[text/video] un: @skull

[ryuji]

[A few days after gravity is restored to the station, Ryuji returns to the mess hall from Haru's garden to find a small robot flipped upside down, panicking through a series of morse beeps and boops, which- okay, that's kind of cool, and quickly figures out that the paneling and suction entrances of the little guy means it's probably meant for filtration and cleaning.

Looks pretty study, looks... waterproof, maybe? He lends a hand to get him right side up and it starts slowly moving forward. Ryuji takes out his communicator and immediately films this as it happens, because, why not?

He posts two videos on the network- the roomba moving down the hall and one, a few hours later in the fitness center as it crawls from the edge, and dives right in.]

Oh shit! Are you supposed to do that?

Whoa, whoa- I don't know how to fix you if you--- WHOA, COOL.




Hey, sup?

Just lettin you guys know the pool looks crystal clear now. All thanks to this little dude.

I figure I should give 'em a name but uh

Everything that comes to mind is kinda lame

Anyway, I think it's good? Anyone wanna give it the first try?

[Complete with file0033.png - a picture of crystal clear water.]

Comments

[ryuji]

The... other guy?

What the hell are you talkin' about?

[As far as he's concerned, man... Hyunseok is weird. But also highly fun to mess with. Ryuji sits on a pool chair, halfway caught between a smile and scratching his head because... are there other robots on board and how can Ryuji be the best father he can possibly be to those as well???]

Hold up

[He leans forward to the edge of the pool and takes a video of Simba eating the dirt and grime at the bottom. It's so cute. It's horrible, he hates this. (He loves it).]

[dumbstruck]

The other robot! He's pretty nice.

[ Hyunseok sees himself as normal! But that's a very biased viewpoint. He also wouldn't be thrilled at the idea of being fun to mess with, but a number of his friendships in the past have gone that way, so what does he know?

Hyunseok watches the feed for a bit as the little robot does its robot job. ]

Yeah, it's definitely a lot different from the other guy.

[ryuji]

[Unfortunately, it's already set in stone. There's no getting off of this train they're on.]

No shit? We really have a robot on board? I met an AI that's here. He seemed pretty cool. I taught him what dubstep was.

I haven't heard from 'em since so I just assume he's rockin' out to it 24/7 in AI heaven.

Isn't he cute though?

And I don't use that word lightly.

Like, ever

To be honest

[dumbstruck]

[ What has Hyunseok unwittingly gotten himself into? ]

Wait an AI like without a body? That's a thing here too?

Yeah, I guess so. I don't know a lot about robots though. Do you like them a lot, or something?

[ryuji]

Yeah! He was on my smartwatch a while back. We talked about some weird stuff, and I thought he was like one of those Amazonian Prime thingies that talk back to you and let you play music and stuff, but he seems to be able to do a lot more than just that.

I dunno, though... never really thought about robots before. My home world had some, but they weren't like... I dunno, SUPER FUTURE ROBOTS that were integrated into society or anythin like that.

Maybe this one's an exception. I found it upside down, beeping all confused and scared like. Uh......

If they can have emotions and shit like that

[dumbstruck]

Is he still there, or does he move? Like can he just be in any smartwatch he wants to be in?

Yeah, it was the same where I was from, but the robots here seem really smart, so maybe it does have emotions? I don't know. I don't really get robots.

[ryuji]

You think there's like a secret language or something? I guess it couldn't hurt to learn.

Beep boop dude.

[dumbstruck]

I don't speak any robot languages, and I already know what you said isn't a thing.
Isn't it ones and zeroes and stuff?
So if you wanna talk to one you have to go up to it and just go "one zero one one zero one zero zero one", and that's probably saying something??

[ryuji]

Uhhh...

That seems so goddamn inefficient

And if you mess up even one 1, how do you know that you didn't just initiate the "kill all humans" code????

[dumbstruck]

...
Maybe we shouldn't talk to robots unless they speak human languages?

[ryuji]

Sounds like a pretty goddamn big YES on my part

you?

[dumbstruck]

Yeah.... same.