The Rift Frequency

“What, like God? You believe in God?” I ask in surprise.

“No. But perhaps it is something else. Some buried code left behind by our creators. Some sort of human ghost in the machine, if you will. The humans that designed the first of us did so with the noblest of intentions. We in turn honor that genius and foresight by creating a society that seeks peaceful enlightenment in all areas. That is our goal, our reason for existence. Like any other child we want to make our parents proud. We want to solve the answers to the great questions that they could not.”

“Wow, that is super interesting. And very philosophical, but we’re actually in kind of a hurry.” I know it’s rude, but if I were to engage with Cosmos, I’d only be doing so to point out how wrong I think she is. That a lot of kids don’t give two shits about what their parents think of them, and even worse, a lot of parents can be oddly competitive with their kids and never want their children’s accomplishments to surpass their own. It’s time to try to get what we need and get out. If Levi wants to strike some kind of a deal, then okay, I’m willing to try, but I’m not going to argue the underpinnings of human motivation with a robot right now. “You see there’s a lot of stuff going on back on our Earth,” I continue, “very dangerous stuff, and we need to find that guy I asked about earlier because he could have some answers that we really need to potentially fix it. You’ve made some pretty amazing advancements here and I think it could be a big help to us. So is there any way you would be willing to share some of your technology? Even some of those bandages would be really great.”

“Very eloquent, Ryn,” Levi mumbles.

I don’t even bother to respond to that, continuing to stare at the SenMach sitting across from me.