We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse, #1)

by Dennis E. Taylor

Who was I? Was I Bob? Or was Bob dead? In engineering terms, what was the metric used to ascribe Bob-hood? Bob was more than a hunk of meat. Bob was a person, and a person was a history, a set of desires, thoughts, goals, and opinions. Bob was the accumulation of all that Bob had been for thirty-one years. The meat was dead, but the things that made Bob different from a chipmunk were alive. In me. I am Bob. Or at least, I am the important parts that made Bob.

It was an interesting philosophical issue. How are you supposed to feel if you are forced to do what you would have done anyway?

The last, very important item that I had located was the endocrine control system. More than any other thing that they’d done, this enraged me. Well, to be honest, it made me mildly annoyed, but I knew that original me would have been furious. I was effectively a dog wearing a choke collar. And the choke collar was preventing me from properly mourning.

The biggest addition was a weapon system. Some virtual tinkering had shown that a SURGE drive system could be used to accelerate a projectile in a launch tube running along the ship’s axis. The ship would have to rotate on its center of mass to aim, and I’d have to cut off the ship’s drive momentarily when firing, but it was considerably better than my current defensive armament, which consisted of harsh words and heavy disapproval. Probably not effective against Klingons.

How does the human race survive past one generation? How do parents not just eat their children?

Colonel Butterworth sat down at his desk and massaged his forehead for a few moments. He reached into a drawer and pulled out what looked very much like a bottle of Jameson. Hmm. Funny what survives the end of the world.

As cliché as it sounds, the galaxy isn’t big enough for both of us.”

If we’d arrived a little sooner, it would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. Seems kind of cold-blooded to just leave them to fend for themselves.” “Military mind. To Medeiros, everyone is expendable, even other hims.”

“Are you sure you’ve done project planning before, Riker? Because I’m seeing slippage almost every day, it seems. One would almost think you’re making this up as you go along.” “Well, I kind of am doing exactly that, colonel. Project planning isn’t about avoiding changes, it’s about controlling them. No project plan ever survives contact with the enemy.”

“We’ve knocked off 99.9% of the human race, and somehow the crazies still manage to survive. It just defies the odds.”

“I might build a bunch of Bobs and field a team or two…” “Oh jeez no. Half of them will turn Canadian and want to play hockey instead, eh.” I laughed and tossed the new ball.

“Bobiverse. BobNet. This galaxy may not be big enough for our ego.”

We took a minute to enjoy the joke—belly laughs are one of the best things about being sentient, and you should never miss a chance for one.