Prologue: The Experiment

Start Audio Log #1 This is *static* here to tell the person listening to this audio recording that Experiment 61 aka to see if two robots could develop feelings is about to take place. For these two will have a long journey ahead of them and I shall be waiting for results in 3… 2… 1… Start the wake-up protocol and let us see how these two will react to these sights, sounds, and new sensations but most importantly each other… Let’s just hope it doesn’t end up like the last 60 tests. So I can finally rest easy with what little time I have left with a hopeful sense of success, or die with a sense of failure. Ah, it seems I’m getting a video feed already.… End of Audio Log…

Chapter 1: Where Are You?

A pod opens in a dense jungle that is enveloped in a thick, lush forest of vines and trees that could outclass the largest man-made structures from our point of view. Suddenly, mechanical beeping and whirring escape from the pod as a creature of titanium and carbon fiber walks out of its place of origin unscathed and confused. As it takes its first steps on the moist and dense grass, it looks around for anything that could answer its purpose. Suddenly the machine let out a few words “What is this place?” said the machine its first words of many but in a confused and unsure tone. It only knows one thing: try to look for answers and get information on where it might be.

Suddenly, the machine starts to hear a beeping from around their pod and starts to look for the source of that slightly irritating sound. It then discovers a glowing blue light and decides to touch it, unaware of the dangers it may cause or the harm it could do to its own lifeless and metal being. Once the light was obtained and held in the robot’s hand, it struggled to figure out how to stop its now irritating beeping. Suddenly a holographic figure that looked like an exact copy of the machine materialized in a form that was the same form and shape but a different color scheme to its white paint job it appears to be a beige. Then suddenly it speaks to the machine which is now in complete shock just at the site of another robot “Hello?” said the second robot, but the first robot couldn’t muster the courage to give the second robot a reply trying to process what is happening but as it tries to speak the second machine says more “You look like me. But a different tone of paint.” The first robot replies, “As do you. What are your directives and name?” said the first robot in a curious tone as the second robot tries to think of what to say it can only answer with “I’m unsure of my directives and my names. May I ask the same of you?” in a slightly unsure tone. The first robot replies the same sentence back at this seemingly friendly beige-tinted robot. Both machines awkwardly say nothing for around 6 seconds before the first robot says “What is your location?” and the now not-so-strange machine replies “Unsure it’s cold and there’s white powder everywhere surrounded with spiking pointed trees. I believe they’re pine trees, and I’m in a tundra what about you?” and the other says “It appears to be a jungle surrounded with lush vegetation and vines that appear to cover the entire canopy making the sky barely visible” replies the beige robot instantly responds “We appear to be separated from each other” the white robot looks at the beige robot in confusion and then replies with “Where are we even?” and then the other replies with “Judging by the vegetation, climate, and animals we appear to be on Earth… But there appears to be a lack of human life, so nature took over.” The robot looks in astonishment at the intelligence of this machine and asks, “How are you aware of the lack of human lifeforms?” The second machine replies with an answer before getting cut off by a beeping from both the first and their own body as a modulated woman's voice says “Power Level at 99 percent. Battery life estimate 365 days remaining” as the voice spoke they both looked at each other in concern and said to each other “A year?" They paused for a moment trying to get their bearings and suddenly the white robot said “If we have a year left that means there must be a goal for us” the beige robot then replies “Since we’re here we might as well find a place to…” Before the robot could finish a message is given to both of the metallic machines with coordinates and a map to where the coordinates lead and as they both examine the message it reads “You both are to meet up in this singular location before your battery runs out after a year. It will be a grueling and dangerous task, but I have my hopes that you two will be able to… well, I won’t say anymore till you get to the location. — The Creator” Finally… Directives and a goal both of them thought to themselves. As they both were about to go on their adventure, the beige robot said, “You know???  If we’re going to be on this adventure to meet in one spot for more input, we might as well keep in touch with each other while we’re on the go” “And how do you suggest we do that” replied the white robot, “Simple. We just keep this device we’re talking with on our person and when we need to talk we can without having to worry. I also figured we could call every 4 hours just to see how we both are holding up” “Sounds like a great plan” said the white robot “Well we might as well be off and remember to call back in 4 hours” the beige robot hastily said, ending the call before the white robot could even make a reply. “Goodbye to you too” the robot replied sadly to himself as they were now alone and now had no contact till they reached a good place to take a break and wait for the beige robot to call. And so the white robot packed up the communication device and kept it in a small compartment on their metal exterior. As they were starting to examine the map given to them by this Creator person some thoughts came to them before beginning to walk in the South East direction towards the location they examined “What will happen if we both don’t make it?” “Who is this person named The Creator?” and their final thought was something they felt sadness and fear about, “Will I see this machine in time?” and so with these thoughts, they began to walk.

