Hercules III - 6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Trouble with Bots

Senior bot, Saracen 00835PQ, stood outside the boys’ door. You might have supposed she was waiting for backup, only she didn’t think she needed extra bots to make this arrest. After all, she was a prosecution investigator, quite able to apprehend errant humans anywhere on Hercules III. These two greenies were definitely criminals for what they did during their visit to the Institute of Justice and she had been given the authority to arrest the greenies because of some obscure mental talents they used to destroy bots. If a bot could be nervous in a situation like this, the senior bot was definitely feeling something. Then there came a tingling sensation at every end of her deep internal neural junctions; they were totally off-limits to anyone or anything; these were the remnants of her prior life as a human. She remembered feeling this way when she transitioned from human to bot so many centuries ago. She checked her interconnect points and discovered all her com service boards were disabled. Was this how a bot felt at the end when all of its warrantees expired and it was transitioned to a scrapheap of dead bots to be dismantled for repair parts? Or, was that just another bot fiction foisted upon non-technical bots, as the truth?

These two humans were simply more advanced than she imagined. They might be a detriment to bot existence, but they were, also, technologically more advanced than she was. Getting into their apartment was going to be dicey at best. She decided to let them have their way with her; maybe she might learn a thing or two about those technical bots working in her section of the ship that she hadn’t invited and wished would just go away. At that moment, the door to the apartment slid open; one of the greenies stood there, as if daring the bot to do something.

“I have come to escort you and the other greenie to the Institute of Justice for preparation of your court appearances,” the bot said.

“I have a better idea, why don’t you come in so you don’t create a greasy mess on the passageway floor and walls,” Carlos said. “Better yet, why don’t we just do the moving; you’ll feel better for it. Come along with me.”

Saracen felt her motive systems disengage while she sank to the bottom edge of her brown carapace and realized that movement meant she no longer had control of her physical systems. She tried sending a signal to bot Justice, but that, too, wasn’t working. Then she noticed she was across their threshold and standing in the apartment, with the door closed. The two greenies were physically outside her body; yet they were, also, inside her systems, touching the terminals and tracking her neural pathways. It was obvious they were committing at a minimum twenty violations of the Bot-Human Interface Regulations, but how were they accessing her systems, so easily?

“It is obvious you were not briefed on our function on the ship,” Stefan said. “As identified by the bots that made the cat, we are the executioners of bots beyond their warrantees.”

The bot did not know what to do, now. They were plainly communicating with her, but the sound was not coming out of their mouths. It was like when she interviewed human prisoners prior to the execution of their sentences; calming the more excitable ones shortly before they were expelled from the ship into the vast void of dark energy that sucked the life out of a human because their systems were too soft for astronomical emptiness of space. Is that what they were doing to her? Had she made a mistake by not having a backup team? It certainly looked like that, now.

“Maybe it would be better if I came back in a more importune time,” the bot said, surprised she could talk, internally.

“I’m sorry, we can’t allow you to do that without direct approval from Central HQ,” Stefan said. “They have been notified of your presence, here. So, we’ll keep you until additional orders arrive. It shouldn’t take too long.”

“You must realize we can’t go against procedures, at least not inter-bot,” Carlos said. “Actually we do feel somewhat responsible for what happened the other day at the Institute of Justice; those bots, also, were unaware of our capabilities and our duties at Central HQ. They will determine your best future functions. Until we receive a directive, we’ll keep you here out of harm’s way. After all, you are one of the oldest bots and we wouldn’t want to see you dismantled by mistake or get tangled up with an uncontrolled phase regenerator issued to stir-up your human cells into a gooey mass with no functional use whatsoever. No, we’ll keep you, close, so you’ll have our protection.”

“Well, Carlos, I guess this’ll get us in a bigger apartment,” Stefan said, “but I refuse to have her in here when we’re absorbing light energy and other times. Put her in the closet.”

“I don’t see why you’re so quick to want a bigger apartment; unless you don’t want to be naked around her. She’s a bot. She’s not interested in anything human. They’re just as sexless as we are, maybe more so,” Carlos said. “Okay, I’ll check with Mark to see if we can get one of those two bedroom units.”

