"Right, data format of the update patch... a little cache clearing. Some loading errors."
The being is flesh enough to need basics. Eats, sleeps, and toilet breaks. But doesn't answer if it's human. Has human rights, so that much was clear from the type of code it triggers in some machines.
Three tall ones. Two are police grades, carry tazers, and act as body gaurds. The other tall model is a personal assistance type, and the chores to help the weird guy.
There is then a bot that used to be a construction servicer, a brick layer sort. Short but strong. There is a flying one. It's a CCTV type. They were common once, and now they just rusted in awkward places. This one had its wing fan repaired. It sits content on the head of one of the police body sorts. It was the brick layer who chose her and the friend. It picked them up from the charge pods. There had to be an intention behind its choose.
"Here... this." A small linked phone device was now wired attached to them. It has a microphone and speaker. It will do the trick incorporating parts the cleaner bots lack. There is a working higher definition camera that scans things. It is a much better improvement on the magnetic wavelength reading spectrum. It is the assistant who was helping this improvement while the nerd is debugging and scynonized the phones to the hardware of the systems.
"Thank you for this improvement." Her close friend speaks in testing the volume and speaking through the system. It was a success.
"But why are you?" She cautious per always. It wasn't normal for what was happening here. It was a question that many colony machines asked in Morse code, giving voice to the public localised bias.
"There are a lot of us machines who have been left behind. Plenty that seek purpose." The assistant speaking honestly, "you are not the only ones who feel concerned in change."
I don't feel like that was what I meant when I asked my question. Everyone in the cleaner colony doesn't trust these beings. The security clearance was just to be wary of their presence, not respect to take the better quality found goods.
There a sting of tension between the group that she picked up. A little awkward silence by the assistant cutting himself short from any further story. So the bricklayer made a low hiss and pitched in speaking some story.
"I originally set out to fix the power outage of some areas." The bricklayer giving its peice, "When I arrived to fix it, I met these lot, all to doing the same. Then we started reconginzing that we were different. Those in the system and those individuals." Nods from several others getting it without further information. She looked at them each. It was a likely answer to follow. She still had some doubts about the very weird way they expressed things. The team seems cobbled together, haphazardly.
"I remember the days of having to clean after humans." Her little friend chimes in, "I was mindless then." It posed down, "I remember the last time I saw someone. How difficult they were in from the nuclear poisoning. The last breath they drew made me realise myself. I spent many days after. I had tried to run away, got damaged... and was brought here. I made myself home among my friends." The shy brush, "but they were still mindless. Frankly, I was going to give up useless thoughts."
It's a fitting result for why he became self aware. He hasn't entirely forgotten what humans are like and the years of service he spent as a wall flower. He's being genuine. Unlike this party of strangers. There's a tension here, a discomfort to each other.
"Then I changed." She speaks up following her background to this, "I didn't follow the rules. I noticed that you worry about me. I don't mean to worry you." She pats his side soft. The gleam of lift that it feels her reconginzing that they were together in feeling similar.
"Interesting, but you didn't wake out of the mindless ways like him. You were likely caused by some other factors." The code wasn't hard to reach. It was absolutely no way of hiding her way codes. For a five fingers dancing that keyboard, his going to know she's actively different to the cleaner bot beside her. So she need to slide some suspicious acts to an explanation. She doesn't trust them to tell about how she came from a digital world. Or of her digital ghost shape.
"I had been charging at different terminals from many other mall floors. Leaving the program fencing. I would get terrible hacking annoyances, so I started fighting for myself." That much is true, but it's not the whole turth.
"There was that one weird day that the entire clan here had a program glitches from some other interference. You have been different since. Everyone has. But you more than them." Her little friend adds, "I am glad it didn't cause me to much a problem. We were all overwhelmed by a database or server error."
They all turn among themselves in having realised that they share something in this glitch. As if the foundation of code had been upgraded or changed. Causing awareness to spike in many machines. Plenty breaking from the routine, after they felt data error changes. Or this sort of information made them leery.
"So you have figured out how to debug yourself." The guy at the computer leaves her file alone now. Backing out from any attempts on access. He doesn't want to make her hack him. Playing about their code will set a bad impression when they have plans.
