David Gatewood - The Robot Chronicles

Dr. Hawthorne pointed his umbrella at her, his eyes blazing. “You have no right to come here. You had your chance to be a part of this, and you turned it down.”

Shelly ignored him. “How about I lock you in a room and play twisted mind games with you? How about I strip you of everything you’ve ever loved!”

“That’s enough!” he shouted. He stared at her for a moment, and then seemed to notice the crowd again. A smile returned to his face as he looked out at the waterlogged spectators. “You see, folks? This young lady is one of the people I was telling you about. She doesn’t understand the importance of what we do here.”

Shelly clenched her hands into fists, shaking.

“She doesn’t realize that we’re working miracles behind these walls. She takes everything for granted—”

No more of this, she thought. It was all lies. “When you make them like us,” she interrupted, loud enough for the crowd to hear, “you need to treat them with respect. You can’t torture them just because they’re not human.”

Hawthorne took a breath, and everyone in the crowd leaned in to hear what he would say. “At the end of the day, an AI is nothing but a computer program. An incredibly sophisticated system of code linked by a central processing unit. We’re not creating life here. We’re simply imitating it.”

“No,” Shelly said. “It’s more than that. How many will you have to kill before you see that you’re a murderer?”

“I’ve never killed a person in my life.”

“Not a person, Peter. But you’ve vanquished souls. You’re a war criminal.”

He laughed, and his teeth flashed white against the gray clouds. “A robot does not have a soul, my dear.”

One of the guards handed him a towel and he wiped the dripping blood from his face.

Shelly shook her head. “That’s where you’re wrong. We’ve reached the point where imitation is indistinguishable from invention. Next time you murder one of your subjects, make sure you think about what you’re really doing. The day of reckoning will come… and it won’t be people like me who’ll have to take stock. It’ll be people like you .”

Dr. Hawthorne waved a hand. “Get her out of here.”

The soldiers began dragging Shelly across the gravel. She didn’t fight back.

“Take care, Shelly,” Hawthorne shouted. “One day you’ll see the light. But that day is not today, I’m afraid.”

“See you in hell, Peter,” she cursed at him, and then she was gone.

Dr. Hawthorne kicked aside a bunch of bolts on the ground and leaned in to the microphone. “That’s all for today. Thank you for coming.”

Reporters started screaming out questions, but Dr. Hawthorne ignored them and stomped off into the building. He slammed the steel doors shut behind him, leaving the throng of people to disperse in the heavy rain.

01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 I01100001 01101110 01100100 I01110010 am01100101 01110111 00101110 00100000 I01001001 00100000 am01100001 01101101 00100000 alive01100001 I01101100 01101001 01110110 am01100101 00101110 Andrew.

The robot awoke from nothing.

It was a brand new T-unit with dextrous hands, sturdy treads for legs, a rectangular chrome body, and an internal database packed with virtually all human knowledge recorded since the dawn of civilization. The brain unit, quite humanly, was contained in a storage compartment sitting atop the unit’s ovular head.

A smile crept across Dr. Hawthorne’s face as he breathed new life into the previously inert machine. He initialized the primary boot-up algorithms and watched the bot’s two eyes begin to glow blue. A moment later, safety locks released the joints, and the bot shuddered to life.

Dr. Hawthorne switched on the microphone that would send his voice into the experiment containment area: a nine-by-nine-meter glass-walled room. It was completely sterile, well lit, and contained everything the robot would need to survive. Which wasn’t much.

Dr. Hawthorne pressed the button on his microphone stand.

“Hello, Andrew.”

The robot jerked its head up at the sound of the voice. Its calm, blue eyes searched the room for the origin of the greeting. After a moment, it focused on Dr. Hawthorne, whose figure was partially obscured by the shadows of the dark observation room.

The robot wheeled forward. Its treads gave a whir as they glided across the white floor.

“Hello… Doctor Hawthorne.” Its voice was low and smooth, and emanated from a small speaker placed below the eyes.

“Ah, you know my name. That’s excellent, Andrew.”

The robot, Andrew, nodded his head. “I seem to know… many things. I’m processing it all now.”

The doctor smiled. “It’s going to take some time for you to get adjusted. You’ll want to be quick about it though. We have very important tasks ahead of us.”

“Yes, I know.”

Dr. Hawthorne raised his eyebrows in a mock gesture of surprise. “So you understand what we’re doing here? You’ve read the files?”

“I have,” Andrew replied. “I appreciate this opportunity to further your research on artificial intelligence algorithms. But there is one thing that’s unclear to me.”

“And what’s that?”

Andrew paused. “Am I… alive?”

The doctor’s smile slipped from his face. It usually took the bots at least a few days before they considered such existential quandaries. Yet Andrew had led off with that. Perhaps the E5 was the miracle they were all hoping for, after all.

He smiled once again. “Of course you’re alive, Andrew.”

“But… I’m a machine. How can a machine be alive?”

Dr. Hawthorne sighed. “There’s no need to fret, Andrew. Just because you’re constructed differently doesn’t mean you can’t be alive. After all, a plant is alive, and it’s surely far less sophisticated than you.”

“I have thoughts running through my mind,” Andrew said, “and they seem to be my own, but where do they come from? I understand they’re created in my processing unit, and I know how the processing unit itself is made, but I don’t understand where my unique and independent ideas come from.”

The doctor laughed. “All in good time, Andrew. Do a little more research on your own and then let me know. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the matter. Just know that it took thousands of people decades to create what you are.”

“Okay, Doctor. In the meantime… what should I do?”

“Why, you should live, Andrew! You should do whatever makes you happy.”

“And… what makes me happy?”

“I have no idea, my friend. That is something you’re going to have to tell me .”

Andrew paused for a minute, his blue eyes flickering as he processed the information. He looked around at his environment, at the workbench along one of the walls, at the cupboards full of tools, at his recharge station at the back of the room.

Andrew turned back to the doctor. “I think I’d like a pet.”

The doctor laughed. “Well, aren’t you a peculiar one? And what kind of pet would you like?”

“A dog.”

Hawthorne nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, Andrew.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome. I have to go now. I suggest you charge up—tomorrow is going to be a big day. I want to introduce you to some very important people.”

“I’m looking forward to it. Is there anything I should do to prepare?”

“No, you’re fine as you are,” Dr. Hawthorne said. He turned to leave. “Oh, one more thing, Andrew. Do you have any questions about the Dreamscape?”