“Well . . . yes,” said Jones. “When the last Mars mission failed, you said you wanted a better robot pilot—an old-fashioned space hero like Buck Rogers or Han Solo. Well, that’s what heroes do! They defy orders and break rules! They use fuzzy logic and take crazy chances.”
“You wanted a freethinking robot, sir,” said Nina calmly. “Well, we’ve given you one.”
“You haven’t given me anything!” roared Ryder. “All I see here is a room full of spare parts. No robot!”
“I’m sure we’ll find him soon.”
“I don’t want it soon. I want it now!”
“With all due respect, sir,” said Jones. “What is the hurry? We’ve been working on this project for years. Why are you in such a rush to launch all of a sudden?”
“Classified,” growled Ryder. “Take my word for it, we’ve got no time to waste.”
“I’m tired of taking your word for it, sir,” said Nina. “We’re ready for some answers.”
For a second it looked like Ryder was about to explode. Then, with great effort, he calmed down. “OK, you want answers? Maybe if I give them to you, you’ll understand why we need that robot and we need it now. But this is beyond top secret. I barely have clearance for it myself.”
Jones and Nina looked at each other in disbelief. Was Ryder finally going to tell them what was going on?
Krysti got a bad feeling in her stomach. She was sure she shouldn’t be listening to this. But she had promised Fuzzy . . .
14.6
ROBOT INTEGRATION PROGRAM HQ
“You’ve heard of SunTzuCo?”
“Sure, big aerospace robotics company, operations in China and Europe and even over here. There have been rumors that they—”
“The rumors are true. They put a robot on Mars last year.”
“So what?” said Jones. “There must be fifty or sixty robots on Mars by now from—”
“As much as I love to hear you run your mouth, we are in a hurry here. So shut up and listen!”
Jones shut up.
“The big deal is that their robot found something. We were monitoring their transmissions, of course. At first we thought it was a mistake. But the SunTzuCo robot kept doing tests, and the tests kept saying the same thing.”
“What?” asked Jones, unable to control himself.
“That, I won’t tell you,” said Ryder. “But I’ll tell you this: The value can’t be calculated. There’s nothing like it on Earth.”
“So what is SunTzuCo doing with it?”
“They’re sending a rocket to go get it. We want it to stay on Mars,” said Ryder. “We need that robot of yours to get to it and protect it.”
“What about all the robotic rovers we’ve already got on Mars?” asked Nina.
“They’re built to take pictures and soil samples. We need a robot that can find the SunTzuCo robot and take whatever actions are necessary to make sure it doesn’t send home the . . . thing.”
“There is a problem,” said Nina.
“I know there’s a problem! That’s why I’m telling you all this! So that you’ll find the zarking robot so I can send it to Mars and let it kick butt up there!”
“No . . . ,” said Nina. “A different sort of problem. You can’t just send Fuzzy to Mars.”
“Jones! You promised me he was ready!”
“He is ready,” said Jones. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. Nina, maybe you and I could discuss this later?”
“We will discuss it now,” Nina said, speaking with an authority that made both men listen. “Colonel, I think Fuzzy has become self-aware.”
“That’s good, right? That’s what we wanted.”
“Yes,” she said. “But now he’s like a human being. A living creature. And he has told us he doesn’t want to go.”
“I don’t give a Gates what that robot ‘wants.’ It’s just a machine. My machine. And I’ll do what I want to with it.”
“It’s a machine that we’ve made almost human,” Nina argued. “Just in time to send him off on a one-way mission that sounds like it may turn violent!”
“Better him—or, rather, it—than a flesh-and-blood human being,” the colonel said.
“Colonel,” Nina said, “we just may have reached the point with artificial intelligence, with Fuzzy, where he’s human whether he’s flesh and blood or gears and circuit boards. And that could be an even more important breakthrough than—”
“I don’t want to hear any more of this speculation, Lieutenant Colonel,” the colonel said. “Dr. Jones, I want the robot, and I want it now. I’ve got a Lev-Copter waiting. I need to get the robot and go.”
“Well, he won’t be ready immediately, Colonel,” said Jones. “We’ve got to do the memory wipe and then reload him with—”
Krysti and Nina gasped at the same instant.
“Memory wipe?” snapped Nina. “What are you talking about?”
Jones sighed. “I’ve been putting off telling you. See, there’s no need to send a robot to Mars loaded down with a hard drive full of this school stuff. It would only be a distraction.”
“The first thing to delete,” rumbled Ryder, “is anything about it not ‘wanting’ to do what it was built for.”
“Er . . . right,” said Jones. “So, we keep all his new programming and erase the datalogs of . . .”
“Of his friends?” Nina interrupted. “You’re going to delete his memories of his friends? Of Max? You can’t do it!”
“We can do it,” snarled the colonel. “And we will do it!”
“That’s like killing him. The Fuzzy we know will die.”
“Good!” bellowed Ryder. “His name was never Fuzzy in the first place! He—I mean, it—is SpaceBrain4. Government property! Enough of this horse hockey, where is that blasted robot?”
