[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. 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.

The mask itself is rounded, smooth, featureless chrome. A sort of one way mirrored material that I can see out through, but which prevents others from seeing my face. Like a little enclosed fort I can take with me, within which I feel at least some small degree of safety that I cannot do without.

The rim is gilded. It must’ve been expensive. But the harder I try to remember where I got it, the more my mind revolts, causing those memories to evaporate the moment I get too close to retrieving them. Like trying to grab pudding.

I’ve never been good with faces. I can discern emotion from tone of voice much more easily. I feel like the mask levels the playing field somewhat. Now I am as inscrutable and unnerving to everybody else as they are to me.

What a trick it was to find an employer who would tolerate this degree of eccentricity. I went most of a decade after school searching for work. They all said the same thing: Lose the mask. Of course I couldn’t, but eventually my niche found me. Sometimes that’s how it works, like finding Narnia.

I have a preternatural gift for robotics. That, too, is a mystery to me. There are various tiny gizmos and the remains of a somewhat beat up humanoid robot made from erector set in my room, back at Mom and Dad’s house. Last Christmas when I stayed over I remember studying the intricate thing, hoping it would bring back flashes of the past. From that big, gaping blank spot in my mind.

I recognize it, but I don’t remember building it. Nor most of the other gizmos lining the shelves. Visiting spots where I used to play is a minefield of deja vu. The forest, the lake. Winston’s grave. I remember Winston. I remember Mr. MacGufferson too, though when he was on his last legs he just wandered off to die on his own terms as cats often do.

I’m glad I didn’t see it happen. I would’ve liked to bury him with Winston, but that was difficult enough that I’m unsure whether I could do it twice. I become helplessly attached to animals for the same reasons I develop those sorts of feelings for robots.

They’re simpler than I am. They need my help, or can usually benefit from it. I can do for them what nobody’s ever done for me, and I find them altogether more deserving of help than most humans. When’s the last time your dog lied to you? When did your cat last humiliate you? When has a robot ever done anything but try to help?

I still visit those woods from time to time. Self consciously. What might someone think if they were to come across a grown man in a chrome mask wandering the woods nearby numerous homes? They’d call the cops, and I’d be in slightly deeper shit. I have to clear every trip with my probation officer, and the terms of my sentence don’t allow for much roaming.

The first several sessions were just my therapist trying everything to wean me off the mask. It doesn’t exactly make a great first impression. People are instinctively wary of you if they can’t see your face. The assumption is that you’re wearing it in order to get away with something.

It certainly causes me no end of trouble, I can’t argue with him there. Most of my criminal record consist of incidents where my mask spooked a convenience store owner, who then pressed the silent alarm. That, and I think one speeding ticket I got in my first year behind the wheel. I solved that by tinting my windows, though I’ve since sold my car. These days just take autocabs everywhere.

I wouldn’t put myself through all that hassle if I could live without the mask. I know from experience that I can’t. Beyond the feeling of safety, beyond leveling the playing field, I have this vague sense that someone important gave it to me. Like the pendant.

That’s at least not normally visible. It wouldn’t cause such a commotion even if it were. A pink plastic barrette in the shape of a butterfly, on a loop of string. I wonder what my therapist would make of it. He already had a field day with the mask, something like that is ripe for psychoanalysis. A plastic barrette, less so. I assume anyway.

I am a creature of secrets. Some of which I keep even from myself. I know it isn’t normal to be like this, but strain as I might I cannot clearly recall how I got this way. I can hazard a guess based on how others generally treat me, but that degree of navel gazing is a waste of time.

In the background I hear my therapist stop talking, so I emerge from within myself long enough to nod thoughtfully, make affirming noises and so on such that he doesn’t feel ignored. I’ll never really let him inside, or anyone else for that matter. I know better. My only allegiance is to myself, and to Helper.

When the session concludes, it’s begun to rain lightly. I notice first indoors as droplets quietly batter the window, growing more intense as I make my way towards the ground floor. The building my therapist’s office is in hosts all manner of other businesses, but also apartments, a hospital, two daycares and a business college. Not one you’d actually want a degree from, though I see new students entering and exiting whenever I’m on the same floor so it must be doing alright.

The windowed outer wall looks out over a crisscrossing expanse of concrete and asphalt below, streets perpetually clogged with traffic. Adjacent multizone structures similar to this one bear patchwork skins of video displays, advertising every conceivable vice.

On my way to the elevator I heard a commotion, the source of which became apparent as I rounded the corner. There’s some sort of loud, messy protest going on outside the old Evolutionary Robotics offices on this floor.

Evolutionary Robotics is a military contractor I count myself among the employees of, and in recent years it’s become a popular target for people with anxieties about the increasing sophistication and autonomy of robots. In particular the ones used for warfare.

I first thought to steer clear as I hardly wanted the people signing my paychecks to see me on the news at such a protest. But as I scanned the crowd, many of whom were dressed up as various killer robots from science fiction films, I hatched a plan.

“Over a hundred people have gathered outside the offices of Evolutionary Robotics this evening to protest what they call humanity’s blind march towards self destruction.” The woman speaking looked nearly as pale as myself but with long, straight black hair which descended just past her shoulders.

She wore a smart looking black suit and spoke into a camera perched atop a pole, which in turn was mounted two one of those self balancing two wheeled scooters. Once a personal mobility fad, now more commonly used as simple robots for towing luggage or shopping bags. Or in this case, as a makeshift cameraman.

Behind her, the crowd milled about while carrying all sorts of cleverly worded signs and chanting “Keep America human”. As hoped, my mask went unnoticed here. For the first time in years I was able to blend in with those around me. The raven haired reporter must’ve also mistaken me for a protester, as she approached me for a brief interview.

“In your opinion, are intelligent robots really a potential threat to humanity?” I froze, unpacking what she’d said. Dissecting it in my mind so that I could answer as concisely but accurately as possible. Anything longer than a few seconds would just be cropped by editors later.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 2!}