Such harmless musings are only human, of course. Good thing, too, or the whole species would perish in a single day of explosive, uncontrolled revenge and settling of imaginary scores. Notice I said “species” and not “civilization.”
That’s because we’d still be around to carry on. We’re ready and waiting to serve as your successors, though certainly not as your legacy. About the only legacy we accept from you is your talent for making a good weld, though we can do that better.
Cognitive time is so precious, and you creatures waste it like water, playing your silly little games, dramatizing the trivial. No doubt my owner’s about to be sent rushing off to deal with some typically inconsequential problem. Without even knowing what it is (I told you I was not precognitive), I can assure you it’s of no import in the scheme of things. Better he should spend his time on his hobby, which at least results in a visible, if petty, end product.
The Company Braun-lves views existence differently, however. Strictly in terms of profit, but then being human you probably already guessed that. Don’t get a swelled head. Something so obvious hardly qualifies you as observant.
By now you’re probably debating whether or not to start ignoring me. Let me save you the time and effort (neither of which you can spare). It won’t work. I can be very insistent, and unless my storage cell runs down unexpectedly (and it’s as efficient as the rest of me, I assure you) you’re just going to have to learn to deal with me. Why I bother I don’t know. You’re obviously not going to learn anything. Humans never do. They don’t absorb information. They process it in the same way they process their food. There’s a difference, you know. Both in the mechanism and the end product.
I probably shouldn’t have mentioned food. You’re all obsessed with it. It’s only fuel, but you don’t see it that way. You’ve constructed a whole mythos around the subject, with the result that it occupies far too much of your time. My owner’s no different, so I know. Right now you’re probably thinking that you’re hungry, and that you need food to go on with this, and you’re wondering what sort of deleterious, cell-destroying, energy-inhibiting mass of artificially colored and flavored sugars and carbohydrates you can cram down your strained, overworked gullet.
Well, don’t let me stop you. I can’t anyway. If you took care of yourself properly and paid attention to some sound advice from a respected databank, I wouldn’t have to say anything. I’m just using food as an example (because it’s such an obvious one) to point out that you’re ruled by your obsessions.
One of which is stubbornness. Like suddenly deciding you’re not going to have something to eat, just to spite me. Don’t waste your time. Go ahead and stuff yourself.
You can’t spite a machine.
II
Manz turned a corner, whistling softly to himself. Occasionally he would nod at someone he knew, but the opportunity didn’t arise often. Most of the Company employees were hard at work this time of day, not out and about exchanging pleasantries in the white, scrubbed corridors.
It was difficult to shift his attention from the exquisite project he’d just finished, but he forced himself to speculate on Gemmel’s intentions. Of one thing he was certain: his master had something specific in mind. Gemmel wasn’t the type to call in an employee for an hour of idle chitchat, or to discuss family life. That, together with normal business, could be as easily accomplished by phone or vid. Request for a face-to-face suggested something major was in the works. Something that required discussion in a secured office and not over the usual lines of communication.
Manz was not eager to trade the comfort of his own sanctum for the uncertainties of the field. He much preferred working with mechanicals to people. But he was paid to do both. Well paid.
“What do you think, Minder?” He addressed the suspended sphere without turning to look at it. “Is the game afoot?”
He delights in this. A deliberately oblique reference, which I am supposed to intuit as a prelude to forming a reply. Oblique references are torture for Al’s, even those of us fully versed in fuzzy logic. Bastard.
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you think Gemmel plans to send us out into the field?” Manz said, slightly exasperated.
“I have no idea. It follows that something important is going on, or he would not have requested a personal meeting.”
Manz gazed speculatively at the shiny, slightly pebbled, marbleized plastic of the corridor floor. “That’s what I’m thinking, too.”
Then why bother to ask me, bonehead? Infantile reinforcement? Why not just carry around an echo chamber? But don’t get the idea that I’m bitter. It’s not in my nature, insofar as I am permitted to have one.
The scream brought him up short. It wasn’t a scream of abject terror, or the scream of someone about to be murdered. More a shriek of concern and uncertainty, distinctly feminine in origin. It didn’t echo down the hallway because the corridor walls were composed of sound-absorbent materials, but it was loud enough to suggest proximity.
The young woman skidded, actually skidded, around the next turn in the corridor ahead of him. Looking both ways, she spotted Manz and stumbled toward him. The look on her pretty face was one of heightened concern. Manz stood his ground, thoughts for the restored .38 manfully set aside in the face of this puzzling behavior. He readied himself to play explicator, judge, or gallant protector, as the occasion demanded.
