Friends For Robots

FRIENDS FOR ROBOTS

Short Stories

MERC FENN WOLFMOOR

Robot Dinosaur Press

www.robotdinosaurpress.com

Friends For Robots: Short Stories

Copyright © 2021 by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-949936-30-8 (ebook)

ISBN: 978-1-949936-37-7 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-949936-34-6 (hardback, large print)

Edited by Adam Luopa

Cover by Wolf-of-the-Bogs Cover Designs

for all the robots and our friends

CONTENTS

Author’s Notes

This Cold Red Dust

it me, ur smol

Behold the Deep Never Seen

Housebot After the Uprising

Bring the Bones That Sing

Lonely Robot on a Rocket Ship in Space

Yet So Vain Is Man

The Machine Is Experiencing Uncertainty

The Loincloth and the Broadsword

HEXPOCOLYPSE

Steadyboi After the Apocalypse

The Frequency of Compassion

Content Notes for Stories

Acknowledgments

Individual Publication Info

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About the Author

Also by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor

Also from Robot Dinosaur Press

AUTHOR’S NOTES

Each story has a note attached to the opening paragraph that will contain specific content notes for that story. In the ebook version, you can click on the footnote to see the text; the Notes page contains a full list .

Overall content notes for the collection include: violence, suicidal ideation/thoughts, misgendering, incarceration, animal death, depression, gender dysphoria, mentions of transphobia, verbal abuse, abandonment, self-harm, gun violence, lung disease, threats of violence, non-consensual telepathic contact.

(If you would like more granular or specific content notes, I am happy to address these as best as I can; please email me via my website, http://mercfennwolfmoor.com.)

Thank you for reading!

THIS COLD RED DUST

Log 033 ¹—user: Kel9000

So… we're leaving in three days, Finn. Dad says this will be the last authorized shuttle, so it's now or never like this is time-travel or some shit. It's not. Once everyone is gone, the government is putting Mars on lockdown, I guess, so no entrepreneurs can try to fix the environmental damage or try again.

I'm six months away from qualifying for my pilot license but who knows how much time I'll have to get in-flight training hours. I gotta get a new job first. Does Earth need more miners who wanna fly freighter? My simulation scores are nova, but that doesn't mean the space-DMV is going to authorize my application.

(Space-DMV is what Dad calls Universal Flight Coordination Administration, which makes his version dumb, because UFCA has the same number of syllables and is actually correct.)

I don't wanna go, Finn. It was hard enough starting over here. Now I gotta do it again, and Mom's out of the picture and Dad is so tired… I'm scared. Don't tell Dad.

It's unfair that the dust storms on Mars are so cold. Sure, you might constantly have to scrape your visor to prevent layered particle build up, and yes, it's hard to see more than a few meters ahead, and it's true your spacesuit is in sore need of a tune-up, but it's the cold that gets to you.

Your helmet's nav system guides you where your senses can't. Up ahead is an abandoned settlement, its dome dismantled for parts and the generators scavenged for fuel. Bigfoot Seen, the signpost used to read. All the settlements have quirky names like that. Used to be Mars had spirit and optimism and people. Now it's back to dust storms and the lonely nothingness of abandonment.

You trudge over the border and the settlement's automated ping chimes in your helmet.

WELCOME TO BIGFOOT SEEN!

POPULATION: 0.

PLEASE VISIT OUR VISITOR STATION AND LOG YOUR NAME AND PURPOSE. WE'RE SO GLAD YOU MADE IT!

Good to know something still works, even if it's just a solar-powered hub broadcasting nonstop into a wasteland. The visitor center is nothing but a dune of sand with a blasted roof peeking through the dust. Not worth the time to dig out an entrance; most rest stops like that got scrapped when the great migrations emptied the planet.

Still, there are intact buildings you can find shelter in; the welcome center's ping has dutifully downloaded a map of the area for you. If you're lucky, maybe the old flight tower still has broadcast gear.

There won't be anyone to call, though, will there? The last ships left you behind. It's as unfair as the cold, and nothing you can do about it.