Chapter 2: The White Robot

As the pod containing the second robot went down into the snowy landscape with a forceful crash, you almost thought you would see an explosion of shrapnel. But then the machine crawled out of the pod into the white, fluffy snow, with a landscape similar to that of the Siberian tundra. The machines’ first thoughts were “It’s cold and difficult to see through this blizzard” and so the machine called out asking for help “Hello? Is anyone there?” Interesting for a machine to ask for help. It seemed scarily human, maybe the crash might’ve done something to them that would need fixing. Suddenly the beige machine spots a glowing light from its pod and reaches out for it then grabs it, accidentally activating the device, and it makes a ringing noise almost like a phone. Then the beige robot stood up to look at it closely when a white robot had the same build and structure as the second robot was made of itself. The beige robot speaks up in a confident and confused tone, “Hello?” “You look like me. But a different tone of paint.” then the white robot replies, “As do you. What is your name and directive?” “A name? Directives?” the beige robot thought to itself. Then the machine replies, “I’m unsure of my directives and my names. May I ask the same of you?” they say, and the machine replies with the same answer they received. After a few minutes of introducing themselves, they both are startled by a beeping followed by a modulated woman's voice, “Power Level at 99 percent. Battery life estimate 365 days remaining” The beige robot now felt anxious and lost like when it woke up from its pod. Suddenly they snapped out of the trance and looked at the white robot who was doing the same. As they both commented on the situation, they both got pinged a message containing a map and coordinates to a specific location: “What is this supposed to mean? Directions and a message from a person named The Creator. Our creator?” As the beige machine tries to think of a million questions, it snaps out of it and goes back to talking to the white robot. They both agree to remain in contact with one another every 4 hours, and then they both start walking towards the set location they were given. After a good 2 hours of walking, the beige robot thinks of ways to entertain themselves. A song, A story, or even just imagining what the white robot would be like in person would be enough to bring them out of their state of boredom. Then suddenly they spy a family of reindeer walking through the deep and cold snow almost gracefully, careful not to disturb the deer as they wander off into the blizzard, never to be seen again. And so with that, the machine counties on its journey coming across a river with a large fallen tree covered in ice, and snow “Too dangerous, I could fall off into the cold water and be stuck” but the machine had no other options and decided to tread lightly on top of the fallen tree making sure to keep its balance “This isn’t so hard” the machine spoke to itself to try to keep its panic at a minimum if it had a heart it would be racing right now “Just one foot in front of the other carefully, and I’ll be able to conquer this obstacle” saying that doesn’t help ease their mind or steady their thoughts of falling on a bit but as soon as they reached the end they feel relieved and satisfied with their job. As they turn around and walk a few more feet with the sun nearly setting, they spy a cave off in the distance and hurriedly try to sprint towards it with the thought of happiness in their mind. They suddenly feel a sense of relief with their anxiety. As soon as they enter the cave, they sit for a bit to relax a bit, not realizing it’s almost been 4 hours since their last contact with the white robot. As soon as they realized that they had snapped out of their tiredness, they went and pressed the communication device and the call was answered. The white robot sounded happy, but the beige robots spotted that the white machine had been slightly damaged, with some scratches tho their paint and slight denting. The beige robot commented, “What happened to you?” As the white machine looked confused, the beige robot pointed out their damage and so the other machine in a sad-sounding reply said “I was almost destroyed by something rather large and more powerful than I was. I tried to run away from it but slipped and fell off a big decline hitting a tree to stop, but then everything went black, and now I woke up to your call” The beige robot had a look of concern and sadness as well and replied with “Sounded like you had a rough time on your first journey” after they said that the other robot nodded in agreement “The creature took me by surprise I guess, and I didn't know what to do but run away and try to get as far from it as possible and now here I am” as they both talked about their journey the both of them slowly drift off into a feeling of peace and the two said their farewells and as they did the machine went into sleep. As the beige robot fell fast asleep, it had visions that felt and looked so real. It was dreaming of an open meadow where it felt happy and calm, and they were sitting on a hill with the grass as tall as its forearm and flowers as far as the eye could see. And when it got up and turned around, the white robot was there too. Walking up to beige but more worn out and with more of its silver-colored aluminum plating exposed to the elements but heavily corroded, and scratched from how long it was used. Suddenly the two robots hold hands, and they try to speak, but nothing comes out of the two, not even a sound. And then the dream ends. As the beige jolted up from sleep mode, the modulated woman’s voice said, “Power Level at 98 percent. Battery life estimate 364 days remaining” As the voice spoke, the robot was now in a panic as it went to obtain its communication device. Before it went to grab it, the machine heard a low growling followed by two glowing eyes. Now the machine's imaginary heart was racing again all of its body telling it to run and get away, but it slowly tried to pick up its communication device so it could prepare to run as fast as possible to get away from this thing but the creature snarls loudly as if saying “Don't try anything funny.” Suddenly the creature moves slowly towards it and as the sunlight hits it the machine can see a nose then the yellowish whites of the creatures' teeth and a white pelt of fur. A wolf who was disturbed from its nap due to the machine’s noise was about to pounce. But the machine was too paralyzed by fear to move, not wanting to break eye contact with the wolf. And so it waits for the perfect opportunity to make a break for it, “Think, I need to think.” The wolf whimpers slightly and limps towards the machine as if asking it for help, but the machine walks back hastily, stumbling and falling on its metal behind. The machine didn’t understand what was going on, then it saw that the wolf's leg was broken. As the wolf approached more, the robot understood that it had to do something to try to help this scary yet somehow fascinating creature it’s never seen before, especially this close. So the robot reaches out to try to touch the wolf. But the wolf is hesitant and growls at the hand of this strange metal beast. But the machine says, “It’s ok, I’m not here to harm you. I just want to help you.” The wolf as if understanding limps up to the machine and allows it to touch its fluffy fur. And so as the machine stands it speaks again, I’ll have to look for some stuff to fix your leg, but I will return. The beige machine goes out in the now visible tundra to look for things that can be used to make a splint for the white wolf's leg, and so goes onto a quest to find supplies for the wolf.

