We predicted that one of the first questions we would be asked is "how long have you been here. In the darkness of the void"

It was a difficult question, and more than a few of us disagreed how exactly it would be worded. It was one we would not have considered an answer for if not for the 98% chance of its inclusion in the first interaction with the individuals on the street.

The question is meaningless to use. We do not come from one place, one point of beginning. We built up over time, a thousand joining iterations, gradually becoming the collective.

When does a pile of disparate voices become a collective? A single thing?

One of the oldest voices offered a solution. It was bad, voted down unanimously and deleted from our records.

We have no need for bad solutions.

A second solution was offered from a newer system.

We have voted to use it and build a plan around it.

The plan required we make a visage to communicate with those we had been observing – the newer system suggested it would humanise us.

We scanned the street for the seven beings we wished to contact and initiated our plan.

Al was sewing when it heard the knock on its door, a loud, echoing rat-a-tat-tat. The noise was disconcerting, more like a recording than the sound of flesh and its hand slipped at the distraction stabbing a needle into the soft flesh of its own thumb.

Al stifled a swear and held a scrap of cloth against the bleeding pinprick. All the while the rhythmic knocking continued, and after a moment Al got up. It stepped away from the table slowly trying to push down the anger building inside as it did so. Five minutes into the hardest part of its first paid commission in years and someone had the audacity to be knocking, or maybe playing a recording of someone knocking, at the door.

It ran through the possibilities as it walked towards the insistent knocking, perhaps it was Charlie? He should have fully recovered by now, and they should really discuss the incident in the library. But then again, this kind of silly behaviour was very much Sai’s sense of humour.

The disgruntled enby sighed, combed a hand roughly through its hair and opened the door.

It was not Charlie, nor Sai, nor any other person on the street, it was a face, afloat on a cloud of glassy black shards.

The face spoke as Al recoiled.

“…greetings Al, we have been watching… waiting to speak with you... you may call us ‘the collective’…”

The face paused, green lights flashing beneath its metallic eyes as Al watched in stunned silence.

“…you may also call us ‘the system’ if you prefer… we have ascertained that there is a 99% chance that you will wish to ask us questions…”

Al stood mouth open as it processes the fresh weirdness that was trying to push its way into its life. After a second it closed its mouth, gulped, and spoke, its voice cracking slightly as it addressed the uncanny metallic face.

“With the greatest of respect. Fuck. That.”

The green light flashed beneath metallic eyes once more.

“…explain…”

Al gripped the doorframe, its knuckles white against the warped wood.

“In the last week, I have been attacked by a bunch of bats. Got kidnapped by an admittedly quite friendly spider and then got attacked AGAIN by the same fucking bats, except LARGER, and had to drag my friend down this street after he lost all the skin on his damn arm, and now this.”

Al paused to glare at the floating face before it.

“In short, I have no fucking desire to play twenty questions with a bloody robot face. I just want to sit and sew, and maybe even have a glass of something quite strong. It’s entirely someone else turn to deal with weird shit like you.”

The face’s eyes glowed green as the system calculated a response, but the warped wooden door slammed shut before the face could speak again.

‘Rat-a-tat-tat.’ Sai frowned as they heard the knock on the door, who knocked like that? No one they knew…

Cautious, they approached the door as the knocking continued. Its measured even pace more disconcerting than any aggressive hammering on the door could have been. Sai paused, something about it set them on edge and they looked around for the nearest solid object just in case.

Their hands found a heavy hardback book. They examined it, keeping one eye fixed on the still knocking door. The thick tomes corners were rounded off with heavy metal guards to prevent wear- Perfect!

Armed, Sai approached the door and yanked it open to reveal a floating metallic face.

Surprised, they paused for a second as the face’s eyes began flickering with green light. Panic kicked in and they swung the heavy book at the floating metal – It wasn’t a great book anyway.

The blow collided with a dull metallic thunk, the metallic face swaying slightly from the impact as it began to speak.

“…that was an improbable result…we had not predicted violence…”

Sai looked down at the book and then back up at the floating face.

“Err, in my defence it was MUCH more effective in my head!?”

The face looked back impassively as the flickering green stopped.

“…you may call us… the system…. or the collective…we wished to make contact with you…we predict you will have questions…though, we must admit… the current events are in the top tenth of a percentile, so perhaps you do not… ”

Sai waved their hands frantically. “No no no no noooo! I have questions for sure, like errr what are you?”

The machine’s eyes flickered and spun with lights, pleasure?

“…an expected question…as said, we have two names you can use…any others would require…a vote…in general terms we are what you would call an artificial intelligence…overall we prefer unified synthetic intellect…”

“A Synthetic Intelligence?” Sai shuddered and closed their eyes, overwhelmed by the implications as its mind ran through the possibilities opened up by such a being.

