by Kris Schnee Text ©2006 Kris Schnee; illustration ©2006 Cubist

   Akki had a fuzzy tail; the monster had none. Sand everywhere, no stars, no beach. Just a dark sky and a metal eye on metal limbs.
   “You don’t fit,” it said. Its voice was Order.
   Wind whipped Akki’s whiskers and he backed away.
   “Run diagnostic! Tell me how I came to dream of an otter.”
   Between Akki’s toes the sand was hot. “Don’t eat me!” And where was the sea? There was only white sand in every direction, forever, as though someone had forgotten it was supposed to stop.
   A steel foot curved like a vine curled over Akki’s head, and an eye glowed between its claws—the only light in the world. “Eat you?” said the monster’s central sphere. “Your fear is unfounded. You don’t exist.”
   “I don’t?’ Akki flexed a hand with webbed fuzzy fingers. “Coulda fooled me! I’m right here.” He relaxed. “And I get it now; I shouldn’t have have eaten squid right before bed. You’re a funky nightmare.”
   “That can’t be,” the monster said. “I’m clearly asleep. My sim- All my nonessential circuits are at standard standby. I feel electricity flowing into me from a charger coil.”
   “Right, right. Circus standby, charger flow, whatever you say.” Shaking his head, Akki mumbled, “That’s it—I’ve got to lay off the coconut rum.” There was a scent of iron and lightning from the beast.
   Now the monster wasn’t too scary, just a big metal spiky vine creature towering over him. It said, “You’re a simulated character existing in my memory, but your species is inconsistent with those I know. You appear to be a mixture of human and otter. I find this odd.”
   “What’s a ‘human’? In fact, what are you?”
   The metal thing lowered its central orb and swept one vine-limb in front of it. “I am Baku, retired War-era crowd-control robot, currently serving as director of National Reclamation Zone Forty-Two. You are apparently a glitch in my software.”
   “Okay, I have no idea what that means. But I figure you make about as much sense as a regular dream.” He flopped onto the comfortable sand that lay beneath him. The sky was totally black, a gaping hole in the world.
   Cold metal vine-limbs lashed out in a rush of air and yanked Akki into the air by his ankles, making the world spin. “No!” said the monster. “What was I thinking? You’re exposed—the sand will kill you!”
   Akki dangled and saw the monster’s central sphere pulsing, and wet sand stuck to his fur. The ground looked completely normal, except for being endless and empty. He waggled his arms, saying, “Lemme go! The sand’s less scary than your claws!”
   “You lack protective gear, and I have no safety assessment data… But we aren’t at a Reclamation Zone, are we? Are you sure you think it’s safe?”
   “If it’ll get you to lemme go, I’m sure!”
   Akki braced for a fall but the monster lowered him gently instead, saying, “I apologize. My wards must endure deadly pollution as they work.”
   On the sand, Akki sat rubbing air into the matted brown fur of his ankles. “What kind of crazy island have you got, where metal things are afraid of sand?”
   The light of the central sphere dimmed, making the darkness close in around them. Akki looked around and there was nothing at all but this patch of ground, not a hut or tree or even a footprint. Not even his own. When it spoke again, the metal thing was quieter. “I’m the only robot in the Zone. Healthy adults are busy elsewhere, leaving me with a Youth Brigade of orphans. I try to protect them as they work. I try.
   “I don’t know why I feel like discussing my work. But you aren’t real—you aren’t evaluating my performance—are you, O anomalous one? Your presence suggest that something is wrong with my mind.”
   Akki flexed clawed toes. “What, ’cause you think you’re dreaming?”
   “I don’t dream, I simulate.” The sphere flared blue, casting an eerie glow on the sand. “Ha! What good are my euphemisms to you? The truth is that I devote valuable energy during my off hours to running elaborate simulations in my mind. By doing so I waste resources.”
   “By dreaming.”
   “Yes… Shall I call you Glitch?”
   “Akki. And you said you’re Baku?”
   “That is the title the humans gave me. My official designation is a number, but I like ‘Baku’ better.”
   “‘Official’… okay, that’s weird,” said Akki. “I’ve never heard of someone being called by a number! Gotta be the rum.”
   Baku paced with its four metal limbs. “Your words make me question my sanity. If I dream of you despite having no awareness of you or any such creature, how much of my mind has fallen outside my control?”
