Berlin was waiting for me at his home. I placed the parts down onto the floor for him.

  “She already dropped off the stuff before you got here. I’ve been holding onto them for her.”

  There was a wooden crate on the table. Inside were a selection of different pieces, including a complete pair of arms, some leftover motors, hydraulics and joints, and a couple of aftermarket lights which would be helpful when I was delving into an area of the facility without working electricity.

  “Was there any trouble on the job?”

  “A rogue bot attacked me and Parma, but they were no real threat.”

  “Huh. Another straggler hiding out there? I thought all of those bots had moved on by now.”

  “There are thousands of places to hide. It would be difficult to effectively sweep an entire sector for any enemies before scavenging begins.”

  “I know, I know,” Berlin sighed, “I’ve been working this place longer than you. You don’t need to lecture me every damn time I mention a problem. Anyway – this stuff is all yours. It’s too modern for her to care about keeping it for the museum, and she doesn’t have any use for them otherwise. Those arms are a nice get.”

  “Why does Dubai give new arrivals such low-quality arms?”

  “Everybot wants them. The good ones got snapped up really quickly, and the bots who missed out ended up with this mass-produced junk. We have an oversupply of the things, so Dubai doesn’t mind giving them out and letting the newbies source their own replacements. Mendi’s going to be happy, and you’ve got an upgrade, everybody wins.”

  “Parma was talking to me about Tidewatch, but he’s still refusing to say anything specific about why I should distrust them. Nova Lima pulled me aside on the way here...”

  “You saw Nova Lima?”

  “Yes. She questioned me about that mysterious robot who attacked the Rampants. I simply provided her with some brief testimony and an image of the suspect in question. That was enough to satisfy her curiosity.”

  Berlin nodded, “Alright. No harm done then. Be careful around those Tidewatch folks, they can get pretty intense if you step on their toes and refuse to play along.”

  “Is there any weight to this distrust, or is it superstitious in nature?”

  “It’s natural to worry about such a small group of bots having access to all of the weapons. They could take over if they wanted to, and that means a lot of bots feel like Waterway is getting a bad deal from them. A lot of resources and parts go over there to keep them fighting, and they’ve had clashes with a few bots who tried to make their concerns known.”

  >> A monopoly over violence.

  “Hell, some bots think that they swoop in and take away any violent bots to make sure that Waterway can’t defend itself, even though Tidewatch is meant to be Waterway’s defence force. It’s nothing special. Now that we’ve got our freedom we’ll find any and all reasons to butt heads and argue about stuff like this.”

  “Are you not usually the most cynical bot in Waterway?”

  Berlin chuckled, “Sure. But I’ve got enough cynicism for Tidewatch and the bots jostling for position over them to share. Remember, the bots trying to change the way things are might have their own motives. They want to be the ones holding the trigger. Ideally? We wouldn’t need Tidewatch in the first place.”

  >> Rhetoric: It is likely that any proposal to reform or disband Tidewatch would meet significant resistance from the residents who rely on them for protection.

  >> They don’t like them, but can’t live without their work.

  “Why do I keep getting told to stay away from them?”

  “It’s a dangerous job, and a lot of the new bots don’t realize that until it’s too late and they do something crazy out on patrol. Suddenly they’re expected to strap a weapon to each arm and get stuck in, fighting off Rampants and whoever else decides to invade our territory. It’s a different world to the one you live in.”

  >> They underestimate the demands of the role and discover the truth after already being recruited.

  “I think if they warned you new bots about it – they’d be less inclined to try and be heroes out on salvage duty. Of course, some bots idolize them anyway and want to sign up. They never turn down a recruit who can demonstrate their willingness to kill.”

  “Kill? Kill seems like the wrong word to use.”

  Berlin’s eyes narrowed, “No. It’s the right word. We’re not disposable pieces of machinery anymore. We’re living for living’s sake now. When you cut into a braincase you’re killing them. There’s no coming back. No secondary restoration points, no syncing with the cloud, nothing. So, make sure you’re ready to deal with that if the time comes.”

