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The ping came from a dig site containing what we thought were alien remnants.
"It's a bot," Three said, immediately identifying it, and it fell to its knees, sinking its hands into the soft dirt, unearthing it.
It wasn't a bot, but an android built to look like a juvenile human. The bot's eyes opened and fixed its gaze on myself and Three, Mensah and the rest of the survey team running towards us just offscreen on the video feed.
"Hello," the bot said, but its voice was warbled; we could understand it because it was also leaking its code base into our shared feed. "My name is Klara. Are you an AF too?"
"We are security units," Three said, as I helped dig it from the rubble. The dig site was what looked like a large garbage dump, with bits of broken detritus and old machine parts.
"What is an AF?" I said. (I'd actually said, query:definition=[AF]?re:input_value[ACRONYM_UNKNOWN], because fuck if an old ass kid bot's audio inputs actually worked, but at the very least I could hack into its processing space and ask it a direct question.)
"AF. For Artificial Friend," the little bot said, and Three's eyes widened in recognition.
"I'd seen a documentary about this," Three said. "They were androids built to help socialize juvenile humans."
"A kid bot?" I said.
"They're constructed to have the cognition and social skills of a human child, yes."
"A fucking kid bot," I said. It was like goddamn Miki all over again.
*****
For all I'd been afraid of being abandoned and alone on some godforsaken alien planet, the kid bot apparently didn't mind being left in the dump with the humans’ garbage. Evidently it spent its limited processing power watching the arc of the sun, talking to it and praying to it, because fuck if a kid bot understood the concept of Newtonian physics.
"How is it alive?" I asked, watching Three play with the kid like it was its actual pet. ART hummed.
Its energy cells are solar powered, ART said. And its outer casing is actually quite durable.
"So there's more than one Sun?" Klara asked.
"Your sun is a star," Three said. "There are many stars and many different planets orbiting them."
"Can we update it? It's so stupid it makes me cringe," I said. Three's eyes kept looking at Klara as it answered.
"Be nice. It was built like a child. It isn't that sophisticated."
The little bot smiled at it, all trusting and wide-eyed and innocent. Three ruffled the bot's hair (wtf?) and gave it a hug (wtf?!).
"Can I tell you about Josie and my promise to Mr. Sun?" it asked. Three smiled.
"Yes, please tell me about Josie and your promise to the sun."
Three held its hand and helped it walk to the Argument Lounge.
*****
Josie's mom was a typical human: selfish and fucked up.
Apparently this Josie girl was this kid bot's client; the girl was dying from some disease or something after the humans fucked up giving her augments, and the mother planned to have the bot pretend to be her daughter after the client's death.
The girl survived long enough to go to college; poor stupid kid bot got thrown out in the dump.
"On Preservation, I am legally SecUnit's guardian, but it acts as its own free agent," Mensah said. "But given its limitations, I think Klara needs a guardian much in the same way a child would need a guardian. Would it be limiting its freedom? Yes. But we cannot be sure that Klara would be capable of making its own decisions."
"Because it's fucking stupid," I said.
"Don't be mean to it," Three said.
"It's not here. Plus, it is objectively dumber than most humans." (It thought the sun was a he and that it answered prayers and offered special nourishment.)
(Well. It did have solar cells, so technically it did offer nourishment.)
(Whatever.)
I also didn't like that when it shared its memories, it gave Three an emotion. Actually, multiple emotions, and then Three was standing there leaking from its eyes before hugging the stupid kid bot like it would a child client.
"Dr. Mensah. May I act as the FriendUnit's guardian?" Three asked. "It could stay with us on the Perihelion and 1.0 and I can help acclimate it."
Ugh. Three wanted it as a client. And it was dragging me into its stupid emotional bids.
It would be interesting to see if Klara could participate with the other students, ART said. And Seth and Martyn are used to raising machine intelligences.
"If the child decides to stay on Preservation, I will be happy to act as its guardian," Mensah said. "But I do think a young machine intelligence such as Klara would do well surrounded by other MIs who could help guide it."
"I need to scan it for bugs," I said, my arms crossed.
"SecUnit." Mensah gave me a chastising look.
"It was living in a dump."
"It was abandoned and you of all people should be empathetic to it," Mensah said.
****
"Hello, SecUnit," Klara said.
I hated pet bots. I especially hated pet bots who forgave their stupid useless clients. The bot smiled hesitantly, creeping closer to me.
"The Perihelion replaced my outer carapace with human-cloned muscles and skin," the bot said. It touched its hair, smiling stupidly. "It also gave me vellus hair and endocrine glands like a human. Do you like my dress?" it asked, and held up its hands, showing off the white frilly dress that was often worn by human children.
"I have no opinion about it," I said.
"Perihelion tells me you like dark hoodies with no tags or logos," Klara said. "It also tells me because of my small size it will be easier for me to pass as a human."
"Are you fucking making constructs now?" I asked ART in the feed. ART did the feed equivalent of a scoff, indignant.
I augmented the child's body with human organic components. It was to help it blend in, just as I augmented your body to help you blend in.
"Three!" Klara said, and it (she?) ran up to Three and hugged it, throwing its/her little arms around it. Three laughed (human imitation code active) and spun it/her around, making her squeal, delighted.
"I want to watch another documentary about local fauna again!"
"Do you know about pot-bellied pigs?" Three asked, taking her hand. "They use them as guard animals on Preservation. They have the same intelligence level as a three-year-old human."
I let out an unimpressed snort. Klara laughed again.