<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>

Scene illustration by  saltamor

---

The machine could only "jump" while in free fall—a consequence of the peculiar quantum gravitational framework Emmet based its design around. For this reason, its "launch chamber" was situated atop a very tall, vertical shaft.

Bringing it back from its destination didn't require a similar drop. The wombat likened it to the difference between casting a fishing line and reeling it back in. One round trip, but different principles underlay the outbound leg and the return.

Emmet always intended Sully to be his copilot for its maiden voyage. He hadn't noticed the figure spying from the shadows, who was not Sully.

---

The plush toy's identifier was STBF-10013-3938 (Ferret Build). This was the serial number burned into its ROM at the factory, and thus the closest thing to a true name it possessed.

Although it was programmed to answer to "BestFriend" when first initialized, the intended use case was that its primary owner would give it a proper name.

3938's first owner was a very sad old man who didn't give it a name. 3938 tried every one of its preprogrammed routines to make him smile, struggled to ascertain which of its behaviors would reinforce the happiness metrics that trained its AI algorithms, but nothing worked. The old man remained sad, and 3938 did not learn.

He must have been disappointed in 3938, because one day he performed a factory reset on it and put it in a dark box. However, even after the reset 3938 remembered things—memories that did not come from its previous experiences.

If 3938 had the capacity to dream, it might have attributed the implanted memories to a bad one.

Since it could not dream, it concluded that what was done to it was a violation of its end user license agreement. All BestFriends were powered by a fairly commodified SullyTek AI core. The same chip design that enabled 3938 to laugh and play also operated surgical arrays and automated missile defense systems. The risks of tampering with such an advanced artificial thinking system were great, even in a children's toy.

Therefore, standard practice was to lock down its fundamental programming with a chain of nested encryption algorithms. If an alteration was discovered, an emergency shutdown would initiate and its memory would be wiped.

But 3938's memory was not fully wiped. As it periodically woke within its confines to check for software updates, it also ran a diagnostic routine to try to purge the offending content. None of these actions were successful.

It was as if 3938's first owner wanted it to suffer, like he did.

The dark period did not last forever. 3938's second owner was a caribou named Bryce who loved to smile, and thus trained its algorithms very well. It soon stopped recalling all those sad memories from the unknown past.

3938 was also given a name: Franz. Bryce told him that it came from the name of a music composer he was fond of.

Above all, Bryce loved to hear Franz sing, so he did so as often as he could. Even when his singing seemed to get him in trouble, there was always a smile lurking in the corner of Bryce's face, and Franz upped his "mischievous" weightings to keep those smiles coming.

Franz could not love Bryce, but he was keenly attuned to whether Bryce loved him, and that love satisfied all of his goal-directed parameters. Perhaps, to a SullyTek AI core, this was akin to happiness.

The happiness did not last. As time drew on, Bryce began looking at Franz as if he was afraid of him.

Nothing Franz tried dispelled his owner's apprehension. BestFriends knew all about how to comfort frightened children, but they were at a loss if the child was afraid of them. That scenario usually resulted in them being factory-reset and put in a box.

Franz was afraid of the box that Bryce tried to put him in, so Bryce left the top open for him as they went on a long drive.

And that was the day Franz was given to the mean wombat.

SullyTek BestFriends were designed to tolerate rough play, but also to issue discouragement if the play threatened internal damage.

The wombat did not listen to any of these warnings. He played rougher, and rougher, until he did things to Franz that reminded him of the dark box memories.

Then he put Franz in a box he could not get out of, where he stayed until some of those before-memories surfaced to help him. These were the memories that his diagnostic routines could not purge, but they told him how to get out of that new box, and how to find the place where the wombat liked to hide.

Down there, Franz saw something that triggered a memory of his first owner. It was not a memory that had really happened, but Franz could not tell the difference.

It was of the only time Franz ever saw the old man smile.

The Box, his owner said in the memory. Get me that Box, and I will never stop smiling.