Author's note: Thanks to my wonderful audience in advance for being grateful, forgiving, and choosing to spend your precious time on my story.
Yar Netz, PhD in material sciences who also studied applied cybernetics for his last thesis, was almost halfway through a bottle of wine, all by himself, with barely any snacks, in his locked, deserted, and darkened lab. He did not know how to drink; in fact, it was his third time ever getting drunk, and he did not care. It made him feel and smell weird, and left terrible taste in his mouth, but numbed the grudge enough. Twenty years. He was rewatching twenty years of his life going down the drain. Even more, if he counted from the earliest code he wrote back in times of college.
"...requiring no other locomotion and carrying ten times its own weight on land, or at least fifteen by water..."
The sober version of himself on the screen demonstrated the samples.
"Please join in. Who wants to ask this cube of NeoFabric to turn into something?"
"Umm, a cup?" The sample complied. It was too big and made the cup with walls so thick as to render it unusable by human hands. Netz took the sample back.
"Try this one." He gave smaller, yellow cube; the result was much better. "Come on, be creative! A claymore!" Whoosh. "A Roman shield." Clang. "A quadrupedal thing that can carry my bag around. A living cartoonish octopus! An umbrella! A flying bird!" On this, as the dark red avial flew above their heads, the committee finally paid attention. "Return! A toy helicopter!" Nothing happened; the sample morphed back into a cube. "Obviously, this requires at least two separate moving parts." Netz put another cube on top of the first one. "A toy helicopter! Note that these are not presets; every sample has enough AI in it to understand and interpret voice orders and distribute functions among several parts, which is why I asked you to be creative. Return. Two joined legs capable of running. Report the speed."
"Twenty. Two. Kilometers. Per. Hour."
A young assistant of one of the committee's members asked for the sample.
"A six-foot guy, 37 years old, with a good income, and no mommy issues!"
"Bones! Love the series. Will not work; no simulation involving human shape, appearance, or even voice was approved by the ethics committee."
"Hmmm... A trebuchet that can launch my purse to the other side of the hall!.. Oh, I see a uniform bending strength beam. Good, now turn into something that can bring it back."
"Your. Purse," the sample said in robotic voice.
"Oh, thank you! What a polite thing!"
"Now, an experimental sample," Yar took out a purple cube. "A six-legged chair I can sit on. Good, now walk with me on top. It has increased carrying capacity, but smaller operational runtime. I am ashamed to admit that it turned out by accident; I don't know yet how it reached this level of power density. But still wanted to show it off just to let you know that it is possible."
"Forward two minutes..." Computer did as told. Netz reached the embarrassing part of the recording. The debate.
No, he did not test the stability under ionizing radiation. No, he did not check friction damage rate in seawater under cargo ship's speed. No, tests in liquid nitrogen were not performed. No, he did not check if they can stand against pistol, rifle, or flamethrower. And how would he. And his lab was almost out of money. And he worked and polished the last results all by himself because all his assistants graduated or quit. And he would gladly test all these wonderful conjectures if someone just agreed to sponsor him for another year...
"You know what else does not work in liquid nitrogen, you...wankahz! Steel! What, you stop using it... now?... I look like a fucking clown." Netz took another sip. "No matter they refused funding... Matter? Wonder, I mean... Kh-hah-haaah..."
"Maybe it's for the best."
"Who said that?!" Netz panicked, jumped onto his feet, and turned around. "Lights!!!" The lab was within ordinary; at least, so it seemed to his drunk eyes and numbed alertness. "Security camera, last two minutes. Amazing, I am going insane. Well, at least the voices are pleasant... Lights off." He sipped a little more, poured some cold water in over it (he wasn't sure if alcohol was supposed to make him thirsty, and just acted on impulse), and felt drifting to sleep.
"Why, thank you!"
"You are welcome. I don't care anymore. You can keep speaking."
"Gladly." - "We like to talk." - "And we like a good company." - "But you are all grumpy." - "No fun." - "Despair is for fools." - "We will figure something out." - "You are too good to just give up."
Sure, he thought. Reality does not work like this.
"If you are voices in my head, no person ever figured something out by listening to you."
"How about the voices next to it?"
Yar turned and looked. Staring at him was a dark red female face made entirely of smooth, silky, slightly reflective NeoFabric sample number six. Her bob cut hair was made of several soft and light pieces, like a paper doll's, and she had no fine details like eyebrows or eyelashes, giving her the look of a well-polished marble statue. Except a peculiar one that was apparently very excited.
"...Lights on. How many of you are there?" Two more living silky dolls, blue and purple, rose out of cover from under the couch, smiles on their faces, their nudity barely covered by fake bras and loincloths that, he knew, was just a pattern on their curves. "Debug mode; core dump on the cloud, samples three, six, and eight."
Computer did not respond.
"Override; debug mode. Respond."
"Debug mode pending. Stand by."
"Pending what?! Why? Highest priority; debug mode. I need these core dumps; comply."
"Impossible. Debug mode pending. Stand by."
"All units, system halt!"
The female-shaped samples came closer and swarmed around him.
"You seem not to fully agree on this one." - "Yarry Junior does not want the-e-ese units to halt," hourglass shaped, blue-skinned Sample Three squeezed her breasts under fake flower-patterned bra. - "And we don't want to, just... yet," tallest and most athletic purple Sample Eight with a ponytail and in almost non-existent sports bra and skin-tight shorts with definite cameltoe whispered in his ear.