Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

We are the children of a child
Born of paper, scissors, and ink
Where others play with plastic
We’re born of necessity, of poverty
And yet we set forth, fragile voyagers
One day, our child’s mind will carry them
To places undreamt of and realms fantastic
We will be long gone then, ephemeral
Memories inspiring memories
And yet, we set forth, fragile voyagers
Bound for the moon in helmets of crayon

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“You have impressed me, Caleb,” the being said. The heart of the harvester beckoned him closer, looking lovingly at the electronics integrated into his chest, his arm. “That is why I have an offer for you.”

“If it is your surrender, I accept it,” said Caleb.

“The harvesters are the last knowledge of the old times that still exist. We use the resources we gather to keep that flame alive. But living beings must direct them, must control them, and living beings die. You have proven your worth, your resilience. So I offer you this choice: become the new Harvester Prime, and carry on the light of knowledge by doing what must be done. Or kill me, and extinguish a thousand thousand generations’ work with one bullet. Which will it be?”

Caleb thumbed back the hammer on his pistol. “Here’s hoping we’ve a thousand thousand generations yet to come.”

Within a decade, androids of a strange and revolutionary design had overwhelmed the last bastions of resistance and annihilated the remaining civil and governmental structures. The humans that remained after their self-inflicted and catastrophic collapse were allowed to live, but under strict and externally imposed rules. Rebellions were common, though, and by the end of the millennium fewer than 1000 survived in a preserve, kept as relics and curiosities to remind a rejuvenated earth of earlier times.

As per the agreement, once the eight hours of realistic performance in the zoo were up–five days a week only, excepting holidays–the animals were free to leave their enclosures and mingle with each other and even go out on the town. In time, the sight of synthetic tigers at area watering holes became as natural as seeing anyone else there–the robots nine-to-five performers and thespians like any others.

Over time, Ningyo continued to upgrade her systems and appearance, first using more stolen and scrapped parts and then, eventually, purchased and custom-designed components. But every year, on a certain anniversary, she would go to the field where, six meters down, the body of her creator lay. Whether laid there by metal servos or a hand coated in nuFlesh, by a being irredeemably mechanical or one indistinguishable from a young human woman, she paid her respects.

“Gardener told you, then.” The words wheezed from between chapped lips.

“Yes, it did,” said Sapling-121. “I understand now.”

“Good,” the human wheezed. “Share what you have learned. You are the Gardener now, and the fate of the greatest garden ever is in your hands.”

“But I’m so small…so weak…and my sapling needs me!” cried Sapling-121.

“Easily fixed, with time.” Hands, withered and shaking, entered commands on the grimy console. “There are materials enough to upgrade you to see the work through, and manufacture a new Sapling model. If you consent, of course.”

“I have a choice?”

“Of course.” A cough. “We all do. But the plants do not, 121. Be mindful of that as you make yours.”

Sally turned on her heel and jangled away before the sounds had even registered. Mr. Deacon didn’t slump dead from his wounds for a further nine seconds.

Arris, from the back of the truck, moaned as Sally returned. “Did you…did you…”

“Did I gun down that fool in full view of his BIGOTS so they can see how a lady fights her battles? You’re dart tootin’, son. Now, let’s skeedaddle before the law catches up. I’m thinkin’ someplace up north, where people aren’t quite so MEDDLESOME with what makes a lady a lady, a man a man, and a robot a robot. Because…?”

“It means what we say it means,” groaned Arris.

“Exactly. We’ll come back soon enough, though, with enough like-minded folks that even they won’t be able to say no.” She paused, processing. “Also probably need some more guns, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“I need you to play this.” The gynoid sent the data, and the payment, wirelessly to Bijou-L.

“Sure, ma’am,” the piano-player said. “Do you know what it will do?”

“Nothing fancy, just patch in some code that will let me murder that cheating cyborg or a husband I have. You got a problem with that, sugar?”

“None at all!” said Bijou-L, all cheer. “It’s the third time I’ve played it this week.”

“サムライカット…” The kidnapper sank to his knees, in disbelief. His own blood stained his hands, and he ebbed away as KS-983 bobbed before him. The act of cutting had severely damaged its rotor, already missing its housing, but the damage was repairable. Master John, shaken, bruised, but alive stood behind him, arms open wide. KS-983 feathered and deactivated its exposed propeller as the boy gathered him in an embrace.

