4. The Last Costcotm

 

Frito: Yah I know this place pretty good, I went to law school here.

Pvt. Joe Bowers: In Costco™?

Frito: Yah I couldn't believe it myself, luckily my dad was an alumnus and pulled some strings.

- from the movie Idiocracy, Earth, 21^st Century.

 

We cybertanks have a saying that we took from our human progenitors: it takes all kinds. Nowhere is this saying more put to the test than when dealing with “Crazy Eddie,” the pathologically obsessive-compulsive Bear-Class cybertank that runs the universe’s last remaining Costcotm outlet warehouse.

In ancient times the humans would fantasize about creating “cornucopia machines” – devices that, using only energy and bulk matter, could create anything at all from scratch. At least for now, such machines are still the stuff of bad science fiction. Sure, we have developed very advanced micro-machining systems, but when you start talking about exotic hyper-alloys or really sophisticated computer cores you need big specialized factories. Therefore, we need distribution systems and warehouses. And people to run them.

Crazy Eddie operates the largest single warehouse on Alpha Centauri Prime. It’s half the size of Belgium, and has lanes 60 meters wide so that all but the very largest model cybertank can drive through it and ‘shop.’ Eddie refuses to maintain a formally registered catalog of parts, and demands that his ‘customers’ physically go through his warehouse in their own main hulls, to find what they are looking for in person.

Actually, if you ask him nicely he will release a manifest and allow automated transporters to make deliveries, but it makes him so happy to have real shoppers that many of us indulge him, now and then.

Such it was that I needed a new bogie wheel for my left rear outboard tread assembly. I was in the area and felt like a diversion, and so I drove myself over. As I got closer, my first glimpse of the warehouse was a 100-meter tall white sign with the word “Costcotm” in red letters, and below, the word “Wholesale” in blue. Because Eddy has, for whatever reason, decided to model his warehouse on a 21^st century commercial retailer from the ancient human age of scarcity.

I drove up to the front gate, and was met by none other than Victor Magnuson. When I had last encountered him, he was the only surviving human on The Planet of Eternal Night. A minor security guard, he had been nearly a thousand years old, senile, and near death from imperfect anti-aging drugs. Now we’ve cleaned him up, and he’s a tall and moderately fit-looking human wearing khaki pants, with a short-sleeved red shirt and a large white plastic nametag with the word “Victor” on it.

Victor Magnuson! Been a while. You look great. How have you been?

Victor squinted at me. “Old Guy? That you?”

That’s right, it’s me. What are you doing here?

“Well, you all fixed me up pretty good. I haven’t felt like this in centuries. But there aren’t that many humans left, and I’ve been trying to find something useful to do. Crazy Eddie asked if I would work as a greeter for him and I thought, why not. It’s a lot like my security guard days, and you know what they say about old habits. But it’s been fun, you meet a lot of interesting people and things here, and I’ve been starting to learn the layout of the place. You know, we have a really good selection of titanium alloy plates over on aisle 37.”

Not today thanks. Can you tell me where Crazy Eddie is?

“Well,” said Magnuson, “his main hull is clear over on the other side of the store, but he’s got an android just two aisles over.” He pointed to his right. “Just go past the balloon section, and turn left when you get to the salad forks.”

OK, got it. See you around, Victor.

Magnuson waved as I drove my main hull off towards the balloons. “Drop by anytime, Old Guy, and thank you for shopping at Costcotm!”

I turned left at the salad forks, and sure enough, there was one of Crazy Eddie’s humanoid androids. It was a male ethnic East Asian, wearing simple khaki pants, a short-sleeved red shirt, and a white plastic nametag with the single word “Eddie” printed on it in red letters.

Hello Eddie. I wanted to check out your supply of bogie wheels. Point me in the right direction?

“Old Guy, good to see you. Yes we have bogie wheels, and I think we have them in your size. Let this android jump up on your hull, and I’ll lead you there!”

At this Eddie’s humanoid android scrambled up my right tread assembly, and climbed out onto my right front fender. Then he climbed back down to the ground. Then he climbed back up. Then back down. Finally, after a third time, he turned around, carefully checked the location where he was going to sit down, and then sat down.

Are you comfy yet?

“Oh yes,” said Eddie. “All set. Head down this aisle, the tread and suspension section is about eight kilometers away.”

I began trundling along at a dead slow pace. We passed endless shelves packed with all manner of commodities. Bulk copper wire, bulk fiber-optic cable, bulk carbon-fullerene pushrods… Depending on how perishable the items were, some were open to the sky, and others were covered with light corrugated sheet metal roofs. The most delicate of all were displayed behind clear plastic doors in controlled environments.

One area had a square kilometer of identical red sofas all perfectly lined up.

