“I know your ways,” the robot said to me. “I know that you can not tolerate a state where you lack information.” Even so, the robot shared with me stories about ‘places I should not go.’ The robot continued: “There are places far from here; places without label, without map. They once must have been known, marked, and organized. Now there are nothing but blank sectors and noise. I circumnavigated one such area, attempting to add to the borders of mapped locations. Some of the topography was familiar but out of place. My attempts to build a map failed due to localized EMR causing errors while I was writing data…”
At the far end of an alley I found myself inside a little charging salon. The light streaming in through the high windows made the dusty air glow. The robot sat at one end of the long, communal table. I sat down a few feet away and introduced myself. I inquired after any local points of interest. The robot turned its head towards me and, after a moment, said “I can tell you where you should not go…”
.
Just a robot in contemplation. About what, I wonder?
A tea time sketch. Initially the robots didn’t understand the tea time thing. I drew a parallel between my cuppa and their cable plugged into a USB port in the wall of the “cafe” and they understood quickly. We’ve had many unintentionally funny discussions about recharging practices. COPIC Wide markers are great for making quick sketches while I’m out and about among the robots.
Within a sensory void, lacking input, the robot’s brain began a process of readout. Chosen at random, sectors of memory were striped to a swap file, generating new patterns. These were saved for sharing later.
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)?
Their journey took the robots through ever stranger landscapes. One evening, at sunset, the sky appeared to be consumed in a silent explosion. They were momentarily alarmed, however neither of them detected any rapid changes in local atmospheric conditions or an increase in EMF. Even so, there was a low-level background noise that defied analysis…
With the sighting of the giant now moved to storage, the robots set up their thermoelectric generator and discussed their plan for the next day. Through their sighting of the giant they had established the plausibility of some of the stories that had been shared with them during their travels. Their course of action was plain: they would seek evidence to confirm (or debunk) other stories of anomalous events and circumstance.