![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoyIndex and Prologue!
Previous Chapter!
It feels a little weird to add a ✨Paypal link, ✨ but hey, writing is hard, so if you want to tip me, I wouldn't say no!
*It's worth noting that the dickwaffles who do assume he's adulterous are completely supportive and assure him they will uphold the Bro Code.
**Data is an autistic icon and you cannot change my mind.
---
Vilda set the stewed courgettes in front of us, with a large helping for me.
"You'd better put something nourishing in your body, what with all the fast food Ms. Trandy says you've been putting away," she told me.
I grimaced. Sometimes living on a tiny space station was a pain.
Previous Chapter!
It feels a little weird to add a ✨Paypal link, ✨ but hey, writing is hard, so if you want to tip me, I wouldn't say no!
- George Axelrod's 1952 play The Seven Year Itch is about a married asshole who has an affair with his bimbo upstairs neighbor and is then racked with guilt about it. Billy Wilder's 1955 movie The Seven Year Itch is mostly about Marilyn Monroe's legs, but also, with the stringent guidelines of the Motion Picture Production Code, it is about a married asshole who wants to have an affair with his bimbo upstairs neighbor but whiffs it dismally, and is then racked with guilt about that. It is, for my money, infinitely funnier than the play: in the film, Tom Ewell's dipshit character torments himself with imagined scenarios based solely on his own insecurities. Marilyn Monroe plays The Girl as utterly innocent, less like a sex kitten and more like an actual kitten, and it leads to a rather bittersweet story on her character's part of a lonely girl who just wants a friend and thinks she's made one in a self-absorbed idiot who spends his time catastrophizing about how SoCiEtY will perceive him.* The content constraints annoyed Axelrod, who also co-wrote the screenplay, and the Hays Code was overall bullshit, but I find the results surprisingly interesting in that it leads the main character to be struggling solely with himself and his anxieties while The Girl remains completely oblivious to his nonsense.
- Tech Demo sounds like some unholy combination of Blade Runner and The Seven Year Itch—a description which, come to think of it, could also apply to Ex Machina. (Let's hope Tech Demo is funnier.) I'm not sure how the hell it got past the Board of Civic Hygiene; I guess somebody at Beacon Studios is a highly skilled editor.
- The role of robots in fiction is completely fascinating to me. On the one hand, we have rock-stupid AI nowadays, only as smart as its programmer, and not an emergent consciousness. In that vein, they're dumb machines and you can yell at them all you like. Plus, I like the concept of famous sex pest Isaac Asimov's I, Robot being a series of logic puzzles trying to figure out robopsychology. On the other hand, robots are often coded for the Other** and, as such, we use them to explore interesting themes of humanity's social tendencies and our regard for and treatment of the Other. It also shines a light on our blind spots and biases with regard to that; look at the droids' social status in the Star Wars franchise. Specifically, Solo's use of L3-37's droid rights agitating is, y'know, pretty klutzy. Robofiction is Complicated, y'all.
- Someday I will write my thesis on how The Real Antagonist In The Alien Franchise Is Whatever Alt-Right, Neo-Nazi, Megalomaniacal Incel Programmed All The Robots To Have Completely Whack-Ass Ideas About Sexuality And Reproduction.
- That being said, I really ought to delve more into the history of this star system. IN ANOTHER STORY, DAMMIT.
*It's worth noting that the dickwaffles who do assume he's adulterous are completely supportive and assure him they will uphold the Bro Code.
**Data is an autistic icon and you cannot change my mind.
---
Vilda set the stewed courgettes in front of us, with a large helping for me.
"You'd better put something nourishing in your body, what with all the fast food Ms. Trandy says you've been putting away," she told me.
I grimaced. Sometimes living on a tiny space station was a pain.
But, to my surprise, Grandma came to my rescue.
"He's a growing boy," she said, delicately scooping up a bite. "Just make sure you're not spending more than you earn for your allowance."
I nodded, wondering if the station's fast-food workers were nosy enough to calculate how much I was spending and report it to her. I had plenty of money from our rental business—ill-gotten gains, I supposed—and Giro was using some of his cut to pay me to get him food, but if anybody worked out how much money I should have versus how much I was spending, I could be in trouble.