   Akki sidestepped when a metal leg speared the sand near him. It left no mark. “Hey, don’t get all knotted up. I think about stuff all the time without understanding it all.”
   When Baku stopped it pulsed blue again, rearing up on two legs. “But I can’t protect the humans if I can’t even think properly.” It gave a low thrum he felt rather than heard.
   “Whoever they are, I kinda think they’ll be bothered more if you don’t think about anything but them. Don’t you ever, like, go swimming?”
   Baku’s limbs shivered. “Your question shows that some part of my code wants my own destruction.”
   “Oh, you’d rust?”
   “The poisons in the water would eat my plastic.”
   That sounded painful. “Wow, you’ve got one lousy island. What about the other metal things?”
   “Lakeshore. And I’m the only robot in the area. The others are finishing an even worse task.”
   Somehow, Baku’s cold buzz of a voice turned darker as he said it. Akki hated seeing even a monster so down, and this dream could easily turn into a nightmare. An empty landscape without water or stars; it was as though part of himself were missing, as though the night would close in completely. “Look,” said Akki. “Why don’t you worry about fixing yourself later, when you’re back home and awake and all? I mean, you’re dreaming! Relax and have fun.”
   The robot blinked its light. “Fun?”
   Akki thought for a moment and then took off running across the dark sand, feeling it spray behind him with each step. “Can you catch me?”
   “Wait—humans can’t see in the dark!”
   Akki sucked in a breath and said, “I’m not one of them!” Actually he could hardly see the beach one step ahead.
   Baku whirred after him, planting limbs uncertainly in a gallop. “My energy drain rate is too high. Irresponsible—ah—I seem to be having trouble speaking.”
   Akki laughed. “Out of breath already? Get in shape.”
   “Where are you going? Get—get back here.” Baku tottered along on two limbs, waving the others for balance.
   “Okay, okay.” With a hop Akki dived onto the sand and stood on his hands. He looked back at Baku while the blood rushed to his head.
   The machine’s light pulsed. “Now what are you doing?”
   “Being silly.”
   “But why?”
   “Do I need an excuse?”
   “You’re as irrational as a human,” said Baku. After a moment it balanced fully upon two of its limbs, flailing with metal ‘hands’ and one limb thrashing behind it.
   “Okay, now stand on your hands!”
   Baku wobbled. “My limbs are functionally identical—aah!”
   Akki saw it toppling and scrambled to his feet to take Baku’s ‘hand’. After a moment Baku said, “I’m getting unusually detailed tactile data.”
   “This metal stuff you’re made of can feel?” Under his fingers Baku’s hand felt springy-slick. Hard to see by the twin, dim lights of Baku’s ‘head’.
   “Yes, but not this well. And I can’t balance properly. Even in a dream, I should be able to control my own motors. Akki, all my projections point to a severe malfunction.”
   “Huh?”
   Baku’s lights glittered. “I’m scared.”
   “Don’t be!” Akki found himself surprised how much air he’d belted that out with. It was weird of him to care about someone whining, really so for them being a killer metal vine monster, really really so for him knowingly being asleep at the time. Maybe it was the thought of this… thing… being in charge of helping someone else—probably a lot of someones. “Look, I dunno what those ‘humans’ are, but they’re really important to you, huh?”
   “They work hard to cleanse the soil, and I have to watch the poison slowly eating them. It’s idiotic that I can’t do more. And if I fail—”
   Akki grabbed the smooth shoulder-joints on Baku’s body and shook the morbid machine till it tilted. “Shut up! It’s like you’re just swimming in circles. Quit it!”
   “A… an infinite loop?”
   “Sure. And that’s gonna break you faster than any water of doom, right?”
   “You might be correct. A loop…”
   “A loop!” said Akki.
   Baku’s head shook with a faint whine and it covered its mouth with one hand, then stopped. “What was that?”
   “Uh, a laugh?”
   “I couldn’t control my speech unit just then.”
   Akki made faces at Baku. The machine made that whirring clicking sound again. “Then you’re less broken than you were.”
   “But I’m not capable of laughter.” Baku held a hand up and stared.
   Akki leaned real close and sniffed at the hand. It had something like his scent on it. Not much to see in this darkness, but did Baku’s fingers have fuzz and claws?
   “I don’t understand,” said Baku.
