Automatic Noodle

by Annalee Newitz

“human equivalent embodied intelligence” (HEEI) individuals who were granted civil rights after the war. The way Staybehind saw it, if you could talk and feel, then you were a person. Period.

“Thanks. I really don’t want to get sent back to America. Fuck that place. It’s a hellhole run by garbage cans.”

Still, humans were humans. They wanted you to know their opinions about your body, even if you hadn’t asked.

The HEEI rights laws quantified their freedom, gave it shape and substance, entirely because humans couldn’t steal something that hadn’t yet been measured. And now they could.

Nobody ever sat in the driver’s seat of a sentient car; it felt creepy, like climbing into the lap of a stranger.

Eating is just one reason people make delicious food. Cooking can also be a form of sacrifice.”

For the first time in Hands’ short life, they felt the pleasure of using all their strength and concentration to produce something they actually wanted to see in the world. It was exhausting, but at the same time, it felt like topping up their batteries on a sunny day.

It was, she supposed, a way of defying death. Necessities helped people survive, but joyful excess gave them life.

Humans had a ritual of putting things on, implanting things, to show who they were inside. She was on the opposite path, a simpler one, showing who she was on the inside by taking off the outer layers. Bots understood that. But humans couldn’t imagine nakedness as truth. They needed adornment.

More than anything, I want this weird, kinky, nerdy city to live through the coming years of oligarchy and climate chaos. We will make it, and we’ll do it in style, despite the robophobes and Vigilance Committees and you-know-whats. Stick together, friends, and share some spicy noodles with me. I