"Enjoy the courgettes while you can," Vilda said wryly. "We may not get any more for a while."
"Why?" Thoren asked, startled.
"You boys ought to start reading the papers," Grandma told us. "Keeping abreast of station matters is an important part of civic hygiene."
"The farm workers are threatening a strike," Dad added when it became apparent that Grandma wasn't going to explain.
I perked up. This would probably interest Giro.
"What for?" Thoren asked, furrowing his brow.
"They're demanding better working conditions," Dad said.
I stared at the pile of red slop on my plate, thinking. I was perfectly fine with this cycle's entire crop of red courgettes rotting in their fields, but if that went too far, then this entire system could be in trouble.
"I guess it's reasonable to—" I began.
"To threaten the entire station with starvation?" Vilda interrupted, aghast. "It's putting us in a hostage situation, is what it is."
"It's that new movie at the cinema," Grandma said. "Techno Demo, or somesuch."
That was … not what I would have expected her to blame.
"Reivon was telling me about it today," she went on, and Thoren and I exchanged exasperated looks. Reivon Brank had a column in the Newspaper, where zey regularly complained about the moral decay of Bright Beacon's youth. I was beginning to worry that zey were going to start griping about the illicit activities Giro and I were getting up to, but so far zey weren't blaming our contraband for anything. Tech Demo, or at least its edited version, was Beacon-approved, and Giro and I hadn't bothered to pirate it yet. Grandma and Vilda couldn't pin the failure of the red courgettes on me.
"Is that the one where the robots go on strike?" Vilda said, becoming highly attentive.
"They present it as a comedy," Grandma said. "Tech as a joke, if you can imagine."
"And it's giving the farmhands ideas?" Vilda asked, seemingly delighted by this bad news. "And this movie is allowed?""
"You know how it is," Grandma said, with a significant expression that I couldn't for the life of me parse. "They let a movie through with the intent that Focals and sensible Radials will see it. Tangential citizens—and not a few Radials, might I add, present company excluded, of course, Vilda—aren't built for critical thinking. They see something on the screen and want to copy it wholesale."
"And with all the violence shown, it's just terrible," Vilda agreed, with a sidelong glance at—at me?
"What do you think, Dr. Grewell?" Vilda went on. "You've been rather quiet about this whole thing."
Dad looked startled to be addressed. He finished his bite and took a sip of water from his glass.
"I think that Admin is being shortsighted," he said flatly. "They should have listened to me."
"Aren't you trying to make more people into Focal citizens?" Thoren asked. "Or, like, at least smarter Radials? Isn't that the whole point of your project?"
Dad barked out a laugh. "You could put it that way."
"What if we get enough focal citizens that there's nobody to work the farms or the mines?" Thoren pressed.
"Machines," Dad said.
"Tech?" cried Vilda, shocked. I wondered if anyone but me saw the humor in Dad's deadpan.
"Just till they go on strike," I muttered.
Dad let out another laugh.
"Well, I suppose everyone has their place," Vilda said sententiously. "And I'm sure Admin will work out a good solution if Dr. Grewell's project does work out."
"Hmm," Dad said.
I kind of agreed with him.
#
"Why does Vilda keep looking at me like that?" I asked as we were getting ready for bed.
Thoren snickered. "Dude. You remember how you scared her off? She thinks you're nuts."
"But she came back."
"Yeah. Dad's paying her a lot. And Grandma talked her through it."
Yeah, I knew that. I didn't know what Grandma said, exactly—I wasn't in the hammock when they'd had their chat in the yard; couldn't overhear—but maybe she'd listened to my explanation and passed it on. Maybe she threw in a few platitudes; "Why don't we look at the other fellow's point of view?", like the dads were always saying to the Lonnys.
"She told her that you're a sad little tangent," Thoren went on cheerfully. "That you've been Led Astray."
Wait, what? Did Vilda think I'd gotten the idea to dissect station mice from a vid?
I mean. I had, but those were vids on respected medical sites on the Greater Database. Probably not what she was thinking about.
"Do you think that?" I asked.
Thoren shrugged and started for the bathroom. "I think it sucks that we're twins, 'cause sometimes people think I'm nuts, too."
