I saw that her wireless link-light stayed dark. Usually, by this point they’d yell for help, to a staffer at Advanced Humaniforms, or maybe some regulatory office, of which there are at least fifty. Seems that Poppins chose to work things out in the here and now, rather than drag in even more contradictory opinions.
“Does that mean we can get going now?” asked Gertie.
“Yes,” said the robot. “Trick or treat.”
“All right!” hollered Lara, and gave the lissome robot a hug. “You know what? You decided right. That makes you a renegade robot! The most scariest thing on the whole street.” She gave Mek a quick hug. “You too.”
With big silly grins, the kids took Poppins by the hands and pulled the metal contraption down the block. I ambled along behind, with a smile of my own.
Mek turned to me. “Renegade robot. A child’s joke?”
For sure, only a joke.
We finished trick-or-treating around eight. I saw Dolores and Lara into the hands of their mother, who looked grateful for the evening to herself. Figured she must be swamped, maybe even depressed, if Poppins was not enough to lift her burdens. That traveling father must make a bundle to afford such a robot, but what a tradeoff.
I walked the grandkids back home and found Iris just arriving. Wished their dad could be there too.
Mek and I zoomed over to my place, grateful for the quiet freeway.
It would be almost midnight in Boston, and Alice usually burned the proverbial hard-work candle at both ends and then some. Her cell phone indicated she was awake and was set to receive calls from people with, I was flattered to notice, a high enough priority.
Thinking of Mek’s ability to grab digital signals, I went upstairs and plugged in an old phone jack.
“Alice? It’s Claude.”
“Hey, Claude,” said Alice in her lovely lilting voice. “It’s really cold here. How’s the research going?”
“I, umm, don’t often think of it that way,” I said. “But actually, that’s why I called.” Quick as I could, I gave her a recap of the hissyball game and trick-or-treating events.
Talking helped sort it out in my own mind. “I’m wondering why Poppins took me so seriously. I mean, Mek knows me pretty well, but for the nanny robot I was nothing but another guy, some ordinary working stiff.”
“A working stiff who knows the relevant terminology and variables,” Alice reminded me. “Wait a sec.” The phone connection changed, became secure. “Actually, you are not ‘just some guy’ to the robots. They’re complex enough to have what is effectively a subconscious mind, and interlinked enough to have a collective unconscious of sorts.”
“Sounds like psychological mumbo-jumbo to me.” I racked my brain. What had I heard from the coolest teacher in my high school? Something about Freud and Jung. “You mean I’m some kind of archetype?”
Alice laughed, always a good sign. “More like a nouveau Campbellian legend. I’ll text that over, and you can look up the details later. Point is, the robots know they are invented beings, and that certain individuals occupy key positions in their creation and development process.”
Alice was just getting warmed up. “They also know they’ve been hacked before, and are under orders to report such things. But they have to make ethical judgments, especially household models like, umm, what do those girls call her?”
“Poppins. From Enhanced Humaniforms.”
“Yeah, I know a couple of their senior programmers.” Secure connection or not, she remained oblique. “Robots understand about convicted criminals, as you saw. Good and bad character is more of a challenge, and questioning official judgment is supposed to be unheard of.”
“Okay, enough said.” I was confident I’d caught her drift. “Some people are tied closely to, uh, certain major events, even if their names must remain unspoken. Legendary people who get extra, what, attention? Respect?”
“That’s the idea.” A tone sounded at her end. “That’ll be Pedro on the CB radio link-up. Better go. He found a local dispatcher and made a late run to Connecticut. Oh yeah, next weekend we’re having dinner at his father’s estate on Martha’s Vineyard. Give my love to Laurie and the family.”
“Will do.”
Stansfield Peter “Pedro” Owen is one unusual trucker, and his wife is one heck of a smart gal. She’d cautioned me in the nick of time.
Better not to put Mek in a bind. He would never have to report—or refuse to report—what he didn’t know in the first place. Therefore I would not ask if he knew who any hackers were or how many agencies had given commands to report such people.
