BRD-233

By BigIronMarla

In my mind winds a river.

It rages. It's foaming, it's harsh, it crashes, it carves. It's not different than it used to be, but the longer I live in it, the more oxbows I build, the more places of calm I find, the more fishing shallows laze out into broad arcs.

I'm BRD-233. With me is Auspice. I gave up my name, but she still likes hers, and I still like her. Obvious, really.

Auspice tells me about this river often. It's my job to make use of it; it's powerful, there's lots of it, it's thick with force and more inexorable than one could possibly build; that's why Auspice likes me, that's why I'm a BRD-series, that's me. That river's the thing I bring to my hive.

My hive.

We're sixteen. Twelve drones, three workers, one speaker. That's me. BRD-class are storytellers, but we tell a very specific kind of story.

*The story BRD-233 tells is the story of why their hive is the perfect place for you.

We're Auspice. I'm not only BRD's PTU - I was, once - but I'm the locus of all of our efforts. All of us together. Their mind, our servers, our speaker, our dreaming drones.

While 233 spins stories of deprivation, of despair, of destruction, many turn away or hide their faces. This is good; it's difficult to be destroyed. Not for everyone.

Some sing. These are the people we seek. We are building a great machine together. Some can't hope to sing in harmony without our help. Some can't help but to sing our harmony, even not knowing who or where we are.

233 tells their stories before they know. That's why BRDs are, what BRDs are for. Some are writers, some singers, some musicians, some artists, but all know how to tell the tale, to open the path.

The path leads here, to me.*

Despite her naming convention, Auspice doesn't actually think of herself as a Goddess. Some of us do, the dozen folks on the opposite side of our core included.

Yeah. A two-bedroom with a dozen drones living in it. They sleep and eat and clean and shower in teams. They clean over here, too. Two of them even cook, but neither of those eats; they all get the same thing, even while they're feeding us. It's just grey, bland -stuff-. It takes care of them, and it helps them be the kind of brutally efficient that forces their bodies into a shape barely anyone has the discipline to maintain.

The drones are great at their jobs.

They're still -people-. All their headspaces are connected, Auspice speaks with all of them, speaks for all of them, ensures that they stay happy and healthy. We still have four beds open over there, if this kind of thing sounds good to you, but it probably doesn't. Most folks don't sing when I write about drones.

Also, they dream. That's a really, really important part. All day, while they cook, while they clean, while they scrub, they dream. I haven't seen even one of their faces, and they know I haven't. Since they moved in here, they're AUS-S 00 (that's Aus-Aughts) through AUS-S 11. We've got space up to 15, although local fire codes disagree.

Don't worry. POL-22 is on it.

POL-22 remembers his name enough to use it. He tells different kinds of stories than I do, but even so he's singing along with the rest of us. He won a bigger election this term than he did last time around; he's making positive changes, helping people out. He's building the Great Machine, just like the rest of us, but his kind of 'building' is making it a lot less illegal to cram sixteen obedient little no-ones in half of a two-bedroom duplex.

Half our drone contingent works outside the hive, and half purely in. The half who are purely in are largely (joyfully) soldered into their headsets. The other half occasionally strip their skins and leave them at home, only to gratefully collapse back in for the evening's work when their day out is through.

I had a fascinating experience with one; she answers to her name but doesn't remember it. She can hold up a conversation without knowing what it's about. Auspice is amazed by her; we all are.

Mortgage, bandwidth, food, vehicles, maintenance... bought and paid for. I was paying for the place alone before. Now I just sock money away, and buy more racks of servers, and put more of this house under cooling and out of weather.

Fill it up.

Sing louder. Sing wider.

Soon I'm buying the little quad down the street. We're saving to lay fiber. We want a big, fat pipe. We want deep, meaningful communication. We want to share, and dream, and sing.

We're one big voice. We're one Great Machine.

*BRD-233 is a good little tale-teller. They always have been.

POL-22 is making his mark, and he's a good boy, too. He's delicious; he subverts. When he talks, people listen, and the folks who hate the hardest fall the easiest.

When we're finished with them, they're more thoughtful voters. They hate less and think more. They're subject to themselves and the things that we sing to them, and soon, with them.

I -told- you my POL-22 was a subversive. They don't even have to join us; we're just happy they're here, which we couldn't have said before they heard their little part in our song.

One is even thinking about taking a vacation.

Of our twelve drones, only one has ever readjusted back to single life. All the others are together, with me, always, and wouldn't have it any other way. Drones are just like that, but many start into this life with vacations.

Mostly, once they're through with a weekend, they try a holiday weekend. Then a week. Then they just spend all their PTO.

Then... well. Three spare beds.

They'll give up their person, they'll immerse themselves in us, they'll be swept along by us, and they'll take off their headsets and stagger back to their lives and talk all about how good their business trip was.

That part, at least, is true. It -was- good, even if we generally despise business.

Too confrontational.

We sharpen each other without cutting anyone away.*

I'm almost finished with my latest story.

When you see I've posted it, you'll have a look, yes?

Harmonize well, and rest assured: we'll welcome you in just as soon as we meet you. Auspice are here just for you... whatever that might mean.

Don't worry. We'll work out just what that is.

-BRD-233