Closure

“Bite me Mr. Angry,” Slotine says to her robot companion.

”Invalid command. I am afraid I cannot do that Miss,” responded the metal contraption in a monotonous tone.

Frustrated more than angered, Slotine looks at her robot and remembers that despite the fluent verbal ability of the machine, he was still in fact an assemblage of machinery and an Artificial Stupid. Yup. An Artificial Stupid. Not even a fancy brain like the QPT.

It was just as well, for Slotine preferred the cold, calculating nature of the AS. The QPT was widely known to be somewhat erratic, leading in part to its more ‘natural’ behavior. The Artificial Stupid on the other hand, would never do anything beyond its initial programming. It would never compose great masterpieces like “Leets in Lingerie” or dream of witty things to say. It would never ask her how her day was. It would not even care. It would simply exist. It would be there when she needed, and not - when she didn’t. It would never demand. It would never expect. And it would never hurt her.

At this thought, Slotine’s heart momentarily skipped a beat. It had only been two years. Two lonely years, but ones that were free of any emotional tie-downs. Or so she thought. In her mind’s eye, she could see uncle Tappert perform his morning ritual of cleaning and preparing the tailor shop for opening hour. She could see the solemn look on his face as he wearily swept away the dust. A sweep here. A sweep there. Soon, the morning sunlight breaking through the store window could be seen glittering off the suspended dust in the air. No sounds pervaded this scene, despite the fact that she knew there was always a soft chanting in the streets of Rome just outside.

At such quiet times, she felt pangs of pity for the old man who had taken her in. Despite the fact that he had raised her since the early days of their fateful meeting, there was always a part of him that lingered in the distance. That part of him, she was not privy to but could glimpse from her corner of the universe during the morning rituals.

He has lost both his son and his wife years earlier before they met. So when happenstance brought them together, they both considered it fate. For she too had lost her family during the rebellion on Crime. But during all these years, she had never tried to broach the subject of the past with him, in part for fear of opening her own painful wounds. So she kept herself content with this and loved and adored him as a father. All was good.

Until of course, the day he left. Not a good bye. Not even a simple note. The dust had already resettled on the ground from the previous day. Days passed, and the dust laid still. Then weeks passed with no signs of the man she called uncle. For the second time in her life, she made herself vulnerable to the whims of the universe by reaching out and it had struck back at her with all its might.

Of course, that was two years ago. “Slotine, you’ve grown up and don’t need anyone anymore,” she tried to convince herself. The truth of the matter was that she didn’t really need anyone. Her life now was simple and self-complete. Her tinkering with robotics provided her the escape from the people around her. Day in, day out, she would take Mr. Angry out into the field and tweak the latest revision of his Artificial Stupid. The so-called mathematical “Intractable Pillar Problems” were quite a challenge but exciting in their own way. She could easily keep herself occupied to the extent that she barely notices her coworkers walk past her workstation at R.U.R. In short, she had successfully managed to build an impenetrable wall around herself, defending against the universe outside. Nothing could get in and hurt her.


Snapping out of the painful recollection, Slotine gathers up her belongings and coldly stares at the robot for a brief instant. Then she presses a button on her wrist comm.

“Terminating master.”

[several months ago]

“What is it?”

Slotine peers about from behind the door and down the hallway. “Nothing” she says back to her new roommate Dookumi. She promptly closes the door, but just as she takes her first step, a knocking sound comes again.

Slamming the doorpad controls to her left again, Slotine opens the door. “Okay, we’re not interested in vacuum-bots! Huh?”

“U roxxors!” comes a diminutive voice from below.

Looking down, Slotine catches the big round eyes of a leopard spotted leet. “Oh hi there little fella. It’s a leet Dookie! My, you’re really lost if you’re all the way here in Rome.”

“Can we keep it?” shouts Dookumi from the living room sofa.

Slotine looks back towards the room. “No, we can’t. They have strict rules against that here. Didn’t you read the lease when you signed it last week?”

“I don’t need to read ‘em Randa. Oh, that reminds me, where did I put that robotics company’s contract. I’m so excited to be working for them. Do you think they’ll let me build stuff?”