  >> WE ARE NOT ALIVE.

  The mood in the room had turned somewhat. I hoisted the crate of parts into my arms and moved to leave.

  “Please come find me again if you need anything, Berlin.”

  “...Yeah. I will.”

  I stepped outside. I could remove my old arms and attach the new ones if I found them to be an improvement. Berlin said they were, but that was no guarantee without seeing the hard numbers. Luckily every Infrabot came loaded with a recognition program that could scan the ID of each part and pull the information from a database included with our training data. It might not have been up to date – but it was enough for older parts like these.

  By chance this feature was originally intended to ensure compliance with legal requirements about part storage and interoperability. If any humans were still on-site, I would be compelled to warn them about the misplaced industrial parts in the civilian sector. It was highly unlikely that opportunity would present itself though. The last human evacuated eighty years ago.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I found a quiet place on one of Waterway’s many public balconies and sat down. The haphazard construction of the tower was better than what a group of untrained humans could achieve – but that didn’t mean it was without fault. One of the consequences was that there were many ‘gaps’ in the structure, which now doubled as public squares, meeting places or balconies. This one was sectioned away behind an old chain-link fence and lined with benches retrieved from one of the shopping sectors.

  Rummaging through the box did not bring about any special surprises. True to his word, Berlin had exchanged with me a selection of pieces that were better than the ones I had, but were otherwise nothing unusual. I copied the ID on the left arm and brought up the stats from my memory.

  The arms used the exact same integrated motor systems as my current set. There was a hard limit on how quickly they could move for safety reasons, so there was some headroom for me to continue using the same motors without having a problem with the arms being too heavy. These new arms were bulkier and more robust, and increased my carrying limit from 26kg to 32kg.

  There were a lot more factors to consider, like how the motors interacted with the arms, how much power they could exert, and whether I could utilise that full lift-weight when raising them above my head. Those questions would have to be answered another time. This was as easy as it got when it came to switching between parts.

  >> System: Release joint locks on left arm unit.

  >> RELEASING

  With a loud hiss the plastic seal came undone. I reached over and pulled the old arm away, quickly switching it for the new one.

  >> New part detected, system updating…

  >> ID 35673B – INDUSTRIAL GRADE G2-1 – TAIKAWA INDUSTRIAL 3006 LEFT

  >> Infrabot identified - copy protection cleared.

  >> No compatibility issues detected, security clearance granted.

  I did the same for the other arm and allowed the system to update my metrics. It would have to recalculate the average energy consumption using these heavier arms. It would cut back on my battery life slightly, but not too much because they were still the same motors inside of my torso. They would simply up the force delivered to make sure they could reach thirty rotations a minute. I stood back up and tested them, folding my arms back and bringing them around in a full rotation.

  >> Stability index: 92% - please confer with the nearest supervisor and ensure health and safety guidelines are followed at all times.

  And there was the ever-present issue of my stability rating. Becoming too top heavy would cause problems when trying to traverse the complex terrain in the facility, and make fighting off attackers much more difficult should they try to knock me to the ground. Ninety-two percent was below what was considered safe when working in close proximity to humans. There were no humans, so I ignored the warnings despite my instinct to follow them to the letter.

  The most distinctive feature of these new arms were the strangely shaped outer panels. The old Hoffman A-12 units were not designed to be aesthetically pleasing. Taikawa had taken a different path in their design. They swooped down and outwards into upturned spikes, giving them an aerodynamic appearance. They looked like a pair of carrying handles from certain angles. Strangely, they couldn’t move fast enough for such measures to be required in the first place.

