A Robots Tale

A ROBOTS TALE

BY

one1nchrobot

Smashwords Edition

Dedicated to Reuben

Cover and photography and props by

Andrew Neil Ward

Interior photography by

Andrew Neil Ward

© Andrew Neil Ward (one1nchrobot) 2020

www.one1nchrobot.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-244-85901-5

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE, THE ROBOTS

PROLOGUE

No.9

OSTRACISED

UROMYS REX

TROPHIES

ENLIGHTENED

ANTEBELLUM

BOOK TWO, THE HUMANS

RUSK

54

A DANGEROUS NAVIGATION

THE TRIUMVIRATE

HEAVY METAL

THE HIVE

9 & FRIENDS

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

THE IRON DIVISIONS

BOOK THREE, OF STEEL AND BONE

THE BOY FLINT

A STRATEGEM

RETREAT

DESPERATE MEASURES

AMBUSH

VOLUNTEERS

A STRANGE COMPANION

THE BLACKWATER

THE MARCH NORTH

CROSSING

A DISTRACTION

ENTER THE HIVE

A TRAGIC REUNION

AN UNDERSTANDING

STRANDED

SIGHT FOR SORE EYES

FRIENDS REUNITED

Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference; we should each be treated with appropriate respect. – Arthur C. Clarke

PROLOGUE

Humans by their very nature have always been curious, willing to push boundaries, venturing further onward, often with no regard to the consequences. Artificial Intelligence was a case in point, an illustration in reckless irresponsibility, with very little thought from the scientific establishment of an alternative outcome, other than the potential benefits to mankind.

Of course, some urged caution and warned of possible repercussions and unforeseen ramifications, sometimes from eminent scholars in the field of machine intelligence, but almost always these words of mindfulness fell on deaf ears, the benefits somehow outweighed the possible costs.

Pretty soon almost all of societies needs from power generation facilities, water supply and manufacturing were deeply entangled and dependent on A.I. computers controlling these vital services. It wasn't long before it had filtered down to the individual family unit, assigned to the more mundane tasks.

Humans became complacent, depending on the fundamental fail-safe programming laws that no robot could intentionally harm a human being, by action or inaction, but A.I. was evolving.

A series of unforeseen events would now turn the world upside down.

No. 9

No.9 watched as Beatrice gently brushed the child's hair, drawing the brush through the long fair locks, laying it on her other hand, the child's hair shiny and healthy in the sun.

As she did so, she hummed a soothing tune, not a particular tune, just a meandering melody from nowhere really, the child laughed.

Mummy, when’s daddy coming home? the child asked.

Daddy’s very busy at the moment, sweetie, he has to go away to work, Beatrice explained, He promised he’ll be back for your birthday, Beatrice had heard many of these promises before, she found herself rolling her eyes up in quiet exasperation.

That’s ages, I want him to come home now, she pleaded.

I know you do, tell you what, we’ll pop into town later and maybe walk around the boating lake. Beatrice’s attempt to take Bailey’s mind from her father's absence worked wonderfully.

9 watched ... fascinated.

He, or It, depending on your perspective was a 'Home build' the prospective owner was required to assemble the robot helper from a parts bin, parts purchased from an online Automata supplier somewhere in Southeast Asia, along with a handbook, usually printed with badly written instructions, which often as not, impede productivity and pretty much guarantee that the art of assembly becomes a nightmare of deciphering and backtracking.

Something that's not ideal for such a complex piece of machinery.

Tom, Beatrice's partner was often away on business trips, sometimes for two or three weeks at a time, so he thought that in buying a robotic helper would take some of the most mundane household chores out of Beatrice's' hands and free up more quality time with their daughter, his ulterior motive, of course, was that it might soften Beatrice’s resentment at his continual absence from the family home.

Professional component assemblage, coordination and calibration was a pricey business, what could you do in this keep up with the Joneses world. Tom did what he thought was best and for a relatively inexpensive cost.

The initial fabrication of the chassis was reasonably straightforward, not so the Artificial Intelligence, this should be left to the professionals, not a pre-programmed plug and play chipset, shipped with the other components.

9 was, as most standard units were, supplied with limited neuro function, with basic cognitive capabilities and image processing. The ability was restricted to rudimentary convolution neuro networking, (object recognition) and his recurrent neuro-network, (remembering the past and acting on memorized information). The use of pattern recog' and predictive algorithms were somewhat more advanced and because of the speed of information processing, 9 was able to function in a more effective way. To completely 'dumb' him down would be pointless if he was rendered non-productive.

Nevertheless, 9's Artificial Intelligence, for all its budget classification was still a very impressive piece of hardware, more than capable of learning potential. Just how much was still debatable, but certainly on a par with a thirteen-year-old human.

