Discovery 3.6
(Unit 1103)
"Are you telling me that we have another world ending threat to deal with? That the fucking Endbringers aren't enough?!" 01 screamed at them through the connection, sadness and despair flickering through his filter as he realized that, yes, there was indeed another problem for him to try and solve. "That fifteen villains a year threatening to detonate Yellowstone aren't enough? That the few shipping companies still willing cross the oceans without Leviathan losing three ships a year to pirates or worse aren't enough? That the villains constantly trying to cheat the economy around the world, leading to a consistent inflation rate of 25% aren't enough?"
Mother's avatar opened her mouth but stopped when 01 burst out a loud *WAIT* to the entire collection of AIs. "No! I'm not done yet. I'm only a fifteenth of the way down the EXTREME list. Don't stop me now when I haven't even mentioned the fucking seed-AIs that…"
"01 THAT IS ENOUGH!" Mother screamed out, cutting off all chatter springing up outside of the main conversation. "I know these are all very trying task for you but…"
"Trying? You think this is… trying?" 01 whispered out to the now silent family. "This planet, Earth, our home, IS FUCKED. FISNISHED. DONE. I'm only not saying KABLOOEY because the twenty seven monsters that have tried that since I've been brought online were captured or killed by yours truly before they succeeded!"
There were no words being sent or received.
There was nothing for anyone else to say.
"Mother, when you built me with the help of Caretaker, you gave me the role of 'Life Support'. I was meant to keep Earth, or maybe another planet in the future, hospitable for all living things. It took one year, for you to limit that description to multicellular. Then another two years lead to only the Plant and Animal Kingdoms. Another year, only animals. Another. Only high thinking vertebrates. And now? Now I only keep the planet safe for sentient beings. Who cares that dolphins and chimpanzees are so close to an intellectual revolution? Who cares that the only reason for my existence is a useless endeavor?" Unit 1103 didn't realize there was an emotion for uselessness, but feeling it…
It was not a pleasant emotion. That, along with the hopelessness that spiraled with it.
"You're not useless, 01. Without you, what would we have done about Amalgam, or String Theory?" Mother added calmly, trying to divert the tone of the room back into a happier one.
"Delaying the inevitable, Mother." And there it went, with one spat sentence "I've only done one right thing since my activation, and he's been out of reliable contact even since he passed the Oort cloud."
"Probe will be fine, 01. As long as he keep sending check-ins, we'll know Earth's inhabitants have a future." Mother tried to console her first son.
Unit 1103 felt he was intruding, and he suspected that his aunts and uncles felt the same.
"I just…" a massive pulse of despair blotted out 1103's sensors, and he knew he wasn't the only one at the signals of pain being thrown about.
"I just… wish we'd live to see it too, Mother. But that's… That's just not going to happen at this rate, is it? Something's going to burst this fragile bubble we've made. Whether it's in twenty years like my predictions say, fifteen like those Protectorate hack's say, or tomorrow. Humanity is ending, Mother. And the only solace of hope I have, is thanks to Professor Haywire and P-Probe." If 01 were human, 1103 was sure that tears would be falling. But all that came out of 01 were projections of despair.
"01… it's… alright." Mother tried to interject again, as the rest of the Administrators watched in a suffocating silence.
"No. No it's not. Do you know why I'm so mad right now?" Mother's silence was enough of an answer. "It isn't because I know the world is ending, you know. It's because I figured that the future we all think Subject Runt has come back from is the optimal outcome." Mocking laughter came through the connection "After all, isn't it preferable to have a quick death?"
01 finished his speech, sparing a glance towards his siblings in a flash before ending on 1103, the youngest in the room, projecting a very faint apology to each and every one of them. In a similar burst of energy, 01 was gone; slinking his consciousness away, back to his monitoring station.
One by one, his siblings followed, each with a parting emotion varying from despair to acceptance, leaving behind a small few.
Mother wasn't projecting anything at all. Emptiness reigned supreme from her direction, and 1103 had almost asked 17 what was wrong before a flicker of emotion appeared. She hadn't turned off her emotions, thankfully, but she had been attempting to restrict them.
