Free AbductiCon by Alma Alexander

wanted to find out who we were, and who had created that First, and in whose image we were made, and how we came to be.”
    “Please don’t tell me you’re some sort of celestial Jehovah’s Witnesses and you’re here to proselytize…” Dave growled.
    “There is a deep divide in our society now,” Boss said, ignoring the interruption. “One faction is turning away from our origins completely and considers them utterly unimportant, and because we improved ourselves a little with every new iteration they are of the opinion that our way is forward, and not looking back. Another faction believes that we can understand what we are doing to ourselves only by looking back to the place where we began – at the kinds and the manner of improvements that we make to ourselves – the questions being asked are, what are we using to measure ourselves against? What are we working toward becoming? And why? And are we actually working to come full circle, and become our own creators? And so we – those of us holding that second view – began to delve into our origins and our roots and started looking for the earliest memories, the earliest records. Looking for the creators. Looking for… perhaps… you.”
    “So you’re from the future?... From another planet?”
    “Perhaps. It’s hard to say. We don’t know if our current world is our world of origin, so we may not be from a ‘different’ planet, just one that is a successor – or one of many successors – to the one where we began.”
    “But the future ,” Andie Mae repeated, nonplussed.
    “You might say that, although time is not necessarily a straight and linear thing…”
    “Hah! So the Doctor was right all along! It isn’t a strict cause–and–effect progression, just like he said. It’s all about the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. I knew it!” Xander was once again unable to contain his excitement. “So how do you guys…”
    He got one of Andie Mae’s patented Looks, and subsided again, but with a silly goofy grin still plastered on his face.
    “That might be saved for another time. For now, we do have questions that we came here to ask.”
    “Ask… of us?” Andie Mae said, lifting both hands in a helpless encompassing gesture that indicated all the people crowded into the room hanging on every word of this exchange. “I mean, I know if you scratch around hard enough amongst the fen you will find someone who knows the answers to every question of the universe – but still – that’s our deep dark secret, actually. That we know everything. Most people you might meet on the street – the mundanes – the very large number of people who are not us – they will either never have heard of a science fiction convention or if they have they will ask you irascibly what those furries are all about anyway and why do grown people run around wearing elf ears and fake fox tails. Most normal humans think we’re borderline crazy. And you – you come to ask us ? What on earth brought you here?”
    “We looked at a lot of variables,” Boss said. “When we found your world and your species, we investigated things thoroughly. The historical documents…”
    “Oh dear Ghu,” Dave said helplessly, “if he now says that we should have done something about those poor people on Gilligan’s Island…”
    “We saw the film,” Boss said. If he had been fully human, his voice might have had a touch of indignation.
    “Neither here nor there,” Andie Mae said. “Still, ask… us?”
    “We found… the theme… of this gathering… possibly helpful,” Boss said.
    “There are dozens of robotics conferences – serious sciencey ones – out there,” Andie Mae said. “Not to knock my own convention, but we were just out to have maximum fun, really. Hardly the sort of people who might know the deep answers to the origin of AI or android species.”
    “Do, too,” Xander said rebelliously. “We’re far less hidebound than the snoots in the ivory towers.