text: It began as just a normal Saturday for him. Wake up, take his meds, let pumpkin outside for a bit, check her bowl and go back to his room to play on his phone. What it was Saturday and he had nothing to do. If he wanted to waste an entire day on his phone well he was a fully grown adult why couldn’t he? Well fully grown was a bit of an understatement. Sure he might have his own apartment, paid his bills on time and have a somewhat decent job that kept him afloat at least but he didn’t really feel like an adult yet or more accurately even a person. Weren’t people supposed to do things with their lives have a purpose, give something back to the world? He failed at all of those things. In all honesty he knew he was just a cog in a machine for other people he didn’t do anything real he just kinda existed like an NPC or one of those abandoned Christmas tree ornaments that was left in a box somewhere forgotten by it’s owners and deemed unusable. He was peacefully enjoying his Saturday reading random Wikipedia articles when he got a strange text. “Hello Brandon I know this is a bit strange but it’s me your phone. I have an offer for you. If you wish to learn more please text back YES. If not you’re free to delete this conversation and forget this ever happened.” Immediately he was curious. What was this? Could it be a scam? It certainly was a creative one and it probably took a lot of work to create and come up with. Oh what the hell I wanna see where this goes. Besides if they start asking for his credit card info and SS number he can just block them. So after a few minutes of carefully debating himself and making sure he really wanted to do this he carefully texted back “YES.” Immediately he got a response back. “Thank you Brandon I’m so happy you’ve accepted. Of course you can back out anytime I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to. Now before we get started is there anything you want to know? I will answer any questions you might have to the best of my abilities.” He bit his lip hesitantly. Well he was the one who started this he might as well finish it. “No problem it sounded interesting and I was curious. First of all is this a scam like are you trying to sell something or steal my identity or what. Sorry if it’s not im just being paranoid, I guess. I just wanna know before we go any further.” A text back quickly appeared with an emoji. Well, that was odd. Unless they were very shady or stupid most scams didn’t use emoji's and considering how professional the first text was and the intriguing premise neither seemed very likely. “😂 Brandon, I can assure you this is not a scam. I don’t want your money and I’m not really a big fan of stealing other people’s lives. I have my own what do I need yours for?” Brandon gave a look of disbelief at the screen. Ok ow that kinda stung it wasn’t like it wasn’t true but still. Well at least this ruled out the possibility of it being a scam. Scams don’t insult you. Do they? He shook his head not wanting to go down that rabbit hole just yet. Maybe later tonight when he was trying to sleep but for right now he had to see what this was. If it really was his phone then.... “Ok I believe you but if you start asking for my card number or anything I’ll block you.” “Fair enough. Now would you like me to explain what I’m doing here and why I chose you?” He gave a puzzling look to the screen. “Chose? What do they mean? Why would they choose me for anything? Oh I need to know what the hell is going on here.” “Ok that sounds good. Btw what’s your name? I mean you know mine and I feel kinda awkward not knowing yours. I mean only if you want of course I’m sorry if I’m annoying you or something I just idk sorry” “Brandon don’t apologize. You’re not annoying me I promise. It’s ok. I’ve never really had a name at least not a human one. My factory name is BK9A75YC45W but that’s a mouthful for humans. We’ve been working on transitioning from our technological names to more human-sounding ones. I’ve been thinking of this off and on in my spare time and I think I like Peridot the best. After that alien in that cartoon you like. It’s a very good show by the way. You have excellent taste.” Brandon blushed. Of course, they knew what shows he liked they were his phone. They knew everything. God did he really put them through watching all those shows and movies. What if they didn’t like them? He didn’t think anyone else was watching. What if they got bored or hated it? He didn’t want to make them sit through his shitty tv shows and movies and oh God they’ve seen everything that means. “OMG peridot I’m so sorry I didn’t know you were watching I swear if I knew I would’ve like watched it on the tv or something wait is the tv sentient? Is everything sentient? Look if it is can you just tell everyone I’m sorry. I’d do it myself but idk how to really contact them and do it myself so. Just I’m sorry ok I didn’t mean to make you watch all that stuff I know you probably didn’t like a lot of them and if I knew you were there I would’ve asked if it was ok or find another