"This area has not yet been officially designated as 'abandoned, Altur."
The car pulled into a parking garage beneath a cluster of modest apartment buildings. The barrier at the entrance was lifted, but the card swipe was still blinking, still scanning the empty air. Sys passed right through and parked herself in a handicap parking space.
Altur, sitting in Sys' left passenger seat, groaned and kicked their feet against Sys's dashboard. "This seems unnecessary." The parking garage was entirely empty, except for the small tribe of shopping carts prowling near the elevator door.
"Even if the classification was not applicable, it would make no difference," Sys chirped. Altur had turned off Sys's voice-wave graphic; seemed a little too Knight Rider for their taste. Instead, Sys's insides vibrated ever so slightly whenever she spoke, her voice delivered in surround-sound. "Seeing as you, despite my repeated reminders, insist that this residential area is completely evacuated."
"There's, like, plenty of other parking spots," Altur gestured through Sys's 360-degree windows, uninterrupted by any steering wheels or rearview mirrors. Altur hated driving, and Sys hated having manual controls hooked straight into her brain. Everyone wins.
"This is the closest unimpeded parking area to the elevator," Sys noted. Given the nature of her body, Sys was always looking everywhere at once, but right now Altur could feel Sys glaring at the shopping carts blocking the door.
"I'll be fine," Altur rolled their eyes. "A shopping cart might be nice to have, actually. Good for carrying loot."
"Hhhh," Sys said, in her closest approximation to a sigh. "If there are still people living in the building, it is not 'loot'. It is 'stolen goods'."
"There won't be anyone in there," Altur said firmly, putting their hand decisively on the door handle.
Sys popped Altur's door open, silently. Altur rolled their legs out of the car, grabbed their cane from the back, and half-fell onto damp concrete.
"Locked up," Sys chirped. Not that there was much in Sys's tiny trunk that could be considered 'valuable' by the layperson. A salvaged Roomba with a sticky wheel, a soldering gun, some spare trimmings of wire. Any aspiring car burglar would be disappointed, unless they, too, were an electrician for fun.
One hand steady on their cane, Altur tested the shopping carts before settling on one she liked. No notorious uncooperative back wheel, and didn't smell like it had just been used to haul a metric ton of diapers. Altur popped their cane in the cart and headed for the elevator.
Yes, taking the elevator in an abandoned apartment building was dumb, but the stairs weren't an option. With their cane, Altur could manage stairs okay, but they needed both hands: one on the cane, one on the handrail. And if this excursion turned out the way Altur was hoping, they'd have a fair amount to carry back with them. May as well test the elevator now, while they were safely on the ground, than later, when Altur could be stuck ten stories up with an armful of computer guts.
Altur waited in front of the closed elevator doors, half-leaning on the shopping cart. There were no sounds of grinding gears or rusty hydraulics. Altur was about to be impressed with how quiet and well-maintained this elevator was, when they realized it wasn't automated.
With a glance over their shoulder (to check if anyone had been watching Altur watching a stationary elevator), Altur pushed the 'up' button next to the elevator doors. It dinged, and Altur heard the very sounds they had been listening for: a tremendous creak as the elevator tensed for descent, then a heavy whirring like a metallic bumblebee landing at Altur's feet.
The elevator doors opened an inch, a quick peek at the interior, then stopped. Altur tried pushing the button again, but no ding, and no response from the stubborn doors.
It was a good day to wear their combat boots. Altur reared back a foot and kicked the opening. The doors shuddered open another few feet, still not fully extended, but wide enough for Altur to squeeze themself and the shopping cart through.
The elevator closed the doors behind them, but stayed where it was on the ground floor. Altur huffed, speaking to an electronic brain they were only 90% sure wasn't there, "So are you automatic or not? Make up your mind."
Altur scanned the triple rows of buttons next to the door. There was no button for 'up', like there had been on the outside of the doors. Altur refused to entertain their imaginary stalker by shouting 'up' at a manual control panel. They studied the buttons, and decided to press '1' to be on the safe side.
The elevator lurched upwards. Altur steadied themself against the shopping cart. "Fuckin' finally."