Alarms ping your helmet. The storm is getting worse. Seek shelter immediately. Solar winds and radiation don't give a damn who you are.

You hurry—for relative use of the verb, when every step is a fight against wind and dust and the shifting sand—towards the transit station. A shuttle hub where ships landed and left… mostly just left. The bunker is built to withstand launching shuttles and the nasty moods of Mars. Best bet. It's attached to the flight navigation tower.

Your thigh muscles ache from exhaustion as you push through unstable ripples of sand, leaning against the wind. You need both hands to keep your balance and soon your vision is a wall of red-black as you lose the light. The helmet's internal map blinks a little green cartoon Martian head as your location marker. You thought it was cute once.

Finally—a door. It's ajar, the hydraulics busted and months of dust storms layering hills of dirt across the threshold. You squirm and struggle and at last squeeze yourself through the opening. Wiping your visor for the millionth time, you wobble in the lack of wind.

The bunker has no power, naturally, but it's out of the storm for now. Your worn headlamp can gain traction against the darkness here. Too bad it's still cold and there isn't any atmosphere to let you take your suit off and wipe the micro dust from itching your insulated jumpsuit where it rubs your skin. The dust gets in no matter how tight the recycled air filters are. You're not in zero-g void, thank your favorite stars. That would be worse with the cold.

It's eerie, being the only human in a place this size, which once housed thousands of people—well, maybe not that many. Little settlements like Bigfoot Seen, at the foot of the mountains, didn't really get much of a spillover like the big cities closer to the equator.

Your home base, Jackalope Song, is about twenty miles north; the trek felt abominably longer than that, seeing how you were on foot once your ATV died with a grind of clogged motor and stripped treads.

All the hubs like this one were built the same, so despite the dust and empty darkness, you pick your way through hallways until you get two levels deep, in the storage cube sector.

It's possible to MacGyver one of the cubes—three meters square—into a tiny, temporary sleeping quarters. You've got two mini environ-tents left, three rations of purified water, and a dozen protein bars, plus the bodily waste recycling unit. The crank-charged space heater is what you really want to set up first.

But, priorities. Once you seal up the door, you can take off your suit and get your body's needs met, take your meds—the supply is worryingly low—and well… sleep, you suppose.

What else is there to do?

Maybe you should just stay here until you run out of supplies or hope.

All the ships left and all that's left is red, cold dust and silence.

Log 02—user: Kel9000

I can't believe this piece of crap is what Mom got. A FriendBot? Really? This is literally an antique! A used antique. I wanted her to at least try to imagine what I'd want for my birthday, but no, she's Earth-side and was all, Oh, Kel, you know how expensive shipping costs are and no perishables blah blah blah, like yeah, Mom, so maybe you could have gotten me a decent console or tablet for the same weight as this… toy?

She thought because she used to have the Pilot Panda model when she was my age that I'd want this thing. It's not a pilot, Mom. It's some kind of crappy fake engineered piece of shit. I'm allergic to dogs, not that we can have real pets.

A fox isn't much better.

She didn't even leave a message in the welcome screen for me.

The cube has a few shelves with sealed clothing packets, a stack of media tablets—all the batteries depleted, sadly—and an old, raggedy-furred FriendBot stashed in one corner.

It's the Fixer Fox model: enormous ears, a bushy tail, stubby limbs, synthetic coat bright orange and tipped in white. Now the thing looks as beaten down as the settlement: its faux fur is matted with dust, its white tips stained dirty brown, one ear torn, and the left optic shattered. The little toolkit and apron are gone, and the rib flap where you access its processor and battery is missing the magnets, so it looks more like a rend of flesh hanging off metal bones.

You pick it up. You used to want one of these FriendBots when you were a kid. You'd always had your eye on Trucking Tiger, who came with its own mining vehicle accessory, and a fake drill that doubled as a flashlight.

