[center][h2]One Kay[/h2]
A Collab of the One and Gilt
[/center]

You would think living on a space station would be fun. It’s fun in the holo-movies: all adventure, all living gloriously amidst the stars, fighting off disgusting alien invaders and saving the day with a mix of science and resilience fueled by the unstoppable power of the human heart. Kay Cook loves, loves movies. Sci-fi movies, especially, the loud and flashy kind with the lasers and the phasers- cinema is a proud tradition on Gilt. She had movies in her head when she agreed to relocate to the Grand Brand Ambassador, that huge and spinning Giltian cathedral of capitalism out in the stars. “Ambassador” is her title now.

She hated it. Only after her bags were unpacked onboard the station did the smarter part of her mind realize what a horrible life she’d just condemned herself to. It all looked very nice, of course. You can’t walk from Kay’s quarters to the mess hall without walking over a half-dozen golden carpets, through en-muraled walls and under a fucking [i]chandelier[/i] or two. The man- she was sure it was a man- who was in charge of redesigns obviously thought Western extravagance was the way to wow foreigners. He knows nothing of art. No mind for symbolism. The beating heart of an artist trapped onboard this tasteless steel cage- there is a tragic symbol for you!

What Kayla really wanted, she had the time now to realize, was to see New things. Something a Giltian had never before encountered. To talk to the foreigners, the aliens, the robots, the foreign alien robots from another world, and be known as the first gal who did it. Maybe she’d make a painting about it. She liked to play with the idea of painting more often, but she always found excuses inside herself not to actually do it. She certainly couldn’t do it here, on this uninspired bourgeoisie mess of a station. Who could?

She stopped at the airlock. She was supposed to be meeting someone here, acting in her official capacity as an ambassador. She’s sure she was given the details, but she wasn’t listening then. It’s not her job to remember, anyway. That’s the job of the man beside her on the golden carpet, her favorite sym, a towering AI intellect who is named Gorilla Bob (and for good reason, too) who stands waiting inside his huge metallic body. She found this particular robot deeply intimidating at first. Not anymore. Nowadays she considered Gorilla Bob one of her best friends, even if he is, awkwardly, her property. The airlock opened, and…

Out of 10 One step out in a perfect synchronized formation, 2-2-2-2-2. 2 Grants walked in the middle, dressed up in an Old Earth suit, a metal sword dangling at their waist. The other Ones, 2 Williams in the front and two in the back, were all suited up in full bone armor with metal indents all over, covering every inch of their body. In their hands, they all had a metal spear and swords at their midsection.

As they neared Kayla, the Williams stepped to the side with the middle Jameses banging the bottom of their spears on the ground. The lead Grants performed a military salute to the Ambassador. Before they could say anything, all the other Ones moved behind him. If one was perceptive enough, they would notice that the One were scanning every inch of the room for hidden dangers while the lead Grants were looking at Gorilla Bob, a small thin smile on their face. Immediately strategies on how to take it out were being formed. Potentially impossible to escape with their lives but their small unit could at least damage it. 

“[Color=gray]We are the One![/color]” the lead Grants said, each uttering a different word at the exact time the other one finished it. 

“[Color=gray]You may call us Grant, ma'am. Correct to assume you're the Ambassador? [/color]” they continued in the same way as before, their tone calm and calculated. 

Kay looked back and forth at them. Then she looked forth and back again.

“Twins?” she finally asked, arching a ginger eyebrow and trying to hide her shock. “I’m Kay. You can just call me that- titles are so dull, aren’t they? This is Gorilla Bob.”

Gorilla Bob grunted like an ape. He found gorillas to be fascinating and demanded that his sym body should look like a hulking silverback. Kay liked to oblige his weird desires. He walked on his knuckles to the lead Grant. “Nice to meet you,” he said, in a surprisingly prim-and-proper, deeply middle-class British accent. “We have a small banquet prepared to welcome you to Gilt. But before we get going, would you mind leaving your weapons here? They’ll be well-looked after by our quartermasters, worry not. You understand. [i]Safety protocols.[/i]” He rolled his metallic eyes as if it was all very silly to him, but he had to do his job, after all.

The lead Grants shook their heads at Kayla's question.

“[Color=gray]More than twins. We are [i]One[/i], Ambassador Kay.[/color]” they replied and straight away after, all of the One took their helmets off…at the same time, in perfect synchronicity. 

Kay looked at them with something that was fascination as much as shock, and horror half as much as wonder. At length, she said “...wow. I’m, uh, not high, right? I don’t think I feel like it.”

“[color=gray]As we said, we are the One. [/color]” simply replied the two lead Grants. 

With a sidelong glance at the Gorilla, one of the Jameses, addressed him in a proper British accent.

“[Color=gray]A fellow Brit, are you?[/color]”

Before Gorilla Bob could reply, the other Ones disarmed themselves as requested. Spears, swords and hidden daggers were laid neatly on the floor. Stamps emerged from walls and shadows to take them up and carefully store them away.

