The Junkyard Bot

by C. J. Richards

  “So—it’s okay, then?” Anne asked.

  “Well, let’s put it this way—I won’t tell anyone if you don’t! Now you’d better get out of here before someone else sees you.”

  He started to make his way back toward the door.

  “It was an honor to meet you, sir!” George said.

  “Ahem,” said Jackbot, lifting his chin haughtily. “I still haven’t forgotten that ‘primitive’ remark.”

  “Sorry, Jackbot,” said Dr. Micron, turning briefly. As he left, he kept repeating, “Quite remarkable!”

  The transport system whisked them back in no time. All the way, George kept thinking, Dr. Micron . . . the Dr. Micron shook my hand! All the way, Jackbot was muttering grumpily, “Primitive indeed! Who does he think he is?”

  As soon as they left the chamber, the house said, “The time is nine thirty-four a.m. You are late for your math class, Miss Droid! Proceed to the classroom at once!”

  George gulped. “I’m in big trouble,” he said to Anne. “I’m so late for school! I have to go.”

  Anne’s face fell a little. “No problem,” she said. “Maybe—maybe I’ll see you around?”

  “Yeah, that would be good.”

  “I’ll give you my number so you can put it in your smartphone—”

  “I—I don’t have a smartphone,” George said, embarrassed. Everyone in Terabyte Heights had a smartphone.

  “Okay, then, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way!” said Anne. She took a pen and scribbled a number on the back of George’s hand.

  George grinned. “See you, then—and thanks for everything. Come on, Jackbot, we have minus thirty-four minutes to get to school!”

  “Goodbye,” the house said as George left. “Please do not visit again during school hours. Recreational visits take place between six and eight p.m. on weekdays.”

  “Bye,” said George, and started to sprint down the hill. He might just get to school by the end of first period.

  Jackbot kept pace easily, his new hydraulic legs bouncing across the ground. “I know a shortcut.”

  “You do?” panted George. “How?”

  “I can link with several GPS satellites, and I have a map of Terabyte Heights installed on my positronic memory drive!” Jackbot said. He veered off to the left and jumped over a wall.

  George scrambled after him, already out of breath.

  Jackbot led George down an alley, through a park where gardener-bots were watering the flowers, up some steps, and through a maze of side streets until finally they were standing opposite the steel-and-glass structure of Terabyte Heights Middle School. The front gates were closed and two robot cameras were mounted on top, swiveling as they surveyed the area, red eyes blinking.

  “Wait!” George whispered. “They’ll spot us and automatically report us to Principal Qwerty. Let’s go around to the other entrance.”

  As George jogged down the service road that ran alongside the school, he saw Mr. Cog, the white-haired janitor, wheeling out a trash can.

  “Hey, Mr. Cog!” George said. “We’re running a bit late today—could you sneak us in?”

  “Sure thing, George,” said the janitor. He selected a key from the big bunch dangling from his belt. The keys were so heavy that they pulled his pants down low on that side, and he was always hitching them up. He inserted a key into the iron gate and let George and Jackbot in. “Last favor I’ll be able to do you, though,” he said. “They laid me off.”

  “What?” said George, shocked. “Why?”

  Mr. Cog shrugged. “The principal said it was nothing personal. She just told me they were ‘updating the system,’ or something like that.”

  “But you’ve been here forever—it’s not fair!”

  Mr. Cog hitched his pants up. “Life ain’t fair, my friend. I’ll just have to find another job, is all.”

  “Who’s going to be the new janitor, then?”

  Mr. Cog shrugged again. “They didn’t tell me nothing about that.”

  “Well—good luck, Mr. Cog,” said George.

  Mr. Cog smiled sadly and waved goodbye.

  George and Jackbot walked quickly along a corridor and came out into the main hall just as the bell rang for the end of first period. Doors opened and students spilled out into the hall. Most had their own personal robots with them—tall, gleaming creations, some on wheels, some on legs, some with flashing displays on their chest panels. George was the only student with a homemade robot made out of spare parts.

