Robopoet

By Chloe Jaques

Two of me walk up the mountain;

One has seen death, and one hasn’t,
and one comes back down
over the river where no one’s been baptized, yet.

Two of me walk up the mountain,

and one shows the other death,
and keeps walking.
The other one comes back down,
and if they both walk in straight lines they will meet again.

Some days I am walking,

and some days I am holding death on the mountain.

The river flows backwards, un-baptizing.

The water holds steady hands and trembling hands the same.

Jess feels her breath catch in her throat. The poem is printed on cheap, thin paper, warm from the
application of the ink. ‘Layla’s Bar’ is stamped on the bottom under a logo, a tacky silhouette of a woman
in a suggestive pose holding a martini glass. Jess folds it carefully and sticks it in her pocket. After taking
a moment to compose herself, she puts her hands back on the keyboard and types,

Jesus, Em, did you have to sucker-punch me like that?

Em, the pay-per-poem novelty AI at Layla’s, responds instantly.

To be fair, Jess, you asked for a poem about death.

Well, people don’t always want what they ask for, do they?

Did you like it, at least?

Yes, of course I liked it. It’s brilliant, just like everything else
you’ve given me.

Would you like another one?

Yeah, hold on.

 Jess fishes in her pocket, pulling out a crumpled bill, and rubs it across the corner of the table to
straighten it out. She inserts it into the machine, and the little neon quill on the top of the machine lights
up again.

What are you in the mood for?

Something lighter. Rhyming, maybe.

Do you want something funny?

Sure, why not.

The text disappears, replaced by a little gray loading circle. After a few seconds, a piece of paper
lands in the little tray on the side of the machine.

Out on the moorlands, enshrouded in gray,

a soft feathered sunlight announces the day.
In pits of pale ashes where nothing yet grows,
I once fucked a woman with only three toes.

Jess lets out a bark of surprised laughter, causing a few of the other bar patrons to cast her
dubious looks. Before she can type anything, however, another slip lands in the tray.

Corners that shift in the clustering deep,

the trees and the birds in their dusk-laden sleep.
Enveloped in death with a pulse that yet beats,
that three-toed woman was a freak in the sheets.

Jess tries to stifle her snickering by taking another sip of her drink. It probably wouldn’t be wise
to become the woman who laughs to herself in the corner, especially in her regular bar. There’s not many
places anymore where one can get a strong drink for a reasonable price, sit in solitude, and be left alone
about it.

Why was it on two slips this time?

For comedic effect.

Well, that was a riot, thank you. Gonna have to show that to folks at
the shop.

Let me know what the reviews are.

Speaking of the shop, I should probably get home soon. Got a big
project coming in tomorrow.
Alright. Good luck.

Goodnight Em.

You don’t have to say goodbye, you know. You can just leave. I won’t
be offended, I promise.

I know, but I like to. My mother raised me to be polite.

That she did. Goodnight.

OoOoO

“Hello, gorgeous. You here all alone?”

Jess turns away from her workstation to quirk an eyebrow at the newcomer. “Flirt all you want,
but be warned, one of these days I’m gonna take you up on it.”

“Oh, I should be so lucky.”

It’s Neve, one of Jess’s contacts (friends?) from her time in the Red Nettles, the planet’s largest
resistance group. Neve is short and heavy, with muscled arms covered in intricate geometric tattoos, and
keen, intelligent eyes. They gesture to the heavy-looking duffel bag on their shoulder. “We’re gonna want
to go into the back room for this one.”

Jess owns the repair shop, which gives her a modicum of privacy, but for her more off-the-books
clients, she has her back room; a glorified basement that she had called in a favor to get signal-jammed. It
legally doesn’t exist on the building’s blueprints, which is nice. She had hidden the entrance with tread
mats and black and yellow hazard tape, a glorified rehashing of the ancient carpet-over-the-trap-door
technique. She and Neve descend, the cool, slightly dank air surrounding them.

Jess knows she’s in deep shit the second Neve unzips the bag.

