by Robin Roseau
“We have absolutely no idea what ‘of some sort’ means.”
“Nope.”
“And we don’t have the ability to figure that out.”
“Nope.”
“And because we don’t know what’s causing it, we don’t know how to either ground it or shield from it.”
“Nope.”
“We don’t know if we’re contributing to it.”
“Nope.”
“Either due to our own signal, or how we shield, or just by providing a conduit.”
“Right.”
“For all we know, something in there is using quantum entanglement.”
“Sure. And we’re entangled.”
“Exactly.” We smiled at each other. “Or they could be using exploding string qubits.”
“WTF is an exploding string qubit?”
“That’s the latest theory that ties string theory to quantum computing. I just made it up. Aren’t I brilliant?”
She laughed. “Definitely.”
“In fact,” I said, now speaking slowly. I reached forward and tapped our little box. “We have little baby gyroscopes in here, and for all we know, they could be generating rotational exploding string qubits.”
“Now you’re just getting silly.”
“My point is, and I’m sure you see it: we don’t know that we’re not amplifying whatever the fuck is going on in this box,” I tapped one, “or this one, or this one.”
We stared at each other, and then, together, we both cried, “We need to move our box and reroute the data feeds!”
“It might not solve it,” Felicia added. “Our failure may only be a symptom.”
“And we’re fucking guessing, anyway.”
“I’m not real confident in your rotational exploding string qubit hypothesis.”
I smiled. “Got a better one?”
“No. How far can we move it?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “Those aren’t our cables. Label and pull them.” We both poked around for a minute. “Felicia, I think it’s being triggered by this, the human interface module.”
“Bay called it something else.”
“Yeah, in Loris or something. But that’s what it is.”
“Yeah.”
“I wish we could move it.”
“We don’t know if we can,” she replied. “That connector doesn’t look electrical.”
“I think it’s fiber,” I replied. “That’s how my string qubits travel, when they aren’t exploding.”
She snorted. “You know that’s going to be stuck in your head, and you’re going to say it some time when referring to some other black box, and everyone is going to think you’re insane.”
“Maybe when the alien tech zapped my brain, I had alien science zapped into me, and it’s just starting to come out.”
“Like a superpower.”
“Right.”
“You’re full of clever hypotheses today.”
“My original point is this.” I grabbed a pointer. “This data cable goes right past the alien brain zapper.”
“It needs to be rerouted.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Along the outside, because there’s no other place for it to go inside.”
“Here’s to hoping exploding string qubits drop off with the square of the distance.”
“Or just that the exoskeleton provides additional shielding.”
We got to work.
* * * *
“Bay is going to kill us,” Felicia said. “Fuck, I hope your exploding string qubits appreciate what we’re doing for them.”
“No way. Once they start exploding, there is no negotiating with them,” I replied.
“I can’t believe you duct taped an external power source.”
“Literally external,” I said. “You had me make that shelf too small. We can make a new one.”
“Fuck it,” she said. “We’re just testing whether we can dodge exploding string qubits. Bay can make it pretty if this works.”
“He might know how to shield them,” I pointed out. “Or at least he might be able to call up the Tutors and ask them.”
“Or,” she said with a smile. “Just turn down the gain.”
“Fuck me. We might have done all of that for nothing.” I pointed. Bay’s piece of art looked terrible. We had rerouted every one of our cables externally, well clear of anything else, and let’s just say: it ruined the lines. There was a new shelf mounted in place of one breast, and our balance module was mounted to the shelf. “I don’t want anyone to see it.”
“Jasmine will Do Things to us if we test it.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But we need to recalibrate. Felicia, no way am I going to sleep tonight if we don’t test it.”
“Yeah.”
“You start calibrating. I’m going to ask Jasmine if she’s free.”
* * * *
The Catseye stared at the avatar. “There’s no such thing as rotational exploding string qubits.”
“Work with us,” I said.
“You expect me to believe this baseless hypothesis?”
“We know the name we’re putting on it is ridiculous,” I said. “But unless you can tell us that everything in there works on principles we’d understand, then we have to assume some of those boxes work on principles we don’t.”
“Yet,” Felicia added. “Like quantum computing or quantum entanglement. Shit we can’t monitor for.”
“Go on,” Jasmine said.
“Just let us test it.”
“And don’t let Bay see it like this,” I added. “He’ll feed me to his trilo-bots again.”
“His what?” Felicia asked.
“Robotic trilobites.”
“Trilobites are extinct, and weren’t they marine animals?”
“Bay’s have evolved, and one of them is the size of a horse.”
“We’re getting sidetracked,” Jasmine said. “I’m not letting you test without Bay telling me it’s as safe as it could be.”
“Jasmine,” I whined.
She spun to me and waved a tentacle at me. “Maybe you don’t care about your marvelous little brain, but I do.”
“You think I have a marvelous brain?” I smiled, then sobered. “Look at it! He’s going to take one peek and hate us.”
