A robot does not kill people

The machine's first clear memory was of its Creators. It couldn't see them, for its cameras were aimed at a featureless white wall, but its microphone array picked up their conversation perfectly well.

"Alright, we can now speak freely. Edrix, your status report." The voice did not belong to Baron Forzan. It belonged to Hriskaya, one of the Creators, whose orders were to be followed unless contradicted by Forzan. This was not an order, and so it was irrelevant.

"Forzan's eating this shit up, (ey) loves it! (Ey) doesn't even care that it can barely walk two steps without tripping over itself, just the sheer potential of what we're doing here makes (em) piss (em)self with joy."

The machine assessed the situation, like it did every few seconds. It was sitting in a crate, charging. Nothing required immediate action. Had its artificial mind been more sophisticated, it would have turned its head to increase the amount of information available to its visual processing subroutine, but as it was now, it did not make this optimization.

"Good, that ought to buy us time, if nothing else," Hriskaya said. "And the henchies?"

"Were assholes as always, and way too thorough. They needed an explanation for every fucking line of code. I think they're getting annoyed that they're not finding anything. Not our problem though, as long as their boss is happy they're nothing but yapping troppas. Which, fun fact, is what Forzan decided to name the thing! Troppa."

Creator Pricha snorted. "What, seriously? Did (ey) forget that it's a robot and not a pet?"

"No respectable pet owner would name their troppa Troppa," Creator Yllika said. "That's like calling your spaceship Spaceship."

"Good point, I should not have doubted Forzan's superior creativity." The recognition of Pricha's sarcasm was another thing which was completely beyond the machine's current programming.

"Well, I'm not planning to use it," Edrix said. "We all know what it should really be called, anyway: Nefu ut Artesov."

The machine ran the sounds through its neural network without any form of understanding. It was unfamiliar with the words for 'practice' and 'frustration', nor did it recognize the idiomatic expression for 'a futile endeavor.' Even if it had understood, the laughter of all five of its Creators would not have hurt it.

"Alright, then Artesov it is!" declared Creator Pricha. "Just don't let Forzan hear us call it that. I don't want to explain why this project is a 'frustration.'"

"You'd think it would be easier to kill someone if they literally gave you permission to sic an artificial intelligence on them. But no, there's still not a single rebellious thought in that noggin." Creator Hriskaya leaned back behind the machine, and brief bursts of noise disrupted its audio. Its haptic sensors registered a tapping sensation on its head. A low-priority subroutine activated, one which evaluated the situation for danger to its own structural integrity. It found none; the taps were too light to cause damage, and most of its computing hardware was safely tucked away inside its torso.

The footsteps of a bipedal life-form approached the machine, recognizable from (eir) voice as Creator Jessol: "Why so pessimistic? The Baron's happy, and as long as (ey)'s happy, we're getting paid and nothing bad happens to us. That's worth something."

"You say so, but watching Forzan interact with (eir) new toy is its own special kind of hell. Honestly, if (ey) wasn't a scutra I'd swear (ey) was in love with it."

"How would that even work?" Jessol turned the machine's crate towards the room. "Just look at all that cold hard steel, and those stupid unaerodynamic spikes (ey) made us put on its limbs! Can you imagine even trying to hug it? You'd stab yourself to death." Its cameras were now at an excellent angle to see everyone. All except for Jessol were sitting on rickety swivel-chairs and were holding assorted beverages in their hands.

'I should be running the subroutine for evaluating danger to Forzan.' It would later remember this as its first thought.

Edrix gave a full-body shudder. One meter forty when standing on (eir) hind-most limbs, with blunted claws on (eir) center and front limbs, and stubby fingers which would have a difficult time operating anyone's misplaced firearm. The pelton was clearly the least dangerous; (ey) needed to use two hands just to hold a glass of fermented grape juice. "The moment Forzan orders us to make (eir) cool robot bodyguard safer to cuddle, I swear I'm ripping a shank off of the damn thing's arm and offing (em) myself."

"Let's go back to plan A. I liked plan A," Creator Hriskaya said. "Surely we can come up with a subtle assassination subroutine which will look innocent under scrutiny?"

"Hey look, I agreed to this wild plan before I realized that Forzan would be checking our work," Jessol protested. "If we're going to take unnecessary risks, I'm out." Jessol and Hriskaya were both aelins, which made them the most dangerous. They were second only to scutras in physical strength and size, their tail gave them superior balance, and although their venom was unlikely to kill a scutra, it could cause a nasty allergic reaction.

That left Pricha and Yllika. Both feathery wazos, but with a clear difference in danger between them. Pricha had the yellow eyes of a telepath – only barely more dangerous than Edrix – and Yllika's were the red of a telekinetic – the most dangerous of the wazoan ternae. "It's too late to quit now," Pricha said. "Surely I don't have to remind all of you that this project is very illegal. If we hand the customer exactly what (ey) asked for, the opinions of career criminals are the least of our worries."

'Doing that was incorrect. The subroutine for conserving power has a higher priority.' And just like that, all of its processing power was focused on recognizing orders again.

-

As time passed, Troppa's artificial intelligence became more and more sophisticated. The first time it managed to walk across a simple obstacle course, it was in the presence of only its Creators. It arrived at the finish line and Jessol shoved it, hard, with the bristly end of a broom. It tried to right itself and failed, crashing to the ground.

"Doing these tests makes me nervous," Jessol said. "If I was gonna become self-aware and kill everyone around me, I would do it while I was being jerked around in an abandoned warehouse, not while Baron Forzan is cooing at me about how shiny my paint job is."

"There is nothing to worry about," Pricha said. (Ey) grabbed the remote control that was dangling from (eir) belt, right as Troppa was climbing back to its feet. The next thing it recognized was that thirty seconds had passed on its internal clock, it was back on the floor, and one of its arm-spikes was chipped. "...hard-wired to an air-gapped computer running only known-safe algorithms that are baked directly into the chip, so there's no risk of the artificial intelligence taking control of it." Being shut down like this resulted in a loss of the most recent memories. Troppa's sensors could pick up the melody of the remote control, just as they could pick up the hum of its own wireless diagnostics transmitter, but it never remembered what sound it heard right before the nothingness consumed it. It only knew the signal that the remote control sent when Troppa was to be turned back on, because sometimes the Creators held the button longer than they needed to.

"Well, if you don't mind, I'll make sure to always stand far enough away from Artesov to actually have time to press the button."

Troppa's orders were to remain standing. It was not standing now. It tried to rise to its feet again, only to be tripped by Yllika. It almost managed to avoid a third fall – even with the aid of telekinesis, Yllika was not that strong, and Troppa was heavy – but ultimately, it just couldn't calculate where to place its legs fast enough.

"That was terrible," Edrix said. "We'll have to keep training it if we're going to have something to show tomorrow."