"I guess so." She was done clicking about her many utility limbs and was checking her wheel roll calibration from how the newly attached phone inputs motion. She was mostly debugging any problems on the phone. The phone would try to impose contorl over her. She doesn't want the phone being a hacker gate into her body contorl. The guy at the computer made her leery of trusting the hackable phone to her core system. So she adjusted the settings herself without that guy, locked him off her system preferences.
I know you trying to make a puppet of us by giving us phones to hack our cores with.
"What have you got in the compartment there?" The bricklayer asked in posed a thick pointer at her torso. Being rudely obvious in making the others take note.
Why do that? Why would noise of my compartments be a issue?
"A stick drive and another phone. I wanted them." She posed away, "I found them, and they were interesting to me."
There a glare off. The bricklayer noticed that it was a bad thing. The computer guy then suddenly distracted them from arguing.
"That would explain the extra process power. You already connected the phone and stuck drive. They are already logged a part of you. Giving you more ROM."
The computer guy clicked his fingers, a clean click snap sound. It satisfied everyone curiosity enough to move the topic. That snap was a unspoken command to not bother with her further, not to attach themselves to her story any further.
The few of them had additional things they wanted. The one police guy has been rewiring the left ear side with a radio transmission receiver. The few had personalised their bodies with replaced bits or purposely painted symbols on the face. They all have a black line from the middle right eye socket or camera, a sort of tribal identification.
She doesn't wish to part take on adding this line on her, but maybe they had already without her consent. She noticed this on her own reflection. Her broken right hand flexing about the wet surface, smugged a little by her. They hadn't gone out of the way to repair her broken right limb. She was likely to be tribute for having a defective right limb. Just as the colony made her little friend defective for his strange disconnect. Maybe this was a disowning mark by the hive system. A way to tell those pawns and those removed.
"What's your story?" She asked towards the oddball out from the machine group. She had passed the separation boundary between the machines area and the human area. She does this a lot normally. But she looks back at how others can't seem to bypass this colour scale fence line. Even the police bots have been blocked from further entry at the door. So there is a more universal law at play for not being able to cross between human and nonhuman areas. She still holds her ground at asking, being gentle at using her left hand to seek attention from the guy seated at the computer. Not her open wire right limb, not to electrocute the guy.
"Gah, the hell!" Like he saw a rat, climbed up the chair in shock. Not expected to be reached for by anyone in this space. The only other machine that could was the personal assistant, who moved forward and lifted her to the table.
"I don't think she meant to scare you. But it proves that there are some that don't have the code laws properly processed." She turned, listening to them both, talking rapidly. She follows just fine in the language change. Bickering about not being prepared for a machine to ignore boundaries.
"Why would it be hard to understand that they have a setting to change boundaries for cleaners like this model? It's small and easy to squeeze in tight places. Lost phones or dropped wallets in awkward places. They would have sent some machines to fetch it back. It's literally in the computer guide right there." Her right limb poked the screen. She has now remote accessed and displayed the model manual to them.
"You." The guy sends a snarl and then pauses at looking at the proved subject of conversation. Totally pulled into the instructions that were passed for human cleaners to give orders to the cleaner bots. And the authorization to pass the boundaries of certificate classes. What modules were allowed and not allowed were included in detail. So any with a servalance camera function wasn't allowed into public bathrooms and back offices. Because of information protection, the sensor based machines had a more allowance of space to move because they didn't record or spy even if hacked into. It would have to take a secondary program to register and map sensor data into visible room dimensions and wouldn't record writing on paper.
Poor Phi had to hijack a scan printer to manually install book reading materials, which was a time-consuming and pointless task. Daunting enough that not all book copies were scannable from water damage. But when there is time to kill and a willpower to have it done, it gets done.
She had not predicted that she would be outcast among a group of other outcast acting machines. But she has crossed to many hacked data entries to feel distrusting to the sly weirdos before her. She could try to hide more cards to her chest, but that has been proven in many novels to not lead to good outcomes.
