The ship’s entertainment director suggested that passengers call all of the floor cleaning robots Robbie. Captain Brighton thought this idea was dumb, but he couldn’t come up with a better name himself, so Robbie was it. Magellan was the navigation bot, Betty Bot, the dining room greeter, Splashy, each of the exterior cleaning bots, and Sparky, the engine room bot.
Frank and Martha Johnston walked down the passageway to head for breakfast. With them were their twin five-year-old daughters, Megan and Alice. They came upon one of the floor cleaning bots as they rounded the passageway on the way to the elevator. “Hello Robbie,” little Alice said.
The robot didn’t answer as they expected, so both girls said, “Hello, Robbie.”
“Fuck off, assholes,” Robbie said.
Megan screamed and hugged Alice. Martha gently pushed them along the corridor. Frank gave the bot a kick as he passed it.
***
Betty Bot, the dining room welcoming robot, stood at her duty station, passing out disinfectant wipes and saying “good morning” to the passengers as they walked by. Betty’s appearance was definitely robotic, but it was designed to present a friendly image. She was equipped with rose colored cheeks the size of baseballs, eyes the size of small saucers, which also sported blinking eyelashes. She wore a perma-smile, even when her banana sized lips moved as she spoke.
“Good morning,” Betty Bot said, “please take a wipe and fight germs before they fight you.”
“Goddamit, what the hell is this?” yelled the first woman who entered the dining hall. Her shout was repeated by everyone who followed her.
“This feels like battery acid,” said an elderly man, a retired car mechanic.
One of the ship’s mates, a human being, saw the commotion and approached Betty Bot. “Secure,” he shouted, secure being the programmed command to any bot to shut down its activities and await further instructions. Betty Bot did not secure, but waved a disinfectant wipe in front of the mate. “Good morning. Please take a wipe and fight germs before they fight you.”
He grabbed the wipe, then yelled “Shit, what is this stuff,” as he dropped the wipe to the floor and waved his hands to dry them and relieve the pain. Betty Bot said nothing, but just reached out to him with another wipe.
“Secure,” the mate shouted again. Betty kept greeting other passengers and waving wipes at them. The mate turned around toward the entrance and yelled to the crowd to avoid the robot, and not to take a wipe. A woman in gym clothes, who did not speak English, grabbed a wipe and rubbed it on her face. She screamed and cursed in her native tongue.
“Bridge, this is Eduardo Gomez in front of the main dining hall. The dining room robot is out of control and is passing out disinfectant wipes soaked in some sort of burning substance. The bot does not respond to the ‘secure’ command.”
Two other crewmembers reported to Gomez, who positioned them 10 feet in front of Betty Bot, warning people away. Gomez looked down at his hands, which were covered by a bright red rash. The pain was excruciating.
***
The first officer on the bridge glanced down at the top of Magellan, the navigation bot, to check on the depth. “Holy shit, Captain, we’re about to go aground.”
“All engines stop,” Captain Brighton barked to the engine room. “All engines back full.”
The ship had been steaming at 20 knots. Normally, if the captain wanted to stop the vessel he would do so in gradual stages to ensure safety and passenger comfort. The sudden stopping and reversing of all engines caused the ship to lurch violently, hurling passengers to the deck, and depositing hundreds of breakfast trays in various directions, splashing hot coffee and food on anyone in the way.
The captain looked at the top screen on Magellan, and then walked over to the regular sonar repeater.
“That blasted robot indicates a depth of seven feet under us, but sonar shows 400 feet. Get that goddam thing off the bridge.”
“Captain, we have another problem,” said the first officer. “Eduardo Gomez, the mate assigned to the dining room this morning, reports that the greeter robot, I think it’s called Betty Bot, is acting erratically. Well, it’s more than erratic; it’s dangerous. The bot has been handing out disinfectant wipes soaked in a burning caustic substance. There’s a line of people outside sick bay complaining of burns.”
“Did he secure the robot?” Captain Brighton asked.