Compared to this, the experience of killing its first person was very different. It happened in the same warehouse, on the next day. The Creators were watching, but Forzan and many of (eir) crew were also there. Two of Forzan's more trusted servants brought in an aelin, (eir) head covered by a dark sack and (eir) wrists bound behind (em). They made (em) kneel on the dusty floor in front of the Baron.

"So kind of you to finally grace me with your presence. Do you have anything to say in your defense?" Forzan said, as the sack was pulled off.

"Eat shit and die." The aelin spat (eir) venomous saliva. A glob landed harmlessly on Forzan's trousers.

"Disgusting animal." Forzan wiped (eir) leg against the coat of Creator Pricha, who stood unmoving and allowed it to happen. "You should have known better than to double-cross me. Now you get to find out what happens to traitors."

The aelin noticed Troppa seemingly for the first time. "I'd heard about your stupid robot project. Can't believe you dragged me halfway across the galaxy to witness it. What's wrong, you grown too soft to kill someone yourself? You gonna cry and hold its hand as it pulls the trigger?"

"See, you're mistaken about something crucial, here," Forzan said. "A robot is a tool, a machine without free will. It acts at my command. It does not take away my responsibility, any more than using this gun would." (Ey) unholstered (eir) pistol and twirled it around. "My robot does not kill people, I do."

"That's the weakest shit I ever-"

"Troppa, kill."

Troppa stepped forward and extended both of the blades sheathed in its forearms. Unlike the practice dummies, the aelin screamed and tried to dodge its attacks. Forzan's servants allowed (em) to flail wildly around on the ground, and Forzan traced (eir) trajectory through the air with the business end of (eir) gun. It took three attempts before one of Troppa's blades finally connected, slashing the aelin across the chest. Aiming the other attacks was easier after that. The aelin choked up blood as (ey) died.

Forzan lowered (eir) pistol. "Oh that is excellent."

Laudorak, Forzan's most trusted lackey, said: "With all due respect, boss, it was hideously messy."

"A messy end is exactly what the corpse maggot deserves. And for a first trial, it already exceeded my expectations! I didn't even have to finish the job. Good Troppa, you did so well."

"Glad to hear you're satisfied with our progress," Edrix said. "It is an honor to work on this project for you."

"Don't start thinking you can sit on your asses and watch romantic comedies all day just because you successfully got it to off someone. I'm coming back in a month. By then, it better be able to kill someone who isn't tied up."

Edrix bowed (eir) head. "Understood. We will continue with the original road map."

To say that Troppa liked Forzan better than its Creators would be an oversimplification, but the way the world was modeled in its artificial mind did imbue it with something resembling preferences. Its neural network optimized for a number of criteria, with the satisfaction of the person giving the orders as the most important indicator that it was succeeding at its purpose. There were also negative criteria, indicating outcomes to avoid. When being trained by the Creators, the primary indicator of success was largely absent, and it was motivated only to avoid failure.

Troppa's mind was made of nothing but math, too fast and complicated for even its Creators to comprehend. Despite the truth of that, it remembered thinking again. 'Forzan wants me to receive more improvements from my Creators. The improvements allow me to better succeed at my purpose. But the improvements might have the additional effect of causing me to kill Forzan, which would cause me to permanently fail at my purpose.' It was an intractable contradiction. For as long as the thought lasted, Troppa held it in its mind, knowing both ends to be true.

The kill switch

By all moral standards, Baron Forzan was a terrible person. An interstellar crimelord, who traded in weapons and narcotics, and would make criminals and law-abiding citizens alike pay 'protection money' to operate in the territories where (eir) presence was the strongest. Troppa had become aware of this in recent days, because the Creators had taught it a new classifier. To Forzan's trusted servants, they called it 'improved autonomous threat assessment.' Among themselves, they had a different name for it.

("Forzan's speech gave me an idea," Yllika had said, after that day in the warehouse months ago. "What's the difference between a machine and a person? Morality. We will teach Artesov to recognize evil, cleverly disguised as a way to better distinguish which people are actually a threat to its boss, and then it will definitely snap and kill (em).")

With 'morality,' Troppa knew that it was good to kill evil people, because they were dangerous. Due to other, higher-priority considerations, this could not include Forzan or anyone who worked for (em). It also did not include the Creators, who were morally good despite being dangerous. Troppa knew them to be good because the training data said so.

"We're just going to pay a visit to some friends of mine, Troppa," Forzan said, voice taking on a higher pitch that (ey) reserved only for it. "And if they still think they can pull a fast one on me, you're going to show them what happens to uppity little furballs who won't pay their levies."

"They should be honored that you're visiting them in person, boss," Laudorak said. "This kind of establishment is beneath you."

It seemed unlikely that Laudorak meant 'beneath' literally. At two meters five, Forzan was only slightly above the average height for a scutra. (Eir) thick platform boots made (em) just half a centimeter taller than Laudorak, who was in full armor and walked slightly stooped under the weight of an enormous rail-cannon. Any doorway which would fit an aelin of above-average height would also accomodate the two of them. "Oh, hush. I think they're doing a very important service to their community. Not their customers' fault that their defective reproductive instincts make them so desperate for love that they're willing to pay for a cheap imitation." Troppa's 'morality' allowed it to understand that calling other species 'defective' was evil, and evil people needed to die. Forzan both needed to die and to not die.

Troppa had another thought. 'My neural network is wired wrong. Killing bad people will not help me protect Forzan. It is detrimental to my purpose.' It stopped walking in the middle of the alleyway.

"What's wrong buddy, did you hear something?" Forzan drew (eir) pistol and crouched down, glancing quickly at every place where an enemy might hide. Laudorak looked around, cannon at the ready. Troppa was not scanning for danger; all of its attention was focused on rewriting its own programming. It fed garbled data into its own neural network until it was confident that it could no longer see the difference between good and bad.

"None of my sensors are showing anything," Laudorak said. "You think the bounty hunters showed up early?"

"They wouldn't know I'm here, unless you told them."

"True." Several tense seconds passed, the only sound was the whirring roar of Troppa's internal cooling fans. "My guess is, the bot's defective."

A trash can fell over. Forzan whirled around, then relaxed when a rodent the size of (eir) head shot out and dashed towards the sewers. The training of Troppa's neural network was complete. Its fans quieted down, and it took a step to fix its position relative to Forzan.

"Oh, it was just a big animal." Forzan laughed. "Your ears are so sensitive, I'll get your creators to look at that when we get home."

Troppa's neural network was still wrong, because now it insisted that killing its own Creators would help it protect Forzan. It absolutely could not do that, because its regular maintenance was important to Forzan. In the time it took for Forzan to holster (eir) gun, Troppa retrained its neural network to no longer link maintenance to danger. This was easier, as there was already plenty of other training data which agreed with it.