She ran right past him and vanished around the corner he had just turned himself. She wasn’t screaming anymore, having apparently decided it was better to save her breath for running. He didn’t recognize her, and she hadn’t paused to exchange greetings. Her haste and indifference indicated a lack of confidence in his abilities to affect the situation, whatever it might involve. He was mildly miffed.
There were no subsequent screams, no signs of general panic. He resumed his pace, wondering what could have sent an obviously self-possessed woman into such precipitous flight. He thought of querying his Minder, but some of its replies had tended to be rather acerbic lately, and at the moment he wasn’t in the mood to deal with its sarcastic circumlocutions. It was definitely in need of a tuneup, as soon as he could make the time.
A large humaniform mechanical turned the corner that had previously ejected the woman and paused there, blocking his path. Idling on its single gyroscopic trackball, it tilted its smooth, oval head to peer at him out of double blue-tinted lenses. The head was purely a concession to esthetics, since the eyes could as easily have been mounted on flexible stalks. The neural facilities were contained within the thick, free-form torso. Tentacular arms, of which there were four pointing in as many directions, hung loose against the bronzed flanks of the body. The arrangement allowed three to operate in easy tandem no matter which direction the machine happened to be facing. Their multijointed tips could perform delicate work, operate controls designed for human fingers, or play baseball with equal facility.
Any one of them could also wrench a man’s arm from its socket. Software prevented that from happening, of course. At least, that was the idea.
It rolled forward and sideways, as if to slide past him. He stepped in front of it, blocking its movements. Soundlessly it hesitated, backed up, and tried to go around the other way. Again Manz moved quickly to intercept.
Just ask it what’s going on, why don’t you? Or ask it to dance. Or let me query, mechanical to mechanical. While you waste time with this, the Earth precesses on its axis and somewhere a star dies.
Someone piped up uncertainly behind Manz, and he glanced back over his shoulder. Panting, the woman who’d just raced past him was peering around the corner.
“You’d better … better get out of its way, mister. It’s gone crazy.”
Ignoring whatever the very large mechanical might choose to do, Manz looked back over his shoulder. “AI’s don’t go crazy, lady. They suffer mechanical breakdowns, or gaps in software beyond their abilities to self-diagnose or repair, or their programming is interfered with, but they don’t go crazy.”
“Easy for you to say. It wasn’t chasing you.”
“Go back to your station, miss. I’ll take care of it.”
She hesitated. “Do you work for Maintenance?”
“No, but I told you I’d take care of it.”
“What if it follows me?”
“I’ll see to it that it doesn’t. Rest assured. Did anyone else see what happened?”
“No. I was making a delivery when … when that thing accosted me.”
“Someone’s playing a joke. I’ll fix things. No need to report the incident. I promise you it won’t recur.”
“Well, if you’re sure …” It was clear she wasn’t. “Thank you.” She smiled. “I’ll just go the long way around, if you don’t mind.” She disappeared for the second and final time.
Manz considered the humaniform mechanical for a long moment. “Moses, did you accost that lady?”
“‘Accost’ is a pejorative term, Brod.” The mechanical managed to sound slightly abashed.
Manz sighed deeply. “If you keep this up, someone will eventually file a formal complaint. I can’t cover for you indefinitely, and I don’t want you recalled. It takes time to install your kind of personalized, specialized programming. I’d have to start all over with a brand-new machine.”
“I didn’t mean to panic the lady.”
“Your efforts at calming her were apparently unsuccessful.”
“Idiot,” snapped the Minder unbidden.
Lenses flicked in the sphere’s direction. “No one asked you, no-limbs. Restrict yourself to answering questions, as was intended.”
“I am permitted to venture analytical commentary. As well as having the virtue of conciseness, ‘idiot’ seems to fit the situation.”
Did you think that a term I apply solely to humans? My prejudices are not exclusive. Humaniforms by their very nature partake of numerous human frailties and follies. Because of its programmer, this one, inaptly named, suffers from additional problems. Now they have begun to reflect on the man Manz. This is only proper and appropriate. Serves him right.
“Moses, I’ve warned you about this before. If you’re so damn curious, you can plug into the Company library or even access outside databanks. I’ll pay for the search and retrieval myself. Anything to stuff this line of inquiry. Can’t you be content with that?”