“The robot wouldn’t respond to the secure command, sir,” the first officer said. “Gomez thought fast and got the deck crew to wrap the thing up in chains.”
“Beautiful, just beautiful,” Brighton said. “Every passenger showing up for breakfast will be greeted by a fucking robot in chains. At least the damn thing can’t talk anymore.”
“Well, that’s not quite so, Captain,” said the first officer. “They can’t figure out a way to turn the thing off, so it’s still saying hello to people, although it can’t give them wipes.”
“Where did we buy these goddam robots,” Captain Brighton asked of nobody in particular. He knew the answer, because the whole robot thing was his idea. I’ll be lucky to command a canoe after this fiasco, he thought.
“Get me the number of the Robot Depot headquarters in New York,” he said to one of the mates.
***
“Mike, I can’t believe this, but a cruise ship captain is calling from the middle of the friggin ocean,” Dianne the receptionist said. “He sounds really pissed about something.”
“By any chance is the ship the Song of the Waves?” I asked.
“Yes it is. Didn’t we sell them a robot crew a couple of months ago?”
“We sure did, Dianne, we sure did,” I said, a familiar knot forming in my stomach.
“This is Mike Bateman, how may I help you?”
I never knew an Englishman who could hurl four-letter words like this guy. He was so angry he could hardly speak. When he calmed down to a shout, he told me about the floor cleaning bots hurling foul language at children, a greeter bot handing our disinfectant wipes soaked in a caustic substance, and a navigation bot that erroneously announced they were about to go aground.
“The bottom line, Mr. Bateman, is this: Not only do your robots not work properly but they malfunction in outrageous and dangerous ways, bad enough to ruin a cruise for our passengers, who are going to want answers from Norwegian Cruise Line. Your robots are supposed to help our parent company to turn a better profit. Instead, these pieces of shit are going to cost us a fortune in legal settlements.”
“Captain, I believe you said that you expect to arrive in Hamilton, Bermuda, tomorrow. I will have a team of our engineers meet you. Please don’t tamper with any of the robots until we inspect them.”
“Tamper with them? My crew is afraid to go anywhere near the goddam things.”
“All I can say, Captain, is that you shouldn’t worry about the money you spent.”
Captain Brighton felt relieved that the mayhem was coming to an end.
They would dock in Bermuda the next morning and the Robot Depot people would be there to handle the situation. At least we’re done with robot surprises for now, he thought.
“What in holy hell was that?” Brighton bellowed to his first officer.
“It sounded like an explosion in the engine room, Captain.”
Oh shit, thought Brighton. Sparky, the engine room bot.
“Captain this is Third Officer Margolis,” yelled the voice over the intercom. “There’s been an explosion in the engine room. The sprinkler system extinguished the fire, but we have no engine power.”
“I’ve noticed, Mr. Margolis,” said Brighton through gritted teeth, as the Song of the Waves drifted without power, taking sickening rolls from the waves.
***
“Sorry, Mike,” Dianne said. “So how is your day going so far?”
“I’ll let you know after I meet with our lawyers to review all of this shit.”
Chapter Twenty Five
It was a miserable day. Heat, high humid
ity, and thundershowers, which didn’t bring a break in the weather but only added to the sticky dampness. Nothing seemed to be going right. Even my dependable robocar, Carly, was not herself. On the way to the office I directed Carly to stop by Blanche’s office to give her a ride. It was Blanche’s first ride in Carly, and she loved it—for a few blocks. The car started bucking, snapping our heads back and forth. We noticed a weird odor.
“Hey, Carly, is everything okay?”
“I think I’m having transmission problems, Mike. Actually, I’m sure of it. After I drop you off, I recommend that you get alternate transportation to go home. I’ll arrange for a truck to take me to the repair shop.”
Carly dropped us off under the porte-cochere at the main entrance. The port-cochere was Jenny’s idea when we constructed the building. At least my foul mood wouldn’t be accompanied by rain- soaked clothing. Jenny was waiting for us in my office. She drove her own car because she had a dentist appointment that afternoon and didn’t want to take Carly. She didn’t know that Carly was sick.
