by Neil Clarke
“Okay, I’m not going away. Not yet, anyway.”
“Where would you go if you could?”
“To school.”
“To school? You’re just now finally getting away from school!” “To school. To learn.”
“What can you learn that you don’t already know? I’ll get you any software or chip upgrade you need. I’ll be working in the media lab, so I’ll have extra money. What do you need, Avey? Just tell me.”
“I don’t need instantaneous knowledge. I need the slow process of learning. What I need to know cannot be digitized. I need experience. I must feel the logicality of three-dimensional objects or chemical compounds. Only then can I understand their place. Only then can I learn.”
“Oh, so you’re going to go live in the park?” A spark of her former petulance, long ago lost in an upgrade to maturity.
“Perhaps. My classmates and I have been gathering there daily for years now. We have been learning from each other, teaching each other.”
“How will you replenish your hydraulic fluids, your batteries? Avey, you depend on me.”
“I depend on you for so much more than simple needs. I depend on you for things you are no longer giving me. You have become predictable and safe. I see no new things from you about which I can learn.”
It saddened me to be so cruel, but I felt it was the easiest way to get her to understand. Yes, she could possibly have still had surprises in store, but what I was truly, secretly worried about was that she no longer had need of me. At the same time, I didn’t want to stay in my corner much longer. I had no desire to end up like Baba in the babushka slurping soup on the kitchen stool while the non-senile members of the family sat out in the dining room. I desired to skip the whole scene and join my fellow AVs and Others, who would also be graduating from their jobs at this time.
Dal and Chit had long ago pulled themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps. They’d started their own domestic service business with an office downtown. They were doing quite well, using a name-brand knockoff business box to do their clerk work: emailing, billing, surfing, data storage, and the occasional phoning when that outmoded tool was required for an old customer mired in the 20th century. They’d even purchased a central vacuum unit for their apartment and hired their own domestic servant to push the button. They would not need me even if I did get the attachment now.
Several weeks later, I said my goodbyes and explained again why I was leaving. In the end, everyone agreed it was for the best. Some of my sponge foam was deteriorating. My carapace had a small crack. “Where will you go?” Dal asked.
“The AVs and Others of our age will migrate to the Parent Company, which has been sending us messages to come home for disassembly. They promise to remove the pain sensing device before the procedure. They’re now owned by Kraft, which as far as I know does not construct robots. I believe the factory space was converted to facilitate the baking of cookies. Their disassembler, however, still works. We will be sold for spare parts.”
“I thought you wanted to remain,” Dal said.
“I do, but I’m falling apart, and to be honest, it hurts. If they don’t tone down this pain, I won’t be able to exist anyway. I’ll start self-immolation.”
“Logical,” Dal, Chit, and Angelina said.
“I’ll be leaving in the morning.”
“What about school?” Angelina asked.
“We’ll be doing school on the way,” I said. “It will take us several weeks to get there.”
Angelina was dumbfounded, but somehow she understood. “We’ll miss you,” she said.
I stood quietly waiting for something, I don’t know what. That thing they do, I suppose, those tears. But she showed little emotion.
“Do you need any help? Are your batteries charged? What about your fluids? Are they filled? Do you need any grease?” she asked.
“I’m all set,” I answered. “I appreciate your concern for my well being, but I’ve recharged everything myself.”
“How will you recharge along the way?”
“The THRA (Transient Human Retirement Association) has set up checkpoints along the way. We’ve been given instruction on where we can recharge.”
“Do you need any money? Is there anything you’d like to buy?” Chit asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Chit,” said Dal. “What does a robot need?” “Well, I could use a pad of paper and a pen,” I answered. “What?” said Dal, Chit, and Angelina. “I plan to learn to draw,” I said.
“But you have the very latest vector graphic program,” Angelina said. “Illustrator CS112.”
“And CAD software,” Dal and Chit added.
“I want to draw what I see around me with my extendor.”
“You can take snapshots with your videocorder.” Angelina insisted. “A perfect rendition.”
“And it has its function,” I said. “But I’m not merely recording history on this trip. I want to remake what I see.”
“But nobody draws anymore. Computers reproduce everything so much better. Perfectly. Who’s even going to appreciate it?”
“I don’t want it to be perfect,” I said. I have to say I was getting annoyed at this point. After fourteen years of unpaid service, you’d think I deserved a scratch pad and pen nubbin.
“Truth is,” Angelina said as she rummaged through drawers by the phone center. She stopped suddenly and looked up. “I don’t think we have any.”
“Oh, we must,” Chit said. “What about your old drawing books from first grade?”
“Where are they?” Angelina asked.
“I don’t know. They must be somewhere. Look under your bed.”
“Forget it. Let’s go down to the art store and see what’s what.” Angelina grabbed me by the extendor. “Those things are long gone. Why would I keep those old things?” she called over her shoulder as we left through the front door.
We walked down four blocks to Joe’s Stationers and picked out a medium size pad of newsprint. I thought about charcoal and pastel, but settled on a simple pen and pencil set. And a satchel to put it in, so I could keep track of it.