"You are nuts!" I yelled after him.
Anybody who liked red courgettes had to be.
#
#
"Do the farmhands go to the movies?" I asked Giro, setting the fast-food bag and the Newspaper on his workbench.
"What?" he blinked.
"The movies," I said. "Do the farmhands get to go to the cinema?" I pointed to the Newspaper. "Grandma's blaming Tech Demo for the farmhands talking about striking."
"They're going on strike?" Giro said, delighted. "Good for them! I told them they ought to try it."
"You never told us that," Ronf said.
"Do you want to go on strike?" Giro asked zem curiously.
"Dex, should we go on strike?" Ronf asked.
"Giro says we should!" Dexer said.
"I did not—"
"Okay." Ronf turned to Giro. "We're on strike."
"Cool," Giro said. He turned a put-upon look on me. "I gotta build dumber robots." He sighed. "I just can't help making them people."
"But do you, really?" I asked. "There's been no proof of artificial consciousness ever arising."
"Prove you're conscious," Dexer muttered.
I had no idea how to respond to that.
"I dunno," Giro said. "I just muck around in the source code until I have someone I can talk to. But I'm starting to wonder about the tech they built this station with. It's pretty sophisticated. So who knows." He trailed off, eyes going distant for a minute before focusing back on me. "Sorry. What were we talking about?"
"Do farmhands go to the cinema."
I'd been wondering about that since Grandma had brought it up. I never saw farmhands there. Maybe they normally went while I was at school, or something.
"Nah," he said. "They frown on us leaving the ag ring."
"That's awful," I said.
"They did have movie nights, though," he mused. "They'd bring an A/V rig into the mess hall and show us something. And they charge us admission for it, too." His ears swung up. "Follow the Beacon's ag safety vids are a triumph of the cinematic arts."
I grimaced. "They make you watch Follow the Beacon before the shows, too?"
"Do not impugn the good name of Beacon Studios," Giro said dryly.
"Okay, I know you're joking," I said, "but I swear, the Beaconized version of Tech Demo is funnier."
"Yeah, well, your sense of humor is a little bit upside down," Giro informed me. "Pretty sure most people won't share that point of view."
I had to pause then, to consider his comment. I didn't want to underestimate the viewing public, but was it underestimation, or was I just different? A cold suspicion was starting to eel its way into the back of my mind, and Giro's comment only strengthened it.
"I'll give you that," I conceded. "I can't imagine even Thoren thinking that the version where the main character ties herself in knots of guilt even though she doesn't have an affair with her robot secretary is funnier." But it was. I liked watching her freak herself out. It felt too real.
"Wait, robots can have sex with people?" Dexer asked, intrigued.
"No, they can't," Giro told him sharply. "And where'd you get that interest from? Lemme see your source code."
Dexer jerked away from him. "Stay away from me, Dad! I'm my own being!"
I tried not to snicker at the quote from Dad Knows!, but it was a near thing.
"My feelings are perfectly normal!" Dexer went on, skittering behind the shelves.
"They're not!" Giro countered, trying to wedge himself after the robot. "Because I'm a freak and I programmed you, and if there's one lesson history has for us, it's that weirdos should not program robots!"
I was pretty sure that history had more lessons than that to be gleaned, but Giro wasn't all that great at paying attention in class, and if this was what he'd picked out, then, well, he wasn't wrong about it.
"We'll have to keep our differing tastes in mind if we're gonna expand to the ag ring," Giro said, doing a little dance with Dexer as he cornered zem against the wall
"The—what? You want to start giving uncut films to the farm workers?"
"Right! I bet they'd love Feral Cannibal Cruise!"
"Do you think any of them would like The Golden Hammer?" I asked wistfully. It wasn't like I could just go over to the ag ring and ask them.
"Different tastes, remember," Giro reminded me. He abandoned his standoff with Dexer to bounce over to his workstation. I could see the signs: his brain was lighting up. "Okay, we're gonna have to do some real building for this," he said. "It's not like they give us A/V rigs on the farm. Maybe a mobile rig, like a walking, talking, lockbox and television … hmm." His eyes fell on Ronf's body.