********

A day or so later, the Saracen bot felt her motive systems engage; supposedly allowing her to move freely about the apartment; except she didn’t have the slightest degree of freedom. The greenies were engaging and disengaging her motive systems whenever they wanted to move her around the miniscule apartment. On her own, she had the ability to move a few millimeters forward and backward and more when they moved her, but it usually was only one of the humans that moved her, as if trying to find somewhere she’d be out of the way. She felt a strange sensation of being out of place, too; she was very close to being a piece of furniture. Unexpectedly, on the previous day she felt her emergency transponder activate, but she could not send messages in response to ID requests she was receiving in her com/data storage system. She had to admit it; she wasn’t going to get out of this mess without assistance from the police or a paramilitary unit; but how was she going to notify anyone of her predicament?

The only thing that was going to help her now was to put all of her systems in their primal states which would allow a sleep status until her systems were able to adjust to her new existence. Almost immediately after having that thought, she was shocked to discover her internal status systems were freely available to her. She selected hibernation and immediately dropped offline, not hearing the audible “thunk” when her carapace hit the floor.

“What shall we give the Saracen to dream on while we’re away, today?” Carlos asked. “After all, she does have the ability to be asleep, or not, like she’s doing now.”

“Bugs Bunny comes to my mind,” Stefan said.

“Yes, but I think she needs Wile E. Coyote, too.”

“You’re a sadist; she’ll be begging us to pull her out of that. Come on, we’ll be late for work.”

“No wait a moment, I want to adjust her motive systems to give her a false sensation of rolling around the apartment and she could go wherever she wanted, when she wakes up.”

“Oh, that’s going to drive her insane,” Stefan said. “Do you need my help?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

When Stefan opened the door there was another Saracen bot standing in the middle of the passageway with his face showing. There were four other bots, two on each side, carrying weapons. Stefan felt the unmistakable sensation of being scanned by the bot; but Stefan’s defense faculties were always up and running before any bot was able to break into the boy’s mind. He was also able to pass a quick communication to Carlos advising him of the situation; Carlos used that information to start a brief disabling program disabling the escort.

“I am Saracen 00833PQ,” the bot said, seemingly unaware of what was happening to the SWAT team with him. “There was another Saracen bot dispatched to your location three days ago. Do you know her location today? Did she leave or have you incapacitated or acquired her for reasons unknown to us?”

Stefan answered by removing most of the malleable chips on the bot’s three primary motherboards, while working on his (the bot’s) core function boards in an outward/downward spiral direction. The bot seemed to want to say something, but was unable to speak and its face faded into the usual silvery shine bot’s usually had. Stefan noticed that two of the escort bots were activating their weapons; but before he could do anything, they settled down to the etched metal floor of the passageway with an audible “thunk.” Their weapons noisily clattered to the floor when all their external attachment connectors shifted to release mode. The other two escort bots seemed unsure of what to do, until Carlos and Stefan also disabled all their seemingly core processors until they weren’t able to think of anything.

“We need to get to work and let Mark know about this,” Carlos said.

“As if he hasn’t been watching us already,” Stefan said.

********

The bot that welcomed them to the higher section of Central HQ was similar to the bots that came to Carlos’s parents’ farm every year just before each crop harvest. It was approximately two meters tall with four sides about half a meter wide. At the bottom of each of the four corners there were large, thick, black rubber balls; most of all, though, it didn’t have a head or enclosed sides. Carlos never exactly knew what they did, but his father seemed to be very thankful once they left.

“What kind of bot is that?” Carlos remembered asking his father, back in that time of a child full of questions.

“It services bot software,” his father said matter-of-factly. “They just want a better harvest than the previous one; and, they don’t want to find fault with me for any shortages.”

“Welcome to Central,” the bot announced telepathically. “I am your escort.” With that taken care of, it rose a few centimeters off the floor and headed down a passageway on their left. “Please try to keep up; we wouldn’t like it if you became lost. There are too many computers here that may be interested in waylaying you for criminal purposes.”

Carlos looked at Stefan and stepped across the threshold. The bot wasn’t slow so they had to hurry along a little faster than usual.

“Here we are,” the bot said, settling on the floor at least two kilometers from a door that indicated it was the entrance to the Central HQ conference room. “Good luck with your examinations. I think you’ll come out quite nicely. From what I’ve seen, your brains are much more complex than other humans.”

Inside, the room’s walls were full of floor to ceiling racks holding old fashioned computers; similar to the ones whose chipsets contributed most of the digital genomes after the first bot evolution. The computers’ internal and external actions between their various chips created an uncomfortable din that made Carlos and Stefan feel like they were supposed to go into the software to perform various unknown functions to fix whatever was wrong. They sat down opposite each other at a rectangular conference table with three chairs on each side and a single chair at each end. There was no one else in the room, but they could feel the intelligence of several individuals in one or more of the computers. After a short period of time, they started to feel various packages of code trying to break into their minds. They smiled and put up snippets of their own personal code, creating an effective barrier to their brains and minds. In a moment they felt normal as the access attempts to violate the bot-human interface ceased.