What are all these sofas doing here?

"It's an historical reference,” said Eddie. “I'll tell you another time."

Eventually we came to the relevant section. Lines of different sized-treads, road wheels, idlers, shock-absorbers, and tread links, arranged in flawless aligned perfection almost out to the horizon. To my surprise, I spotted an entire display of bogies that were exactly my size. They were arranged in pairs, tied together with heavy polymer straps.

Look, over there! I think that those are the ones. I’m such an old model, I didn’t think that they would still be in stock.

“Well,” said Eddie, “you know how I hate to throw anything away. While they haven’t made an Odin-Class cybertank in thousands of years, it’s surprising the number of subsequent models that still used a lot of common suspension parts. Here, let me check the compatibility chart.”

That won’t be necessary. I can tell from here that these are the right type.

“No really, let me check. It won’t take a moment.”

I drove over to be near the bogies that matched my model, and parked. The Crazy Eddie android climbed down onto the ground and walked over to a wire rack with multiple plastic sheets that could be flipped back and forth like the pages of a particularly cumbersome book. “Now, you are an Odin-Class cybertank, right? Model A?”

You know that I am an Odin. And they only made one model of my class.

“OK then,” said Eddie. He flipped through several plastic sheets until he came to the correct one. “The matching bogie wheel should be a model AGY-34B/3. Let me make sure.”

I can see that these are the right model from here.

Eddie ignored me and walked over to my bogie wheels, and peered intently at the model and serial number that had been engraved on the inner rim. “Yes, AGY-34B/3. But just let me check again.”

Eddie walked back over to the plastic book and looked it up again. “AGY-34B/3, that’s the model alright.”

Great. So, I’ll take one.

“You have to take two bogies. They only come in two-packs."

Why can't I just split up this two-pack?

“Then there will be an unpaired bogie and it won't match. And I'll have 113 left."

So?

"113 is a prime number. I won't be able to combine them into four-packs or six-packs or anything. They won't line up correctly."

Um. But I only need one. What would I do with the other?

“Well, you could bolt it onto your outer hull, and use it as extra armor.

My armor layout is already optimized, and putting a spare bogie wheel onto it will restrict the firing arcs of my secondary and point-defense weapons.

“Then maybe you could use it as a planter. You know, put some dirt into it, and grow some decorative trees or flowers in it.”

I don’t need a planter. Really.

Eddie looked sad. “I suppose I could just make a single linear array. You know, 113 by 1. Maybe if I could find some other components where there are 113 of them, I could line them up side by side…”

I surrender. I will take a pair. Call in a bulk transporter, and I’ll have them delivered to my place. I’m sure I’ll be needing a second bogie, sooner or later.

Eddie brightened. “That’s great then! You sure you don’t want to swap the bogie out here?”

No that’s fine. I have a regular alloy-steel replacement that will work as long as I’m not in combat, and I have lot of other suspension maintenance that I need to catch up on.

We waited while a standard bulk transporter drove up. It was just a single rectangular plate resting on a bunch of all terrain tires and with just barely enough control circuitry to drive to a given destination without bumping into things. Eddie had a light crane lift the pair of bogies onto the transporter, they were lashed down with chains, and the transporter slowly drove off.

“Is there anything else you need?” asked Eddie.

No, just the spare bogie wheel. However, now that I’m here, would you mind if I did some exploring?

“Exploring? In a distribution warehouse?”

Sure. You know how I am with exploring. A place this big, there must be something unusual, or interesting, even if it’s just an old piece of technology.

“Well, if you want to, but I know where everything in this warehouse is. You won’t find anything that I don’t know about.”

Everyone says that. It is certainly possible that I won’t discover anything interesting, but that’s the thing about exploring: you never know in advance. Also, you may well have a full catalog, but sometimes things fall through the cracks, or sneak in, or get forgotten. You never know for certain unless you look.

“The treasure hunt!” said Eddie brightly. “That’s what they used to call it when humans would wander though the old Costcotm warehouses searching for random items that they didn’t need but could not resist buying. Yes! Let’s go on a treasure hunt!”

I call it exploring, you call it hunting treasure. Perhaps we have more in common than we thought. Onwards!

We drove off in a random direction, me in my main hull, and Eddie still perched on my right front fender in a humanoid android. It seemed a little indulgent to be driving around a warehouse in a 2,000 ton cybertank chassis, but hey, it was a nice day, and I like being indulgent with myself.

Most of what we passed was completely pedestrian. Endless racks of alloy tubes and plates. Containers with bulk chemicals – solvents, powdered metals, polymer feedstocks. Robotic transporters rolled slowly through the racks on their way to making automated deliveries all over this side of the planet. Every now and then Eddie would demand that we stop, and he would hop off my fender and make microscopic adjustments to the alignments of the various products.