FriendBots were all the rage for about a year before they went extinct once updated AI models became available. And then, well, shipping from Earth wasn't cheap, and credit had to be spent on necessities, and mining operations failed one by one, and the government began offering payouts to relocate onto the New Earth's Horizons program. Wasn't much of a choice for most people: once you lost your job, there weren't many options, and there wasn't any functional unemployment system in place.

This thing must be, what, fifteen years out of date? A sentimental keepsake. Little wonder it got left behind. Passage off Mars came with strict luggage restrictions and weight limits. Only the essentials, unless you could pay for those few extra kilograms of space. Only officials and inheritance brats had the funds to escape in comfort, but then they'd only been on Mars as a new thrill. It wasn't life, or home, for them.

You toss the FriendBot back into the corner; it's not even worth taking apart for scrap. The tech is too out of date and there isn't going to be any juice in that battery.

The fox chirrups.

The sound nearly sends you reeling into the low ceiling in panic. Your heart bounces like a dribbling basketball in your chest for a solid twenty seconds before you get control over yourself. Breathe. Breathe in. Out. Good, okay, see, you're fine.

It's a goddamn toy and the jostling just loosened up old fritzing speakers. Like buildings settling under the groaning weight of dust. You're so used to the restlessness of your own thoughts, poor company at the best of times; your music player broke days ago so all you have are the memories of melody and lyrics to keep you company.

That's really what's worse about Mars: its soundtrack is one of barren land, empty sky, merciless weather. There's no music in the wind, not for you. Mars is an angry, hungry ball of rock used up by Earth and Sun alike, an icon of blood, never one of peace.

You eye the FriendBot warily, but it doesn't squeak or leap up and attack you with red-LED optics or modified steel teeth. This isn't one of the killbot serials. (A guilty pleasure, but who doesn't love them?) Most of the bots you work with—worked with—are too dumb to do more than cause tripping hazards or freak out at unexpected alterations in their programmed routines and need to be rescued from feedback loops. All the mining bots were recalled when the operation sites closed. You sometimes wonder if they got recycled or just scrapped for minimal profit.

You curl up as best you can around your pack, your back to the wall, the little space heater doing its best against the still, cold air.

The FriendBot lies on its face, its butt in the air, droopy tail draped awkwardly along its spine, its torn ear pinned under the weight of its head. That looks uncomfortable, so you reach out and nudge the fox onto its side.

It chirrups again, unmistakable, and green light flickers in the good optic.

You wrench your arm back, jamming your elbow on the floor. Pain ricochets up your shoulder—shit. Well, if the thing still has some working battery, you might be able to syphon that for your gear.

Don't turn killbot on me, you mutter. Your throat hurts. You tried talking to yourself for the last few miles of the hike to Bigfoot Seen, but it took so much energy. The echo of your own voice in your sealed helmet was worse than keeping your mouth shut and fighting against the wind.

You cautiously pick up the FriendBot and examine it.

There's another rip in the fur along the neck, and the reinforced aluminum skeleton is scratched; a former owner must have made some offline hacks. You rub your finger along the fox's muzzle. It makes a tinny purring sound.

Hi, buddy, you say.

Hi, friend! the bot responds, its voice in that uncanny range of cutesy human-like but still artificial. Its good optic glows faintly, bright green with a pixelated pupil that expands or contracts to show emotion. Later models came with an option to have emotive text display on a tiny LED screen on the forehead. This one just has the expressive eyes. Is it playtime?

Log 015—user Kel9000

You make a pretty good diary, Finn, I'll give you that. Who's gonna try and pry into a toy, right? Ha! Also, I figured if you're really an engineer who fixes stuff, the least I could do would be to update your software. At least these legacy models are customizable. And it gives me something to do since I broke my leg and can't go help Dad in EB79-delta.

God, I'm gonna lose my frigging mind if I have to stay in living quarters for another week.

You swallow hard and blame the lump in your throat on fatigue and dust. You flip the FriendBot over and find the dataport remarkably clean: a universal adapter under the left foreleg along the ribs, kind of where a heart should be.

How long you been here? you ask, fishing a cord from