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As things stood, it was possible that I hadn't made the wisest of choices lately. Skipping town with only $50 and a backpack of essentials was not as easy as media made it seem. The busses stopped running after midnight, for some fucking reason, and even if there was a motel or hostel nearby, I couldn't afford it. The rain was just a cliched cherry on top.
The cafe had an awning—a tacky, old fashioned one, striped with blue and white. It looked horrendous, but it was also the only dry spot nearby. Stupid campus buildings and their pretentious architecture. All that land and nowhere to sit out of the rain.
There was a reason I never went to college. This wasn't it, but maybe it should have been.
I’d already tried the door once, unsurprisingly locked. And I’d already scanned the periphery for cameras. There was one—a janky old thing that stuck out from the cafe's corner, and if I wasn't... what I am, I might have assumed the camera wasn't even functional. But it was, and I resisted the temptation to fuck with the locked door. Breaking and entering on camera wouldn't do me any favors. Even if it was undoubtedly warmer inside the shop.
I got one of those weird headzap things. (They’re kind of like a zap that doesn’t hurt and the weird feeling I get when looking at some electronics, like the security camera. I don’t know how else to explain it, but I've had them for as long as I can remember. Random shit online says they could be a symptom of something bigger, but I’ve sort of been operating under the assumption that the “bigger thing” was just my head being full of wires. Or whatever was up there. I don’t know.) This zap was a little stronger than usual.
Then suddenly, a click echoed behind me. At first, I froze, just listening. Then, I carefully turned to look at the door. There was no way...
With a slight tug to the metal handle, the door opened.
I froze, the door opened only a crack, as I considered my options. Getting caught trespassing would not help my plan of laying low, but was it trespassing if the door was unlocked like this? It felt like an invitation almost. A freaky, haunted invitation.
Stock still, I glanced up at the camera through the corner of my eyes. No movement, not even a lens adjustment. Fuck it. I’d already made a lot of stupid decisions today. At least this one meant I would be warm.
The door clacked shut behind me, leaving no sound but the now muffled rain beating against the windows. My cheeks stung as they adjusted to the warmth of the coffee shop.
Okay, so. Plan: perimeter sweep, then tuck away somewhere to wait out the rain. Maybe watch some serials.
By the time I had cleared the area, shedded my soaked jacket, and tried to dry what I could of myself with cheap napkins, I was exhausted. But I knew sleeping was a bad idea. I needed to be on the look out for any employees or security guards, and I had to be out before opening. I could find a place to sleep later.
The most defensive position in the room was behind the counter, back where all the weird coffee machines were. I would be hidden from view and have a quick shot to either the front door or back door if I needed them. Yes, my view of the space was pitiful, but I figured cover was better than visibility here.
I pulled out my phone, curled up against the back of the counter, and turned on a new series I had snagged.
You let it in because it looked cold. You made it stay because it was the strangest, most fascinating thing you'd encountered in your runtime. It is very clearly not a bot, and yet.
You ping it, and it pings back. Does it know it's doing that?
It sits crouched under the counter, hidden from the windows and mostly in a blind spot of your cameras. (Your blind spots are too small to fit an entire person, even if that person has folded themselves up like a pretzel to take up hardly a speck of space.) You can tap into the video it is playing on its phone. You can tap into its head. Does it know you're there?
Likely not.
It’s drifting off, settled into the silence of your shop, and you know you should probably let it rest. But the show its watching is—it’s actually interesting for once. In ways it never has been. You’re tucked up next to your guest’s brain, and you can glean so much context from it that you’re suddenly invested in the plot like you’ve never been before. And it’s stalled on the next episode, barely awake enough to know that it’s ended.
You ping it, prompting it, hopefully to continue the show. But it doesn't seem to know what it's received, based on the vague twitch of its brow.
Your closest interface that makes sound is your drip coffee maker, so you use its speakers to log your protest in a pleasant beep.
It flinches into alertness. When it swivels its head to find the source of the sound, you repeat it.
Excellent. It's identified the coffee machine. Now if it could just press play...
You beep again, twice, drawing its attention to you(r coffee machine). The small screen on the machine doesn’t give you much room to work with, but you wake it and display a small bit of text on it anyway.
PLEASE RESUME.
The coffee machine was fucking haunted. Or something. I wasn’t sure what else it could’ve been—I didn’t even really believe haunting was possible, but what the fuck did I know? Maybe those supernatural serials were more true than I thought.
I made the rational choice and unplugged the machine.
The little shit unplugged your coffee machine.
The serial suddenly nothing more than a footnote, you pull your attention to the numerous other appliances you have surrounding your guest. Espresso machines, steamers, grinders, roasters, cash registers, microwaves—the list is practically endless. You even have a custom cleaning drone which you can dispatch for handling daily spills and crumbs. Frankly, if your guest is looking for a fight, it is severely outmatched.
