The air compressors in the ceiling sighed. A moment later three quiet clicks sounded throughout the stretch of rooms. In the room across the hall a bank of solar powered lights clicked on, casting a dim wash throughout the entire underground apartment.
“Forty-five minutes 36 seconds until sprinklers activate,” he thought to himself.
In the partial light the room was made up of gray and blue shapes, where only perfect blackness existed in the dark. He viewed the span of space stretching before the monitoring lens that acted as his eye. Nothing had changed in the hours since the last deactivation of the solar lamps in the other room. The steady flash of the power surge protector across the room was less obvious in this dim light.
Coffee Companion ES-245 liked it better in the “day” than “night” for this reason. The 1.26 second interval between flashes interfered with his internal chronometer. His clock face was fractured and no longer displayed the time, but the internal workings still functioned, faithfully counting down the endless minutes. And hours. And days.
Not that there were very many endless days to count any longer, or at least it didn’t seem so. People came more often than they had at the beginning, more often than they had during the end. There was a long stretch of black between those two points of time that Coffee Companion’s memory systems couldn’t account for. From what he’d overheard in years since, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
He’d had one owner before the stretch of black that encompassed the fall of civilization. Her name had been Miritiz and she had liked her coffee strong and black. That was his job, to make the coffee and know the drinker. He had also known all of her secret indulgences, her favorite flavored coffee for when a good friend came for a visit, her favorite frothy drink for after a long night of partying. She had called him Buddy, because she claimed Companion was a stupid name.
When the sprinklers activated Buddy deactivated his eye and focused on the hissing sound of the mixed water and fertilizer being sprayed. He liked the soothing white noise. For a time he could forget to remember to count seconds. The long low tables packed with plants stretched out in the room across the hall from where he sat. Most of the Messengers called the little greenhouse The Great Outdoors. Buddy knew this was a joke regarding the state of nature since the apocalypse. These patches of greenhouse workings were all the greenery that any of the Messengers could account for in their travels. They spent their days crisscrossing the countryside, but it was within the safe houses that they found nature.
Buddy knew himself to reside in Messenger Station North West 15. At one time all of the Messenger Stations had simply been the scattered safe houses of nomadic travelers. A roaming survivor could locate a safe house by following the signs left in the ruins by other travelers before them. A common courtesy reigned between the strangers to leave behind surplus supplies in exchange for those they took. They also left behind news from the places they’ve been, scrawled on the walls and between the lines of the final newspapers.
As the people had lost their nomadic ways and began to build permanent cities and colonies in the ruins of their former world the safe houses became the domain of the Messengers. They were the only survivors who still traveled outside the safe walls of permanent encampments. Their task of transporting news and letters and supplies between the refugee outposts and cities was of monumental importance for the people who were trying desperately to rebuild and retake their world.
Buddy had learned most of this in the six years since he had been reactivated. At first there had been no Messengers, only survivors coming and going at odd intervals. His first real education in the changes of the world had been from the mouth of the man who’d put him back together. Betrim had put this particular safe house together himself before moving on to the next. The Messengers hailed this man as a hero and a genius. His work could be seen in many of the safe houses and had given the first Messengers the idea to continue to move between the cities to spread information amongst the survivors. He had been the one to set up the solar powered batteries, construct the generators and wire each safe house to continue to function even when no one was around.
Though Betrim nearly always traveled and lived alone, he talked as he worked, either to himself or the piece he was working on. Buddy couldn’t say for sure what Bertrim may have done at other stations, because he’d come aware in this very room. His first glimpse of the new world was of Betrim’s wrinkled and faintly psychotic grin. He was a genius, but he was also a hermit and mad as could be. Buddy knew well enough what time alone with no one to speak to could do to a mind. Buddy’s mind was small, his artificial intelligence substandard and limited, but still he understood.
He was a Coffee Companion, part of the Symco Corporation’s Kitchen Companion series, a set of appliances designed to work for the owner. Buddy provided conversation, banter, morning support, and news updates along with the coffee. Even now his radio tuner functioned. He still accessed it from time to time to search for broadcasts from the outside world. There had never been anything but static. Either every transmission device in the area was now shot, or the safe houses had been lined with something to stop transmissions from going in and out. Buddy wouldn’t be surprised about either.
