[Comm] Pursuit of Diligence: You Can (Not) Garden

Under the tinkering hum of metallic pieces shifting and clanking under brightly colored LEDs, Maxwell led her small hoard of robots through the Heavenly Embassy. Their sound drowning out the clicking of the sensors jostling around in her bag, each of her steps calculated based on their movement and sensitivity to damage.

She tilted the tablet in her hands, inspecting the digital control panel stretched over the screen and altogether mindless to the startled cherubuns that hopped out of her way. She didn’t have time to worry about her surroundings, she was already late to meet with the cherubun that was meant to show her to the gardens.

It was only when she passed through the hallway, that she heard a startled squeak behind her.

“What is the meaning of this?!” A high pitched voice called after her, “What are these things?”

And there, standing with his hands on his hips, was the very cherubun she had come to meet, Primrose. 

He marched up to her, his hair slightly undone as he stared at her robots. “I invited you here to garden, not to… to… do whatever this is!”

Maxwell felt a twitch of discomfort as she watched the cherubun’s lips move, unsure of how she was meant to respond to him. “I’m here to garden.”

Primrose flustered, pointing down at her creations. “Then what are-”

“They’re cultivation and gardening robots.” She interrupted without paused, still staring down at her screen. 

“What?” Primrose paused, losing his momentum to lecture her behavior.

“Show me where you plan to plant the seeds.” She waited for him to move, not giving him a chance to answer beyond showing her where she needed to go.

Primrose wanted to protest, but this little stunt was already gaining too much attention and he didn’t need any cherubuns too focused on the habits of succubuns. He huffed and turned around, leading her away, “This way, don’t lose any of those things.”

“They have trackers.” Maxwell muttered, able to follow the cherubun and keep her eyes permanently on her screen. “I’ll be pinged if they go out of their predetermined range.”

It was only when she walked into the greenhouse and waited for the sounds of her robots to pass into the grass, that she looked up. Her gaze flicked back and forth across the room until she spied two empty flowerbeds. 

“Hmm, a decent size, should fit two in each bed,” She tilted her head back in thought, “But the soil looks softer here, it might ruin their tracks.”

Primrose didn’t pretend to understand what she was talking about, instead he approached one side of the flowerbeds, crouching down to put up a bag of seeds and a trowel. “You don’t need those things to garden, you dig a hole, exactly two to three times the seed’s width and planted the seed. I don’t even understand what those do.”

The cherubun might have been dealing with his own bias, as he didn’t understand using technology for simple tasks like these. It might be something succubuns were fine with, but he would never trust their methods as vice ridden as they were. 

Maxwell replied, “Watch.” She approached Primrose and grabbed both the packet of seeds and the trowel.

From there, she gave one robot the seeds and another the trowel. She ensured each item was held tightly by the robots, before clicking a button on the control panel screen.

For a moment, nothing happened and Primrose was ready to hiss disapproval, until they both heard the robots begin to move again. 

The one, carrying the trowel, made its way over to the flowerbed, its treds struggling over the border until it rolled over the dirt. It shifted its loading arm and dug a hole into the ground, the soil deposited in front of the hole.

The second robot followed the first into the bed, before it opened the bag of seeds and carefully placed in a seed.

After a few moments, Primrose seemed curious. “How do these things know how to do that?”

Maxwell’s eyes brightened, eager to explain her process. “I spend all night crafting the right code, then it’s a trail and error with the feedback the sensors receive. However I did test them a few times.”

The cherubun looked confused, “The sensors?”

“Yeah the-” There was a moment of silence, before she frowned and fidgeted with her bag’s strap, “The sensors in my bag.”

“In your ba-”

A chunk of dirt flung itself past Primrose’s ear, barely missing his fur. The cherubun had a sinking feeling as he dared to look back at the flowerbed.

“What are they doing?!” His voice raised to its high, most panicked octave.

Maxwell looked up and what she saw could be described as pure chaos. The robot with the trowel began to dig holes at random, tossing the soil at alarming fast rates, as the robot with the seeds began to simply throw them where it saw fit.

Primrose stomped his hoof, “Stop them now! Look at what they’re doing to my garden!”

Maxwell quickly tapped the control panel, her shoulders slumping when she had to watch her robots power down. She couldn’t believe she made the simple mistake of not setting up the sensors.

“I forgot the sensors, but once they’re set up-”

Primrose interrupted, none too politely as he snapped, “No more robots, we are fixing this by hand and don’t you dare try to leave. This is entirely your fault.”

Maxwell didn’t get the chance to argue as Primrose caught her sleeve and pulled her towards the flowerbeds.

So much for innovation and new horizons for the Heavenly Embassy as she found herself knee deep in dirt and refilling holes as Primrose constantly bought her new soil to fix her mistakes.

It would take her hours yet before she could go back home and work on her creations, doing as the cherubun commanded in that nasally voice of his. Some people just couldn’t understand that robots were the future!