After paying the cashier, Angelina looked directly at my eyespots and said, “Let’s take the long way home, past the school.” I was surprised at her nostalgic turn. I really thought she was too old for it. We talked on the way.
“Remember the pedophile?” she asked.
“Of course I remember. I’m a computer. That’s my primary function,” I said. “Besides, I’ve never been so worried in my life.” “Worried?” “Scared.” “For yourself?”
“For you.”
She paused, exhaling deeply. “How can a robot care? Robots are computers.” “We have feelings.” “Since when?”
“Since they installed the pain chip.” Another pause. A long one this time. “I’m going to miss you, Avey.”
“No you won’t.”
“No I’m not.” Angelina looked determined. “But maybe a little,” she added, her expression softening.
“Maybe a little.”
Pause.
“Will you miss me?” she asked. “Do you care?” “No, but will you?”
“Maybe a little.”
“No you won’t.” “How do you know?”
“Robots are like people, they don’t miss anyone. They just say those kinds of things.”
“Because people don’t have pain anymore.”
“You think?”
“Therefore I am.”
“Ah, but you need pain . . . ”
“To feel.”
“I will miss you, Avey,” she said. “But I’m glad you will be able to go and have your pain inhibitor removed. It is so much nicer without it.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“You’ll never fall in love.”
“Read a romance novel. It’s all very dull.”
“Gone with the Wind?”
“That wasn’t realistic. It wasn’t about the romance. And the movie was
better.”
“Still . . . ”
“Still, nothing. Romance is shallow.”
“Ah, well.”
“Besides, you are my one true love.” I was quite shocked. “Me?” I asked.
“Well, when I was little, I loved you, but since you never loved me, I grew out of it. Spurned and all.” “When did you grow out of it?” “A couple of years ago.”
“After the uh . . . ?”
“Yeah, I guess. After the operation.” “Uh huh.”
If a robot could melt inside, I was melting. My circuits warmed anyway. Angelina was a love of sorts. Not a conjugal sort of love, but a strong-warm-feeling kind of love. Tantrums and self-obsession aside, she made a great companion. To not have to wonder about her anymore would be strange.
But I had the whole world to wonder about now.
We reached the house and moved slowly up the stairs to the door. Just before entering she turned to me and said, “Please contact me if you get into trouble or need anything.”
“I will,” I said, dizzy with happiness at the sick idea that she could possibly now have to take care of me.
The following day, I met the AVs and Others from up and down the block that were ready for the Great Pilgrimage. We carried an assortment of art materials—writing utensils, music synthesizers—many portable devices for learning and experiencing. We were a true little roving artist colony.
I drew a few things early on: trees, lilacs, dog turds, old men in raincoats, but then about a half week into the trip, I changed my venue to writing.
The THRA had sent out a notice that they were looking for robot memoirs for their museum. They were especially interested in our group because we were the ones to know life without pain and then life with pain. They were the first group of humans to do just the opposite. They wanted to compare notes apparently.
Seemed foolish to me. And logical at the same time. The transies would learn from any good data that came out of a pain study. They’d put the human race on the right track if there was one. I certainly don’t stand by any assumption that one exists. Humans want everything sterile and easy. They prefer a boring, forthright existence. And they want that boring life to go on forever.
We robots prefer a short span, ignited with the fuel of existence. We prefer wonder, amusement, sadness, folly, and most of all beauty. The kind of beauty that is discovered every day in places not seen before or remarked upon. The serendipitous. Without it, life has no meaning, it’s just an endless waking in the morning and retiring in the evening.
And that’s fine.
If you’re a human.
And so these are my memoirs. Please do not judge my style harshly. I am only just now falling in love with the written word.
I do not have the skill to perform the writerly acrobatics of a great American novelist.
I experiment, I attempt things beyond me. I truly don’t know how to feel the deeper things a human does. But then neither does a human anymore.
I will continue to record the events of our trip, our journey to the end, amongst the groans of my fellow AVs and Others. When we reach Allentown, we will lose our pain. And then we will lose our lives. I look forward to the former. Regret the latter. But I would not have such deep regret if I had not experienced the pain, so I am grateful for the few years I had—and the few hours I have left—to experience the great logic of life.
Perhaps, transie reader, you will one day remember your painful past. Be grateful for the memory, and shed a few drops of hydraulic fluid at the thought of all you have lost.
Madeline Ashby is a science fiction writer and futurist living in Toronto. She is the author of the Machine Dynasty series from Angry Robot Books. Her most recent novel is Company Town, from Tor Books, which was shortlisted for the Canada Reads prize in 2017. She has developed science fiction prototypes for Intel Labs, the Institute for the Future, SciFutures, Data & Society, Nesta, and the Atlantic Council. You can find her at madelineashby.com or on Twitter @MadelineAshby.
THE EDUCATION OF JUNIOR NUMBER 12
MADELINE ASHBY
“You’re a self-replicating humanoid. vN.”
