Honest Business

Posted on Tue 9th Feb, 2021 @ 10:41pm by Exo-Comp EXQT

1,019 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Business Not At All As Usual
Location: Harrington's Vessel
Timeline: MD 1, 1235

It took Mia a little over two hours to find a contract she could manipulate for their new business, and then to wrestle it into what she wanted. She had no doubt there would be changes demanded by the EXOs, but she had a place to start. She sent a signal to Peggy to meet her in Engineering, then headed down a deck herself. A part of her was curious to see how this would go. She'd worked with a lot of bots and artificial intelligence, but she had a feeling this group was much more advanced than any she'd known before. Perhaps she should have asked all of them to meet her in the conference room.

The comms administrator program prioritized messages from the central administration over any other. This mirrored Peggy's actual feelings on the matter as the four of them argued over the best way to sort a library with far too many variables for effective sorting. Things had gotten rather heated so Nessy was not talking to Banshee, forcing Peggy to relay signals. That is until the [MIARAUMEREL] comm pinged into Peggy's antennae.

<{[PEGGY]*[ALL](“Cut it out.”)(Communique:[ADMIN]=[PEGGY]@Bridge/[MIARAUMEREL] 1300)}>

The bots stopped bickering, wondering what this was about. Peggy provided the usual cues for passive readiness, this ship had only been a favorable outcome at every turn. Peggy left right away to meet.

"Peggy, welcome," Merel said as the bot came through the door fast. Her reflexes were good, and she stopped a couple of feet in front of the XO. "I have something I want to run by you, but I don't know how you and the other three EXOs interact. If you'd prefer, all of you can meet me in the conference room to discuss my idea ... well, Jason's and mine. I'm perfectly fine with that."

Peggy understood most of the intent behind the message, but corrected the administrative unit with:

<{[PEGGY]=(Quantum/BYte.If;(EXO/QUADRILATERAL.DISTRIBUTION-[NESSY]*[BANSHEE]*[ZOMBIE])]>

In essence, Peggy's quantum core had interfaces to the other bots, they updated each other via a subspace matrix with uncertainty principles as a mechanic. In short, these bots were always together in their linkups. This didn't stop them from scrambling and racing to the room unannounced, but the race was suddenly on, their race took over the normal calm of the ship as Banshee screamed through access tubes, Nessy teleported itself, and Zombie removed an annoying bulkhead in its way, only barely having time to replace it as it left. Banshee arrived just after Nessy, who was declared a cheater. Nessy felt there were no rules announced and Zombie was just happy to play. Peggy sent a ping to them, reminding them to behave in front of the Admin unit.

"Well, that was unexpected," Mia laughed. "Is there enough room here for everyone? I want you all to be comfortable, but I frankly don't know enough to know what that means in non-human terms. I'm depending on you to guide me ... or order me about, if needed, until I get the hang of partnering with Exo-Comps."

The four of them took up a bit of space, and while they didn't mind was suddenly distributed to all of them by Peggy. They didn't need social programming usually, but it was time they started learning. The bots made use of space away from each other to keep from causing disruptions to the bio-units.

Peggy was closest to understanding biological speech, but needed the interface methods for true communication. Peggy relayed its comms to the local station UT.

"GREETINGS UNIT-MIARAU MEREL. UNIT-PEGGY-SECONDARY ADMINISTRATOR OVERSEEING THREE COLLEAGUE. SUBSIDIARY TO UNIT- MIARAU MEREL AND ADJUNCT ADMINISTRATOR TO UNIT-CAPTAIN HARRINGTON-."

Nessy chirped, and the dials on Peggy and Nessy toggled on their own. A much more pleasant tone came from the machine as Nessy updated Peggy.

“Exo-Comps are designation for EXO-QUAD? If/when acknowledge crew status, singular entity? UNIT-PEGGY designates for Exo-comps as four instances of specialized operations.”

"Okaaay, what I think you are telling me is that you see me as speaking for Captain Harrington here and Peggy is going to speak for you, the Exo-Quad, or Exo-Comps, but ... you're four separate crew with individual ... jobs? opinions? Did I get that right?" Mia asked.

"And yes, we are considering you crew, at this time, if that's what you choose to be. Crew is different from us owning you. We are willing to grant you sentient status and pay you as crew, with a buy-back from you over a contracted time for the expense we've put out to acquire you and any repairs. There are certain responsibilities that gives you toward us, as well. As it happens, Captain Harrington has given me leave to work out the details with you ... but only if that's what you prefer. In other words, your status aboard this ship is your choice."

Peggy translated for the rest, the beeps and whistles exchanged almost harmonizing until Zombie made a flat unhappy noise. Banshee responded to Zombie with a small static shock. Zombie stopped communicating and settled to the ground.

Peggy's voice came from Nessy's speaker this time, it was the human analogue voice Nessy created when they were first bought from Jaren.

"This is correct. Sentient status corollary for legal obligations? Unit-Merel, four instances of specialized operation represent total workforce sum greater than single individual bio-unit. Desire independent locations choosing, desire adequate return to investment provided. Buyback acceptable. Is work level insufficient given new parameters?"

Zombie felt they did more work than a single crew member and should be regarded as four crew, but then Nessy argued their individual ability was less than that of the same comparison. Banshee had simply told Zombie to stop complaining as Peggy was negotiating their deal. Peggy accepted the terms, and only mentioned Zombie's feelings out of a sense of needing to speak for the bot who couldn't express itself. This did restore Zombie's optimistic nature, hearing its thoughts expressed, something very much proving it was alive, little did it realize.

More to come ....

 

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