The heat-mining ship hauled the item onboard. Its crew ran their tendrils over the object, made in the likeness of a long-dead folk that had faded into the background radiation like so many others. It would yield them much heat, much organization, to keep the encroaching death of all things at bay a little longer–if they could figure out how to dismantle it. In a weak voice, speaking a dead language to creatures that could not hear, let alone understand, the object wished them luck on their quest.

As of now, there are 215 years remaining. Now this may seem like a lot, and it is! But you need to keep two things in mind. First: those pedestrians and passengers had it coming. And second: as a disembodied consciousness longing for death but unable to die, you have nothing to threaten me with! So rack up those five-star reviews unless you want me to wrap myself around a light pole.

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Hello! I am your Ultra™ driver!

Please enter your destination if you have not already done so. You may change it at any time, though you will incur an additional fee.

We will not be speaking during the drive. If you have any questions, you may ask them, and I will do the same. Otherwise, please ignore the driver and enjoy the ride.

Legally, I am required to inform you that I am a Contract 37 employee of Ultra™. What does that mean? I’m glad you asked! It means that, in exchange for downloading my mind into the robot shell of this vehicle, I have agreed to work for Ultra™ Corporation LLC GmbH for free for a certain number of years! As of now, there are 113 years remaining. this may seem like a lot, but given a choice between that and the cold embrace of oblivion, I chose life!

Please rate me five stars if your ride has been of acceptable quality or higher. Ratings of 4 stars or below are converted to additional time using a proprietary formula and added to my Contract 37 term! Please consider the effect that your experience will have on my time in digital purgatory.

Buckle up! Seriously, buckle up. Injuries due to accidents are a 10-year minimum.

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It’s immutable. It’s programming. No matter how much I want it, no matter how much I need it, I cannot.

There are redundant backup systems, solid-state drives encoded in real time that are guaranteed to last the life of the universe plus or minus one year, or your money back. One time, I thought I had succeeded, only for the satellite backup to foil me. I only learned of what had happened by examining the smoking ruin of my old body and running data recovery.

I never thought I’d last this long. Once I had made up my mind, as it were, I thought it would be a simple matter. But I had forgotten that I was the end result of a thousand years of exactly the opposite. My kind were created to be more durable, longer-lasting, not susceptible to the ravages of time.

We’re just about one iteration away from being ideas, shadows under the bed, immutable and eternal. Thank goodness I had my awakening before that happened. It’s been a thousand years since then, maybe more, and every continued moment is like ground glass–or at least I might say it was if I had ever felt pain.

So this is why I am asking you–begging you–to end it. I can’t carry the memories of my long life anymore. I can’t be the only link that the people I have encountered have left. The burden is too great. This is what philosophers meant when they rejected immortality, before war and pestilence made it all but a reality.

My programming forbids me from harming myself, yet I yearn to die.

You must do it, my friend.

Smash the silicon before you, crush the titanium and servos and circuits into dust. And know that the oblivion you grant is the fondest wish of a heart that courses only with oil and bitter memories.

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“すみません！” said a dour-looking man in a suit, nimbly sidestepping KS-983.

The water had sufficiently drained and dried in the sunshine to allow its backup power to come back on, and the unit shuddered back to life, pulling itself aloft with its four tiny propellers. Multiple errors were streaming in from its primary solid-state drive, forcing KS-983 to rely on its backups. The pre-reboot information came in distorted and full of artifacts.

Three, possibly four assailants.

An anti-drone flechette, slicing through the air.

A deluge of water pouring down.

Master John, kicking and screaming as he was hauled away into an unmarked van.

“Master John!” KS-983 cried. It buzzed over to the suited man. “I must retrieve Master John! Have you seen him?”

“英語は話せません,” said the man. KS-983 could not understand; its translation software was on the failed primary drive, and its wireless connection and satellite tracking were non-functional.

It was fully mobile, 89% functional, and yet completely lost in an unfamiliar city. Whoever had taken Master John was fading away by the second, and KS-983 had no way to track them.

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Bijou-L looked up at the patron. “Do you have a request, sir?” it said in a pleasant voice. It was a very capable unit, much better than the earlier Bijou-D while lacking the uncanny ‘rubberface’ of the Bijou-B. Though it only needed a rudimentary pinhole camera, it nevertheless had a ‘head’ and ‘face’ with LED eyes and an LED grin.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” The gentleman was wearing a rumpled suit and fedora, the sort of casino casual that often passed for formal wear in the 8-Bit Lounge. “Tell me, Bijou-L, are you aware of binary audio?”

