Machina Viva (3 page)

A young man entered the apartment. “I’m here for my appointment.” Raymond remembered him; he was a maintenance worker with a nearly crippling fear of heights, not an easy phobia to deal with when your job requires you to work in the foundation of a floating city with nothing below your feet but a catwalk and thousands of miles of soupy blue-green murk. He had managed to find indoor jobs for a long time, but he was worried that he might lose his job one of these days if he couldn’t get hold of himself.

Mrs. Whitley’s memories of him, as of most people, revolved mainly around pastries. “Oh, Mr. Haskell, come in, come in. Just have a seat in the office, and I’ll bring you a lemon square.” She wandered into the kitchen, and Mr. Haskell’s face brightened at the thought of citrus and sugar. The appointment hadn’t even officially begun, and he was already feeling better. It worked every time.

Raymond opened the office door. “Hello, Peter,” it said from the general area of the office. “Won’t you come in?” Raymond activated a small music player in the office, some soft chamber music that it remembered Peter liked. Peter took a seat in the easy chair that Raymond had prepared for him and put his feet up on the ottoman. The ability to put one’s feet up, Raymond had learned, accounted for about ten percent of the curative abilities of a good psychiatrist, on top of the considerable portion provided by Mrs. Whitley’s baked goods. “Now, Peter, how are you coming with your exercises? Were you able to try those things we talked about last time? Ah, here’s Mrs. Whitley with your medicine.” Peter turned as Mrs. Whitley came through the door with a small plate.

The head of the Security department heard a knock at his door, and he looked up from his desk. “Come in.”

An officer walked into the office, preceded by Dr. Philip Abrams. “What’s this about?” said Dr. Abrams. “Have I done something wrong?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine, Doctor. You have recently created a robot, designated ‘Eve,’ based on a prototype design. I’ve seen your reports detailing the concepts behind Eve, but I’m afraid that the minutiae that you Production people are accustomed to dealing with are quite beyond me. Could you describe some of your innovations to me in lay terms, please?”

The Security head pulled out copies of Dr. Abrams’s reports, and Dr. Abrams went over them point by point, translating all the engineering jargon into language that he felt a policeman would understand.

“Well,” said the Security head when it was all finished. “That is truly remarkable, Dr. Abrams. I can’t remember the last time I heard of something coming out of Robot Production that was so, and I do not use the word lightly, unique.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’m not sure that you take my meaning, actually, Doctor. You see, there has never been a robot quite like Eve. As she develops, if what you tell me about her capabilities is true, her motivations may develop in unpredictable ways, and she may begin to exhibit unpredictable behavior.”

“Isn’t that kind of how people are?” said Dr. Abrams.

“Not usually. Once they have found their niches in life, humans are usually content with their routines. And robots, in their early development, are usually trying to fit in and learn how to behave. They will follow the crowd. Eve may be a different story. You told me that you intended her to have certain instincts about herself.”

“Yes. It was necessary for her to know how to do the things she will need to do.”

“Once she begins to feel these impulses, it will not take long for her to realize that no other robots are feeling them. She may begin to behave erratically. Her priorities may become somewhat skewed. This will lead to her behaving in an unpredictable manner, and in the Security department, predicting behavior is our business.”

“I don’t think she’s a threat to anyone, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, I’m afraid I don’t have the luxury of operating with that degree of uncertainty, Dr. Abrams. We need to determine if she is indeed capable of becoming a member of society. Now, you know more about Eve’s processing structure than anyone. We need you to take what you know about her cognitive processes and extrapolate her likely reactions.”

“Reactions to what?”

“To whatever might happen.”

Dr. Abrams slumped down in the chair in front of the Security head’s desk. “That’s a very difficult proposition. The amount of data I’d need for that kind of simulation is staggering.”

“Which is why we’ve set aside a workspace for you, right here in the department,” said Security. “You’ll have access to whatever equipment you need for your work, and of course you’ll have the entire Security archive database at your disposal for simulation purposes.”

“Well, why don’t I just use my own office? I’ve already got everything set up how I like it in there.”

Security steepled his fingers. Dr. Abrams had felt the tone of the conversation taking a downward turn, and he had been waiting for that gesture to provide the necessary sinister air. “We would prefer to keep you close by, for ease of communication.”

Dr. Abrams sighed. “What you mean to say is that I’m under arrest until I can prove that Eve isn’t dangerous.”

Security shrugged. “If you like.”

6

At some point in the development of most robots, they decide on a gender for themselves. Many choose to identify as male or female, depending on their general appearance. This helps them to fit in with a human population that generally goes by the same criteria. Some, like Raymond, choose to identify as neutral. They see no need to derive their self-image from those around them, preferring to distinguish themselves as manufactured individuals without the trappings of hormones or reproductive organs, or any other organs, really.

There was one robot in Tetropolis, though, that chose to have no gender, not even neutral. To define its identity in any way was simply redundant to the whole idea of what it was, as it would be to identify a shadow or an air bubble. Nobody ever dealt with it on any kind of personal level. If pressed, they hardly ever remembered that it was even around. Its appearance was totally ordinary; it looked bland enough that it could be either robot or human. There was simply no telling. An observer with a subdermal scanner could tell that it was a robot, and they might be able to decide that it looked slightly more male than female, if they had occasion to get a look at its face. This didn’t tend to happen. It was an expert at not being noticed.

For this reason, it was gainfully employed by the Security department as a general troubleshooter. When they needed something done, perhaps done to someone, they gave it an order, and it got the job done. Actually, it didn’t do anything so obvious as “doing a job;” it merely arranged matters so that things happened as needed.