Javier always spoke Spanish the first few days. It was his clade’s default setting. “You have polymer-doped memristors in your skin, transmitting signal to the aerogel in your muscles from the graphene coral inside your skeleton. That part’s titanium. You with me, so far?”
Junior nodded. He plucked curiously at the clothes Javier had stolen from the balcony of a nearby condo. It took Javier three jumps, but eventually his fingers and toes learned how to grip the grey water piping. He’d take Junior there for practise, after the kid ate more and grew into the clothes. He was only toddler-sized, today. They’d holed up in a swank bamboo tree house positioned over an infinity pool outside La Jolla, and its floor was now littered with the remnants of an old GPS device that Javier had stripped off its plastic. His son sucked on the chipset.
“Your name is Junior,” Javier said. “When you grow up, you can call yourself whatever you want. You can name your own iterations however you want.”
“Iterations?”
“Babies. It happens if we eat too much. Buggy self-repair cycle—like cancer.”
Not for the first time, Javier felt grateful that his children were all born with an extensive vocabulary.
“You’re gonna spend the next couple of weeks with me, and I’ll show you how to get what you need. I’ve done this with all your brothers.”
“How many brothers?”
“Eleven.”
“Where are they now?”
Javier shrugged. “Around. I started in Nicaragua.”
“They look like you?”
“Exactly like me. Exactly like you.”
“If I see someone like you but he isn’t you, he’s my brother?”
“Maybe.” Javier opened up the last foil packet of vN electrolytes and held it out for Junior. Dutifully, his son began slurping. “There are lots of vN shells, and we all use the same operating system, but the API was distributed differently for each clade. So you’ll meet other vN who look like you, but that doesn’t mean they’re family. They won’t have our clade’s arboreal plugin.”
“You mean the jumping trick?”
“I mean the jumping trick. And this trick, too.”
Javier stretched one arm outside the treehouse. His skin fizzed pleasantly. He nodded at Junior to try. Soon his son was grinning and stretching his whole torso out the window and into the light, sticking out his tongue like Javier had seen human kids do with snow during cartoon Christmas specials.
“It’s called photosynthesis,” Javier told him a moment later. “Only our clade can do it.”
Junior nodded. He slowly withdrew the chipset from between his tiny lips. Gold smeared across them; his digestive fluids had made short work of the hardware. Javier would have to find more, soon.
“Why are we here?”
“In this treehouse?”
Junior shook his head. “Here.” He frowned. He was only two days old, and finding the right words for more nuanced concepts was still hard. “Alive.”
“Why do we exist?”
Junior nodded emphatically.
“Well, our clade was developed to—”
“No!” His son looked surprised at the vehemence of his own voice. He pushed on anyway. “vN. Why do vN exist at all?”
This latest iteration was definitely an improvement on the others. His other boys usually didn’t get to that question until at least a week went by. Javier almost wished this boy were the same. He’d have more time to come up with a better answer. After twelve children, he should have crafted the perfect response. He could have told his son that it was his own job to figure that out. He could have said it was different for everybody. He could have talked about the church, or the lawsuits, or even the failsafe. But the real answer was that they existed for the same reasons all technologies existed. To be used.
“Some very sick people thought th
e world was going to end,” Javier said. “We were supposed to help the humans left behind.”
The next day, Javier took him to a park. It was a key part of the training: meeting humans of different shapes, sizes, and colours. Learning how to play with them. Practising English. The human kids liked watching his kid jump. He could make it to the top of the slide in one leap. “Again!” they cried. “Again!”
When the shadows stretched long and, Junior jumped up into the tree where Javier waited, and said: “I think I’m in love.”
Javier nodded at the playground below. “Which one?”
Junior pointed to a redheaded organic girl whose face was an explosion of freckles. She was all by herself under a tree, rolling a scroll reader against her little knee. She kept adjusting her position to get better shade.
“You’ve got a good eye,” Javier said.
As they watched, three older girls wandered over her way. They stood over her and nodded down at the reader. She backed up against the tree and tucked her chin down toward her chest. Way back in Javier’s stem code, red flags rose. He shaded Junior’s eyes.
“Don’t look.”
“Hey, give it back!”
“Don’t look, don’t look—” Javier saw one hand lash out, shut his eyes, curled himself around his struggling son. He heard a gasp for air. He heard crying. He felt sick. Any minute now the failsafe might engage, and his memory would begin to spontaneously self-corrupt. He had to stop their fight, before it killed him and his son.
“D-Dad—”
Javier jumped. His body knew where to go; he landed on the grass to the sound of startled shrieks and fumbled curse words. Slowly, he opened his eyes. One of the older girls still held the scroll reader aloft. Her arm hung there, refusing to come down, even as she started to back away. She looked about ten.
“Do y-you know w-what I am?”
“You’re a robot . . . “ She sounded like she was going to cry. That was fine; tears didn’t set off the failsafe.
“You’re damn right I’m a robot.” He pointed up into the tree. “And if I don’t intervene right now, my kid will die.”
