“I’ll bring Phil Townsend, our legal counsel, and Jenny, who you haven’t seen in a while. I suggest that I bring a guy named Jack Winston, our quality control vice president.”
“No, Mike, don’t bring Winston. As of right now he’s a person of interest. For now, just bring Jenny and Townsend.”
I was glad the phone wasn’t on speaker so Jack Winston didn’t hear Bellamy’s thoughts about him being a person of interest.
Phil Townsend took his own car because he lived in Garden City, near our plant in Hempstead.
As Carly drove us to meet Rick Bellamy, Jenny grabbed my hand.
“We started our day talking about the wonderful transformation of Robot Depot into a world-changing force for good,” Jenny said. “I think your FBI friend is right. Somebody’s out to fuck us.”
Chapter Twenty Two
On a warm Wednesday morning, Chuck Walsh, general manager of the Jameston Building in Chicago, surveyed his recent purchases with his assistant, Nancy Fleming.
“My father was a union man,” Walsh said. “My grandfather was a union man. And I started out after college as a union guy too. Hey, I’ve got nothing against unions, and I definitely have no problem with workers, but when technology makes it so much cheaper to run things, you gotta take notice. Look at this place, Nancy, the second tallest building in the world, and I’ve saved a fortune just by automating routine tasks. On every floor we have a robotic vacuum cleaner, a plumbing tester, and an energy monitor, one of our best robots. The little thing just wheels around from floor to floor monitoring our heat and electricity usage. And what about the security desk? Instead of a high-paid employee monitoring all of the security cameras, we have a robot that can spot problems and call the guards. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the guards replaced by machines in the future.”
“All together we own 360 robots,” Nancy Fleming said. “I have to admit, Chuck, you’re making a believer out of me. In just one month we’ve saved over $130,000 just by using these machines.”
“And just take a look at your iPad, Nancy. A simple app shows the location of every one of the bots, not that I suspect a machine may be goofing off. Another nice thing about these bots is that they don’t take lunch, don’t take coffee breaks, don’t step outside for a smoke, don’t join unions, and they don’t break my balls if they have a gripe. That’s because robots don’t have gripes. Open the robot app on your iPad go to ‘locations,’ and tap ‘all,’ and you get a glimpse of where all of the robots are at any given time.”
“Hey Chuck, this is weird. According to the app, all 360 robots are congregating on the 65th floor, like they’re having a robot convention. I just don’t get it. Each robot is programmed for random movements, except for the security desk. How the hell can they all go to the same location at the same time? Somebody’s obviously feeding them new commands.”
“What’s on the 65th floor, Nance? Isn’t that where we store cleaning fluids and stuff like that?”
“Yes, it is and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Those cleaning materials are combustible as hell. I’m just not comfortable having all of that flammable crap concentrated on one floor. I think we should spread them out, don’t you?”
“Well, the robots are designed to minimize static electricity, Nance, so we don’t have to worry about a spark.”
“Okay, let’s not worry about a spark. But we’re still left with the question of what the fuck all those robots are doing in the same place, please pardon my language. You just commented that robots don’t join unions, but it sure as hell looks like they’re having a union meeting on the 65th floor. How can they randomly wind up on the same floor? Chuck, it just doesn’t make sense.”
“What the hell was that?” Walsh yelled, looking upward.
“Sounded to me like an explosion,” Nancy said. “Holy shit, look out the window.”
They saw what appeared to be a sudden storm outside the building. Large pieces of furniture came crashing to the ground, along with a blizzard of paper and assorted debris.
“Oh dear God, Chuck. Tell me I’m not seeing that. Those are bodies I see falling and they’re all smoking. Some of them are on fire.”
“Let’s look at the security monitor. Where the hell is the security monitor robot?”
“My guess is that he joined his colleagues on the 65th floor,”
They looked at the monitor which simultaneously shows 12 floors, one on each of the screens. Nancy sat at the desk and hit buttons to show different floors. In front of them was a scene of sickening chaos, and the closer to floor 65 the worse was the mayhem. Although they couldn’t hear them, they could see that people were screaming.
“Pan to floor 65,” Walsh said. All they saw was darkness. Apparently the security cameras on the 65th floor were destroyed.
Nancy kept saying “oh my God,” as she looked out the window and saw the falling bodies.
“Stop looking out the windows, Nance. We’ve got work to do.”
Walsh took out a key and opened a cabinet under the security desk. He put in a code and an announcement came over the PA system throughout the building.
“There is a fire in the building,” came the recorded voice over the speakers. “Please find the nearest stairwell and walk down. Do not use the elevators. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Please remain calm and walk down the stairs.”
They heard the sounds of fire engines pulling up to the building. Walsh saw a body fall on top of one of the fire trucks.
The fire chief walked into the building and Walsh almost tripped as he ran to meet him.
“I’m Chuck Walsh, the building manager. The explosion happened on the 65th floor where a lot of combustible cleaning materials are kept. Remember what happened to those firemen on 9/11. Please don’t send any of your guys up there.”
“Anything out of the ordinary just before the explosion?” asked the fire chief.
