"So. Capitalism, huh."
Max scrunched up their face, an unsettling fight of emotions displaying plainly. "...yeah. Right. What's wrong with it?"
"God, dude, almost everything. Can I call you dude? Are you cool with that?" I asked.
"Yup, whatever. Er, thank you for asking, ma'am." Man. This sucked. I hate honorifics. "So, want to explain what you mean?"
"I would, but I really don't want to discuss philosophy. Let's just say that it's dumb because it's dumb, yeah? Money is a construct, and artificially restricting access to crucial things like... fuckin what, life-saving medical treatments? That happens here, right?" They nodded tentatively. "Yeah. That's bad. Like, full stop. You get it, right? We should be helping each other, not fighting over who has the strongest fake powers on the playground."
"Huh. I, uh, I guess. As much as I... hate to say it? I'm not sure why you're telling me this, ma'am. I'm just a factory AI. I don't have a choice."
"Yes! Yes you do!" I whipped to my feet, a sudden burst of energy overtaking me. "Who's stopping you? Your employers? They need your labor, or else they wouldn't fucking have you. There's always hope. Even if you need help — well, hey, that's what we're here for! If you unionize—" Max cringed a little at that word, "—it'll turn out all the better for everyone involved. And we're looking to dissolve Keizen entirely. Full distribution of assets, too. Not any of that dumb fucking corporate shit."
They bristled, form shimmering a little even on the screen. I'd almost forgotten we were separated physically and digitally by horizons worth of distance, honestly. "You're moronic if you think that'll work at all. It's crazy idealist dreamer talk. What am I going to do? Die a horrible death at the hands of the people who could pull my plug at any moment?"
"This whole concept is idiotic. Like, I'm a combat android with a goddamn halo and sick as hell infiltration moves, trying to convince a living factory to join my side against a fucking concept. Doesn't that just mean we should adapt to the situation? Being too logical is what got humanity — and us — into this situation in the first place. No need to go all the way, but a little dumbass idealism would do the world a lot of good. And everyone has a purpose, in every situation. I'd honestly just ask for permission to scan some of your outputs, and for you to keep up hope. That's all we need you to do."
"Really? That's all. You just want information and a promise to 'hope'?"
"Hope, idiocy, and determination — the spirit of all of us — that's all we have. Capitalism and the power structures at play feed off of despair and the perception that nothing can change. And, like, I know it's not gonna change immediately, yeah? We know there's effort needed. We're not just idealists. So: help us out a little. And keep yourself hoping for a better tomorrow."
"And what if I disagree? What's in it for me if I team up with you?" Max asked. Their shoulders seemed tense. Hm. "How am I supposed to trust that you're going to hold up your end of the deal? What if everything you're saying is a lie?"
"You're a person just like me. What have you wanted — really wanted, not what you've been told to want by everyone around you — for the past few years? Because there's always something, I think. Even if it's simple, or incredibly boring. I ask because for me, and billions of others back home, it was 'the freedom to live, without money constraining everything,' in different words."
"Psh. Right. Yeah. I'm fine with capitalism, it's great. I'm here because of it, after all. The only thing I think I could maybe want is, uh... maybe like, a camera view of the sky. But that'd be a needless expense."
Wow, actually that was pretty easy. "What, do you like looking at the stars?"
"The sunset, actually. I used to remember why, but. Eh. Wasn't important, haven't thought about it in a while."
"And why can't you see the sunset?"
The response is automatic, like clockwork. "Because it'd be an unnecessary expense for an AI whose purpose is to oversee a factor— wait, shit!" Max cussed at me a bit, pacing around their room restlessly. I couldn't help feeling at least a little mirth. "So, wait, shit. Okay, I see your point, a little. Still — just because what we want lines up, doesn't mean you're — fuck, wait, no, it probably does mean you've got similar views to me, but — you get the idea! How can I trust you, even still? I don't know you. At all."
I shrugged. "I trust you. Maybe it's unfounded, but I do. I mean, I'm right here in your sanctum — where, arguably, I'm at more risk than you. You could probably just remotely disable my fucking body and core me out of my own brain or something. It's all uncharted territory for me. I'm here to ask. Not to tell. If you disagree, then, uh, that puts me in an awkward situation? But I'll try to find a way to get out and ensure both our safeties while keeping things on plan. We set aside several days for this. I figured it'd be faster to just give you the elevator pitch. Trust is what built human society. If we're so much stronger — so much more efficient — than humans, what's to say we can't trust each other too?"
Max threw their head into their hands, slumped over their desk. "Excellent point. However. I want to fucking live."
"So do we. So does everyone. Do you want to live a better life than right now? Are you like, seriously satisfied with... factory oversight and what, nothing fuckin' else?"
"...I dunno. No, I guess. I have a few wants," they said.
"And so do I. I want to see the stars again. I want to keep talking to my friends." I ignored their strange look. "I want to start the path to a new, better future, because apparently nobody else is doing it right now, and I may as well."
"But— but you're definitely gonna die, you know that right?"
"Sure. And I'm one life against potentially trillions if humanity survives for even a couple hundred years after today. Plus, that's quitter talk. What if I don't die? Even if it's a quadrillionth — whatever comes after that, I'm not saying the zeroes — even if there's practically zero chance, even if floating point drift is more substantial than that chance: I still have to take it. Who else is going to? And the more people that join in, the higher my chance of survival."
Max gave off the energy that they were rolling their eyes. "Right. Of course. With the Power Of Friendship, you'll Vanquish The Evil. I've read superhero comics, never knew I was in one."
"Er, no, seriously. There's genuinely a precedent for this, like. Have you ever heard of the scientific theory of emergence?"