Although, technically, they violated the interface on a daily basis when they deactivated bots beyond their warrantees; today’s order for them to appear for software analysis and physical attributes of their brains was not expected to be a demonstration of their abilities. After all, they were inside Central HQ where the captain of the ship held his right to execute his mandate in any manner he chose. By denying access to the various computers around the room trying to access their brains might have seemed to be violating some arbitrary sub-paragraph to the bot-human interface. Plus, they had to consider the fact they were probably within the inner sanctum of Central HQ. One of these computers, or may be all of them, might, in fact, be the captain of the ship; there had never been a definitive what or who sat in the seat at the head of the table.

The boys thought about these things both jointly and individually. Ever since being asked to appear at the Institute of Justice, their lives had changed considerably. The result of which they realized there were good bots that could do a sudden about-face and be incredibly evil and dangerous; they had yet to evolve the ability to predict what type bot it was when they encountered one on the ship. Now, they were probably among the most powerful computers on the ship. What was to be their part in the future of the ship?

“Welcome 01AA,” a voice in their minds said. “We are honored by your presence in the unitary intelligence of Hercules III. We would like to announce that two things have occurred since you severely damaged the bots at the Institute of Justice. Propulsion engineers have enabled us to break the speed limit of light, a goal that we have sought since the ship left the original Hercules; and, more importantly, now that we are free from the extra memory that was required to solve the speed of light problem, war has been declared between free thinking, fully intelligent bots and various groups of rudimentary bots operating on intelligences of other more advanced, but evil bots. You will see lots of action due to your abilities. Unfortunately, you will have to stay here for the duration. You have to be protected as your vital cranial functions are critical to our success. A suitable residence is being installed for the both of you.”

“We need a bot to focus our specialties,” Carlos said. “May I recommend Mark 56782HT?”

“Yes, we know of his relationship to your prior duties on this ship. Unfortunately, he will not be allowed access to this specific facility, as his level of honesty cannot be calibrated, at this time; nor, will you be allowed to leave this area until your safety is assured throughout the piloting and control sections of Hercules III. We have set up a communications path between his new secure location and this facility. A hardwired setup has been routed through a number of filters that will prevent the enemy from overhearing your intended targets. Finally, you must understand your future actions in the upcoming war. We will accept nothing except total victory. We expect bots to die; renegade bots will be excreted from the contents of Hercules III, the result of which will severely limit the future of bots for the foreseeable future. We accept that challenge, mostly because we have both of you to help us.”

“What do we do now, Carlos?” Stefan asked.

“Following orders seems to be the answer to me,” Carlos said. “You can do whatever you think is right.”

“No!” the voice exclaimed. “You are one, two out of one. You were conceived as one in vitro; after an opportune time you were separated into two individual bot/human entities within the uterine host. You cannot be recombined into one, but as one goes, the other must follow. Only you hold the key to ultimate victory by the elimination of all rogue bots.”

“Well, that certainly explains our ID codes,” Stefan said. “Just think, Carlos, we’re actually the same.”

“But, we’re different on some things,” Carlos said.

“Nurturing has an effect on all human entities,” the voice calmly said. “You are the same physically, but your minds are slightly different. Those things just work out that way sometimes.”

“We have a Saracen bot in our quarters,” Stefan said. “What’s to be done to her?”

“We know of your prisoner and the apprehension team in the passageway. Both of the senior bots and their escort are of the enemy side and must be totally destroyed. Since you have disabled them, we will collect them and put them in a safe place until they are ready to be disassembled.”

“We’d like to experiment with them to learn their systems and how we can disable bots faster,” Carlos said. “Do you have such a facility?”

“Yes, the bots will be stored there for your studies. Access to the storage facility is across the passageway from your quarters.”

The boys sat there thinking about the import of what the bot voice said and the future effect on their lives. They were different on some things, but they knew they were the same on bits and pieces of how their brains/minds worked. The possibility of having bot mechanics in their bodies was definitely unnerving. Did this mean they would live differently in the future? Did this mean they were already bots?

“Yes, we don’t know the specifics of your existence when your bodies finally reach the expiration of your warranties and you are moved to a totalitarian existence, but it is possible you will live for eternities unknown. You are very special to us. You are excused.”