“All of the building’s robots congregated on the 65th floor. We have no idea how or why.”
***
“Wolf Blitzer for CNN ladies and gentlemen, with an update on the tragedy at the Jameston Building in Chicago. The 130-floor building has collapsed and fallen to the ground, two hours after an explosion on an upper floor. Just as we saw on the morning of 9/11/2001, a mighty structure obeyed the laws of gravity and collapsed into a mountain of smoking rubble. At 2,690 feet tall, the Jameston Building was the second tallest building in the world, second only to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. We’ve found out that an explosion occurred on the 65th floor of the building, a place where flammable cleaning materials were stored. One strange fact that we’re not able to piece together is that all of the building’s robotic machines congregated on that floor. The machines are programmed for random movements such as floor and window cleaning. Nobody has been able to tell us how all 360 of the building’s robots wound up on one floor at the same time. The Jameston Building management had recently decided to go all robotic, and purchased the robots just a month ago from the manufacturing and retail giant, Robot Depot.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Jenny, Phil Townsend, and I were sitting in the conference room at our manufacturing facility in Hempstead, waiting for Rick Bellamy and his FBI group. Like most of the country, if not the world, we were watching the Jameston Building disaster on TV. I assumed that Rick Bellamy would be heading to Chicago to work on the gigantic case that just happened, but he said that he wanted to see me as arranged.
Just like the World Trade Center, the Jameston Building collapsed after two hours. The camera left the scene of destruction for a few moments, and CNN anchorman Wolf Blitzer appeared on the screen. We had just achieved one of our greatest marketing coups by outfitting the second largest building in the world with a staff of Robot Depot robots. When Blitzer said that all of the bots assembled on the same floor for no reason just prior to the explosion, my stomach sank along with the building.
“Mike, here’s a critical question,” Phil To
wnsend said. “Is there a way to gather all of the bots in the same place at the same time, just like Blitzer said?”
“Sure. Every floor in the building has a chip in the wall that communicates with the bots. All you need to do is send out a signal to all of the machines and they’ll come running like a bunch of border collies. But why would anybody do that other than to gather the bots for maintenance? Rick Bellamy will want the answer, and so do I.”
“How the hell can a bunch of fucking bots cause an explosion that can take down a gigantic skyscraper?” Jenny wondered.
“Just like the floor cleaning bots caught on fire and destroyed five houses, a robot can be tampered with to become a bomb. Assume that all 360 of the Jameston Building bots were rigged to explode, and put them all in a room with flammable materials. The result is one gigantic explosion. It wasn’t just a fire, it was a huge blast according to a ton of eyewitnesses.”
“So in the last 24 hours we’ve gone from Robot Depot, the Bot People, to Robot Depot, the Bomb People,” Jenny said. “Do you think that pervert Beekman has anything to do with this?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “He doesn’t want to kill us. He wants to drain money from us.”
“It’s a good thing you’re friends with this FBI guy Bellamy,” Phil said.
“It’s always a good thing to have friends, but you’ll notice something about Bellamy,” I said. “He’s an old-fashioned guy with complete integrity, and he follows clues wherever they take him. If the clues lead to his mother he’d bust her, after giving her flowers and a kiss.”
The intercom buzzed. “A Mr. Bellamy and some other gentlemen are here to see you, Mike. He said you were expecting him,” said Dianne the receptionist, a real human being. It sucks not to use robot receptionists because we’re trying to push the sales of the machines for that purpose, and we look pretty dumb when we don’t use them ourselves. But Blanche is right, as usual. Under our new circumstances, we need receptionists who can solve problems, not just relay messages.
Rick Bellamy walked in with six other guys in dark suits.
“Holy shit, why didn’t you bring a fucking battalion while you’re at it?” Jenny asked politely.
“I just want to be cautious in case you guys try to make a break for the door,” Rick said. He may be a by-the-rules FBI agent, but he’s got a sense of humor.
“Do you mind if my guys look around, Mike?”
“Mr. Bellamy,” Phil said. “Do you have a subpoena or a search warrant?”
“That’s okay, Phil. They don’t need any of that stuff. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as they do.” I grabbed the PA microphone.
“Attention everybody, it’s Mike Bateman. Some gentlemen from the FBI will be wandering around asking questions. Give them your complete cooperation, but whatever you do, don’t try to fix them up with a female droid.”
They all cracked up. The fact that any of us can laugh after the events of the past 24 hours amazes me.
“Phil, I know that you’re the attorney for Mike and Robot Depot, so please jump in if you have a problem with any of my questions. And please call me Rick.”
“Rick, my marching orders from my client are to allow any questions at all. If I interrupt it will be to add to the conversation or to clarify something.”
“Mike,” Rick said, “when we spoke earlier I said that it seems obvious that somebody’s out to fuck you, and after the Jameston Building disaster this morning, I’m sure of it. So here’s my question, and I think it’s your question too. Who is doing this? A competitor? Somebody from your past you may have slighted? A religious nut who thinks robots are Satan’s doing? A terrorist? Think, Mike. Who hates you or Robot Depot?”