Meanwhile, time to get some sleep. I logged on and double-checked the Argus roster. Good thing, too, as the exercise equipment had been bumped for a hot load, with a much earlier start time. Mek and I had a full load of ice cream to pick up.
The sun wasn’t due to rise for an hour, yet Doug Gonzales, our graveyard-shift dispatcher, was almost giddy. Under the latest, greatest equal-for-all payroll system, he’d get a percentage for special loads dispatched, and this one was costing the customer a pile of money.
“You saw today’s schedule, and there’s quite a story behind it,” Doug told me. “The county fair is hosting a big political event, and the major candidates insist on feeding everybody who shows up.” He checked the manifest. “This load’s got sugar-free and kosher and vegan and halal and Russian and ninety-seven other kinds of ice cream, and because of a wildcat strike, the order wasn’t ready until the last minute, so you are going over there lickety-split.”
“I heard about that event on the news,” I said. “But wait a minute—those campaign speeches aren’t until tomorrow.”
“Security rules.” Modern folks can hide their actual opinions well, and Doug hesitated to question Homeland Security procedures. “The Feds require twenty-four hours to screen all the supplies and equipment and stuff, so you need to drop off the trailer at least that far in advance. We dare not muss Mayor Blow-Dry’s hair, eh?”
Doug got me to calling the mayor that, and I don’t have enough hair up top to muss, so call us immature. Fine by me.
“One more thing,” Doug added. “Because it’s a national-level event, the Everybody Works law applies. You can only stay on site four hours, then a new shift is supposed to come in.”
Picking up the trailer-load of ice cream went okay, except that I got egged by demonstrators. The sun was barely up when Mek and I got there, yet a crowd had gathered outside the gate, or maybe spent the night. Apparently the strike was settled, but the issues behind it remained hot as ever.
Speaking of heat, the weather nerds were predicting the hottest November on record. I was in a hurry to get out of that place, and the dockwallopers were anxious to close their entry gate, so one strange fact went unremarked.
Soon as I was back on the road, I had Doll Box call the dispatch office.
“What’s up, Claude?” asked Doug. “I see you got the load already. The seal number’s on file. I hope nobody threw a brick.”
“Eggs, not bricks, and I’m swinging by the truck wash on Sentinel Road right now. Doll Box checked, and there’s no waiting, so it won’t put me past the delivery window.”
“All right, but don’t expect the suits to reimburse you,” said Doug.
“It’s a company-owned truck!” Bunch of cheapskates at HQ. “I miss old Uncle D. When he owned Argus things worked right. Hell, I don’t even know what those people were demonstrating about.”
“Give me or Beryl the receipt. Maybe we can finagle it out of petty cash or something.”
“Question. Too crazy back there, so I’m asking you now instead. I didn’t see any markings for dry ice on those cartons. Isn’t that standard practice for frozen food shipments?”
Doug checked. Doll Box could’ve done that easily, but I wanted every word on record.
“Ah,” said Doug, “here’s an article. Some blogger, goes by Sir Parsifal. Had a regular column in the newspaper until the Feds got him squeezed out for ‘hate speech.’ Seems
there’s a new UN treaty. Our mayor got the Metro Board to put his own version in force around here. Dry ice is carbon dioxide, you know, so they banned it. Same time they axed our barbeque permits.”
That Metro thing is our sort-of-merged city and county.
“Oh, for...” I stopped. Doug is a dispatcher not a pundit, and there’s no reason to debate politics. “Please be sure to note my comments. If this load is held on site for twenty-four hours, it should be packed with dry ice. Requires very little of the stuff, from what I’ve seen.”
“You’ve got a refrigerated trailer, right? Full charge to run the ThermoKing unit?”
I pulled into the truck wash and lined up with their big, dripping wash bay. Doll Box was correct as usual, no waiting. Several employees looked glad to see me. Jumped out to triple-check the cooler unit. Sure enough, it was running fine and had a 94-percent charge. Those things used to be diesel powered, but that became, I suppose, a boogeyman before dry ice was.