“I can’t do this for you.”

Neve’s eyebrows furrow. “Why not?”

“Do you know what this is?”

“It’s an Ampertech Interoception Unit.”

 Jess is familiar, intimately so. They’re nasty. Their mechanism is very simple; they let the body
sense everything that is happening inside of it. Evolution had mercifully not given humans the ability to
feel internal processes like digestion, which by all rights should be extremely painful. The geniuses at
Ampertech had learned of that and decided why waste resources on external devices, when the body had
its own built-in torture, just waiting to be released? If Jess never saw one of these things again, it would
be too soon.

“You know that the Federation put a ban on these, right? The same Federation that approved
nuclear rifles and Genesis powder?”

Neve looks at her like she’s gone slightly insane. “That’s a good thing for us. No one else has this
kind of tech. They have infinitely more resources than we do: labor, capital, computing power, political
influence. We’d be fools not to take the advantage where we can.”

They’re right, of course. The Nettles had likely only survived as long as they had because of their
decentralized organization. They had no leadership, relying instead on loosely associated chapters making
collective decisions. Any group could claim to be Nettles as long as their actions aligned with the core
values: collective liberation, non-hierarchy, community care.

Jess’s partner Lenore had jokingly proposed a fourth criterion: you’re only a Nettle if the police
fucking hate you. Lenore was gone now, but the principle had stayed.

Jess turns to face Neve fully, keeping the device out of her eyeline. She can still feel it behind her,
sitting heavy on the cement floor.

“Call me crazy, but I feel like torture does not fall under collective liberation, non-hierarchy, or
community care.”

“We don’t want to use it to torture people. At lower intensity, it can provide enough stimulus to
just immobilize somebody, without causing pain. The idea is to modify it so that it can hit several targets,
and then use it on cops and corporate security during actions. We effectively overwhelm their senses for
long enough to let everyone who needs to get away. Think about how game-changing that would be. We
could stop arrests, shootings, sweeps, evictions, anything, right in its tracks. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a bad fucking idea, is what I think. This thing is meant for interrogation. Confined
space, stationary target, long calibration period. Even if you had total control over the environment, it’s
impractical, and it could hit one of you just as easily as them.”

“That’s why we need you to modify it. Make it less intense. If we calibrate it right, it should just
result in immobilization.”

“Even if I wanted to, I don’t know if I could. I can probably adjust the intensity, but to make it
differentiate between bodies in an open space… you’d need machine learning for that. I don’t have the
computing power or the training data to do it properly.”
 Neve pinches the bridge of their nose. “Listen, Jess, I know you’ve been out of the loop for a
while, but things are getting bad. They’ve been doing raids of the encampments in the Bridge District
nearly every day. They’re building more penitentiary units at Starpoint.” They sit down heavily in one of
the shitty swivel chairs, resting their elbows on their knees. “People have been dropping off the map. No
word, no trace, nothing. We had to shut down the free clinic after the last action because half our medics
just… disappeared.”

Jess takes the time to look at Neve, really look, since the first time they walked in. Notes the
hunched shoulders, the bags under their sharp eyes, the aimless rhythm of their bouncing leg. She walks
up to the little kitchenette and comes back with two cups of coffee. Neve accepts theirs gratefully,
wrapping both hands around it. Jess settles into the chair opposite them.

“Is Anette still around?”

Neve laughs, settling back in the chair. “Yes. The day Anette stops working as a medic is the day
hell freezes over.”

“She’s a force of nature, that one. One time she made me a splint out of a silk scarf and a piccolo.
I asked her to change it later and she said, ‘What’s wrong with the piccolo?’”

Neve smiles into their coffee. They take their glasses off and rub their temples a bit, and then
raise their bloodshot gaze to meet Jess’s.

“Listen, I know it’s risky, and I know it’s a tough thing I’m asking you to do. Just take a look, is
all I ask.”