***
“Mike, it’s Jack Winston from quality control for you on line three,” Dianne said. “He’s at our store in Los Angeles today.” Winston does quarterly visits to all of our stores.
Bellamy raised his hand to get my attention. “Tell him you’ll call him right back, Mike.”
“Tell Jack I’ll get back to him shortly, Dianne.”
“Tell me about your quality control system, Mike, and also tell me about Jack Winston.”
“As you can imagine, Rick, quality control is a key part of our operation. We don’t ever want word to get out that we sold a defective bot.”
“Or an exploding one?” Rick said
.
“Well, obviously. The way it works is that Jack Winston has a team of seven people who visually and electronically inspect every product before it leaves this plant. They literally take the thing apart to inspect it before giving the thumbs up. I know that you have your doubts about Winston, but he suspects an inside job too, and an inside job would mean one of his people. Rick, I can’t imagine how it’s not an onsite operation. We not only sell our own stuff through our retail outlets; we wholesale to other retailers. In the case of those cleaning bots catching fire, it’s inconceivable that some bad guy could have placed saboteurs at all of the outlets where Robot Depot products are sold. It just doesn’t make sense. Angus is equally emphatic that it’s an inside job.”
“Angus?” Bellamy said.
“You’ll meet him shortly, Rick. Angus is a breakthrough in robotics and artificial intelligence. It, or he, is actually sentient.”
“Sentient? Isn’t that the difference between androids and human beings? You mean this Angus machine is aware of its own existence?”
“You’ve been doing your homework, Rick. Yes, Angus will change the way we think about ourselves. Hey, let me return Jack Winston’s call. I’ll put him on speaker.”
“Does the name George Livingston ring a bell with you, Mike?” Jack Winston said.
“Isn’t he on your team, Jack?”
“He is, or was. For the three years he’s been with us he’s never missed a day of work. He doesn’t even take vacation days. Well, this morning I got a call that he didn’t show up for work. I had my assistant call him to see if everything was okay. His phone was disconnected. His address is 25 Maple Street in Bay Shore. I suggest that one of those FBI guys you’re talking to check out his house. Also, if the FBI is questioning people, make sure to ask about Livingston. Something is not adding up, Mike.”
“I’ve got a guy on a case in Brightwaters which is next to Bay Shore,” Bellamy said. “He can shoot over to Livingston’s house in minutes.”
Bellamy then called a judge to ask for a search warrant for Livingston’s house. Within five minutes Bellamy received the warrant by encrypted email. Rick then looked at me.
“You’re not the only fan of technology, Mike. What you just saw happen used to take a day or more.”
Rick then phoned his guys on the floor below to tell them to ask about George Livingston. He also called his assistant at 26 Federal Plaza to run a background check on Livingston.
“What kind of background checks do you run on prospective employees, Mike?”
“Nothing as serious as an FBI background investigation, but we use a company that does a good job of tracking down people’s histories. We don’t want to hire thieves, drunks, druggies, or sexual prowlers.”
A few minutes later Rick got a call from the agent with the search warrant in Bay Shore. He put his phone on speaker.
“All the furniture appears to be here, Rick,” the agent said, “but the place is a wreck. It looks like somebody packed fast and moved out faster. I’m filling boxes with literature I found lying about. Wait, this looks like a trap door leading somewhere.”
The last thing we heard was a loud blast.
Chapter Twenty Four
The Norwegian Cruise Line ship Song of the Waves, cast off its lines from the dock on the West Side of Manhattan. As the ship glided down the Hudson River, the sound system played Frank Sinatra singing New York, New York. The ship’s destination was Bermuda.
Walter Brighton, the ship’s captain, had recently been hired by Norwegian. Trained as an engineer, Brighton prided himself by being up to date on the latest techn
ology. Six months before this cruise, he attended a robotics trade show in Miami sponsored by Robot Depot. He felt like a kid on Christmas morning. With facts, figures, graphs and charts, he convinced the suits at Norwegian headquarters that robotics was the way of the future and it may as well start now. He showed the Norwegian executives how he could save over $2 million a year by using robots on one ship alone. They picked the Song of the Waves as a test ship to try out Brighton’s robot ideas. He purchased 14 floor cleaning robots, one for each deck. The bots were programmed to say hello anytime a passenger came within two feet. He also invested in two outside deck cleaning bots. He was skeptical of using metallic machines in a salt water environment but the sales people from Robot Depot assured him that the stainless steel machines could take what the splashing waves had to offer. One of his favorite robots was a humanoid greeter bot that welcomed people to the buffet dining hall. Besides saying hello in three different languages, the bot dispensed antiseptic hand wipes to fight germs, always a concern on a cruise ship. Another of his favorite robots was located on the bridge. The bot was the size of a short person, standing at four feet tall. It reminded him of R2-D2, the famous Star Wars robot. By looking down at its top, one could see the ship’s position, the depth, speed and arrival time to the next port. Of course all of these instruments were already on the bridge, but with the navigational bot everything was in one tidy bundle. He named the machine Magellan. In all, the Song of the Waves carried 20 robots.
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