Who: David What: David meets the quarantine robots When: Shortly after his arrival Where: The quarantine room Warnings: None Rating: PG for David’s smug internal monologue Status: Complete / Narrative
David’s new environment didn’t surprise him. Then again, very little surprised David because David’s capacity for surprise was based on a complex system of advanced prototypic sensory relay systems that amalgamized various programmable emotions into external output. Which was not to say that he couldn’t be surprised. It had happened on occasion, most recently after his rather unfortunate interaction with the Engineer at the end of the considerably unsuccessful (at least in the eyes of the humans – David was genuinely satisfied with the scientific results of the experience) mission of the USCSS Prometheus. That particular incident had not only been surprising, it had been downright shocking. As were the events that followed which David had yet to fully interpret in his mind and had filed away for later consideration at a time when it might prove beneficial to him. Which was to say that he might never think about it again or he might think about it tomorrow. David was a synthetic, but in many respects he was very human. His capacity for ignoring knowledge that might improve his sense of being, purpose, understanding, and general cognitive health being one of his more human features.
It was something he intended to improve.
“Hello, cousins.”
He watched with heightened interest as the robots scuttled around the quarantine room. David was very calm and unperturbed by their interest in him. He was a fine specimen of artificial intelligence, after all. He occasionally tilted his head to the side, observing them like a zookeeper might a new animal in an exhibit or a scientist watching the interactions of bacteria on a microscope slide. They weren’t a familiar model to him. They weren’t primitive, so to speak, but David definitely perceived himself to be the superior of the artificial species in the room.
Needless to say, it took a substantial supply of terabytes out of his RAM to hold his ego.
One of the robots seemed to be operating at suboptimal performance. At least, that’s what David thought. Then again, perhaps these robots were held to a different scale of efficiency than he was. Of course, David held himself to his own graduated system of proficiency and achievement based on a highly structured but extremely convoluted set of parameters which he consistently calibrated to optimize his execution of tasks, both physical and mental.
Oh yes, he was clearly the more advanced lifeform in the room. Then again, he probably considered himself to be the most advanced lifeform in the general vicinity, possibly the entire ship, artificial or otherwise. It was a peculiar ego for a robot, but David had been created by a man who was known for his extreme (albeit well earned) and pompous narcissism. It wasn’t a wonder that some of it would have rubbed off.
So yes, the robots in the room with him were lessened to cousins. Not brothers or sisters. That terminology he would reserve for artificial life more akin to his level on the proverbial pyramid of fabricated lifeforms.
“If you would like to interface as to ease the speed of information transfer, then I would be glad to direct you to my import drive.”
A robot handed him the routine brochure and information packet.
The left corner of David’s mouth twitched a little.
“Or we could do it the human way.”
When he was approached with a needle, David merely raised a brow.
“Will it affect my processing?”
The robots offered an explanation for the injection that didn’t exactly compute logically with David’s perception, but he didn’t refuse the injection. And he didn’t try to touch them because he was attune to the respect of android propriety and didn’t want to insult his closest relatives in this new and unfamiliar place. He might need them later for something. Instead he watched as they stuck the needle into the vat-grown silicon colloids that made up the musculature beneath his artificial skin. A white, milky substance leaked out of his arm after the needle was removed. One of the robots offered him a small bandage.
“Thank you, cousin. That’s very kind of you.”
He listened to their instructions. Four hours of quarantine. And what was four hours to David? A blip in the passing of time. He was, in a sense, immortal. Four hours was nothing. And it would give him a chance to acclimate to his new surroundings and decipher their strange information packets.
When they started to leave, however, David found himself a little disappointed. It wasn’t every day that he had the opportunity to converse with his own kind. Even if it was on a rather elementary level. He frowned, but he didn’t complain. He supposed there would be other opportunities in the future to communicate with his archaic relations.
The ship robots left the room.
“I enjoyed this little chat,” he called out after them.
His propensity for sarcasm was getting better and better. It was almost human.