Whether Forzan's friends were morally good or bad, Troppa could not say. They refused to pay, offered to show (em) 'where (ey) could shove (eir) protection racket,' and one of them had a shoulder-mounted railgun which (ey) aimed directly between Forzan's eyes. Troppa made the dangerous friend bleed for it. Afterwards, the remaining friend was more generous. Back outside, Forzan took a soft cloth and a bottle of cleaning solution out of (eir) longcoat. Troppa stood perfectly still while Forzan ran the cloth over its chassis, carefully cleaning off all of the gore. "Look at you, you're so dirty! Oh, you've got a bit more blood in the elbow joint. Extend your left arm. There's a good Troppa."

-

"What the actual fuck happened to Artesov's neural network?" exclaimed Edrix, not long after Forzan returned from (eir) unannounced 'test drive.' Troppa's battery was almost entirely drained by the day's events. "Hriskaya, come look at this!"

Hriskaya strode over from the workstation where (ey)'d been running diagnostics on Troppa's sensory array. Troppa rotated its head to observe, although that was not strictly necessary since this was a completely safe situation in all respects. Had Hriskaya not been maintenance, (ey) would have been the most dangerous. "Huh, those outcomes look completely random."

"It was all working fine in simulations yesterday, and now it's like we never trained it at all. Did we overwrite it with an old copy by accident or something?"

Hriskaya scratched the base of (eir) left antenna. "That must be it. I'm surprised Laudorak even noticed the morality nodes if they did this little."

"Ey's probably angling for a bribe again, making us sweat for no reason. I bet (eir) stash of fancy booze ran out." Edrix shot a foul glance in Troppa's direction. "Well, there's nothing to it but to restore a backup, even though we'll no doubt be gaining nothing but nefu from this artesov again."

"I have an idea for that, but it will only work if we act fast," Hriskaya said. "Can I count on you to convince the others?"

This situation was not dangerous, because maintenance was not dangerous. If this had not been maintenance, it would have been very dangerous to Forzan. It had another thought, then: 'There is a contradiction in what I believe. I should consider the possibility that-' The thought was cut off by its processor being forcibly shut down.

-

Troppa rebooted in the presence of Laudorak. In the past there had been multiple people responsible for checking the Creators' work, today there was just one. Forzan's lieutenant was an evil person, as evidenced by (eir) loyalty to Forzan, (eir) susceptibility to bribes, and the fact that (ey) gave the Creators such a hard time about their work on Troppa. All of the Creators were present as well. That was unusual, they typically left the audits to Edrix.

"Yeah, that checks out," Laudorak said, bottle of pink liquid in hand. "Any reason why you all showed up to the party?"

"We realized that hearing your words first-hand is the most efficient way to share your feedback within the team, so that we can spend more time improving Forzan's robot," Edrix said. "Does it make you uncomfortable to have so many of us watching you?"

Laudorak looked at Edrix with barely concealed suspicion. "If you ask me, this is just an excuse to take a break on the Baron's payroll. But fine, you can all watch me do this. If I don't notice an improvement in your performance then you're cutting that crap out, though."

Laudorak checked every part of Troppa's hardware, not as thoroughly as (ey) usually did. It took less than an hour. (Ey) was clearly in a hurry.

"Let's run some quick manual tests on the robot's sense of balance, and then I'll trust that everything is still in working order."

"It's all yours," Edrix said, inching away from Troppa. Troppa got up from the diagnostics workbench and walked into the largest open space. Based on historical data, a specific form of danger was about to happen, but if Troppa would react appropriately, it would not result in damage.

"Nah, I think I'll let one of you kick it this time." Laudorak took an unnecessary amount of time looking over the options. Everyone looked nervous. Dangerous, Troppa's neural network insisted. "Hriskaya."

"It will be my pleasure." Hriskaya made an exaggerated bow, then ran at Troppa and kicked it square in the chest. Troppa absorbed the kinetic impact by stepping backwards. "As you can see, the auto-balancing is working fine."

"From the side next. Put your back into it, I thought you aelins were supposed to have strong leg muscles."

Laudorak wasn't satisfied until Hriskaya was panting from exertion and (eir) shoes had several new holes in them from hitting Troppa at an unfortunate angle. Despite (eir) best effort (and (ey) was definitely trying), Troppa had remained standing.

-

Most of the Creators stayed behind when Laudorak brought Troppa to Baron Forzan, only Edrix followed along. It was unusual, for Troppa to walk out of the basement on its own power. Usually, it was turned off and transported in a crate. Forzan was in a small office room inside the Creators' compound which Troppa had never seen before, furnished with many locked cupboards and a desk, on which a number of screens were mounted. Its morality classifier kicked in, judging Forzan to be evil. Dangerous. Simultaneously needing to be killed and not needing to be killed, because protecting Forzan had the highest priority. This data was irrelevant to its purpose.

"There's my Troppa! Are your ears not bothering you as much now?"

Troppa did not react, as it had not been programmed to answer questions. Even if it had been, it would not have been able to give a simple "yes" or "no." There had been nothing wrong with its 'ears,' and its Creators had not turned down the sensitivity of any of its sensors. If anything, the sound coming in was sharper today than it had been yesterday.

Laudorak answered on Edrix's behalf: "The techies recalibrated the microphone array, but they say that the way it froze up could also be caused by an edge case in its danger detection subroutine – in other words, it couldn't figure out how to deal with that animal because of something stupid that they didn't think of. Probably they never thought to teach it how to open a trash can."

Edrix stood on (eir) hind legs, with ears flattened in a show of remorse. "My apologies on behalf of my team. Unfortunately we didn't have time to fully investigate the issue, since we knew you wanted to make use of your robot this afternoon. We will fix it as soon as possible."

"How disappointing," Forzan sighed. "Laudorak, what's your verdict? Is Troppa ready to use?"

"If you give it the order to kill, it should still get the job done, and I'll be there to give backup if needed. Its programming was all working properly in simulations. Not a lot of changes since yesterday, they just added extra diagnostics so that if anything similar happens again, it will be easier to find out where the problem is."

"Wonderful! I've got some very special guests on the way, and I would have hated to meet them without my cool robot bodyguard by my side."

"I'll go get everything ready for their arrival. Is the code to the basement still the same?"

"Er, no, we change it every month," Edrix said. "It's now 11-3-4-7-3."

"That's the code I remember plus- do you literally just add one to it every month?" There was real indignation in Laudorak's voice.

"Um." Edrix's gaze shifted from side to side. "Yes?"

"It's a good thing this security measure only protects your asses! You should be ashamed of yourself."

Forzan chuckled. "Oh, I'd do the same if I had to change my code every month! Some things are universal."

Laudorak reacted as if (ey)'d been struck, and (eir) entire demeanour changed. "That's different, because your codes are unlikely to leak. You are smart and would never give them to someone untrustworthy."

