I. Frisby woke up in the light cool sun. A bird was chirping in the distance. Frisby got up licked his paws and started walking around the house. First he checked the south window. The shrubs had deposited more leaves. A gentle wind blew across the leaves. The sun shown through and made a shadow.
It was morning. There was a lot of work to do. Coffee was started. In the living room, Frisby was laying on top of the sofa gazing out the window. His hexagonal skin reflected the sun. Motes of dust played around his still form.
II. The mountain stands eternal. I just had to get away from the hustle and bustle. I travelled off the mountain path and found beyond an alcove a rock jutting that I could stand on. I took a picture of me standing on it. I examined the alcove. Near the floor was some moss and inside the rocks were darker in color and smooth to the touch.
III. I’ve come to the same spot. But this time accompanying me is Frisby. Frisby hasn’t aged a day since I got him nearly 20 years ago! What an astounding piece of technology. He will follow my every step and when I’m not looking he will be in front of me having taken a different path to satisfy his curiosity. I’ve taken the photo, the rocks are the same, and so is my cat. I’m the only one that has aged. I’d like to go further, off the beaten path, but I have my limitations.
IV. Each Mech-cat body allowed a degree of variation in function. Some came with larger battery packs or stronger legs & paws. Although unlike normal cats, they were perfectly symmetric. Any curving movement could be reproduced on the opposite side. The thinking was that if any system failed there would be an identical system on the opposite side ready to take up the function. The mech-cats had to endure any weather that a normal cat could endure and fend for themselves in the wild. Unlike normal cats, their skin was made up of a flexible array of solar panels.
All mech-cats were solar powered. They did not have fur or any need to eat. Under a microscope one could see their skin was actually a lattice of hexagons. Their skin was smooth like glass but you could grip it and feel the artificial muscle underneath that was warm to the touch. Due to the circulation of fluids that triggered the contractions within muscles, mech-cats had to maintain these circulatory networks by maintaining any even flow of fluids throughout the body. If you cut off the supply of fluids in this part of the mech-cat that existed only beneath the surface and not in the chassis or skeleton, it would cease to function, to move like a normal cat.
The designers felt each mech-cat should play with other mech-cats in order that they develop a personality and a way to test their overall abilities. Each cat was tested before sale and after it came off the assembly line.
During this phase mech-cats would play with other mech-cats, run around, and spend plenty of time at the sunny courtyard which was many times brighter than a normal courtyard due to reflecting panels, and was to the mech-cats a supercharging place and shared memory for nascent mech-cats.
Each mech-cat came with specific directions of how to function before they were ever turned on, not unlike how a kitten is programmed to feel for her mother. Mech-cats were designed to recognize humans. The technicians of the facility wore red uniforms and performed these recognizing tests. A common test was to take a cylindrical object and move it from side to side. A mech-cat should track the object if it is held by a human hand and to not track the object if it is held by a robotic arm.
Mech-cats differed from cats in behavior in that they did not groom themselves. It is recommended that you wipe down your mech-cat with a lint free rag and a light amount of water after outings. This is due to dust and deposits of minerals from water that accumulate on the surface of the mech-cat. Since mech-cats are solar powered this interferes with its performance. Mech-cats have a finely developed sense of smell for aerosols, paints, and other coatings because these materials if they cover the skin will lead to costly repairs. In its image recognition system, mech-cats can recognize spray paint & other paint cans and avoid them. It can tell the difference between an area where there has been a coating of paint that is still wet and the surrounding area. Besides, only using its sense of smell, it can pick up such differences. With its smell it can also tell the coming of a storm and detect any acids. In this way mech-cats like normal cats do not like water.
Moreover mech-cats in their mouths have sensors for radiation, radon & other nuclear material, natural gas, carbon monoxide, and other chemicals, noxious and potentially corrosive substances. Part of the reason is to protect the owner from harm. If there is a fire, the mech-cat will alert the owner. In cases of emergency, its normally colored eyes turn different colors; red in the case of fire or into bright flash lights if visibility is low in the smoke, and other colors or blinking patterns in case of other threats. All mech-cats come with three accessories, a lint free rag, a charging pad for cold & non-equatorial climates where the sun is not out for much of the year, and a tablet that it can communicate with and display various information like anything it finds & different maintenance information. It also shows its location and can be used to limit the boundaries of which they can travel & different rules about allowable movement, and different routines. For example, one routine is scaring off mice and another is to surveil and alert the home systems about intruders.
Mech-cats are stunningly beautiful creatures. They are like moving porcelain, their frame like both glass and muscle. Aside from a safe environment, access to the sun or charging pad, they do not need anything. Left to their own devices, they will categorize anything they find and do a simple chemical analysis to determine if it is harmless. They’ve been known to be quite finicky when it comes to dust and old objects, preferring more plastics, metals, & glass. When it is night, they’ll sometimes hop onto their owners lap as a heating source & also to bond what is probably the most interesting part of their lives. They feel a bit like a warm piece of molten glass, or a gel hot pack.
V. In case of death of an owner, the owner could plan that his mech-cat take certain actions. In Frisby’s case, he was free to go.
On his first day, he met some other mech-cats in the park. It was like meeting old classmates. Although all were owned except for him, he could play as hard as he wanted, it made for great pabulum or diversion, in what had been a fairly tame life with lots of stretching outside. They even licked his panels down. There was a sense to head north, following the sun during the summer and to return to the equator by walking along mountain ridges during the winter months, and vis-a-versa for southern hemisphere mech-cats.
In remembrance, Frisbee found the spot again and spent the day up there, sleeping in the alcove at night. He bounded off the rocks. He would stay in the mountains where the air was clean and sun was bright, and eventually rejoin his brethren in their pursuit of light and play.