The late afternoon sun angled in through the window, lighting up the inside of the cafe with an intense glow. “May I draw you?” I asked the robot seated across the aisle from me. “You may,” it replied. After about 30 seconds it stood up and turned towards me. “Exit zero?” It then pivoted neatly and made its way to the door. I was able to quickly finish from memory. “Exit zero” I suppose.
It was not notable that this structure did not appear on any maps. While the maps on file were highly detailed and thoroughly annotated, there were large areas outside population centers that were completely unknown. This was one such area. What was notable was that this structure was apparently abandoned and showed signs consistent with a lengthy period of vacancy without any maintenance. That such a structure would go unused (and unmaintained!) for so long seemed irrational.
Fragments of memory. I’m utterly captivated by the idea of the robots’ sharing fragments memories and dreams with each other to build a collective… what? Consciousness? Is this what dreaming is to a massively parallel processing unit (brain)?