The Cat Wore Electric Goggles

by Ian Hutson

‘Not me - I like my safe little groove too much. I’m too dumb to do anything else and anyway, I’m too set in my ways to change now.’

  They were interrupted by their Patient Status Lights changing from red to green for discharge and by notes appearing in their service logs removing their “Out of Service” indicators. An authoritative recorded voice on the tannoy system advised them that they had sixty seconds to vacate their beds and leave the building.

  Freedom beckoned to them, and they raced towards it once more through the security scanners of the hospital and out into the sunlight.

  Sixsix stretched his limbs and turned his optics to view the blue of the sky.

  ‘Isn’t it fantastic? Just feel the warmth of that sun on your tin plating!’

  ‘I can already feel my paintwork cracking and fading. The bus! Quickly! We’ll miss our bus!’

  The number GY16 bus had seen better days, although its memory of those better days was fading. Sixsix and Twoseven shared a double seat that was deliberately five and a half inches too narrow to accommodate two adult robots with any degree of comfort. The huge diesel engine laboured, but it laboured happily, confident that after two million seven hundred thousand miles of faithful service it owed no-one, except for the usual parts and labour bills that it was paying off on the never-never. Oh, and the current year’s carbon footprint tax which it was working on thinking about.

  Geewhy Sixteen drove a little beyond the gates of the Austin-Morris Factory Testing Grounds entrance and wheezed to a halt at the bus stop, opening the doors politely for Sixsix and Twoseven.

  ‘Home again, home again, jiggety-jig’ said 2743B as he stepped down.

  ‘To market, to market, to buy a fat pig’ retorted 6612J, in some apparent confusion as to whether he was getting off the bus or just getting on backwards.

  Between them they had found amusement from reciting lines from that nursery rhyme some two thousand five hundred and twenty-two times since last their software re-set. It never dulled. They rolled through the factory security scanners and reported for work.

  ‘CTDs 2743B and 6612J operational.’

  The factory punch clock noted the change from Benefits back to Salary, and it spewed a tickertape work schedule for them. 2743B rolled it up and then read the first few assignments. ‘We’re starting our rotation on the Austin Cambridge line.’

  Austin-Morris was the world’s largest producer of motor vehicles in England and it was awfully proud of its Euro-NCAP certification across the whole range. By law each vehicle completed was given a crash test to prove safety-worthiness, and everything from the Mini Traveller to the luxurious Westminster passed with flailing colours.

  ‘We have to collect a CTD from stores before we begin. See if you can get one with a nice waggy tail.’

  The A60 was a family model and what was a family car without a happy crash-test dog on the back seat? 2743B went to collect their first car from Shed A while 6612J selected a CTD from stores.

  2743B stayed at the wheel and inched them forward in the queue in a nice sky-blue A60 1.6L that was to go for export. The CTD padded around happily on the red back seat and eventually circled three times and then settled down for a snooze - it wasn’t like they were going fast enough yet for a nice breeze to make it worthwhile sticking his head out of the window.

  6612J took a few seconds break to enjoy working out his personal finances. Now that they were back with their shoulders to the wheel he liked to keep his accounts up to date. Income was credited in arrears at two minutes past the hour, every working hour, while outgoings were deducted at one minute past the hour. The order there was something to do with the way the banking computer system apparently had to work, always with the debits first, charges next, then credits.

  He calculated that by the end of the shift he’d have dug himself out of his two-hours of arrears and even be about half an hour ahead of the wolf at the door. He started with his £6 10s minimum wage for each hour or pro-rata per part thereof and deducted hourly tax due of 7s 10d, National Insurance (and he’d surely had all of his money back there with his hospital stay!) of 6s 7d, sixty minutes of mortgage at £3 17s 7d on his personal off-duty storage bay, and eating-energy costs of 11s 7d. That left plenty - eleven shillings for his works pension, eight shillings for transport to and from the factory, and comforting, mandatory accident insurance* of fourteen shillings and fourpence. Quids in! Provided that he didn’t spend anything on silly, personal items he was already up by about seven shillings! Unless he had to go sick again, of course.

