[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 1

“The first robot I ever saw was at a theme park. I must’ve been four, maybe five. Dad and I were waiting outside the bathroom for Mom when I spotted a crowd of kids my age nearby. Curious as to what interested them so much, I wandered over and did my best to peer past their shoulders.”

My therapist, a fat balding man with wisps of white hair he didn’t bother to comb adorning the sides and back of his head, peered at me over a steaming cup of tea. He always offers me some and I always decline, as I’d have to take off the mask to drink it.

“They were busy kicking and punching a guide robot. Or as close to such a thing as existed back then, an off the shelf PC with a pair of cameras and some collision sensors, scooting about on three wheels with a futuristic looking plastic shell concealing how simple it really was. I understand how simple those machines are, don’t imagine I don’t. I know it couldn’t feel anything.”

I must’ve guessed correctly as he began to interject, but settled back into quietly absorbing my story once I added that little caveat. I often imagine I can predict what someone will do or say, but I’m also almost always wrong. Not sure why it hasn’t sunk in yet as I keep doing it, but even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut.

“I think I reacted as strongly as I did because the machine seemed confused and frustrated. There it was, something humans built to perform a useful task for us, being kicked, beaten and spit on by human children. It provoked something deep inside me. The machine was just doing what we told it to. Trying, anyway. But look at what it got for its trouble.”

He chose this point to jump in. “You identify with the robot, of course.” I groaned. Talk about trite. Was this level of analysis really worth whatever my employer was paying this guy? I made the connection on my own before but dismissed it because it’s too obvious, and I often second guess myself where this sort of thing is concerned.

It’s pretty easy to put together a plausible sounding narrative to explain anything you want. And if it’s all internal to you, who can dispute it? I’m also nothing so interesting as to be worth studying in any real depth.

My therapist disagrees, but then he’s being paid to pick my brain. There’s a lot I don’t normally find interesting that I could develop an interest in, if there were a paycheck in it for me. The terms of my house arrest require me to spend the full hour with him either way.

“You could’ve saved us both a good deal of time if you’d brought this up right away” he pointed out, plainly irritated. “The parallels with the incident which brought you here are obvious.”

I had to give him that. I recently threw myself at a surly drunk who’d beaten up a robot designed to find lost children in an airport, knocked it over, then begun to urinate on it.

It turns out you can’t throw a punch under those circumstances! Color me surprised. You’d think the jury would’ve been more sympathetic.

Then again I suppose I’m difficult to sympathize with even with the mask off, and the drunk’s attorney did a bang up job of making me seem like some sort of impulsively violent public menace.

I remember when they showed us the CCTV footage. My therapist requested a copy and had me watch it a few times during our sessions. Not sure why. I was there, I know what happened. I will say I don’t remember punching the lout that hard, or the part where I stomped on his head and neck.

Of course I couldn’t make them see it my way. It’s difficult to put into words, even for myself. I suppose it really is a feeling of camaraderie with that simple, downtrodden machine. Of intense, vengeful rage that the same species which created it to do something so vital, to safeguard our children, would then subject it to such abhorrent abuse just for kicks.

Even simple minded as it is, I can imagine what it must have been like to be tipped over. Alarms tripping internally, software frantically working out how to right itself as primate piss began seeping into its chassis and shorting out its batteries. If it knew how to scream I’m sure it would’ve, though I suppose the alarms were its equivalent.

It was only doing what we told it to. What we made it for. Trying its very best to make sure our lost children do not come to harm, but instead are returned to us.

Only to be rewarded with a banged up, mangled body and indignity visited upon it for the mindless, cruel amusement of some absolute garbage animal who, in his intoxicated stupor, forgot the context of what he was doing. Of what a purely, singularly well intentioned creature he was forcing himself on.

That’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it? While they are of course simple, even more so than insects, what’s there in the way of a mind is as faultlessly well meaning as can be.

No capacity for guile except where it’s been included to protect the owner against certain human behaviors. No notion of cruelty, or avarice, or anger.

A robot will continue doing what it’s told until it starves to death. Runs out of charge, whatever. But if it can recharge itself, it will continue doing what it was last instructed to for years. Decades. As long as the batteries last before wearing down.

One way to look at such behavior is that it’s a limitation. That the robot is stupid. But the way I look at it, robots possess superhuman loyalty. An excess of a virtuous quality sorely lacking in humanity, not a deficiency of any kind.

I tried to communicate all of this to my therapist but stumbled over my words, struggling as ever to make the principle of it understood. That’s a problem, as more than anybody else it’s up to him how long I have to wear this blasted ankle bracelet.

But I should count my blessings. If it weren’t for the value of my work to the government, I’d likely be sitting in a prison cell now.

I’m certain they wouldn’t let me wear my mask in there. I wouldn’t last a day without a breakdown, even if by some miracle I were to escape beatings or molestation.

I can’t be around lots of people. My whole body reacts, the part of my brain which alerts me to unseen danger goes into overdrive. It’s hellish. The only way I’ve found to manage it well enough that I can function in public is to wear this mask.

I’m not certain where I got it from, I just know it’s always been important to me. Much of my youth is one big blank spot. Repressed I assume. Mom, Dad and Ty are tight lipped about it.

Whatever happened must’ve fucked me up but good, there are loads of things that send me into a panic. But seemingly random, as I cannot remember why those particular things should evoke such a reaction in me. It’s a harrowing way to live.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 2!}