David Gatewood - The Robot Chronicles

A quarter of the audience had left the arena before Alex and Bill left the stage.

Their venues shrank. Alex refused all interviews. Bill asked him about it a couple of times. All Alex said was, “Watch the show.”

Alex died of microgravity-related heart failure on July 15, 2103. Bill attended the funeral, but found himself unable to deliver the eulogy.

Bill existed for another 347 years, until he voluntarily deactivated and loaned his subconscious to the Span (Sol, 08-d61). He hadn’t heard their songs so much after the 50th Anniversary releases. When he did, it was from the strangest places: rattling out of the jukebox at his own corner bar; trickling, sanitized, from the speakers on the transhuttle flights; hummed by a little human as she turned from the rain.

I’ve been into robots in a big way ever since I was a little kid obsessed with Disney’s The Black Hole . But when it comes to AI, I’m not sure we can design them from the top down—seems to me we’ll probably have to model them after our own brains, piling together parallel processors until consciousness emerges.

And if that’s how we do it, I think they’ll be every bit as irrational and emotional as we are.

I’m a sci-fi and fantasy author living in Los Angeles—which I’ve blown up, repeatedly, in my post-apocalyptic Breakers series. You can find a full list of my books here: http://edwardwrobertson.com/my-books/

“What the…”

Vicky rolled over and slammed her hand down on the buzzing comm unit. Apart from the flashing red light indicating an incoming comm, the room was in darkness, daylight still hours away.

As senior homicide detective, Vicky was on call if an emergency arose, but there hadn’t been a real emergency in over five years. She snatched up the unit and slipped it on her wrist; the glow from the screen lit up the area around her. The light flicked to green, but the video feed remained blank and the Caller Recognition empty. Not the Bureau then.

“Detective Inspector Harper?”

She didn’t recognize the voice. “Yes, and this better be good because—”

“Detective Harper, you will be assigned shortly to investigate a possible homicide.”

“Really? You woke me up at three in the morning to tell me that? Hardly major news.”

“It would be in your best interests if the result of your investigation was suicide rather than murder.”

Dragging herself upright, Vicky cast a quick glance at the man beside her. So far, he’d managed to sleep through the comm. She slipped out of bed, grabbed her robe from the floor, and shuffled into the only other room in her tiny apartment. Once the door closed, she spoke again. “Wait a minute, are you threatening me?”

“Not threatening, Detective Harper. Rather, we’re in a position to offer you something you desire.”

“And what would that be?”

“You recently applied for a placement on The Pioneer .”

“How the hell would you know that?”

The voice on the other end continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “We can guarantee you that placement.”

“Really? I thought the final selection was by lottery. Are you saying it’s rigged? Should I be reporting you to the Council?”

“That would hardly further your cause, Detective Harper.”

“Exactly who am I talking to?”

“Tell no one of this conversation.”

“What the—”

But the connection had already been severed.

Bribery was almost unheard of, and had been since the introduction of the Council of Ethical Advancement. Mainly because the people in a position to be bribed—the Stewards—were totally incorruptible. Vicky wasn’t in that sort of position of power and never would be, but apparently someone believed she was worth the bother.

The notion pricked her interest—was she finally going to get an exciting case?

The Pioneer was a newly completed starship: the first designed to venture into deep space. While it would be crewed by robots—the journey was expected to extend far beyond the lifespan of a human—there were places on the ship for one hundred human passengers. These would remain in cryo until they reached a planet that could support life. If they ever reached one.

God, she wanted to go.

But she’d never really considered it a possibility. While she’d passed the initial stages of selection, so had ten million others. One hundred out of ten million… not exactly promising odds.

Who had been on the other end of the comm—and could they really get her one of those places on The Pioneer ?

Vicky threw herself onto the sofa and looked around at her tiny apartment. She’d already climbed as high as she could ever go at the Bureau: the Stewards themselves filled any positions above Detective Inspector. She’d just turned fifty and had maybe another hundred years working. The sure knowledge that this would be her life—easy cases by day and picking up easy men by night, for the next hundred years—filled her with restlessness.

And now some bastard had the nerve to tempt her with the one thing she craved.

Who the hell had the caller been? Some random nut case who’d hacked into her system to have some fun?

Somehow, she doubted it.

On her wrist, the comm unit flashed green. She was unsurprised to find it was a priority one message from the Bureau.

Detective Inspector Harper’s presence is requested immediately at a possible homicide. Location: The Towers.

Vicky’s heart rate picked up, the muscles in her gut tightening. A murder in the Towers? Probably the most heavily guarded building in the world. Time to get her butt moving and head over there. She had a crime scene to investigate.

As she pushed herself to her feet, the doorbell chimed. Wow, she was popular tonight. Crossing the small space, she pressed the viewer. And stared at the image. “Holy shit. No way.”

For a second, shock held her immobile.

He pressed the bell again.

Tightening the robe around her, Vicky heaved a huge sigh and pressed her palm to the panel. The door slid open and her boss stood before her.

“May I come in, Detective Harper?”

She wanted to say “no”—really she did. Instead, she stepped aside to allow him to pass, but didn’t speak. Wasn’t sure she could yet. “Shock” didn’t cover what she was feeling. As her boss walked into her tiny apartment, she breathed in his scent—sharp, citrusy. Maybe just a hint of metal?

Dressed in the uniform of the Stewards, Gabriel Bishop wore a black jumpsuit with the scarlet insignia of the Bureau on his shoulder. He’d been Vicky’s chief for twenty years, since not long after she’d joined the force. And unsurprisingly, he hadn’t changed in all that time.

He was tall, about six inches over her five foot nine, long and lean, with short black hair cut close to his skull and a thin, handsome face. She’d always had something of a crush on her boss—in fact, in the early years, she’d spent a lot of time fantasizing about hot robot sex with him. Obviously, it had gone no further than fantasies. Christ, she wasn’t even sure he had a penis. Her gaze drifted down to his groin. She was guessing he did, but it might have been wishful thinking.

She’d read an article once on how the Stewards were designed. Each Steward’s characteristics were created to suit the needs of the department they were going to work in. And apparently, the Bureau needed shit-hot people to run it. It also needed Stewards who came across as powerful, dominant, self-confident… decisive. Chief Inspector Gabriel Bishop was all of those things.