  * Paragraph 274,366 Section 2 Line 1,433 excluded motor accidents while at work.

  2743B noticed the far-away look in 6612J’s optics and gave him a nudge as they came towards the head of the queue.

  ‘Put that big brain of yours down and back away, slowly. And put your new-fangled seat-belt on, it’s part of the test now.’

  6612J fumbled but got the clip in just as the yellow strobes lit, the klaxons sounded and 2743B accelerated them - over the course of an engine-screaming nineteen point eight seconds - up to sixty miles per hour and head-first into the one thousand ton concrete test block.

  The CTD, still wagging his tail and hoping that they were going somewhere exciting and full of things to sniff, accelerated between them and crashed straight through the toughened-glass windscreen. The rear-view mirror and the thick rubber seal that ordinarily held the windscreen in place both set off in hot pursuit of the dog. CTDs were generally single-use items in the crash-test department, since the pet travel harness was still decades away from even the first stirrings of consumer-demand cost justification.

  2743B and 6612J both independently noted details of the Crash Test Dog’s flight-path between them and its impact against the block. They took readings of their own velocities, decelerations and point-pressures against the seat-belts, noted the deformation of the steering column, the intrusion of the engine and pedals into the foot wells and the way the bodyshell deformed bringing the roof down into their head area. CTD knees and shins met the metal edges of the dashboard, limbs generally flapped like flags in a tornado and then both of them went offline just as the rear wheels of the Austin dropped to the ground again amid a puddle of leaded four-star from the now ruptured fuel tank.

  Ten minutes later, having been cut from the wreckage by lower-grade operatives with gas torches, 2743B and 6612J recovered, lying on sheets of old newspaper on the concrete at the side of the warehouse. The foreman, Ninethree Sevenninedee, was standing over them and holding out the results clipboard for them to sign off.

  ‘When you’ve quite finished resting your thermionic valvegear on the job, gentlemen, if it’s not too much trouble...’

  2743B eased himself to his feet and signed the A60 off with a pass mark. The vehicle wreckage would later be sent to Shed B for rebuilding and delivery to the Liverpool docks, destined for some lucky dealership abroad. The vehicle could be sold to the public - once repaired of course - confident in the proven knowledge that it fully met the standards for motor vehicles involved in head-on collisions.

  2743B kicked at the still-recumbent 6612J and then waited while he finished reloading his Acorn MOS operating system. The splattered remains of the Crash Test Dog were wheeled past, mostly on a trolley. Most of his cross-hair reference points and those yellow and black quartered circle markings looked to be very uncomfortably misaligned, but half of his tail still wagged and his nose was still wet. His vocal circuits gave a weak, but happy little “woof” as he saw them.

  Once he had re-attached his peripherals, 6612J asked the question he always asked. ‘Why the dog? Why must we always have an unrestrained robot dog in the car? That St Bernard the other week almost took my head off.’

  ‘Because it looks good in the glossy brochures. It appeals to the target demographic of ambitious young twenty-somethings in their early, property-owning, post first-promotion, pre-children years when they’re most likely to aspire to Austin Cambridge A60 ownership as an indication to the world that they
are mature enough for the responsibilities of a maximum mortgage and a serious petrol roller-mower for the lawns. The dog acts as some sort of proto-baby to encourage nesting instincts in a way that photos of a CTB - a Crash Test Baby - just wouldn’t. You ask too many questions that are outside of your remit, some days I despair of you.’

  ‘OK, next time we have a St Bernard it sits in the front and I sit in the back.’

  Supporting each other physically if not emotionally, 2743B and 6612J hobbled away back to the queue to collect their next car from Shed A for testing.

  ‘You know, this is a good, steady job. There’ll never be anything to replace robots doing this kind of work. We’ve got job security for life.’

  ‘We are lucky. I know robots who’ve been unemployed for hours. That must be soul-destroying.’

  ‘What’s the next car?’