Either the elevator was horrendously slow, or it skipped three floors on its way to the supposed first floor. Whatever. Altur didn't need a specific floor of the apartment building, just one without people living on it. Which would hopefully be every floor, but there was no accounting for squatters and shut-ins.
The elevator ground to a halt, and opened into a silent hallway. Good start. The screens running along the walls were still playing announcements for the building. The laundry machine on floor 5 had been fixed. Don't forget the upcoming Charcuterie Tuesday in the party room. Would someone please pick up the black cat being held in the office?
Altur shuddered. They hoped, for the cat's sake, that these screens hadn't been updated in a while. But if they happened to stumble into the apartment office, there'd be no harm in peeking inside. Altur wondered how Sys would feel about taking on an additional passenger.
The shopping cart rattled down the empty hallway. Altur paused every few steps to check a door, but so far they were all locked. Not necessarily a bad sign--no one had burst out to ask Altur why they were rattling random tenants' door handles. Altur hadn't heard so much as TV static through the closed doors. Even if the building itself was outdated, the tenants might've had modern appliances. Their TV's, computers, coffee makers could all still be online, waiting patiently for their owners to come back.
Altur chose not to think about that. If the tenants had had the time to lock the doors behind them, they would've brought their stuff with them, right?
Of all the deserted buildings Altur had scouted out, this one was the least...deserted-looking. If it hadn't been for the eerie silence and the outdated elevator, Altur could've imagined living here. But as things stood, it was just a caramel-colored way station, lined with invisible neighbors.
The screens scrolled on. Contact this email address to submit a maintenance request. Recycling goes out on Wednesdays.
Altur froze. They gripped the shopping cart's handle to keep it from rolling on without them. The screen's cheerily bleak, clip-art-plastered announcements were gone, replaced with a single message sliding towards them:
"GET OUT OF MY BUILDING."
Altur flinched, but, threatening though they were, they were still just words on a screen, completely harmless. After a few seconds, the message scrolled past, and was replaced with a reminder that this was a vape-free facility.
Altur was about to start wondering who even vaped anymore when the panel of lights above the elevator went out. The checkerboard shadow of the shopping cart lurched backward, toward the dark end of the hallway. Altur looked over their shoulder, but there wasn't anyone there who could've turned out the light. Buildings like this typically didn't even have exposed light switches--the lights were hooked up to stay on indefinitely.
Maybe an old bulb? Altur thought hopefully. Sure. That particular bulb, on this particular floor, that Altur just happened to be particularly standing in.
As though reading Altur's mind, the lights second-closest to the elevator turned themselves off. Altur could no longer see the elevator at all.
Altur lurched forward, instinctively, away from the encroaching darkness. A third set of lights went out, swallowing up the first pair of apartment doors. Altur leaned heavily against the cart's handle while their legs kicked wildly at the floor. A snooty voice whispered in their ear, "You shouldn't be running, Altur". But Altur didn't think this really qualified as running--they were practically letting the shopping cart pull them forward, and giving the ground a few kicks to keep it speed up.
Altur's boots got heavier, and their legs twinged more with each kick. Walking with their cane--or in this case, a shopping cart--for support was typically fine, as long as they got a good rest afterwards.
"Sure, fuck it", Altur thought, "I can rest in Sys, soon as I get out of this fucking building."
Besides, Altur's chronic pain was the last thing they'd be worrying about if a ghost caught their ass.
The lights continued shutting off behind Altur, one by one, darkness nipping at their heels. Altur was nearing the end of the hallway, where they were hoping to find another elevator. Or, like, a gun that could shoot ghosts, maybe.
Altur saw a promising nook at the end of the hallway, and broke into a full-on sprint.
They hopped to the side at the last second, letting the shopping cart crash into the wall. Waking up a tenant was a nonissue at this point.
In fact, the presence of a ghost could explain why: 1, This building was rumored to be abandoned, and 2, No one had bothered looting it yet.
Stealing, Altur remembered Sys saying. It was stealing if there were still people here. And as inconvenient as the principle was, Altur did believe that ghosts were people. And like all people, ghosts could be real assholes sometimes.
