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V1’s earliest memory was the smell.
At least, complaints of it.
In the early days of the Long Night, humans stayed on the backs of dead 1000-THRs. With the ground inhospitable for flora and fauna now, there was nowhere else to go.
Then its innards began to decompose.
V1 couldn’t smell it, but they knew of it in the way humans complained, of gagging in the streets, of conversations of what to do. Of rotting flesh, wasted blood, decay. Their first memory, in retrospect, was of rot.
“We could put the prototype to use,” the engineers said. V1 was sent into the belly of the machine alongside several Streetcleaners to help burn away the flesh. Their original directives were suppressed then, hastily reprogrammed, and left them with a faint, undefinable thirst as they watched meat slough off the walls.
Then humans talked of a new smell.
“I ain’t had meat in years, but that smells like..." A human in the observation room turns pale. “Fuck, my stomach can’t tell hungry from horrible no more.”
Burnt meat was a subject for weeks.
By the next time V1 came online, humans expanded.
Time brought new buildings, streets, structures. The 1000-THR’s stomach and fuel reserves were hollowed and cleaned, its cavernous bones the foundation for more homes, hydroponics, animal conservation (what few were saved when humans fled the surface), robotics laboratories, and more.
In one such lab, V1 watched as technicians and engineers passed between them and a new machine. Almost an exact copy of them, but a little taller. A little thicker. Red, too.
V2 stared back in return.
“...feet this way, please.” A beat. Then an engineer’s fingers snap twice in front of their optic. “ V1 . Walk ten feet this way. Come on. The V model processors can’t be deteriorating yet.”
“Give ‘em a break. It’s been a few years since we turned this guy on,” another engineer said.
“Let’s maybe not anthropomorphize the machines.”
“Ain’t we been doing that for 200 years now?”
“Yes. And look where we are.”
V1 zoned out again.
Comparison tests between the two machines were constant. Walk here, run there, shoot the targets, catch this coin… V1 often beat V2’s results. Those times, they wouldn’t see their successor for a while. The next day or two, though, V2 was brought out again with some new tweak or improvement.
“You’re one hell of a measuring stick, V1,” a technician said once. “Wish we could make you more than that. V2’s gonna be a peacekeeper. But with you, war being irrelevant makes you...well.”
Irrelevant.
The third time V1 woke up was a mistake. Humans said so, anyway. In reality V2 just figured out how to power them on. Boredom, V2 explained, before they took V1 by the arm and yanked them out of lab storage.
Humanity persists. The corpse was now a city. It was a city before, sure, but the early shelters on the Earthmover’s back were utilitarian and not much else. This was different. Now there was life. Streets, crowds, music, talk… So much talk. So much louder than the fearful silence from years ago.
The noise especially made V1 buzz. Something about it lit up their reward system, pre-programmed subroutines hardly used in their collectively short consciousness so far. Like gunshots. Like fire. Like sizzling flesh.
In a market, a man beat on amateur drums made of scrap. His quick hands were covered in bandages and barely-healed scrapes. Fresh pink. Dried blood. Humanity persists, and so does everything inside them. V1 stared. Something in their head itched. They weren’t sure if they wanted to move to the percussion or slam his skull in. But the music would stop if they did the latter, wouldn’t it? Maybe the woman next to him then, or maybe...
V2, keen to avoid anyone who’d recognize a decommissioned war machine, dragged them away.
When there was no more room to build in, humanity built down, using the 1000-THR’s legs as supports. More streets. More people. More layers. Until eventually, humans toed ground.
That same day, V1 stared down an elevator that bore the two V models down to a base between the Earthmover’s feet. Ground. The Earth’s surface wasn’t as scorched as V1 remembered it. They came to a stop, and V1 warily stepped on something soft and green.
“Grass,” V2 explained.
Green ground, yellow flowers, brown trees... V1 touches each new color, and V2 explains them one by one. Eventually, they look up at the dome above them, a clear bubble containing the colors.
“None of this is sustainable in a natural environment,” V2 said, arms crossed as they leaned against a tree. “Still too cold outside the greenhouse. But the humans are excited over this. Something about progress and...breathing. They said they can breathe again."