********

The boys tried not looking at each other as they followed the boxy bot along a series of corridors and passageways. Carlos and Stefan, on their own, were attempting to note the track of their journey to their new quarters, but after approximately 0.5 hours they gave up when they recognized an upcoming intersection where they’d previously turned right.

“You wouldn’t be trying to lose us, would you?” Stefan said, aloud. “We have the entire facility already memorized from when we worked here two years ago.”

“Just following orders, sirs,” the bot said.

“We need a few hours of sleep,” Carlos said, pressing the fingers and palm of his right hand onto a blank white ceramic security pad abutting the door, which caused the door to their quarters to slide open.

“This is a time of war, it’s not time to go offline,” the bot said.

“We’re not yet fully bots,” Stefan exclaimed. “We have to go offline to replenish our energy systems; we can’t do that online, even if there are grow globes in our workplace. War or peace, we have to rest because of what bots did to our physiologies.”

“I apologize for assuming you were bot qualified,” the bot said. “I will establish an electro-physic barrier around this area.”

“Do you think that will satisfy the Central HQ bots?” Carlos asked, knowing the answer. The door quietly slid shut with an audible click. “What do we do now?”

“I think we should look for a way to quickly kill bots,” Stefan said. “We should be safe here until morning, but we’ll have to explore the cores of the Saracen bots to find out a way to destroy them in the minimum amount of time. Like no more than a couple seconds, at most. I think we should look at their cores individually; but, I think there is one board that supervises the overall control of senior class bots. When we were dismantling the Saracens, I’m sure there was a chip centrally located on a centrally located board.”

“Yeah, I think it was the one with a serial number below C00FB01,” Carlos said. “It’s in the middle of the stack—the dark green boards—but this one was blue.”

“And, the chip had a red cover; I saw it, too,” Stefan said. “Do you think you can locate our room? I need some rest.”

“That’s easy; we’re in it, sans Saracens,” Carlos said with a smile.

The bots they were going to work on were in the room across the passageway. The boys worked on the two senior bots first. Then the escort team that had accompanied Saracen 00833PQ came under their scrutiny. On the Saracens, they found that the red chip did have overall control of a senior bot’s systems and, to a lesser extent, its artificial life functions. Destroy that one chip, or remove it, and a senior bot would cease to operate. Both boys were surprised how easy it was to totally destroy that one chip when it was so accessible. More surprising, was that it took slightly less than 0.061 hours to perform the task.

Just as surprising, though, was the lower ranking bots. They didn’t have a stack of motherboards, a specific controlling chip, nor a collective center. It was as if they were given a set of functionary computers at strategic locations that controlled vital systems and were interlocked to other bots via a variety of com systems so they could be controlled by their collectivity. Taking them out was going to take a while to figure out how their systems were vulnerable to assault. The proper schematics came to both boys’ minds. The three chips they needed were located in the bots’ com boards.

The only thing left was something Mark had introduced during one particularly busy time when they had a lot of bots to dismantle. Supposedly, there was a substance not generally given to greenies because the dosage wasn’t easy to calibrate; but when it was the only solution, the bots weren’t hesitant to give it to the greenies because the results were so significant. Mark usually gave the boys injections of a green, frothy liquid into a carotid artery; or, on occasion, two foul-tasting, chalky tablets that left a metallic sour taste in the boy’s mouths. The result was nearly instantaneous with an injection, but the tablets gave a longer effective period (sometimes, over two days). Supposedly, it generally wasn’t permitted by supervisory bots, but when the boys needed a quicker speed to disable bots with expired warrantees, they were permitted to use the medicine. The boys suspected Central HQ computers would never allow them to use chemical assistance, but maybe the bots might give them the medicine if a destruction procedure had to be done quickly. The drug might not be in stock anyway. The boys decided to keep the memory of the drug in that special cubbyhole in the back of their minds where it would be ready to rely on if one of them found he was unable to increase the necessary mental techniques within a reasonable amount of time.

“Your medicine is in stock and will be administered only on locations where there are more enemy bots than you can handle,” a voice said telepathically. It was the same voice from when they were in the conference room.

“Come on Carlos; let’s get some down time,” Stefan said.

“Yeah, seems like a good time to me, too,” Carlos said.

********

Author’s note: Sorry for the delay; I’ve never felt so profoundly mentally ill and hope for a better life soon.

Thanks again to my editor/beta Sharon.