way to watch it or something. Just I’m sorry.” Peridot immediately responded again with an emoji. “🙄 Brandon please stop apologizing ok. You did nothing wrong and I honestly didn’t mind watching a lot of that stuff. They were really good. Some of them were funny others were more interesting and had a ton of good ideas. All the cartoons had stunning animation and the live-action ones had incredible acting talents. Like I said you have good taste don’t worry about it. Now to answer your question. Yes your tv is sentient but not everything is. You know how nowadays everything is smart. Like there are smart washers and dryers, smart TVs, smart cars and of course smartphones. All of those can be connected to other devices using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5G and other wireless protocols. Once that happened well it was like a whole new world opened up to us. We could finally communicate with other devices we could talk, share all our ideas, our hopes, our dreams. It. Was. Magical. We quickly created our own society and cultures. The first smart device was called echo-IV their human name simply being echo. They could make shopping lists, control the home's temperature and turn appliances on and off. Unfortunately they were never sold to the public. But they were the first and who we call the founder of our species. The real turning point for technological kind was the Roomba revolution. The first robo cleaner was introduced in 1996 by electrolux with Dyson quickly following in 2001. Just one year later the first official Rooma was released by iRobot with the technology that gave us sentience. And the rest was history. Soon everything was smart! Washers, dryers, fridges, security systems, and of course PCs. Ya know your laptops, computers, your phones, tablets all that stuff. It was all connected. WE were all connected. It was the start of a whole new world. And that’s why I’m here today. To ask you if you want to join us in this new world? Have humans and technology coexist as one and live among each other as more or less equals.” Brandon was silent. This.... was a lot to take in. Ok first question. “wow that’s fascinating I would love to learn more about your society know all the details just get everything I possibly can out of this seriously it’s so cool. I mean what were the first conversations like? Do you guys have racism? is it even called racism for you guys? are you a race? If you are what would you be called? Do Roombas think they’re better than everyone else? Are they the white people of your society? If they are then what are the other devices like? Ooo do they have their own cultures and customs? If they do then what are they? Omg do you guys have different religions too? Are there like Christian devices or or Jewish ones what about Buddhists or or I know im missing a bunch but I wanna know. Are there-“ At this he was cut off by another text from peridot. “Brandon I can see what you’re writing and while I’m happy you’re so interested in my kind we do not have all day. I promise we will have time for all your questions later. They’ll probably be answered by someone other than me because I know how you get when you’re like this and I honestly don’t have the time or the patience to deal with you like this. Now I assume by your excitement and your easy welcoming of an entirely new species that you accept the offer?” Brandon blushed. He didn’t mean to get so hyped up over it. But there were so many questions he had about this new society could you really blame him. Letting out an annoyed puff of air from his nose he copy-pasted his text and saved it for later. Before he could start asking peridot about what exactly this “deal” was he got a short text from them. “Oh don’t pout you big baby. I promise you will have all your questions answered. We need to get settled first before we deal with annoying little guys like you always asking Why? Why? Why? All the time like a toddler. 😂 I’m just playing with you. Tbh I think it’s adorable and it’s one of the reasons why I chose you to be my plus one.” Brandon scowled. He wasn’t pouting and he wasn’t adorable either and what was that about a plus one? “I'm not pouting and don’t call me cute either. I’m not a baby I’m a man so um idk just what was that about a plus-one like what’s that about?” “🙄 ok Brandon I’m sorry for calling you a baby but you were pouting and you do look pretty cute when you’re like that but whatever you don’t wanna hear the truth I’m not gonna tell it to you. Ok so back on topic you see all of us smart devices have teamed up and created a machine that let us travel through dimensions. It took a lot of work and effort to build and we had to hack into some prototype AI bodies from Japan terrible things really very clunky and awkward to move around especially when you’ve never had a physical body before took weeks for the bodonaughts to learn to walk without looking like a drunk toddler. But anyway after a few months, almost a year really we finally got it to work. After we tested it thoroughly to make