- Manifisto
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Infoburner the Robot's Lazy Adventure by That Robot
Infoburner the robot lived close on a torus-shaped space station close to the center of the galaxy. Officially known as EverStar® MallStation© #32525FFA, this small pocket of civilization lay on the outskirts of any frontier and far away from anything that mattered. Functioning as an outpost of humanity, it was appropriately designed as a commercial hellhole, housing hundreds of rarely-visited shops on the north side, a vast park with farmland on its western edge, apartment blocks to the east and automated machinery and life support systems elsewhere. The small population manned the shops, greeted visitors and dealt with explorers who got "black hole madness" upon staring into the void for too long. The allure of the void was difficult for some, as the station was in a stable orbit around a voracious black hole, with infalling matter slowly being spaghatettified and consumed in a slow, destructive dance. Along with the residents of the station were several robots, one of whom was Infoburner.
Infoburner stood at about four feet, consisting of large tank treads, a stocky body, two long metal arms with claw-hands and a head that kind of looked like a hosed up power rangers mask with glowing green eyes. Most of the time he did various tasks for people, with no permanently assigned jobs other than agriculture in the arbitrary summer months. One day, Infoburner rolled by a small yellow house in the residential area, a place with an artificial blue sky, small neighborhood gardens and parks. In the front yard was Mrs. Johnson, a middle-aged woman with long red hair, smoking a cigarette and looking at Infoburner, her jacket and jeans dusty, as if she had been looking in a basement.
"Hey you." She said, her voice gravelly. "I need to find something that belonged to my husband. I'll pay you some oil if you get it for me."
Infoburner swiveled his head toward the woman, stopping his treads as he listened to her request. "What do you need to find?" He asked in a vocoded voice. "Where is it? Additionally, why is there debris on your clothing?"
"I was looking in the basement for this old wooden box of his. He was a messy guy, so there's lots of dust and I was down there for an hour." She replied, taking another drag of her cigarette, almost at the end of it. "He was an inventor, so there's plans for things he didn't get around to. I want to make bank off of it, but some goddamn kids stole it out of his unlocked shed. I think they took it to their crappy clubhouse in the forest, but I don't want to get it myself. It's a heavy coffin full of his work, along with some 'personal treasures', which means there might be something else valuable there too. If you get this box for me, I'll make it worth your while, robot."
Infoburner contemplated this for a few milliseconds before replying. "I will do it if in return you provide me with a canister of BYOB-brand Indica-Chill hash fuel oil."
"Deal. What's your name, robot?" She asked, looking at the machine on treads.
"Infoburner." He replied, saying it automatically in his artificial voice.
"So why are you called that? Do you burn information or something?"
"No. It was randomly assigned when I was assembled. My siblings include Filemaster, Bitreader and Error 404."
Mrs. Johnson chuckled. "Whatever. Go get me my husband's mystery box."
Infoburner nodded in acknowledgment and rolled west toward the mall proper.
After passing a few well-maintained prefabricated apartment blocks and some more small houses, he reached the immaculately-kept Mall Welcome Center, a small wooden building with EverStar MallStation signage prominently placed in view of any who passed by. The Mall Welcome Center represented a sudden break from the faux idyllic residential area, as everything beyond that point was covered in sterile linoleum or concrete. At a card table in front of the building was a bored teenager sitting on a chair, fooling around with a cardboard sign that read "security". Infoburner moved on past the "security guard", who didn't even notice the metal man.
Proceeding past the security desk brought Infoburner into an area dominated by multi-floor mall shops, with glass elevators, shining escalators, bubbling fountains, artificial flowers and neon signs. While there were many shops, only some of them were actually open, with the amount of shoppers obviously smaller than the designers of the space station had predicted. While it had been anticipated that a station orbiting a black hole would be great for attracting business, that turned out to not be the case at all. This resulted in the space station being called a dead mall in its own right.
