I sat there on a long bench, waiting for the so-called Senior Messenger to arrive. I fiddled a little with the communicator they had given me. It featured all sorts of simple UI buttons, a chat app, and a few basic diagnostic tools. It was honestly way more simplistic than an Old World smartphone.
Like, this thing was actually used for communication and work. That's it.
"Oh, hello!" a soft, melodic voice called out from the doorway.
I looked up and saw a girl stepping into the room. She wore the standard gray messenger uniform, complete with a cross-body satchel, but that was where the "standard" ended. She had long, flowing blue hair, yes, Hatsune Miku blue. Was it natural? Considering the city's eugenics program, it probably was. She possessed bright, sparkling green eyes and a posture so bouncy she practically floated.
"You must be Viel Paradox! Hi~!" the girl smiled warmly.
Well, isn't she just a little ray of sunshine?
"Yeah, Viel here." I stood up and held out my hand. "Old World Relic. Nice to meet ya."
"Goodness! It's so nice to meet you!" She grasped my metallic hand with her hands and shook it, her blue hair practically flutters as she did so. "My name is Lina Hemera! I'll be helping you get used to your first day of serving the city."
Right. Serving. Not working for, serving. You serve the city, not work for the city. God, this terminology's gonna take a while to get used to.
"Yeah, give me the do's and don'ts," I said, dropping my hand back to my side. "I feel like I'm going to walk headfirst into a dozen cultural brickwall."
"Ehehe~ Don't worry! Rogan already briefed me on your... unique upbringing. It's totally fine! we can start slow." She reached out, gently grabbing my wrist to pull me toward the door. "Now come, let me properly introduce you to the City of Ingenuity!"
---
We left the checkpoint and stepped back out into the soft, carpeted streets of Ingenuity.
"Now, a simple primer," Lina wiggled her pointer finger in a lecturing manner as she walked backward to face me. "As a messenger, our job is to help the city communicate with the people in it."
I blinked slowly. "Like... literally?"
Lina puffed out her cheeks in anime-like fashion. "Mou... You still think in terms of cold logic! You need to see things through compassion!" She spun back around, gesturing grandly at the bustling thoroughfare. "Come, come, open your eyes! Or optics, or sensors... What do you see?"
I looked around. There were people strolling leisurely, minding their own business. A food printer hummed in the distance. Some citizens were lazing on plush sofas, others were straight-up sleeping on the sofa the middle of a public square.
"Uhh, the weirdest place I've ever been?" I offered.
"Weird? Okay, okay, what kind of weird?" Lina pressed on, skipping slightly to keep pace with my long strides.
I narrowed my eyes, taking it all in. "I mean, the people dress like they're cosplaying, you just sleep right there in the middle of the street, and I guess... we're technically indoors?" I looked up at the ornate ceiling. "Also, no sun. Those are lamps."
"You're so close!!!" Lina gasped, grabbing my hands again, her eyes wide. "But see, you are biased toward the people! You can't just judge a city by looking at its inhabitants, you need to look at both!" She let go of one hand to point at a passing group. "See how they walk barefoot? That's because the carpets make sure the ground is always soft and clean beneath them."
Lina led me through the city, her steps floaty and bouncy. "You see that food printer? The city feeds you and nourishes you." She swept her hand toward the towering, mural-painted structures above us. "You see these buildings? They protect you. They keep your whispered secrets and your grand projects safe and secure until the day you are ready to show them to the world..."
Lina turned back to me, her bright smile softening. "Notice how everyone treats the city in return. Realize why we're here." She placed a hand over her heart. "We are here to serve the city. We fix any leaks, we patch up holes in the carpet, we maintain the facilities, we heal the very blood and heart of Ingenuity, so that it may continue to protect us."
The girl took a step closer, her eyes only inches away from me now. "I don't know what kind of world you lived in, Viel... What sort of upbringing or education you had," she murmured softly. "But... I believe that being kind and loyal to everything and everyone that brings you joy and protects you..." She reached up and placed a gentle hand on my rigid shoulder. "That's a virtue. It makes you a better person. Don't you agree?"
I looked down at her. For almost half a minute, my vocal processors simply stalled.
I mean... that's... that's beautiful as fuck. But... it is so utterly detached from the reality I knew.