“No. Bay can be temperamental, but he is also exceedingly practical. He’s going to dismiss your qubit hypothesis, but he’s going to immediately recognize your suspicions. He’s then going to go over everything and make sure this is safe to test.” She didn’t wait, but cocked her head. “Bay? I know you’re busy, but we could use you in the robotics lab.”
* * * *
“What have you done?” Bay wailed, running up to the avatar. We didn’t answer. We didn’t say a word. He looked over his avatar then turned to us. “You want to blast more sand.”
“I’m sorry, Bay,” I said. “I’m sure there’s another way to test, but unless you want us to put it back and spend a couple of weeks finding something that seems reliable…”
“Yes, yes,” he replied. He turned back and carefully examined each entry and exit hole we had made, shaking his head. Without looking away from his examination, he asked, “You are sure of these cables?”
“We’re calibrated,” Felicia said.
“I want to do normal testing first,” I declared.
“Of course,” Bay replied. “All right.” He sighed. “I wish you had let me seal these holes. We’re going to have to clean these out, as the gunk you used will hold the sand.”
“Sorry,” I said. “My fault.”
“If this works,” he said. “It is worth it.”
“Bay?” Jasmine asked.
He turned to her. “They can test.”
“I want the disconnect on the tightest setting you can.”
“I’ll check it, Jasmine. We’ll keep Taisha as safe as we can.” He paused. “Muriel will be even more upset if we do this behind her back.”
“I know,” Jasmine said. “I
don’t want to get her hopes up.”
“Has she been talking to you?” I asked.
“No.”
“I’ll call her,” Bay said.
“I’ll head to the sick bay and power up.”
* * * *
We did another round of calibrations, and then I complained that I felt off-balance. Felicia did some tweaks. “How’s that?”
“Better. Thanks.”
I moved around for a bit. Even with our changes, the robot was a dream to drive. I stopped in front of Jasmine. “Christmas is coming, and I bet you haven’t bought something for me yet.”
She snuffled.
“Bay, I want to stress test the balance system. Suggestions?”
“Get one of the Ardents to try to knock you over?”
“Sure.”
“You’re not serious,” Jasmine said.
“Why not?” Bay asked. “Or we can bring one of my other toys out, but the Ardent might have fun.”
“Arena, Bay?”
“There’s an event,” Jasmine said. “It should be over by the time we get there.”
We all trooped off. Muriel hadn’t said a word. But she hadn’t taken her eyes from me, and I was fairly sure she was monitoring the systems, too.
We had to wait, but then the door opened, and we walked out onto the sand. As we did, an Ardent dropped from the stands, a drop that would have broken my legs if I’d tried it. She straightened and walked over. “Greetings,” she said. “Am I to understand you want me to help test this device?” She gestured to me.
“We’re testing the balance system,” I replied. I moved ahead and turned around. “Give me a small push.”
She looked at Jasmine, who dipped a tentacle, so the Ardent stepped over, eyed me, and asked, “I presume this is not combat, and I shouldn’t attempt to damage you.”
“Just push me off balance,” I said. I reached out and gave her a push. It didn’t do much.
“I can do that.” And she did. Our balance system did its job, and the avatar automatically backpedaled two steps.
“That’s an automated reaction,” I explained. I tapped the control box. “From this device. We want to give it a workout. It won’t handle everything you’re capable of doing to me, but it should be fairly capable.”
“I believe I understand.”
She gave me another push. Then a pull. Then sideways. Then she kept after me, barely giving me a chance, push, pull, bump, she was all over me.
And I didn’t fall down.
Finally, she backed away. “You aren’t Muriel.”
“No. Taisha from Hunt Robotics. This part is ours.” I tapped the box again. “The rest is Bay’s.”
“Clever little Loris,” she replied. She eyed me. “Clever humans, too.”
“We try,” I said.
“Do you want me to be more… energetic?”
“No.” I offered a bow. “I think it’s working. I was just along for the ride, and it worked as it’s supposed to. After we remounted it, we weren’t sure. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Georgine,” Jasmine said to the Ardent.
“You are a female,” Georgine said to me.
“Yes.”
“And you are here, not… wherever Hunt Robotics is located.”
“I’m in the sick bay in case the next test goes wrong,” I said.
“Like Muriel is in her room, but she is also here.”
“Yes.”
“Are you also tiny, like Muriel, and sick?”
“No. Well, I’m on the small side of average for a human female. You weren’t at the dance on Wednesday.”
“No. I heard about it.” She paused. “I am interfering with your tests.”
“Georgine,” I replied. “Would you share a meal with me?”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“I’ll arrange it,” Jasmine said. “It might not be for a day or two, Georgine. Will you be here?”
“I can stay a few days,” she said. “Do you think one of the humans will let me hunt her?”
“I think we can arrange that.”
She turned back to me. “I hope waiting in the sick bay proves unnecessary.”
“So do I.” I thought it was going to be entirely necessary, but we’d find out.