That’s what Krysti wanted to know. She kept trying to send him a text: Emergency! Emergency! They’re going to wipe your memory!
But Fuzzy wasn’t answering.
15.1
ROOM 43
Fuzzy was outside Room 43.
There was no sign on the door of Room 43.
And since no one ever went in or out, most students weren’t even aware that it was there.
But after downloading and analyzing the school building’s schematics, Fuzzy was certain this was Barbara’s room—the place where all of her hard drives, routers, power cells, and processors lived.
Fuzzy pressed the door release button. Nothing. It was locked. He considered whether he had the strength to force the door open. Yes, he concluded, he did.
A screen flickered on nearby. Barbara’s white-haired, phony-smiling countenance appeared on the nearest wall screen.
“F. Robot, you have been told to return to your lab.”
ObeyBarbara(2)
HelpMax(128)
(2) < (128)
Instead of obeying, Fuzzy turned to the screen and spoke.
“Barbara, have you ever heard of fuzzy logic?”
Barbara was not to be distracted.
“F. Robot, you have been told to return to your lab.”
“Fuzzy logic means that sometimes one plus one doesn’t equal two.”
“F. Robot, you have been told to return to your lab.”
“It means we can be more than just our programming.”
“F. Robot, you have been told to return to your lab.”
“It means that some rules can be broken, some orders can be ignored.”
With a sudden rush of power to his servos he yanked the door open. The sound of rending metal made a terrible screech.
Barbara sent a burst of power to the door, slamming it shut again . . . but not before Fuzzy had slipped inside.
She added a long string of discipline tags to Fuzzy’s account. He was now clearly a high-priority threat to test performance, student discipline, and even school property.
She locked the door.
“Yes, F. Robot,” replied Barbara in her calm, clear voice. “As a matter of fa
ct, I do know a thing or two about fuzzy logic and breaking rules.”
A metal arm struck him in the back of the head. Riot shields swung out from the walls and began to close in on him. Several more arms emerged, grasping for Fuzzy’s arms and legs with titanium grips designed to restrain even the most violent student.
But Fuzzy was no longer a student. He was a military machine, built for duty in the most punishing environments, and trained to deal with anything that got in the way of his mission.
And right now his mission was: HelpMax(128).
He grabbed one of the arms and ripped it from its socket. He swung it hard, bashing away another arm, then jammed it between two of the riot shields, preventing them from completely closing him in.
He tried to force himself through the gap. He increased the power of every motor in his body to 100 percent. Ahead he could see the racks of computers and hard drives that were Barbara. If he could just get to them . . .
Another arm popped from the wall—this one tipped with a crackling bolt of electricity. It was a Taser meant to be used only if a student’s behavior was criminal or life-threatening.
It could also fry a robot’s brain.
Deep within their digital brains, both computer and robot were now running the same subroutine: SurvivalMode().
15.2
DETENTION ROOM 2
The door opened.
Max was glad. She couldn’t stand waiting any longer.
Ms. Brockmeyer was on the other side of the door.
“Maxine? What happened? I thought you were going to try to do better for me.”
Max sighed. This was going to be rough. A load of hooey from Brockmeyer and then an endless amount of fuss from her parents.
Apparently, her thoughts were reflected by her silence. “Well, that attitude isn’t going to help,” said Brockmeyer. “Let’s go in and find out how serious this evidence is.”
Max shook off the arm Brockmeyer tried to put around her shoulders. She stepped through the door into a room with a few plastic chairs and a big wall screen. Principal Dorgas was there, and so were her parents. She wanted to run to them and let them hold her and protect her, but they both started shouting at her right away.
Finally, Dorgas cleared his throat and suggested that they all sit down.
“Vice Principal Barbara, we’re ready to see your evidence.”
The huge screen flicked on. Max flinched in fear and disgust and hate as Barbara’s big face appeared. She didn’t want to see all of her “evidence” again, especially not with her parents watching.
And she didn’t have to.
“Mr. and Mrs. Zelaster, thank you for coming in today to talk about Max.”
That’s odd, thought Max. Barbara never called her Max, it was always M. Zelaster.
Barbara’s voice continued: “Max is a model student. We are happy to have her at this school. We regret that a computer error caused you to receive incorrect reports about Max. All erroneous conduct points and infractions have been erased from her records. I’m printing out a revised list of her corrected test scores, citizenship rating, and her overall Constant Upgrade score. As you can see, she has a bright future.”
Her parents looked at each other in surprise. Brockmeyer actually looked a little disappointed. Dorgas started tapping at his own qScreen for answers.
And Max was totally blown away.
She knew Barbara would never call her Max, would never admit to erroneous points, and would never, ever say she had a bright future. Only Fuzzy would say something like that. Could he have taken control of Barbara?
Barbara’s voice spoke one more time:
“Max, please report to Room 43. Immediately!”
The room’s windowless security door whooshed open.
“It’s okay to run. Fuzzy needs your help. Really badly! Room 43. He’s—”
Then the screen did something funny. Barbara stopped talking and seemed to look around the room blankly for a minute. Then the screen went dark.