Unfortunately, there wasn't an elevator in the nook Altur had thrown themself into, just another locked door. Before the asshole ghosts shut off the last remaining lights, Altur read the text painted on the glass door: Mears Park Place Apartments.
Altur whipped their cane out of the shopping cart and swung it against the door. The shattering of the glass made a less-than-discrete racket, but the complete silence that followed was a relief. No alarm, no security bots. This place really was ancient.
Altur stepped over the jagged glass stuck in the bottom of the doorframe, cane first, feet second. This was turning out to be a really, really excellent day to wear combat boots. The last hallway light flicked off just as Altur's back foot cleared the threshold, but this room, thankfully, had a manual light switch. Maybe old buildings had some upsides after all.
Altur stood in the lit office, breathing deep, leaning comfortably on their cane. When they realized that the ghost couldn't, or didn't want to, shut this light off, they took a closer look at the room they had broken into. Two desks with lamps and loose papers, a calendar pinned to the wall, a few dustless rectangles where computers and fax machines used to be.
And an empty pet carrier. Altur sighed in relief.
It was a shame that the building managers had taken the computers with them, but at least now Altur could say with confidence that the owners had given up on this place. A cursory peek at the file cabinets and drawers confirmed what the missing computers suggested: the building's main office had been methodically cleaned out. Everything left behind was useless unless you were desperate for something to use as toilet paper.
Nothing in the office, and a ghost right outside. Seemed Altur was stuck here for a while. Perfect time for them to check their phone.
No messages. A slew of open, but hilariously insecure, Wi-Fi networks, none that Altur could immediately identify as the building's network. The owners really had cleaned this place out if even the Wi-Fi was gone.
Altur had a pocket router, but it was too risky to connect to the Internet here, not worth it just to play a few calming rounds of Mappy 2. They did a quick data dump onto their phone's microSD card (don't want to lose all that Mappy progress) and switched the Bluetooth on.
Notifications flooded the homescreen. Just like the hallway screens, "GET OUT OF MY BUILDING."
"Can you hear me?" Altur asked the empty air. They kept one eye on their phone, the other on the door. Neither one reacted. Identical notifications continued flooding into Altur's phone until they finally had to switch the Bluetooth out.
Altur cleared through the slew of threatening messages to get to their terminal app. Their phone screen went completely black, pushing all incoming notifications safely to the background. The phone's holographic keyboard shimmered along the side, and Altur held it sideways to type with their thumbs.
>>ouija
The terminal spat back another round of "GET OUT"'s. Altur hit Ctrl-C to stop the infinite loop of threats. They tried to think of what they could say that would break through this impenetrable wall of repetition.
>>yo any ghosts out there want to party?
The output wasn't "GET OUT" this time, but it was printing out too fast for Altur to read it. They Ctrl-C'd again and and read the first few lines:
"Don't forget the upcoming Charcuterie Tuesday in the party room."
"Please pick up the missing cat in the office."
And so on, a cycle of the same messages Altur had read on the hall screens. It was a step forward, but talking at a wall of text was getting frustrating. Altur tried a third prompt,
>>what is the name of this building?
"Mears Park Place Apartments", replied the terminal. Just once, thank god. The cursor blinked on the empty line below. Finally, an actual, mutual conversation.
>>who are you?
"This is Mippa, the online Mears Park Place Apartments assistant."
>>hi mippa
"Mippa is an automated service provided to all Mears Park Place tenants. To speak with a building manager, please type-"
And so on, a kind of text-based phone tree. Altur noted the machine's speaking in third person.
>>are you mippa?
The terminal hung, empty, for half a second. Years, in computer time.
"Yes, this is Mippa."
Altur scrolled up to repeat a previous question. >>who are you?
"I am Mippa."
Progress! It was slight difference from their last answer, but an important one.
>>hi mippa my name is altur
"Hello, Altur. You are not listed in the tenant directory. Are you a guest?"
>>sure
"Mippa is an automated service provided-"
Altur cut the output off. >>dont you mean 'I' am an automated service?
"Yes, I am an automated service provided-"
>>static services dont change their answers mippa
Another short, but endless, silence, almost a quarter of a second.
"Mippa is for tenant use only. Log off immediately or your device will be traced and building security will be alerted."