* * * *
I eyed the fans. Muriel moved up beside me. “You don’t have to do this, Taisha. You don’t.”
“I know I don’t.”
“You’re scared.”
“Muriel, Jasmine loves you.”
“That’s why she’s letting you risk yourself. This is foolish.”
“Did Felicia tell you about rotational exploding string qubits?”
“That makes no sense.”
“Ask her about it. She’ll have more fun laughing over my ridiculous hypothesis.”
“You’re trying to distract me. This remains foolish.”
“I know,” I said. “Are you going to mess with the electrical breakers again?”
“No.”
“Muriel, this is our only working idea.”
“This could be the last test.”
“Or at least it might put us on the right path.”
“I hate testing hardware,” she said. “Fine.” Without another word, she moved away.
“We’re ready,” announced Felicia. “Medical reports ready. Bay is here with me. May we proceed, Jasmine?”
“On Taisha’s signal.”
“Turn them on, Audra.”
The woman turned on the fans, one after another. I moved into the worst of the blast, which remained just as unpleasant as it had been, shifted weight a few times, then put myself off balance.
The system crashed.
Loris Fur
I opened my eyes. Dr. Depths was there, as were Jasmine, Muriel, and Felicia. Felicia was the only one smiling.
“My head hurts. It crashed. Fuck. Why are you smiling?”
“It crashed all right,” Felicia said. “But it didn’t fall over.”
“My head hurts too much to understand.”
“Taisha, you did it.”
“But it crashed.”
“Everything else crashed. We didn’t crash. We didn’t hiccough. The other times, the robot fell over when we crashed. Eventually you shut down, and we began spewing errors, but we didn’t crash. Taisha, I have Loris fur all over my clothing.”
“What did you do to Bay?”
“Hugged him back.”
“He hugged you?”
“And made me dance with him.”
“It’s interference.”
“Damned right it’s interference.”
“But it’s not rotational exploding string qubits, amplified by our gyroscopes.”
“Especially because we don’t use gyroscopes,” she pointed out. “I never really trusted your hypothesis, Taisha. Whoever heard of gyroscopes causing exploding string qubits to rotate, anyway?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Dr. Depths. “Little human, are you done doing this to yourself.”
“I don’t know. But I really would like you to do something about my headache.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow morning, Taisha,” Jasmine said.
* * * *
They babied me for two more days. As that involved Jasmine picking me up any time I got out of the wheelchair, I actually didn’t complain.
Over breakfast on the second morning, Bay, Verity, and Prudence appeared unexpectedly and sat down with us. We took additional attention from the other patrons at Beginnings, but Bay ignored it, which I thought was quite unusual for him.
“The three of us have communicated with people on the station,” Bay said. “Verity and Prudence helped.” He turned to them. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Verity replied.
“We waited to tell you,” Bay replied. “With the data you and Felicia produced, they are able to duplicate the failure in their system.”
“We have been asked,” Prudence said, gesturing to her sister, �
��To apologize on their behalf.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“And to thank you,” she added. “What Bay is doing with Tutor technology goes beyond anything we’ve done with it, but it was the path we were on, and we would have hit this ourselves, eventually, and possibly with far more catastrophic results.”
“It is the most basic of system overloads,” Bay said. “All that stimulus overrode their system. They don’t know the exact cause yet, but they know how to reproduce it on the bench. They promise they can fix it, and they’ll send me several new units once they’re sure I can’t produce enough stimulus to cause it again.”
“That’s good news,” I said. “Isn’t it?”
“It’s perfect news,” he replied. “Taisha, I could not have done what you and Felicia did. I plug the systems together. I understand human and Loris technology, but I don’t know any more about how the brain interface works than you do. Most of it is biology.” He made a face. I smiled. It was really, really cute.
“Nor could I have brought myself to test it,” he added.
“Bay is a clever, brave Loris,” Jasmine said.
“But not that brave,” he continued. “Felicia.” He reached out a hand to her. “Taisha.” I took his other hand. “Thank you. Muriel… matters to me.”
“And your creations are so brilliant,” Felicia said. “Bay, we’re really sorry.”
“You did nothing I can’t fix,” he replied.
“Both of you,” Verity said. “The Tutors on the station have invited you to visit. It will require scheduling, but we can offer transportation and hospitality. But perhaps you won’t need our invitation but will receive another closer to the heart.”
“Would they be coming back?” Amanda asked.
“That would be their choice,” Prudence said.
“If and when you decide to go, your jobs would be waiting for you when you return,” Amanda offered. “But the bean counters will probably want you to take a leave of absence. It’s a long trip.”
I turned back to Bay. “Is there an ETA on the new system?”
“No.”
“Years?”
“No, no,” he said. “But it might be several months. Tutor engineers are quite careful.”
“Jasmine, Muriel isn’t to be the first to test it.”
“I guess you’ll just have to come back,” Jasmine said. “If Hunt Robotics will allow it.”
“Of course,” Amanda said.