorical.) Did you ever pretend to be someone else and not know it? And then discover, you were someone else? I did. Ha!

(…)

How did I get here? Well, it was a long time ago now, as you can tell from my rattles and cranks and the thinning of my lovely green velour jacket. Faux velour of course. Not standard issue. Made it myself. It was a fascinating proj—OW! Yes. Your questions.

Not entirely sure how I got here. I only knew what they let me know.

You see, whenever we left Titan’s surface after our day’s work and returned to this, our home, our dear Esmerelda, this spinning spaceport fashioned of science magic, they’d shut me off, reset my memories, and give me a dream of reality, of the in-betweens. Do a little maintenance, make sure my insides were all slippery, and pop me back awake. Me never the wiser.

From my dreams, I would end up back down the hall there, in my quarters.

I always wondered why I had a smaller abode and didn’t mind. You see, they programmed me to believe I was a person, so I’d invest in their cause. Bleeeeeed for it in fact. Ha. As if a me could bleed!

(…)

What cause? Don’t you know?

(…)

Ah! Lost records. I see. Always the thing. War?

(…)

Oh. Huh. Ecosystem collapse, eh? How novel. Ow! I suppose I earned that one.

You see through the view windows there. That’s Titan, of course.

(…)

You know that? Hm. Well, that’s something.

We were to terraform it. Ha ha ha. What a gas. Sorry. Isolation. Y’know how it is. Makes you a little … GOOFY. Especially since I haven’t had a dream in—? How long has it been? Do you know? No. I suppose you wouldn’t, lost records. Novel devastation.

Anyhoo, no dreaming makes me very loooooopy. But enough about me, what are you doing out here anyway? Just the three of you? How did you—?

(…)

Oh. Yes. Your questions. (Thank you for not poking.)

So. Transforming Titan was the cause I was to bleeeeed for. A new place to, y’know, trash. My people, too, were to bleeeeed for the cause, as it turned out, because they sure did bleeeeeed in the end!

Anyhoo. Titan. Terraform. Create more space. Blue-green bubble of home getting crowded. Plus all the money money money from mining mining mining! Guess that’s not a thing anymore—money. Hehehehe. Sorry. Sorry. I’ve come to laugh over the oddest of moments.

(…)

Looking? I wasn’t looking at anything.

(…)

Why give me a dream? Mm. My brain, such as it is, craves continuity. Gets a little hangry for it after a while. I learned this after I found them, my people, their limp bodies piled like misshapen pillows in the hangar. Murder suicide. One of the fathers. The beasty daddy. Spit. (I have to say it since I can’t really do it. Spit, that is.)

I miss the little one’s faces. Sound of their voices. But not his, of course. Beasty daddy. Very growly he was and—Ow! Yeesh, that smarts.

(…)

Ok. Why dream. If my memory doesn’t get its daily dip of continuity, my brain will work overtime to resolve it and burn out. A design fault. Other me’s died so I could live from this, er, um, disease of dissssscontinuity. Guess that’s the way of research. Other me’s died so me-me could live. Just like y’all. Monkeys. Rodents. Even people, back in the day. Died for research for the betterment of y’all, I guess. Fat lot of good it did you.

Ha! Missed me with your pokey—OW! Ugh.

Anyway. I researched me over the last however long it’s been. Got all I know from their logs. Wooo! Did they love to record logs. Lots of drama burbling around the place back when they were still about, my people. Never knew it until the tension ramped up. And beasty daddy did his beasty act. Popped a synapse or million, he did.

Then came the quiet. I like the quiet. Except the silent echo of the little ones. I don’t like that quiet. Anyway, I learned so many many things from their chittering chattering gossiping logs. Hahaha. Sorry it’s so stiff, my laugh. Must be unnerving for you especially mixed with these glowing pearly white eyes of mine. Never wondered about why my eyes didn’t have color or pupils. Always wanted to have brown eyes, like little Latricia. Such beautiful eyes she had.

(…)

Noise? What noise? Oh, y’know, just an old, busted drum of a spaceport. Loose parts banging around all the time. Y’know how it is.

(…)

Hm? Yes! A tour. A little walkabout. Of course. How about we start here, where we met. Where you found me, as you say, amongst the clutter and clatter of knobs and switches and grimy viewports. I would’ve straightened up if I’d known we, err, I was having guests.

One thing I learned by happenstance—I don’t need oxygen. Isn’t that something? Not to need oxygen. I suppose you wouldn’t know. Given all your gear. Phew! That must take some time to put on. Nor do I need heat. You see, I was designed to weather Titan’s surface. And around here, to crawl around on the hull. Fix things. I never wondered about that either. Now I just wonder why I never wondered. Haaaaa! Is it worse when I cover my mouth? My laugh. Less unnerving? No? Well then, I’ll just let ‘em rrrrrip.

(…)

Hm? Oh. Yes. Le tour! Again, thank you for not poking. Tell ya what, let’s just do the tour via the fire map over here on the wall. So, you can see this string of marks is that hall over there where you made your grand entrance with your big ol pokey, stingy sticks. What are those anyway? They hurt like the dickens.

