Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 112

Clump-clmp. Clump-clmp.

The creature jolted along the hard surface, until noticing an open door. Someone wouldn't be pleased at this, someone higher up. A god? The memory remained just out of reach.

Without delay, and to assuage the god, he Clump-clmp'd closer and slammed the door shut. Not before the word junior echoed from the room.

He felt a pressure in his stomach, as if he needed to go to the toilet. But that would have to wait. His mission was to hear the name Josef. Then he'd beat the game.

But there were so many corridors. So, so many.

Was he searching for a person named Josef, or someone who knows a Josef? And why Josef? What was the backstory? He liked playing games with a narrative structure, especially the far-out ideas in science fiction, since they helped take him away from...from where? He couldn't remember much before waking up near all those robot body parts and that woman smiling over him.

She was nice. It made him feel special that she thought he was important enough to trust with this mission. He couldn't remember feeling special before.

There were no NPC's anywhere, so he tried the front yard. Nothing but a driveway leading down to a gate. A large tinted window in the building reflected a patchwork robot, an arm replete with bulging metallic muscles.

"Cool!" he said, posing as if he were in a body-building contest.

Through the tint he thought he saw, though only just, and perhaps not even at all, a face peering at him. He leaned in. Behind him, something buzzed. Over the face, or morphing from it, a reflection grew in size. It took him a moment to understand that this meant it was coming closer. He turned and was immediately face-to-camera with a defencebot.

But something else was nagging him, so he shooed it away before it could finish scanning him.

Clump-clmp. Clump-clmp.

He walked down the driveway and found the button. Nothing happened when he banged it, so he tried again. Finally, movement.

He smiled. More accurately, he contorted his toothless mouth until it looked like an Edvard Munch painting. Relief filled his circuits when the gate was finally closed.