I had no expectation of finding anything, but I was enjoying the routine. Then I drove past a display of official Space Nazi collectable combat androids. I had to stop for that.

Space Nazis? You have Space Nazis here?

“Sure. Don’t worry, they are all deactivated. I salvaged them after you and Uncle Jon defeated them in that industrial facility a few years back. They are an exclusive to this warehouse! You want a set? You could use the extra bogie to rig up a display stand.”

The Space Nazis were sealed in pairs in tough transparent plastic shells. These were the footsoldiers, all identical racially pure Teutonics with square jaws, blue eyes, and short blond hair. They wore their field-gray Wehrmacht uniforms, and their weapons and other equipment were spread around them locked into small pockets in the plastic shells. Their eyes stared ahead unblinking and dead.

Space Nazis! I never thought that anyone would collect them. I’ll have to tell Uncle Jon about this.

Eddie nodded. “I don’t know if we will ever let him forget that one. Building an army of robotic Space Nazis for a war-game and then losing control of them.”

Agreed. Although frankly I think that Uncle Jon is secretly a little pleased with how it worked out. Nobody has done anything quite that crazy in a long time, well, other than me. In any event it all worked out in the end.

“Yes,” said Eddie. “So do you want a set?”

I’ll think about that. Let me do some more exploring first.

We set off again through the warehouse. In between the long stretches of prosaic supplies there were a few interesting finds – living metal flowers salvaged from a defunct art museum, bowling balls (in either metallic silver or bright red), tree shrew gimbals – but nothing as amusing as the Space Nazis.

I was about to call it a day, when I noticed an unusual display. On a set of low metal shelves were arranged a series of odd geometric shapes. Each of these was about the size and color of a terrestrial watermelon, and variously cubical and pyramidal but with strange bumps and indentations. They were arranged in precise rows, sorted by shape.

What are those? I’ve just done a database search and I can’t find any referents.

“Oh, those are just. Those are just...” Eddie climbed down from my fender and looked at the strange shapes up close. “You know, I have no idea. I can’t remember ever stocking items like these.” He poked one with the right index finger of his android. The object squeaked and jumped backwards on stubby little legs.

Eddie also jumped back. As we watched, the shapes all stood up, and shuffled around until they were perfectly realigned, and then sat down again.

“What are these things?” said Eddie.

I am not sure, but you would appear to have discovered a new form of obsessive-compulsive life. It’s perfect for you.

 

--------------------

 

We called in my old friend Frisbee, and he spent several days analyzing the creatures.

Frisbee used to be called Whifflebat, back when he was still a Thor-Class and couldn’t spell, and he and I go way back. His main interest, now as then, is the investigation of biological systems. When he announced his main findings he showed up as a classic nerd android, a pasty Anglo male with a white laboratory coat, wearing a skinny tie and black pants that were about 10 centimeters too short. Frisbee so likes his classic nerd android.

“I have decided to name them adaptoids,” said Frisbee. “They are non-sentient, and non-invasive in nature. They do, however, have an inbuilt instinct to blend in with their environment. They must have arrived as a spore, probably hitch-hiking on a cargo load from somewhere. They have absorbed the ordered nature of this warehouse, and have, I suspect, been hiding in plain sight for years.”

“I think they are cute,” said Eddie. “Can I keep them?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Frisbee. “They are a harmless life form, like gerbils or pine trees.”

Are you certain they are not a threat of some kind? Maybe they have a hidden inbuilt genetic code that will let them transform into something dangerous, or spy on us and send information to hostile aliens. You know what I mean.

Frisbee shook his head. “No, I have examined these creatures quite thoroughly. They are exactly what they appear to be.”

You are certain this is not some kind of subtle fiendish alien trick?

“Absolutely. Paranoia is a virtue, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a harmless creature is just a harmless creature.”

It doesn’t seem right, finding creatures so unusual with no down side. They don’t spit acid? Or multiply like crazy and take over the world? Or have a super-intelligent hive mind that they are keeping hidden? Or anything?

Frisbee shrugged. “Sorry. I know how much you love your adventures, but not this time. The adaptoids are a mildly interesting exercise in comparative exobiology, nothing more.”

An obsessive-compulsive pet for an obsessive-compulsive cybertank. They were made for each other. Eddie has tried to train them to help him keep things organized in the warehouse, but they are neither smart nor agile enough for the job. Still, they do keep their own ranks neatly aligned, and for Eddie that’s enough.

I left the last Costcotm and headed back to my own place to change out my bogie wheel and perform some long-overdue track maintenance. I set up the other bogie wheel as a display stand for a pair of collectable Space Nazi troopers. I think I like it.