“I’ve never seen Britain,” the gorilla admitted, trying to distract the One from where their weapons might be going, “though I’m very sad to say it. Except for in the simulations and the holo-suites. But near to a third of the first Giltian colonists hailed from the British Isles. Did you know our capital is called Neo London? It has a better ring to it than Neo New York, I can say that much. If we hit things off today you might take a tour of it.”


“[color=gray]It was a shithole before they bombed London back in 2279 and after that…things became worse. Way worse. Shootings, stabbings, bombs. You name it, Britain had it. We’d know, we were in the thick of it a few times. [/color]” replied the James that initially talked with Gorilla Bob before realizing that they must sound weird for people who haven’t lived there nor understood what the One were. 

“[color=gray]Our implant allows us total recall of our memories from birth until…now. We remember Earth in its prime and we remember its fall. [/color]”

“Really?” asked Bob. “That’s fascinating! Ah, to remember London as it was, war-torn or no… if you’d ever sell those memories, there is a market for that sort of thing, you know. Especially in the capital.”

“If they do ever take a tour of Neo London, they’ll need to see the Museum of High Art,” Kay spoke in the more Trans-Atlantic accent that was par for the course on Gilt. (She always suspected that Bob’s overt British-ness was an affectation, like his gorilla persona. His madness is what makes him fun.) “I’ve been trying to get a piece in there for ages, I’ll tell you. But shouldn’t you be showing our guests the way to the banquet, Robert?”

“I should indeed,” said the robot silverback. “Follow me, please,” and down he went through the main hall. Half of this side of the station had to be rebuilt so that the airlock would lead down a grand space to a banquet hall. First impressions. They’re everything.

The space opens to a Giltian style eating room, meaning it was a bit like a space-age take on the opulence of 1920’s America. It’s a room you could very well see yourself swing-dancing in, were it not for the table yawning out in the middle filled with too much food. 

“We’ve prepared our own cuisine, not knowing what your people eat,” the gorilla said. “So, there’s a lot of British and New American staples, and maybe a little Indian spice thrown in for real flavor. Ah, I miss eating.”

“You still eat bananas, Bob,” said Kay, and it was impossible to tell if she was joking. She sat down at the head of the table, and with a motion of her hand, invited the One to take whatever seats they might prefer.

To say that the One were impressed, it would've been an understatement. The opulence of the place was on a scale they haven't seen since a couple of centuries ago. Yet, at the same time, they silently judged these people. It was old Earth all over again. The powerful living like the kings of old and if the pirates were a sign, the weak were left to die. 

It wasn't that the One resented what they saw. Survival was something they understood better than anyone after all. If you were weak, either you grew strong or you'd end up dead. The problem was that it was clear that these people didn't [i] need [/i] to let others strive to survive. 

At Bob’s explanation of food, the One chuckled grimly. 

“[Color=gray]Our planet is barren. A nightmare turned into reality. No fauna, no trees, no food. So, you could say, we're not picky when it comes to food. [/color]” 

The One group chose to spread around the room, each trying to learn and experience different foods and potential weaknesses or strengths of the Gilt. Only one Grant stayed with Kayla and Bob. 

They grabbed something that looked like wine off the table and drank it in one fell swoop. 

“[Color=gray]Wine. Different from what we expected yet very close to the one from back home. [/color]” they said to Kay.

Kay blinked watching him drink it. "Oh. You like wine! Yes, no surprise it is familiar, Gilt keeps to tradition. Preserving Old Earth and the human way is important to the old men at the top, you know. I think maybe we should find new things too, but that's just one girl's opinion. Aren't you going to feel tipsy? You should try some cranberry jello." Talking too much and too out of order was her way of expressing nerves. These identical men were strange.

"You know," she said. "I represent the Division proper, but there's really a lot of corporations that this whole operation is made from. Do you gentlemen at all have an interest in business?"

Gorilla Bob made a sound between a scoff and a laugh, but said nothing himself. 

“[color=gray]Tipsy? From wine? We’ve got something stronger back on our planet…when it doesn’t kill us. Preserving the human way sounds nice and all when you read about it from history books or whatever your people are using to read from but when you experience it? That’s a different story. As for trying different things, I’m sure you’ve noticed that we are doing that all over the room. When we’re back home, we’ll know what the others have experienced even if [i]we[/i] aren’t physically doing it. [/color]” replied Grant with a wink. It was true, the drink they made using their own bodily fluids, some of the oil from the robots and the mushrooms was highly alcoholic in nature and highly deadly, most of the time. 

“[color=gray]Business? It depends. We’ve come to see what became of humanity after 300 years. So far, we’ve seen the same thing as before, just painted differently. Don’t take it the wrong way but fancy dinners and opulence like this, we’ve seen before. What [i]can[/i] you offer us? [/color]” added the Grant in their most diplomatic tone. 

Kay looked at him for a long few seconds. Inside herself she was thinking: What? This dirty caveman gulping back wine like a homeless stamp does liquor thinks he’s going to negotiate? And then, pause completed, she burst into laughter. “Oh, you’re wonderful, Mr. Grant,” she said, and with no hint of irony. “What do your people want, then?” Her elbows on the table, she cupped her face under her hands and leaned in towards him. “Come on, [i]let me know.[/i]”

“[color=gray]Not, Mr. Grant, please either refer to us as Grant or the One and may we, please, ask you to drop the tone, we may not look like it but we're a few hundred times your age, also…[/color]” said the Grant while the other Ones were already looking for whatever makeshift weapons they could find. If they were to die, they’d take some out with them. 

