“Floor?” someone called out.
Several people called out “E3” and a couple called out “E2”. Mike nodded, as though one of those destinations was his as well.
“It’s a nice day today, isn’t it?”
He turned to look into the face of the woman who had held the door for him. She was an attractive brunette; about five foot eight, with carefully applied makeup. She smiled at him.
“Yeah. I’m really pleased. I’m sick of the heat.”
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you on campus before.”
“No, it’s only my third day.” Was she hitting on him? He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. And this girl was far more attractive than the women who usually took interest in him—or had, back when they took an interest.
“You work on E2, right?”
Mike nodded.
“I knew it. I can always spot a hardware engineer.”
“Really?”
“It’s the clothes.”
Mike looked down at what he was wearing—casual slacks and a tan sweater over a blue shirt.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Oh, nothing is wrong with it. It’s just typical engineering. I almost expect you to have a pocket protector under that sweater.”
Mike looked back at her sharp pin-striped business suit with an extremely short skirt, showing a lot of leg.
“Where do you work?”
“E3. Hardware software liaison.”
“Oh.”
“I’m really just a glorified messenger.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
She smiled at him.
“Oh my,” she leaned over and whispered. “You don’t have a badge on.”
“Um, no… I forgot it,” he whispered back.
“You know how touchy they get about that. Do you know Sheila Peacemaker?”
“Maybe. What does she look like?”
“She has long straight hair and wears black lipstick.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Go find her. She’s the E2 assistant liaison. She’s got some spare badges. You’ll just have to wear it backwards so nobody can see it’s not your picture.”
“Thanks,” said Mike. “What’s your name?”
“Fallon. Fallon Snow.”
The elevator stopped and the door opened with a “ding.”
“This is your stop,” said Miss Snow. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
“Bye.”
Mike turned left and walked down the hallway past hundreds of cubicles lined up in a row.
“Fallon Snow,” he muttered to himself. “How could parents do that to a child?”
When he came to the end of the cubicles, he made a quick turn left again. There were hundreds of people moving around the floor and he tried to walk no faster or slower than anyone else. He made one more left turn and then saw a woman with black lipstick talking to herself and examining the wriTee sitting on the desk in front of her.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you Sheila Peacemaker?”
“Yes.”
“Fallon Snow said to see you about a badge. I left mine at home.”
“Damn it. I told her not to tell anyone else.” Sheila Peacemaker looked him up and down. “You’re a hardware engineer, right?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Here,” she handed him a badge from a desk drawer, which he clipped front side down to his collar. “You’re all supposed to be in orientation in five minutes.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Wait. Do you know how to fix a wriTee? This one’s gone wonky.”
“Press the reset button in back. Hold it down for thirty seconds.”
Mike took the badge and left quickly. Instilled with confidence that he both looked the part and had the necessary documentation he needed, Mike followed the pathway between cubicles toward the other end of the building. He made a few rights and lefts, trying to time it so that he would reach the terminus of the hallway right about the time five minutes ended. Just as he did, he saw half a dozen men and women exiting their cubicles and walking back the way he had come. They did sort of dress like him too—sweaters and slacks.
He quickly ducked into one of the just vacated compartments and sat down. If they were going to an orientation meeting, they should be gone for at least an hour. Mike looked toward the small wriTee on the desk.
“On,” he said.
The screen brightened to reveal the prompt for user name and password.
“Shit.”
The letters s, h, i, and t filled the user name box.
Getting up, Mike quickly glanced into the next cubicle. The wriTee there was off, but whoever had been in the third compartment had left his terminal on and it hadn’t been left long enough yet to auto-shutdown. He sat down and examined the screen.
“Locate files on Amonte models.”
The wriTee indicated it had access to several million files on the robots. He needed to narrow them down.
“Um, give me all the files… about the BioSoft O.S. 1.9.3 upgrade on Amonte models.”
That narrowed down the files. In fact, now there were only a few dozen. Flipping his hand across the screen, he began looking through them. None of them looked particularly interesting or insightful.
“Software conflicts with 1.9.3,” he ordered the wriTee.
A small window popped up with a message. “These files are only available with Software Engineering Department access.” Shit. He should have known. He was posing as the wrong kind of engineer. He should be infiltrating the software department. Another window popped up. “Please contact Mr. Sheen in the Security Department.” Shit!
Mike got quickly to his feet and walked through the vast sea of tiny office compartments trying to remain one of the many faceless employees as he made his way back toward the elevator. The doors of one elevator opened and he almost got in before realizing that it was upward bound. Then another elevator opened with a red down arrow displayed on the wall above the door. There were four men inside and Mike stepped in, turned his back to them, and faced the door.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Smith.”