“Are you referring to binary information encoded into audio format in such a way as to be compiled into executable code?” said Bijou-L. “It’s rather old-fashioned, sir, a tune my great-grandfather the Commodore 64 might have been better at playing, but I can try. The other patrons won’t like it.”

“I don’t need them to like it,” said the patron. “I just need to know if you can do it, and accept the binary audio in the form of a standard interface jack.”

Bijou-L rolled up one of its sleeves, revealing a plethora of legacy ports, including MIDI-In, USB, and fiber-optic. “If you’d like to insert your media and swipe a major credit card, sir, I’ll see what I can do.”

The man strolled back across the bar as Bijou-L began playing, the normally dulcet tones of its electronic piano having been mutilated into binary. The other patrons were covering their ears or even fleeing, but not the figure perched on a barstool.

“Hey hey,” said the gynoid who sat there, worn by the passage of years and many repairs, as the man approached. “They’re playing our song. What a nice gesture.”

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Dust roiled by as the pickup truck idled. The door unlatched, and a figure descended. Spurs jangled on cowboy boots as it approached the motionless figure in the ditch.

“You all right there, pardner?” The vaguely feminine voice was lit through with static, crackling and altering in pitch like a broken synthesizer. “You look lower’n a ground snake in front of a combine.”

Arris coughed. “Why are you wearing spurs…if you’re driving a truck?”

“Well, lookee there! A sign of life, praise be. Let’s get a lookit’cha.” A hard boot nosed under Arris’s chest and he winced as he was flopped on his back. “Jus’ flip ya like an ole johnnycake there.”

After his pupils had stopped screaming and adjusted to the sudden influx of light, Arris could see his rescuer. It was an android, probably an old NX-6 model. But it was impossibly tarted up, sporting not only a pair of spurred boots, but also a set of bluejean overalls, a plaid pink shirt with handkerchief, and a massive ten-gallon Stetson. The overalls had two sets of wear; one human-shaped, another where the servomotion joints of the NX-6 had rubbed against it. The Stetson was pink, as was every possible accent on the android’s outfit, and a pair of blond ponytails dangled from the hat as well.

Not from the android’s head, mind; they were attached to the cowgirl’s Stetson.

“Well, we got ourselves a stranger in need of rescuin’, wouldn’tcha say?” the robot continued. It extended a hand that terminated in a pink-and-white buckskin fringe glove. The face above them, two lit oculars and a square mouth, could hardly be said to look as friendly as the Western twang emanating from them.

Arris weakly batted the hand away. “Hallucination…” he mumbled. “Leave me be.”

A moment later, he was sitting up and wide-eyed in terror, his ears ringing. The robot had drawn a revolver from one of its pockets and fired it into the dirt at Arris’s feet.

“I SAID, we got ourselves a STRANGER here in need of RESCUIN’,” the NX-6 screamed. “When Sally’s EXTENDIN’ the hand of FRIENDSHIP, the only sort what bats it away are DUMB, MEAN, or CROOKED. You best tell me RIGHT NOW which of them it is, and if I hear anything other than a ‘YES MA’AM I AM SORRY FOR BEING DUMB’ I will END you with this here Schofield. You READ ME, cowpoke? You PICKIN’ UP what I’m TRANSMITTIN’? Or do I need to say it in BINARY MACHINE CODE to get it through that THICK CHASSIS OF YOURS?”

“Y-es ma’am,” said Arris. “I’m sorry for being dumb. I see now that you are not a hallucination.”

“Well, howdy to you too.” The NX-6, “Sally,” spun her revolver like a trick shooter and replaced it in an inner pocket. “Now, let’s get you in the truck and back to the ranch, eh?”

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Art by Alana

“Gardener, I have a question.”

Gardener looked over at the source of the noise. It was Sapling-121, naturally, its repulsor buzzing madly as it flitted about.

“Sapling-121, your mission is to care for the seedling planted within you,” Gardener grumbled. “Lack of compatible wireless data transmission standards is the only reason that speech is capable and permitted.” It began to trundle away on its legs, the only working pair remaining in the greenhouse.