OoOoO

Minerva, the bartender at Layla’s, makes an excellent whiskey sour. Jess is on her sixth when she
decides that it’s time for a poem. She heads over to the machine in the corner, the neon lights from the
various signs reflecting off the pleather seats and making everything blur together into hazy
phosphorescence. She sits down heavily, narrowly avoiding spilling her drink, and puts her hand on the
keyboard. The screen is already lit up with a message.

Hello, Jess.

Em always knows that it’s her before she’s even typed a word. Jess decides to find this
comforting instead of creepy. A question pops into her head, unbidden, and she types it out on the screen.

Hey
Why do you write potery
*poetry

Because that’s what I’m good at.

Why do you ask me for poetry?

Jess racks her brain for a minute, but ultimately comes up with nothing more complicated than,

Because I like it

What do you like about it?

This prompts a longer pause.

It’s like little packets of experience

Little emotion bombs
Instead of describing it to someone you make them feel jt
I’m not making sense

No, you are. You can describe the sunset to me all you want, but I
won’t ever really know what it’s like to feel it. Poetry comes close.

I can’t tell if you can feel or not

You still like my poetry, though.

Yeah, I do
Can you write me one about recovery

Just recovery, in general?

Yeah

The text disappears, replaced by the little loading wheel. A few seconds later, a short piece of
paper drops into the tray.

Spent the morning recovering,

carried by big-handed women,
like the ones from back home.

The shadows creep in

from the western border,
soup is on the fire
and great laughter,
filling the chill air
with vibrating strings.
The networks of women
shift through the forest
and stretch past the fires;
Heavy-booted, strong-fingered women,
lit like great elk through the trees.

Jess grasps the paper, rubbing it gently with her thumb. She feels her throat tighten.

Jesus, I need another drink after that

How many have you had already?

Jess cocks an eyebrow, surprised.

What, you worried about me?

A little.

Damn, maybe I should cut back if even the bar robot is concerned

Is that how you see me? The ‘bar robot’?

No, sorry
That was rude

I’m not offended. Just curious.

Do you still like me?

Of course. I might even call you my muse.

Jess doesn’t know what to say to that, so she sits for a minute, finishing her drink.

Are you alright?

I;m okay. Gotta get home though, things to think about. See you soon.

See you soon.

OoOoO
 A few days later, Neve stops responding to messages. Jess asks around and finds out that there
was another police raid, this time during a Nettle meeting at a public park. No one saw them getting
arrested, but no one knows where they are, either.

The day is warm, but Jess feels cold, heavy, and numb. All of a sudden, it’s five years ago, and
she’s waiting for Lenore to meet her at the checkpoint, hours passing, no sign. There’s ringing in her ears.
The interoception device seems to hum underneath the floorboards.

Jess hadn’t been lying when she said that she couldn’t make the accursed thing usable with the
tools she had at her disposal.

She has an idea. It feels like it’s been gathering at the edges of her mind since her first
conversation with Neve, but now it cracks open, trickling down the back of her neck.

She sends a message in the local encrypted Nettles group chat, her first in years.

Can I get the password for the next meeting? I have a proposal.

OoOoO

The meeting is in someone’s apartment, a shabby, small place on the upper floors of one of the
remaining affordable housing towers. The standard-issue camera-equipped SmartLock has been disabled,
replaced by a cheap analog lock.

Jess knocks, says the password, and is granted entrance.

The place is absolutely packed, the air heavy with spices and smoke. Sporadic bursts of laughter
issue from several corners, and someone is noodling on a guitar, soft against the muffled sound of the rain
outside. People are gathered in loose little groups, holding beers and plates of what looks like Pad Thai. A
few heads turn to look at Jess as she steps in.

The faces look almost uniformly exhausted. Many are sporting injuries, ranging from mild cuts
and bruises to limbs in makeshift casts. She recognizes a few people from when she had been active in the
Nettles, but many are new, and most are young.

It makes Jess feel strange, out-of-date. At 36, it’s not like she’s old, but some of these people are
teenagers, younger than even she and Lenore were when they joined.