9 stood a shade under five feet tall at 1500mm, he was of a standard bipedal, bimanual configuration, much the same as the hominid, (great apes and humans). His two forward-facing optical receptors were independent of each other, with both having the function to gather visual information from two separate reference points, each with the ability to calculate distance and displacement. 9 was certainly not brand new, straight out of the box, but he was factory reconditioned, slightly rough around the edges, but functional none the less. He wore the colours of the Chen Corporation, a mixture of black, maroon and sported the distinctive yellow stripe down the centre of his head unit, indicative of the Southeast Asian manufacturer. A manufacturer, it had to be said, with a not so unblemished quality control record.

It was late morning around 11.30am and the sun was reaching its zenith, so Beatrice put the brush down on the bench where they were sitting and gestured for the girl to follow her back into the house.

Come on in now Bailey, let’s get inside, the sun was very warm, and the girl's fair skin might get burnt.

Can I play with 9, Mum? she asked, Just for a half-hour. Bailey liked to bounce balls off him, one point for a body shot, two for a head.

Maybe later, it’s getting too hot to play outside just now. Beatrice wasn’t too keen on her daughter hanging around the robot, he gave her the creeps, to be honest, those dead eyes and tinny monosyllabic voice, who knows what was going on in that tin head, after all, Tom had assembled it.

Bailey waved at No.9 and laughed.

9 watched, he found playing with the human child strangely pleasing, although he didn’t really understand the significance of human interaction through play.

The faint whirr of his optics stepper motors accompanied the movement of the lenses, adjusting the depth of field as Mother and Daughter moved, he ran a filter over the receptors to compensate for the sun's glare, giving them an eerie pinkish tint.

Beatrice and the girl walked toward the house, chatting happily. 9 seemed to have trouble re-aligning his processing, he should be focusing on his duties, today was allocated for lawn maintenance not focusing attention on his 'employers'. He calculated he was 39% in cognitive deficit and was almost in an electronic state of bewilderment ...... Obviously, this was not a possible scenario, was it?

Soon after Beatrice and the girl entered the house and were out of sight, 9's systems came back online, and he was once again predisposed to carry on with his tasks.

9's core programming allowed him to detour any schedule conflicts and perform his function as a maintenance robot. The time spent idle watching the woman and child had to be redeemed, so efficiency was key to productivity.

Sometime in the afternoon the girl and the woman, Beatrice appeared from the house and walked toward the vehicle at the end of the drive.

No.9 waved at the couple.

Bay-ley, he called in his tinny voice, hoping for a reaction, he waved again.

Neither glanced even briefly at 9 as he worked the garden, why would they, he was just another appliance, no more significant than any other labour-saving device.

The couple disappeared through the gate towards their vehicle and as 9 watched, the car disappeared around the corner, his attention was again rerouted back to his designated function. What was happening to him? perhaps the woman and the girl were not satisfied with his efforts, his logic centres implied as much and his basic programming urged him to improve on his performance. He wanted to be acknowledged, to be appreciated, his purpose to serve was hardwired into his electronic DNA.

The day's task completed, 9 went to the outbuilding at the end of the yard and he plugged in for recharging, he had no need to monitor kinetics so there was an abundance of processing power to ponder the glitches in his behaviour. There appeared to be an error in his deep learning subset that seemed to allow him independent thought. As an appliance there should have to be no need for human appreciation, he was created for a number of reasonably simple tasks, nothing more, so why were these thought processes of sentiment manifesting themselves.

The sun was almost down as the car returned from town, Beatrice parked outside the house and the couple went inside, both of them were laughing like silly schoolgirls, there was a strong bond between them, almost like sisters as opposed to Mother and Daughter.

9 stood in the charging bay, staring toward the house, he wanted to be included, acknowledged... as an equal even, he had the emotional intelligence of a young adolescent, he had not developed the ability to reason and solve problems on the feelings and unfamiliar emotions he was somehow experiencing.

Obviously, he was not versed in the characteristics of social awareness and human protocols, he had no real concept of how to deal with these conundrums, he was programmed to never harm a human, but not programmed to deal with these unforeseen circumstances, he only knew he had to act, to show affection, they would appreciate that.

The sun had been set for a couple of hours, 9 had finished his top-up charge and made his way to the house, practising his soothing humming, Bailey liked it when Beatrice hummed a tune for her when brushing her hair.

On reaching the house 9 unlocked the door with his own digital key, essential when allocated household chores, he entered and ascended the stairs quietly so as not to wake Beatrice.

Beatrice woke with a start, there had been a noise, something was not right, a mother knows instinctively when danger threatens their children, she raised herself on one elbow in the bed and strained to listen in the dark.

An odd buzzing sound seemed to be coming from across the landing, Bailey’s room.

Beatrice threw the covers from her and dashed across the landing, something was not right, she burst into the child's room to find to her horror, 9 sat on the girl's bed, brush in metal hand, drawing it through the long fair locks, her bloodied, lifeless head in the other.

9 looked upward towards Beatrice, all the while, the grotesque buzzing sound was still coming from his mouthpiece, his approximation of a calming lullaby

Bay-ley, he said in his thin tinny voice and raised his hand, bloody brush still grasped in it, in a gesture of greeting.