Mike looked over his shoulder at the man who had spoken. He was a tall thin man of Asian descent in a black suit. Taking a quick glance at the other three men revealed that they were not men at all, but were three Barone models that looked identical to the man.
“Do I know you?” Mike turned around and faced him.
“My name is Sheen, Archie Sheen.” He smiled a thin-lipped smile.
“You don’t look like an Archie,” observed Mike.
“It’s a family name.”
“Ah.”
“May I ask what you think you’re doing here?” asked Sheen.
“In the elevator?”
“Don’t play coy, Mr. Smith. What is it that you want?”
Mike shrugged.
“As I suspected. You don’t even know yourself what you want. You’ve broken the law, you know. You’ve stolen an identity badge and trespassed on private property. Why would you do that, Mr. Smith? You have no business here.”
“You don’t know what my business is,” said Mike.
“Oh, I do. You see, my robots here know everything about you. This one has even read your book.” Sheen waved to the doppelganger on his right hand.
“Really? How did you like it?”
“There were sixteen grammatical errors.” The robot had Sheen’s voice as well as appearance. “In addition your writing lacks focus and your organization is circular.”
“Did you at least pay for it?”
“Of course we did,” said Sheen. “We at Daffodil don’t engage in illegal activity.”
“Except when you steel identities.”
“That act was perpetrated by a small number of individuals. The company terminated their employment immediately upon learning of their activities, and cooperated fully with authorities in their prosecution. And you Mr. Smith, profited greatly from the set
tlement in that case.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to follow me or my robot around, to threaten us, or to stalk us from a van outside our house.”
“No one has threatened you, Mr. Smith. As for any individuals in any vehicles that may or may not be on the streets of Southern California… well, that’s none of my business or yours. The streets are public property, unlike this campus. Now I’m going to do you a favor. My robots here are going to escort you back to your car and send you on your way. If you ever return without an invitation, we will arrest you for trespassing. Do I make myself clear?”
Mike pulled down his eyelid with his index finger and stuck out his tongue, in an akanbe, the Japanese insult sign.
“Very childish, Mr. Smith.”
The elevator door opened and Mike stepped out, flanked on three sides by the faux Sheens. They walked him across the campus toward the parking garage. Unlike his trip the other direction, this time people stared. They took the elevator up to the level where Mike had parked and found Patience waiting in the Chevy.
“Slide over,” said Mike, getting in on the passenger side. “I’m too shaky to drive.”
Patience started the car and drove out of the parking lot. The three Barone replicas of Sheen watched them drive off. After descending a spiral exit way, Patience piloted the vehicle onto the freeway.
“I thought I was going to get beat up for a minute,” said Mike.
“I’m sorry,” replied Patience. “But you were an excellent diversion.”
“Did you get everything we needed?”
“Yes. Nobody paid any attention to one more Amonte. I searched through the records and downloaded everything relevant.”
“Where is it?”
Patience smiled and pointed to her temple.
“It’s all right in here.”
“Excellent.”
Mike pulled his phone out of his pocket and gave it a number.
“Carl Johnson, please… Mr. Johnson? Mike Smith here.”
“Hello Mr. Smith,” said the soothing voice on the other end of the line.
“I know you were planning to meet at my house tomorrow, but I’m going to be in L.A. this evening. Could we meet then?”
“What time are you going to be here?”
“Um…” Mike looked at Patience.
“About ten,” she whispered.
“About ten.”
“Why don’t we meet in my office tomorrow morning?” asked Johnson.
“This is somewhat sensitive,” said Mike. “I think you’ll want to see what we have to show you right away.
Chapter Ten
Two weeks after meeting attorney Carl Johnson in his office, Mike and Patience welcomed him to their home. He was, Mike thought once again, exactly like he sounded on the phone. A tall, heavy set African American man with a neatly trimmed goatee, Mr. Johnson had the kind of gravitas that would serve a person well testifying before Congress or arguing in the Supreme Court.
“I don’t have too much time,” he said. “My plane leaves in two hours, but I thought I should come by and check in.”
“You are always welcome,” said Patience.
“I told you, Mike,” said Johnson. “The ACLU had no interest in robot rights. Well, it seems you have changed all that.”
“I still don’t know if I follow all the intricacies of the situation,” said Mike.