On this day, as on most days, it was riding on the city’s mass transit system, gliding from one node to the next. It liked riding the tubes, observing people and watching how every little thing that happened could influence their behavior, gathering data on the mechanics of crowd control and herd dynamics. It spent most of its time observing people like this, whether on the tubes, in the park, or just walking down the street. Every time it saw someone exhibit behavior that it might possibly want to cause later, it took note of the events that had led to this behavior. Each of these events had precursors, and each precursor had its own precursors, branching out into a set of instigating events that could spread all over the city. Sometimes, though, a complex and unusual behavior could be traced back to a single initial event. The Security troubleshooter took special note of these moments.

As it traveled on the transit system, watching the display screen for news developments, it spotted a small, flashing square in the corner of the screen, accompanied by a faint beeping noise. The screens around the city were in various states of repair, and image flaws like this were common, since they didn’t last long and didn’t harm the image, but this one was a very specific pattern of flashes and was coupled with a very specific frequency and duration of tone. It was actually a signal that had been programmed into the city’s broadcast system by the Security Department for his sole benefit, a way of communicating with it no matter where it was. The entire population of the city saw those screens every day.

The flashing square was followed by another square of a different color. The robot watched the new square intently. It flashed in a different pattern, with groups of flashes separated by a pause. Each group contained a different number of flashes. It was a simple visual code intended to convey to the robot either a citizen ID code, to denote a human, or a serial number, to denote a robot. It watched the sequence until the color of the square changed back to the original color and flashed a final grouping, the code that meant either “surveillance,” “apprehend,” or “eliminate.” The robot committed the serial number to memory, got off at the next stop, and made its way to a public directory to begin research on its new quarry.

7

The term “pyramid society” refers to a civilization consisting of a strong ruler at its apex supported by successively weaker and larger groups, from a council of advisors near the top to a vast and diverse body of farmers and laborers at the bottom. A city like Tetropolis, which was pyramid-shaped not only socially but structurally, only served to drive the point home. Actually, lacking a central figure and being governed by a council with rotating leadership, Tetropolis more resembled a well-worn and weathered pyramid, the sharp point at the apex having grown dull since its citizens decided that sharp things could be dangerous. However, the physical layout of the city was almost a perfect map of the social status of its inhabitants. The very influential had penthouses and top-floor offices, and the lowest-class jobs existed at the base, maintaining the equipment and systems that kept Tetropolis running. A few jobs even operated beneath the city, like the farmers that tended their floating fields of atmospheric kelp and the hunters that went searching for edible wildlife in their personal gascraft trawlers.

In her search for gainful employment, Eve looked from the top of the pyramid to the bottom. At the top, the secretaries and assistants to the city’s elite were comfortable and entrenched in their positions and were not interested in relinquishing them in favor of a nice young robot just starting out. At the bottom, the hunters and kelpers took one look at her and decided that she wasn’t sturdy enough to brave the haze. So she made her way to the mid-level areas, home of the middle class, the urban bustle, and the ever-present service industry.

In every population of people, you have a few odd ducks who insist on making do for themselves. The rest of them are the reason that there will always be positions available in service, taking care of those who just want someone else to take care of things, and in a place like Tetropolis, there are many, many different things to be done that someone else can be hired to do. There are cleaners to keep rubbish from building up on the public walkways. There are desk clerks at the transit stations to provide information to anyone without a clearly established routine. And anything that a person might want provided for them can be acquired by a trained professional in that field. Eve had looked into becoming a provider of clothing and a provider of education, but neither had appealed. She had considered becoming a provider of attention, someone who, for a fee, will spend time with a client and make them feel better about themselves. They can also provide stress relief, a decent workout, and, to put it delicately, personal release, often involving a certain expenditure of bodily fluids. The concept of a professional pleasure-giver is one of those things that inevitably turns up in any human society, like duct tape and the personal injury lawsuit. Some cultures have referred to these people as prostitutes, courtesans, and other less complimentary names, but the official term in Tetropolis is “holistic therapist.” It inspires in people the idea that everyone is allowed to feel good about what they do from time to time.

Eventually, Eve decided to become a provider of food. She got a job as a waitress at a restaurant near the park. Not too nice a restaurant; those were usually within the tallest of office buildings to be near their clientele. Eve had been to a few of those, and they were stifling in their propriety. She preferred the more relaxed atmosphere of the park neighborhood, populated by people who just wanted to go out on a nice day and fully intended to enjoy themselves. The restaurant saw businessmen in suits having a working lunch right next to university kids enjoying a relaxing mid-week meal out. She wanted to see as many different people as possible, and the lively restaurant by the park seemed the perfect place to do it.

Like most restaurants in Tetropolis, this one was mostly staffed by robots. Robots are built to do steady, repetitive work that requires a good memory, and perhaps no job fits these requirements more than restaurant wait staff. Eve had seen that the restaurant had a position available and showed them her card. The manager, himself a human, had been a little startled when he saw how much debt she still had to work off. Most robots that applied for a job like this had at least half of their debt gone. Eve not only had her entire debt waiting to be paid off, but she also had several lines of it on her card. Most robots only had one.

Oh well, the manager had thought. Maybe she had been a little extravagant in her spending, or maybe she had crossed the Cabinet somehow and they had given her an extra line or two. (He would have been surprised to learn how very nearly right he was on both counts.) But that didn’t make a lot of sense, since according to the card she was still pretty recent off the line. On the other hand, she would still have had a lot of factory-fresh ideas in her, so she would be quick to train, and in any case, she would certainly be a steady employee. She might still be gainfully employed here when he left, the manager thought. The manager swiped her card to enter her information into his database and told her when to show up for orientation.

That had been a few days ago. As the manager had expected, Eve learned the job quickly. All you had to do was smile, remember who had ordered what, and check back every once in a while to refill water glasses and such. It also did to remember the names and faces of people that showed up regularly, in order to ensure that they continued to do so.