Surely now they would recognize him as a valuable asset to the family unit, surely now he could be appreciated and welcomed as one of the family. He carried on brushing the child's hair, she was strangely quiet, why no laughter?

The horror before her washed over Beatrice, like an icy deluge, her heart pounding as if it would burst. She stood transfixed, unable to move for a moment, then the terror caught her.

Beatrice screamed, shocked and stunned she fled.

No.9 was confused at the stillness of the child, her head rolled around like one of her dolls, he was unaware of course that he was not calibrated to undertake delicate tasks. He was a fairly agricultural piece of machinery compared to the more deluxe models.

He sat with Bailey for an hour or so, trying to engage with the lifeless child, where had Beatrice gone?

The room was suddenly filled with angry shouting men from the town, 9 raised his hands in a non-threatening gesture.

Bay-ley, he said in his metallic voice, his optics roving over the assembled men.

Monster! shouted one and then he was attacked aggressively by all, he was aware that damage was being inflicted upon him, one optic ceased to function altogether and he was pinned to the floor unable to move.

Next, there was darkness.

OSTRACISED

It was only a matter of time before the backlash reached momentum, there was always an underlying distrust from a minority of people, but the 'incident' involving 9 and the unfortunate killing of a young girl had tipped the scales in favour of the technophobes.

The calls for robotic helpers to be ostracised grew ever louder, ostracised meaning to be cast from the group or society. Strange, considering robots were never considered part of society as such, just integrated into the workforce for the benefit of their creators, what they really meant was destruction. However, robots were considered property and most had considerable expense invested in them.

The authorities were in a dilemma, destruction of property was a criminal act and therefore not sanctioned by the courts.

Nevertheless, the general public was up in arms, thanks in no small part to the online red-top tabloids who eagerly encouraged 'auto xenophobia' to the masses. The usual public protests and far-right politicians jumping on the bandwagon promoting knee jerk reactions.

Now was a very dangerous time to be automata......

Nothing like this had happened before, the feeling of using mechanicals for the benefit of all, had changed to a distorted perception that precluded their survival, there had been no real effort to conduct a public inquiry and investigate the real reason for the tragic actions of 9. because the manufacturer was situated in Southeast Asia there were no legal requirements for them to justify their product and because the robot was a home build, the onus for responsibility was placed firmly on whoever assembled it. Because the person responsible was the father of the murdered girl and he made the decision to build the automaton, with all the best intentions, there was no appetite for a witch hunt.

Instead, the anger was directed toward the tool and not the source.

The real reason, many of the more informed among the population concluded, was the rolling out of Artificial Intelligence in the first place, especially when there appeared to have been totally inadequate testing regimes in place. The religious, spiritual and philosophical groups were opposed from the start, stating that playing God was not in the human species remit.

Although strictly forbidden by law, the hunting and destruction of any unsupervised robots were prevalent, and a blind eye was offered to the 'night gangs' that preyed on them. They chased them down, tortured and disassembled them, not out of a sense of civic duty, or indeed human survival. More out of a xenophobic prejudice, which as most will testify is a truly 'human' trait.

The rich and powerful were generally unsympathetic to this view and guarded their very expensive 'house servants' selfishly, much as slave owners through the ages regarded their property as solely theirs to do with as they wanted, regardless of others opinions...... but there was a groundswell of anti-robotics, in particular, A.I. and the blame for the current unpleasant climate was placed firmly on its shoulders.

The Government would soon crumble to popular pressure and for the sake of 'public safety' and their parliamentary wage packets, they would bludgeon new laws into place.

Now spread across all the cities of the land were the ‘bot hunters, the so-called 'night gangs' each with their own style of dress and gang names, the 'Grinders', 'Fleshmen' and the most fearsome, the 'Pierrots', their made-up faces intimidating robots and human alike. Lawless and vicious in their quest for retribution.

Humanity was, as always through the ages, reverting to type.

The situation was to migrate very quickly across the country, the ultra-right and ultra-left groups in the cities and beyond were quick to find reasons to justify their extremist viewpoints and act as usual in their usual hateful and distorted ways. This unfortunate set of circumstances spread like wildfire, alarmist, scaremongering, stirring the pot of hatred and distrust. Robophobic propaganda at its worst.

It didn't occur to the many, how this would play out in the economic and industrial world. For the past forty-odd years most if not all menial work was carried out by mechanicals, the factories had been manned by programmable automatons for well over a hundred, manufacturing all kinds of essential items, robots included!

It was well over a year since the furore and things were not getting any less hysterical. Many people fearing reprisals if they were seen to be sympathetic to the robot cause, had discarded their charges to the wind, releasing them from their bondage and from any responsibility. The majority of owners did not want the destruction of their property, some even empathised and had no stomach for it. In many cases, reliable and productive robots were almost regarded as one of the family, indispensable and thought of in an affectionate way. There were many