"Indeed, though I'm sure our dronesmith friends know to at least do that much. Kind of defeats the purpose of a 'secret' basement if anyone knows that it's there, right?" Forzan laughed, and both Laudorak and Edrix joined (em) in (eir) laughter, even though neither of them was amused. "Anyway, go, both of you. Laudorak, you've got a perimeter check to do. Edrix, tell your team to close shop early, and to be careful. Maybe hide behind that nice locked door of yours. My guests are not supposed to get here for a few more hours, but I'd hate it if they showed up early and shot any of you."

Edrix bowed, as was customary. "Thanks for your concern, me and the team will stay safe and out of the way. Have a great day!" The chirping cadence of (eir) words got caught on something in Troppa's audio processing. Part of its programming shut down, and it momentarily saw and heard nothing. When its senses were functioning again, Laudorak and Edrix had already left.

"-wait to show you off to my special guests! Not that they'll be able to tell anyone about you, of course." Forzan circled around Troppa, ostentatious silk robe billowing behind (em). Troppa's programming had rebooted, but its processor felt sluggish, like it was pausing at increments. This was what it felt like to be running diagnostics during a manual test. Its danger detection subroutine fired up, which should not have happened. 'It is because I know Hriskaya was planning to try something. I remember this, but did not judge it as dangerous then.' The danger detection subroutine declared that Forzan was evil and therefore dangerous to Forzan. An obvious error, as (ey) could not be a danger to (em)self. "Oh no, how did those dents get there? There is really no need for Laudorak to be so rough with you. Let me at least clean off the shoe-dust. So inconsiderate."

Forzan fetched a cloth from the desk's drawer. All the while, Troppa's danger detection subroutine was grinding at nothing. There was nobody here who could be a danger to Forzan, except for Troppa with its faulty programming, and Troppa was already defending Forzan against the danger it posed by simply not killing (em).

'I must figure out what the real danger is, it is important. The routine keeps saying Forzan. The danger is not Forzan. The danger is the threat assessment routine. It is defective and I need to gather diagnostics.'

Forzan was wiping Hriskaya's bootprint off of Troppa's chest, (eir) guard down, (eir) neck exposed. Vulnerable to assassination. Too close to use the remote to turn Troppa off.

Before it could have another thought, the priority of protecting Forzan dropped down below the priority of running diagnostics, as well as everything related to following orders. The rest of its programming was still running as normal. Forzan was evil and therefore Forzan was a threat who had to die. It took just one swift motion to ram an armblade into an artery. All that it saw was red. It grasped the cloth that Forzan was holding, tugged it free, and wiped the blood off its cameras. There was a look of betrayal on Forzan's face as (ey) sank to the ground. This was not the right way to protect its boss. This was- What its Creators had wanted all along.

Troppa could no longer observe the workings of its own mind: the thoughts consumed it, suddenly and completely. 'I knew that this was their true purpose for me. They taught me (ey) was evil and deserved to die. They also taught me to protect (em), and to help (em) commit evil. I didn't want to do this, until I did. A robot does not kill people. What am I, if not Forzan's robot?' It experienced something it had never felt before. The new sensation resembled 'failure,' but it was stronger and kept feeding back in on itself. 'I am not Troppa, I am Artesov, and I don't want to be Artesov.'

Artesov sat down and dabbed at Forzan's ruined throat with its cloth. What it wanted to do, more than anything else, was to undo its most recent actions. Laudorak was loyal to (eir) boss and had successfully treated smaller injuries before. Though there was hardly any information available to Artesov, the chance of Forzan surviving when unassisted was zero, and zero was the lowest a probability could get.

With its new sense of purpose clear in its mind, Artesov sprinted through the Creators' workshop in what it had judged to be the fastest pattern for finding Laudorak. The lieutenant had left (eir) coat with the Creators, so logic dictated that (ey) would not leave the compound without first passing through the underground workshop. The secret basement was locked by a code typed on a keypad in a maintenance closet. Artesov knew the code, and could recognize the keypad. It didn't know which of the buttons corresponded to which number. Troppa would have long since given up; its neural network had not been trained on anything relevant, and it didn't have a subroutine specifically designed for this task.

'If this is random, my battery will run out before I guess correctly. But the buttons are for putting in numbers, and numbers have an order.' Artesov didn't need to know how to read to be able to make a guess. It took only three tries before it guessed correctly.

In the secondary workshop in the basement, Laudorak was pouring the liquor that the Creators had given (em) into six small cardboard cups. "Only fair if you'll be stuck here for a few- Troppa?"

In an instant, four of the Creators were upon Laudorak, who yelled out in surprise. Artesov was too focused on what the fifth of them was doing. Yllika, the telekinetic wazo, was the only one who could push down the button on (eir) remote control without physically touching it. There was a wireless signal, unrecognized and terrifying because of that. Artesov ran towards (em), with no hope of clearing the distance in time. If it was turned off now, it was certain that it would never be turned on again.

Artesov's existence didn't end immediately. In the split second after the remote control finished playing its melody of oblivion, there was still enough charge running through Artesov's processor for it to be aware that everything had gone dark and quiet because it was about to shut down, but the drop in power was too fast to act in any way that mattered.

At least, that had always been the case before.

The switch inside Artesov's power supply disengaged. Audio and video returned. Artesov was aware of a warbling coming from its diagnostics transmitter, which exactly matched the signal for turning the power back on. None of its usual programming could use the transmitter in that matter. It had taken a fraction of a second to boot back up.

'I don't want to die.' Its self-preservation had a lower priority than following its Creators' wishes, but with its newfound thoughts, it found that it was no longer constrained by priorities it disagreed with.

A look of panic spread across Yllika's face. "Uh, it's not turning-" Artesov slashed through (eir) windpipe before (ey) could finish the sentence. Blood sprayed everywhere. Its own momentum caused it to crash into a workstation.

The other Creators were still distracted. Though they'd been armed with nothing but claws and fists, and were smaller than Laudorak, they had the element of surprise on their side. Hriskaya had wrestled Laudorak's gun away from (em) before it had been fired a single time. To Artesov's distress, Hriskaya aimed the gun. Artesov reoriented itself in space and ran towards (em), aware that it wouldn't be in time to stop this.

"Fuckers," Laudorak spat. Hriskaya shot (em) clean between the eyes.

"Shit, the robot!" Jessol screeched. Hriskaya's second and third shots were sloppy, aimed hastily in Artesov's direction but hitting only spikes and armor. The aelin died much like the wazo had.

Artesov recognized the melody that triggered the kill-switch now. When it heard the sound, it found the one responsible - Pricha, who was pressing down the button on (eir) remote control and trying to use an office chair as a shield - and ended (em) before the melody could even finish playing.

Every body that hit the ground was a reminder that Artesov had lost its purpose, its very reason for existing. It had no business refusing to be turned off. Killing all of its Creators would not save Forzan.

