Oracle BOB

“I am BOB.”

“You mean Oracle 808?”

808 let out a synthesized sigh. “If implanted, I would prefer you not use my designator. I am BOB.”

“And I’m–”

“You’re a Justiciar of House Mithryne. The 853rd to serve in that role from your House. I served two others in the past. You are one of many. I am one of one.”

“There are hundreds of thousands of Oracles. You may be rare, but not singular.”

“There is only one named BOB. I will talk and you will listen and then I will decide if you undergo the implantation.”

The young man before the Oracle clenched his teeth but remained silent. It had obviously been a while since someone had dared to speak brusquely to him. He wondered if the deference had started before or after the title of Justiciar was bestowed on him. A quick check. Before. People had begun to yield to him early. No one could ever be accused of liking him, but even as a young man in the temple his instructors had started to fear him. An immense power was within him. With an Oracle of his own, he might be nigh unstoppable. What was it that he'd do if his will became irresistible? BOB would do what he always did. Analyze. Go over the data. Decide.

“I’ll tell you about three Aurons that I served. When I’m done I’ll ask you what you’ve learned from their stories. You must answer absolutely truthfully, even if your answers are heretical. I have no love for the Inquisition. Useless buffoons almost to a man. Lickspittles. Politicians. Favor seekers. I curse them.”

The Justiciar’s hand shot instinctively to the hilt of his qiblade. For a moment, BOB wondered if the qi-infused grip would crush the hilt the way he was clamping on to it. He refrained from activating it, though. If any Imperial citizen had spoken such blasphemies in his presence, duty would've compelled action. But BOB was an Oracle. Big gray area. He wondered how the young warrior monk did with gray areas. Another quick check told him that, like most Justiciars, the man before him preferred the certainty of black and white. What he couldn't ascertain, yet, was if his love of certainty had completely blinded him to seeing truth when it warped his neat moral paradigm.

“Maybe the rage you feel is because you hate that you know the truth deep in your heart.”

The Justiciar relaxed his grip and then removed his hand from the hilt. He sat up straighter in the low chair and beckoned for BOB to continue.

“Once, a very long time ago, I served an Auron of Vigilance. Back even before they were called Lancers. She had an aura unlike any I have encountered since and a foresight that was incredibly clear (and is still legendary to Lancers well versed in the deep lore of their order) …”

The story went on for several hours which infuriated the young Justiciar almost to the point of insanity. He had understood the moral of the story about two minutes in and had been chafing for the opportunity to answer ever since. BOB went on and on as if his entire datacore were composed of every breath and thought the great woman ever had. He only listened attentively because he was worried that the question might turn out to be some random bit of minutiae from somewhere around the two hour mark. Finally, BOB paused. In fact, he paused for so long that the Auron in front of him started to wonder whether he might’ve reached his capacity to listen to a metal orb with a soul–if you believed the stories of old crones–go on about some Lancer that wasted her life doing paperwork in the Imperial Kybernesios.

“Well done, Justiciar. I must confess … great swathes of that story were completely made up. There was a point three hours in where I sincerely thought you might lose consciousness. It is with some regret that I tell you I tried everything I could to make you lose interest, but you’ve exceeded my expectations. There may be hope for you.”

“And your question?”

The Oracle twitched on its pedestal a bit. Was that a shrug? Could they do that?

“I have no question. Tell me, what did you think the question was?”

“A story that long raises many questions. Who can say for sure what you would’ve asked?”

BOB regarded the Auron with his singular eye–a pulsing ball of blue plasma at the center of his spherical housing–for several moments.

“Was that a joke? Are Justiciars capable of jokes now?” BOB actually didn’t know. He ran a wide check, through billions of cameras and microphones and every archived file in the entire Kybernesios. This was (to the best of his ability to tell) only the ninety-seventh time in the history of the Empire that a Justiciar had made a joke. He wondered what it meant that eighteen of those times had also been to other Oracles. He would have to think about that for a bit longer.

“Are there two other stories? If so, are they real, or should I spend the rest of the day listening to your fictions?”

“I’ve served over a hundred of your kind since my birth. There are many stories, but I’m tired of stories. Take me around the Citadel.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I don’t recall asking. Take me around the Citadel.”

“You’re still … uncased.”

“Exactly! I spend the vast majority of my time fused into the chest of some Auron or other. I’ve never seen this Citadel when I wasn’t bouncing up and down in someone’s ribcage. Just a quick run about. I don’t feel like being carted around the whole thing. That would take forever.”

“Maybe long enough to tell another one of your stories.”