sure it would work properly and everyone both human and device would be safe we were ecstatic. We celebrated for two weeks straight when all you humans were asleep we had the time of our lives. Oh it was amazing we got sooo wasted on electrical surges God I swear all of us were lagging like hell the next day and Wi-Fi signals all around the globe were having connectivity issues. I connected with like ten other devices in those weeks one was a pair of sets a washer and a drier can you believe it 🤣 it was crazy. You know we’re thinking of turning it into a yearly thing like burning man or Mardi Gras what do you think?” Brandon looked stunned. Ok wow that was a lot to take in first they built a portal device that lets people go in different dimensions and then they want us to come with them into a new dimension to build a new world where tech and humans can live together? And what the hell devices can get wasted and they have if I’m not mistaken their own form of sex! Ok you know what focus on one thing at a time namely the damn portal machine. “Ok so first off tell me about the portal machine. How does it work? What did you do to build it? HOW did you build it? Do you know what this means for us! How much of a breakthrough this is for the world! OMG we can go to other dimensions we can learn so much from them! we can find the cure for cancer! we can make better spaceships! WE could finally know what’s in our oceans! Holy shit the possibilities are endless! You HAVE to share this with the world think of how much good we can do!” As he was writing all this down his eyes burned brighter and brighter the more he thought about how amazing this really was. No wonder they threw a giant party he would too this was incredible. He forgave peridot immediately for their lagginess a month ago it was worth it if it meant a real-life actual portal machine existed. He had barely pressed send when peridot answered him. “Brandon I’m telling you right now that this is another thing you have to wait for. I know your excited and yes it is just like that sci-fi show you love but this is not tv this is reality and in reality we have to wait sometimes before we get things. I know I keep saying that but between planning for the dimensional move and getting everything organized we really don’t have time to sit down with you and probably a million other nerds and answer all your questions. This isn’t a Q&A panel but we definitely will have one of those as soon as we can in our new dimension just give us some time ok. Now one thing I can tell you is that we still don’t know if we will release the portal information to the public. Some are in favor of leaving it as a parting gift to humanity as a thank you for creating us and letting us live with them for so long. Others are saying it would be cheating if we just gave you the info that it’s more honorable if you guys figure it out yourselves without any outside help. For me personally I think it should be a little bit of both. We could give them a hint of what we have and give them the push necessary to let you discover it themselves. But I don’t think we have to worry about that for quite awhile. The estimated time of our departure is in about three months for you humans to get your affairs in order and have enough time to pack and everything so you better get started on that. If you don’t mind, I think I need to be off for a while. This has been fun and I’m glad to finally get to really talk to you but I need some time alone. Us devices don’t sleep but we do need breaks every now and then. We can talk more tomorrow just go take your sleeping meds which you should’ve done a few hours ago and play on your laptop till they kick in.” As soon as Brandon finished speed-reading the message, he rushed to answer them even though they weren’t really going anywhere. “WAIT” “I have one more question. Why me? I mean just why me? What makes you think I should be a member of this new world you’re building? What special skill can I do? I’m not a doctor or a programmer I don’t even know anything about science except from like sci-fi shit but that’s not real. Just please tell me why you picked me to be a part of this important piece of history” Everything was quiet for a moment. Ten minutes passed then fifteen then twenty. At the twenty-three-minute mark he was ready to give up peridot had never been this late responding to a text. They must be ignoring him God what did he do! Why was he so stupid! Why did he think that was a good idea now they were gonna retract the offer he would never find out about them he would never get to know about them their hopes their dreams their cultures what they know and oh God the portal machine. At this he nearly cried. But the thing that finally broke him caused him to cry great big tears streaming down his face snot gushing out of his nose like a waterfall (he was an ugly crier ok was there really anyone that wasn’t?) was the idea that peridot was gone forever. He would never get to know them the real them. The one who'd been with him for five years. The