  At that moment, Patricia Volt appeared with her friends, carrying frappuccinos from Java, the coffee shop down the street where the cool kids all hung out. Patricia was the richest kid in school; she changed robots like she changed outfits. Her latest was a slender tennis robot named Bjorn, dressed all in white, sporting blond nylon hair and a headband.

  Bjorn had a tennis-racket attachment on one arm and held Patricia’s backpack in the other. Patricia looked up from the Series 6 SmartTablet in her hand and saw George hurrying by.

  “Hey, Gearing!” she said. “Are you still dragging that sorry excuse for a robot around with you?”

  Her friends sniggered.

  “Leave Jackbot alone, Patricia,” George said. “He’s worth ten of your robots, anyway.”

  “Bjorn is worth eight and a half million dollars, so I doubt that,” Patricia sneered. “What do you think of this pitiful little robot, Bjorn?”

  Bjorn looked down at Jackbot. George realized that despite his fine new brain, Jackbot was still pretty scruffy. Even before being hit by a car, he’d looked secondhand, but now his body was badly scratched and dented.

  “This is a substandard robot,” Bjorn said. “This robot should be put out with the garbage immediately!”

  The group laughed.

  “So you play tennis?” Jackbot asked Bjorn.

  “I am programmed to play at the international level,” Bjorn said. “I serve at speeds of up to one hundred forty miles per hour. I can play two opponents simultaneously, with a win rate of ninety-eight percent.”

  “A simple yes would have been enough,” said Jackbot. “Hey, Bjorn, I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my backhand. I wonder if you could give me some tips.” He pulled a tennis ball from Bjorn’s pocket. “Suppose someone serves to you at a velocity of one hundred thirty miles an hour, at an angle of thirty degrees, and I’m standing eight-point-seven feet back from the baseline—have you got all that?”

  Bjorn’s eyes started revolving. “Processing,” he said.

  “Okay, so how would you return this?” Jackbot threw the tennis ball at Bjorn. Automatically, Bjorn swung at it. He connected perfectly and the ball bounced off the wall, hit the ground, then smacked Patricia’s cup right out of her hand. The coffee splashed all over her smart tablet, which fizzed, sparked, and went dead.

  George gaped at Jackbot.

  Patricia squealed. “You and that stupid robot!” she shouted at George. “Your uncle will be getting the bill for this!”

  “But it wasn’t Jackbot,” George said. “Bjorn did it.”

  “Thanks for the help,” Jackbot said to Bjorn. “Game, set, and match, I think.”

  All the students who’d been watching burst out laughing.

  “I’ll get you for this,” Patricia said in a low voice. “You and that heap of junk of yours. That’s a promise!”

  She turned and flounced away, her followers scrambling to catch up.

  George stood where he was, flabbergasted. “Jackbot—how did you do that?” he asked.

  “A simple calculation,” Jackbot said. “The angle of incidence equals the angle of deflection.”

  “But why did you do it?” George asked.

  “They needed to be taught a lesson,” Jackbot said.

  George looked deep into Jackbot’s glowing green eyes. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You can actually think for yourself?”

  “Of course,” said Jackbot. “You think I’m some sort of moron, idiot, or nincompoop?”

 
“No, I just—” George looked around to make sure no one was watching, and lowered his voice. “Look, is there really a you saying that? Or are you just a machine following a program?”

  “I could ask you the same question!” Jackbot said.

  George rubbed his temples. His mind was racing with the significance of what was happening. Two words floated to the surface, no matter how hard he tried to push them back. Artificial Intelligence. AI, in its purest form. It was the Holy Grail of robotics: a system that wasn’t just preprogrammed responses, but tech that thought for itself. Not only did it think, but it felt emotions, had opinions, and had—dare he say it—a sense of humor. Could it be that the brain he’d cobbled together had produced something completely new?

  George’s train of thought was interrupted by a low humming noise. A gigantic robot was rolling along the hallway toward him. Its big square head almost brushed the ceiling. It had a rectangular mouth with large iron teeth, and slitlike golden eyes. Some sort of rodlike weapon extended from its left arm. Instinctively, George backed away.