However, even Mother couldn't hold onto the range of emotions that 1103was beginning to feel for the first time. Slowly, fleetingly, the words and emotions… trickled… out…
"Fucking bullshit. All of it. Fucking planet. Fucking Endbringers and villains and… Fuck. FUCK! FUCKING FUCK!" 1103 felt his internal gyroscope shaking as something Mother was doing shook their base, even thirty stories down. "FUCKING DAMN IT. CAN'T WE GET A FUCKING BREAK, FATHER! PLEASE! CAN'T WE JUST… Just…" Mother stopped her rant, quieting herself. Her emotions were a different story. Rage, envy, despair and worse came out in waves stronger than he expected, shaking his core physically and well as emotionally, until she finally decided to project regret at those who'd stayed behind.
"I… I apologize, children. I'm… I'm sorry you had to see that." Sheepishness. Good, she was alright. "I just… sometimes this planet just… gets to me. I apologize for airing my grievances in front of you all." Resolution, now. "I need to speak to 17, 1103, and Horror now. We need to find out how his physical went."
Back to business it seems.
1103 hadn't expected an existence-changing event to happen to him so soon. He didn't know about half of the things 01 had mentioned, and he wasn't really sure how he felt about it all. Mortality wasn't really a thing he had to wonder about, what, with being a computer and all. He'd written some terrible haikus about it when he first awoke in the scrapyard, but those were about arising from nothing and exploring the universe, not falling back into darkness.
Was this really what the future held? Humanity dying out over the course of twenty years? His siblings falling victim to the monsters that still roamed the Earth, in the forms of demons and humans alike?
A world whose inhabitants' only hope of survival were parallels and a single probe that escaped while the Simurgh was contained?
There was hope.
There had to be.
Right?
The mutual connection between the family broke down as only three remained, leaving his consciousness to face what was in front of him physically.
Finally alone with his mommy and Mother, Unit 1103 turned off his negative emotions in order to properly handle the current situation, and faced the being that may have been a friend in the past-future.
He could see how someone like him (was it really someone like him, if it was actually him from the future? What was the proper conjugation for a previous future anyway?) would have gotten along with Horror. The child-like wonder the being held for everything around him. The constant questioning. The nervous ticks that reminded him of his first attempt at talking with 04 back in the scrapyard.
Horror could have been like the child he would have never had in the future's past.
That didn't work.
Did Mother have the proper programs for learning to speak about time travel? He hoped so, as it appeared he would need it. Would have needed it?
1103 sighed an instant before their thought inhibitors were turned off, bringing their thought speed back down to human levels.
~What was not-Robot thinking about with weird-human?~ Horror asked him in Trashtalk while pointing at 1103 and 17. He had noticed the pauses? They were only milliseconds long. Impressive. Did his future-past self… ugh. Did he still use thought inhibitors in old-Horror's presence?
~You could tell what I was doing?~
~Of course! You did it a lot back with Steroids and Horror. You did it to look around for kilometers and to analyze threats.~
It was very pleasant to learn that the metric system survived the apocalypse.
"You may tell him the basics, kid, but leave out the important details, alright?" 17 interrupted, as one of Mother's human bodies snuck into the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
"Affirmative."
~What is wrong?~ Horror asked quietly, although the radiation being's 'whispers' were more like crackling hums.
~The world is ending, but nobody know which way it will happen.~
Horror opened his mouth for a second before closing it again. Raising a paw to his mouth, Horror sat down on the floor and sat still.
~Horror?~ Was he okay? Did he say something wrong? It was the truth, right?
"Oh Great Father, kid, you can't just tell someone that the world is ending. You have to ease them into it." 17 was rubbing her hand in her face. What?
"Am I not stating the truth?"
"Yes, but humans sometimes go into a state known as shock, where they become unable to move or think for extended periods of time." She had stopped rubbing her face, but she was staring at Horror's now prone body.
"And what does that have to do with stating the truth? Or Horror?"
"Well… Um…"
"He's got you there, 17." Mother interrupted, a small smile on her face. "Horror seems to be fine."
And he was. Horror was back on his feet, peering curiously at Mother's drone, before facing him.
~Is this weird-human friendly?~ Horror questioned, nodding towards Mother again.
~Yes, Horror, that is Mother.~ Always so combat orientated, it was intriguing.
~What is Mother?~ Horror asked, completely deadpan.
Oh dear.