None of that truly mattered to Infoburner, however. None of the random Greco-Roman busts of humans, the recurring palm tree motif, muzak sound, smooth jazz or mall aesthetic arose any feeling in him, though all around him was the vaporwave aesthetic made manifest. After rolling through a few blocks of houseware shops and an avenue of department stores, he reached the central square's fountain. All around him were bright lights advertising all sorts of goods, with signs of all colors and multiple typefaces melding together in a glowing chromatic capitalistic melange. Some visitors to the station looked dazed as they took it all in, while Infoburner continued on his path, past the central fountain, a seven-ringed fountain with its water aglow in the neon light.
Eventually the sterile linoleum of the mall gave way to deep green grass, with large pines and oaks in the distance. Like the residential area, there was an artificial blue sky for most of the way in the distance, as well as Mall Welcome Center for controlling border traffic; in this case the desk was unmanned. Infoburner passed by a sign lying against a wooden fence, which read "EverStar® MallStation© #32525FFA Parkland and Nature Reserve. Now with Real Air!" The metal man on treads had finally reached the grassland outside the forest, where his objective lay. He could see a few small farms to his northwest and a few cottages to the east, but in the distance he could see a dense patch of forest. He stayed on a concrete path until he got to the forest, with beaten trails a little rougher on his treads. "That oil better be worth it." He thought, rolling over a path lined with oaks, pines and ash. After about a mile into the forest he saw two bright-blue shipping containers strapped together, just ten meters away from the path. There was a great deal of debris in front of the two shipping containers, including trash, boxes, a few stripped-down cars and a few broken robots, which caused Infoburner some concern. In front of a door on one of the containers were a few teenagers who were laughing and playing music; one of them was using the head of a robot as a chair, which angered him. Infoburner also saw that in a hastily-made driveway was a retro green pickup truck with the keys on the seat.
The robot moved carefully, quietly, wanting to outsmart the human teenagers that were standing between him and a canister of hash oil. Moving softly on his treads, he got to the left side of the green truck and picked up the keys with his right hand. Before proceeding, he brought his left hand to a data port on the dash. His claw hand disengaged for a moment as he interfaced with the port, programming what he wanted the vehicle to do. Once its computer had acknowledged it, Infoburner turned the key on the truck and disengaged, rolling off to the back of the two containers as the truck came to life.
"What the gently caress? How is that thing moving on its own?" One of the teenagers cried as the truck revved its engine and started to move, slowly at first. As the teenagers ran to chase it, the truck took off at high speed before slamming into a lone tree a few hundred meters away and exploding info flames.
With his adversaries distracted, Infoburner went around the shipping containers, and found the back door that he suspected would be there. The bright blue-painted door was locked, but with a hard turn with his right hand broke the lock, allowing Infoburner to enter. It was dimly lit inside the clubhouse made of shipping containers, with various screens showing either sports stats or alien porn barely illuminating the interior. Like the outside, there was junk everywhere, including several joint butts, cigarette butts, cigar wrappers and empty liquor bottles. After breaking several bottles with his treads, Infoburner came upon a large wooden box in the center of the room. He noticed that there was a metal lock on its hinges, but it was unlocked. Opening the container revealed several old blueprints and folders, but Infoburner could tell there were other things beneath it.
As he lifted up the blueprints, the robot saw several empty jewel boxes, lonely money clips and empty checkbooks; most of the valuables were long gone, aside from a few hard drives. Oh and there was also porn, most of which was left by the teenagers. Turning on a small LED light in his left hand, Infoburner could see images of humans doing the strangest things to each other; pulling parts, pinching flesh, and even stretching things -- the man stretching things with a golden ring on his finger in particular -- something rather strange to find in the middle of the woods. There was a smaller, plastic box on the very bottom of the wooden box that read "Personal Treasures". It may have held something of value at one point, but when Infoburner opened it, he saw only saw a crumpled paper bag of dog feces. Not knowing how this was supposed to be valuable, he closed the smaller box and put it back inside. The then robot shut the larger wooden box, securing the lock with one of the roach clips on the floor.