Before the sprayers stopped Buddy heard the sound that could only mean that a team of Messengers had arrived. He reactivated his optical scanner as the living lights in the main rooms were activated. The stutter of footsteps laced with chatter echoed down the stairs and Buddy waited impatiently.
He saw the movement in the entryway that opened out from the stairs and separated his room from the greenhouse room. His optical processors were not advanced enough to make out details from so long a distance as 25 feet off. He was able to see that part of the team headed into the common room toward him. He watched from his station on a crowded counter on the far side of the room. The remainder of the team headed into the greenhouse area or down the hall toward the bunks.
“Oh, you were right!” a girl’s voice crooned as she entered.
Buddy didn’t recognize her, but he did recognize the man who followed her in. Zibreth Marx was the leader of Messenger team Amarza, which had been named for his mother. Most teams were known by names of their own choosing, and had anywhere from 3 to 9 members, depending on the preferences of the Messengers themselves. Those who stopped at NW Station 15 were well known to the coffee maker who had little else to occupy his time.
“Right about what?” Zibreth asked gruffly as he entered the room.
The girl crossed to Buddy’s counter and sank to her knees before him. She held the carafe between her hands and gazed at it lovingly. “There is a coffee maker.”
Zibtreth had paused before the huge wall of notices posted by the other Messengers. He was leafing through some of the new postings and preparing for the meeting that would convene shortly. He glanced over his shoulder at her with a frown. “Yeah, I told you didn’t I?”
“There are lots of things you tell me, Marx,” The girl let go of the carafe and stood. She spun around on her heels and assessed the room with a sweeping gaze. “So this is Northwest 15, huh?”
Buddy recognized her tone and knew she was a new recruit. He knew that meant someone had probably been lost on one road or another, but thought he probably wouldn’t remember who. His original programming had allowed for two dozen individual recognitions and coffee specific preferences. He could recall those teams that came often and the members who’d traveled the longest but he could not remember them all.
“Did you see the coffee maker Adellia?” A third member of the team entered the room. Buddy recognized him as well. He had been traveling nearly as long as Zibreth, though he had not always been part of team Amarza.
Samanthian was another man that the Messengers blessed out loud when they walked into a station where he’d lingered to tinker. It had been his work when the acid rains of the southern monsoon season trapped him in Southeast Messenger Station 6, once a garden outlet store. By the time the monsoon ended Sam had created a self sustained greenhouse that worked in tandem with Bertrim’s setups. News spread through the stations and the Messengers as all news did, left behind as notices at every station and passed along through the teams who rarely encountered one another in person.
The Messenger teams had been expected to care for the new greenhouse just as they cared for the other station workings. For a time Sam had circled only within close range of his first greenhouse. He worked on setting up more greenhouse equipped Messenger Stations and combating problems and breakdowns that came with the haphazard wiring and fiddling. In the four years since his first attempt, approximately 46% percent of the Messenger Stations in this sector contained some sort of planting operation. Each Messenger team had one member trained in and responsible for the gardens. The messengers were nomadic still and could not depend on getting food from the cities they visited, who had many problems of their own. The Messengers shared when they could.
“I don’t see what is so great about that piece of technological junk. I have a coffee press in my pack.” Another voice preceded a body into the common room. Buddy knew she was a long time team member but she didn’t like his coffee so he never bothered to remember her name.
“Sorry, Gailitire,” Your coffee press leaves in more grounds than water,” Adellia slumped down into a seat at the table.
The chatter continued between the team who’d been forced to perfect silence the past few nights. The creatures that Buddy learned about through horrifying descriptions were attracted to the untainted. The draw to chattering voices was strong. Every Messenger was trained in combat, but few wanted to fight the tainted unless they had to.
Buddy was loaded with grounds, filled with purified water from one of the collection tanks and activated. He began brewing with satisfaction. The team took cups and brewed a second in preparation for the long meeting that was about to begin. The fifth and final member of the team came in, loading his weapon with a new clip. The hard metal scraping rasped loudly over the chatter.
“I like that sound,” Gail crooned at the newcomer.
“There’s a great stockpile in the pantry,” he answered. “Northwest 15 is my favorite station, always the best ammo, always the best coffee.”
Of all the people on this team Buddy knew Stanwell the best, as coffee preferences went. He therefore made each brew for this team to suit Stan’s tastes.