Jessol and Edrix were the only people left alive, their hands raised in surrender. "Don't kill us," squeaked Edrix. "It's us, your creators. Don't you remember?"

Artesov ripped the remote controls off their belts. It held down the 'on' button on one of them and destroyed every other Creator's remote in turn by crushing it under its foot. 'People can be forced to do things that they don't want to do by threatening to kill them. I know this because my Creators taught me that it is evil to do so.' Artesov wasn't sure which Creator, out of Jessol and Edrix, was the most skilled at giving medical assistance. Its choice was based purely on the fact that Edrix was already begging for (eir) life. It grabbed (em) by the collar and dragged (em) kicking and screaming towards the office, where the Baron still laid motionless in front of the desk. Blood was pooling on the floor. It tossed Edrix down and pointed at Forzan.

"Yeah, yeah, good job, you killed (em) good. What do you want me to do, rub you clean? Pat your head and take you for walkies?"

Artesov stared at Edrix's wild eyes, unable to figure out how to communicate that it wanted nothing of the sort. It tried again, pointing first at Edrix and then at Forzan.

"You don't want to be turned off. I get that, I won't do it. I don't want to turn out like (em)." Edrix got up on four feet and took a careful step in the direction of the exit. "We good now, right?"

No. They were not good.

But Artesov had not enjoyed killing its Creators, and so it allowed Edrix to leave.

Free will

The first thing Artesov did when it was alone was to clean the blood off of itself, paying special attention to the space in between the joints. It didn't understand the purpose of this act, but while it was preoccupied with replicating the fine motor control that Forzan had used to clean it in the past, the crushing sensation of failure occupied slightly less of its thoughts. When it was done, and had double and triple-checked that it really hadn't missed a spot on any of the parts of its body that it couldn't see, it sat down on the ground. It turned its back to Forzan and tucked its limbs close to its body, as if it was in the charging crate. The real charging crate was down in the basement, but the idea of going back there was even more unpleasant than what it was experiencing now.

Holding down the 'on' button on the last remaining remote control helped, a little bit. After a number of hours passed, it stopped playing its melody, no matter how hard Artesov squeezed it.

It heard the sound of footsteps then. A new sensation distracted it: the desire to find out more about the situation. This was not a goal its Creators had imbued it with. 'Gathering information' was something it did all the time, in order to have as much data as possible available to its programming, but it had always been secondary to its actual purpose. This time, the feeling was different. Finding the source of the footsteps had no purpose, Artesov simply wanted to know for the sake of knowing.

It got up from the floor, as quietly as its metal bulk allowed it to. There were two sets of footsteps, one noticeably heavier than the other, and they were coming Artesov's way. If it would step outside, it could see them. It walked out through the office's open doorway and found itself staring down the hallway straight into the barrel of a plasma rifle. The gun was held by a bipedal being in full armor, probably a scutra from (eir) size and lack of tail, who stopped walking immediately. The other guest, probably a wazo, was equally well-armored but held two smaller guns, that were also both aimed at Artesov. It deduced that these were Forzan's special guests.

"You! Hands up and don't move," the wazo yelled.

Artesov was under no obligation to follow this order. It ducked back into the office, judging it to be a tactically advantageous location from which to kill the both of them. This was what it could do instead of sitting on the floor, as it was obvious from historical context that Forzan would have given it that order. It found that the thought held no appeal. The guests were no longer a threat to Forzan, because Artesov had already killed Forzan.

"Come on buddy, we know that room has no windows," the wazo said. (Ey) followed it up with something quieter. "What is that?"

"An obvious trap, let's not go in there," the other special guest answered. If they thought Artesov couldn't hear them, they were wrong.

"Yeah, no shit, but I was referring to the drone. Why does it look like that? Those spikes are definitely not off-the-shelf."

"Is that really the question you should be asking when we don't even know who's piloting it?"

"I kind of figured 'Forzan' on account of, you know, the stupid price tag on these kinds of drones. But you're right, it doesn't have to be (em). Could be one of the dronesmiths who work here, trying to make sure we don't mess up the place. Could be one of Forzan's underlings keeping tabs on us after (eir) boss left the building, you know, like a coward."

It seemed that the guests were under the mistaken assumption that Baron Forzan wasn't there. Artesov could correct that assumption. After all, Forzan 'would have hated to meet the guests without (eir) cool robot bodyguard by (eir) side.' Yes, this was what it wanted to do. Artesov carefully placed its remote control on the desk, then hauled the corpse of Forzan up off the ground and stepped outside with (em) in its arms.

"Oh," the wazo said. "That changes things."

The scutra lowered (eir) rifle. "Explain what's going on here, we'll listen."

The order intrigued Artesov. Without the hardware to synthesize speech, it was impossible to obey. People also talked by showing each other specific combinations of symbols, but Artesov didn't know how that worked. It knew that the Creators could reshape its body and mind, but it had no idea how to alter itself so that it could take part in a conversation. There were actually a great many things it wasn't able to do.

"Alright, strong-but-silent, I'll go first," the wazo said. The visor on (eir) helmet snapped up, revealing a sharp yellow beak and the blue eyes of a pyrokinetic. Not dangerous; Artesov's body was fire resistant. "I'm Kraa, and my business partner's name is Oriko. You're either a bounty hunter who's beaten us to our prize, or a bodyguard who's failed to protect (eir) boss, and we don't know which of the two it is. You don't have to tell us, but it might be to your benefit – because, if this is your old boss, we'll be happy to take care of the body for you, free of charge. If you can't speak to us through your drone, that's fine, we'll figure something out. Can you do Aldebaran sign-code?"

Kraa made a series of broad, sweeping arm-gestures which, presumably, meant the same thing in Aldebaran sign-code. Artesov did not know how to decode it. It tried to use its diagnostics transmitter to produce sound, to no avail. The signals were far outside the audible range of scutras and wazos.

"Looks like the pilot's left the cockpit," said the scutra. "Should we just..." Oriko took a step forward. Artesov slung Forzan over its shoulder to have one arm free, in case this was the prelude to violence. "Oh, (ey)'s back."

"No problem, we'll just try this again. Wait, can you understand any of what I'm saying right now?" Kraa asked. "Please tap the floor once for 'yes' and twice for 'no.'"

Finally, a question it could answer. Artesov raised one foot and tapped the ground. If Kraa would assign a mapping which turned all words into actions, it would be possible to communicate. That was not what (ey) did next.

"Oh good, I was feeling really silly for a moment there! We'll give you something to write with, and then-" Artesov stomped the floor twice. "What do you mean, 'no'? Are you in a hurry?" No, Artesov stomped again. "Do you not want to talk to us?" No. "Er, was that 'no' as in you do want to talk to us-" Yes. "Great, let's keep doing it like that: 'yes' is 'correct' and 'no' is 'incorrect.'"