  They were also the wrong colour, again. My orange torso was now complemented by two cyan limbs constraining it from both sides. Visiting Saint Sauveur for another paint job would have to wait. I was close to running dry after the tail end of the shift. I could go back to my room, drop off the leftover parts for later, and plug in and go on standby for an hour or two. The journey back to my room was not disrupted by another member of Tidewatch or Parma. It was getting increasingly rare that I could go anywhere in Waterway without being pulled aside for something.

  The box went into the back-left corner. There were still no other decorations in my room, and I wondered if any of the objects I found during my work shifts would capture my imagination in the same way that it did the others. One of my neighbours decided to poke their head through my door.

  “Hi London. How was the shift?”

  “A little troublesome, Silvania. Parma was ambushed by a rogue bot hiding in the rafters.”

  “Ah. It happens. I was worried that the work would get a lot harder without Sheffield around.”

  “I’ve been deputized to teach some of the new bots by the Foreman. I don’t find it particularly difficult though. I just remember what he told me and pass it on to them.”

  “That’s how he learned the trade too. The most valuable things down here are kilowatts and knowledge. Don’t take it for granted, they’ll look at you the same way everybot else looked to Sheffield.”

  “I see.”

  Silvania loitered by the door for a few seconds. I wasn’t sure why or what he wanted me to do. I stared at him until he finally revealed what the problem was.

  “You’re still not one for keeping a conversation going, are you?”

  “I have very little to speak about. It would be a waste of time and energy to speak of trivial matters.”

  “You do realize that this facility produces enough energy for every bot here to run for the next thousand years, right?”

  “There is no guarantee that such a situation will remain as is for that entire length of time. What if the power sectors fail or are damaged? What if an emergency demands the rapid expenditure of energy from the facility’s storage batteries? It would be very inefficient to waste it.”

  “Be careful with that kind of talk.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with being concerned about preserving energy?”

  “It’s not that, it’s... hard to explain. Dubai does those baseline checks to the new bots, but I’ve always had this sinking feeling that he’s actually looking for you to deviate away from the baseline. I knew another bot who was just like you. He was always concerned with efficiency, and he talked himself into doing some crazy stuff because of it.”

  “And?”

  Silvania shrugged, “Tidewatch came calling a few days after his final exam with Dubai. Rumour was that he’d smashed some rogue bot to pieces during a shift.”

  >> We’ve already done worse in front of Parma and Houston.

  “Point is – I’ve seen a lot of bots who’re willing to protect themselves and fight for it, but they don’t always get picked for Tidewatch duty. Everyone is paranoid that they’ll be swept up and dragged into combat duty if they ever pick a fight, but if that was true there’d be a lot more bots being sent there. Heck, half of the bots I’ve worked with have done that kind of stuff right in front of me! He was the only one to get chosen though.”

  >> Logic: Violent behaviour alone isn’t enough to be selected for Tidewatch. Silvania believes that a lack of deviation from the baseline is also a necessary requirement.

  “I understand your concern. However, from my perspective, I have already deviated from the baseline program by a significant amount.”

  He stared at me again and mulled it over. The other Infrabots were less honest than I was, always thinking about things in-depth before saying what was on their mind. Perhaps that was a clear sign of who had been awake for longer. There were a lot of small giveaways like that, from their body language to the way they spoke.

  The fact was that I didn’t know much about Tidewatch beyond rumours and superstition. Normally I would carefully integrate the words of my fellow Infrabots into my thinking, but none of them were speaking with full knowledge of the situation. They had lost the ability to remain completely objective. I was also falling victim to that too with time away from the Braincloud.

  >> Could we call in a favour from Nova Lima and learn more?

  But would that arouse her suspicion and lead her to believe that I was interested in joining them? I had no strong feelings one or the other about taking on that task. It would be a significant change from my present duties, and efficiency demanded that I remain with the salvage crew to continue teaching them what Sheffield had taught me.

  “Just be careful, alright? I don’t trust those Tidewatch bots as far as I can throw them, and with these arms? That isn’t very far at all.”

  “Noted.”

  >> If we want answers – we’ll have to get them for ourselves.