First bot, singular

Preston Grassmann is a Shirley Jackson Award finalist and was longlisted for The Bram Stoker Award in 2025.

His latest work is in Asimov’s (March/April 2026) and Weird Tales (January 2026).

He recently completed two novellas, co-written with Paul Di Filippo, called The War in the Linear Heavens and The Purple Frog of Madness , due to be released by PS Publishing in 2026.

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As Arx54 reached the city of Salvage Port, it stared up at the open dome of the 6-kilometre-high rocket engine with a sense of both ennui and wonder.

The single thruster eclipsed the sky, offering a full view of the city that rose up through its interior.

It was filled with chassis houses and firmware clans, each with their own docks and ships from every planet in the system, all dating back to a time before the war.

Once, the thruster had been part of a refugee ship that ferried the last bots off a world ravaged by the Spire.

There was an irony in that, Arx54 thought, as it, too, was designed to harbour the last of the neo-minds in the galaxy.

As Arx54 stepped into an elevator and began to rise through the dome’s interior, it passed through the bustling bot markets and the living quarters of other sentient machines.

There were open spaces that offered views of the Milky Way, a glimpse of stars once awash with the radiant passage of civilizations.

Of course, the pogrom of the Spire had changed all of that, eradicating every wire-skin it could find.

But Arx54 had been among the fortunate.

The elevator finally stopped at the town of Logos, where the main thruster had been separated from the body of the ship.

A series of spiralling terraces circled above it, offering a full view of the stars and the world below.

“It’s quite a sight isn’t it,” a voice said.

Arx54 turned to see a fellow Arx on the platform.

It moved with ease and spoke with a voice that seemed entirely its own.

“This whole city is impressive.

Are you …?”
“I’m Rav.

It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Arx54,” it said with a bow.

“You’re here to become Singular again?”
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“Well, you’ve come to the right place.

I was an Arx252 once, if you can believe it.”
“I never knew it was possible to carry so many at once.”
The bot tilted its head.

“Well, where I came from, there were so few places to hide from the Spire.

We were like embers in the dark, fading out across the galaxy.

We didn’t have a choice.

It was hard at first, carrying so many minds, but we’re all designed to be adaptive, and we developed a system that worked for us over time.”
“That is true for us as well.

But for some time now, the edges between us have been blurred, our memories merged.

We all want to find ourselves again.

Was it easy for you to make the transition?” Arx54 asked.

“It was at first.

My old co-occupants come back on occasion, to check in.”
“I’m not sure I understand how that would work,” Arx54 said.

“Technology has advanced a bit.

Let me show you.”
Rav led Arx54 down towards the gimbal outriggers of the rocket, where a smaller thruster had been dismantled and made into a residential space, positioned among the girders like a nest.

“Salvage Port has been a sanctuary for centuries,” Rav went on.

“But the Spire is nothing if not resilient, so we had to evolve.”
Rav’s workstation was full of dismantled machines and the remnants of ancient starships.

There were also other bots, including Arx, that stood unoccupied, as if waiting to be awakened.

“Are these empty?” Arx54 asked.

“It depends on how you define empty.

You see, each of these contains a gateway to other worlds.”
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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00610-z
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