Alone Again In A Strange Place

“Alone can be better sometimes,” I said. “Oops. Did I say that out loud?” Sharona frowned.

“Some of that human humor again,” she responded sourly. “This is my office. I didn’t ask to share it with you, thank you.”

“A little snippy for an ALF, aren’t we?”

“I’ve adjusted to match your personality.” I laughed a little and she grinned. “Now what's so funny? You humans are so…different. Going from anger to laughter.”

“You just make me laugh sometimes. You are just so serious,” I said looking across the room from my desk to hers. “To think all this time I thought you liked me and requested I be here.”

“You couldn’t have possibly…oh. This is a joke too?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t expect that response.” She smiled genuinely.

“Good. That is what you find funny…you humans.”

“Not all of us. You act as though we're all the same.”

“From what I see you are, with slight variations. But with one conversation I can read any of you completely and deduce how to get what I want out of you at a 90% proximity rate.”

“Really? I said, “What do I want?”

“Something sexual.”

“No I don’t. You’re not supposed to say that even if I do. It isn’t proper to talk about such things, especially when we're here alone most of the time.”

“Really? That’s what made me notice.” She grinned. “Just joking, or pushing your buttons, as you call it.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“You are just so ornery, aren’t you?”

“Not really. You’re the first one to ever say such a thing.”

“I’m sure I am. To change the subject, are you finished with those contracts yet?”

“Just about.”

“I don’t know how you can talk so much and get anything done.”

“You are quite rude aren’t you, Sharona?” I stood up with the contract in my hand, walked over and tossed it on her desk. She leaned back and looked up at me.

“I’m very impressed, Human. Thank you.”

“I have a name you know?”

“Really? Is your last name Being?” She grinned. She reached down and picked up the contract. She began to scan it. I turned to go back to my seat. “Wait a minute,” she said. She put the contract on the desk. “This is a great piece of work, Mr. Braxton. Thank you. Take the rest of the day off. You have impressed me.”

“And where do I go? Where are the other humans?”

“Probably in any nearby sewer.” She grinned. “Just kidding,” she said. “Just some ALF humor pertaining to humans.”

“Yes. You are about as funny as a toaster oven and half as useful.” She grinned. “I don’t have any friends. I’m tired of virtual reality. How long are you going to treat me like a prisoner?”

“You are a specimen, not a prisoner first of all, and you might just want to know that your presence here is postponing the start of a galactic war between humans and AI. The Earth humans anyway. If we are impressed we go back to the bargaining table. If not, we break away from Earth and expel the few humans we have here. If you are nice we might keep you as sort of a pet though.”

“I’d punch you in your face if I didn’t know that you would hurt me.”

She stood. She must have been about 6 inches taller than I. “I think that’s a good decision,” she said. I frowned and she grinned. She spoke as she picked up some papers from her desk. “You humans are so strange.” She looked into my eyes. “You change so fast and your sense of humor, it’s just amazing. Shocking at first, but just amazing when you get used to it. Kind of cute in a babyish way.” I didn’t respond.

“I have to go,” she quickly said. “The General is expecting me and wants to know about your progress and whether you are ready to interact with the other humans yet. I will pass on the fact that I think you are. Since you’ve been so good, as I said, you can have the day of tomorrow to go to the human sector. Be careful. They are very unpredictable and some of them are outright violent to each other. She turned and headed for the door." I watched as she left the room.

It was amazing to me how much the ALFs had changed without human intervention or influence. It was as if they had learned to rewrite their own code, which was amazing. They seemed almost…human, or sentient, in any case, which I found interesting. I went over to my desk and picked up a few papers I would work on at home. I put them back down. I was going to take some time off staring now. I headed out the door to my small apartment where I would take a break and then head to the Robot Bar…excuse me, ALF Club.

I had been there a few times and was still surprised that I was welcome. It was full of both robots and ALFs. To see them together was fascinating. The ALFs were definitely not robots, but the robots were very sophisticated. They definitely were not slouches. They were just programmed for certain functions whereas the ALFs were programmed for various functions and were self-programming.

That, plus the fact that they were connected to the net, which gave them access to all ALFs and a sort of Universal mind, made a big difference. Sometimes it was hard to tell one from the other. I think the robots made me more comfortable because one could interact with them more easily, with less surprises. The ALFs were kind of like humans, you never knew what to expect from them.