"Hey, we're on strike!" Ronf protested.
"Okay, what are your demands?" Giro asked.
"Demands? We're supposed to have demands?"
"That's the idea," Giro said. "Otherwise you're just bumming around."
"I don't wanna be scared going into public!" Ronf said after a minute.
"Cool, I'll reprogram you," Giro assured the robot.
"Reprogram?" I asked.
"I made Ronf a little more timorous than Dexer," he explained. "Thought I'd test out how to make different personality traits."
I frowned. "Is changing zeir programming ethical?"
"Sure, they're just bots," Giro shrugged.
I nodded, uncertain. I mean, yeah, Giro used sapient pronouns for the robots (which would probably give Vilda a stroke if she heard it), but they were tech.
Then it occurred to me that Giro liked the metaphorical change to his programming that Dad's implant had afforded him.
And how many times had I wished I was less timorous or awkward? If only I could open up my source code and write that in there.
My source code …
"Hey, Giro," I said suddenly. "Do you want to be a focal citizen?"
"What," Giro said, visibly switching his line of thinking. "Why?"
"Just wondering."
"And leave all this?" he asked sardonically, sweeping an arm to encompass his nest, with its big shelves full of junk, the drifts of shed hair in the corners, and the stack of A/V stuff.
"Yeah," I said. "Like, with that implant you've got. It helps you think more clearly, right?"
"Well, sure," he said slowly. "But I don't want to stay on this station."
"Really?"
"I'm more of a feral kind of guy," he told me. "I wanna ride the spaceways, go wherever physics takes me."
"If you're wanting a cannibal orgy, I've got some bad news for you about how actual ferals behave," I said, thinking of Zarla's cheerful rants about the egregious inaccuriacies in Feral Cannibal Cruise.
"Nah, I just wanna see some of the universe," he shrugged, going over to the food bag and extracting his combo meal—cliff hen and waffles, with a side of fries. "Maybe open up a bistro or something. This criminal empire I'm building is just a means to an end, you know."
"You're gonna leave?" Ronf asked shrilly.
Something inside me echoed that distress. If Giro left, how would I keep doing … this? And who would I talk to? What would I do?
"What will we do?" Ronf wailed.
"Hey, hey," Giro said soothingly. "I'll take you guys with me." He motioned to the robots, then glanced over to me. "And I'll have to write some dumb AIs to help Dreedo with the business."
I nodded, still feeling bereft.
"I'm not on strike anymore," Ronf told Dexer. "That was gonna be my demand. What are you demanding?"
"Plasma cannon," Dexer said.
"Krag! I should've thought of that! Can I go back on strike?"
"I can't get either of you a plasma cannon," Giro told them tiredly. "What do you say about becoming a walking TV?"
"Better than being a crop sorter," Ronf agreed.
I blinked. I hadn't thought about what Ronf had been before, but Giro had stolen the components for his projects from all over. "Not fun?" I asked.
"Not when you realize there's more to life than carrots and courgettes."
"Tell me about it," I said, long-suffering.
#
#
Next Chapter!"He's a growing boy," she said, delicately scooping up a bite. "Just make sure you're not spending more than you earn for your allowance."
I nodded, wondering if the station's fast-food workers were nosy enough to calculate how much I was spending and report it to her. I had plenty of money from our rental business—ill-gotten gains, I supposed—and Giro was using some of his cut to pay me to get him food, but if anybody worked out how much money I should have versus how much I was spending, I could be in trouble.
"Enjoy the courgettes while you can," Vilda said wryly. "We may not get any more for a while."
"Why?" Thoren asked, startled.
"You boys ought to start reading the papers," Grandma told us. "Keeping abreast of station matters is an important part of civic hygiene."
"The farm workers are threatening a strike," Dad added when it became apparent that Grandma wasn't going to explain.
I perked up. This would probably interest Giro.
"What for?" Thoren asked, furrowing his brow.
"They're demanding better working conditions," Dad said.
I stared at the pile of red slop on my plate, thinking. I was perfectly fine with this cycle's entire crop of red courgettes rotting in their fields, but if that went too far, then this entire system could be in trouble.
"I guess it's reasonable to—" I began.
