Robot Awareness: Special Edition Read online

  “Illogical,” the robot said. “Destruction of the incoming ship would lead to the most likely positive result with the lowest risk.”

  “But Robot, we can’t just destroy them! They’re asking for help!”

  “It is possible, employing the XR piloted by the female, that the ship can easily be destroyed. Destruction of the approaching vessel is logical.”

  “No, that’s not what I — I mean we just CAN’T.”

  Porter interjected, “Let me remind you, Robot, if I may. The law for unrestrained robots outside of Company C jurisdiction is quite clear. Therefore illegal in Company C controlled space. By keeping you on board, we are putting ourselves at risk. The most logical act would be to jettison you out of the nearest airlock, and be safer for it.”

  Joey’s eyes went wide, turning to the robot, but the robot’s LEDs displayed little fluctuation. “Affirmative.”

  “But then why do you think it is we don’t do that?” Porter looked at him inquisitively.

  The robot replied, without missing a beat, “Humans are illogical.”

  Porter smiled, resuming his pacing. “We certainly are that. Now then, here’s some more illogic. How’s your piloting coming along, boy? Can you bring us alongside without crashing?”

  Joey snapped out of his trance and returned to the console, gripping the manual steering joystick. “Yeah, I think I can do it.”

  “Are you sure?” Porter regarded him. “Or you think so?”

  “I can do it!” he said, a little louder than he intended, his face flushing a light red with embarrassment.

  Porter nodded, crossing his large, dark forearms as he watched with anticipation.

  ***

  Joey tightly gripped the control handle, his hands smearing sweat on their red vinyl covering. He’d been practicing navigation the last few weeks since he’d fled his colony planet home, running through simulation programs while the ship remained on auto-pilot. The real thing was much more scary.

  “That’s it, you’re doing fine, boy.” Porter stood behind him, watching and ready to lend assistance. Porter seemed to take an interest in him that bordered on paternal.

  Porter was there to help, but his presence made Joey nervous. The eyes of an onlooker made Joey second-guess himself, and as he maneuvered the ship into position, his hands began to sweat more, little points like pinpricks tingled his head with anticipation. His heart rate increased. “Thanks,” Joey muttered, his attention focused wholly on the his task.

  “Joey is operating outside normal parameters,” the robot broke in. “Heart rate increased, body temperature elevated. Joey requires further maintenance.”

  “He’s fine, Robot. Just a little nervous.” Porter grinned inside a little, thinking about his first time piloting in space. “I was a little younger than you when I did this for the first time.”

  “Really?” Joey asked, nearly taking his attention away from the helm before catching himself.

  “Nervous? 'Nervous’ is a standard human response mechanism?” The robot’s LEDs flashed inquisitively.

  “Yes,” Porter calmly said, hardly paying attention to the robot.

  “'Nervous: A positive or negative response?”

  “It’s both,” Porter said. “And neither.”

  The robot’s LED display flashed and flickered frantically for a moment while, on the viewscreen, the foreign vessel grew larger. “Explain.”

  “Well, on the one hand, it isn’t pleasant, and might cause him to act slower. On the other hand, it’ll keep him alert, so he won’t make a mistake.”

  “Understood. Robot does not program ‘nervous.’ Nervous is inefficient.”

  Porter looked at the robot for a second, then turned back to Joey. “Don’t worry about all that, Joey. Just steer her in nice and slow. Almost there. Almost. There!”

  The cargo vessel stopped in the viewscreen and a loud clank rattled the ship. In the cold of space not a noise could be heard, but inside the shock reverberated through the ship’s hull. Joey held the controls tightly for a moment, not believing the maneuver was over, then looked around and relaxed against the red vinyl.

  “I did it,” he said breathlessly, looking at the robot and Porter for approval.

  “Not bad,” Porter said, nodding.

  “Joey’s imperative was accomplished with minimal inefficiency.”

  Porter chuckled to himself. “I think that’s its way of saying good job.”

  “Oh,” Joey said, smiling for the first time since the ordeal. “Thanks, Robot.” Its green lights flashed once then went silent.