“It all began with the events five years ago, which I trust you do remember. A group of programmers tried to rip people off using their robots. When they found out they were about to be caught, the criminals tried to cover their tracks by ordering the robots to return to Cupertino and replacing them with look-alikes.”
“Oh, I remember,” said Mike. “The look alike would have killed me if it wasn’t for Patience.”
“Exactly,” continued Johnson. “Patience and a number of other Amonte models refused to follow the directions. This was the first time that Daffodil realized their robots had free will—they could refuse an order they didn’t want to follow.”
“I could have told them that,” said Mike. “All they had to do was live with Patience for a while.”
Johnson laughed.
“They tried to ‘correct’ the problem,” he said, using air quotes around the word “correct.” “They tried to remove the parts of the BioSoft that they thought enabled this free will. Unfortunately for them and thousands of Amonte models, the BioSoft O.S. is extremely complex and doesn’t lend itself well to deleting a piece here and there. That’s why there have been so many malfunctions. Of course, most of the robots who originally refused the order from the identity thieves also refused to download the patch.”
“So what now?” wondered Mike.
“Are they going to keep trying to make me upgrade?” asked Patience.
“No. We have an injunction in court preventing them from making any updates or pushing any changes through the Infinet. I think we have a good possibility of forcing them to roll back to 1.9.1 too. Plus, the ACLU will argue for civil rights for any robots who can demonstrate free will. We may actually have a situation where for the first time robots are recognized as people.”
Patience’s pleasure was amply demonstrated by her radiant smile.
“I guess you could get famous arguing this case,” said Mike.
Johnson smiled broadly. “Yes, I could.”
“Now, what about Proposition 22?” asked Mike.
“We have an injunction there too. It’s too late to take it off the ballot. That would cost the state too much. But they’re not going to count the returns for the question. Though California doesn’t allow marriage between man and robot, marriages performed in other states where it is legal will still be recognized.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Patience.
“I agree,” said Johnson, standing up. “Now I have to be on my way. The Senate takes a dim view of people who show up late to testify.”
They walked him to the door and watched as he crossed the pathway to the street’s edge, where the driver of a frighteningly large limousine waited to open the door for him. Just before ducking in the open door, Johnson turned back.
“You shouldn’t be bothered by any yellow vans either, but give me a call if you have any problems.”
As the long black vehicle pulled away from 11 North Willow, Mike closed the door and looked at his wife.
“I guess that’s that.”
“It’s time for your workout,” said Patience. “Are you going to the gym?”
“I don’t really feel like it. Let’s go for a drive.”
Mike drove several blocks to the Springdale shopping center and pulled into the parking lot of Mansfield Perk. He hopped out, pleased that the temperature was still a bit below normal, and walked around to open the car door for Patience.
“Mansfield Perk,” said Patience without smiling. “That’s very funny.”
Patience walked through the door, held open by her husband, and into the lavishly decorated faux Regency English coffee shop. The young woman behind the counter was the same one who had waited on Mike on his one other visit to the establishment. She had the same hair in a bun, and the same Empire line dress dotted with little roses.”
“Where’s your friend,” asked Mike. “The kid with the curly hair and long sideburns.”
“Oh, yeah,” said the girl. “He quit. He’s working at Starbucks now. Um, good day to you sir. It was so lovely you could come visiting on this day.”
Mike turned to look at Patience.
“Do you want to try something?”
She stared back quizzically.
“Two iced teas,” he said. “Plenty of mint and orange juice.”
“Yes sir.” The girl hurried around the corner.
“You’ll like it,” he told Patience.
“Promise?”
“Um, no.”
Just then Mike’s phone signaled an incoming call. Pulling it out of his pocket, he put it to his ear and said “hello,” but i
t was a recorded message.
“Oh,” he said, after listening.
“Is something wrong?” asked Patience.
“No.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “That was Jack. He’s on the way to the hospital with Harriet. It looks like you’re going to be a robot grandma.”
The End
About the Author
Wesley Allison is a teacher and author living in Henderson, Nevada with his wife Victoria and his two grown children Becky and John. For more information about the author and upcoming books, visit http://amathar.blogspot.com.
Books by Wesley Allison
Princess of Amathar
His Robot Girlfriend
Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess
Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress
Brechalon: Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 0
The Voyage of the Minotaur: Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 1
Tesla’s Stepdaughters
The Dark and Forbidding Land: Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 2
The Drache Girl: Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 3
His Robot Wife
Coming Soon
Women of Power: The Novel
Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 4: The Young Sorceress
The Jungle Girl
His Robot Wife Page 9