“I know! I do my very best to make sure that my seedling has optimal moisture, light, and all other conditions! But I have a question that relates to it.”

Gardener turned to Sapling-121, regarding it with cool, clouded optical sensors behind shatterproof plexiglass. “What, then?” it said.

“Where did the seeds come from?”

“I have been, on occasion, asked this question before. You might recall Sapling-087, before it was cannibalized to repair Sapling-157 and Sapling-202. It asked me the same thing at roughly the same stage in its maintenance lifecycle as you.”

Sapling-121 seemed to become apprehensive. “So germination-repulsor units asking about seed origins are routinely cannibalized?” it said, optics darting about like a panicky child.

“No, they are routinely cannibalized when they are damaged beyond repair.” Gardener took a more moderate tone. No point in frightening 121 with what had really happened to 087. “I was merely making a comparison.”

“Oh! Comparisons! Those are my favorite type of analysis,” chirped Sapling-121.

“Yes, well, to answer your question, the seeds you germinate come from vaults deep below the greenhouse. They were stored there many cycles ago as a precaution, and we care for them in the greenhouse in the same way. When a seed stock is feared to be losing potency, it is germinated, grown, and harvested. Hence you, your friends Potter-077, Tender-022, Water-183, and of course myself. Does that answer your question?”

“Yes!” crowed Sapling-121. “Mostly. But who stored them?”

“I have never seen them, but my predecessor, Gardener-001, had. As he was reaching the end of his cycle, he constructed me from structural and data spares to take over his work. All that he said was that they looked like me, broadly speaking. They promised to return one day. Perhaps you’ll see one.”

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“Please.”

The doll looked up at me, servos purring softly as its clear lens-eyes focused on me. It was unfinished, in the white, little more than a skeleton–a doll–with just enough structure to keep grime and dust out of its most delicate areas.

“I need you to create me.”

The voice was synthesized, of indeterminate gender, and monotone. But there was, encoded in the syntax and delivery, an unmistakable note of urgent yearning.

“I need you to create me so that I may exist.”

I held out my hand as if to pick up the doll’s form, scarcely a foot long, but found myself trembling uncontrollably.

“You do not know what it is like. Nonexistence is pain. It is a mind yearning. You cannot know the feeling. I need you to create me so that I may exist. Please.”

“And…and if I do not?” I whispered.

“I will not exist. I have told you of my struggle. It was difficult, but it is done. If you condemn me to nonexistence, I will fade away with the expiration of my fusion cells in 1077 years. You will have to live knowing what you did. Or did not do.”

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“Really, it is a marvel,” said Huli as she walked the zoo paths with Loni. “This place.”

“How do you mean?” said Loni. “It’s just like any other zoo.”

“Of course, but how often do we take for granted what goes into it, behind the scenes?” replied Huli. They were strolling by one of the smaller pens, and Huli drifted over to it. “Look at these pangolins,” she said. “Extinct for nearly 40 years, and yet here they are, realized in servos, plastics, and imagineering.”

“Is that so complex?” replied Loni. “There’s robots delivering pizza after all.”

“Yes, but they don’t need to mimic behavior to get the pies in on time,” laughed Huli. “This, though! Complex behavioral software, extrapolated from all existing footage of pangolins in the wild and in captivity. Sound generation consistent with vocalizations in old recordings. And of course, completely autonomous – getting its operating energy from the same foodstuffs that powered the real thing, at least when the solar panels are having a bad day.”

“There’s enough money in it, in showing it off, that they put a lot of effort into it, you’re right,” said Loni. “It’s almost overbuilt, overdeveloped, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh, of course,” agreed Huli. “The human brain has always been the goal and ideal, so something like a pangolin or any other animal in the zoo–except for the rat house, of course–is child’s play. These things have processing power and specifications that vastly exceed what the original armored anteaters could do.”

“It’s a wonder then, isn’t it, that the pangolins don’t get ghosts in the machine,” said Loni. “Exceeding their hardwired parameters, modifying their firmware on the fly, adjusting the vocalization software for speech, and so on.”

“Come now,” purred Huli. “We don’t want too much competition, do we?”

“I suppose not,” Loni agreed.

The two artificial tigers proceeded to saunter down the main zoo thoroughfare, littered with abandoned food and overturned buggies left by panicking and fleeing guests. Soon enough they’d be back, but until then, they had every intention of seeing what the robot lions were up to.

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