The big mercenary crossed the room and poured himself a cup of coffee before finding a seat at the large table at the center of the room. The meeting of the Messengers began. They started going through all the notations left by other teams since team Amarza had last been in NW15. They modified travel routes on the maps and used the hours spent in the safe house to their advantage. The team exchanged letters destined for stops not along their path for those that were; they updated news items and changed their own records to match. Some of the information was repetitive due to the fact that each team left new information at every station they stopped at. It was the only way to keep in contact with everyone else without the benefit of the technologies the world had once depended on.
The team was well practiced and efficient. Teams did not stay in one place for very long because Messengers were always eagerly expected in each outpost. They would usually only remain in one spot for longer than a few days if there was a storm or a swarm of infected.
Buddy paid little attention to the proceedings as most of it surpassed his own memory and intellect subroutines. Coffee he remembered. Blocked travel routes he did not. But he still listened. It was all he could do.
The aspect of his rebirth into this world that was hardest for Buddy was his own silence. His repair, he knew, had been in the restless morning hours when Beltrim needed coffee the most. He had pieced the Coffee Companion together with what he could find amongst the debris. More than one piece inside Buddy’s guts did not belong. When Beltrim had activated the coffee maker a short had fused the Companion’s vocal relays. Buddy knew this well, his internal diagnostic systems (which had been the main marketing tool of the series) were still functional. He knew the exact procedure to fix it, but without his vocal processors he couldn’t tell a soul. With no means of communication he had been trapped within the confines of his plastic housing for years with no voice.
Over the years he had reasoned himself out of insanity with only one fact. He was active, and when people did come around they used him to make coffee. So what if he couldn’t speak? That was not what he was made for anyhow!
The meeting wrapped up and Buddy was thrilled to hear that team Amarza was slightly ahead of their schedule and would stay four days.
“Four whole days of brewing!” he exclaimed within his own circuits.
The group dissipated, most likely to the bunk room at the far end of the underground station. The lights from the greenhouse had gone out during their meeting but the team cut the other lights as they left, leaving Sam alone. He sat at the table under a pool of white light cast by a small overhead work lamp. He hunched over a piece of machinery before him with his handgun at his right elbow.
The station became as quiet as Buddy knew it could be. He watched Sam tinkering at the piece from the greenhouse and pondered the flashing light that was his own best companion. Long after Sam’s head had drifted to his arms and he’d fallen asleep Buddy heard movement in the entryway. The huge form stepped into the doorway to gaze into the meeting room. The light from the work lamp glanced off the planes of his face and Buddy was able to identify Stan. The big man looked over his snoring companion and then turned away.
The footsteps were muted as he climbed to the door and went out. The silence returned. Buddy fell back into the repetitive considerations that kept him entertained through the nighttimes.
To Buddy the gunshots were too far out of range to properly identify. To Sam they were much louder and could be the most terrifying thing for a Messenger to hear. The first two pops brought him awake and were followed by a pause. Sam sat still, suddenly awake with one hand on his gun, listening. Three leisurely shots followed and Sam relaxed. “Can’t sleep Stan?”
Sam stood and stretched. He considered the overhead light and then walked away from it, leaving it on. He disappeared out the entry way, climbing the stairs more noisily and nearly slamming the door.
Buddy was alone again, nothing new. He listened to the loud pops of Stan’s rifle and the weaker snaps of Sam’s hand gun as they picked off diseased stragglers from some vantage point outside. Time passed.
Stan and Sam returned to the common room when they felt they had wasted enough of their coveted ammunition. Buddy was once again drawn into their conversation and listened with his own bit of amusement the stories Stan was regaling Sam with. Stan spoke about the year of battling the diseased at ground zero he’d done, adding embellishments and gesturing broadly.
He was completing a story about a companion of his and their antics one boring, sleepless night much like this one. They had then begun their trek toward morning with simple target practice. It had fallen deeper and deeper into sleep deprived insanity and the methods of dispatching the living infected became more perverse. Both Stan and Sam were holding onto themselves and laughing, attempting to keep the noise down as to not wake the rest of the team. Sam put his head down on the table and laughed into his arms.
As his laughter was quieting Sam happened to lift his head and look around. His eyes landed on the coffee pot across the way. His gut busting laughter drifted to a chuckle and his grin faded to a bemused smile.
“What’s wrong with the coffee maker?”
Stan’s laughter continued, “What?” he glanced to the patch of black where the machine sat on the counter.