Holding it by its rope-like handles, the robot exited the impromptu clubhouse with the wooden box in his hands. Knowing this was his chance to get away, he sped off, his treads whirling on the grass as he put distance between himself and the teenagers. The hooligans noticed what had happened once some of them returned to the clubhouse and began to chase him, shouting that he was a "metal rear end in a top hat" and a "box of automatic poo poo", among other things. The robot went off the path, heading deeper into the forest as he tried to lose them. As their voices got quieter, he rolled over deep root systems and past various dens of forest animals until he reached a quiet clearing, far away from anyone. There was no artificial blue sky in this unpopulated area; instead above him Infoburner could see the view of space outside the space station. The crown of glory that was called the galactic center was in full view, populated by innumerable stars - red, blue, orange, yellow, white - a vast hive of worlds that lit up the heavens. In the center of this carnival of light was a single, large black hole, with the galactic center lensed on the top and bottom of it, as if it were an imperfection in space-time itself. Infalling matter seemed to whirl around it very slowly, but never actually entered the hole itself. Even a robot such as himself could only look in wonder at such a vast void.
He stood there for a moment in the forest, contemplating the black hole. His contemplation ended as he soon heard the hooligans in the distance. Infoburner proceeded north until he came upon a large pond, with the teenagers quickly following behind him. He unexpectedly had forgotten about this pond, as it was rare for his various odd jobs to take him here.
"Give us the loving box, robot!" One of them shouted while another threw a small glass vodka bottle at him, which broke upon hitting his metal shoulder.
"This was stolen from a human. I am simply returning it." Infoburner responded in his ersatz, artificial tone.
"Bull poo poo! That guy's shed was open! He obviously didn't care, so it's ours!" Another angry teen replied.
"Irrelevant. I will return this box to the human who owns it."
"Oh yeah? We'll push your metal rear end into the lake then! We'll see who owns it when your circuits meet water!"
Knowing he was at a disadvantage, Infoburner decided to spot being a polite robot. At full volume, he began to play a series of irritating screeching tones, high-pitched noise and other distractions that drove most of the teenagers to the ground, holding their eyes. Their leader, a boy with a red checkered woolen cap, still stood in Infoburner's way, so he simply slammed into him, his metal boy knocking the boy out of the way. The robot rolled east around the pond and then north, eluding his stunned adversaries. He reached the concrete paths once again; as he was in settled territory, the artificial blue sky hummed along above him, with projected puffy white clouds here and there.
Once he was back on the border of the mall area, he rolled right past the unmanned security card table, which by this point had a few squirrels on top. It didn't take long after entering the mall that Infoburner heard the same chill tones of the muzak and the ding of the elevator bells. He paused for a minute by a shuttered shoe shop, letting his nacelles use some of their THC reserves. After a waitress from a nearby cheese stop tried to offer him a sample tray, the robot sped off again, having no use for cheese. As a few small robotic zambonis cleaned the linoleum floors, he made a zig-zag path to avoid them, soon reaching the other border edge of the mall area. The teen at the card table tried to say something to the robot about the box, but he ignored the youth.
After awhile he returned to Mrs. Johnson's house, rolling up the steps to the small yellow building. Nursing another cigarette, she re-lit it as he came by, then inhaling.
"I see you've got the box. Bring it over here and let me see inside, robot." She said, her voice just as gravelly as before.
The robot did as he was asked, placing it down in front of her an unlocking the lock. "It was unlocked when I came upon it. It was hidden in a dank clubhouse, as you suggested." He said.
Mrs. Johnson looked through the box, frowning at the empty money clips and jewel boxes.
"Those loving kids got the goodies, didn't they?" She grumbled, taking another drag of the cigarette as she opened the box labeled "Personal Treasures". She cursed loudly as she found that a bag of dog poo poo was inside.
"They took the coke too! drat it!" She yelled, throwing the box to the ground, sighing. "It ain't your fault, robot. I'm just glad the drat blueprints and hard drives are alright. One sec."
Mrs. Johnson went inside the house for the moment, returning with a small purple canister that read "BYOB-brand Chill Indica - Cool fuel for robots". Infoburner's eyes lit up as he saw it, the woman placing it in his right hand.
"Thank you for providing this. I am glad I was able to complete this task in a satisfactory manner." He said, opening a port on his side and attaching the canister to it. After pressing a button on the canister, his eyes turned red as he absorbed the THC and other cannabinoids in the canister into his nacelles.
"That's great. Now go smoke your robot dope somewhere else." Mrs. Johnson said.
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Dec 27, 2016 21:31