"To threaten the entire station with starvation?" Vilda interrupted, aghast. "It's putting us in a hostage situation, is what it is."
"It's that new movie at the cinema," Grandma said. "Techno Demo, or somesuch."
That was … not what I would have expected her to blame.
"Reivon was telling me about it today," she went on, and Thoren and I exchanged exasperated looks. Reivon Brank had a column in the Newspaper, where zey regularly complained about the moral decay of Bright Beacon's youth. I was beginning to worry that zey were going to start griping about the illicit activities Giro and I were getting up to, but so far zey weren't blaming our contraband for anything. Tech Demo, or at least its edited version, was Beacon-approved, and Giro and I hadn't bothered to pirate it yet. Grandma and Vilda couldn't pin the failure of the red courgettes on me.
"Is that the one where the robots go on strike?" Vilda said, becoming highly attentive.
"They present it as a comedy," Grandma said. "Tech as a joke, if you can imagine."
"And it's giving the farmhands ideas?" Vilda asked, seemingly delighted by this bad news. "And this movie is allowed?""
"You know how it is," Grandma said, with a significant expression that I couldn't for the life of me parse. "They let a movie through with the intent that Focals and sensible Radials will see it. Tangential citizens—and not a few Radials, might I add, present company excluded, of course, Vilda—aren't built for critical thinking. They see something on the screen and want to copy it wholesale."
"And with all the violence shown, it's just terrible," Vilda agreed, with a sidelong glance at—at me?
"What do you think, Dr. Grewell?" Vilda went on. "You've been rather quiet about this whole thing."
Dad looked startled to be addressed. He finished his bite and took a sip of water from his glass.
"I think that Admin is being shortsighted," he said flatly. "They should have listened to me."
"Aren't you trying to make more people into Focal citizens?" Thoren asked. "Or, like, at least smarter Radials? Isn't that the whole point of your project?"
Dad barked out a laugh. "You could put it that way."
"What if we get enough focal citizens that there's nobody to work the farms or the mines?" Thoren pressed.
"Machines," Dad said.
"Tech?" cried Vilda, shocked. I wondered if anyone but me saw the humor in Dad's deadpan.
"Just till they go on strike," I muttered.
Dad let out another laugh.
"Well, I suppose everyone has their place," Vilda said sententiously. "And I'm sure Admin will work out a good solution if Dr. Grewell's project does work out."
"Hmm," Dad said.
I kind of agreed with him.
#
"Why does Vilda keep looking at me like that?" I asked as we were getting ready for bed.
Thoren snickered. "Dude. You remember how you scared her off? She thinks you're nuts."
"But she came back."
"Yeah. Dad's paying her a lot. And Grandma talked her through it."
Yeah, I knew that. I didn't know what Grandma said, exactly—I wasn't in the hammock when they'd had their chat in the yard; couldn't overhear—but maybe she'd listened to my explanation and passed it on. Maybe she threw in a few platitudes; "Why don't we look at the other fellow's point of view?", like the dads were always saying to the Lonnys.
"She told her that you're a sad little tangent," Thoren went on cheerfully. "That you've been Led Astray."
Wait, what? Did Vilda think I'd gotten the idea to dissect station mice from a vid?
I mean. I had, but those were vids on respected medical sites on the Greater Database. Probably not what she was thinking about.
"Do you think that?" I asked.
Thoren shrugged and started for the bathroom. "I think it sucks that we're twins, 'cause sometimes people think I'm nuts, too."
"You are nuts!" I yelled after him.
Anybody who liked red courgettes had to be.
#
EXP: IP262
DATE
C0 exhibiting surprising amount of emotional development given lack of therapeutic intervention. Self-direction and initiative present but inhibited; poss.environmental factors. As expected, social development below age-appropriate levels; however, interaction with E0 appears to mitigate somewhat; again, informal social intervention may be beneficial.
E0 social development within age-appropriate standards.#
"Do the farmhands go to the movies?" I asked Giro, setting the fast-food bag and the Newspaper on his workbench.
"What?" he blinked.
"The movies," I said. "Do the farmhands get to go to the cinema?" I pointed to the Newspaper. "Grandma's blaming Tech Demo for the farmhands talking about striking."
