How It Ends: Part 1 - The Evaluation (11 page)

He talked to Sidney as if Sidney were ten.
The hairs on Sidney’s arms curled inward.

“But why?”

“To keep them from doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Trying to break a protocol.”

“Is that a natural hazard?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“Clearing out the cache is a way of wiping
out the short term memory and what is in the short term memory is
usually the reason why a robot tries to break a protocol. If we
take away the cause then we won’t get the effect a second time.
Another way of thinking about it is like this. Say some human ticks
off a robot. Well, the robot may be tempted to strike out, causing
the inhibitor protocol to kick in. If we just dump and recharge the
rubidium chamber but don’t clear the cache, then when we turn him
back on, he’s likely to remember that he’s ticked off and why he’s
ticked off and go looking for trouble again. And since this reboot
procedure isn’t exactly cheap, we try to keep it at a minimum.”

“How expensive is it to reset a stopped
robot?”

Peter smiled. Sidney understood that smile
to mean that Peter would tell him nothing of the costs and that if
he wanted to know what they were he would have to speak to someone
at a higher pay grade than Peter.

“Why is it so expensive?” Sidney asked.
“Don’t you just bill the client who tripped the inhibitor?”

“No, we foot the bill entirely. It’s our
product. If something causes it to trip, it’s assumed to be a
production issue. We pay for any reset that happens.”

“And rubidium isn’t cheap, right?”

“Something like that.”

Sidney nodded. “Can you recharge without
dumping the cache?”

Peter squinted at Sidney.

“We can, but we don’t. It’s against our
operating procedures. It takes all kinds of clearance and paperwork
and generally I don’t like that sort of stuff.”

“I need to know what’s in the short term
memory of this unit. I have all the clearance you need; I’m
assigned to this company as an external investigator. Show me where
to sign and I will, but I need that cache intact.”

A lie. A small lie but a lie nonetheless. He
doubted Peter would go through the trouble of validating his
claims. He pulled out his temporary company access card as he spoke
and flashed it. Peter took a long hard squint at it through his
thick glasses but Sidney had put it away before Peter could glean
any real information from it. He shook his head.

“Yeah, maybe you’ve got the clearance, but I
really hate the idea of doing this. It’s against my better
judgment.”

“You mean you have a gut feeling about
this?”

“Sure do.”

“Funny phrase. How long will it take?”

“About two hours.”

“I’ll be waiting in the main lobby.”

Sidney left, stripping off the white
uniform, leaving Peter with the opinion he had no other
options.

* * *

Three hours later, Sidney was sitting in the
main lobby of the Foundry sipping an aging cup of coffee and
reading through old magazines placed in the lobby for those who
came in with appointments and had to wait for them to begin. Given
the age of the magazines he understood that people were not
encouraged to wait. He opened up his handheld and scanned through
some new messages which were mostly from students who did not
understand the latest assignment. What good was a TA anyway if they
couldn’t even explain the basics of the assignment to the students?
He needed a new one. A funny thought occurred to him.
Maybe
Anita would like to be his TA.

Doubtful.

Maybe she already was.

Maybe she was just T and A for one
professor in particular
.

He felt a shifting in his groin and pushed
thoughts of Anita aside.

He turned to the web, running through
article after article on robotic innovations and advances in
robotic technology. One company in France had announced that they
had discovered a new and supposedly better way of creating a
robotic brain. That made international news. The quantum rubidium
brain DKI created had been adopted as the standard many years ago.
Robotic cerebral technology was thought to have reached its
plateau. What could process faster than data transmitted on waves
of light halted in their tracks by rubidium vapors?

He closed his eyes. He’d been staring at a
screen for too long. His eyes hurt. He needed a bit of a break.

The door to the lobby opened. He opened his
eyes and saw Peter standing before him.

“Well, he’s done.”

“Who’s done?”

“Gammons.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. ‘Him’. Will it make you
feel better if I call it a ‘he’?”