Jenny, Blanche, and I went to the conference room to wait for Phil Townsend. Phil said he wanted to introduce us to a guy who would soon become a big part of our lives—a civil defense attorney named Bob Gentile. It was still pouring outside, but the conference room balanced the outside nastiness with inside comfort. The conference table was 18 feet long, making it possible to conduct large meetings. In front of each seat was a small microphone recessed into the wood. The tan leather furniture, which Jenny selected, gave off a feeling of coziness. It was good that the room was so comfortable, because the subject of the meeting would be anything but.
Phil Townsend walked in with Bob Gentile. Phil, as in-house counsel, is not a courtroom lawyer. Like most companies, we hire outside attorneys to handle litigation matters.
Bob Gentile, 42 years old, is about 5’10” with dark brown hair. He’s a bit overweight but you can’t notice because he wears an expertly tailored $2,000 suit. Bob has a reputation as a tough litigator, and he sometimes took it as a personal affront when his client was wrongfully accused of something. He stood next to a grease board so he could jot notes of his major points.
“I’ve known you folks, especially Mike, for a long time,” Bob Gentile said. “I’ve had clients that I wished I could dump, but that’s not you. Robot Depot, the company that Mike Bateman built is, in my opinion, one of the finest corporations in the country, and also one of the most important. Robotics and artificial intelligence are our future, and thanks to Robot Depot, part of our present. I’m not the one to announce troubling news—you already know the crap that’s going on. I met with FBI agent Bellamy, and I think he’s right. Somebody’s out to hurt you, but none of us knows why. Phil asked me to meet with you folks and explain what we’re up against. Please keep in mind, that although I personally like you guys, my job here is not to put on a smiley face and make you feel good. My job is to let you know what we’re facing, and it isn’t pretty. Everybody seems to think that Robot Depot is being sabotaged, and I think that’s accurate. In a way it’s almost obvious. Let’s start with the Beekman matter, the husband who’s suing you because his robotic wife malfunctioned. As we all agree, the guy is a fucking lunatic, but he’s represented by Wally Yaeger, a pit bull of a tort lawyer. I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about this asshole, but I’m telling you that I may recommend that we settle and get rid of him. His case is built on negligent infliction of emotional distress, that’s negligent, not intentional. But it is a valid legal cause of action, and in the hands of a skilled huckster, like Yaeger, a jury could find against us. Last we heard, the plaintiff is seeing a psychiatrist regularly. I know all about this particular psychiatrist, a household pet of Yaeger’s. The sign in front of his office should read ‘whore for hire.’ I think we should maneuver a quiet settlement, with a strong non-publicity agreement and a clause saying that we’re not admitting a wrong. Okay, enough with Beekman. Now on to more serious stuff.”
“Bob,” Jenny said, “Do you think that Beekman is trying to sabotage us?”
“No, frankly, I think he’s a neurotic fool who’s looking to cash in against a big company. Yaeger, his lawyer, loves publicity, but something tells me that he may back down, given that this case has become the darling of late night comedians.”
“The bigger problem is the exploding robots, and ones that malfunction in weird ways like on that cruise ship. I’m less concerned about a pervert having sex with a robot than I am about that one terrible day a few weeks ago. Five houses were set on fire which resulted in 12 deaths. Then the Jameston Building in Chicago went down just like the World Trade Center on 9/11. We’ve already been served with lawsuits from 20 plaintiffs, and the number will grow every day. They have an evidence problem, but I think it can be overcome. Because all of the allegedly exploding robots were almost destroyed, the evidence against us at this point is purely circumstantial. But the facts in the Jameston Building case are scary. All 360 of the building’s robots gathered on an unoccupied floor that contained flammable substances. The plaintiffs will claim that we knew or should have known that somebody could cause the robots to congregate in one place and explode them. What worries me about all of these cases is that some publicity-hungry prosecutors may bring indictments for criminally negligent homicide in addition to civil lawsuits based on negligence. I said at the beginning of this talk that my job is to shoot straight with you guys, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Mike, you could be facing jail.”
