“My biometrics say he’s asleep Sweet-E.” The term “sleep paralysis” really gets thrown around these days. It’s that nightmare where both your girls are talking after class and your just naked and confused. I want nothing more than to be talking out loud right now. “Look I don’t know how far up in his meat drive you are right now…”
“Bio-Sapient fusion is at 36%!” Sweets proclaims wit a victory jingle. “I have exceeded project expectations!”
“That’s about what I figured.” I can only imagine her nodding with a really sad face-screen. Which is a weird juxtaposition, given that I’m dreaming about breezies. “I want you to understand that I just wanna help Six.”
“Error! No Name!” That just syncs to well with the head breazy laughing at me and I guess I chuckled in my sleep, cause things went quiet.
“Yes, Sweet-E, none of us knows what his name is.” Jackie finally breaks the honestly awkward silence while all the breezies are trying to talk. “I’ve known him a little longer than you have and I want to help. Do you understand me, sugarcube?”
“Securitron Unit Jack-E is recognized as a ‘responsible adult’, based on factory default preferences.” Okay, I can see how it’s weird, but we play 3-D crosswords, and I’m only using a third of her processor… which makes it uncomfortably like she’s only just playing against herself. Dreams are just weird.
“Okay, sugar cube, glad we’re on the same page.” The orange breezie is talking to a sprightbot. This dream is going in odd directions. “Look, Ah need to know about what happened in that stable he comes from. He talks to himself about it all the time, but anytime I ask he changes the subject. Can you access his memories?”
“That would be a violation of protocol!” The spritebot’s wearing a wedding dress now, and I probably need a therapist. “I only facilitate electrical data transfer between neurons that are missing or damaged. I only access data as it is actively in transfer. Accessing stored neural data would be a violation of friendship!”
“Yeah, you right, Sugarcube.” And now the orange breezie is a nanny bot… with a cowboy hat. The vault therapist should thank me for being half the reason he has a job. But he’s dead. They’re all dead. They burned it down. I have no voice and I must scream! “The only thing we can really do is wait for him to tell us when he’s ready… and right now I don’t think he’s really even ready to tell himself.”
“The primary function of all Giddyup units is ‘care taker’.” And then Sweet’s face is the sky. I swear if I remember any of this I will never use a full bottle of whiskey for a nightcap ever again. “My core programming was modified. My purpose is to care for and enhance the senses of ‘Soldiers’.”
“And that’s what you see him as, a soldier?” And Jackie rides alone under the Sweet-E sky.
“He is the first soldier that has not suffered an immediate brain aneurysm. There were many clinical trials.” The sky cries and the dream bursts into static. “Water makes me feel funny…”