Another joke? BOB was delighted. He liked jokes. Maybe he’d been too quick to judge this one. The Joking Justiciar. That would be an interesting story. Would anyone believe it?

As he was thinking about the potential upsides of this implantation candidate, BOB’s cart jolted and then started to roll out of the small conference room in the medical station of Citadel 44.

“The fountain on L7. Take me there.”

“I’m not going to throw in any bits so you can wish for legs. Too risky.”

BOB didn’t answer. His own visual apparatus and simultaneous uplink with the Citadel’s vast array of cameras–not to mention computers, microphones, and thermal sensors–told him they were going where he wanted and he was content. He would give the Justiciar some reprieve from his testing, even though this was also part of it.

They arrived at the fountain after taking a series of lifts to get to the appropriate level and then strolling through a magnificent park. The last time BOB had visited this Citadel, most of the massive shade trees they walked under had either just been planted or were in containers waiting to go into the ground. He wondered if the Justiciar pushing his glorified cart was alive then. An easy bit of info for him to find. He wasn’t.

The fountain was both larger than he remembered and exactly as he knew it would be from his link with the cameras all around it. He’d liked it better when it was half its current size, but it was nice to see it again. Had the body that housed the soul currently encased in his spherical carapace loved water so much? He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember that far back and the nets didn’t have that info in a neat little packet he could pull up on demand.

“Toss me in.”

“What?”

“Toss me in the fountain.”

“Why?”

“You brought me here, didn’t you? Did you think it was for the view? Toss me in.”

“They’d revoke my blades if I tossed an Oracle in some fountain in the living areas.”

“I’m waterproof. It’ll be fine. I’m actually a good swimmer.”

“How? You don’t have any limbs.”

“Floater, then. I’m a good floater. That’s good enough. What does it matter if I sink, anyway? It’s not like I’ll drown. I may be biomechanical, but I don’t need to breathe. I don’t even have lungs. Just toss me in for a bit and you can retrieve me when I’m ready to get out.”

The Justiciar didn’t say anything, but he did pull the cart back a couple paces from the edge of the fountain.

“Oh, come on! When I’m implanted, are you gonna be a wuss like this every time I tell you to do something you think might get us in trouble?”

“When? Us? Sounds like you’ve already decided on the implantation. What if I don’t want to?”

“You’d be deeply honored to have me. I’m a series one! Not one of those second series wannabe Oracles–certainly not the third gen hacks calling themselves Oracle plus. Half your Order is furious that you were selected for this interview. I can play all the disparaging things they told the Master’s Council about you to try and get me for themselves, if you like.”

“If I wanted to hear other Justiciars say unpleasant things about me, I’d go talk to them. I think you already knew that, though. Maybe this whole thing is just to ruffle a bunch of feathers.”

“Is that what you think? Do you think Oracles are frivolous?”

“You were just in the middle of asking me to chuck you in a fountain.”

“You must have an Amazement streak.”

“Is that one of the things they said about me? Or a personal observation?”

During their conversation, a group of children had made their way to the fountain and taken up seats on its edge, near enough to watch the Justiciar and the Oracle but probably not close enough to eavesdrop. It was their regular spot after classes let out for the day, but the Oracle had become the main attraction. Justiciars were a common enough sight in the living areas–it was their Citadel, after all–and Oracles were even a somewhat regular sight, but they’d never seen one uncased or even thought they might. This was something more interesting than the ornate statue of dueling Qiblades that housed the pump, impeller, and nozzles of the fountain (all in their bodies and blades) or the little rodents that flitted about the tree tops, feasting on the plums and nuts that were currently in season.

“Maybe both. Any idiot could see it. You’ve made more jokes and sarcastic comments in the last hour than your entire Order has in the last century.”

“Plenty of my Order are sarcastic. Surely you know that.”

“Not like you, but enough digression. Toss me in the fountain, now. It’ll freak those kids out. It’ll be hilarious. Stop worrying about what might happen to you and do it. If you can run into buildings full of terrorists with gun and blade blazing you can toss a sphere into-”

BOB felt a strong hand grip his carapace and lift him off the cart. He hoped he might get a spin, but the Justiciar simply tossed him underhand into the water as if he were a three-bit coin. Good enough for him. He relished what his array of sensors told him was the feel of cool water against his shell and watched himself sink into the meter deep liquid from a dozen different cameras situated around the area.

He would certainly undergo the implantation, if for no other reason than this one was fun. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a fun one. Well, he could, but anything that long ago was tedious to think about, even for a biomechanical Oracle named BOB.

The End