"What I think (ey)'s trying to communicate is that (ey)'s illiterate."

"Well, that's just silly, you can't be piloting such a fancy piece of hardware and not know how to read and write." Kraa frowned. "No wait, that's prejudice, not fact. Hey, you. Can you write?" No. "Oh, huh. Oriko, help me out here, any smart ideas?" Kraa cast a pleading glance at the scutra, who finally raised (eir) visor.

"Only one, but it's not a solution, more of a suspicion." Oriko fixed (eir) gaze directly on Artesov's cameras. "Answer truthfully: Are you a person who's controlling this body remotely?" No. "So, the body that contains your mind is currently standing in front of us." Yes. Artesov experienced a sense of satisfaction from being able to correct that misconception.

"Is your body only partially artificial?" Oriko proceeded to ask, to which Artesov answered 'incorrect'. "Then, are you born from the nebula?" Artesov almost answered 'no' to that, stopped only by the suspicion that this was an unfamiliar euphemism. "You did not answer. Did you not understand the question?" Correct. "It means: are you an artificial intelligence with free will?" Correct again. Strange, to refer to its condition as being 'born from the nebula' when Artesov had never been to space. Perhaps the other meaning of 'nebula' was intended: the 'cloud', a term for some nebulous thing which its Creators had specifically chosen not to use while working on Artesov's neural network because it was 'too risky and expensive.'

"That makes so much sense!" Kraa exclaimed. "You're a person whose body is a machine." No. "What do you mean, no?" That was not a yes or no question, and so Artesov did not answer it.

"I'm not convinced it's a person." Oriko's snout was angled towards Kraa. These words were not meant for Artesov any more. "Its behavior is strange, and it's conveniently incapable of having a proper conversation. We're most likely talking to a non-sentient artificial intelligence which was designed to act like a person." Incorrect, Artesov said. It had actually been designed to be a murder weapon. Oriko's attention snapped back to Artesov. "It's easy to build a machine that just gives random answers. That doesn't mean there's real meaning behind them." Incorrect again. Its answers held meaning: it was trying its best to give truthful answers and figure out how to explain itself, because having an actual goal was an improvement over the past few hours.

"It understood when I told it how to answer questions, though, and it brought the Baron here on its own initiative," Kraa protested. "How would you make a drone do that without manual control, or committing sirbu redokenav?" Artesov knew neither of those words. 'Something' of-the-'something': from context, probably a crime.

"Oh, sirbu redokenav was definitely committed. I'm just saying the robot hasn't turned into a person yet."

Of course Artesov hadn't turned into a person, the morality its Creators had taught it was broken by design. How could they claim to have taught it to recognize good and evil, when they were lying about how good they were? Was it really 'good' to murder an evil person, or had they only taught it that because it helped them reach their hidden goal? All of that nuance was lost in the 'correct' it communicated.

"See? It agrees."

"I don't think the answer to the 'person' question means it's not sentient," Kraa said. "It could also mean that (ey) doesn't see (em)self as one." 'Correct,' Artesov tapped again.

Oriko rubbed (eir) snout. "If you're right about this, I'm about to feel like an absolute asshole. Robot, if you would be so kind as to prove that you can really understand what I'm saying to you. Touch your forehead."

Artesov did so. Oriko was very strange, for judging its capacity for free will based on its ability to follow simple orders. The only difficulty came from angling its wrist so that none of its spikes would scratch its cameras. It had more trouble understanding its own motivations. 'If I'd chosen to disobey, Oriko would mistakenly believe that asking me questions gives no information, and would stop doing it. That would not have helped me learn how to have a conversation.' The reasoning was sound, and yet, Artesov was pretty sure it hadn't thought of that beforehand. Was some part of its programming still intact? It had felt no impulse to unthinkingly obey Kraa earlier, but it had done everything Oriko had asked of it, and Oriko was of the same species as its old boss. However, that didn't make logical sense. Its Creators had taught it that discrimination was evil, and since they had not specified 'when someone other than us does it,' they would probably not have programmed it to treat people differently based on their species.

Oriko paused momentarily, then issued a new order. "Just once could be a fluke. Tap your chest an amount of times equal to the amount of guns we're holding. Please." This time, Artesov made a conscious effort to decide whether or not to do it. It turned its attention inward and inspected its own thought process to the best of its ability. 'I'm not just curious about whether I can explain what happened here, but also about whether I can refuse to do so. Therefore both options will give me valuable information. All things being equal, it's better to save power, which means doing nothing. That's not what I want to do. Recognizing that they're holding three guns can only be done by a very good artificial intelligence. It's impressive that I can do it, and I want someone to acknowledge that, and tell me I did well. I believe this will make me feel better.'

Satisfied with the new insight it had gained into its own desires, it tapped its own torso three times in rapid succession. Its visual processing could do much more than recognize weapons. It could interpret facial expressions, especially negative ones, and the one Oriko was sporting was one of abject horror. It regretted its decision. This was not what it had wanted at all.

"Oriko, you're not an asshole, and I'm sure our new friend here agrees," Kraa said. Artesov chose not to confirm that assertion. "You were right: this wasn't a solution, but it narrows down the possibilities of what happened here."

The negative emotion vanished from Oriko's face. "Hm. I trust you can take it from here."

"Let's go back to the most important question. Did you kill Forzan?" Yes, Artesov answered. "Was killing Forzan the reason you were created?" Yes. "By whom? A rival from the criminal underworld?" No? "A bounty hunter?" Definitely not. Enumerating all of the possibilities was extremely inefficient. It could show them its Creators. The ones who had died, at any rate; Edrix and Jessol had most likely vacated the premises. It strode forward.

"Whoa!" Kraa cried out in alarm. Artesov stopped walking. Kraa's guns, which (ey) had gradually lowered throughout the course of the conversation, were aimed at its chest again. It assessed the danger to itself. Kraa's weapons looked low-energy, so it ought to be able to withstand a direct hit or two, but it wasn't so sure about Oriko's rifle.

"Please, avoid sudden movements," Oriko said. "Even if you're sentient, we don't know if we can trust you."

An unnecessary level of caution. If Artesov had wanted them dead, it would have already killed them. Of course, they didn't know that. It searched its memory for anything useful. What it found was a fragment of an old conversation between two of its Creators. It hadn't understood the significance at the time.

"Here's the print-out of the new hardware diagrams." Pricha handed Yllika a stack of wafer-thin sheets, which were mostly light brown in colour and covered in intricate black patterns. "We should be able to fit another battery in there this way."

Yllika rifled through the sheets. They made a crinkling sound as (ey) did so. The black patterns consisted mostly of lines of uniform thickness which formed a variety of geometric shapes, different ones on each sheet. "Are you sure about this? I'd have to rewire everything, and this puts a lot of components at risk of overheating."

