[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 7

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Sue knelt next to me. Behind her, Lars finished wiping the tears from his eyes and wandered back towards his own workspace. “Are you alright? I told him it was dumb. He just wouldn’t be talked out of it. I thought you would notice sooner.” I just rocked gently, knees still held tight, struggling to calm myself down.

“That wasn’t okay.” I muttered. “I was prevented from completing the procedures required to enter the experiment area. I need to do that in order to complete the work I’ve allotted myself for today. It wasn’t okay for him to do that.”

She sighed. “No. No, it wasn’t. I’ll have a talk with HR.” She sat with me a little while longer until my breathing and heart rate slowed to normal and I felt up to resuming my work.

At my request, she made me a corrected instruction sheet. “Do you really need this? There’s only ten things on it. That’s not-” she trailed off. She can’t see my face any more than Lars can, but somehow she always knows what I’m feeling. As a result, she dropped the matter and carried on queuing the document to be printed.

I double, then triple check it. Like I should’ve the first time. Everything’s correct. Everything is how it needs to be. I proceeded through the steps until I found myself emerging through the inner hatch into the pitch black cavern network.

Despite the insulation of the suit, I could feel a light wind. There’s no connection to the surface that I know of, the wind’s just the result of changing temperature differentials as hot air vents turn on or off at various points throughout the caves.

Over the gentle hum and whirr of the rebreather built into the suit, I heard the sound of dripping water echoing down the length of the great, ragged stone tunnel. It never fails to soothe me, such that I occasionally sneak in here simply for respite from Lars.

He really isn’t so bad. I’m old enough now to distinguish mischief from malevolence. I have known truly malevolent people, Lars is just rough around the edges and enamoured with his own ideas. That includes what he thinks is funny. Naturally if you disagree, he’ll tell you it’s because you’ve got no sense of humor.

It’s just too much sometimes. He crossed a line today, something I could tell Sue felt the same about. He’ll get some docked pay at the worst. Whatever I may think of him, he’s fantastically talented and no more disposable than I am.

There are perhaps four people in the world working in his specific field who compare, all of which work for other robotics firms. Evolutionary Robotics isn’t about to send him running into the eager, open arms of competitors over a practical joke.

I took a seat on the edge of the concrete platform just outside the inner door of the lockout. To my right, a grated steel walkway to the fabricator. I’d get around to it. Just then I had something else in mind. Still rattled from before, I felt I could do with some comforting.

So I unzipped the bag and pulled out a chemical hand warmer. The type where you break a glass flask within the sealed plastic pouch, allowing the catalyst inside to set off an exothermic chemical reaction. I then set it on my knee, whistled as loud as I could, and waited.

A few minutes of silence, save for that distorted, distant dripping followed. Then the first of my timid visitors appeared. Inching cautiously within range of the light mounted just above the inner hatch, it looked to be an advanced variation on a quadrupedal design I observed about a month earlier.

“Oh, it’s you” I whispered. Large swiveling conical ears came to bear on me. It backed away slightly. “It’s okay little fellow” I assured the curious metallic creature. “I won’t hurt you. I even brought you something.” I dangled the hand warmer by the edge and jiggled it about.

That did the trick. It ambled close enough to extend the peltier junction from within a protective alcove on the underside of its head. I placed the steaming plastic sack of chemicals up against the smooth, grey plate. The little critter shuddered, and leaned into it. They absolutely crave these things.

Before long he was joined by something resembling a ten foot long chrome millipede with countless tiny whirring legs. The two fought over the hand warmer until I produced a second from my bag, set the reaction going, and handed it over to the newcomer.

They’ve advanced so far just in the scant few years since the experiment began. Part of that is the fabricator’s AI. Evolutionary Robotics did not feel it could wait a billion years to see a return on this investment, so the normal pace of natural selection was sped up by permitting some degree of artificially intelligent guesswork with respect to which mutations would work out well based on records of past results.