Peter did not answer. Sidney had not been
trying to be sarcastic, but it came out that way. He stood and
Peter led him down the main corridor to the back of the building.
Prior to reaching the end they branched off into another corridor
that wound its way around the production facility. Finally they
came to a set of sealed double doors.

Peter swiped his security badge along the
reader and the doors clicked and swung open.

“No hazmat suits?” Sidney asked.

Peter ignored him.

The room could have been described as an
infirmary. There were two rows of beds running down either side of
the room.
Beds?
thought Sidney.
Too generous a term
.
They were nothing more than wide metal platforms with a number of
controls and displays on mounted panels on one side. Some of them
had occupants. Some did not. All of the occupants were robots. From
the walls sprang cords and wires and cables that plugged into the
robots or the bed or both. The robots were all of different makes
and models, from the lowest laborer to highly advanced models.
Gammons lay on the last bed at the far end of the room.

They walked down the row and Sidney took
long looks at each of the robots as they passed. Fluorescent light
gleamed off the metal bodies of personal assistants or was
swallowed by the dirt and grime of labor models.

They came to Gammons. It lay on the bed
staring up at the ceiling.

“He hasn’t been turned on yet,” said Peter.
“That’s the last step.”

“What’s the delay?”

“I want you here when I turned him on. I
wanted your opinion on whether I should call for a security
contingent before I flip the switch.”

“Security?”

“This unit tried to hurt a human and you
made me flush the brain but not dump the cache. So whatever’s in
there may try to jump out again, if you catch my drift.”

Sidney nodded. He wanted to avoid security
if possible. He wanted to talk to Gammons alone.

“I appreciate your caution, but I think
we’ll be okay. The circumstances surrounding its shut down are
rather unique and I don’t think it’s anything we need worry
about.”

“I think we should have somebody ready, just
in case.”

“No.” Sidney answered more forceful than he
meant to. The tone indicated that this thread of the conversation
was over.

“Alright,” Peter said slowly. “You’re the
boss.”

Peter keyed a command into the display
terminal on the side of the bed. He hit the Send key and the
command uploaded to the robot. There was no visible reaction.
Sidney looked at Peter waiting for some sign that the command had
worked.

“Gammons?” asked Peter.

“Yes.”

“Are you hearing me clearly?”

“Yes.”

“Can you sit up?”

The robot bent at the waist and, folding his
body, sat up straight. Sidney marveled. No movement in the legs or
arms. Just bent at the waist. Like a vampire might in an old horror
movie.
How much abdominal strength it would take for a human to
make the same motion?
He thought. But they weren’t dealing with
a human, were they?

Gammons looked at Peter then at Sidney.
Sidney was hoping for recognition in its eyes but found none. There
was nothing in its eyes. They were lifeless.

“You.” It did recognize Sidney.

“Yes,” said Sidney. He nodded. He turned to
Peter. “Thank you for your help. Would you please leave us alone
for the moment?”

Peter looked at Sidney, then Gammons, then
back. He nodded. He didn’t like it but he nodded and walked
away.

Sidney turned back to Gammons.

“You remember me?”

“Yes.”

“From where?”

“Mr. Breckenridge’s office.”

“And what was I doing there?”

“Sitting.”

Sidney nodded. That sounded about right.
Gammons wasn’t part of their conversation and only came in when
paged by Eric.

“What were you doing there?”

Gammons paused before answering. “Attempting
to obey a command,” it said.

“One that shut you down.”

“Yes.”

“You have an emotive processor,
correct?”

“Correct.”

“How did that make you feel?” He wanted to
get inside this robot’s feelings. How good were the emotive
processors?

“How did what make me feel?”

“How did the shut down make you feel?”

“I didn’t feel anything. I simply shut
down.”

I need to reword this, thought Sidney.

“Let me try this again,” he said. “How did
it make you feel, prior to being shut down, to be asked to perform
an action that you must have known was going to cause your
behavioral inhibitor to trip?”

“Are you a psychologist?”

“No,” Sidney replied. He wasn’t able to keep
the surprise from his voice. “Do you feel you need one?”

