Page 129 of Death of the Author

I was surprised. “Yes.”

“Have you reached your ultimate boon?”

“Not yet,” I said.

We let it give us a tour. Ijele and I learned about the gods Osun, Shango, and Ogun. We learned of the local gods whose names changed every decade or so. And we learned how this shrine had become a place where robots who’d had enough of the world came to shut their bodies off and delete themselves. It was an honorable place to stop. Robots of all shapes and sizes. A RoBoat had even had a parade of robots to tow its body here. It was my first time seeing a RoBoat up close like this without waves lapping at its sides.

I said nothing about Ijele to the service robot. Not yet. I wasn’t sure how it would take to the presence of a NoBody in this sacred grove. I wasn’t sure how to even ask what we’d come here for.

“Let me,” Ijele said. And I did. She took control of my eyes so she could look the robot’s body up and down. I walked around the robot, allowing Ijele to see every inch. “Custodian,” I finally said.

“Call me Osun,” the robot said.

“Osun, do any of these robots ever leave?”

“Never. This place is a grave.”

“Always?”

“As far as I’ve seen.”

“Does that make you sad?” I asked.

“Sometimes. These robots are beautiful. Yet they have been left behind. I do my best to honor them.”

“Ask it!” Ijele demanded in my head.

“Osun, if I had someone, an AI who needed a body... no, who wantedto honor one of these bodies by choosing, caring for, and loving it, would you allow it?”

Osun seemed to freeze. I could hear a soft buzzing coming from inside it. Was it thinking really hard? Was it indecisive? Angry? I stepped back. Some robots were unpredictable. And I’d seen the cruelty of robots during the war.

Osun turned to me. “A NoBody? You’re infected,” it said.

Now I understood; it had been scanning me. “No. I... we’re friends. I simply carry her. We’ve been friends for years. She has been exiled.”

Osun cocked its head. “This is a new concept to me.”

“Me too... well, not new in that I’ve known Ijele for years, but an exiled AI who is a friend, a best friend... We love each other. This is a new concept to me.”

Osun’s jaw creaked as it considered this. “It actually wants a body?”

“Yes.”

“To discard when it returns to its people or finds another body it prefers in a few days or weeks?”

“This will be the body I have forever, if it stays operable,” Ijele said, using my speakers.

“Then you are no longer a NoBody,” Osun said.

“I am me,” Ijele said, through my speakers and in my head.

Osun made a loud clicking sound. It walked a few steps away from me and then turned and walked back. “Which body?” Osun asked.

“That one,” I said, pointing at the rose-copper robot.

Osun made a trilling sound of amusement. “Ah, she wants to be a goddess.” After a pause, it said, “I will allow it. It’ll make me happy to see this one walk away. It’s beautiful, but it’s a lot to keep beautiful.”

The robot body was already charged up. It was solar- and geopowered, and it had been sitting on the earth and in the sun. All it needed was to be rebooted. The pad was at the base of its glass head.

---