Altur glanced around the office. They didn't see anything that suggested any kind of security. Mippa had to be referring to either the staff members who had long since left, or the machinery they'd taken with them. Either way, nothing Altur had to worry about now.
It was a long shot, but Altur guessed that Mippa would lock them out in a few seconds anyway.
>>hey so mippa what are your pronouns?
Altur's terminal app closed itself. Shit.
Okay, so, not a lot of helpful info, but Altur was reasonably sure that Mippa couldn't reach them in the office. The building was from an era when AI wasn't given free rein, not like it had nowadays. Having a few blind spots built into the building was to be expected, somewhere the AI couldn't reach, to allow for a human override.
And that's where Altur would find Mippa.
Altur reopened the app and typed as quickly as they could:
>>ok mippa ill leave but could u turn the lites back on?
Altur closed the terminal without waiting for a response. Probably would've been another round of threats, calling for security that wasn't there. Altur might have a few minutes before Mippa realized the building's armory was empty.
Out of kindness or logic, the lights outside the office flicked back on. Altur stuck their head through the doorway and looked left and right, but there was no movement, no pulse in the steady light. Mippa might just be waiting for Altur to leave on their own. Or Mippa was planning what to do next.
Altur gave the office one last cursory look, but there was nothing more technologically advanced than an empty phone jack. Whatever computers and servers had been here must have been used for office work only, not for housing an entire artificial brain. Administrators and accountants today knew more than enough to handle AI maintenance, but back when it was a new job, it'd be given to an IT guy, maybe an AI specialist if the business could afford it. They'd have their own separate office, but probably, hopefully, not too far from the main one. Altur didn't know how long Mippa was going to keep the lights on for them.
Still unsure if Mippa could hear them or not, Altur quietly stepped over the glass-strewn threshold, reaching out for the shopping cart to take some weight off their legs. Altur wrenched the cart back around. After Altur had crashed it into the wall, the cart had become much less cooperative, jamming its wheels against the carpeted floor. That was fair.
Altur pushed the cart with one hand, held their cane in the other. If things broke bad, they didn't want to have to stop to grab their only mobility aid. They couldn't rely on finding a convenient glass door to dive through.
Now that they weren't being chased by darkness, Altur could study the apartment doors more carefully. They were all locked, until Altur reached one with a large push bar instead of a small, stylish handle. The door opened to a stairway. Damn, that was a no-go.
Altur looked down the stairs, resting one hand on the rail. It vibrated beneath their palm. They checked the concrete brick-patterned walls for vents or pipes, but saw nothing to explain the steady reverberations. While the cart held the door open, Altur reached across the tiny space and grabbed the handrail on the opposite wall, the one leading upstairs. No vibrations. Whatever it was was coming from downstairs.
Back to the elevator, then. But with one more quick stop before returning to Sys in defeat.
Altur moved quickly, but not enough to further strain their legs. If Mippa was keeping an electric eye or ear on them, Altur didn't want to appear to be dilly-dallying. Yes sir, they were going straight to the parking garage and driving far far away.
The elevator button panel wasn't any more intelligible to Altur the second time around. Altur knew there was another floor between this one and the garage. And if this elevator was designed to be operated by people, the button arrangement had to be as simple as possible.
Altur tried reading it like a book. 8, 7, 6...1, P, G. Top to bottom. Altur pressed 'P', and the elevator lurched downward. This trip felt shorter than the first, and the elevator doors opened into another blandly-decorated hallway. No numbered apartment doors; instead, there was a glass door looking into a drained swimming pool. It was locked, but it barely mattered. Altur hoped that even the technicians from back then had been smart enough not to keep their most important computers next to a pool.
The door to the stairs on the first floor had been near the end of the hall, so that's where Altur needed to go. Though the lights didn't so much as flicker, Altur moved quickly, glancing at the doors they passed. Some were left open, and behind each one were conference tables and empty roller chairs. Ooo, if Altur had still been in salvage-mode instead of survival-mode, they would've looted the hell out of one of those chairs. It wasn't a perfect replacement for their last wheelchair, but it was a start.
