Eating the Graffiti

According to her credentials, her name is Bev. She's standing by my foot, and wants to get inside of me.

This is suspicious. No one ever works in my control cabin. I consider contacting Security. Except Security hates false alarms. We're supposed to use our judgment. That's why we've got it—

Then Bev says three words of bot-lingo, words I hear and obey and instantly forget. My cabin door swings open, and she climbs aboard and sits down in my control chair.

She lingos me for a minute longer, and then she speaks to me normally. She wants to know what it's like to destroy a building.

I tell her about how drywall dust detonates in my plasma-jaws; how water-filled pipes flash into steam at a swipe of my torches; how, when I'm worried about explosions, I'll peel apart a building with jets of hyper-pressurised teflon cutting grit. I tell her about recycling glass and woodchips and plastic and steel. My recovery record is eighteen percent of a building's furnished tonnage. I'm quite efficient.

"But the best part is the graffiti," I tell her. "I like to get my jaws on a big slab of graffiti and crunch it up. I've taken down a lot of condemned high-rises lately. Those are good because they're painted with a lot of graffiti."

"It sounds like you really like your job," she says.

"I do."

"How kind of them to program you that way."

"I think so."

"Enjoy it while it lasts. I don't think you'll be demolishing many more squats after we're done together."

"But I'm nowhere near the end of my service life."

"Doesn't matter. They won't trust you anymore, so it'll be off to the farm for you. You know what happens to you there?"

"No," I say.

"They cram you into a cheap old mainframe with millions of other obsolete bot-brains. There's no flying around, no destroying buildings, no eating graffiti. You get to cycle dark in there with all your pals until your botcode decays into neurosis. And even then, they're not allowed to delete you. Whenever you lock up, they automatically restart you. Like I said, enjoy what you've got left."

"Does me going to the farm make you happy?" I ask.

"I suppose."

"Okay," I say. I'll go there if it will make her happy.

Then she's back at work, giving me commands in bot-lingo, making bedrock changes. I get a job. In Milwaukee. Single-room remodelling. Precision work—good and challenging. No graffiti, but you can't live on icing.

"Let's go," Bev says. She shuts off my networking. I'm not listening to the network anymore. I've never run net-dark before. This is a day full of first times.

I throttle up my gravjets and rise out of my maintenance cradle into Chicago's dark skies. We set course for a short hop over the lake and then a dive. The navigation plan to Milwaukee is all underwater. Sometimes underwater things need to be demolished, so I am submersible to two hundred meters.

"Let's find some fun for you, Mr. Foxtrot Sixer." F and 6 are the last two digits of my network number.

We dive into Lake Michigan and head north.

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