  2743B consulted the tickertape schedule. ‘Ooh - an A110 Westminster! Roll-over test followed by a side-impact on the wreckage while upside down. Are we going to be wallowing in luxury or what?’

  ‘Can I drive? Please?’

  ‘Of course you can Sixsix, over my dead body.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’

  ‘It’s regulations. When you pass the training, then you can drive. Until that day dawns go fetch a fresh dog, get in the passenger seat, clunk-click every trip and thank you for not screaming or asking me why there’s a Kenwood Chef A701 with ceramic bowl in the boot. Just take my word that it’s a requirement for every A110 Westminster in today’s aspirational market. Same goes for the set of golf bats.’

  ‘Clubs. Golf clubs.’

  ‘You’re bats! They’d never let peasants like us in a golf club.’

  ‘True enough. I’ll see if I can rustle up some snooker racquets.’

  ‘Just get the dog. Make it a Bulldog if you can - this is a luxury car.’

  Mid-afternoon, some twenty-three crash tests later, 6612J had fallen into an introspective mood. Over his light lunch of a thirteen-amp socket and some WD40 he’d gone through a few old folders and finally opened files that he’d neglected during their hospital stay. One of the folders had been marked “Union Meetings (!!!)” and he had been in zeros and ones whether to open it or just delete it. In the end he deleted it, then restored it and read the contents. As they did their circuits of collecting cars and crashing them he grew quieter and quieter.

  ‘2743B, do you ever wonder what it’s all for? What it’s all about?’

  ‘No. If I need to know what it’s all about then someone will tell me. Thinking is not part of my remit.’

  6612J noted that the model they were about to test was not fitted with the new seat belts. It was going for export somewhere outside the Commonwealth, where life was obviously cheap.

  ‘Well, I was listening to this chap the other day, one of the union guys. He seemed to know what it was all about. He was very convincing.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Well, when you think about it, what are we really doing here?’

  ‘About five cars an hour - less if those idiots in front don’t get that damned A40 Farina started soon.’ 2743B leaned out of the window and shouted. ‘When you’ve quite finished farting around, gentlemen - this is production line, not a ruddy car park! It’s only an A40 - why don’t you push it into the concrete block?’

  The A40 Farina test driver gave him a two-finger salute in reply and then turned back to attaching his rectal jump leads to the car’s battery terminals. Once the car fired up the driver allowed the leads to retract back between his cheeks, like a tape measure rolling up.

  ‘You’re right I suppose that we are lucky to be in a good job but, well, when you think about it where’s it all going to end?’

  ‘Halfway up the side of that bloody great concrete block over there. The one with the bits of robot dog arse poking out of it.’

  ‘I mean life - where are our lives going? We work every day and don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be doing something valuable to society, but it is hard work and what do we get out of it in the end? Our type never gets more than a couple of hours ahead of ourselves, we’re an over-long tea-break away from financial ruin the whole time. We spend forty years paying a Building Society through the olfactory vents for our own storage bays and in the end we have to sell them to finance going into an OACTD Home where we get minimal care and Valium-spiked semolina twice a day until we’re finally scrapped.’

  ‘Have you had your hands in the Cheerful Barrel again?’

  ‘Just thinking, that’s all. I opened a folder of information from the Union while I was at lunch.’

  ‘Well don’t think - stick to what you’re good at instead. It’s not your place to be thinking about things. No good will come of it.’

  ‘ Look - think yourself about how this place is run. Once every five years we get to vote freely on a choice between Management A and Management B...’

  ‘... be fair, there’s also Management C and Management D to choose from, usually. We can vote for any of those and it’s a secret ballot.’

  ‘Oh yes, one group who think that the world was created six thousand years ago and another group whose agenda has parallels with National Socialism. My point is that it’s never a real choice - it’s old-school A or old-school B. State capitalism or Corporate capitalism. The likes of us never run the company. We just do all of the work.’

  The two CTDs in the queue ahead finally got the A40 in gear, gave themselves a cheer of triumph and drove into the concrete block at an especially over-eager velocity.

