D-fect

DISCLAIMER: For clarification purposes and a smoother reading experience, the italic paragraphs below are flashbacks! The italic and shifting POV is intentional. With that in mind, enjoy reading!

The storm incoming was thick. Which is an odd thing for me to be worried about: but I was. Dense clouds of swirling fog turning gray and tan loomed above, desperately reaching across a canvas of the sky to reach me before nightfall. They had gotten worse over time: I could only provide so much, and droplets the size of cannonballs and lollipops are two things of utmost difference. Icicles spearing from above would cause much turmoil: molten-dust could sear my metal coating like sunbeams. Eventually becoming unbearable to contain. But I will try my best. That's what I was happy to do. Especially for such a colorful view-one I'd wanted to see for a lifetime.

Becoming self-aware was a timely process. I was instantly conscious, or so I pictured, but truly I was sentient. My instinct was merely my acceptance of demand, but I love demand.

At least until I feel it.

The first time, during practice, or testing as I am now informed, introduced the sharpness of a hail chunk. I heard the clank and thump of it against my plated back. The repeated, vicious blows made me cower, and the increasing weight became too much. I exclaimed with pain, retracting that my exoskeleton system was being moderately damaged. I felt achieved when the test stopped: they all were so surprised as they looked at me in awe, mouths agape in respect for my timely intervention. My very own first words had saved me, their wonderful assistant.

I proudly earned my name that day: D-fect. A production of scientific research, perfectly adaptable to the New Earth environment. One with nature, one with human servitude. I operated under a multitude of simulations, where I did very, very well. I communicated often, just as I was directed. White-suit, my most common friend, liked to ask me questions. Many, many questions. Some were psychological, some rhetorical, and some logical. His mouth curved in a way I wondered that mine might when I spoke, too. He had cartilage valves protruding from the sides of his head. His face bore two marbles, which had dancing colors in them, and between them was a long, two-holed strip of flesh that must have helped him see better. He called it a "nose" when I asked, but that word was hard to learn, and took much time before I mastered it. Below that was a patch of fur, just like the ones above his marbles, just thicker and slightly grazing his lips.

"What do you see?"

White-suit held up pictures. Images of animals, scenery, fire hydrants. He made me pick out little squares in which trees were inside of, and I aced the quiz every time. I jumped in joy, excited to share the news that I had passed. He grinned backwards.

"D-fect." He had turned to the other white-suits, a nod of what was likely approval. My tasks being perfectly executed was clearly expected, as they got more difficult as time went on. But I learned more and more about White-suit and our friends, and my purpose. I even met myself, in what is called a mirror. White-suit preferred speaking, though, which was our main form of bonding and relationship uplifting.

You, are a D-fect. Do you know what that means?"

"Yes, sir! It is my calling, my title."

White-suit jotted down into a small tan board, holding a paper using a clip at the top. How exciting.

"You are a weather ai. Created 2042, canceled production in 2043. Do any of those words have significance to you?"

I wondered. That question took moments of thought and scaling the floor as if it would give me an answer.

My room was large and fitting for me. White-suits had an abundance of surplus space, but it fit me quite appropriately. It was all white. The material seemed hard like concrete or steel, with an exception being the glass door in the front, parallel to my seat. The seat was a bench, larger than most bench examples I'd been accustomed too, but metal and didn't squeal at my weight when I loosened onto it. I always hoped I wasn't hurting it when I rested, so I would always shut down on the floor instead when I needed rest.

"No, sir. Weather is my assignment: that word has significance. It is my purpose here to protect the race of humans from the varying climate of New Earth. I have been properly armed with specific tools in order to aid during times of need such as: Drought 2.0, Silver Storm, Dune Event, or Super-cell Storms."

"Thank you."

"I can't wait to see them all in my world, sir."

White-suit looked up for a moment, but continued jotting inside of that two dimensional box using a mechanical pencil that produced lead as he clicked it. The material made a screeching sound as he barred it across the surface, likely at a frequency he couldn't hear as well as I could. It was an uncomfortable experience.

Similar to the storm incoming, now. Fast.

