How It Ends: Part 1 - The Evaluation (9 page)

Her eyes wandered over page after page. Each
one said CONFIDENTIAL at the top. Sidney asked her if she
understood what that meant. She said she wasn’t an idiot. He
countered that he didn’t mean the word. He meant the responsibility
of viewing them. As easily as he had handed them to her to read, he
could just as easily take them away. She might never see such
confidential documents again. She quickly said she understood and
they never talked about it again.

Sidney held the finished product in his
hand, a smartly-bound collection of papers one hundred fifty pages
thick. He couldn’t keep the smile from spreading over his face. He
looked across his cluttered desk at Anita, who was smiling in
return.

“Want to take a look at it?” he asked.

“Sure do.”

He handed it across the desk and Anita took
it carefully, like an ancient artifact from a bygone age. She
opened it, careful not to break the crisp binding. She thumbed
through the pages.

“I really couldn’t have done this without
your help,” Sidney said. “It would have taken me forever to cull
through all the academic research. That sort of thing is not my
strong suit.”

He looked at her.

“Thank you. I mean that.”

Anita wasn’t listening. Her brow was pulled
into a furrow. A strange look was on her face.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“My name isn’t on it as an author.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Uh, shouldn’t it be?”

“Well, no,” Sidney said. Almost sheepish,
embarrassed. “You’re listed as the research assistant.”

“I wrote half the material in this
thing.”

“I understand that—”

“You wouldn’t have gotten half the quality
of research if you’d done it yourself,” she cut him off.

“I realize that—”

“And the best I get is ‘research
assistant’?”

Her voice was rising even as her body
remained motionless. Sidney could tell her muscles were tightening.
Like a snake, coiling.

“That’s kind of a standard credit people in
your position get.”

“People in my position?” Fuming. “What
‘position’ is that?”

“Look,” he said. He was beginning to feel
agitated himself. “This is how things work in academia,” he said.
“RAs do the grunt work and professors get the credit.”

“Well, a fat lot of good that does me.”

She tossed the report across the desk at
him. He lifted his arms in a futile attempt to catch it. He had
never been mistaken for athletic.

Now he was angry. Angry at her attitude,
angry at the way she showed it, angry at her tantrum. And after a
bit of thought, he was angry at Brian for not explaining this to
her upfront.

“I can take your name off if you’d like,” he
snapped.

Silence.

“It would certainly help you get another
such opportunity or even get to lead one yourself. But if you want
nothing more to do with it, I can take your name off.”

He barely heard her. She muttered as softly
as she could.

“No.”

“Okay, then.”

After a moment of silent she said, “This
pretty much sucks.”

“Maybe, but you can use this credit to your
advantage.”

She was silent. Time to nip this in the
bud.

“Stop being an insolent child and say thank
you.”

“Thank you.”

“Very good. Now good-bye.”

It was a brusque send-off, far more brusque
than Sidney usually was, but that was just too bad. He wasn’t going
to sit and be harassed by a hissy fit.

She paused in the doorway, door knob in
hand. He could tell she wanted to slam the door. She didn’t. She
let go of the door knob and walked away.

* * *

Sidney sat in the wood paneled waiting area
outside Eric’s office. He busied himself by reading through the
report once more. He had a copy of it with him. He had sent DKI
their copy a week ago. Within a day he’d been asked to come in and
review it. He knew his conclusion would not be popular with DKI. He
suspected they hadn’t even read the report. He suspected they
turned right to the conclusion page and read.

The intercom beeped at the administrative
assistant’s station. A robot sat there. It had a boy’s facial
features with high cheek bones, a narrow nose and blonde synthetic
hair. The silicon of its face was a Caucasian skin tone.
Appropriate color had been added in the cheeks and the lips. Its
expression was almost natural. Yet it was just artificial enough to
make the people uncomfortable. It was dressed smartly in a jacket
and tie. It pushed a button on the desk. The door to the office
buzzed once. With a soft click the door opened slightly. The robot
smiled at Sidney and motioned him inside with a carefully masked
mechanical hand.