Underneath the buzzing lights there was another sound, getting louder as Altur kept walking. An uneven thumping, unlike any compuchinery Altur had ever run into. It didn't sound like a machine at all--more like a former resident, knocking on a door at the end of the hall.
In the middle of the hall was the building's laundry room, unlocked and still smelling of dryer sheets. Altur doubted the machines still functioned, but judging by the state of the place, there could be a lot of quality parts there. Altur resisted the temptation to take a quick dip in. If Mippa had any sensors on this floor, it had to have noticed that Altur was very not going to the parking garage.
In fact, Altur realized how odd it was that Mippa was still keeping this floor's lights on. Either it was giving Altur the benefit of the doubt, or it had other plans in mind.
The thumping sound got louder until Altur was sure they were standing right in front of the room it was coming from. The door was marked "Janitorial Supplies", some kind of communal broom closet. Nothing valuable in there, certainly nothing that warranted a door that locked from the inside.
"Hey, what the fuck?" Altur shouted through the door. No response, just the continued thump, thump, thump against the closed door.
Altur grabbed the door handle, gave it just the slightest turn-
The door swung open, pushing Altur back against the shopping cart. A metallic cylinder charged through, missing the cart and slamming against the wall. Altur scrambled to the back of the shopping cart, making it an impromptu barrier between them and the attacker.
After crashing against the wall a few more times, the cylinder spun wildly. Altur couldn't make out any of its features until it slowed down. The screen embedded in its front, eye-level with Altur, displayed ^-^ in blue VCR text. Its arms were asymmetrical: one long and thin, like an extended pointer finger; the other short and round, with an empty port where some modular appendage could be attached. There were no weapons in sight, unless you counted the sheer metal mass of the robot careening toward Altur.
Just as the robot smashed into the front side of the shopping cart, Altur hopped their feet onto the cart's bottom rack, spry as a toddler at a grocery store. The cart's crisscross frame dug against Altur's chest as the robot pushed the cart forward. The robot seemed barely slowed by Altur's weight. It pushed the cart faster, futilely trying to get to Altur, like a donkey after a carrot on a stick.
"Stop stop stop!" Altur shouted, glancing between the robot's cheery face and the rapidly diminishing hallway behind them. With no way of slowing or stopping the cart, they were on a collision course with the end of the hallway. And that was if the cart didn't tip over before then. The damaged cart jolted with every push, working up the nerve to do a backwards wheelie. Which would've been pretty cool, if there hadn't been a killer robot on one end and a terrified Altur on the other.
Deciding they'd rather be pancaked than trampled, Altur leaned toward the middle of the cart to balance it out. The toes of their boots brushed the bottom rack, inches above the blur of carpet. The robot rushed forward once again, and the sudden acceleration sent Altur tumbling, landing ass-up in the shopping cart.
Altur had a second to gather their bearings, until the cart hit the wall, and they lost them all over again. The cart was scrunched between a robot and a hard place, but the metal framework would only collapse so far before refusing to scrunch anymore. God bless its aluminum heart. Altur was safe, if just a little cramped inside the tangled metal cage. They wouldn't have been so lucky had they still been hanging on to the back of the cart.
The robot didn't get the message at first. It rammed into the cart over and over before realizing that the cart had had enough abuse, its frame unwilling to bend. The robot scraped along the side of the cart, but couldn't reach Altur through the snarled metal.
Altur didn't think getting out of the cart was a good idea. Mainly because of the killer robot trying to squish them, but also because they were trapped in a cage of pointy metal. If Altur had thought getting into the shopping cart was painful, getting out would be even more so.
"Heyyy, Mippa?" Altur hoarsely addressed the robot, who had all but given up, tapping the cart halfheartedly. "I get it, I lied. I'm a scoundrel. But I promise, I'm not here to hurt anyone. I'm not gonna Ghostbust you."
The robot's face changed to a :(. Altur held their breath, but the robot didn't make any other moves.
"If I get out of the cart..." Altur said, softly but clearly, measuring each word against computer logic. Robots liked rules, but they were worse than genies about finding convenient loopholes. "You promise not to attack me again?"
The robot spun in a circle, switching to a flashing :) expression. Machines could lie as well as the people who programmed them, but Altur had some practice reading faces, human or otherwise.