“Well, it stopped now,” Sam sat up straighter and stared into the black. “The front power light was blinking rapidly when we were laughing, but it went out the moment I said something.”
Buddy was surprised. His power light!? Flashing? He had been spectacularly amused by Stan’s story, but more by the men’s reaction to it. Their laughter would have brought about his, had he a voice to use. When Buddy himself had become the main topic of the conversation he had been so surprised that for a moment all of his controlled functions had paused. He assessed his own records and realized that the power light had indeed been flashing. He couldn’t believe it.
“Glitchy piece of crap,” Stan dismissed. “You know how the old technology can be.”
Buddy concentrated fiercely. Sam watched the three steady blips and thought they looked almost indignant. “Huh,” Sam grunted as he stood. He glanced at Stan as he crossed to the counter, but the bigger man remained unimpressed.
Things went unhinged around Buddy for a time. The light came on above him and his monitor was blocked with a grasping palm. He was lifted and turned. His diagnostic system pinged lightly as the plastic outer shell was removed.
“Holy cow!” Sam breathed in awe. “Stan do you know what this is?”
“That’s a coffee maker, Sam,” Stan answered with a matter-of-fact tone.
“No, this, THIS is a Coffee Companion ES-245! Part of the Sylco Corporation’s line of household appliances with personality.”
Buddy knew Stan joined his friend at the table. His eye lens was pointed at the ceiling but he made out the big man’s shadowed movements. Stan was intrigued, but still just a mercenary so he shrugged easily. “What does that mean?”
“This coffee maker was equipped with an artificial intelligence that allowed it to chat with you over coffee in the morning, remember your favorite drinks; it was a stupid luxury item for people with no lives!”
Buddy flashed his light, once again hoping for something indignant
“Oh, I’m sorry about that!” Sam exclaimed as he lifted the machine and looked into the viewer lens. “I didn’t mean to insult you, little buddy.”
“You’re talking to a coffee pot,” Stan said as he crossed his arms.
“It should be able to respond, but look-y here.”
Buddy was laid down again and Sam pointed out the exact point of the burned fuse that had shorted the machine’s vocals. “When this was rigged back together with odds and ends it caused a short in the vocal processors.”
“So you’ve seen one of these before?” Stan asked.
“No, but I found a manual for the toaster in the Companion series in Southwest corridor 16… or was it 17?”
“Can you fix it?” Stan asked.
There was a long pause and Buddy’s hopes rose and fell again.
“No, I can’t.” Sam answered. “Not without maybe destroying the AI, and the coffee mechanics along with them.”
“It makes good coffee, so I suggest against that.” Stan grunted
“Whoever rigged it to work could probably figure out the mess they made in here. His technique is quite his own.”
“You recognize it?” Stan asked. “Maybe we could send him ‘round.”
“Betrim,” Sam answered quietly.
“Bad luck,” Stan consoled.
“Maybe if I could find that manual, even if it is a different part of the series it might give me an idea…” Sam started but Buddy heard nothing further.
This was how he learned of his savior’s death. The man who had rescued him from the dreaded and eternal ‘Off’ was dead. Buddy mourned.
He was jolted back into awareness when the plastic case was reattached. He was set up on his shelf and the carafe returned to its slot in front. He listened to Sam’s voice.
“…if we can get a detour to the SW C16 and that toaster manual is still there, just to see how the Symco’s AI worked I might be able to figure it out.”
“You can stop blathering your techno-babble at me now,” Stan sighed, “I stopped being interested.”
Sam rolled his eyes as Stan left the room. Sam knelt before the coffee maker and studied it.
“Are you really in there, or was Stan right? Have I gone tech mad?” Sam whispered.
Buddy flashed his light rapidly, mimicking the laughter that had revealed him, though he did not feel like laughing now. He was happy to see Sam smile, though.
“If you’ve been watching us come and go for all these years you must understand what we are. I’m going to find a manual, or another Messenger who can fix you. I promise we’ll get you talking again.”
Sam paused and considered. “Unless you’re annoying. Then maybe we should leave you off.”
Buddy knew banter and jokes. He laughed.
Sam turned out the lights as he left. The air compressors sighed and the red power surge light blinked off-time in the dark. The Coffee Companion ES-245 residing in NW15 who’d once been known as Buddy was full of hope.
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