The transition from the area outside Eric’s
office to inside was pronounced. From wood paneling to bright white
walls and a shimmering glass wall window. The Hudson was visible
beyond, gleaming brightly with the day. The furniture was severe,
hard steel and glass and angular. The stark walls were unobscured
by pictures of any kind. Eric Breckenridge motioned Sidney into one
of the chairs without rising himself.

Eric said, “You’ve reached an interesting
conclusion, Sidney.”

“Dr. Hermann, please.”

Eric arched his eyebrows. As if he cared how
Sidney wanted to be addressed.

“As I said, you’ve reached an interesting
conclusion.”

“You think so?”

“No doubt. Interesting and troubling.”

“No doubt.”

Silence between them.

“I’m sorry the report was not what you were
hoping for,” Sidney offered.

“On the contrary. It is exactly what I was
hoping for.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Eric folded his hands. His fingers were long
and looked serpentine when he entwined them.

“Your report is exactly what I was looking
for. Raw feedback. Emotional feedback. I—we—need that kind of
feedback.”

“Then you agree with my conclusion.”

An inarticulate noise escaped Eric. Sidney
thought it might have been amusement. Eric might have laughed.
Sidney wasn’t sure.

“Hardly.”

Eric stood and walked to one corner of his
office. In the morning he or perhaps his robotic assistant made a
habit of opening the long vertical blinds along the window wall.
Pulling them back into the corner. There they sat, bunched and
swaying in the artificial breeze of the environmental controls.
Sunlight spilled through them, casting long stripes of shadows on
the wall.

He stood among the shadows.

“I’m confused,” said Sidney. “My report was
what you were hoping for but you’re contesting my conclusions?”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s contradictory.”

“Not at all.”

“Really? How so?”

“We needed to get an unvarnished opinion of
how the public perceives the robotic doctor. We needed to get this
from a legitimate source. A scholar in the field of robotics is an
absolute fit. And some of the reactions you recorded were not
unexpected. But your final recommendation is suspension of the
program and re-evaluation of its merits. This is completely out of
the question.”

Sidney shifted in the chair. It was square
and modern in its design. It was uncomfortable. He shifted
again.

“I think it is in the best interest of the
company and in the hospital to terminate the program and re-assign
robot 78190736—Kilgore, as he is called—to a different
environment,” Sidney said. That would not go over well but Eric
seemed a man of directness who would respect directness in
return.

Eric’s face darkened. His brows came
together.

“Did it misdiagnose a patient?”

“No.”

“Did it fail to act, medically speaking,
when action was needed?”

“No.”

“Did one of its protocols fail?”

“No.”

“Did harm or death come to any patient it
shouldn’t have under its care?”

“No.”

“Then I fail to see why you feel the program
should be shut down.”

His glare deepened into something dangerous.
Sidney shifted again in the uncomfortable chair. He had little
choice. Explain the gut feeling. Explain or retract the
recommendation.

“It made me, well, I guess you’d call it
nervous,” he said.

“Nervous?”

“Yes. Nervous.”

It sounded stupid as he said it. He knew it
sounded stupid. He couldn’t help it. Nervous was the best he had.
Eric looked at him. He felt his face flush.

“All the observations, all the empirical
data, all of the information regarding the construction and
programming of the unit, and your entire recommendation boils down
to ‘nervous’?”

Eric walked back across the office from his
spot in the corner of the window. He pulled out the chair and sat
down in it with a deliberate motion and leaned back and placed his
hands behind his head in a gesture of relaxation. What to do, what
to do. The program rested on this evaluation. Not the entire
program perhaps but a significant setback could be incurred on a
recommended shutdown. This would not be particularly pleasant to
explain to the board.
The fat board member in the white suit
would be especially pleased.
Eric frowned at this thought. He
pulled his thoughts back to the report in front of him. To the man
sitting across from him. A great slob of a man with shirttails
sticking out from a shirt too small and exposing softness of pale
flesh.