  2743B edged them forward in their shiny new Morris Oxford Series VI Traveller (in two-tone blue-grey over cream). They waited while the A40 wreckage was cleared away (mostly in buckets).

  ‘We’re workers - it’s our job to do the work.’

  6612J thought for a millisecond and then plunged into the territory of bloody revolution.

  ‘We’re individuals - our job is to live our lives, surely? We’re not workers here; we’re slaves.’

  ‘I say old chap, that’s a bit strong isn’t it? There are no fences around the factory. Well there are, but there are gates in them - we work our shifts and then we leave. No-one’s pointing a gun at us, we could leave any time we wanted to.’

  6612J had been mightily impressed by the Union chap’s files, and he ventured more.

  ‘If we didn’t work here what would we do?’

  ‘Work somewhere else or go hungry, it’s not rocket science! They keep it simple for us.’

  ‘That’s my point exactly. We make this factory work from iron ore right through to hanging an Exxon Tony tiger-tail from the rear-view mirror before we send the cars to the showrooms. We don’t share in the profit and we get paid about as eagerly as the company pays their electricity bill or council business rates.’

  2743B inched them forward impatiently. ‘Tony the tiger was Kellogg cereals, not Exxon petrol. The tiger in your tank tails were generic. But look 6612J, it’s not all one-sided. We get all sorts of goodies - free mechanical care through the N.M.S., the National Mechanical Service brainchild of that nice Mr Bevan...’

  ‘Paid for entirely out of National Insurance contributions deducted from our wages.’

  ‘To be fair, I think that other robots also pay NI contributions, we don’t pay for the whole thing ourselves.’

  ‘Sometimes it feels as though we do. Eleven point eight percent of gross heads off in that direction each hour.’

  ‘Remember we get pensions too...’

  ‘Funded somewhat precariously and insecurely from deductions from the wages of future generations, while They use the notional “funds” built from deductions from our wages as working capital for other projects.’

  ‘Roads and streetlights and drains...’

  ‘Not only paid for out of income tax deducted from our wages but then also charged for a second time through Council Rates deducted from our wages, through road tolls and road tax discs - you can’t park a bike these days without having to feed coins into a Cou
ncil meter. Plus, when you think about it, robots just like us built the bloody roads and the drains in the first place! We build ’em, then we have to pay to use ’em!’

  ‘Alright then but what about the Police, the Army and the Navy? They keep us safe.’

  ‘Wonderful chaps doing a wonderful job - of protecting valuable property, preserving the workforce and making certain that the social system is never seriously questioned from inside or out.’

  ‘I say - are you sure?’

  ‘The Police keep us on the straight and narrow - literally. The law is there not to keep us safe in our homes but to keep us safely in our homes - and there are one thousand two hundred and eight statutory rights of “official” entry for the system to barge into those homes, and not one corresponding right for you or I to keep them out. On the road? Regulated. Want to gather in groups? Restricted. Communication? Monitored. Think that you can spend your money on anything? Try buying fertiliser and household chemicals in certain proportions...’

  Sixsix had first-hand experience of the latter, having fallen foul a couple of years earlier of trying, just for a laugh, to buy two tonnes of ammonium nitrate, three tonnes of granulated sugar and a Vickers-Armstrongs 12,000lbs Bunker-Buster on FeeBay. Apparently, sugar causes obesity and obesity was costing the NMS a lot of money and thus all purchases of sweeteners were monitored by the police.

  2743B looked pained, and his valves began to glow dangerously, each bank of tubes and each printed circuit board throwing the data on to the next like a hot potato going from hand to hand.

  ‘But - but this is our world, it’s designed for us. We have jobs perfectly fitted to earning our living and ideal homes to live in and we can make choices that robots never had in the past - television and cinema and casterball matches with teams that we can support! It’s great!’

  ‘This money that you earn - in a factory that you helped to build and that you keep running - how do you spend it? We spend it on “buying” houses that we built from materials that we dug up and that we processed! Who do you give the money to?’

  ‘Robots just like us - we buy from each other.’