"They're going on strike?" Giro said, delighted. "Good for them! I told them they ought to try it."
"You never told us that," Ronf said.
"Do you want to go on strike?" Giro asked zem curiously.
"Dex, should we go on strike?" Ronf asked.
"Giro says we should!" Dexer said.
"I did not—"
"Okay." Ronf turned to Giro. "We're on strike."
"Cool," Giro said. He turned a put-upon look on me. "I gotta build dumber robots." He sighed. "I just can't help making them people."
"But do you, really?" I asked. "There's been no proof of artificial consciousness ever arising."
"Prove you're conscious," Dexer muttered.
I had no idea how to respond to that.
"I dunno," Giro said. "I just muck around in the source code until I have someone I can talk to. But I'm starting to wonder about the tech they built this station with. It's pretty sophisticated. So who knows." He trailed off, eyes going distant for a minute before focusing back on me. "Sorry. What were we talking about?"
"Do farmhands go to the cinema."
I'd been wondering about that since Grandma had brought it up. I never saw farmhands there. Maybe they normally went while I was at school, or something.
"Nah," he said. "They frown on us leaving the ag ring."
"That's awful," I said.
"They did have movie nights, though," he mused. "They'd bring an A/V rig into the mess hall and show us something. And they charge us admission for it, too." His ears swung up. "Follow the Beacon's ag safety vids are a triumph of the cinematic arts."
I grimaced. "They make you watch Follow the Beacon before the shows, too?"
"Do not impugn the good name of Beacon Studios," Giro said dryly.
"Okay, I know you're joking," I said, "but I swear, the Beaconized version of Tech Demo is funnier."
"Yeah, well, your sense of humor is a little bit upside down," Giro informed me. "Pretty sure most people won't share that point of view."
I had to pause then, to consider his comment. I didn't want to underestimate the viewing public, but was it underestimation, or was I just different? A cold suspicion was starting to eel its way into the back of my mind, and Giro's comment only strengthened it.
"I'll give you that," I conceded. "I can't imagine even Thoren thinking that the version where the main character ties herself in knots of guilt even though she doesn't have an affair with her robot secretary is funnier." But it was. I liked watching her freak herself out. It felt too real.
"Wait, robots can have sex with people?" Dexer asked, intrigued.
"No, they can't," Giro told him sharply. "And where'd you get that interest from? Lemme see your source code."
Dexer jerked away from him. "Stay away from me, Dad! I'm my own being!"
I tried not to snicker at the quote from Dad Knows!, but it was a near thing.
"My feelings are perfectly normal!" Dexer went on, skittering behind the shelves.
"They're not!" Giro countered, trying to wedge himself after the robot. "Because I'm a freak and I programmed you, and if there's one lesson history has for us, it's that weirdos should not program robots!"
I was pretty sure that history had more lessons than that to be gleaned, but Giro wasn't all that great at paying attention in class, and if this was what he'd picked out, then, well, he wasn't wrong about it.
"We'll have to keep our differing tastes in mind if we're gonna expand to the ag ring," Giro said, doing a little dance with Dexer as he cornered zem against the wall
"The—what? You want to start giving uncut films to the farm workers?"
"Right! I bet they'd love Feral Cannibal Cruise!"
"Do you think any of them would like The Golden Hammer?" I asked wistfully. It wasn't like I could just go over to the ag ring and ask them.
"Different tastes, remember," Giro reminded me. He abandoned his standoff with Dexer to bounce over to his workstation. I could see the signs: his brain was lighting up. "Okay, we're gonna have to do some real building for this," he said. "It's not like they give us A/V rigs on the farm. Maybe a mobile rig, like a walking, talking, lockbox and television … hmm." His eyes fell on Ronf's body.
"Hey, we're on strike!" Ronf protested.
"Okay, what are your demands?" Giro asked.
"Demands? We're supposed to have demands?"
"That's the idea," Giro said. "Otherwise you're just bumming around."
"I don't wanna be scared going into public!" Ronf said after a minute.
"Cool, I'll reprogram you," Giro assured the robot.
"Reprogram?" I asked.
"I made Ronf a little more timorous than Dexer," he explained. "Thought I'd test out how to make different personality traits."