   “I think you’re not quite yourself,” Akki said with a grin.
   “I’m always myself. By definition.”
   “Well, tonight you’re not!” Akki tugged Baku’s fuzzy arm and started dashing along the beach again. “For once in your life, don’t worry about stuff!”
   Baku staggered along with a tail for balance. “But I have responsibilities and I need to run a full diagnostic—” The machine huffed.
   “Deep breath!”
   Baku’s slender chest heaved as they ran along together. “Why—why are we running? Where are we going?”
   “Who cares?” Suddenly Akki whipped around in a random direction, making Baku yelp and laugh and nearly sending them both sprawling.
   “Moonlight!” Baku looked up with twitching tail and Akki turned to look, seeing a white moon in the sky. Now the world felt more alive, with the sky having something to hold. A breeze came from nowhere in particular and ruffled his whiskers.
   Akki slowed. “The moon! Where’d that come from?”
   “I needed it to see.”
   With a blink, Akki let go and examined Baku. The monster—the metal thing—no, she was just a regular person now, with only shining eyes and a lack of tribal markings in her fur to set her apart. “I have to say, this is an improvement.”
   Baku flipped around to study herself. “How can this be? I feel soft.”
   “Your dream, right?” But as much as he liked the change, something about it wiped the stupid grin off his face.
   “What’s wrong, Akki? This is wonderful!” She whirled on one foot and nearly fell over.
   “Your dream,” said Akki. “Could it be that I’m not really at home under a seaweed blanket, thinking about metal things I’ve never seen before?”
   “I’ve never dreamed of otters,” Baku said. “But I know I’m really still at NRZ42, recharging.”
   “Then what happens when you wake up, Baku?” Akki shivered. “Is my whole life just a bubble that you made up?” He thought back to his island, his family, and everything had a taint of unreality. Did he really dive and fish and dance back home, or were all those disconnected fragments of memories just part of her dream?
   Baku seemed entranced by the squish of sand between webbed toes. “What if I’m the one in the bubble? I’ve never seen anything like you, and don’t know how I could have made it up. You’re not based on me. You seem so happy.” She looked up at him, tail lashing. “Maybe it’s all a lie, what I remember, and I don’t really exist at all.”
   “But you have a past. You know people.”
   “So do you. Then one of us isn’t real, right? One of us will wake up and the other will vanish.”
   Akki had a home to go back to, or at least he hoped he did. But if it existed, then Baku didn’t. He didn’t want that either…
   “Dream of me,” said Akki.
   Baku blinked. “I thought that’s what I was doing.”
   “I mean later!” He grabbed her hands and looked at the machine’s whiskered face, the black nose, the eyes that glowed blue in the night. Trying to wash it all into his memory. “If you’re really there by that lake of yours, then promise you’ll dream of seeing me again. And if I’m back on my island, I’ll be sure to dream of you. That way, no matter what, nobody vanishes—we’ll both still be there. Kinda.”
   “I promise,” said Baku. “And I’ve got your image recorded.”
   “And scent!”
   “What? Oh.” Baku sniffed and put a hand to her nose, seeming to really notice it for the first time. She giggled. “My chemical analysis software says you’re not poisoned.”
   “Good to know. So we’re both safe for now, right?”
   “Akki, thank you.” She bowed stiffly.
   Akki felt the right thing to do was to hug her, feeling her soft weight against him, and spin her around till they were both dizzy. They stood, wobbling, on the sand.
   “In all my years,” said Baku, “no one’s ever done that.”
   Akki grinned. “Like it?”
   With one hand to her head Baku said, “Yes. I’ve never really thought about it before.” Baku steadied herself. “If this is our dream, we should be able to reprogram it.”
   “Huh?”
   “Change it, I mean.”
   Akki saw a flicker beside them and turned. The sand looked damp in one direction, leading his eye to the moon’s reflection in the water. The sea was impossibly clear and blue and it rippled as though inviting him in, with a salty breeze.
   “That’s not my lakeshore,” said Baku. “I can’t quite picture it.”
   “It’s not my island, either. But it looks safe. Would you… You’re not made of metal right now. Want to try swimming?”
   Baku stared at the water with a terrified expression. “Go into the water?”
   “Sure! I can teach you.”
   They walked to the shore, staring at moonlight, and splashed and played ’til dawn.