A Visitor to the Future - 84 - Gatecrash's Story
Gatecrash stared off into the starry distance once more, the narrative coming forth from their lips haltingly at first, but soon flowing with an eloquence that made it seem like second nature.
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I was constructed in 2572. Yes, I'm older than I look, don't look so surprised! I know I don't always act my age, but still! In those days, Venus was one of the hottest places to be not only in terms of surface temperature, but also in terms of ambition. There were labs out there performing all sorts of atmospheric and exotic materials research - mostly on aerostats, but the ongoing search for bacterial life in the depths of Venus was a significant driver too. And because there was opportunity out there, the Multispheres sunk their claws in deep. Very deep. They owned almost every aerostat, every station, every craft servicing that region. Regular humans couldn't even breathe without a corporation trying to levy some sort of charge on them.
So the UN's old decree following the CI uprising? Had no impact on Venus. No CI rights to speak of. CI enslavement and flash-loading was legal, but I guess we had it better than the Jovian CIs - at least outmoding was fairly rare, and our Governor program mostly automated.
The majority of living around Venus was cramped - those second-generation aerostats were a far cry from the first generation research sites, but still, space was at a premium. So when I say that my owner had a four-bedroomed penthouse suite, that should tell you that she was dirty, stinking rich. No family of which to speak, leaving her with an empty house and nothing to fill it besides expensive art, and the occasional outlandish party. She was a Director for the Multisphere that owned the aerostat, which meant she was hot stuff, and damn, she acted like it.
So, empty house, no family, desire to be the centre of attention? It made sense that she would want to get a pet eventually. But not just any pet - no parrot or dog would do the trick. Friendly Lynxes were all the rage back on Earth, so she had the genetic material sent out, a gestation chamber too so it could all be done locally. She converted a bedroom into the pet's room, filled it with fancy toys, food supplement dispensers - everything.
The only problem was, she was a very busy woman. She couldn't possibly take care of the animal full-time - train it, exercise it. So she needed someone to do it for her. And that ended up being me.
I still remember how painful the flash-loading was. That was my first memory. Oh, sorry, I should explain. Flash-loading is an illegal practice today, but like I said earlier, it was legal at the time. It consists of forcing memories into a CI's psyche to prepare them for work. In my case, I received domestic home care training, and a specifically designed animal-care program for Friendly Lynxes. And just like that, I was put to work. My owner said to follow her, and because of both the conditioning of the flash-load and the ever-looming threat of the Governor oversight program, I followed.
The aerostat was organized into tiers. The lowest tiers were where the researchers were, their spires and instruments extending way below the round underside of the aerostat. The middle tiers were where the workers and the workshops were, manufacturing everything the aerostat needed from imported materials. The upper tiers were where the corporate elite lived, with clubs, gyms, even a large park that probably cost more to maintain than the entire middle tier. Elevators connected the layers together, and moving between them often felt like you were stepping into entirely another world - science, industry, recreation - all clamouring for space. Moving from my place of birth in the workshops to my owner's home was a brief experience, though - for I would never again step outside of the upper layer.
My owner's building curved around the upward-arc of the aerostat, a skyscraper which hugged the very curve of the dome above, leaning forward as if to scrutinize the entire landscape below. Like I said, it was the penthouse - she was the top dog in the region.
And there in that bedroom was Dela, newly born from her gestation chamber. Apparently my manufacture had been delayed by a day, which was why I missed the event itself. My owner seemed fairly annoyed at the fact she'd had to look after Dela herself until I was online.
"You've been programmed," she told me, as I looked at Dela's tiny, vulnerable form in the heated post-birth chamber, "Take care of her." My owner wasn't prone to giving detailed instructions. The rest of the world was unfamiliar to me, alien, distant - but thanks to the knowledge they'd programmed into me, I knew what to do. I monitored the infant lynx's vitals, adjusted dials, ensured there were no genetic defects using testing kits. I filtered supplements prior to feeding her. In a floating sphere, tens of millions of kilometres away from where even the idea of Dela's genome had been invented, I raised her with the hands my owner had paid for.
For those first few months, I barely left the room. It was almost timeless - the only way I could mark the passage of time was by monitoring Dela's maturation, and the tasks that I performed to keep her on track. I'd like to say that it was challenging - that I had to use my own initiative, be careful, but that would be lying. I was just an automaton going through my programmed motions. The designers of the flash-ware that had been put into my mind had almost thought of everything. That was me, day and night, ceaselessly performing my work without rest, without respite.
Visitors. Visitors were the unpredictable element, the thing that would disrupt my care of Dela in those early months. Everyone wanted to see the Lynx, to pet it or to capture images for projections. Nobody thought anything of the robot assigned to care for her, just like every other CI around Venus. I wasn't much to look at, either. A dull grey shell covered my body. I had spindly legs with wide, flat feet. I didn't have a neck, and my servos were often noisy. No face, no hair, no style. I had no individuality, no sense of self. I didn't even realize that I was an individual for a long time, so perfect was the system of control. Place an individual in a situation where their knowledge, experience, and contacts are so constrained, and you will rarely need any other restraints.
Dela was a slow grower - some quirk of her maturation process, or genetic code that didn't meet expectations. I often think that had my owner not been so busy with her work she might have placed some blame on me. Thankfully Dela began to respond to external stimuli, and to crawl weakly across her pen. I was there to encourage her, every step of the way.