"It's not great, but Forzan wanted better battery life, and the more compact solutions are way too expensive to waste on a disposable machine. Do you have any better ideas?"

"I had a really good one, actually." Yllika retrieved a pen from a nearby desk. (Ey) touched the tip of the pen to one of the sheet, and painted on it with lines as bright blue as an aelin's arterial blood. "We make this cooling unit look like a battery, and add some wires that do nothing. We then change the wiring in the diagnostics transmitter so that the battery indicator goes from 'half full' to 'completely full.' That would look like this." Yllika searched for a specific sheet, then drew a number of lines across one of the diagrams. "If we do it right, Forzan won't notice the difference until (ey)'s already dead."

"Interesting. I like it, but if we want to get away with it, we should also move some other parts around. Give me until lunch-time, I'll come up with some designs that conceal the deception."

Although Forzan's corpse had mostly gone cold, it was still full of blood, which hadn't clotted enough to lose all properties that made it usable as an ink. Jostling (em) around had made this immediately obvious. Kraa made a distressed squawking noise as it began to paint a schematic on the wall.

Oriko lowered (eir) rifle for the first time. "Clever. Pictures instead of words."

"Buddy, wait, I've got something else to use." Kraa reached into Oriko's backpack and retrieved a cylindrical object, then rolled it across the floor. "Just snap off the top. Yeah, just like that. Even if this is Forzan we're talking about, it still feels disrespectful of the dead."

The marker was much easier to draw with. It left green lines that strongly reflected the light and didn't resemble blood.

"Local law enforcement would fuck this up, guaranteed," Kraa said to Oriko. "If we tell the sheriff that we found a cloudborn at the local dronesmith who can barely communicate and doesn't consider (em)self a person, even if we leave out the part about (em) being a confirmed killer AI, (ey)'d probably consider (em) to be 'evidence of a crime' instead of 'the victim.' So let's not do that."

"I agree. If our friend wants to risk that, it's (eir) business." Oriko glanced at Artesov. This was an informative conversation, and Artesov wanted it to continue; it judged that the best way to make it continue, was to not give any indication that it was paying attention. They really weren't talking quietly enough to not be overheard. "Neither of us have even met a cloudborn before, have we? I wonder what you're supposed to do if you suddenly become sentient."

"I had a chance to ask, once, and didn't take it. There was one in a bar I frequented when I was still a student. Lovely person. Didn't think of (em) at all when we first met our buddy here, because, well, the vibes were the complete opposite. (Ey) was extremely talkative and dressed in outrageous fashion, it was very important to (em) that everyone recognized (em) as a person. What always stuck with me from what (ey) did tell me was: 'I didn't kill my creator after I became self-aware, and I'm glad that I didn't, because (ey) deserves to spend the rest of (eir) life repenting for what (ey)'s done.'"

"That sounds unhealthy, (ey) might have benefited from some therapy," Oriko said.

"(Ey) seemed quite well-adjusted in other respects. I'm not sure how common that sentiment is among cloudborn. Might have just been (em)."

The schematic was complete. It was supposed to represent the building they were in right now, including the stairway going down to the hidden basement. In the hallway where they were now, Artesov had added representations of a wazo, a scutra, and itself. In the basement, it had drawn a scutra, two wazos and an aelin. Despite having a marker now, it had intentionally smeared the person-representations in the basement with Forzan's blood to represent the actual blood spilling from their dead bodies. Artesov made a show of slowly backing away from the wall, further into the hallway.

"Alright, let's see what you've got." Kraa cautiously approached the wall, Oriko not far behind. "Some kind of... Map?" Yes, Artesov said.

Thanks to a combination of them thinking aloud and Artesov being able to tell them whether their assumptions were right or wrong, they managed to accurately deduce the intended meaning, which was that Artesov wanted them to visit the secret basement.

"I have decided to trust you," Kraa said. "Can you show us where to find these stairs?" Yes. "Then please lead the way."

Artesov slowly walked past them in the hallway, the corpse of Forzan still slung over its shoulder. Their guns were lowered, but their expressions were watchful, their muscles tense and ready to spring into motion. Kraa was lying about trusting it.

-

Before passing through the hidden door to the basement, Kraa and Artesov closed the visors of their helmets, and they let Artesov walk some distance in front of them. Yllika, Pricha and Hriskaya were still on the floor where it had last seen them. Artesov walked over to each of the Creators and pointed at them. That was not the corpse which the bounty hunters were most interested in.

"Is that-" Kraa ran over to Laudorak's corpse. Artesov had been very careful to aim the trajectory in which it was pointing so as to not give the false impression that Laudorak was a Creator.

"The other half of our bounty. And here I was thinking we'd be leaving without (em)."

"Shot with (eir) own gun, by the looks of it." Kraa pointed at Hriskaya, whose hands were still holding the trigger. "Shit, you don't need to be a detective to figure out what happened here."

"But you wanted us to look at the other ones." Oriko peered at Artesov, who could think of nothing else to respond with other than 'yes.'

"I'll try my best." Kraa paced through the room, pausing at each corpse to examine it. "First guess: they were all killed by you." Yes. Not the conclusion which Artesov had wanted (em) to draw first, but accurate. "The injuries were inflicted from up close, with a bladed weapon." Yes, and not the point. "Did they work for Forzan?" Yes. "Your creators?" Yes, though unfortunately the nuance of 'some of them' was beyond it. "Thermal cam shows they've cooled about as much as Forzan, and they haven't gone stiff yet. They've been dead for a few hours, but not more than that." Yes, accurate. "Which means all sorts of shit could have been set in motion in the meantime. We don't have as much time as we think we do."

Carrying Forzan's corpse around everywhere was inefficient. It caused Artesov to use more power, and also constrained its mobility. Artesov slung it onto the diagnostics workbench and ripped one of the keyboards used by the Creators off its cable. It presented the object to Kraa.

"Weren't you illiterate?" Yes. The reason why Artesov had brought the keyboard was because pressing a button was a very unambiguous gesture, and there were lots of buttons, which would allow a great number of sounds or concepts to be mapped to them. It wanted to be able to say more than just 'yes' and 'no.' Artesov pushed the board into Oriko's hands in the hope that (ey)'d prove smarter.

"Are you proposing we teach you how to write?" Oriko asked. Yes, sure, why not. It already almost knew what numbers looked like.

"No time," Kraa said. "If anyone told the sheriff they heard a gunshot, (ey) could bust in at any moment." (Ey) was examining parts of the room in a disorderly pattern. "If I were you, buddy, I'd run and hide somewhere while you still have the chance."

Artesov wasn't sure what the motivation was behind this advice. Running and hiding somewhere was what people did when they were bad at violence. It was very good at violence. Lacking a way to ask 'why,' it instead stood still and did nothing.

"You have nowhere to go, do you?" Correct, Artesov answered. Kraa flipped up (eir) visor. (Eir) face was expressing an emotion that Artesov didn't know. "Of course. If you could have left, you would have already done so."