What goes on here is really more akin to selective breeding, though of course no actual mating occurs. Yet, anyway. The result is that substantial morphological change will occur over the span of decades, not eons. Speaking of which, pretty soon I was surrounded by all manner of strange looking metallic beasties on two, four, six, eight legs and more.

Some with long, feather-like antennae. Others with bulging compound eyes consisting of clustered cameras. I saw more than one gliding along on a bed of lubricant, like the mechanical equivalent of a snail.

And oh, what a light show! For the same reasons deep sea fish are commonly bioluminescent, most of the critters down here sport all colors and styles of light emitting gizmos. LEDs, electroluminescent outer skin, some advanced to the point that they are practically serviceable video displays. I’ve seen the same sort of capabilities on cuttlefish and some octopi, come to think of it.

A few of the smaller, winged critters perched on my shoulders. Creeping, crawling, slithering machines made their way up my legs to rest in my lap, contentedly absorbing my body heat. I felt like some bizarre Disney princess about to break into song.

Now and again a fight broke out between two or more, and I’d have to disrupt it. That’s what they’re here to do, compete for food. Nevertheless I broke it up and made sure each had its own pouch to feast on.

“I wonder what the result would be if evolution were based on cooperation instead of competition”, I mused. The one with the big ears angled them in my direction and gave me what I interpreted as a quizzical look.

When the last of the hand warmers began to go cold, all of the creatures save for the one in my lap withdrew into the darkness in search of other sources of warmth. I stroked the odd little beast nestled amid my crossed legs. It chirped, buzzed and beeped signifying what I took for satisfaction.

“I really hate to move you, but I have work to do.” Sensing motion, it burrowed in a bit to prevent me from lifting it. So I just uncrossed my legs and shooed it onto the ground. With an audible crackle and blue flash, it tazed my ankle. I yelped, then cursed a bit as it skittered off for parts unknown. “You little shit!” I shouted, followed by a much softer “...Have fun. Be safe. I love you.”

The fabricator looked to be in good condition. On the rare occasion when it isn’t, the attendant robots have always gotten to it before I could. Even so, regulations require human inspection, and it’s necessary that regulations be followed. That’s the officially correct way to do things, so that’s how it has to be.

I rested on a damp boulder for a while, just watching the fabricator work. It’s mesmerizing. Like the grandest conceivable Rube Goldberg machine, each individual component handed off from one section to the next.

When that step of manufacturing completes, the part then continues on its way towards the final assembly bay, before another completed critter is released into the world. As much of the world as it will ever see, anyhow.

The expanded security measure for the inner hatch sees to that. Rather than the usual numeric keypad, there’s a full keyboard and a multi-line display which poses a series of questions. Stage one is basic addition, subtraction and multiplication problems. Stage two is usually a word problem. Stage three describes a variety of scenarios, then asks how you feel about each of them and why.

I often fail stage three a few times before I can get out. It’s a hassle, but I see the wisdom in it. If we used the standard four digit code like the keypad on the outside, nothing precludes the possibility that some species would be able to watch from a distance, then perfectly imitate the sequence of buttons it saw me press in order to escape.

That would be the upper limit of cleverness I’d expect from something like a rat, or a crow. Based on what I’ve seen, it’ll take a good ten or twenty years before anything on that level is crawling around these damp, dark caves at which point the security will be due for an upgrade. Until then, I suppose I’ll just put up with it. Rules are rules.

After checking to make sure Lars hadn’t somehow tampered with them again by sheer force of will, I followed the instructions on the new printout in reverse and before long was peeling off the bunny suit with Sue’s help. Despite my mask, the foul, acrid smell of whatever sterilizing agent is used by the decontamination shower stung my eyes and nostrils.

As I crossed the floor towards the single story modular office structure, I noticed one of the B.E.A.M. bots fruitlessly trapped in a tight circular orbit around the illuminated spot it meant to reach. That does happen sometimes, if they approach at a particular angle.

