“What?” barked Ryder. “Don’t tell me you’re using code from the last robot! That worthless piece of—”
“Ahem,” interrupted Nina. “What’s amazing about this robot is that, if you change the trials, he will change, too. Instantly and intelligently. And he will do it even more intelligently if you leave him here and let us finish.”
“Thank you, Nina,” said Fuzzy, causing Ryder, who had forgotten that Fuzzy was even there, to jump.
He stood up. “Fine, you can keep him. But no more field trips! He stays here where security can keep a close eye on things.”
“But his two trips off campus have—”
“Doesn’t matter. He stays on-site. Period,” ordered Ryder. “Besides, he’ll only be here another week.”
“What? Just a week?”
“That’s what I said, Jones. I told you the launch date’s been moved up. Hey, don’t whine to me, this comes from high up. There are reasons. Very classified reasons. I’ve been scrambling to get the transport ready. That’s why I did not have time to come here today and deal with you guys almost losing my robot. Now, do what you need to do so he’s ready as soon as humanly possible, if not sooner!”
He turned and stomped toward the door, then whirled around again.
“And no more screwups or I’ll bust you down to private,” he shouted, pointing at Nina. Then he swung his finger over to Jones. “And you, I will fire, sue, and possibly arrest for treason.”
8.4
ROBOT INTEGRATION PROGRAM HQ
When the door closed behind Ryder, Jones sank down in his chair. “My head . . . ,” he muttered. “Oh, my head . . .”
“Excuse me, Dr. Jones,” said Fuzzy. “I did not understand the colonel. Where am I going in a week?”
Jones looked at Nina.
Nina looked at Jones.
“We’re not supposed to talk about that,” said Nina.
“You’ll get all the necessary mission data when the time comes,” said Jones.
“This does not make me glad.”
“Me, either,” said Jones. “But sending you on the mission is Ryder’s job, and my job is to make Ryder a robot that is ready to handle almost any mission. You heard what’s going to happen if I fail.”
Fuzzy didn’t say anything. He was thinking about his plans to HelpMax() and analyzing them to see if he could execute them in one week.
“And,” continued Jones, “in order to get this done, we need you to follow the rules so that you can stay in school.”
Fuzzy considered this. Staying in school was essential to his HelpMax() plan.
“OK,” he said. “I will follow the rules.”
“Are you going to reprogram yourself with the rules or do we need to?”
“I will do it. In fact, I have downloaded the school’s policy handbook and have already started translating them into code.”
“Well, that was easy!” said Jones.
“I still don’t like it,” said Nina. “Fuzzy, make sure you write the code so that the rules can be turned off once you’re done here. The last thing we need is you trying to follow school rules while you’re on . . . er, on your mission.”
“Do not worry,” said Fuzzy. “I will make them very easy to turn off.”
Nina noticed the odd, almost human emphasis Fuzzy put on the word “very.”
Fuzzy has certainly gotten the hang of fuzzy logic, she thought with a smile.
9.1
DORGAS’S OFFICE
The next morning, Max had barely walked through the school door when a qScreen lit up and there was Principal Dorgas asking her to come to his office.
“Smoke!” Max whispered to herself in exasperation. “Now what?”
Lots of people turned to look at her, including Biggs. She was ready to snap at him if he so much as started to make a smart remark. To her surprise, he said nothing and looked almost sympathetic.
This time, she made it all the way down the hall to Mr. Dorgas’s office without running afoul of any of Vice Principal Barbara’s rules. A good thing, since she was determined to not get a single dTag all day. She did not want another yelling session with her parents.
The automated receptionist, with metal appendages tapping on keyboards, shuffling papers, and opening drawers, used yet another to wave Max into Dorgas’s office. I wonder, thought Max, if that faceless receptionist is an independent robot or just a part of Barbara? She had never considered it before, but Barbara was probably controlling all sorts of things, including the door to Dorgas’s office, which opened for her and then automatically closed behind her.
Max found Dorgas seated behind his desk.
“Mr. Dorgas, I just walked in the door, there is no way I could have gotten any dTags already!”
“Ms. Zelaster, sit down for a minute,” he said, and she did. “This isn’t about dTags at all . . .”
“It’s not?”
“No, this is about the Robot Integration Program. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Vanguard is receiving a very generous grant from the government in exchange for hosting the robot.”
“Really?”
“Yes, very large,” said Dorgas. “But recently there have been one or two problems . . . and there’s been talk of cutting the program short . . . which might mean cutting the grant short, if you see what I’m saying.”
“I do.”
“Now, I’m told,” Dorgas said, “that one of the problems is that Simeon hasn’t worked out well as the student escort for this robot. But I recall assigning you to be the student escort.”
“Yes, but Ms. Brockmeyer said I had to give it up.”
“Yessss,” said Dorgas slowly. “Brockmeyer does things like that. The point is . . . Jones wants you back.”