  But the robot ignored him. It eased to a halt in front of the puddle of spilled coffee, and the rod sprouted a mop head. The robot began to clean up the puddle. Then it picked up the coffee cup and popped it into a garbage hole in its middle. As the hole closed up, the robot played a little tune.

  “What is that?” George wondered aloud.

  “Tchaikovsky,” said Jackbot. “The Nutcracker Suite.”

  “Not the music—the robot!”

  Just then, Principal Qwerty came around the corner with one of her students. Despite being only five feet tall, the principal had a fearsome reputation. Some kids said her hearing was genetically engineered to pick up the softest of students’ whispers, even through solid walls. She missed nothing. “Oh, Caretaker!” she said. “Owen has forgotten the combination to his locker again. Could you open it for him with the master key?”

  “Owen Hoffman, seventh grade, locker number four-two-seven,” the Caretaker said. The mop head vanished and was replaced with a daggerlike metal attachment. The Caretaker rolled over to the locker and slid the spike into the lock. There was a brief whir, then the locker opened.

  After Owen had retrieved his books, the teacher turned to George. “You’d better head to class, young man.”

  “So that’s what took Mr. Cog’s job!” George muttered.

  “The Caretaker is much more efficient than the former janitor!” said Principal Qwerty. She really does hear everything, George thought. “It’s TinkerTech’s latest model, the first in Dr. Micron’s new line. We are lucky to be beta testing it before it is mass-produced.”

  “But it’s not fair for Mr. Cog to lose his job,” George protested. “What if TinkerTech creates a robot to do your job?”

  “Don’t get smart with me,” said the principal. “We have to move with the times. The Caretaker is at the cutting edge of educational security technology. With its key attachment, it can open any door in existence. Its sensors alert it to any cleaning job that needs doing throughout the building, and it responds immediately. And it doubles as the most reliable security guard you could wish for—it’s programmed to arrest any intruder, and its eyes record every infraction into a data file. It never needs rest or sick days. Oh, and one more thing—it is excellent at enforcing school rules!” She turned to the intimidating robot. “Make sure this boy gets to class, won’t you, Caretaker?”

  “Affirmative,” said the robot.

  Principal Qwerty nodded crisply and walked away with Owen. The Caretaker rolled toward George and Jackbot, towering over them. “George Gearing, sixth grade. Proceed to Ms. Hertz’s IT class within ten seconds or punishment will result.”

  “What do you mean?” George said. “What kind of punishment?”

  “Ten,” said the Caretaker. “Nine. Eight. Seven . . .”

  “Big deal, so you can count backwards!” said Jackbot. “So can a microwave.”

  George laughed.

  The Caretaker’s eyes flashed. “Insubordination detected! Commence punishment!”

  It raised its arm and rotated its hand. An attachment like a crab’s claw clicked out. The Caretaker rolled closer to George and reached toward the side of his head. “Earpinch initiated!”

  George ducked and ran in the opposite direction, with Jackbot on his heels.

  The Caretaker’s shadow pursued them. “It’s gaining on us!” said Jackbot.

  They reached the stairs just ahead of the giant robot. In three steps Jackbot reached the top. George raced after him.

  The sound of the wheels stopped. On the second-floor landing, George turned and looked down. The Caretaker was standing in front of the stairs, bumping repeatedly against the bottom step.

  “It can’t get up the stairs!” George said.

  “You need legs, Caretaker, that’s what you need!” Jackbot said. To rub it in, he tap-danced.

  The Caretaker watched them unblinkingly. “Your insolence is being digitally recorded,” it said. Then it turned and rolled away.

  George looked at Jackbot. “I didn’t give you a stairs program, did I?”

  Jackbot waved a pincer dismissively. “Who needs a program? It’s not rocket science.”

  “Hey, it’s good to be back!” Jackbot said as George opened the front door to his house after school. “What do you want to do, George? Chess? Basketball? Shall I perform Swan Lake for you?”

  George laughed. “That sounds great, but I have homework to do.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Jackbot.

  “Really, I do,” said George. “A history essay on the rise and fall of Silicon Valley.”