I frowned. "Is changing zeir programming ethical?"
"Sure, they're just bots," Giro shrugged.
I nodded, uncertain. I mean, yeah, Giro used sapient pronouns for the robots (which would probably give Vilda a stroke if she heard it), but they were tech.
Then it occurred to me that Giro liked the metaphorical change to his programming that Dad's implant had afforded him.
And how many times had I wished I was less timorous or awkward? If only I could open up my source code and write that in there.
My source code …
"Hey, Giro," I said suddenly. "Do you want to be a focal citizen?"
"What," Giro said, visibly switching his line of thinking. "Why?"
"Just wondering."
"And leave all this?" he asked sardonically, sweeping an arm to encompass his nest, with its big shelves full of junk, the drifts of shed hair in the corners, and the stack of A/V stuff.
"Yeah," I said. "Like, with that implant you've got. It helps you think more clearly, right?"
"Well, sure," he said slowly. "But I don't want to stay on this station."
"Really?"
"I'm more of a feral kind of guy," he told me. "I wanna ride the spaceways, go wherever physics takes me."
"If you're wanting a cannibal orgy, I've got some bad news for you about how actual ferals behave," I said, thinking of Zarla's cheerful rants about the egregious inaccuriacies in Feral Cannibal Cruise.
"Nah, I just wanna see some of the universe," he shrugged, going over to the food bag and extracting his combo meal—cliff hen and waffles, with a side of fries. "Maybe open up a bistro or something. This criminal empire I'm building is just a means to an end, you know."
"You're gonna leave?" Ronf asked shrilly.
Something inside me echoed that distress. If Giro left, how would I keep doing … this? And who would I talk to? What would I do?
"What will we do?" Ronf wailed.
"Hey, hey," Giro said soothingly. "I'll take you guys with me." He motioned to the robots, then glanced over to me. "And I'll have to write some dumb AIs to help Dreedo with the business."
I nodded, still feeling bereft.
"I'm not on strike anymore," Ronf told Dexer. "That was gonna be my demand. What are you demanding?"
"Plasma cannon," Dexer said.
"Krag! I should've thought of that! Can I go back on strike?"
"I can't get either of you a plasma cannon," Giro told them tiredly. "What do you say about becoming a walking TV?"
"Better than being a crop sorter," Ronf agreed.
I blinked. I hadn't thought about what Ronf had been before, but Giro had stolen the components for his projects from all over. "Not fun?" I asked.
"Not when you realize there's more to life than carrots and courgettes."
"Tell me about it," I said, long-suffering.
#
Did you read "Bang, Bang"?
no sorry
that ones WAY too long
That's okay
There's just
There's something about the way they write Drack that's
Hey, do I seem weird to you?
well YA
^~vj~^
But ur in a werid station with wreid pepl
so its not ur flaut
do u FELL wried?
I don't know.
But "Bang, Bang" has a tag for "autistic Drack," and it got me wondering.
Sometimes I read my dad's notes and descriptions of his subjects
It doesn't sound like me, but I realized that I don't know what they're thinking inside when the doctors describe them as totally blank
Like, how are they supposed to know what the subjects are thinking?
And then I wonder if *I* look totally blank at any point.
i dont know, i dont ever see u
but u dont SOUND blank
u got lots of stuff in ur head
and u know how to do emoticons, so that helps
Grandma always has some idea that she knows what I'm thinking, though, and it's weird because she gets it SO wrong.
ur gramma dosent suond like she pays you much atenetion, tho
Well, you're not wrong there.
Hey, I've been meaning to ask you something!
Something ELSE! ^~v~^
ya shoot
Where are you guys right now?
Are you going to be in our vicinity any time soon?
well were at kalkurru right now
idk when well be back near feavah
Okay. Will you let me know when you are heading this way?
ya. why?
Giro wants to get off the station, and I thought maybe your ship could handle it.
He can pay with station scrip for passage, but I think your captain will have to exchange it for Galactic tender.
ok ya ill talk to rreish!!
is giro in troubel
I mean, he's running a criminal operation and they want to ship him to the mines, so I guess so?
ok then
ill see what we can do
Thanks!
#