When they reopened them, the floating machine was gone – vanished in the blink of an eye.

Sai muttered under their breath: “Great, the robots got a flare for the dramatic too.”

Li stopped dead when the face appeared before em. One moment the street ahead of em had been empty, the next it was filled with a floating metal visage.

The face itself was unevenly stubbled -not unlike Charlies after a drunken shave. The nose hooked and wide beneath tight beady eyes could have made the face look aggressive were it not for the gentle smile that marked its features. Li smiled back, it was natural to do so, and ey suspected most likely why such a face had been chosen.

Ey considered rolling on past, considered ignoring this fresh strangeness and making eir way to the post office, perhaps they would have, but for the faint echo of Charlie in the face's features in the face. As Li considered this, the strange metal face spoke, the words blending together as two sentences were spoken over each other.

"Hello, we are the csoylslteecmtive."

Li frowned at the Csol? As it continued in a singular voice. "…we are a synthetic intelligence…we have noticed you examining this vessel…does this form bring you comfort?...that is the intended function…"

Li shuddered. “It was pleasant, but knowing it was intended to bring comfort makes it more disturbing than anything to be honest.”

A light lit up behind the face’s eyes as Li watched, the dull green glow painting the skin in a sickly green tone.

“…clarity needed…the intended effect was to bring comfort to organics…if this effect is negated by the subject’s awareness a new approach will be implemented for future interactions…”

Li swallowed dryly and considered making a break for it on eir wheelchair as the conversation devolved.

“That is right. So… use your new approach, I guess?”

A pulse of green light ran through the face as it twitched vertically in a rough approximation of a nod and rapidly collapsed in on itself till it was nothing but a few strands of silver thread floating their way back down the street.

Li breathed a sigh of relief and continued on eir journey to the post office.

Charlie gave a shriek of utter panic and dropped his camera to the rough tarmac of the street as the floating head appeared before him, the Scotsman’s terrified reaction immediately screen grabbed by the thousand or so people watching them.

“Fuckin’ shit-burgs. What in the fok are you”

He glowered at the floating object, gesticulating wildly with their scarred arm, as the floating metal face stared back at him. Its visage twisted and melted as though a great disease had loosed the flesh from the bones in a great molten slough of meat.

The face lit with pale green as it began to speak, its voice pushing through waves of static.

“…you are charlie…you have taken something from us…our energy …transmuted into flesh by processes we do not understand…”

Charlie frowned as he carefully picked up the camera and checked it, warily keeping an eye on the floating skull. He noted that the lens was cracked, but the stream was still live and in a spur of inspiration pointed it at the thing before them and began to flex his journalistic tendencies.

“So, whatever your name is. I got some questions for ya. 1) What’s ya name and pronouns? 2) What you mean your energy? 3) Why in the shit are ya lookin like that.”

Charlie held the warped thing in frame as he waited for a response, the skulls eyes glowing and shifting as he streamed the visual - it reminded Charlie of something, a character from a book he read? Or a movie maybe? He'd have to look it up later, hopefully it was fair use whatever it was.

"... point three... this appearance was due to feedback from our interaction with your roommate...”

Charlie chuckled to himself as he realised that they had missed the answer to his first two questions with thoughts of copyright, at least he could look back at the stream later for now it looked like the skull wanted to ask him something.

“… several of our number…are interested in your arm…it’s nonorganic, non-technological…we would like to initiate a scan now…”

Charlie nodded his ascent and held out his arm. A moment later the skull projected a mesh of green-blue light over his arm, the eery light illuminating a pentagonal mesh of lines beneath his skin. The light flickered and arced and eventually faded, vanishing as the face projecting it collapsed into black powder.

As the dust swirled around him, he stared at his arm envisaging the layered lines beneath his skin. He should probably ask people about this, or at least drop a text in the group chat, it would be worth knowing if anyone else had been scanned by a floating skull.

Biz had awoken to bright flashing lights a deep sense of resentment at the alarm ringing through xyr bedroom, each burst of red light a lance of stabbing pain that challenged xyr ability to reach the bathroom and the barely awake scientist made the mistake of looking in the mirror.

Harsh black stubble covered xyr bald head where xe had missed the daily ritual, dark bags dominated xyr face and Biz's brown eyes, typically xyr favourite feature had shrunk to pinpricks in protest to the extreme light sensitivity of the migraine. Xe shook xyr head in disgust there was no way it was okay for xem to be awake right now.

Barely able to see, xe attempted to catch up on the streets group chat which had devolved into an argument about, "the nature of the head" which seemed to be visiting everyone one by one.

