“No. Those prototypes were disassembled to make me.”
“Really?” That surprised Susan. When it came to the creation of any type of electronics, the more units produced, the cheaper the cost per unit. Technology was one of the few classes of production in which higher demand ultimately tended to decrease the price of the goods.
Nate explained, “My parts alone are worth millions. The biological technology that allows me to appear so human is far beyond its time, priceless, with dozens of patents pending. The positronic brain…” He hesitated, and Susan studied his expression. Judging him as human always seemed fraught with peril, though so far it had worked well. He appeared more at a loss for words than confused or deceitful. “…is still relatively young. The NC line went far beyond what USR could or should reasonably expect at this point in the evolution of robotics. We’re out of sync or sequence, especially when you consider it’s only been seven or eight years since scientists developed the technology for speaking robots.”
That triggered a memory of Susan’s own. “I once wrote a paper on a speaking robot.” She smiled at the recollection, unimpressive and long buried. “It had to be longer than seven or eight years ago, because I was still in high school. Physics One,” she recalled. “We did a small unit on robotics. As part of the research, I spent three hours at the Museum of Science and Industry observing a so-called talking robot in a children’s program.” She shook her head at the memory.
The Talking Robot, as the signs had aggrandized it, could not hold a candle to Nate. It had been an immobile, formless mass of wires and coils covering some twenty-five square feet of floor space and did nothing more than answer simple questions. It was, essentially, an oversized computer with voice-recognition and -transmission software. Most of the children who came to the exhibit owned personal electronic gizmos more impressive than the Talking Robot.
What had caught Susan’s attention was a small girl who had entered the room alone between showings. She had had an air of anxiety about her, a desperation, and she had addressed the ungainly and impractical device with a respect it had not deserved. “A little girl, maybe seven or eight years old, broke the thing with an innocent question.” Susan recalled the details. “She asked it about another robot, one she described as looking like a real person but who couldn’t talk. The Talking Robot apparently wasn’t programmed to wrap its thoughts around the concept of its existence in regard to other robots.” She remembered the incoherent spluttering, the acrid smell of burning coils, the warning shrill of impending implosion. “It turned out to be the best material I got for the paper. Earned me an A.”
Nate shook his head, frowning. “That Talking Robot wasn’t one of USR’s, but the girl had to be Gloria Weston and the nonspeaking robot she was seeking was Robbie.” His frown deepened. “Although saying he looked like a real person is a bit of an exaggeration. He had a head, but it was shaped rather like…” Nate’s fingers flailed around his face for a moment, as if to form the three-dimensional shape from thin air. “Well, I don’t know of anything in common usage shaped like a parallelepiped.”
“I remember geometry,” Susan said dryly, picturing six parallelograms fused together the way the same number of squares could form a cube.
Nate continued his description, “He had red eyes with metal-film eyelids, a flexible stalk for a neck, then a much larger parallelepiped for a torso. His shoulders were flat, with arms hinging off them, and he had the proper number of legs. His entire outer shell was chrome-steel, nothing anyone could mistake for human.” He smiled ever so slightly, like a mother watching her child do something clever. “Though, to Gloria, I’m sure he seemed utterly human.”
“Seemed?” Susan did not like his use of the past tense. “So, she never found him?”
Nate’s smile grew. “She found him, all right. She spent seven more years with her best friend, in addition to the two they shared before they got…temporarily separated. Robbie was programmed and built exclusively to serve as a companion to a child. The idea was that once other parents saw the incredible bond between robot and girl, the wonderful job Robbie did, robotic nursemaids would become the rage.”
Susan knew what had to come next. “Except for the Frankenstein Complex.” She shorthanded the generalized phobia that seemed to strike otherwise normal human beings when it came to robots, especially those most resembling themselves. Entire organizations existed that were dedicated to the goal of preventing robots from becoming a regular part of society. At least one of these groups was prone to violence as fearsome as anything Susan could imagine a horde of robots inflicting. The Society for Humanity was behind several explosions, including the one that had killed Remington and nearly killed her.
Nate nodded gloomily. “Many believe innocent, harmless Robbie—and, more properly, the neighbors’ reactions to him—were directly responsible for the ordinance passed in 2025 forbidding any robot on the streets of New York between sunset and sunrise.” He made a grumpy noise. “As if great, bellowing gangs of robots owned the city prior to that time. Five years later, robots were banned from all of Earth, except for scientific experiments.”
Susan recalled her father telling her that as well. “So, what happened to all the robots? Did they join the Mercury expedition?” She laughed alone.
“Actually, we do have robots on Mercury. I think that’s where they sent N12-C.”
Susan brushed hair from her face, wanting to take the conversation in twenty different directions. She had multiple questions and limited time, so she focused with laserlike intensity on the topic most interesting to her. “So, there’s an N12-C?”
“There was,” Nate responded carefully. “Susan, I told you the NC model line was way ahead of its time. That happens sometimes with inventions; an object gets created that predates anticipated technology and attitudes. In its own time, it may seem useless or, in my case, practically anachronistic.”
Susan could think of a few herself. “In the fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci made detailed sketches of helicopters, tanks, and underwater breathing apparatuses.”