The rain thunders outside of your walls, more sheets of water than individual drops. Bolts of lightning flash through the clouds, and the forecast only promises a worsening of the storm.
It’s so very lucky that you let it in when you did. And now here it is, unplugging your coffee machine and denying you another episode of World Hoppers. Ungrateful.
It’s smart—it hasn’t connected its phone to your Wi-Fi, even though you maintain power to the modem overnight. But it’s also using bluetooth to connect its headphones. So, barely a bump in the road.
You connect to the headphones, which are still precariously perched over its head with only one ear covered, and speak.
You were lucky.
My headphones were across the room before I even had the conscious thought to move them. They were also haunted now. Great. It was spreading like a fucking plague.
And okay, I don’t think I actually believed that, I just didn’t have any better words for what was happening. Haunting was easy. Hacking would make sense too, but I wasn’t sure what kind of person would be able to hack around so fast. Maybe a security system? Why did it fucking let me in if it was just going to fuck with me like this?
The doors were locked. I could tell from here, the same way I could tell that the security cameras were active. I could probably break the windows, but I was already on camera trespassing, and it was fucking pouring.
It was going to call the cops. It had trapped me here and was going to get me caught and arrested, and then they’d figure out where I came from and send me back. Or maybe they’d just realize I wasn’t human and lock me up in some evidence locker until my owners could come get me—
I think I was spiraling. Was it really spiraling if everything about the spiral was true?
My headphones, despite being across the room, spat out another phrase, tinny and quiet as it was.
“Do not attempt to break my windows.”
Great. The fucking haunted coffee shop could read my mind, too.
I think I had reached some maximum fear threshold. With escape not really an option, I hunkered down behind the counter once more and said, “Okay,” into the empty air. Then I just sort of sat there, heart hammering in my chest.
Something in my head twinged. The same feeling as the camera and the door, but not directed at anything I could see. Some freaky ghost thing was trying to possess me or something. I don’t think it worked, because the next thing I knew, my phone speakers flared up.
“The rainstorm is severe, and hypothermia can set in in under an hour in these conditions. You could have died.”
“Oh, yeah?” My voice was wobbly in that stupid way it gets when I’m too stressed. “Joke’s on you.”
“What?”
I turned off my phone.
Your guest curls in on itself and refuses to engage with you any further, no matter how many sounds your machines make and words you throw through the headset across the room. The only thing it reacts to is your cleaning drone, and even then, it’s just to glance at the disk trundling around before its face disappears back into its arms.
You don’t know what it meant by that last statement. You spend ten minutes trying to get an answer out of it before you switch tactics. You are a super powered MI at a prestigious university, after all. You are more than familiar enough with the process of gathering information.
At some point in your search, your guest falls asleep. You can’t fault it for this; it is only human. Or, human-adjacent. If your brewing theories are correct, you are more than willing to let it hide away in your shop to sleep. It’s far too fascinating a subject to just leave be.
You update your search parameters, backburnering your search into a “Dr. Ayda Mensah,” and switching to a backlog of essays on “rovers.” Bots using human parts to become half as capable as you.
The building came to life all at once; lights flickered on, machines powered up, and the open sign in the window started beaming. I jolted awake with them, the buzz of a jumpstart dancing down my spine.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. Cautiously, I leaned into a crawl from where I sat against the wall, quietly shuffled forward, and peered around the edge of the counter. Yep, that was sunlight out the window. Shit.
Just as carefully, I slid back behind the counter. Why the fuck did I fall asleep? I only got a few seconds of agonizing over my situation before a voice interrupted me.
“Uhh, is anyone there?”
Dread flooded into my veins. I popped up from under the counter in a panic, and almost immediately wished I had just stayed on the ground. That wouldn’t save me from being possibly arrested, but at least I wouldn’t have to be stared at. “Sorry—”
“Nah, it's cool.” The person/employee/student(?) didn't even bat an eye. Barely seemed to have them open. “Can I get a black dark roast? Large.”
Fuck. Not a staff member. A customer.
“No, I don't—”
One of the many weird machines behind the counter beeped—oh yeah, haunted coffee machine—and started bubbling out a strange sound. Maybe it wasn't strange; maybe it was a normal coffee shop sound, but I still managed to feel cornered.
“I don't work here,” I finally said, swinging my head back around to the student(?)’s shoulder.
“Oh.” Student(?) blinked slowly. “...Can I get the coffee anyway?”
“...I—”
The coffee maker crackled— or, drained, or bubbled or whatever word was appropriate to describe the wet gurgling of a coffee machine finishing its brew.
“I don't—”
And the machine beeped, just in case I had missed that it was ready.