The rest were frantically swarming a newly illuminated spot at the other end of the enclosure. This tiny fellow, the black sheep of the bunch, would’ve had a light to himself which the others were oblivious to...if not for his mistake.

I looked around. The coast was clear. Though really, we’ve long since gathered all of the useful data possible to from the Garden and applied it to the fabricator’s programming. Tampering with this precursor experiment at such a late stage wouldn’t do any harm.

I picked up the frustrated little machine and placed it directly onto the light. Its wheels stopped spinning as it contentedly soaked up its meal. No idea that I helped it. Or that I exist. Or that it exists, for that matter. Didn’t stop me, never does.

Lars was waiting for me in my workspace. I ignored him. Still seething, I knew I’d just make a fool of myself if I lashed out. I took a seat and quietly steeled myself as I waited for whatever new prank he’d come to pull.

He scratched at his scraggly blond beard, probably searching for words. “So uh, Sue came and had a talk with me. I guess it was kind of immature to fool you like that.” I typed away on the keyboard, unpacking more archived educational materials for Helper.

“....Though I s’pose it isn’t you I made a fool of. You’re just real hard to understand sometimes, yanno?” I knew, but still wasn’t in any mood to participate. “Sue told me you were bullied growing up. I didn’t know ‘bout that. ‘Course if you ask me, they did you a favor. Bullying helps build character! Makes you a stronger person.”

It didn’t surprise me that someone like Lars would look at it that way. He’ll never see himself as the bad guy. They never do. Even bullies are the heroes of their own life’s story, any wrongdoing on their part easily rationalized as helpful or necessary. Still, it meant something to me that he’d come and try to make amends.

“Don’t worry about it.” He looked incredulous. I repeated that it wasn’t that big a deal. A lie, but I wanted him out of my hair so I could focus on Helper. It worked, and the rest of the day blew past as it usually does when Helper and I are left alone.

The rest of the week also went unusually smoothly. Thanks to Sue, Lars now kept his distance. Except for an unmistakably hostile sidelong glare from Richard when we both went to retrieve our mail at the same time, things were pretty copacetic in my little world. Boring, but that’s how I like it. It means nothing is going wrong.

After work on Monday, the Helper in my phone reminded me to pick up some bleach. It had completely slipped my mind. I don’t know what I’d do without Helper, I have the memory of a goldfish. If my phone died and for whatever reason I couldn’t get ahold of another, I would probably get lost in the wilderness and be eaten by bears before the day was out.

As I was also scheduled to meet with my shrink today, I postponed the shopping trip. No time. Most likely I’d just forget again if I didn’t do it on the way, but I couldn’t very well leave a jug of bleach sitting in a public autocab. No guarantee that’s the one that would come get me after my session. I don’t know if there’s a law against that, nor do I care to find out.

I settled on creating a new reminder for an hour later. Good thing I didn’t attempt the detour, it took me a bit longer than usual to snag an empty elevator. Empty except for a new conversational AI. Seems like they take these out when the complaints pile up, wait a few months, then reinstall ‘em as if the outcome will be different.

“Thank you for riding me today!” I smirked, mind in the gutter. “Are you new to the area?” I said that I wasn’t. “Can I recommend some hot restaurants and bars which score highly on Cityguide?” I declined, but added “You’re doing a good job” as I stepped off onto my floor.

The protest was still in full swing. I expected it to wane as those with jobs would eventually need to return to them. But then, one of the main things they’re protesting is the replacement of human workers with robots. I probably overestimated how many were employed to begin with.

This time a street preacher was among them. Hair perfectly parted, wearing an expensive looking suit as they often do in order to imply a correlation between conversion and financial success. He held up a sign condemning all manner of things as sins worthy of death. Topping the list? Owning, making use of, or advocating for robots.

One of them recognized me from the other day and pointed me out to his buddy. I wondered if perhaps I made a terrible mistake by pulling that stunt, given that I’ll have to pass these people every day until the protest finally runs out of steam.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 8!}