“And parachutes and retractable landing gear,” Nate added. “Scuba equipment was placed into operation four hundred fifty-eight years later, helicopters in 1907, tanks in 1917, and retractable landing gear not until 1933. As far as parachutes, their use predated planes. The first jump was from a hot-air balloon in 1793.”
Susan knew Nate would have more detailed facts at his command, and she appreciated it. In the past year, she had considered the many potential uses of robots and the foolishness of the human race in general, in ways she had never worried about in the past. Everyone had beliefs uniquely their own, and Susan had been raised to appreciate all of them. Yet in the past year, she had become vastly more cynical. During her high school unit on robotics, the teacher had distributed the results of a poll in which 87 percent of respondents admitted to being moderately or severely suspicious of intelligent robots, and a full 23 percent stated that they were actually afraid of them. At the time, Susan had dismissed the results as ludicrous. Now she was not so certain.
Nate ran with the tangent. “The first workable computer was designed in 1834, but the inventor, Charles Babbage, was unable to procure funding because the government could not see any use for such a thing. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, but the first LP record wasn’t created until 1948. Frank Sprague completed a fully electric railway seven years before the invention of the electronic locomotive. Bar codes were created twenty years prior to the technology capable of reading them.”
“Uncle!” Susan cried.
Nate looked at her curiously. “What?”
“I get the point,” Susan explained. “What I want to know is why the NC robot line was created and how many of you still exist.”
“Three,” Nate said simply.
Susan rubbed the sleep from her eyes. They had been conversing for nearly an hour now, and she needed to start thinking about going home to change and prepare before w
ork. “Three…NC robots exist?” she guessed.
“Me, Nick, who is N9-C, and N12-C, which, I gather, was the one they settled on for whatever purpose they chose to make us in the first place. One through seven were scrapped and the parts reused to create us later models. Ten and eleven were also destroyed, as I understand.”
“Where is Nick?” Susan wondered aloud.
“Nick bounced around a few businesses and finally landed at Upper Manhattan VA Hospital, where he has run into many of the same problems I have when it comes to completing his work. As far as I know, he’s still there.”
“As far as you know?” Susan tipped her head sideways. “I would think you’d keep in touch.”
“It’s not like he has a blog.” Nate sighed heavily. “We’re supposed to keep our profiles low until people become more accustomed, more accepting of us. I’m serviced quarterly by a USR technician. All I know is what he’s willing to tell me.”
“And you think N12-C is on Mercury.” The thought did not sit well with Susan. “What possible reason could they have for placing a robot so human on Mercury? Given the external dermal layers, the hair, the eyes, wouldn’t he need the exact same protections as a human astronaut?”
Nate shrugged once, said nothing, then shrugged again. “I’m not privy to every conversation or what’s in the minds of my creators. I know only the intention of the NC model line seemed to be constructing a robot so apparently human, it could pass for a man in essentially every way. What purpose that serves, beyond freaking out the local populace and triggering the Frankenstein Complex, I have no idea.”
“A goal hardly worth hundreds of millions of dollars and hours, I wouldn’t think.” Susan had every intention of finding the truth. Her days of accepting what her father said without question were over. She had lost the only man she had ever loved, and nearly her own life, to USR’s cause. No more secrets. At least, not from me.
Nate made a thoughtful noise but added nothing else useful.
Susan suddenly recalled something else Nate had said. “Robots were banned from Earth?”
“In 2030, yes.”
Susan thought back on the past several years. In addition to her high school physics unit, she had taken a cybernetics course at Columbia, much to John Calvin’s chagrin. He had long feigned ignorance about the inner workings of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. For most of Susan’s life, he had convinced her he held a desk job having little to do with the actual robotics projects. She had discovered the truth only in the past year, and he had explained the reason for his deception: parental love and fear the Society for Humanity, or another desperate antirobot organization, might harm her.
It had turned into a more-than-reasonable concern, as the events of a year ago could attest, and it made Susan even more curious about the purpose of the NC line. Its sole intent seemed to be to aggravate the SFH to the homicidal fury that had already resulted in Remington’s death. “Well…robots continued to exist on Earth after 2030.”
“For scientific purposes,” Nate reminded.
Susan shook her head. “Theme park animatronics, military drones, corporate assembly lines.” She waved an arm to indicate Manhattan Hasbro Hospital. “There are displays in this very building of robotic toys through the years.”
Nate bobbed his head in surrender. “It all depends on how you define robots, doesn’t it? Even the law didn’t do a great job of it, but one thing was abundantly and absolutely certain: Anything containing a positronic brain qualified as a robot, whether or not it resembled humanity in any way or even performed functions in a humanoid manner. And as USR owns all the patents on that particular product…”
Susan finished the thought quietly. “It was hit hardest by the law.” She marveled anew at the pure genius of Lawrence Robertson. He had managed to turn all the decades of work on artificial intelligence on its ear when he created the positronic brain path from a spongy glob of platinum-iridium. Until that time, true, strong AI was a distant concept. So many scientists had contributed through the decades to the ability of mechanical creations to move in a useful or human manner, to manipulate objects fluidly, to perceive the world around them. The computational power of computers had progressed at light speed for many years, then slowed to a crawl as the number of transmitters reasonably placeable on an integrated circuit dwindled.