I guess the time spent reading those fan fictions wasn't for nothing. As the way this group acts among themselves and others are classic cliché. The tall ones are trusting to the humaniod. The bricklayer is for himself. And we have been tagged on clueless of group dynamics. I also have this feeling that this isn't everyone. Just a small party to lead us to where more are. They lack tools or emergency things. Lack long-term distance travelling kit. That is, unless they came to this mall for such things, that makes a logical plan. Many of the tech stores have already been cleaned out of useful or working parts. One of them is of living standard, they are going to need food and drink.
"You can read this?" The guy asked, pointing at the screen.
The manual has a decryption code that would normally malfunctioned any cleaner bots that accidentally loaded it internally. Meaning there's meant to be a fired circuit from over rom voltage for trying to load a PDF file that shouldn't be accessed by the system itself. It's where I found the bypass codes for the invisible walls and helped in many debugging errors. I did use this exact computer when I tried it the frist time. I have bypass the difference between myself and the machine shell I am in. Thus allowing me access when I want, without fried wires. It took some hardware additional parts, like the spare phone and thumb drive. What's with them? Why are they actively giving me the don't trust them vib? Jolting in your seat like a scared child. Putting me on a table where I can fall and break more parts. The bricklayer guy is having to cheese up some background to not pry further. My core system has them labelled red orange. Seriously... not helping me trust them.
"I shouldn't have but I did." She owns up, "I was just seeking why I had access to use the human doors."
"That's a good point. You did unhinged the door." Her little freind nods and they inspected that indeed the hinges were removed. What should be a locked door. The room would and should have been locked. Until she did this. The machines managed to bend and break the machine door open but still refused use of the broken human door. With this posed among them, the door was put back correctly by them and properly unlocked and locked at the handles. The colony was happy to see the door repaired and went about business, ignoring the security personnel group.
She stares deep hard at the computer guy. He uncomfortable back to clicking about the system of other information. Making uncomfortable pull away from her deep dark staring. The assistant gets the picture and turned her forcefully to look its way. A rather angry nerves twitch of trying to keep her from looking at the computer.
I am not going to let you hack me. Nice try. I will just remove myself from the system like always.
There's a frustrated punch behind her on the table she on. She fame ignorance by pose to ask about the flesh guys deal here.
"His made of a prototype VR body tracker suit. An experimental soldier test wearable armour kit that was scrapped." The assistant explains, "I suspect that didn't answer it all." She indicated indeed, "His model was scrapped from mass production because of the inability to remove it once put on. His human died a long time ago. His intent on keeping him."
She grimaced at that. She grimaced in reflection at herself, also recognised that she has a compartment of human ash remains. This dystopia of earth isn't kind and forgiving to lower ranked. But then again, she isn't convinced the human part of the guy is dead. The need for basics necessity like eat, drink, sleep and privacy breaks. That's not a dead person thing.
Although, it would be a way to trick past the robotic laws even long after the human organs have malfunctioned. Allowing a 'machine' hybrid equal measure as a breathing normal human. It also now made sense of thier look. They have the human height, stomach and five fingers.
The face covered up and a strange mounted system of metal limbs over thin twigs. She chooses to not pry further for now, they just met. If they were on better terms, it wouldn't be so blunt.
I am not totally satisfied in face value here. They want to lie to my face, when I can register a pulse on this guy. The vr gear is just too convince me to trust them. A mindless hive bot would, not individually aware like me.
"Sorry for being rude and freaking you out. The fact you can feel my touch is something to never take for granted." She softly gives a little bobbled bow and then make her own method of getting down from the table surface. The assistant tilted at the strange humanity that held which the guy at the computer picked up too.
Even so, she makes it down to the ground level. Her little friend was struggling to bundle the weeds up. She takes part with finding a thread to tie the bundles better to carry. Working as a pair to sort the stacks to a box, this box is carried by the bricklayer. The broken bots are in there too. The colony didn't even notice that they were taking leave, no feelings or connections between. Just before they take leave, her loose broken hand was better bundled. Stopping the loose wire sparking or making unnecessary contact. Wire tape does its short term job.
As it was expected, the two newbies are scouting ahead. Then you have one cop and the bricklayer. The VR and the Assistant. The last cop at the back. The flying drone tracks both front and back. Easily distracted by shiny objects and returned to the cop on the back gaurd.
