Амброз Бирс - We, Robots

"So they don’t want any more Pimmys. This one test model is all they’ll allow, because he can be turned into any kind of robot they want, but they won’t take the whole Pimmy, with all his potentialities. They just want part of him."

The bitter laugh was louder. "We’ve got their perfect soldier, but they don’t want him. They want something less—but that something less will never be the perfect soldier. So we work and work, weeks on end, testing, revising, redesigning. Why? We’re marking time. We’ve got what they want, but they don’t want it—but if we don’t give it to them soon, they’ll wipe out the project. And if we give them what they want, it won’t really be what they want. Can’t you see that? What’s the matter with you, Heywood? Can’t you see the blind alley we’re in—only it’s not a blind alley, because it has eyes, eyes under every bench, watching each other and watching us, always watching, never stopping, going on and never stopping, watching, eyes?"

Heywood had already picked up the telephone. As Russell collapsed completely, he began to speak into it, calling the Project hospital. Even as he talked, his eyes were coldly brooding, and his mouth was set in an expression I’d never seen before. His other hand was on Russell’s twitching shoulder, moving gently as the other man sobbed.

August 25, 1974

Ligget is Heywood’s new assistant. It’s been a week since Russell’s been gone.

Russell wasn’t replaced for three days, and Heywood worked alone with me. He’s engineer of the whole project, and I’m almost certain there must have been other things he could have worked on while he was waiting for a new assistant, but he spent all of his time in this lab with me.

His face didn’t show what he thought about Russell. He’s not like Ligget, though. Heywood’s thoughts are private. Ligget’s are hidden. But, every once in a while, while Heywood was working, he’d start to turn around and reach out, or just say "Jack—" as if he wanted something, and then he’d catch himself, and his eyes would grow more thoughtful.

I only understood part of what Russell had said that night he was taken away, so I asked Heywood about it yesterday.

"What’s the trouble, Pim?" he asked.

"Don’t know, for sure. Too much I don’t understand about this whole thing. If I knew what some of the words meant, I might not even have a problem."

"Shoot."

"Well, it’s mostly what Russell was saying, that last night."

Heywood peeled a strip of skin from his upper lip by catching it between his teeth. "Yeah."

"What’s a war, or what’s war? Soldiers have something to do with it, but what’s a soldier? I’m a robot—but why do they want to make more of me? Can I be a soldier and a robot at the same time? Russell kept talking about ‘they,’ and the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy. What’re they? And are the CIC men the ones who are watching you and each other at the same time?"

Heywood scowled, and grinned ruefully at the same time. "That’s quite a catalogue," he said. "And there’s even more than that, isn’t there, Pimmy?" He put his hand on my side and sort of patted me, the way I’d seen him do with a generator a few times. "O. K., I’ll give you a tape on war and soldiering. That’s the next step in the program anyway, and it’ll take care of most of those questions."

"Thanks," I said. "But what about the rest of it?"

He leaned against a bench and looked down at the floor. "Well, ‘they’ are the people who instituted this program—the Secretary of Defense, and the people under him. They all agreed that robot personnel were just what the armed services needed, and they were right. The only trouble is, they couldn’t agree among themselves as to what characteristics were desirable in the perfect soldier—or sailor, or airman. They decided that the best thing to do was to come up with a series of different models, and to run tests until they came up with the best one.

"Building you was my own idea. Instead of trying to build prototypes to fit each separate group of specifications, we built one all-purpose model who was, effectively speaking, identical with a human being in almost all respects, with one major difference. By means of cutoffs in every circuit, we can restrict as much of your abilities as we want to, thus being able to modify your general characteristics to fit any one of the various specification groups. We saved a lot of time by doing that, and avoided a terrific nest of difficulties.

"Trouble is, we’re using up all the trouble and time we saved. Now that they’ve got you, they don’t want you. Nobody’s willing to admit that the only efficient robot soldier is one with all the discretionary powers and individuality of a human being. They can’t admit it, because people are afraid of anything that looks like it might be better than they are. And they won’t trust what they’re afraid of. So, Russell and I had to piddle around with a stupid series of tests in a hopeless attempt to come up with something practical that was nevertheless within the limitations of the various sets of specifications—which is ridiculous, because there’s nothing wrong with you, but there’s plenty wrong with the specs. They were designed by people who don’t know the first thing about robots or robot thought processes—or the sheer mechanics of thinking, for that matter."

He shrugged. "But, they’re the people with the authority and the money that’s paying for this project—so Jack and I kept puttering, because those were the orders. Knowing that we had the perfect answer all the time, and that nobody would accept it, was what finally got Jack."

"What about you?" I asked.

He shrugged again. "I’m just waiting,"he said. "Eventually they’ll either accept you or not. They’ll either commend me or fire me, and they might or might not decide it’s all my fault if they’re not happy. But there’s nothing I can do about it, is there? So, I’m waiting.

"Meanwhile, there’s the CIC. Actually, that’s just a handy label. It happens to be the initials of one of the undercover agencies out of the whole group that infests this place. Every armed service has its own, and I imagine the government has its boys kicking around, too. We just picked one label to cover them all—it’s simpler."

"Russell said they were always watching. But why are they watching each other, too? Why should one armed service be afraid that another’s going to get an advantage over it?"

Heywood’s mouth moved into a half-amused grin. "That’s what is known as human psychology, Pimmy. It’ll help you to understand it, but if you can’t, why, just be glad you haven’t got it."

"Ligget’s CIC, you know," I said. "Russell accused him of it. He denied it, but if he isn’t actually in the CIC, then he’s in something like it."

Heywood nodded sourly. "I know. I wouldn’t mind if he had brains enough, in addition, to know one end of a circuit from the other."

He slapped my side again. "Pimmy, boy," he said. "We’re going to have a lot of fun around here in the next few weeks. Yes, sir, a lot of fun."

August 26, 1974

Ligget was fooling around with me again. He’s all right when Heywood’s in the lab with me, but when he’s alone, he keeps running me through unauthorized tests. What he’s doing, actually, is to repeat all the tests Heywood and Russell ran, just to make sure. As long as he doesn’t cut out my individuality, I can remember it all, and I guess there was nothing different about the results on any of the tests, because I can tell from his face that he’s not finding what he wants.

Well, I hope he tells his bosses that Heywood and Russell were right. Maybe they’ll stop this fooling.