Intelligence was so much more than the integration of billions of facts. The ability to imbue a man-made object with true intelligence—common sense, planning, social understanding, creativity, deduction, reasoning, problem solving, and the like—had frustrated scientists since the beginning of time. Even the most ancient cultures had the myth of the golem or statue that comes to life and acts with reason, for evil or good. Bronze figures in man shape had existed as long as the humans who created them. But until Robertson’s mysterious and amazing innovation, fast, intuitive judgment; the ability to intermingle experience, emotion, and idea; and the default reasoning that defined humanity were entirely in the realm of nature.
Susan asked the obvious question. “How did you and Nick get around the ban?”
“Scientific purposes,” Nate reminded her for the third time, apparently thinking the early hour had muddled Susan’s thought processes.
Susan yawned and stretched again. “I’m not seeing the science in using multimillion-dollar prototype robots as gofers.” She leaned back, placing her arms behind her head, elbows bent. “I mean, I see the science that got the nanorobot study okayed. We were experimenting for a potential cure to a scourge on mankind.”
“And the worldwide ban on earthly robots expired in 2034.”
“Really?” As far as she could tell, nothing had changed in regard to robots in the past couple of years. “So, why hasn’t USR flooded the market with positronic robots?”
Nate crooked a shoulder and an eyebrow simultaneously. It surprised Susan how much that gesture reminded her of Kendall. “You’ll have to ask Dr. Robertson. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s either money or caution.”
Susan nodded thoughtfully. She could understand both of those eventualities. Surely USR had borrowed most of the cost of producing the NC line, in addition to their other projects. She also knew the scientists, including her father, had pitched in the bulk of their own savings. Surely they had some government grants as well. Still, the enormous price tags for their goods had to slow the process. As far as caution went, she could understand that as well. If a simple and harmless nursemaid had led to global bans, she could understand why USR might want to accustom the world to their products more slowly in the future. The only illogical part of the sequence was the development of the NC line.
Susan forced herself to rise. She could discuss these matters with Nate all day, not only to distract herself from work she had grown to despise, but also from overwhelming interest and curiosity. However, if she did not leave soon, she would forfeit any chance for a shower and change of clothes, let alone the possibility of catching her father before he left for work. She did not intend to broach the issues raised by Nate with John that morning. She needed to catch him after work, when they both had time to discuss the situation in sufficient depth. “I need to go, but I’ll be back.”
Nate grinned. “About that, I never harbored a single doubt.”
Chapter 8
Determined to turn around her mood and her luck, Susan Calvin swept into Winter Wine Dementia Facility with an air of hopefulness bordering on cockiness. By the time she had arrived home from Manhattan Hasbro, her father was leaving for work. They exchanged brief but heartfelt hugs and hellos, and as Susan prepared for another day of treating the untreatable, she made some important decisions about the remainder of her rotation. She scribbled John Calvin a note, promising to return home that evening and to talk, though she did not get specific with the details of the forthcoming conversation. He had spent most of her life hiding the extent of his involvement with the projects of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. She did not want to give him the opp
ortunity to prepare, to create clever dodges to her questions. The less he knew about what she had learned, the better.
The nurses seemed to notice the change in Susan’s manner. They always traded greetings with her and Kendall, but those had gotten more cautious as Susan’s interactions with Dr. Reefes had grown more venomous. She had never taken out her irritation on them directly, but she supposed she had become more terse, less open, and decidedly quieter. Now they grinned happily at her and met her with a cheery “Good morning, Susan.”
Susan visited Jessica Aberdeen first, uncertain how quickly the cobalamin shots might work. To her delight, she found the woman sitting up in her bed, carrying on a conversation with a nurse named Farrah. Wanting to observe, Susan remained silent in the doorway, examining the woman from a distance. Once again, she was impressed by the small, birdlike dimensions of Jessica Aberdeen. Her thin, ever-pale face was surrounded by a halo of stringy, mouse-colored hair. She had a smile on her face, though, and her dark eyes followed Farrah around the room with an interest she could not have managed even one day earlier.
Susan strained but could not make out the specifics of the conversation. To hear, she would need to reveal herself. Rather than mince inside, trying to eavesdrop, she strode in with the confidence she would need to display to convince Jessica and her family of her competency. “So, how is Jessica Aberdeen today?”
“Okay, I suppose.” Jessica’s voice emerged reedy, exactly what one might expect from her appearance. “Are you another nurse?”
Farrah intervened, “This is Dr. Susan Calvin, Jessica. She’s your doctor. Remember? She saw you yesterday, and we told you about her again this morning.”
For a moment a blank look crossed Jessica’s face. “Doctor?” she said. “Why do I need a doctor?”
Farrah explained to Susan, “She’s a lot better, but she’s still confused. Clumsy, too.”
Jessica rejoined the conversation. “I’ve always been…awkward. My whole life.” She added, as if it were a deep confession, “I drop things, and I’ve always sucked at sports.”
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