  “Really, you don’t,” said Jackbot. He reached inside George’s bag and pulled out his school tablet. “See? I did it for you.” The screen scrolled through text.

  George scanned the writing. “What? When did you do this? We’ve been together all day!”

  “Not exactly,” said Jackbot. “You were in the bathroom for four and a half minutes. I downloaded the most authoritative texts on the subject before putting together the essay.”

  “You did all that in less than five minutes?”

  “I did that in one minute and forty-five seconds,” said Jackbot. He closed the tablet. “I twiddled my thumbs for the other two minutes and forty-five seconds. Figuratively, of course.”

  “Jackbot, that’s really nice of you, but . . . well, the teacher’s bound to know I didn’t write it.”

  “Au contraire,” said Jackbot. “I took the liberty of assimilating all your written work from the past six months in order to replicate both your verbal patterns and most common typographical errors.”

  “But it’s wrong,” said George.

  Jackbot’s head slumped. “I’m sorry, George. I just wanted to help. I’ll delete it, then.” He opened the tablet.

  “Wait! No!” said George. “There’s no need for that. Just maybe don’t do it again.”

  Jackbot’s head perked up. “Okay, then. Basketball?”

  “Let’s go!” said George.

  In the backyard, Jackbot stood opposite George, who had the ball. “Something tells me you’re going to be good,” said George, tossing the ball to his robot.

  Jackbot spun the ball on his claw. “Let’s see,” he muttered. With a thrust of his arm he sent the ball flying up over the basket and onto the roof of the house.

  “Bit too much power there,” said George.

  A couple of seconds later the ball bounced down the roof, hit the top of the wall, and spun back into the net.

  “Three points,” said Jackbot.

  For the next half hour, George and Jackbot played. It was very different from their old games, when Jackbot had settled for standing on the sidelines and watching George miss.

  Now George sensed that Jackbot was lowering his game so that they were evenly matched. The robot encouraged and coached him as they went. When George wanted to try a slam dunk, Jackbot had him climb on top of him to give him a boost.

&
nbsp; “Are you sure I’m not going to crush you?” George asked.

  “I’m stronger than I look,” Jackbot replied. “Get on!”

  George awkwardly climbed on top of Jackbot and aimed a jump at the hoop. He took a leap—and made it. The ball swished through the net as George hung triumphantly from the rim.

  “He shoots—he scores!” Jackbot cheered.

  A little while later, after a game of one-on-one, Jackbot was trying to teach George some other tricks.

  “Try an overhead,” said Jackbot.

  George stood ten feet from the basket and checked over his shoulder. “Here goes!” he said.

  He tossed the ball backwards.

  There was a clatter, followed by a loud CRACK!

  “What the—!” bellowed a voice.

  In a flash, George remembered that the kitchen window had been open. Oh, no, he thought, his heart sinking. He turned slowly and saw his uncle Otto at the back door, a bagged lunch in his hand. Otto’s carburetor lay in pieces on the ground at his feet, along with the bouncing basketball.

  “Oops!” said Jackbot.

  “You idiot!” Otto seethed. “I was fixing this up for a customer, and now it’s more broken than when he gave it to me! That’s a hundred dollars you’ve cost me right there!”

  “I’m really sorry, Uncle Otto, honest,” George said. “It was an accident.”

  “An accident?” Otto whispered, his voice dangerously low.

  “Exactly,” Jackbot piped up. “An unintended consequence.” George silenced him with a look.

  Otto’s eyes bulged, and George half expected steam to jet out of his ears.

  “You know what your problem is?” Otto said. “Your problem is that you don’t know what’s important in life. You never concentrate on what you ought to be doing, like fixing the house-bots. That’s how accidents happen. From not thinking.” Otto shook his head. “You’re just like your father.”

  George lowered his eyes.

  “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead,” continued Otto, “but if your dad had thought about what he was doing the day of that accident instead of having his head up in the clouds, maybe he’d still be here. And then I wouldn’t have to be looking after you all on my own. I’m only telling you this for your own good, George. Your own good.”