“[color=gray]Did we say anything about what our people want? We want to survive and we’re doing [i]just fine[/i] from that perspective. Etiquette stands that one with [i]more[/i] will offer their wares to the one with [i]less[/i] in order to secure business, is it not? Or did the rules of business changed in the last 300 years? [/color]” continued the Grant with a smile. They were enjoying this childish conversation more than they admitted.

“You will [b]show respect[/b] to Ambassador Cook,” Bob raised his voice. “The rules have changed very much indeed if you expect us to-”

Two of the Williams almost immediately approached Bob as he said his piece only to move back as Kay talked. 

Kay raised her hand, the universal ‘stop’ sign, and the sym quieted down. “It’s alright, I’m only having some fun with our guests.” She wiped her face with a napkin, even though it wasn’t dirty; this was just a punctuation mark in the conversation. Bob was bristling. She said: “Alright, you want to ‘survive.’ Then maybe Gilt is not the partner for you. We don’t care about surviving here. We are for thriving. If that’s what you want, then you talk to us. I’ve noticed you’re all the same, and I think I did hear about that in the news. You’re clones of each other? Well, we mass-produce ‘people’ here, too. They cooked this food tonight. So you already know that we have resources and labor to sell you. And technology, I think. What do you have?”

The Grant let out a chuckle and shook their head. A child. This is what they sent to meet another nation. One that is all for grandstanding too.

“[color=gold]We did mention it since we entered your system. We are the One. You mention that you’re mass-producing people here yet by simply saying “producing”, you’re not thinking of them as people. They’re organic robots, are we correct? Labor is something we don’t need. There are over 6 billion Ones currently active on our planet. Food? As you might see based on our size, we’re not lacking it either, even if the variety could use some improvement. The only thing we’d be interested in would be weaponry. What do we have? Besides our numbers, skills, ability to learn anything once and then our whole nation knows it? Unity. More than any of your machines. We’ve got killer robots. Pockets of altered reality that will give your scientists...nightmares or make their dreams come true. Maybe oil that burns for over 48 hours, Earth time. But we’re talking about what our nations want…but what about [i]you[/i]? [/color]” said Grant with a collected tone only for at the end, to approach his head slightly to Kayla’s. 

“Me?” asked Kay.

Gorilla Bob answered for her. “What Ambassador Cook wants is to be an artist.” He had offered to pose for her paintings.

“I do,” said Kay. “And I want to see New things. And-” she hesitated, but her natural instinct to keep talking always got the better of her, “-and I want to get off this fucking station. Ugh. Anyway. What about you, Grant?”

“[Color=gray]An artist and you want to see new things. You're looking for adventure. [/color]” replied with a knowing wink. They understood the desire well, it was what put them on the mercenary path a long time ago.

“[Color=gray]What do we want? We want not to be destroyed by others who'd see our planet as an archaeological site, not our home. It's a dangerous place but it has its beauty. Especially the parts that haven't yet been damaged beyond repair. You should see the Glowy One caverns. Imagine, a room a few times bigger than this, filled with lights of all colors. Shining differently depending where you're looking at them from. Or, imagine standing upon a tall building, thousands of meters high, overlooking an alien city. Trust us, nothing can prepare you for that sight. [/color]” 

Gorilla Bob said: “Are you suggesting that Ambassador Cook should visit your world?” His tone made it hard to tell if he approved or not. Most other syms had electronic, auto-tuned voices, or else something alien or something beautiful. Gorilla Bob just sounded like a middle-aged, middle-class middle-manager, and he reading him was difficult when he wasn’t being passionate. Kay is usually one of the things that gets passion out of him.

“That’s what I heard, Mr. Gorilla,” hummed Kay. She’s easy to read compared to the robot. She was enthused. “Well, of course, any such visit must be done in the name of advancing relations between our people, but… I am authorized for such things. If they serve a diplomatic purpose.” She suddenly didn’t care if they had anything tangible to offer or not. This place was so boring.

The lead Grant smiled and shook their head. “[Color=gray]We haven't said such a thing. [/color]” then they winked before leaning backwards and continuing: 

“[color=gray]That said, it is a good idea. We'd welcome you with welcome arms and you can see for yourself the Circle. It may be a bit dangerous for the unprepared but–[/color]” a shortstop and a nod to Gorilla Bob: 

“[color=gray]--we're sure that Mr. Bob, whoever else you may bring with you and of course, us, will be more than enough. If we're to guess, Mr. Bob is equipped with enough weapons to take out any danger, nothing to say about his obvious strength. [/color]” 

“[color=gray]There is only one rule, if we may impose. You'll have to follow our directions to the letter when we're landing. Our EMP weaponry doesn't have an IFF so to say nor is it controlled by us. [/color]”

“I’m great at following directions,” lied Kay. Gorilla Bob grunted again, and this time it was definitely sarcastic.