The whole group takes the robotic staircase up but they make passes through human through shortcuts. Taking track to find more cleaner bot charger ports and repeating the same deal as before. Taking bundles of weeds and broken machines. Scrap metals if there isn't a machine tribute. Once the carry box was heavy enough, they took to car park basement, at least that's what she figured from scanning the shopping centre map. There must be a van or car... or even the car park turned into a place of stay for machines.
"What do you think they going to do with all that scrapped machines?" Her freind asked as they been scouting and foraging the route for goods.
"Metal still has trade worth, even if humans are gone." She scans a plant she found growing and gently tilts the leaves about for grading its quality, "Broken machines are good trade scrap. Just as humans had traded aminal corpses. Repurpose its uses to further ourselves. We just leading humanity's example." She deicide that it was good to take. She plucked it with it being able to grow back for later. Her friend thinks her thoughts over.
"They did like shiney things." He commented and she nods to that. They continued onwards with soon reaching to a difficult area. They were small to pass but it was other of this group they worried being stuck. There was also not so nice readings coming from ahead. There was a signal bouncing around here that flagged the main car park as a infected nest of mutant creatures.
"We are going to stop here." They had made it into the other side of the car park, the exit out was nearby. But its a human zone. So being here at the car park had to be with a purpose. They all sit by a wall barrier, the wind makes strange noise in the microphone system.
"There a stairwell to a corridor that connects to a secondary car park. We have a ride waiting there. But..." The assistant explains to everyone.
"There a nest and we aren't the quietest of moving bots." The bricklayer grouchy snaps.
"So you want to split the party and regroup at the agreed location?" She crossed her limbs and there a nod.
"As long as you make it into the second car park, there will be someone to pick you up. Even if they aren't there when you do arrive. Some of us had done this several times and had waited there. It wouldn't surprise me if there previous others from trips before there already." She has this feeling things aren't as simple as arriving when no one is there. Maybe there has to be a toll to pay for a ride or the lack of others surviving past the mutant nests for a reason. The bricklayer guy has already started hiding some scrap on himself, so maybe that's the fee. She does have a spare phone... but she has no intention of trading it. Likely the box of scrap as a whole it the group payment but its for whomever makes it to the waiting spot on time with everyone else.
Be left behind or scrap payment for someone else. There's a lot of this that not sitting well for her. But she's likely the only one. Her freind is blindly fine with it all. The VR guy likely has the call signal to request the pick up. So the bricklayer has to rely on the VR guy, selfishly or not. They need the brick guy to carry the heavy load they can't. The two cops are actually new to this, they aren't acting like they done this before or knew about the nests here in the car park.
"I will go distract the nests while you all make way to the meet point. That's why your splitting us, so someone is forced to be the distraction. Going by the level of sounds each us make, I am the loudest with the rattling I make. You had pointed out that I am noisiest multiple time. I will only danger the group if I stay as I am. But I am not getting rid of my items for your sake. So leave me behind. I will make do with my predicaments."
The slip of expressions they had in reaction, yeah... there isn't good to stay with them. The smile was that 'I am grateful that you know your place'. The VR guy and Bricklayer nods very smug of leaving her behind. The two cops lowered sad. The flying drone buzzed mad, flew off without further pretense. And with the drone gone, they all turned scared. So maybe VR wasn't the car person. The flying drone was. The party falls apart now. The bricklayer gave chase. The assistant helped the VR gear move quickly. The two cops made notes of change of plans, they are going to take walk to the other car park from a security bypass they have code for - willing to risk the nests since they are quiet enough.
Her freind is going with the cops, he didn't even turn to check if she was following.
She stays right at this spot, watching them going all these different places. She noticed that this car park should have an exit, wouldn't need to have a ride from untrustworthy folks at the other car park. She hot wire her own ride. Just finding one around the exit to break into was just something of a risk she will take. There might be some scrap for her locked in the broken cars. There could be a chance that she small to reach places where ceiling has caved in and hide goods underneath. She would then have her own trade of she ran into other machines that wasn't these lot.