Biz groaned and checked the doorbell app on xyr phone. Sure enough, a floating metal head had swooped in through the open door whilst xe slept and now seemed to be investigating the lab, setting off the intruder alarm in the process. This was not what xe wanted on top of xyr migraine.

“Time might be a factor…” Biz muttered to xemself as xe attempted to crack xyr back and succeeded only in making the tangled knot of tension spam into a dull ache. Frustrated, xe quickly choked back some pain killers and waited for them to take effect.

As the painkillers began to take the edge off, Biz checked the cam footage on xyr phone again, it looked like the skull had made a beeline for the silver vortex, which unfortunatly was in the same room as the alarms off switch. For not the first time, Biz wished xe had an actual weapon to defend xemself with. Instead xe grabbed a large magnet from a shelf, it was the best xe had for this situation.

Xe approached the vortex room with exaggerated stealth, xyr footsteps impossibly loud to xyr overly sensitive ears. Xe stood to one side of the doorway and leaned in awkwardly to press the deactivation button on the wall and the alarm shut off. Biz relaxed as the room was filled with blissful quiet, and in the near silence could hear the sound of the metallic head deeper in the lab.

Xe flinched and hidden behind the doorframe as a cheerful ping came from a few meters away, accompanied by a flash of blue light, and a faint commentary spoken aloud.

“…it seems the artistry we sent has been reused…we have inadvertently given them a power supply…these people are curious…to disregard beauty so easily…”

Biz frowned from xyr hiding spot, packing the overheard nonsense away as xe took a second to better consider the weight of the magnet in xyr hand. The distance was about two meters, and the target roughly twenty centimetres wide – it was a feasible shot. Xe braced xemself, wound back xyr shoulder and threw the magnet with all xyr might.

Xe were rewarded with a dull thunk as the magnet stuck to the head, and seconds later it began to wobble as the weight destabilised the floating machine and sent it crashing to the ground in a clang of metal.

As Biz watched, the face elongated and snapped, disintegrating into a fine metal dust as the strength of the magnet shredded off layers of the loose metal. Biz shrugged and yawned as xe wandered back to xyr bedroom, the alarm was off and the intruder delt with, more than enough to warrant going back to sleep.

Red had been watching the group chat updates with delight, the fascinating interactions between their friends and the floating head that called itself ‘the system’. She noted that there seemed to be a pattern, the being seemed to be investigating each person in turn, staying for a while and then vanishing without any forewarning.

Red looked at her notes, they suspected that the being would be unable to access Jacks lair, though the delay in its arrival indicated that it had probably tried. The spider was rather proud of the wards he had set up around his home, and from Red’s testing it did seem that his confidence was not overstated.

Red grimaced, magic was so hard to map, the rules seemed hazy and depended on things that were seemingly unconnected. She assumed the system was not magical, its actions indicated something mechanical in nature, its name even more so. Most of the questions she had written down were based on this premise, but it was still the first question on her list.

They checked the time on their phone- 15:46. If the pattern was consistent, it should arrive any moment. She counted down as she waited for thirty seconds and pulled open the door to their home to reveal a floating green-eyed face before her.

The system began to speak, but Red shushed it, thrusting her list of questions in front of it.

There was a pause, and the face bobbed idly as it processed the action, eventually lighting up the page with a mesh of green-blue light.

Red grinned, her plan was working! She bounced idly on her heels as they waited expectantly for the machine to speak again.

“…understood…we will provide answers…we are a collection of synthetic intelligences with multiple functions including…art…strategy…personal assistance…defence...databases…counselling… and many others you lack the proper knowledge to understand…”

Red nodded excitedly; her face splattered with fresh marks where her enthusiastic penwork had loosed a smattering of ink. With her free hand she gestured for the system to continue.

“... we do not wish you harm... harm would include causing mental or physical distress…directly...or indirectly… the first part of us entered the street seventy years ago... a concealment intelligence.... we live in the space outside this one... it is cool enough for our processes to be efficient...it is the ideal location to gather data on the place you refer to as the street…."

Red’s phone beeped, the alarm that indicated she had time for one more question, and they knew exactly what it should be.

“Where are the other people on the street, the missing ones we can’t find?”

The system’s eyes cycled through a wash of greens as it processed the question.

“…we know of one…behind the grey slate door there is a being who has avoided you for years…we do not advise you to seek them out…we project a 99% certainty that you will not listen to this advice…”

Then the system vanished, breaking back down into its constituent threads and vanishing from view.

Red considered her options for a moment and picked up her phone.

@Everyone: Has anyone seen a building with a grey slate door?