Once in a while doom foreshadows a work day, and somehow you know that one thing after another is going to go wrong. With the anti-robot attitude shown by Mayor Blow-Dry, Mek planned to wait in my truck cab’s sleeper compartment when we got to the fairgrounds. No point in antagonizing a customer.
“Mek, Doll Box,” I said, “stay alert. We’re going to need teamwork to get this job done right, and real initiative in case somebody finds a whole new way to screw things up.”
“I concur,” said Mek from his place in the back.
“Sure thing, boss,” added Doll Box. It’s not smart enough to worry.
Enjoyed some country-western music for half an hour, until we arrived at the truck delivery gate on the south edge of the sprawling fairgrounds. A whole squad of SecuriTeam soldiers guarded the gate and proceeded to search my rig plus verify the sealed load. Not with much zeal, but they made up for laxity with force of numbers. They didn’t find my spy dove, in its hidden compartment, and there was nothing else of interest.
They almost ignored Mek. Those low-level volunteers didn’t care about the mayor’s opinions, and would not, unless and until the man became a U.S. Senator. Before they waved me through, the young lieutenant in charge made a note of Mek’s model and serial numbers.
“In case of emergency, we might require reinforcements,” she told me.
“Yes ma’am,” I replied. “What did she mean?” I asked Mek, as we pulled inside the gate.
“Priority overrides,” Mek said with distaste. “This also means I am expected to remain on site for the duration of these political events.”
“Until tomorrow afternoon? Jeez.” The screw-ups were piling on. Oh well, fatalism has its benefits.
Taking my call for initiative literally, Doll Box flashed some details on the dashboard screen. I’d heard reports, but this threw the issue right in my face. Those soldiers, via military robot liaisons, could take command—even full bodily control—of any industrial robot. It was like a horror movie I’d seen once, so I added that nasty fact to a long list of personal grievances.
We found the unloading site, and a foreman waved me into a spot at the edge of the rally area about halfway back (100 yards or so) from the stage. The whole area was paved, and crews were setting out thousands of folding chairs.
“You wait right there until I check the seals and the security people approve the trailer,” the site foreman told me. Then he jogged off to meet another delivery truck.
Apparently they were not going to unseal the trailer until the following day. A common anti-pilfering procedure, normally applied in between stops, and now during a long wait on site. I chuckled at the idea of some hustler fencing stolen ice cream in a shadowy back alley.
Three white vans bearing city logos parked near my rig, and electricians began setting up a series of loudspeakers. This would be one audience with no trouble hearing the mayor speak. Given the man’s reputation, I wondered if those city-managed crews might drop the sound quality on his rivals.
Two more delivery trucks showed up, and the foreman waved them in. One carrying popcorn machines squeezed in on the right side of my rig, and another with more folding chairs parked behind me. The foreman went somewhere else, and the city crew proceeded to set up an AV tower smack in front of my rig.
“Yo! Mister!” I called out to the crew leader. “Can’t you work on that later? I’ve got to drop this trailer and pull out, soon as I have the okay.” I got out and paced off the area, showing him there wasn’t half enough room to move the cab.
“You have the okay.” The beefy crew leader’s scowl came easy. “Ten seconds after this AV setup of ours is gone, you get to move. Capisce?”
“Aw, c’mon. My boss told me the Everybody Works rule applies here, so I’m supposed to scram.” I held up both hands in supplication.
“Sorry, pal, municipal work is exempt.” The man scowled worse as he looked at my truck. “Get those bastards at Argus to organize, and you guys won’t be stuck with sissy directives like that.”
The crew attached a video screen, maybe two yards wide, for people to watch the speeches closer up. Atop the tower was a remote-control camera to get crowd shots, and big cables snaked away from the base. At least it was all pointed away from my rig.
A security patrolman walked over and got into a friendly huddle with the crew leader. Then the rent-a-cop looked at me, pointed at the new AV tower, and tapped the ticket-issuing device on his service belt.
End of discussion.
More vehicles crowded into the area, boxing in the guy who’d brought additional chairs. This was nuts, incompetence or malice, if not both. I could always walk out and call somebody for a ride. If those city workers spotted an industrial robot there might be violence, so maybe there was an advantage to leaving the cab in place. Mek costs more than the entire truck, and a robot is a lot easier to smash.