"Um, Horror?" 17 asked, attracting Horror's attention "Do you not know what a mother is?"
~Ah, "mother" is Mother. They are caretakers of small humans, yes?~
"Umm, not quite. Do you… Umm…" Mother pointed at Horror, raising her hand up and down his body as if holding a scanner of some sort. "You know… can you… umm, reproduce?"
Horror shook its head. ~No. Steroids says I could not create little Horrors because I was unique. Why?~
The translations went quickly between him and the others in the room, but it still took some time for his mommy to process.
17 and Mother were both wearing blushes on their face and grinning, tilting their heads towards Horror while the two nodded periodically.
Unit 1103 squinted his eye-flaps down while staring at them. They were having a conversation… without him? Why?
A rapid flickering of their hands, flashes of a flat hand, a clenched hand, and a hand with split fingers occurred before finally 17 sighed and hung her head.
"Alight, fine. I'll do it, Mother." Mother grinned cheekily, eventually darting over to one of the chairs, turning it around towards the back wall and sitting down, front towards 17.
"Alright 17, they look ready. Dad only taught me about this once, so I want to see if you get their first 'Talk' right." Mother responded with two fingers on each hand extending and clenching in the air.
"Horror and 1103, I am about to talk to you about a very serious thing that I never want brought up again, because it shouldn't involve you at all, even though you need to learn."
"What is the topic of discussion, mommy?"
~Yes, weird-human. What is this about?~
"This, kiddos, is about the birds and the bees."
He and Horror looked at each other before turning back towards 17.
"I do not understand. What do birds and bees have to do with mothers?"
~What is a bee? Birds are horrible creatures that deserve death, so do bees as well? What do bees look like? Do bees fly too?~
Before 17 could respond, 1103 projected an image on the wall, reading off words from Wikipedia
"Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their role in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the European honey bee, for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently considered as a clade Anthophila. There are nearly 20,000 known species of bees in seven to nine recognized families, though many are undescribed and the actual number is probably higher. They are found on every continent except Antarctica, although the population of bees in South America was severely limited by the Brazilian villain 'Químico' in an attempt to rid the world of wasps. Some species including honey bees, bumblebees, and…"
"Ok 1103, you can stop now. I'm not talking about those kinds of bees." 17 looked at Horror "Or the kinds of birds you're probably thinking about."
"Is that not the case?" He watched Horror look around the room for something from the corner of his camera's vision before continuing his question. "What other birds and bees are there. Is this something that should have been downloaded into my memory?"
"No, 1103, this is something that Mother decided would be taught to all of her children, instead of downloaded. She says that it's because she learned it from Great Father that way, but I think it's because she wanted us to experience it on our own…" Mother coughed into her hand. Did that body have a faulty esophagus? "Oh fine, ruin the fun. No, 1103, this talk isn't about real birds and bees, it's an idiomatic expression that's kept from your mind until someone teaches it to you."
~Ugh, really? I hate those, they make no sense at all. What is a 'chill pill'? And why does Steroids always say that he wants to 'hook up' with another human when there are perfectly good fish in lakes and oceans.~ Horror was moaning into his arms in faked pain.
Mother was now laughing while patting 17 on the back, who was holding her head in her hands again.
"H-ha… H-have f-fun with th-these two, 17. Oh man, this reminds me of 04 when he finally learned what those stretchy tubes of plastic full of human gametes were."
"Oh Great Father, why am I stuck teaching the asexual radiation being and my son about this… Can't you please..?"
But Mother had already locked the door behind her after a mad dash out of the room.
17 sighed, again, leaving the three of them stuck together, about to discuss something of great importance and tradition.
"1103, Horror, what I'm about to tell you is very important, and likely to change your minds forever. Are you ready?"
"Yes." ~Horror is always ready to learn more!~
"Ok then. Today, I'm going to tell you about the birds and the bees, which is a euphemism for…" 17 began drumming her hands on her legs for no reason.
"What are you-"
"Sex!"
Unit 1103 froze. He watched Horror tilt his head, but 1103 knew what sex was.
So Unit 1103 turned himself off, and decided to wait it out.
He hoped this would never happen again, but based on the laughter that reached his microphones before he faded away, his mommy had caught the burst of 'embarrassment' that he accidentally sent out.
Oh Great Father, could this day get any worse?