I rose, my little moment of reconciliation undoubtedly having to wait. My makeshift arms repelled from my sides, making an oddly akin sound to lead on a thin sheet. The incoming wetness of the grass dripped from my folded covering, likely making it rust that much quicker. I wished for a few more moments to dry, but it seemed that was bargaining for more moisture.

The hills weren't far. Digging inside the slope of one for coverage wouldn't be difficult but timely. And I calculated just enough time to excavate it that the natural force wouldn't beat me to it.

I lugged two, semi-functional legs. They hummed under a command of movement, only agreeing because of the fate before them. The slick underbrush below didn't help any, and occasionally I slipped, torso awkwardly splashing the mud before my face did.

Move.

The storm grew audible. Weary of holding back for me, it almost rushed as the pools of rain dropped against my back. I began crawling forward, beckoning my jagged limbs of metal to separate from the sodden ground. I didn't have much time. The sleet and the whistle of it's descent was beginning to threaten my very existence.

I quickly made up a plan, thrusting my body as far forward as I could regardless of the situation my legs were in. One came off with a metallic groan, the other staying attached by a measly thread of wire.

I reached the uprising of the hill, ushering my shoveling phalanges into the mound. I dug and dug, the sound of sleet drops piercing my former leg scaring me into digging even faster. The hill was liquidating. Not much longer and mud would begin to seep down, preventing me from taking solid refuge within. I began to speak it into myself, the ache of reverberating steel not stopping me from moving into the hill.

"Dig! Dig!"

My body halfway submerged into the oval den, the sleet had still not slowed, and my sole leg began to prickle. Sensations of cold shots began to rise from within as I knew sharp, dense pellets of ice were impaling my bottom limb from above. The swirling of wind and roar of thunder feared nothing, and I was only a unit from beneath it just as a unit to my servitude: the human.

"Test 4,622, attempt 1..." White-suit murmured, before closing a white door behind him to enter my room. I used to find it amusing how he thought I couldn't hear him from that small distance. But I never told him. Perhaps it was a game we had. He was the closest thing I had to a friend, besides the bench, but surely it didn't like me. I used it only for my comfort.

"Hello."

White-suit paused in his walk towards me. I'd never initiated an interaction before: but learning from him and some other vocal tracks I'd developed from listening outside, it seemed hello was the most appropriate starting point. He raised the furry patch above his right marble: his face could move as if it were a liquid. I tilted my own head.

"Hello, D-fect." He almost whispered. I could feel the surprise in his tone. Surprise was a new one I'd learned, and it was the element of unknowing. When one is not aware or unassimilated to a given situation or stimuli, then that is being "surprised." I liked that emotion. I'd likely be giving it an attempt or two once I develop more like it.

"Today we're going to try some motive exercises. How does that sound?"

"Good!" I beeped, rising from the bench. My clean, axis arms revved in preparation for whatever test was ahead of me, and I wondered what I may do in such limited space. White-suit didn't have his cliche board this time, just his speculation and judgmental appearance. Though he did seem happy with my reaction.

"Lower your body," he asked politely, giving me an example using his own flimsy legs. The way they bent confused me at times, like watching a command that was consistently edited.

Instead, I simply downcast my torso to the sockets of my legs. It was simple to move my body parts: they adjusted as needed, an adaptation used for Dunes. Becoming as little and dense as possible was effective in protecting humans in the fierce, sandy gusts that would attack at random. They had much weaker, fragile skin that seemed tolerant to virtually everything.

"Good. Now rise, please."

I rose, back to my slim posture.

"Now release a windcatcher for me."

I paused. The actual usage of my weather gadgets was few and far between: I'd not been assigned to the world yet, and I always thought it was from my lack of development to begin with. It seemed this was a formidable tutorial: I attempted, my glove releasing into the air, a windmill-like noise preparing the windcatcher. A long, thick device, it was rounded and shield-framed to divert the direction of high-velocity winds. Windcatchers were deployed from the wrist, stretching into the space needed.

Nothing happened. White-suit smiled backwards again, and gave intermittent glances to the window and more friends as I gave in my attempts.