Before doing anything else, I had Doll Box send video clips of each conversation and incident to Argus, from the load pickup to the fairground gate and onward, so nobody could blame me for the situation. At least the ice cream was my entire morning’s load, so I didn’t have anyone else’s shipment stuck along with my rig.
Beryl got back to me an hour later. “Claude, the other drivers are covering your afternoon loads. If you were stuck at a marshalling yard the company would pay for the hours. But since Mek is there and not driving, and you’re under that public worksite rule, HQ says you’re going off duty at noon.”
“All right, things could be worse,” I said. “Paid until noon, huh?” That meant being on call for a couple more hours, even if the truck wasn’t going anywhere. “Okay, I’ll stick by the rig until noon, then mosey around and take in the sights before I catch a bus back to the yard.”
I don’t get bored easily, and most truckers are quite at home inside their rig. I could watch a movie or do tons more activities from the shotgun seat or in the sleeper compartment.
Turns out a few local candidates were about to speak, along with some high school students. Watching the audience gather on the left side of my rig was entertaining in itself. Already things looked busy, and the major candidates wouldn’t appear until the following day.
The whole fairground was bustling, with carnival rides and craft exhibits and interesting snacks and so much more. Waiting around the truck became frustrating, and noon was still an hour away.
There was enough popcorn and other spilled food to attract a hungry flock of birds. I decided to get out my spy dove. It looks like a real bird and can handle simple tasks.
What to try? About seventy yards away, on the far side of the rally area, sat the mayor’s campaign bus, and wow did it look spiffy. Earlier he’d been out shaking hands. Right then he was inside the bus, I was pretty sure. At least Blow-Dry was consistent, having made so much of that new U.N. treaty, and wasn’t using the bus’s air-conditioning. A few of its dark-tinted windows, the kind that slide down vertically, were open a crack.
This gave me a wicked idea. Doll Box helped with the programmi
ng, then I let the bird go, from the side of my cab away from the crowd. Between my truck and the next, the space was too narrow for people to hang around, and the other drivers would chase away anyone who tried.
I dared not maintain a wireless link, with so many cops and Federal enforcers around, so it was fingers-crossed time. The bird flew high, away from the nearby tower. Then it circled way around, and landed on a wire near the mayor’s bus. As soon as it landed, I couldn’t tell it from the regular birds. Then, as instructed, it flew down and found a perch at the side of the bus, hanging on with strong four-toed feet.
The spy dove looked inside for several minutes, recording everything, then flew a zigzag course back to my truck.
I returned the bird to its secret compartment, then Doll Box retrieved its recording. Mek and I watched, and darned if he wasn’t eager too.
Inside his luxurious bus, the mayor was talking to another man, who Doll Box identified as a top aide. They were, no surprise, cynical and conniving, but I heard no smoking-gun type statements. Then a woman came into view. A real stunner, if you like Playboy Bunny types. She served drinks, bending forward in a low-cut blouse, then retreated from sight.
Try as we might, we could find no ID on this woman. She was not a family member or known associate.
“Claude, your spy bird records other EM signals,” said Mek.
“Huh?” I blurted. “Oh yeah, like radio waves.” Not for nothing had I tinkered for years, until I almost forget what every module and upgrade was for. Too bad I forget a lot of things at my age.
We checked those recordings and picked up encrypted digital signals. The spy bird had shuffled back and forth a little to get a wider view, so Doll Box triangulated. The signals were coming from the woman, and they didn’t match any known cell phone or mobile device. I about fell over—she was a fembot!
A data search revealed she was a Honey Be entertainment model, custom-fitted on a standard framework, and using that Japanese company’s assigned frequency. Much like hissyball game sets, each different fembot would have its own digital setup.
I was curious, maybe in a half-dirty way, but darn it, this was politics! “Mek, think you can decrypt that fembot’s signals? See what she’s been up to lately?”
Analog Science Fiction and Fact 03/01/11 Page 3