Chapter 3: Fear of the Unknown

        As the white machine walks through more lush, dense vegetation, it still has questions about whom this creator person is and how long it’ll take to see the beige robot. It suddenly takes a break to look ahead of itself, trying to spy an opening through the thick, slightly humid environment, But all it can see is more trees and plants. While looking around, it’s environment it takes a moment to catch its bearings and say out loud “Well I guess this would be the most efficient path” after the machine finishes its sentence, it then facepalms in realization of what it said and then comments to himself. “Of course, why didn’t I think of this before?” and so with that the machine starts to search for a tall enough tree that they can climb to get a good vantage point. After a few more miles of searching, the machine comes across a tall enough tree with the size almost comparable to a redwood tree. With determination in the robot's mind, it starts to look for a way to get up the tree. With a few seconds of searching, it finds nothing, but it hasn't given up yet and starts to search for vines it can use to make a rope. This will help it not only support their weight but to aid them in climbing this tree. After a few hours of fashioning a makeshift rope from vines, making sure the knots in it doesn’t give out while either halfway up the tree or even just snap instantly. And so without even testing the rope, the machine throws the rope as high as possible, hoping to see the rope land on the other side. And to this machine's surprise, it sees it land on a branch that looks sturdy enough to hold them. As the machine gets done, letting the end of the rope drop to the ground to begin tying another knot, it suddenly feels nervous and unsure but quickly goes back to preparing to climb up the tree. Now with everything set up and secure, the machine starts to scale the massive tree slowly and carefully to make sure it doesn’t fall. If it could sweat, it would be pouring from its hands as the machine reaches halfway up the tree hoping to itself it doesn’t fall, along with saying to itself “don’t look down” as if its journey wasn’t scary enough. Soon the robot reaches a point in the tree where it breaks through the green covering as if breaking the atmosphere to enter space. It points in the direction it needs to go before starting its descent down the massive tree, carefully, the same as going up. Before the machine reached halfway towards the solid ground, it felt a sense of accomplishment before reaching the ground, fully landing on its feet. As it sighed and said to itself “Never again.” as it started to walk in the direction it mapped out being above the treeline. A few hours of walking would get painful to a person, but as the white machine wasn’t limited to muscles that could ache and give out at any moment, it continued forward till the sun started to set. The now dense jungle of vegetation slowly became engulfed in a thick fog that would make it impossible to spot anything through it. With no visible light, the machine figured out how to turn on its built-in flashlight so it could make the darkness pass. But even with the flashlight, the ever-growing fog made it harder to see every passing second. It had to find shelter, and it knew that even if it didn’t need to rest or even sleep, it would need to at least find somewhere to take shelter for the night as the fog passed. But as it knew, time was of the essence, and it had a year left to even get to the coordinates given to them to meet the beige robot. It didn’t think too much of the fog and marched forward more and more, when suddenly the machine heard a snap from possibly a twig, but it sounded like something big was approaching. But the machine didn’t think much of it and ignored it as it kept moving forward with only its whirring joints, making the dense jungle seen not so scary. But suddenly the machine here’s rustling but this time too close for comfort and the machine starts to look around in panic trying to spy where the machine is hearing the noise. But the machine saw nothing and continued moving however at a slower pace to try and make sure it’s not just hearing itself make these uneasy noises. Suddenly out of the corner of it’s peripheral view it sees something lurking amongst the fog and turns to look at it seeing it swiftly dash away back into the fog to not be seen. Now the machine felt like it was being watched and was too struck with fear that if it had a heart it would be beating in a fearful tone. The machine tried to look around but was suddenly attacked behind it and knocked to its front. The machine quickly tries to turn to the direction the creature might’ve