Back in the Old World, everything was disposable. People replaced things the moment they got bored and could afford an upgrade. Corporations built things specifically to break, planned obsolescence is not a fucking conspiracy theory, it's a business model. We exploited nature however we wanted, and we only tried to clean up our messes because we didn't want to get sued.
And...
And it bled out. That mindset infected everything. We exploited people just like we exploited our belongings... We are taught to replace our belongings and because of that, we replace people too...
The Late Stage Capitalism... We treat the environment as disposable... And we treat people as disposable...
"Yeah..." I finally managed, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I agree with that. It's... it's a virtue to be kind to everything."
Lina absolutely beamed. "Yes!" She spread arms and lunged at me for a hug.
_Thunk._
Lina instantly recoiled, wincing and rubbing her forehead. "Oww, oww..."
"Shoot! Careful!" I stepped back quickly, checking on her. She was slightly teary-eyed, rubbing the growing red mark on her brow with a sheepish grimace. "I'm a robot made out of solid steel, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay, ehehe..." She giggled a little, still smiling. "But yes, I'm glad you understand, Viel." She took my hand again, her grip warm and reassuring. "Now come on, let's see if anyone or anything needs our help!"
---
After walking and observing for a while, we finally found our first 'thing' that needs our help. A row of food printers lined the street, several of them had small queues of people waiting to use them, but one printer sat completely abandoned.
"Oh, that one looks lonely," Lina rushed forward, gently patting the food printer. She then turned and waved to a nearby bystander. "Excuse me, is there something wrong with this one?"
A man in a trench coat glanced over. "Oh, that one? Nothing's physically broken, it just hasn't updated its software yet," he smiled sheepishly. "And a food designer I followed just dropped a new design and I kinda want to try it,"
"Ahh, so this one got left behind." Lina nodded in understanding and ushered me over to the lonely food printer. "Okay, procedure time!" She took out her communicator. "Every facility provided by the city has a unique code etched onto it. Before doing anything, we must scan it, see?"
Finally, a normal maintenance routine.
"Got it." I pulled out my own communicator and looked for the symbol. It looked somewhat like a QR code, but hexagonal instead of square. I aligned the camera and scanned it. Instantly, my screen populated with a clean, organized list: the item's ID, description, manufacture date, last maintenance check, and a backlog of logs.
"Yay, you got it!" Lina clapped her hands together with a proud beaming smmile.
God I feel like a kid in kindergarten...
"Now, in your communicator, there's a button for a standard diagnostic check and instructions," Lina pointed out, leaning close to look at my screen.
I pressed the button. The process is detailed and easy to follow. The UI asked simple questions like 'is the standby light on?' Then it gave me small instruction to print a test ration, a prompt asking if the item printed successfully, guided me to initiate a soft reboot, check the power relay, verify the physical components, etc, etc...
I followed the instructions on my device. Apparently, the food printer passed every physical check with flying colors.
"Alrighty! We're done~" Lina hummed, peering over my arm. "It passed all the hardware checks, which means this little guy really was just left behind. Let's check the update schedule."
I scrolled through the system data. "Hmm, it says... yesterday?"
"Check the error logs?"
I navigated to the network tab and found a flagged entry. "Ah, here it is. 'Network Update Failed.'"
Lina nodded a little. "Oooh, so that's why." She pat the food printer gently. "Don't worry little guy, we'll get someone to fix you right up." She pointed to my screen. "Send the logs and the diagnostic check you just completed. The software team back at the base will handle it from here!"
"Got it." I pressed send and just like that, my first job was done.
"Yes! Excellent work!" Lina cheered. "Now, let's continue! Keep your eyes peeled, 'mkay?"
With that, I spent the rest of the day simply walking through the city, documenting everything. We checked the lighting fixtures, examined the exterior of a sterilization chamber (which I didn't get the chance to scan), inspected a plaza fountain, and more. For things like the carpet that didn't have a unique scannable code, we simply took pictures, assessed the wear and tear, and wrote brief reports.
It felt... I dunno... relaxing?
When you stopped stressing about quotas, metrics, and clocking out, and just focused on helping the facilities do their job better... it genuinely felt nice.
I mean, yknow, these facilities serve the people of the city and... like... they're basically my coworker, so yeah, solidarity.