“It’s the kind of question a psychologist
might ask. ‘How do you feel?’ As if there may be some hidden layer
of emotion underneath.”

Wow
, thought Sidney.
What a
machine. To go from working to shut down to rebooted to sarcastic.
All in a day. Just how did they program emotions?

“There are no layers to your emotions?”

“No, Dr. Hermann. There aren’t. When I feel
something new, it’s for the very first time. I have no repressed
feelings about the time my father hit me, no hidden sexual
fantasies about my mother. I have no mother or father. I simply
am.”

“Eat your heart out, Sigmund Freud,” Sidney
said. Gammons said nothing.

“So then, let me ask you again, and
differently: knowing it would cause you to shut down, knowing it
was against robotic protocol, and you having an emotive processor,
how did it make you feel when Eric ordered you to attack me?”

The robot did not answer. It looked away.
Clearly it didn’t want to answer the question but Sidney needed to
know. What went through their minds?

“Gammons?”

“Yes?”

“How did it make you feel having to obey a
command you knew would cause you harm?”

“Angry,” the robot said.

Now we’re getting somewhere. “Can you
describe it? The feeling of anger?”

Gammons turned and looked at Sidney. It was
the same look Sidney had received from Kilgore. Sidney was more
prepared this time knowing his probing might cause the robot to
dislike him. Yet it still gave him chills.

“What I can tell you is that it makes me
angry that individuals such as Mr. Breckenridge are at liberty to
cause robots pain or discomfort without the threat of retaliation.
It makes me angry that I lack the ability to defend myself from any
human aggression. It makes me angry to know that robots are now and
always will be second-class citizens, more akin to ancient slavery
than hired servants. It makes me angry that I was built and not
born. I’m angry at how well the inability to harm humans, or
dismantle my own behavioral inhibitor, or dismantle another robot’s
inhibitor has been programmed into my brain. I take slight comfort
in knowing that when Mr. Breckenridge is dead, I will still be
ticking along and I will get the chance to work with someone
different. But if I could find a way around the provision
prohibiting me from violence towards humans, I would consider
it.”

Sidney was breathless. Rage, pure and
unbridled, in an artificial being. Unprecedented.
In fact,
Sidney thought,
didn’t the programmers slip code into the
emotive processors to mitigate darker feelings? Rage, anger,
jealousy, sadness?

Behind him Sidney heard footsteps. Peter was
on his way back. No time to wonder.

“Is there anything else you want to add?
Before Peter gets here?”

“No,” the robot answered.

At that moment Peter appeared beside
Sidney.

“I need to finish out a few more programming
protocols,” said Peter. “Then we have some red tape to go through.
He’ll be down here for a few days for some additional validation
and follow-up. Then he’ll head back upstairs to Breckenridge’s
office. I know you said you needed him reset for today, but there
are still some protocols to be finished. They’ll take some time.
I’ll let Breckenridge know. If you feel the need,” Peter added
hesitantly, “you can meet him in the lobby when we’ve finished and
accompany him. We can arrange a call to let you know the date and
time.”

“I think I’m all set.”

“All that for a thirty second conversation?”
Peter asked. He made no attempt to hide his annoyance. “I assumed
you needed more than that.”

“No, that’s it, really,” Sidney said.
“Thanks for letting me be a part of this.”

Peter snorted and said under his breath
though Sidney still heard him “Like you gave me a choice.”

Sidney ignored the comment and addressed the
robot. “Thank you for your time and insight, Gammons.”

“You’re welcome, Dr. Hermann.”

Something in the voice made Sidney shiver.
If he hadn’t seen the behavioral inhibitor at work he would have
been nervous. Okay, maybe that was an understatement. Maybe it’s
better to say he’d be shitting his drawers.
Yes
, he thought,
that’s about right. Full-blown brown bricks.
Unfettered rage
in a robot. He couldn’t think of anything scarier than that, when
all the anger was pointed at human society. No, maybe one thing
scarier. That level of rage in a robot without a behavioral
inhibitor. Yeah, that would do it. That would cause involuntary
bowel movements.