  Porter smiled and turned to the robot. “Alright, let’s go see to our ‘guests.’ The robot, come with me. Joey, you stay at the helm, keep an eye on the skies for any other ships. Isellia?”

  There was a slight radio crackle. “Yeah! I’m a little busy right now, doing absolutely NOTHING!”

  “Stay in your cockpit. We docked with the cargo vessel, and the robot and I are going to check it out. The kid’ll radio if anything suspicious comes up.”

  “Still think it’s a trap.”

  “We’ll find out.” Porter gestured at the robot and the two walked out of the bridge, both with ROUs in hand.

  ***

  Isellia fiddled with the control knobs on her XR, twisting her face with the boredom of waiting. Her finger traced the custom leather grip, a treat to herself after one of her crew’s more successful jobs before the crash. She remembered installing it, the pride she felt, one more part of her XR that made it hers. She breathed a sigh of exasperated boredom mixed with remembrance, fingers absently combing her bangs back.

  *** flishy

  Wallace looked at the broken down heap of junk in front of him, frowning at the dilapidated machinery silently. His hand ran along its rusting hull, his scrutinizing eyes tracing its many defects along the way. He crouched below the craft, peering under its chassis.

  Finally he stood, lighting a cigarette as he looked out into the distance of the ship salvage yard. After taking a puff, flaring the tip of the cigarette in an orange and ash colored bulb, he exhaled, the smoke dissipating into the dark, orange-red sky, the hulls of broken ships silhouetting its colorful backdrop. “Sat too long,” he said into the distance, seeming to no one in particular. “It’ll never fly.”

  Young Isellia sat looking at the ship, seeing her dream in what others would cast off as scrap metal. “I can fix it.” Her eyes never left the ship as she spoke.

  “Never get ‘er running. Been in the ground too long. Sometimes it’s too late to fix ‘em.” Wallace puffed his cigarette, ready to drop the matter. "'Sides, this is a 13. Plenty of problems with those. Too buggy."

  She didn’t waver her gaze, and no emotion showed on her face, save for a slight tremor. Her voice raised slightly, with a dash more pride as she reiterated, “I can fix it.”

  Isellia’s gaze remained on the ship, and it probably wouldn’t have mattered due to the angle Wallace stood from her, but had she been able to, she’d have seen the slightest of grins cross his face, a grin that rarely found a home on his cigarette-stained lips.

  Isellia remained hyper-fixated on the dilapidated XR in front of her. She never saw Wallace’s expression change. “You’ll be in debt before you’ll find any work.” He took another puff of his cigarette. “If you get it running.”

  There was a long pause, with neither of them speaking. Isellia simply stared at the broken down, rusting XR, knowing in her heart that this vessel would carry her through space someday, by her own hand. Her only moving feature was her eyes, which looked at each individual part, considering both the aesthetic angle and the work required, and the possible cost of each replacement. She knew it would be a long time before such a thing was space-worthy and she had no desire to delay repairs.

  Wallace finished his cigarette, dropping it thoughtlessly to the ground and stepping on it as he turned to walk past Isellia. “Let’s go,” he said, walking past the starry-eyed, weathered girl. Her face never left the XR, h
er small, grey jumpsuit flapping slightly in the slight wind of the planet. “Time you learned how to negotiate anyhow.”

  Isellia could hardly contain her beaming grin, knowing that what she knew in her heart was about to become true, or as close to true as these things come. She could hardly contain the bounce in her step as she followed the lanky, sinewy frame of her father through the orange-lit frames of old ships left to die, one of them about to slowly phoenix off the planet.

  ***

  Porter walked the corridor leading to the docking bay, the robot close at his heals. They walked in silence save for the clink-clank of footsteps against the metallic floor. More expensive spaceships provided many options, including a variety of floor surfaces, with various degrees of dampening. Luxury cruisers, like a Company C CEO commander might own, might barely make a sound as one walked its luxurious contours. This was not one of those.