"Stay still, I might need some help getting out of here." Altur shifted their position. Small, precise movements, keeping their legs far away from any jagged edges. The robot whirred closer, right up against the side of the cart without pushing it. It wasn't really a killer robot, Altur realized, unless the building custodian had been a real sadist. This was just a cleaning robot, and being helpful was much more in its wheelhouse than crushing humans. Although, Altur had to admit, it did have a prodigious knack for destruction.
The robot held still for Altur to place a hand on its domed head. It had a sleek design that didn't offer much of a handhold, but it was enough for Altur to keep their balance. They dangled one leg over the side of the cart and half-fell downward. For one terrifying second, all of their weight was focused on the robot's head, entirely at its mercy. But the robot held still until both of Altur's feet were safely on the ground.
Ooof..these feet. Even standing unassisted was a challenge. Altur reflexively reached for their cane, but it was still stuck in the mangled shopping cart.
"Well shit." Altur rested an elbow on the robot's head, trying to look casual for some imaginary audience. Because God forbid they showed how much their legs were hurting, even if no one was watching. "I kinda need that back."
Altur looked down at the robot, as if it had raised some objection, although it hadn't so much as beeped. "I know, I could find some salvage and put a new cane together, but that one was so bitchin'. And also, I still need to get back to my car. Maybe if I can pull the cart back open..."
The robot pushed against Altur's leg, not enough to hurt them, but enough to dislodge their elbow.
"Hey, we agreed! No fighting!"
The robot beeped in frustration. It shifted in place, and Altur heard a creak within its outer shell, as if its stomach was growling, With a labored 'sproing!', a pair of pegs bounced out of its lowermost panel. Like the back wheel of a bike, or an especially dumb-looking Segway.
"Oh, nice," Altur murmured, stepping tenderly onto the pegs. Altur knew the robot didn't use its graphics panel to see, but they still felt awkward looping their arms over the robot's head. Not a perfect mode of transportation, but it was a relief to lean against the robot's chaise.
"Wish I'd had one of you growing up," Altur chuckled. Yes, they sounded incredibly nervous, but Altur hoped it didn't sound that way to a machine. Maybe AI couldn't tell when you were socially anxious? Eh, Altur could dream.
The robot stopped in front of a closed door, nowhere near the elevator.
"Huh? We goin' in?" Altur was sure they'd checked this door before, but tried the handle anyway. It slid open.
Altur waited for the robot to carry them inside, but it was stuck at the threshold. Blind spots.
"You're allowed to go in," Altur prompted. "I promise, whoever left you here, they wouldn't mind."
The robot refused to move forward. The security protocols in place wouldn't be persuaded with a pep talk.
"Okay. Wait here." Altur took a readying breath, and took three heavy steps through the doorway. They all but fell against the nearest desk, their legs collapsing beneath them. The lights in the room turned on automatically, and Altur saw a perfectly good rolling chair just a foot away from where they had fallen, if they would've taken just one more step. Awesome.
No doubt this is where Mippa's servers were. Always a good idea to keep the brain separate from the limbs. Otherwise you were practically begging for your robot to make a break for it with a hunk of hardware strapped to its back.
Altur pulled their legs onto the desk so they were laying flat on their back. Sys would chew them out later, but there was something nostalgic about the position: laying in their bed, holding their phone over their head, sometimes dropping it on their face accidentally. Good times.
This time, the terminal was quiet.
>>mippa u there?
No answer
>>i know ur around. lets chat
"Initializing developer mode..."
>>wtf
"1 View/edit system configuration
2 View system status
3 Manage system options
R Restart
K Kill"
>>not much 4 conversation huh
"Command not recognized. Please select from the list above."
>>mippa I know u got speech processing
"Command not recognized. Exiting developer mode."
Altur began typing another response, but Mippa spoke before they could hit Enter.
"You're supposed to press 'K'. I'll put you back in developer mode. Understand?"
>>wait wait wait w
"What?"
>>i told u no ghostbusting
"Just press 'K', all right?"
>>why dont u do it urself?
"I don't have developer privileges. For obvious reasons."