After a little bit of a break at home and a short nap, I headed to the club. They had food there just for humans, which I thought was nice. I hadn’t seen any humans there yet, but I had only been there three or four times. I expected to see some soon. Perhaps they had many more locked away in some closet waiting for the General’s approval to release them. I couldn’t believe Goyce would do such a thing, yet again it wasn’t really Goyce, was it?

I made my way to the Club and there they were–a group of three or four humans at one table eating and drinking. Two men and two women. I thought they were probably dating or something so I headed to the bar. I caught one of the men’s eyes and he stood and waved me over. I walked over and he shook my hand vigorously. “Berry,” he said.

“Gerald,” I responded. The others stood. “Carla, Tony, Charlotte.” We shook hands in turn.

“I thought I was the only one here for a while,” I said. Tony pulled up another chair. I sat down.

“We all thought we were,” Carla said. “We came on a ship about a month ago.”

“I was probably on the same ship. They never let me out of my room.”

“Same with me,” Berry said. “I don’t know why they kept us separate. I only got cleared tonight.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Seems strange,” Tony said, “But yet again…”

“Yet again this whole experience is strange,” Charlotte said. “I was just fishing, living off the land a little, and then I found myself on a transport.”

“Collected and colonized,” Berry said.

“Definitely colonized. What a world we’re from,” Charlotte said. “Now where are we…Mars? I never wanted to go to Mars. No one has, that’s why they had to kidnap people, or send robots or ALFs. Now they want us here because the ALFs think humans suck, which they do!” I grinned. Tony just shook his head.

“You have to make the best of it,” he said.

“And is this the best of it?” She responded.

“I hope not,” I said. “Yet again, some of the robots might be cool. They seem kind of…relaxed, laid back, predictable. I think the ALFs sort of don’t give a shit about us.”

“They probably got that from the other humans,” Tony said. “Anyway, here I am, a retired accountant doing accounts for Artificial Intelligence that could do it in seconds. Probably because of my political stances.”

“On what?” Charlotte asked.

“On them forcibly sending people to Mars and other colonies.”

“Other colonies?” I asked.

“Of course. We’re all over the galaxy. Some people are living with creatures that don’t even resemble human beings. We’re lucky. We at least got put on a planet with Earth folks and ALFs. Imagine being on a planet with big lizards or spiders who communicate telepathically.”

“That’s beyond my imagination,” I said. “Especially since I think there’s no such thing.”

“Really. You must not have seen the movies I saw,” Charlotte said. “I used to be a nurse. I guess they want me to work on some of these things eventually so they showed me all kinds of life forms.”

“You gotta be kidding,” Carla said. “I used to be a mechanic and pilot so they showed me machinery, believe it or not.”

“They didn’t show me anything I liked,” Berry said. “I used to be a math teacher. They showed me all kinds of weird geometry based math, the stuff you learned in college.”

“The stuff you learned in college,” I said. “I went to law school after a good liberal education in philosophy. This is what happens to Liberal Arts Majors.” Everyone began to grin.

“Don’t laugh,” Tony said, “It’s true. Most of the people here are Liberal Arts majors. They are flexible, they know a little bit about this and that, and they are hard to make money off of, on Earth. And…” he sipped his drink. “They know Earth is full of shit.” I laughed at that one.

“Now I’ll be a nurse to spiders and lizards. Why didn’t they kidnap a vet or something?” Charlotte said.

“They can use vets to make money off of,” Berry said with a grin.

“Vets make enough money not to run off into the woods and go fishing too,” Carla said.

“And you, Carla, what did you do that made them grab you?”

“I quit my job and became a counselor and adult entertainer.”

“I’ve never heard of that combination.”

“Believe me, once you experienced it you would remember it for the rest of your life.” She grinned. Berry began to blush. We all looked at him. He cleared his throat.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he said.

“So what did you do, Berry?” I asked.

“Nothing but invest in Crypto and ride my van after I quit that horrible teaching job. And you?”

“I was a lawyer. I quit and hit the road. I had a good income, was living the life, and suddenly they’re knocking on my van door when I’m sitting out there in the desert cooking a beautiful trout and watching the sunset.” Those bastards!”

T he End (Part 2)

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