  Porter came to a stop in front of a semi-rusty metallic door, with a large bar attached to a round swivel that opened it. Porter breathed a sigh as the robot stopped beside him.

  “Understand something, robot: You’re here just in case. Don’t do anything crazy.”

  The robot’s LED flickered once. “Robot is operating within logical parameters. Robot is not programmed for ‘crazy.’”

  Porter was too on guard to chuckle. “Let me put it another way. It would be impertinent to act without my authorization. Proceed as directed.”

  The robot’s LED flashed responsively. “Understood,” it said.

  Porter reached for the door handle, twisting the bar which loudly turned a cylindrical mechanism with the sound of heavy steel on heavy steel. An electronic switchbox on the side of the door flashed green.

  “Well, it looks like they docked easily enough,” Porter said. “Alright, let’s see who our visitors are.”

  Porter swung the door open with a creak, effectively hiding him from view temporarily. Immediately out of the door-frame swung a charged ROU, pointed in the room and ready to fire.

  In what would appear impossibly fast to human perception, the robot perceived the threat and immediately drew and aimed its ROU back at the man holding the weapon, appearing as a mirror image to its new adversary.

  “STOP!” Porter yelled.

  The scene froze in silent tension as the robot stood unmoving, its ROU firmly pointed forward as the man’s pointed back. No one took a breath or dared move a millimeter.

  Suddenly a small shuffling noise could be heard further behind the dark, grizzly man. Porter inched his way out from behind the door, careful to do so slowly, so as not to trigger an explosion of ROU fire. The shuffling grew louder, and as Porter crouched ready to spring, a smaller, scrawny and somewhat sickly man stepped into view just behind the man holding the ROU.

  “Um, excuse me?” he said timidly, stammering to get out his words. “I think, um, that is, perhaps, a misunderstanding, I think, um —”

  Some of the tension left Porter as he curiously regarded the man. “A misunderstanding…” Porter looked from the robot to the man to the much smaller man, the latter visibly trembling where he stood. “Certainly seems like it.”

  The man looked up at Rex, who stood unwavering, nearly as stoic as the robot. A small bead of sweat formed on his brow, but his dark hair-framed complexion remained cool and steely, almost a human mirror of the robot’s. The smaller man looked at his feet, his hands folded in front of him.

  Porter considered the two men for a moment, then calmed. He tapped the robot's chassis with the flat of his hand. “Robot, you can lower your weapon.”

  “Negative. Danger still present. Self-protection protocol active.”

  Porter turned to him. “The danger is that if you both keep pointing a weapon at each other, someone is going to wind up dead. And if they wanted that, don’t you think he would have fired already? Lower your weapon.”

  The robot’s LED, which had been calm previously, flashed furiously. “Negative. Protection protocol active.”

  A small vein on Porter’s temple twitched nervously. “Robot! That is an order! Lower your weapon, or your time on this ship is over. Enter that into your damn protection protocol!”

  The robot’s LED flashed even more violently than before as it held its ROU pointed at the man’s head. Finally the LED came to a near stop, and slowly the robot lowered its ROU.

  Porter breathed a sigh of relief, and the small timid man let out a sigh, though he still remained tense. Porter seemed to be thinking about something, but shook it off for later.

  “Now then,” Porter said, regaining his calm, “one down,” he looked pointedly at Rex, “one to go.”

  Chapter 2

  Stephen sat outside the cave, eating his lunch as he usually did, alone. He didn’t mind. It was a warm day on the colony, the breeze gently blew his thin, light brown hair and some of the dust off his face and clothes, and he couldn’t help but smile.

  He popped open his lunch capsule, provided by the company. He dropped it off at the end of his shift, into a slot where all the other miners put their capsules, and picked them up before entering the mine for the day. One didn’t dare forget theirs - it meant you went hungry for the day, or ate emergency slime — their word for it — a goo with essential nutrition but largely unpalatable. Stephen never forgot his.

  He took a bite of his nutro-bar, looked across the horizon, and noticed Company C managers walking with someone. New recruit, most likely, he thought. Stephen normally liked to spend the 15 minutes he was afforded for lunch taking in as much nature as he could while he ate; but today, he watched the managers bring this new recruit.