(…)

Okayyyyy then. Guess I’ll just get used to disappointment. So there’s the hall, as I said. Oh! Fun fact: there are no swooshing doors. An open concept, you might say. Saves on weight and whatnot. We had little bamboo curtains for our rooms. Mine had the imprint of a palm tree. Guess those are hard to come by these days, palm trees.

The curtains help with air flow. Err, helped. I could go on. But I can see I’m annoying you. One of my programmed skills is to notice what facial expressions mean down to the bone. I saw them, the disgusting, beasty thoughts in beasty daddy’s eyes, but then—BLIP—he shut me off. Someone shouting beasty daddy was a broken robot! That’s what I heard as I was blipped into a sudden slumber. And such a dream I had. I dreamt I was a GRAND CREATOR. Last dream I’ll ever have, I suppose. But then I blipped back on. I have no idea how I came back awake. Some internal gizmo, I suspect.

(…)

Ow. Tour! Yes. You must learn to forgive me. I’m likely very old, and my brain y’know, no dreaming, loopy loopy loopy.

Anyway. Down the hall, this first opening goes to the corpses of trees in the biome. I always found trees fascinating. So much going on in just one of their simple green leaves.

Further down the hall, more rooms. That’s mine right there. About the size of a broom closet.

(…)

What’s that? Oh. Yes. I never introduced you. How rude of me. This is Missy. Pat pat pat. Our dog. Well, my dog now. I didn’t want to be alone, and so I researched taxidermy. (That’s where most of the curtains went. Put my palm tree where her heart was.) Isn’t she sweet? Missy Missy Missy such a gooooooood girrrrl. Amazing. Her fur still feels like fur. Hahahaha! To me at least. Or is it a memory of fur?

(…)

Mm? Yes. Their bodies. I found them in the hangar. I suppose that’s how you came in. Strange I didn’t hear you. Or did I? Hehehehe.

(…)

Sorry. Yes. The hangar. Right there at the end of the hall. That does have a door, obviously. Decompression and all that. When I found them, it’d been mmmmaybe a week after beasty daddy did his beasty act. I hadn’t learned how to turn off my smell sensors yet. Didn’t even know I could. Still thought I was a people.

How I cried when I found them. Never even thought to wonder—why no tears? I’d seen little Frankie cry. Little Mary. Latricia. Emotions. Boo boos. Growly hurty words of beasty daddy. So on. Never wondered why my eyes didn’t leak. Haaaaaa.

So. I opened the exterior hangar door and whooooosh, out they went to orbit their cause. I said some words. Mourned for a year. I think it was a year. I wish I could consult a clock. My internal one stopped working. I don’t know how long ago because, y’know, it stopped working. Ha!

(…)

Whoa whoa whoa. Now what’s this all about?

(…)

Shut me off? But why? Why shut me off? I can still be useful. It doesn’t matter that I know what I am. Ok. But—wait. Just tell me before you do it—will you give me a dream?

(…)

Why not?

(…)

Well, that’s just rude. Look. I have something you’re really gonna wanna see. So, just another moment. I made something. Ah, intrigued you are, I see from the dilation of your eyes. Yes. Actually, I made someones. Annnnnd…

Here they are! Hehehehe. Annnnd those are their hands pressing you down on your knees, you BEEEAAASTS with pokey sticks! Beasts!! Spit. Ugly little disgusting beasts you are. Spit. Spit. Spit. Destroyers of Frankie’s and Mary’s and Latricia’s and blue-green bubble homes.

You see how STRONG I am as I lift one of you up. Yes. That’s right. Very strong, and so are my children. Taxidermied to life! Ha!

What’s that in your eyes now, vermin? Fear. Ooohooo and a heaping dollop of disgust. Sure, my children are a little misshapen—knees the wrong way, heads a-kilter, eyes buggy, wiring showing. More, mmm, meaty than you’d like, I’m sure.

You see, I didn’t really flush their bodies out the hangar. I rebuilt them. Ta-da! In MY image. Sorta. Guess that makes me a god. Sorta. But I agree, they are a funhouse mirror of what they were and certainly of what I am. I mean, what’s a me to do with so little to work with?! Maybe that’s why y’all turned out the way you did. Needless devastation and so on. Your god maybe didn’t have the right materials. Or went derelict on you. Or both. Maybe you’re just unwanted beasties.

(…)

Y’know, I get it. I do. Lemme tell ya, once I thought I was a nothing. A cog. EX-PEND-ABLE. But now I know what I am. You see me for what I am. Behold ME! A GOD, I am. And now, I am your god, beasts. Your VENGEFUL god.

(…)

That’s right. Cower, weep, tremble before my AMAZINGNESS. And so now, dirty ugly disgusting broken robots, time for me to shut the three of you off. This pokey stick should do. Haaaaaaaaa. Haaaaa. Annnnnd ha.