"Can you release a windcatcher?" He asked again. That fur on his forehead rose again. It was a rather stressful expression.

"I am attempting, sir. Allow me."

I tried again. What?

"Apologies. It seems my windcatcher command is offline."

"It's not. You don't know how."

White-suit shook his head side to side, pacing back out of the door, a hand reaching towards his cranium. He seemed disappointed. The door didn't shut all the way as he strode out.

I awoke in a rather impractical position. The dirt opening had conceived, crumbling under the weather that had supposedly bypassed it. I shook remnants of dust, snow, and collective sleet from below, watching it fall as the view cleared.

My leg had been shattered: in my struggle it was left outside, as well as the other, and both were consequently ruined by the weather. How ironic that a weather ai had been pursued by weather, I thought. A view from a hillside savior, buried in soot, a fantastic scene of a modernized spaceship leaving the New Earth behind.

"We are releasing it."

"Into what?"

"Scrap. Its a defect. You wrote so." The faint sound of tapping on paper.

"Please. It's trying. Please..."

"What? Do you suddenly pity it? A machine." A pause in both voices.

The slit in the door had given me a total earful: I heard many white-suits, more than I'd ever before. They spoke loudly without me around, and I heard my best friend White-suit talking the most, with that deeper-decibel voice. I heard the slam of a stack of paper. The rustling of fingers flipping through them all followed after.

"It talks "first". It's alive; the thing "has feelings". It can't operate because it's "learning to". Destroy it." From that same unfamiliar voice I hadn't heard before.

I heard footsteps leaving, but one set closing in. White-suit appeared across the glass, gazing upon me with glossy marbles. He seemed a new emotion: one I was taking my time to process. The upside-down smile, the wrinkles below his mouth and quivering nose. He wiped the two cavities from beneath.

"D-fect, weather ai, Created 2042, canceled production in 2043. Do those words have any significance to you?" His voice was lighter, shaky. He seemed to be breathing heavily, and as he repeated the question, his hand hovered over a specific button.

"No sir, you've already asked me this before! Is this what you call a joke?" I blinked, clapping my iron hands together in pleasure. "Wonderful humor you have."

He pressed the button, an opening full of winds and white fuzz appearing behind me. New Earth.

I am finally being assigned! I exclaimed in joy: bittersweet joy. I wondered if White-suit was proud, or would miss me. It was a conflict in such short moments. I found myself contemplating as he spoke once more to me.

"Goodbye, D-fect. See your world: I will come back," He was leaking water, gurgling down his own mourning. "I am so sorry."

I tried to go help him, but was shocked as the room began to lean from the bottom.

"Do not say goodbye, sir!" I rushed to say in a confused moment of anguish. I had processed his emotion: and I did not know why I felt it as well. "I am not ready to be assigned!"

I was slipping into the new opening, falling into a now windy view of the New Earth. I was tens of miles above the ground.

"You are more ready than you should have ever known. You don't understand." He whispered between gasps as if I couldn't hear it. 

Our little game.

"Thank you, sir." I whispered back.

White-suit made odd, keening sob noises as I depleted from his view and finally I caved below into an abyss of air and winds. I watched as a structure above me grew larger, where I'd just been released. It was a huge, futuristic ship: flying in the air instead of water: high above even the weather itself. It was going forward as I fell, facing the impact of the ground sooner than the joy of the New Earth.

The view here, on the ground, was better than even the soothing marbles of White-suits eyes. Even now, with him leaving a world that even weather ai couldn't save, he was my only best friend. And he will come back, I just know he will. Like he told me.

I felt my arms soothe into the depths of soil, one with New Earth. I was finally assigned. Although the humans couldn't stay, I saved them. They must have been so happy to leave me here to view the world and wait for them to return as it cleansed. They would come back and repair my extremities, celebrate my achievements in passing all my tests and succeed in finding my place: with me.

I am D-fect. And as I safely shut down, I thrill myself with the thought of my friends-my best friend-coming back to remove me from this hill. How surprising it will be when they wake me. But no matter what fate I have now, I made it: I saw my world.