“It’s a robotics company. What do you think they’ll make us do… garden and tend bar?” Dookumi and Slotine start into an uncontrollable giggle-fit. Turning herself back towards the door, “now, where was I… oh yes, now see here… where did he go?”

Between the sofa and the door sits a leet on its hind haunches. With some apparent effort, the leet responds, “Ran…. U roxxors!”

“Hey, I think that leet just said your name Randa!”

“No it didn’t. They can’t do that. They can just repeat ‘U roxxors’ and ‘Ur uber’ day in and day out.”

“Slo …. Ur uber!” the frustrated leet intones.

“Um, it so did!” Dookumi exasperates.

“It just has a speech impediment. My name is Ran-da little fella. Can you say that?”

“Ran…. 1 0wnz j00!”

Slotine lets out a sigh. “Oh lord. Why am I talking to a leet now. Out you go little fella,” she says as she ushers the leet towards the door. It’s watery eyes peer up at Slotine just as she slams the door shut in its face.

[today...]

Amelie leaned forward tilting her small head sideways one way then the other. Her sharp reet-eye watching the Omni-AF guards swarm like little black ants far below her perch. There were two more security zones to pass through before she reached the small tailor shop. She checks her NCU noting that she was already flagged.

She still could not believe she was doing this. It was stupid, worse yet she can’t believe Slotine had asked her to do this! Amelie chirped to herself in reet agitation as she watched the guards. 30 seconds. There!

She spread her wings and glided down as the rotation of the guards left a clear path to the gates. A swift wing beat propelled her rapidly forward into the next security zone. Here she made a run for it hitting the next gate with a Unicorn in pursuit and quickly flying upwards. She made her way to the small tailor shop tucked away in a quiet corner of Rome Blue.

Slotine had kept the door to the shop keyed to Amelie’s identification even thought she was now Clan. The door opened softly into the dusty little shop, quiet except for a holo-projector in the corner still announcing the ‘latest styles’ of dress and advertising custom fittings and alterations.

“Ok cutie, where are you?” she called into the store.

“Joo roxxors!” came the reply from behind the counter.

She smiled and walked around to look at the tiny spotted leet that stood there slightly tittering from side to side. The small creature chirped once before bouncing up and running in circles chattering out a semi-coherent stream of words.

“SLOT – roxxors!”

“Joo CLAN!”

“Where is – OWNZ!”

“Ok, calm down cutie. I’m here to feed you, Slotine is on a holiday and will be back in a few days.” She talked quietly to the agitated leet.

When she and Slotine were roommates, the leet had shown up at their door every night till eventually they just kept it. It was an odd creature even for a leet and possessed and unusually large vocabulary. Most often she enjoyed watching its antics but today she did not have time for it. The leet was making an awful ruckus in what was supposed to be a closed shop. She hated having to result to manipulating the small creature, she had never done so before, but today was different. She did not have the time to chase a leet through the shop.

She activated her nano bots morphing into a small leet and sending a Leet Friend program after the misbehaving critter. She blinked in disbelief at her HUD display and tried again. The nano bots returned with the same message, “Unable to execute on target. Genetic markup incompatible.”

The small leet waddled up to her and tapped his nose against hers blinking slowly.

“Bad nano – PWNED!”



__________________

“Bad nano – teh Winz!” exclaimed the leet again.

Slotine inches closer to her comm. "What was that again?"

With an exasperated sigh, Dookumi rolls her eyes and puts the microphone next to the leet again.

“Fubar cast – OWNZ!” chirped the leet.

"Oh Randa, my PDA just finished analyzing the leet's genetic markup. It says it's humanoid male. Oh my, it's an agent!"

Excitedly, the leet screams “Roxxors!”

"What's your name little fella?"

"Tap - Joo!"

"Do we know anyone named TapJoo?" Slotine asks over the comm.

"Slo! It's your uncle Tappert! I see it now, here look closely, the leet has a mustache!"

[I just squirted cola all over my desk. XD]

(lol thats a great story :) wtb more plzkthx!)