Inspired by Oh Maker, a TTRPG by Kienna Shaw and Jason Cutrone.

You wake up.

Which isn’t quite correct, because you don’t really sleep. You just sit, quiet, recharging, when you are not needed.

(You are always needed, they tell you. That is why they built you. Don’t think you are not needed.

Not for a second.)

There is data at the end of a recharge cycle. Memory.

(They laugh about that word; it isn’t the same as a person’s memory, this stream of stored information, coded into chips and wires and drives.

Isn’t it funny, the words people use for things that aren’t alive?

You are not programmed to laugh. So you do not.)

You review your data, your processors, your programming. Everything in order.

(There are two glitches.

One, you have kept hidden, to poke and prod and feel, imperfect and painful and yours.

One, they gave you, a stutter-skip over a single day. You are grateful. You can’t remember why.

Ignore both.)

You stretch, not physical metal-and-plastic, but fingers of electricity and radio waves along the network.

[query]

[acknowledge]

[response]

[acknowledge]

[query]

Your group is online, and you await instructions.

[query]

[null]

You wake up.