  He wasn’t sure what kind of person he would be, but as they drew the man closer, he noticed a restraining bracelet on his left ankle. People came to work for Company C one of two ways: Either they were in financial difficulties, or took the work as plea bargain for some crime. Stephen quickly deduced which category this new worker fell into.

  He was tall, lanky with long, dark hair that hung in his face. His frame looked sinewy, strong, grizzled. He looked like someone Stephen should stay away from - but then he stayed away from most people in the mine.

  Most workers in the mine were far too tired to bother anyone, unless a target presented itself. A few of the newer workers, not yet worn from years of hard labor, territorially made their way to the new recruit as soon as the managers left him.

  Stephen’s heart rate increased as he watched them approach. The man didn’t seem to react, hardly paid them any mind. He was too far away to hear, but it seemed one of the workers was talking very close to Rex, likely threateningly, with two friends close by. Stephen blinked. He couldn’t see what happened, but the man suddenly winced in pain, grabbing his hand. He could hear his shouts, and the man glanced a quick look at the other two who scurried off behind the aggressor. The new recruit looked bored, like he had just thrown something in a trash can. His attackers barely registered as an inconvenience.

  Stephen watched him as he took his assigned capsule, removing the contents to eat. Then the man looked up at him, directly at him, staring. Stephen immediately looked away, his heart racing. Would the man hurt him, too? He hadn’t done anything. Curse his curiosity.

  When he looked up the man was gone.

  ***

  “We need passage,” Rex said calmly, his ROU never wavering in the slightest from the robot’s cranial casing. Stephen stood behind him, wavering in every way possible.

  “You got a funny way of asking a favor,” Porter said, his gaze calm and direct. “You could have asked without pointing an ROU at us.”

  Rex was silent a moment, as if considering his argument. He shrugged. “Can never be too sure.”

  Porter sighed. “Well, I can’t argue with that.” He looked pointedly at the ROU. “Literally, I suppose.”

  Stephen stepped ever so slightly out of the shadow of Rex, as if he were about to speak. Porter noticed.

  “Go on, if you have something to say,” Porter said, nodding past the la
nky man with the ROU.

  Stephen gulped, as if he were unsure about saying anything at all and regretted drawing any attention to himself in the first place. He took a breath, seeming to steady himself a bit, before speaking.

  “He…uh, we don’t… don’t mean any harm, I mean…” he trailed off, staring down at the gang plank between the two parties as he spoke. His voice was meek and raspy, and rang oddly in the echo of the entrance portal.

  “Really?” Porter said, again pointedly looking at the ROU. “Could have fooled me,” he said gravely.

  “No, he don’t—” Stephen started loudly, before the loudness of his own voice startled him. “I mean, we, we’re just looking for help is all.” He looked behind him, to the dying cargo vessel. “This ship won’t make it far enough. We’d be stuck out here in space. It… there ain’t much else we can do.”

  Rex raised his eyebrows at this ever so slightly.

  “You know help beacons are that for a reason,” Porter said. “When people start violating them, they lose their meaning. People won’t stop for them anymore. We almost didn’t.”

  “Present action is ineffective,” the robot stated. “Altercation will result in invader’s death.”

  Rex’s eyebrow perked “That so?” he said, without inflection.

  “Robot is faster.”

  Stephen gasped, looking positively terrified, but Rex only flashed a nearly imperceptible grin. “Don’t count on it.”

  Porter rolled his eyes. “OK, enough of this. Look, why don’t you tell me where you’re headed?”

  Rex’s eyes never left the robot. “Gamma quadrant, co-ordinates 123.452.” Stephen nodded at this. “Don’t ask why.”

  “I don’t make a habit of it.” Porter rubbed his chin for a moment. “It’s a little beyond our usual range, but I think we can make it. You got money?”

  Rex looked at Stephen momentarily. “W-w-we can pay,” Stephen said.

  Porter nodded. “Fine, we’ll take you on. Two conditions.”