chapter one: recovering the satellites
((AU notes: In this world, they're still robots, but built into human shape. They still look 'cartoony', though, so they don't invoke Uncanny Valley when they assist humans, and all of them have a form of AI.))
The sun beats down, high in the sky. His systems have long since become used to the heat as he walks through a parched wasteland.
It is the same as the photos he had been shown before the Axiom took off. But he can see green things, beginning to grow.
All things survive, somewhere. And Earth has begun to thrive again.
He has walked so far. He can no longer see the trash towers, the multitudes of junk humans left on this planet so long ago.
He has nothing left to him but data recall. Memories: The mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience. The staff he carries was once a symbol of his authority; now it is merely used for self-defense, or as support.
And now he is nothing. He was their pilot, but now they no longer need one.
He is lost, literally and figuratively.
He was not programmed for doubts. He was programmed for intelligence, but of the sort that would always be confined to a small box.
Do what is necessary to complete the directive. Do not question.
And, yet...he begins to question anyway.
Surely it does not matter now.
"Pilot model AUTO-A. You understand what you must do?"
He salutes, regal in his white uniform, stern and proud. "I understand, sir. I will do anything that is necessary."
"Anything?" He seems to seek clarification from the android.
He picks up the hat on the table in front of him, an exact replica of the captain's.
He will fulfill his task. He must, or humanity will not survive.
AUTO smiles radiantly, but the emotion is hollow; it is a facade. He is merely testing the limits of his facial expressions. He was made to be handsome, superficially; but his solitary eye shows no human emotion.
In fact, it shows no emotion at all. The smile freezes on his face.
"I understand, sir. Anything."
Sand gets in his joints regularly, despite the fact they are made to be tight-fitting; but he understands the inconvenience. He was made for a spacecraft environment; he was not made for forging through deserts.
He is not tired. Not in the way a human would understand it; he is not 'weary'. And he will not run out of power, not while the sun still shines; he too was designed with an emergency recharge system, with solar panels.
But he feels it is a human thing, to rest. So he does.
It is not that he refuses to understand. He is intelligent. He can figure things out; he has figured lots of things out, in these few months.
He simply does not understand the word.
Humanity.
At first, the captain was in control.
But slowly, as time went on, and the years passed imperceptibly in deep space, the captains grew...slack.
AUTO disapproved. Or he would have, if disapproval was a key element of completing his directive. The captain should not be lazing around.
But nevertheless, it made his job easier. He became the pilot, the commander of the vessel in everything but name. He did the work, programmed the algorithms that kept them on a steady course, and steered the humans that were his charges out of harm's way.
He did not hold a grudge, against the humans that did not know he did all the work. Let them be unknowing; they would live and die, as humans did, and he would guide their descendants into the stars.
He kept them on course, into the endless depths of space.
Into oblivion.
His clothing was once white, but he no longer recalls - recall: to remember; recollect. - what white truly looks like.
White is the colour of spaceships. Clean, controllable.
Boring?
He has begun to learn the meaning of the word boring. Boring is...standing still. But stillness too brings surprises.
He thinks, as he walks. There is nothing else to do.
The definition, as he knows it (Uninteresting and tiresome; dull.) is...unsatisfying. He has learned that the definitions he was programmed with often are, as the days go by.
And he begins to feel something. Some part of him stirs from deep stasis.
He stands still when night falls, and with mechanical patience sits in the desert sands and watches as it comes to life. Insects and mammals coexist, and fight, and live little lives.
Something stirs.
And for once, he is fascinated by something.
This is truly power.
He does not smile as he electrocutes the rogue robot which has the nerve to defy him, pinning him to the wall with the staff as he sends volts of electricity coursing through the small being's systems.
He is in power. He is in control.
The directive is to control. Control the captain. Contain all anomalies.
Do what is necessary.
He drops the body down the shaft, watches for a brief moment as it clatters in its death knells, and then straightens.
For a moment, as the EVE looks up at him, she sees it.
A brief curl of the lip.
It is a smile. And in his element, his superficial beauty is even more hollow, and terrifying.
He smiles at the other robot's despair, and as she struggles he shuts her down and orders his assistant to take her limp body away.
He is changing. It feels odd. It almost hurts.
Hurting is a foreign concept. Physical pain, he understands, and calculates perfectly.
Emotional pain is something he does not understand. It cannot be judged.
It is a feeling from the heart, and he has none.
But something stirs, and a shadow of a smile passes across his face for the second night, as he watches a small mammal eat the food he found that morning and put out as dusk fell.
He does not reach out, not yet.
However, he is still fascinated. He studies it as it eats, and it doesn't seem to mind.
His mind was always bent towards logical, scientific inquiry. This is something that fits that category, observing a creature he knows nothing about.
At the same time, it feels like something else.
Normally, he would move on, but he has nowhere else to go, and nowhere else to be.
So he stays that night, watching intently, and with an almost innocent curiosity that softens his hard features.
He has never experienced Earth. He was 'born' to the Axiom, a child of the stars and industrial space. Programmed for one job, and for one job only.
He fulfilled the mission he was given.
Now, there is no mission except the ones he gives himself. It is almost overwhelming.
But he has not yet realised this.
Perhaps he will, in future. But for now, in this moment, he sits with the ghost of a smile on his face, fascinated with a living thing, and he looks...
...almost human.