Gently. Don’t scare him off. Trap him. Wrap
him up in his own arguments. Burrow the fangs into his quickly
beating heart and drink the logic from his argument. Make his
argument a shell. Then crush him.

“Could you explain this a little more
clearly?” he asked. Gently.

Sidney described his experience. Talking
with the robot. Relating to the robot. Observing the robot.
Interviewing those who worked with the robot. He came to the moment
when Mr. Carroway took his final breath. He described what seemed
to be the act of self-preservation on the part of the robot. These
things together made him nervous.

Eric sighed.

“I had hoped, Sidney, that you would be more
open-minded.”

“I was very open-minded.”

“It doesn’t sound like it. You were picked
for a couple of reasons. You are academically qualified. You’ve
done fieldwork. Granted, mostly with labor robots.”

He paused.

“You’ve never done any fieldwork with a
robot above a level F, have you?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. Let me try to put your
fears to rest. The look the robot gave you: purely a response
protocol. Happens all the time.”

“You didn’t see the look.”

“I don’t have to. I know for a fact that
these kinds of protocols are wired right into the units and they
pull them up when the situation requires it. You simply got caught
up in one of those moments.”

Sidney shook his head unconvinced.

“Let me help you with your other concern,”
said Eric. “Self-preservation is one of the features we program
into these units.”

“Even the ones without emotive
processors?”

“Yes.”

“But wouldn’t you think self-preservation is
tied to emotional responses to immediate danger?”

“Not at all. Animals have a
self-preservation instinct. From the most intelligent dolphin to
the lowliest sponge, every animal has the urge, the instinct to
save itself if danger emerges.”

“Yes, but instinct is one of those elements
that only living beings have. How can you program instinct into a
robot?”

“The same way we program emotions. It’s
incredibly difficult to do, but it’s doable. We definitely program
instinct into these units.”

“But instinct is based on the adaptation of
generations of observations and experiences made in our exploration
of the world. As we or any species moves through the world, we log
the external stimuli until they become an inherent disposition
toward specific behaviors. It’s almost like having a gut feeling,
if you will.”

“That was an awful lot of words to get to
‘gut feeling’, Sidney.”

Sidney frowned at Eric.

“Gut feeling is exactly the point,” said
Eric. “Gut feelings and instincts are essential to basic human
survival. Fight or flight. What happens when you hear a sound that
scares you? You can run, you can freeze, or you can stay and fight.
One of the things we try to do is incorporate these instincts into
the programming of robotic brains.”

Sidney shifted in the chair. He felt
uncomfortable under Eric’s stare.

“So what you’re saying is that, in addition
to intelligence and emotions, we can program instincts and gut
feelings into newer higher end models.”

“Yes.”

“What if, in the interest in their
self-preservation, a robot decides to kill a human?”

So close yet still so far,
thought
Eric.
So much to learn. He needs to be exposed to more advanced
models. Exposed to their capabilities
.

Eric smiled. He had a sudden and wicked
idea.

Exposure. It’s all about exposure.

Time to educate the professor
.

He stabbed a button on the intercom with his
finger.

“Gammons, come in here please,” Eric
said.

The intercom crackled the reply. “Yes,
sir.”

“Sidney, you must be familiar with the
behavior inhibitors,” said Eric with a smile. He took a pair of
sharp scissors out of a drawer in his desk and placed them at the
edge of the desk. Sidney stared at the scissors, then back to
Eric.

“Yes, I am.”

“Theories, applications, history, et
cetera?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever seen it in action?”

“No. Few have.” He was not sure where this
was going but he didn’t like the tone of Eric’s questions.

The door to Eric’s office opened and in
walked the admin robot. It was built as a protocol unit and as such
it was more invaluable to a man in Eric’s position than a simple
administrative assistant. It was footman, valet, and perhaps even
occasional bodyguard. Its purpose was most often that of admin
though and it was in this capacity that it served him the best.