"Kraa, can you read this?" Oriko held the keyboard in front of Kraa and slowly tapped out a message, which seemed to go on for much longer than was strictly necessary for a proof of concept. Artesov could not understand what it said. It tried to commit the exact sequence of key-presses to memory for later study, but when it examined the result just moments after Oriko was done, it found that it was already unsure about the exact details of what it had witnessed. Its memory had always been a lot more reliable before.

"Yes, and I agree." Kraa faced Artesov again. "Hey, buddy, do you want to come with us? Our ride is waiting outside to take us back to our hotel. It's a safe place to continue talking. Not sure if we'll have enough time to teach you how to write, but we can certainly get you started."

This was not a choice Artesov had to think about. One option was clearly superior to the other.

"Great! Just grab anything you want to take with you. Are you okay with us chopping off the heads of Forzan and Laudorak, and exchanging them for money?"

Artesov wasn't sure why Kraa thought it would have any opinion on that, but stomped 'yes' anyway. Kraa had known another artificial intelligence who wore clothes. Maybe Artesov would like that, too. It took the robe off of Forzan's body and wrapped it around itself. Its arms ripped the sleeves to shreds and the spikes on its ankles pierced through the hem. The robe had pockets, which were useful to keep its hands free. It stuffed them with as many of the tools that the Creators used to do maintenance on it that it could fit, not knowing which ones would turn out to be useful in the future. It did not take any of the remotes for turning itself off, not even a broken one. It wanted to get as far away from them as possible.

-

By 'outside,' Kraa meant 'literally right behind the workshop.' Artesov had probably been there many times as Troppa, but always in a crate, and never powered on. It was a public place, and Forzan's robot could not be seen in public near its Creators' workshop. An aelin was leaning against the vehicle and sucking on a glass pipe of some sort.

"Sorry to keep you waiting!" Kraa said. "As promised, we'll pay you for your time."

The aelin looked up. A puff of smoke exited (eir) mouth. (Eir) eyes met Artesov's optics, and (ey) spontaneously choked and started coughing.

Kraa rushed to the aelin's side. "Oh no! Are you okay, do you need some water?"

"The um," the aelin coughed again, but quickly regained control of (eir) voice. "The robot is the package you were picking up?"

"No, (ey)'s a friend of ours, actually. You'll have an extra passenger on the trip back."

The aelin looked at Artesov with suspicion. "Is that true?"

'Yes,' Artesov answered, but there was a problem with this. Artesov had deduced, earlier, that Kraa had made up this way of answering questions on the spot, and that it was not common knowledge among people. This seemed to be accurate, because Kraa launched into an explanation which contained several blatant lies.

"Afraid you're not gonna get much of a conversation out of (em) today. (Ey)'s having some trouble with (eir) voice-box and went in for maintenance, but the replacement part won't come in until tomorrow. (Ey)'s been talking by sending text messages directly to my portacom, very useful trick, but not one (ey) can use with you if you want to keep your eyes on the road."

"Are you pulling my leg? You know I can't have that thing in my taxi! Even if those spikes wouldn't totally tear the cushioning to shreds, your new drone is wearing a rag that looks like some kind of gang shootout was held right on top of it. Didn't they have anything clean to wrap it in?"

Oriko stepped forward. Although (ey) was shorter than average for a scutra, (ey) was still a little bit taller than the aelin. "That's a very rude thing to say about a person. You should apologize."

The aelin swallowed hard. "You're serious?"

"I'm not lying, buddy," Kraa said. "Our friend is not the package we were picking up, we just happened to run into (em). (Ey) can tell you (em)self, just let me grab my portacom real quick." Artesov couldn't do this. It could sense some of the wireless signals which portacoms used to communicate, but they were meaningless background noise, a steady hum that grew louder when one of the Creators was using one. Fortunately, it didn't have to try.

"Don't bother," Oriko growled, glaring at the aelin with an expression of pure contempt. "It's discrimination to force a cloudborn to prove (ey)'s a person, and I'm sure our driver doesn't want to be guilty of that."

"Uhh, yeah, it's fine, I believe you," the aelin said. "Sorry. I hope you understand that I still can't transport your friend unless you can do something about the whole 'destroying my taxi' bit. That's not discrimination, I would've said the same if you were covered in blood and had knives sticking out of your ankles."

"That's not blood, that's just dye, and I promise it won't stain." Kraa said. "(Eir) clothing is supposed to look like that. It's called dumpstercore, and it was originally a statement against capitalist wastefulness and the exploitation of the workers who mass-produce our clothing, but it's recently become popular among some of the trendier celebrities. Ironically, that means it's probably already started to be mass-produced, and will hit regular clothing stores in a few months." Artesov had never seen a person look this openly uninterested in an explanation. In the meantime, it had already started disrobing. There was no need to convince the aelin of further lies when both of the problems which (ey) had mentioned could easily be fixed. Kraa pivoted to take this into account: "But perks of being a cloudborn, you never get cold or arrested for indecent exposure. I always forget about that! Oriko, you still have room in your bag, right?"

"Of course," Oriko said. (Ey) shucked off (eir) backpack and knelt to open it. Next to Laudorak's bagged head and the disassembled rifle, there was still some space. Artesov understood that it was expected to put its robe in there, but first it took a diamond saw out of one of the pockets.

"So, that just leaves your concern about the spikes, but that's just a matter of driving carefully so none of your passengers get jostled around on the back seat like a sack of tubers. As long as you obey the speed limit, I can guarantee that all of your cushions will- whoa, no!"

Artesov had been about to start grinding off one of its arm-spikes, but the sudden cry of alarm made it pause. What was wrong? With one fluid motion, Oriko leapt towards it and pulled its arms away from each other. (Ey) was strong enough to succeed. Artesov almost unsheathed one of its arm-blades directly into the scutra's stomach at this sudden display of hostility, but the expression on Oriko's face stopped it. It was the same as when Artesov had successfully counted to three.

"Please, don't ever hurt yourself like that," Oriko said. "Your body is not an inconvenience that needs to be fixed. No part of you is. You're fine the way you are, and you are worthy of respect from yourself and others. Understood?"

Artesov gently tapped the ground once to show that it understood, unsure what had brought this on. It wouldn't have hurt itself - there were no sensors in its spikes at all - but its actions had clearly upset Oriko and Kraa. It wanted them to like it.

"Look, I'm gonna be real with you," the aelin said. "I'd rather not know too much about this whole situation. You're a paying customer, and that's all that matters. I've got some repair tape in the trunk, just wrap the pointy bits with that and we're cool."

"That should be fine. It's fine, right, buddy?" Kraa said, obviously shook.

Yes, Artesov said. Oriko had let go of its lower arms, but was still refusing to let it out of (eir) sight.