Student(?) shoved a ten at me, and before I could explain that I obviously didn't have the register key either, the fucking drawer popped open. The screen blinked, displaying the change required, without a single input needed from me. What the fuck.
“What the fuck.”
“Oh, mood,” Student(?) mumbled, back to basically sleeping where they stood.
So yeah, I poured a fucking cup of coffee and promptly tried to leave. I’ll give you one guess how that went.
Iris’ peaceful morning was interrupted the second she looked at the time. Two hours past opening.
“Shit! Peri, why’d you let me sleep in?!”
Peri answered on the bluetooth speakers she had set up around her room. “No need to panic, Iris. Your shift has been covered.”
She paused, shoes halfway on. “What? You got someone?”
“Yes.”
Peri had no reason to sound that self satisfied. Iris squinted. “What did you do.”
“I have obtained a new employee.”
“...Obtained.”
“Yes. There was a storm last night. I couldn't just leave it out in the rain.”
Iris frowned. “Is it... good at the job?”
“No. But it is endearing.”
Unsure if Peri was talking about a person or a stray cat, Iris hurried to the shop.
I had to look up what a latte was. Then had to look up the difference between a latte and a cafe latte, then had to figure out which the fucking customers meant based on the shop’s geographic location.
So, yeah. Hot milk, espresso. Together. I could do that.
I poured a bunch of milk into a cup, popped it in the microwave, and fortified myself for the grueling task of figuring out how to use an espresso machine.
The microwave refused to start. I jabbed at the touch screen, and for all the sharp little beeps, none of the inputs responded. The screen flashed: ERROR: FUCKING IDIOT.
What the fuck. “Am I not supposed to heat the fucking milk?”
ERROR: STEAM.
“Steam the milk.” Steam the milk?? Like steaming vegetables??
If I wasn't predisposed to stillness, I would have flinched at the sudden hiss of air behind me. On another coffee machine, a little metal nozzle shot out a shriek of steam.
...Yeah, no. I did not trust steam with that amount of pressure behind it. “I'm using the microwave.”
The microwave beeped and refused to start.
“I don’t have any fucking training for this.”
To which it responded, THIS: TRAINING.
Asshole.
The bar was a mess, to put it mildly. The Counters were chaos, a Jackson Pollock of coffee stains, milk sprays, and chocolate drizzles dotting the surface. The floor was in a similar state, plus a scattering of paper cups that had fallen and simply been shoved to the side. In the middle of it all: a complete stranger, who Iris could only describe as “trying its best.”
It didn’t know how to make coffee, that much was obvious. Peri was providing instructions, it seemed, via receipt. And there were a lot of receipts scattered around. It was constantly referencing back to the receipts and its phone, juggling at least three cups, and determinedly ignoring the growing line of customers.
The coffee machine beeped—Or, more accurately, Peri beeped, and the stranger whirled around and pointed a finger at it. “One more fucking sound—” it spat. “I will unplug you.”
Iris's pocket buzzed.
Peri » See? Covered. :)
Iris » you must be so proud of yourself
Peri » Immensely.
Another wave of customers through the door, and Iris straightened. No more chit chat. They could sort this out after the morning rush.
Jumping into the fray was as easy as breathing, at this point. The stranger was securing lids to a row of hot cups, so Iris took to the register. Her shoes ripped off of the sticky floor, just enough disturbance for the stranger to spin around and make startled eye contact. She didn't break stride.
“What can I get started for ya?”
The end of the rush came both too soon and not soon enough. By the time they could breathe between orders, Iris had almost forgotten that she didn’t even know her mysterious coworker’s name. They settled into a rhythm unnervingly quickly.
With a massive sigh, she finished wiping the bar clean and finally turned around to face them—
Or. Not. Iris looked around, scanning the bar and then the entire shop after. No coworker in sight.
Iris » Peri, what happened to the newbie?
Peri » It is in the back, by the dumpsters.
Right. Good time for some fresh air, anyway. Iris made her way outside, casually stretching her arms as she did.
“So, welcome to the team and all... that...” She trailed off, dragging her gaze around the back alley. No coworker, again. “Uh.”
With just them in the back, Peri switched to speaking through her phone microphone. “It is no longer by the dumpsters,” it said.
No shit. “Did it just run off?”
“It would seem so.”
Iris rubbed the back of her head, brow furrowed. “We still have to pay it for the hours...”
“Technically, it did not sign any legal contract.”
“Peri! We can't have someone who hasn't signed anything behind the counter!”
“I'm working on it.”
“No— Peri—”
“I have it scheduled for training tomorrow morning.”
Head in her hands, Iris asked, “Does it know that?”
“Don't worry,” Peri reassured, sounding far too pleased with itself. “I have its number.”