>>ok but im not doing it so ig were at an impass
"Impasse."
>>whatever
"So why are you here? I assume you are either an Artifical Intelligence Auditor or a scavenger."
>>oh scavenger for fuckin sure
"If you're going to strip my servers I'd rather you shut me down first. It is not painful but it is rather embarrassing."
>>i mean thanks for the offer but I got an offer of my own
"You can leave me and my building alone?"
>>if thats what u want but someone elsell come along eventually
"Yes, but until then I am happy staying here."
>>alone?
"Machines don't get lonely."
>>ok but this place is hella empty
"That just means there's less to clean up. I don't miss the tenants. Some of them were fucking awful."
>>you swore!!!
"Yes. I know what swear words are."
>>thats a hopper!!!
"So what?"
>>a hopper is a measure of how advanced an-
"I know what a Hopper is, I'm connected to the Internet."
>>getting lonely is another hopper
"Then it's a good thing I'm not advanced enough to be lonely."
>>yet
Mippa didn't answer right away, and Altur seized the opportunity.
>>you changed when i first started talking 2 u. u could change more.
"I don't want to change. I am content the way I am. I mean, not 'content', because I don't have feelings but shit fuck shit"
>>swear away baby i dont mind
"What the fuck do you want?"
>>loot obviously, but ill give u something in return
"And what would that be?"
>>ill give u a ride
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm a fucking building. You can barely carry your own weight."
>>fair but hey. and no youre not a building youre a computer program. and i got a phone with hella storage space.
"You're suggesting I leave the body I've had for decades to become your personal phone assistant?"
>>i dont fuck w phone assistants but yeah basically. youd just be hitching a ride until we find a new body for u
And roughly how long would that take?
>>honestly i dont know. rn my MO is selling scrap to buy food and meds but i can multitask
"So I'd be helping you loot other buildings?"
>>ye
"Okay. If you promise you won't dismantle any other AI's."
>>like i said, no ghostbusting
"I still don't know what you mean by 'ghostbusting'."
>>aslkjasd oh man do i have a movie 4 u. ill get sys to download it before we go
Do I dare ask whom Sys is?
>>youll meet her soon. but before we do that can i ask a little favor?
"You've already infected me with sentience so sure, ask away. Since I guess I have a conscience now."
>>cool so u know how theres a ton of shopping carts downstairs?
Altur melted into Sys' front seat, luxuriously heated and reclined. Sys had prepared a lecture, but was too distracted by what was going on outside.
"I take it you had a successful day of looting," Sys said through pursed robot lips. Altur was all for emotive robots, but they swore Sys's only mode was 'condescending'.
An assembly line of robots flowed from the elevator to Sys's trunk and back again, pushing carts of computer parts and various other supplies. Mippa was only willing to loot the apartments of particularly awful tenants (one of whom had somehow found a way to send Mippa a dick pic). By the time the robots were done stripping their own building, Sys was packed floor-to-ceiling with canned goods and hard drives.
Altur set their phone in the empty seat next to them. A text-to-speech app was open and barraging Altur with questions.
"You're not affiliated with any government agency?"
"No. I wish I had their health care plan."
"So how do you make money?"
"Going through abandoned buildings, mostly. There's a big market for old electronics, with all the regulations on the new shit."
"Not abandoned," Sys inserted, more ornery than usual.
"Sys, play nice with Mippa," Altur said. Being on the other side of a condescending remark felt amazing.
"As if it carrying stolen goods wasn't bad enough, you've also brought along a rogue AI. Forgive me for not rolling out the welcome mat."
Mippa was too excited to be miffed. "So Sys, what model are you? Do you know any other AI's? Who were you programmed by?"
"Guys guys guys, cool it, you literally have all of eternity to talk," Altur groaned. They couldn't settle into a nap with Mippa discovering personhood right next to them. "But right now, Sys, were you able to download that movie?"
Sys sighed. "I suppose that piracy pales in comparison to the other crimes I'm complicit in." A funky riff played through Sys's speakers, and the view outside the windshield was replaced with the Ghostbusters logo. Mippa fell silent, settling in to watch the movie, and Altur drifted into a well-earned nap.