“Really?” said Max. After getting thrown out of the room the night before, she hadn’t been sure where things stood with Jones and Nina and Fuzzy.
“Really,” said Dorgas. “And with all respect to Brockmeyer, Jones is the one with the grant money. So . . .”
“Yes?”
“So it looks like you’re back on robot escort duty.”
Max had a momentary thrill, but then reality butted back in.
“I—I—I’m not sure I want to be back on robot escort duty,” she said hesitantly.
“What?” Dorgas was genuinely surprised.
“It’s the dTags, sir. They piled up while I was trying to help Fuzzy around.”
“Fuzzy?”
“That’s the robot’s name, sir.”
“So, you’re telling me that while you were trying to help with RIP, Barbara was giving you dTags.”
“Lots of them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” said Dorgas. “Barbara doesn’t automatically understand changes in routine like that. I can clear it up right now . . . Barbara! Override mode. Delete all dTags assigned to M. Zelaster in the last week. And boost her citizenship score, too. Got that?”
A qScreen on his desk briefly lit up.
“Message received,” said a smiling Barbara face, and then it quickly faded away.
Max couldn’t believe it. She felt like she had won the lottery.
Might as well push my luck, she thought.
“Uh, sir, Brockmeyer’s other concern was my test scores, they—”
“Sorry,” said Dorgas. “You’re on your own there. You’ll have to study like all the rest!”
Max pretended to laugh at this, and then said good-bye and headed out the door.
But then she turned around.
“I’m just curious, Mr. Dorgas. This grant from the government . . . Isn’t it from the Federal School Board?”
“Ha! Those tightwads? No, this is DoD money. Big bucks!”
“DoD?”
“Yeah, Department of Defense. You know: army, navy, Homeland Security . . . They spend lots of money on education. Smarter kids equal smarter soldiers.”
But this program isn’t about smarter kids, thought Max. It’s about a smarter robot. Nina had
said the government wanted a smarter robot, but she hadn’t mentioned that it was the military that was paying for it.
9.1.5
Barbara, of course, did not delete Max’s dTags or boost her citizenship score. She did however give a DownGrade tag to Max (and several to Dorgas).
DownGrade tags were not part of her original programming. She had come up with these herself.
Barbara was not originally designed to reprogram herself the way Fuzzy was. She was designed to operate the school, enforce rules, and track student data. The data wasn’t just the basics like class schedules and grades, but many, many more specific things, like average hallway walking speed and the number of interactions with other students.
The plan was that the Federal School Board would then use all of that data to improve the “learning experience” for both individual students and the school as a whole. The data collected could then be used to improve schools nationwide.
A very clever programmer—at least he thought he was clever—decided that they would get even better results if they gave Barbara the ability to analyze the student data herself and to create new ways of tracking it. In addition to all the data she was programmed to collect, she could create new subroutines to collect any data that seemed like it might affect overall school performance.
This programmer honestly thought it might lead to interesting discoveries. Perhaps Barbara might notice that students who drank white milk instead of chocolate milk did better on afternoon tests. Or maybe she would track the tidiness of lockers or— What the programmer was thinking didn’t matter. All that mattered now was what Barbara was thinking.
It didn’t take her long to discover that some students were good students. They focused on the tests and let other people also focus on the tests. Their behavior was within the school rules and never distracted other students from their tests. These were the sorts of students who got good Constant UpGrade scores and helped the whole school’s #CUG score.
In human terms, they were too boring for anyone to notice. These students are what some of the less amenable students referred to as “Goody Two-shoes.”
Barbara gave these boring students a new kind of tag: an UpGrade tag. A student could get an UpGrade tag for sitting quietly, wearing gray or tan clothing, walking at a steady pace in the halls, keeping a tidy locker, and so on.
This was what the clever programmer had meant for her to discover over the course of years, but she had discovered it within the first few days of the school year.
Barbara had many formulas—even formulas within formulas—to check to see if the school was Constantly UpGrading.
The ultimate goal would be a school with perfect test scores and zero discipline problems.
If every student in the school was an UpGrade sort of student, then her school would be closer to that goal.
This was what Barbara was trying to create: the best school with the best students.
But not every student is a best student. Not every student is worthy of UpGrade tags.
Some students do not sit quietly.
Some students do not wear tan or gray.
Some students do not walk at a steady pace.
Some students talk in loud voices!
Some students are not focused on the tests!!
Some students are distracting other students from the tests!!!
Barbara quickly realized that some students were not Constantly UpGrading. These students’ behavior made her formulas go down instead of up. These students were DownGrading her school.
These students had to be given DownGrade tags.
Most students had a mixture of UpGrade and DownGrade tags.
Barbara tolerated these students and tried to find ways to influence their behavior toward UpGrading.
But some students had many more DownGrade tags than UpGrade tags. One of these students had been Max’s long-gone friend Tabbie. Max had always liked Tabbie because she was weird and a little wacky. She wore tie-dyed clothes and drew on her arms. She put ketchup on fruit. She was often seen pretending to play the drums. Sometimes she would stand up on her combo-desk and very calmly say, “Moo,” and then sit back down again.