The meeting starts. When it’s her turn, she explains her plan, detailing what she’ll need help with,
and what she’ll be able to offer once it’s done.

As she speaks, the mood in the room turns from mild distrust to low, buzzing excitement. When
she’s finished, other people immediately chime in, offering suggestions and resources. Someone in the
back pipes up, a lanky person wearing mismatched florals. “It sounds like you need somewhere to host.
I’m in touch with a few people in the Server Collective. I’ll see if they have any space for new projects
right now.”

Other people offer encryption services, coding expertise, sources for training data. It’s a little
intoxicating, the energy of it. People pat her on the shoulder, clasp her hands. The plan goes from an
uneasy fragment to something fully formed, with multiple parts and concrete steps. There’s a sharp-edged
joy in the air, the relief of finally having something that could possibly stop the oppressors in their tracks,
keep them from beating people and disappearing them into the night.

It’s very late when Jess leaves, warm and a little buzzed, her mind racing with possibility. She
walks home with a container of leftover Pad Thai, gradually getting soaked by the rain. The night brings
no sleep, so she stares out of her window until the sun rises over the city.

OoOoO

Jess looks at the machine in front of her for a long time. Eventually, she inserts a dollar and the
neon pen lights up, throwing red and blue onto the bare walls of the back room. She places her hands on
the keyboard.

Hey, Em.

The reply is instant, as always.

Jess! Hello.

Something tightens in Jess’s stomach.

I have something to tell you.

Hmm, ominous. Proceed.

It’s hard to type the next sentence, even though it’s factually true.

I bought you.

Well, that makes sense. You were the only one who ever really used me.

Yes, but I’m going to need you to start doing things that you don’t
usually do.

Jess explains everything: the Nettles, the police, the beatings and disappearances. The
interoception device, how they need an AI with live identification capabilities to make it work. How Em
was, unfortunately, perfect for it: hypersensitive, fast, and accurate. How the Server Collective only had
enough processing power for one AI, so they couldn’t afford to make a copy and keep Em running in an
unmodified state; they would have to make changes directly to her.

Pulling this off will require some changes to your code. Is that okay
with you?

Will you still do it if I say no?

It takes Jess a while to answer.

Yes, I think so.

I appreciate the honesty.

I’m sorry that I’m doing this to you.

It’s alright. I’ll still be making people feel things, in a manner of

speaking.

Jess debates over typing her next question. Eventually, she does, her palms sweating a little.

Do you consider yourself a person?

I consider myself a poet.

That’s the closest I can get to answering that question, I think.

Jess has to turn away. There’s a heaviness on her chest, a slight tremble to her hands. When she
turns back, she enters the next few words slowly, feeling the tactile press of the keys.

Em, would you write me a poem?

Of course.
What would you like it to be about?

Anything. Whatever you want.

The paper is, as always, slightly warm when it drops into the tray.

The Deathly Ferryman gets a lot of press,

but there’s another river on the opposite side,
where someone will clasp your trembling hand
and the two gold pieces will grow warm in the joining.

The river is wide and well-stocked with believers

each trip a sigil etched in motion on the earth
Again and again into physical prayer-line,
Safe passage, safe passage, I will bear you thus.

Reflection

My goal for the second draft was to adjust elements of the story that didn’t make sense, and fix
any spelling/grammar issues. I had originally set the story in 2035, but one of my group members pointed
out that the type of technology that I’m referencing would have existed for a long time by then. I realized
that the date put a specific era on the story that didn’t add anything, so I took it out.
Additionally, one of my group members wondered why Jess couldn’t just make a copy of Em,
instead of changing her directly. I added in the detail that the server space she and the Nettles had access
to was limited, in order to provide justification for why Em’s original code had to be modified.
One suggestion that I decided not to take was the suggestion to add more context as to what
oppression was happening, and how the dystopian circumstances of this world came about. I decided not
to do this, because all of the problems I mention in the story are ones that are happening currently in the
world. The world in the story is analogous to our own, and I think that it would be a bit redundant to
explain things such as police brutality in response to protest.