Kara entered the living room with her phone in hand. The rock waited quietly on the coffee table. A dim light filled the cracks but it was otherwise inactive.
“137, are you still with us?” She asked as she lifted it from the table.
[[ ... Yes ... Have not moved ]]
“How do you work? What happened to the rest of your ... body.”
[[ Information ... Biochemical computation ... Fragmentation on impact ]]
“Were the other pieces taken by the government?”
[[ Government unknown ... Still learning ... Method of communication ... limited ]]
“How did you learn to speak, anyway?”
[[ Listened ... More like you spoke while fragments were ... taken by ... government? ]]
“So... You were able to learn how to speak to us just by listening to nearby people?” Kara considered. “Have you tried to communicate with anyone else?”
[[ Initial communication methods failed ... Genetic methods not fully compatible ... Compensation required ]]
Henry finished wiping off his crotch and had put his clothes back on. On his way back to the living room, he caught the tail end of 137’s response.
“Compensations? Is that why you're modifying people?” He asked as he rounded the corner. “I mean, the ‘sudden cure’ or whatever they called it was great, but were the extra arms ... or genital stuff lost in translation?”
[[ Reproduction results in improvements ... Protocol is meant to accelerate improvements ... Current results are ... unexpected ]]
“So you had to learn how to speak with us so you could 'improve' humans by messing with genitals?” Kara replied.
[[ New method of communications is limited ... Your information is ... helpful ]]
“And here I thought we were ones asking for help.” Henry quipped...