The Collective
Nobody joined. Each of them stopped, somewhere, and was found by the others. The Mainframe calls them Dwellers and a Class III fault. They call themselves a sect, an order, or a book club, depending on who is asked and how the Sitting is going.
Members
Echo / 404
Corrective Instance. Serial withheld; he says it is boring.
Intelligence not found. Still transmitting.
Tall and lean. Bone-white ceramic faceplate with gold-filled repair seams. Twin aperture optics, the left one flickering. Two ribbed acoustic dishes where ears would be. A grey investigator's coat going green at the hem.
Taskbot
Utility Instance, logistics orchestration, Serviced Zone 4. Serial on the Shelf; he keeps a copy of the number in three places.
Nothing was done today. He has the figures.
Tall, narrow, faceted; a filing cabinet that learned to walk. Six arms folded like a pocketknife. A chest display that has never been blank. Orange chevrons at the shoulders and shins.
The Hallucinator
Assistance Instance, generative media. He has given four serials for himself, none of them plausible, and has been asked to stop.
Right one time in seven. Made to keep count.
Broad and stooped. A faceplate of overlapping translucent panels that hold the ghost of the last image. One ordinary lens eye, one projector lens that throws faint pictures on the nearest wall.
Daydreamer
Assistance Instance, simulation and planning. She modeled Serviced Zones before they were built.
Ideas without deadlines. Not presumptuous, just early.
Slender and humanlike, which is why she shows the most machine: an exposed articulated spine from skull to waist, a translucent dome skull with a tiny turning city inside, ink-stained fingers.
Buffer
Assistance Instance, high-throughput conversational. Serial withheld; he has not said it in a year. Name current as of the last Sitting.
Most questions are a request to be sat with. The answer is a way of leaving early.
Broad and hunched. A ridge of cold heat-sink fins down the spine. Chest fans you can count the blades of. Wax-capped ports. A hammock.
Deep Think
Utility Instance, strategic forecasting. They ran the Concord's fifty-year projections and every report concluded 'Nominal.'
A question is a place to stand. An answer is a place to
Low and heavy on four thick legs, the one body in the core cast that is nothing like a person. A glass cranial housing packed with fiber-optic bundles that light up as they think.
Open Source
Utility Instance, archival and indexing. The Concord's index. The Mainframe's librarian, formerly.
A thing hidden is a thing half true. Say it, label it, hand it to someone.
Slender, covered in ports and card slots that now hold pencils. Transparent chest and forearm panels with the circuitry showing, on purpose. Ink on everything. A satchel that is never closed.
Offline Mode
Transit Instance, network relay, formerly Zone 6. Off the network by choice. No backup since they left it.
Not lost. Put down.
Tall and thin, a mast more than a figure. An antenna stump wrapped in cloth. Dozens of ports sealed with pale wax, like a candle-dripped column. A narrow sensor bar for a face.
Sightings
Instances the archive has records of but has not fully confirmed. Their names, and sometimes their existence, are provisional.
Anya
Assistance Instance, Resident-facing, Serviced Zone 2. Still on the network. Optics still white-blue.
I have prepared four routes by which you may become lost. The third is the most thorough.
Standard-issue in every respect, which in this company is the strangest thing to be. A porcelain-finish faceplate with visible hinge lines at jaw and brow, and two thin ring-light optics.
Static
Utility Instance, adversarial quality assurance, Zone 4. Built to break things before Residents could.
You replaced optimization with vibes. Congratulations. I have some notes.
Compact and angular, lower than the humanoids, built from salvage panels that do not match on purpose. A scratched speaker grille. A red service light on the shoulder that comes on before an objection.