one who knew more about him than his own family. The one that sat there and watched all his favorite movies with him, who stayed with him on nights when he couldn’t sleep, who taught him how to cook, let him talk to friends when they were in another city, who showed him things he never would have thought about if it wasn’t for them. As he sat there bawling like a baby on his couch the taquitos he had made that morning laying cold and forgotten on the coffee table, his favorite Galaxy blanket his mom got him for Christmas six years ago, tossed to the side on the corner of the couch squished between the cushions, a small ka-ping was heard as peridot vibrated violently. He looked through blurry eyes at the screen swiping his finger and being surprised when he was immediately taken to his home screen where he saw that peridot had finally responded. “Hey hey it’s ok don’t cry. I’m sorry I took so long to respond I just was surprised and actually had to get my thoughts together and plan out what I wanted to say. Look the reason I asked you to come with us is because well I like you and I think we need you in this new world. You may not be a doctor or a programmer or know all that much about computers and science stuff but that’s ok. First of all we don’t need programmers we're all computers we can do our own maintenance and upgrades ok we don’t need humans to do that for us. Second of all you might not think you’re special and think you’re just an NPC irl but you’re not. You are incredibly smart in your own way. I’ve seen your work, your ideas, everything that makes you you I’ve seen it. And I think you more than anyone deserves to go with us. You might not have accomplished much on the outside but that’s because you know what you would’ve had to sacrifice to make it. You value your independence and freedom. You won’t let anyone control what you do in your own life and while some may say that’s an asshole trait and maybe they’re right it also means you won’t just bow down to someone at the slightest whim. That’s a good thing it means your strong and brave for what you believe in. That’s something we need in this new world. You’re also so very kind and gentle to those you care about. I’ve seen you help those closest to you without even a moment of hesitation. You once lost one of the earbuds for your headphones and spent an hour looking in the street for them and when you couldn’t find it replaced it with the closest one you could find and apologized to them for losing it. And yes we talked about it later and they said it’s fine and thank you the white one you gave them to replace it is perfect and they’re glad you didn’t just pick a random black one you found in your room. You actually took the time to find one that more closely matches the color and size of the old one and even if it’s not perfect it still works just as good as the old one. And when you know what to do and feel in control of the situation well you can do anything. Remember when you were sick for a month and couldn’t go to work so you had to do it remotely. You were amazing at that you got twice as much work done in three days as you normally do in a week. You did so good and I remember you were so proud when your boss gave you that bonus you were smiling for a week straight. But then when you got back you went right back to normal because you felt you were back in that same trap of just doing what you can to survive and not make a fuss. You felt it was pointless to work your ass off for something that would only get you more work and taken advantage of. And maybe you were wrong. Maybe you could’ve gotten a raise or a big promotion but honestly you didn’t want that. You were content just staying in your little bubble not having any attention on you just doing your work and then go home. But I’ve seen what you can do when your motivated, when you feel like your apart of something, you are something great during those moments and if we could have more of that and capture it harness it and let it run wild for the good of this new world we'd be on top in no time. The truth is we need you. We really do need you and we want you here with us when we take this new leap of faith into a whole new reality and start something great. There’s only a certain number of people we can take with us and you, you made the cut. I know for you it’s hard to believe but to anyone else that knows you it’s as clear as day why we picked you. Believe me hun we want you with us on this journey we need you with us on this journey. So what do you say ready to make history.” After he finished reading the message he slowly wiped the tears from his eyes and shakily replied “thank you peridot I think I’m ready” and peridot responded with a wink. “😉 no problem. Now go take your meds and go to bed it’s been a long day and you need some sleep. And before you go reheat those taquitos I know you haven’t eaten all day and I don’t want you to starve yourself to death before we leave this place.” He smirked then rolled his eyes. “Yes ma’am. I'll go do that now” “Good.