Autonomous

by Annalee Newitz

When the adversary’s ruined molecular bonds boiled with gas fires, when Paladin was just about to fulfill his mission, the man’s body fragile and alive against his back, he hit the malicious code. The bot’s whole body spasmed, his reflexes made useless by bogus and contradictory commands. A wave of ecstatic nonsense gripped him and the file ended.

Is Paladin trying to forget the sexual experience with Eliasz? Trying to re-associate his memory of it ? Not sure what he’s doing here …

Many of them would be stopping at one of the dozens of Prague-style secret teahouses that had sprung up here over the sixty years since the late twenty-first century Collapse, which left populations and farms ravaged by plagues. Afterwards, the newly formed African Federation hatched a ten-year plan from their headquarters in Johannesburg. They promised the Federation’s three hundred million surviving citizens that they would build the most high-tech agricultural economy in the world.

Wow, some world-building! “Late 21st century collapse,” only 300 million Africans left. 1.34 billion live there now. That’s a serious collapse —about 3/4 of the population gone.

“I saw Threezed leaving with one of our lab mobiles. What is he doing?” “I believe that he is learning about autonomy,” Med replied.

Ironic, coming from Med, who is a robot, when normally robots are not autonomous. Jack offering Threezed a “franchise,” autonomy, is a new opportunity for him.

“I will play it now,” she vocalized. She opened the original executable and it began to run, the worm rapidly replicating a few pieces of nonsense data inside her as she watched the scene stolen from a game world, of herself rescuing a man on the battlefield. She felt Eliasz’ hands and body moving against her carapace distantly, adding to the general sense of wrong inputs flooding her sensors. At last she was overwhelmed: Her mind filled with errors, and a pleasurable confusion raced through her before she crashed in his arms.

Ah, that experience is… an orgasm, for Paladin!

“Vancouver also has a large community of autonomous bots, so that’s your cover: You’re a newly autonomous lab bot looking for work. When we get to base, your botadmin can set you up with a simulated autonomy key.” “What is the difference between a simulated autonomy key and a real one?” “A simulated key expires,” Eliasz said, his hand gripping hers as they dropped down over the jet field.

Hmmm. Will Paladin want to give up her autonomy?

History was the curving face of an old domestic bot, its saucer-shaped body fringed with the sweeper bristles that defined its sole purpose;

Ha, cool! Eufy!

because now he was in a better position than ever to help people. Infringement was always illegal. Nobody at the IPC would prevent him from busting the bad guys when it came to piracy. He no longer had to see unpunishable transgressions thriving in the open, their victims staring at his uniform with accusation. When it came to intellectual property, justice was simple and clear.

Just who the hell does he think he’s helping by fucking up people, torturing people and murdering people???

“Are you going to be OK?” The man’s voice was carefully neutral, and Paladin could not read the expression on his face. In fact, she could no longer see Eliasz’ face at all. Certainly the man had a face, and she could perceive that it possessed the usual group of sensory organs, but nothing about it was recognizable as Eliasz.

So it’s true that Paladin’s human brain allowed her to recognize human faces.