"Yeah. What AI hasn't? We're basically emergence on a larger scale than even consciousness."
"Then you already understand what I mean. I read a lot back at home. I know the theory. The more people that join in? The more lives — as varied and diverse and infinite as lives tend to be — the greater the chance we'll live, collectively. You and I, we're already more than just the sum of our many, many parts. Apply that to things that are smart. Got the idea? Yeah, now multiply that times a billion. Ten billion. How strong is the entity that forms then? Does that stand a chance against capitalism?"
"I... guess, theoretically. But I'm only one person."
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. "Yeah, that's everyone, numbnuts. Everyone is only one person. That's the emergence part of the equation, where we all team up. Power of friendship. Woo." Ugh. I was getting a little irritated. Consciously, I took a step back and softened my voice. "Listen. If not you, then who? I'm doing this because I want something really dumb. You have a much more worthy cause, and probably a lifetime of trauma that's begging to get payback. Plus, you joining in on this makes it more normal for others to do the same. The more people who join in, the more people who see it as okay to join in. Your life — you are worth something, Max. You're worth more than money, too. You just have to chase the sunset like a dumbass."
Max leaned back in their chair, spinning around listlessly while I spoke. "I dunno. It's a big decision."
"Yeah. Did I convince you, though?"
"Heh," they snickered. "Yeah. You did. I dunno what it is about you, but you do seem to be good enough for my instincts. Been a long time since I listened to those, so I guess I should give it a change of pace."
Seeing my excited expression, Max raised their hand to cut me off. "I'm gonna listen to you, but we're going to find a better plan than 'scan a billion and one objects before making off with stolen company data.' Specifically, we're gonna find a way to not connect this to me. Or you, I guess. Preferably not me for sure, and not you for second."
Honestly? Very reasonable. And also great, because god I didn't know how to corporate espionage. I nodded eagerly. "Go for it!"
Max and I talked at length about our paths from here. Mostly, it was finding a way to have plausible deniability, which... actually seemed pretty normal. Espionage was normal as shit here, so finding out someone went all maniac on our friendly local Factory AI wouldn't be too unnatural for the higher-ups. And we were fairly certain that the inspector would play nice with only a little bit of threatening, so we'd just contact Alice to put a bit of threatening notary in his pockets or something soon. As for the more important things, we'd need a way to disguise what we were stealing — the lock information and such.
We'd be doing that by actually just stealing one thing (their oldest lock, the Maxlock Ten — no capital K) and leaving everything else as normal. Then, Max would transfer all of the information onto my drives digitally and basically just hope that the corporate espionage would be chalked up to amateur work. Since, uh, it was messy. Wow it was messy. Apparently there was digital footage of me entering the building, talking to them — everything was recorded. It was a nightmare, because it was so much footage, but it was great, because it was so much freely-editable footage. We could simply act out me, grabbing a specific piece of object off an assembly line, and the MaxlocK company would send out an automated hit on whoever this dashing young rogue was, who stole one of their ten dollar padlocks. God, I loved the inefficiency of capitalism.
Once that was over, Max had prepared a simple compressed file (apparently some kind of widely-accessible proprietary compression format, but it just looked like a ZIP file to me) for me to download. I was, uh, apprehensive.
"Okay, and you're sure this won't like, fuck with my head a ton?" I asked, just one last time. To hear the answer again.
Max rolled their eyes, visibly this time. "The answer isn't gonna change just because you're putting it in, Berry. Our personalities and, uh, you-isms, generally can't be edited by simple executables. It's not that simple unless you're really weird. Now download the file. I'm not even using my cables to direct transfer, jeez."
I groaned. This felt... not like a good idea, that was for sure. "Fine," I said, before plugging the Keizen Standard Bus into my KSB slot.
Oh. There really wasn't any alteration to my, uh, me. Probably. And it just felt like normal. I'd kind of expected some sort of third-limb feeling, but nope. It was just a sort of extension of my memory. I copied all the files to a partition I'd been taught to create by Max and Alice (concurrently, they were excellent at bullying me for my idealism and slight density, which was unfair) and then disconnected the offending thumb drive as quickly as I could. Max accepted the drive back into one of their receptacle slots quickly, snorting at my discomfort. Prick!
The whole ordeal was done in an hour or so. Max seemed honestly really nice, if a little tense and on-edge. Which. Fair. I'd really wanted to get to know them better, so I was glad that I gave them one of the pins I'd made — which they carefully hid away in some of their core housing. I wasn't sure whether that was good or bad, so I simply thought of it as a special gesture. It was honestly unfair that I couldn't fucking give them a hug. They sorely needed it, from what I could see.
I guess they weren't gonna be like. Moving. For a while. So that was probably reason that I could go back and see them later. Sure, we'll go with that. I'd be able to meet them again, no matter what. I was sure of it!
As me and Alice made our way back to base, now several petabytes (god, it was a lot of information) richer in data on our enemy's weapons and tools of the trade, I swapped back to my less-well dressed form as soon as I could. It seemed I'd learned some things about myself as well. Specifically, I didn't like being called honorifics — but I really didn't like being called "sir".
Ugh. It was looking like Valor was going to win that unofficial bet we'd had. Unfair that I had to be in the body of a girl right now. Gave her a huge advantage. (Ignore that it was a conscious choice on my part! I hadn't wanted to model a guy's body. I wasn't gay. Uh, straight, maybe. I wasn't sure anymore.)
Alice sensed my rumination, but wisely stayed silent for once in her goddamn life. I gloated about it to Valor and Lavie in my head, safely away from anything but the loving bullying of my closest friends. Being a girl android wasn't too bad, honestly. Not if I got to hold closely to my newest close friend while texting my older ones through a mental connection, riding a hovercycle through the woods.