Max was sure Fuzzy was behind this, and she was just as sure that he was in big trouble.
“I’ve got to go,” she said to the baffled adults.
But suddenly the screen was back on again. Barbara was also back and talking very fast.
“Student M. Zelaster has 687 discipline tags. Student M. Zelaster plotted to cheat on today’s science test. Student M. Zelaster is not UpGrading! Student M. Zelaster is DownGrading! Student M. Zelaster must be expelled. Student M. Zelaster—”
But student M. Zelaster had already bolted out the door.
15.3
ROOM 43
Fuzzy had scored an early victory when he dodged Barbara’s Taser-tipped arm and then shoved it into one of her own processors.
The lights flickered. Sparks flew. Wires melted.
All of the qScreens went black.
Fuzzy thought Barbara was beaten.
Then he saw a monitor turn itself back on. In tiny type at the bottom of the screen it said: BARBARA5.6 REBOOTING . . .
She wasn’t beaten, but it would give him a moment to HelpMax() before she could come back online.
He analyzed the room full of equipment in front of him. Instead of being stuffed into a robot body like his own processors and systems, Barbara’s were carefully installed on a series of racks and shelves, with miles of cables connecting all the boxes.
He made an educated guess at which box would be most useful and yanked out a fistful of cables. Then he flipped open his fingertips and plugged himself in.
Fuzzy found himself in a sea of computer code, students’ records, and building controls.
A human could have scrolled through it for years without getting anywhere, but it all made sense to Fuzzy. In milliseconds he was in control of Barbara’s communication.
Now he could see through every camera in the school at once. He instantly analyzed the faces and found Max, looking pale and frightened, in Dorgas’s office.
He heard Dorgas saying, “Vice Principal Barbara, we’re ready to see your evidence.”
Yes! He had gotten through just in time.
He turned on the screen hanging over Dorgas’s desk and then fired up Barbara’s avatar and voice subroutines.
“Mr. and Mrs. Zelaster, thank you for coming in today to talk about Max . . . ,” he began, and then he told the assembled listeners that Max was a model student, and that the infractions on her record had been in error.
Meanwhile, another part of his lightning-fast brain was actually finding Max’s records. He updated her test scores and completely removed her from the discipline tag database. Then he sent the new data to a printer in room OfficeRM7.
“As you can see,” he went on, “she has a bright future.”
Something struck him from behind so powerfully that his main hard drive crashed. And then came the shock—a megawatt-strong power surge that ripped through his wiring, burning out servos and glitching out microchips.
Barbara was back online.
15.4
ROOM 43
Fuzzy had made a mistake. A big mistake. If only he had attacked Barbara’s robotic systems first instead of helping Max. He had assigned HelpMax() an even higher priority number than SelfPreservation(), and now he had paid the price for it.
But now that he had completed HelpMax(128), SelfPreservation(127) kicked in.
He switched to his backup hard drive and diverted all processing power to SurvivalMode().
“Max, please report to Room 43. Immediately!” he said hurriedly. “It’s OK to run. Fuzzy needs your help. Really badly! He’s—”
Barbara blocked him from the communication modules digitally and then set about disconnecting him physically, too.
Powerful claws clamped down on him and began dragging him away from Barbara’s processors.
He struggled to stay connected, but three of her tentacle-like arms began pulling on him in different directions. First, he felt his connection to Barbara’s computer sever, then he got an error message:
LEFT ARM DISCONNECTED.
No pain accompanied the injury, but it reduced Fuzzy’s defensive capability and left him slightly unbalanced. He was just barely able to dodge as Barbara flung his own arm at him.
He decided to focus on defeating Barbara’s tentacles one at a time. Chopping at one with his right hand, he was able to rip it loose from the wall.
Unfortunately, Barbara seemed to have an unlimited number of those Hydra-like arms, while he now had only one.
But he still had two powerful mechanized legs. Fuzzy fought his way to the center of the room, trying for a position to avoid the arms coming at him in all directions. He had to spin in a fast circle to accomplish this, kicking and flailing to keep the arms from grabbing hold of him.
He was keeping Barbara at bay, but barely. She had her own power supply, with backup generators just in case.
He was surviving only on battery power . . . which was dwindling fast as he overclocked and overpowered every motor in his body just to survive.
He reconnected to Jones’s computer.
“Help me!” he begged.
16.1
HALLWAY B
Max ran into the hallway and smashed right into Biggs and Simeon—who had been waiting outside the office, trying to decide what to do. She bounced off and kept going.
They raced to catch up. “Max! What’s—”
“No running in the hallways,” chanted Barbara. “A discipline tag has been
“Don’t stop!” Max yelled over her shoulder. “Ignore her! We’ve got to save Fuzzy!”
“But he’s trying to save you!” hollered Simeon.
“And me!” added Biggs.
“He did! But now we’ve got to save him! He’s in Room 43! Go get Jones and tell him to come help Fuzzy!”
“No!” came another voice.
It was Krysti. Sprinting down Hallway B.
Fuzzy Page 11