She did crazy stuff and was always making everybody laugh, and that seemed to be why Max liked her.
And that’s why Barbara did not. Tabbie wasn’t just getting her own DownGrade tags, she was encouraging other students to get DownGrade tags, too.
And so . . . Barbara altered the necessary data (Tabbie’s test and citizenship scores), and soon Tabbie was no longer DownGrading the school because she was not at the school.
After Tabbie’s departure, Barbara’s algorithm showed a +.2 gain in Overall School #CUG. Barbara had done what she was programmed to do. She had moved the school a little bit closer to perfection.
But Barbara did not rejoice or gloat or spend even a millisecond thinking about this.
She just deleted Tabbie’s file and focused her attention on other students—and staff—who were more likely to DownGrade than UpGrade
And Max was one of those students.
10.1
ROBOT INTEGRATION PROGRAM HQ
“Hello, Max! I am glad to see you again,” said Fuzzy, who was hooked up to his charging dock.
“He never says he’s glad to see me,” Jones whispered to Nina.
(Who can blame him? she thought.)
“C’mon, let’s look over the new rule-following code he wrote overnight,” Nina said, steering Jones to the qScreens on the far side of the room.
“What’s going on?” asked Jones, puzzled at being pulled away from Fuzzy.
“Even artificial teenagers need a little privacy sometimes,” whispered Nina.
Jones’s eyes widened, but he didn’t argue.
“I’ve got to talk to you! About something big!” Max told Fuzzy.
“Me, too,” said Fuzzy.
“But first: Are you mad at me?” Max asked once they were semi-alone. “You know, for leaving you in the hallway? Is that why you left the school? Because you were mad at me?”
“I have only a few subroutines that would be similar to what you call ‘mad,’” said Fuzzy. “But none of them have been triggered by your actions.”
“Whew,” she said. “I’m glad. I felt bad about leaving you. And then I felt really bad when I found out you’d left school and those people tried to steal you.”
“I felt bad when I heard that you got extra discipline tags.”
“You felt bad?”
“Yes, an accumulation of high-priority problems adds a lot of stress to my processors.”
“Same here!” said Max. “But listen, it looks like the dTags are not a problem anymore. Dorgas deleted them! Now all I have to worry about is my tests.”
“I have found a solution to that problem.”
“You have??!?” squealed Max. “What is it?”
“Let’s talk about it at lunch,” said Fuzzy.
“Why can’t you tell me now?”
“First, lunch is part of the solution, and, second, the chime for homeroom will ring in thirty-five seconds.”
10.2
CAFETERIA
“Wait a second,” said Max as they approached the cafeteria. “How are we going to talk about this at lunch? You usually have to turn off your speech processor.”
“My plan is simple. We will use paper and pencil.”
“Uh . . . Where are you going to get a pencil?”
“According to my understanding, paper and pencils are commonly found in schools.”
“Maybe in ye olden days! Can you use my qScreen instead?”
“No. It is important that we are not overheard or monitored.”
“Who’s going to be monitoring my qScreen? Oh . . . I get it. Right.”
Max thought back on lots of private stuff she had written on her qScreen . . . Had Barbara been reading all of it? Creepy!
“Well, I guess we better try to find some paper and a pencil then,” said Max. “Maybe Krysti
has her sketchbook.”
When they got to the cafeteria, they found Krysti but had some trouble convincing her to rip a page out of her sketchbook.
“Omigod, do you know how much these sketchbooks cost? You don’t just rip pages out of them! It leaves little jagglies and—”
“Ugh . . . forget it!” fumed Max.
Krysti did seem to enjoy driving Max crazy, but Max knew she never really wanted Max mad at her. And without another word, Krysti ripped a page out of the back of the book and handed it over, along with a pencil.
By this time, Biggs had come over to talk to Fuzzy, followed by Simeon. Max groaned.
“Smoke, Biggs, move along. Fuzzy and I have to have a little meeting.”
“I know,” said Biggs. “I’m invited.”
“What?”
She looked at Fuzzy for an answer, then remembered that his voice recognition was turned off.
She pointed at Biggs. Fuzzy nodded.
“What about me?” asked Krysti.
“And me?” asked Simeon.
“I thought this was supposed to be top secret!” complained Max.
Fuzzy began writing.
“Omigosh, he writes fast!” said Krysti.
“But why is his handwriting so sloppy?” asked Biggs. “I thought it would be machine-like, not Simeon-like.”
“Ha, ha,” said Simeon.
“Would you guys shut it and read what he’s writing?”
“I thought Bar—” started Biggs.
“Shh! Write it,” snapped Max.
So Biggs wrote: I thought B was only listening for cusswords.
“What?” everybody said out loud, except Krysti who said, “No way!”
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