Bunk Brother

1Bot knows no place beyond the shop and no time beyond the clock. That is how Bot was raised⁠—if that word can be used⁠—by Company-Father.Company-Father looms over Bot and his brothers every evening, a giant arachnid-like bot raining legs down from the ceiling, eight search beams as eyes scanning the room for disrepair. During the day, cars roll into the shop–the easy cases sun-bleached, the hard cases road-beaten. Company-Father presses his legs into each one and lifts up; the bots scurry beneath them like ants.This is Bot’s favorite part of his day: the beginning of the first repair where he plugs his spine into the car and becomes it, feeling the world for the first time. The mountains he runs past, the splash of hitting a puddle, the wind shaving his cheek, the skid of rubber on asphalt and the final flattening impact⁠—all of it compounding into more and more yearning to fix yet another car, consume yet another journey.Thousands of self-aware cars are fixed this way⁠—the proper…