“But what if we can prove that it was sabotage?” I asked. “Jack Winston, our quality control guy, is convinced that these were inside jobs, and I think that Rick Bellamy of the FBI agrees with him. Hell, one of the key people from quality control, George Livingston, has disappeared from the face of the earth. As the FBI guy who searched his house said, ‘It looks like somebody packed fast and moved out faster.’ His statement was recorded.”
“And what happened after he said that, Mike?”
“He was blown up by a booby-trapped bomb,” I said. “You don’t have to be a crime drama fan to see that all signs point to Livingston.”
“Yes, the signs do point to Livingston,” Gentile said, “but we have no proof, just speculation, logical speculation, but speculation nonetheless. And I can’t take a deposition from a guy I can’t find.”
“Bob, what do you think the government makes out of all of this?” Blanche asked. “I’m not talking about small-time prosecutors who want headlines, but the federal government.”
“Great question, Blanche. In my conversations with them they’ve been open with me, especially Bellamy. I’m convinced that they’re thinking the same as us— sabotage. They’re looking at the incidents as possible terrorist activity, and I think they’re right. This whole mess is starting to stink of terror. But that doesn’t get us off the hook. We still face potentially thousands of private plaintiffs as well as local DAs who want to blame it on a big bad corporation. Who the hell would they sue, besides us, ISIS? Don’t forget what I told you about the law of negligence. Corporations act through people, and sometimes those people are bad guys while working for the corporation. It’s called the law of agency. Unless I can convince a jury that the bad guy’s actions were so bad that they amounted to a ‘frolic of his own’ as the law says, we could be held liable. And keep in mind that plaintiffs’ lawyers don’t give a rat’s ass about this company, nor do politicians. I can picture any number of senators standing in front of the Robot Depot headquarters, saying ‘all of these deaths were caused by one greedy giant,’ while pointing to this building.”
“Bob, you think that the FBI is on our side, so to speak,” Jenny said. “Why don’t we let them take the lead?”
“The FBI’s job, as well-intentioned as it may be, is not to defend Robot Depot. Their job is to find the real bad guys, especially if they suspect terror, which they do.”
“I want to go non-stop public with this sabotage story,” Blanche said. “I want to get the public on
our side. We’ve got to get in front of this parade.”
“No way in hell, Blanche,” Gentile said. “We don’t want to tip our hands to the real perpetrators that we suspect sabotage.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Blanche yelled at the top of her voice. “Don’t you think that the scumbags know we suspect sabotage? When a reporter asks Mike about the exploding bots what’s he supposed to say? ‘On the advice of counsel, I think I’ll just stand here with my head up my ass?’ Bob, we’ve got to get in front of this story, otherwise it will eat us alive.”
Gentile was speechless. He looked chastened. Blanche sometimes shows wisdom way beyond her role as a public relations manager. She also has chutzpa to spare.
“So what about that, Bob?” I said. “I think Blanche makes a damn good point—the bad guys know that we suspect sabotage, so why play coy and let the press rule us? If I just stand there like an idiot and spout the bullshit about advice of counsel, the public trust in us will disappear, and the public trust means everything, not something, everything. As we go through this landmine of litigation we need to keep a big thing in mind: We’ve got to keep selling our products and generating income, otherwise it’s lights out.”
“Okay, okay,” Bob said. “I’ll admit that sometimes my lawyer thinking pushes aside my business thinking. Blanche, God bless her loud mouth, makes a tremendous point. Public relations is one of the battles in this war, and it’s a battle we have to win. Mike, with the help of Blanche, I want you to come up with a memorized narrative for this mess. I just don’t want you to ever say to a reporter, ‘yeah, maybe we should have been more diligent with our quality control.’ The narrative must say that Robot Depot has done everything it could to ensure the safety of our products, and that’s the goddam truth so why not say it. Hey, Blanche, if you ever get tired of public relations, give me a call. I can make a hell of a litigator out of you, and I’ll even give you a scholarship to law school.”
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