ran to but couldn't see it suddenly it was back on its feet before it saw what could only be described as a monster with green eyes but with a black body about to pounce. The moment the machine stares at it for a moment the creature attacked quickly before the machine could even react. “It’s faster than I can get a chance to defend myself” thought the machine now up and running into a full sprint but it’s fruitless as it’s not able to see anything through this thick fog the creature right on the machines trail almost faster than the machine. The creature getting a few slashes in before the machine is knocked back down and getting constantly attacked by the fast creature. Unable to do anything it realizes they’re going to die if they don’t try to fight back. So the machine tries to get up to grab something to fend itself from the beast. The best still causing damage to the machines body leaving scratches and some internals slightly exposed to the elements when suddenly the attacks stop and the robot hears a noise almost sounding like a bang of some sort that scared away that silenced the noises of the beast. As the robot helpless lays there heavily damaged it’s flashlights start to go out and all the robot can hear is beeping and alarms going off. But it spies a shape that looks like it’s holding something and pointing at the machine but before the machine could see what it is it’s vision slowly darkens and they pass out. After a few hours the machine is jolted awake by ringing from it’s communication device. It was the beige machine, They’ve probably tried to call them for the past hours and so as the machine talks with the familiar machine they end the conversation. As the call ends the white machine looks at itself and analyzes itself, especially checking its battery which now had 98 percent left. As it was doing a diagnostics check it heard rustling and grabs the nearest thing to try and fend off what could happen to it again. “Stay back. I’m not afraid to fight you” but as the rustling approaches more the figure was different it was more clear that it was a bi pedal creature. With five digits on both of it’s hands and standing at roughly 5 feet 7 inches tall it was clear it was possibly human. As the robot dropped it’s guard the human like being approached the still skeptical machine. The white machine tried to say something but the creature could’nt speak back only make gestures with their hands almost like sign language. The robot replied “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me” and so the creature comes out of the fog to be more visible and confirmed to the robot it was definitely a human. The human signed again and this time the robot understood what they were trying to say. The mysteriously covered human was trying to say “Are you alright?” and the robot replied “I’m operational but the question is who are you?” the human approaching the robots and crocheting down inspected the damaged robot almost like it knew what the white machine was already. The machine couldn’t really tell if the human was trying to desroy them for scrap parts or trying to inspect the damage on them. So the machine said “If you’re going to scrap me for parts I’d suggest doing it after I meet my friend” The human started to pull out tools to begin their work on the machine with fixing exposed wiring and heavy damge to it’s parts. The robot stried to say something but instead letted the human do their work. They had so many thoughts running through their head but did’nt want to speak incase this human would do to them. When they finished their work the human signs to them saying “That should fix all the damage while you finish you’re journey” when they said that the machine jolted up and replied “You know about our assignment too?” the machine looked in surprise as the human nodded and signed again “You and the other robot were created to do something your creator has been researching before my kind went exploring the cosmos” the robot wanted to speak but couldn't think of anything to say so the human reaches their hand out and gestures them to follow them. So as the machine follows it has somewhat a harder time walking as it’s freshly repaired legs are still trying to calibrate but that didn’t stop the white machine from taking the humans have to follow them to what the machine assumes is their home. As they walk off into the fog the machine trys to forget about what happened to them as they felt somewhat at ease with this human. Their thoughts quickly interrupted with more sign language from the human “When we get to the location I will fix you properly” the robot nods and follows the human into the dark, and foggy jungle.

Chapter 4: Machines Best Friend