"committed" By A.r. Kirby -- Episode 28: "problems At Home"

COMMITTED by A.R. Kirby

Episode 28 Problems at home

C

hristian and Anna both jumped in their seats on the bed as the alarm wailed at an earsplitting volume. Instinctively, they clapped their hands over their ears in an attempt to muffle the din, and Christian found himself blinking in the glare of flashing strobe lights that only added to the sense of chaos in his quarters. He looked quickly to Anna, his brow creased in concentration. What the hell is that? he thought at her, hoping she would be able to block out enough of the noise to be able to understand him. She returned his thoughts with a steely, aggravated gaze. I know what it is, she thought as Christian heard her voice, as cold as her stare, in his head. It is an alarm. A very loud and overly obnoxious alarm. Why the alarm is going off, I am expecting you to explain. Christian shrugged, the look of indecision on his face framed by his palms pressing tightly to either side of his head. Anna raised an eyebrow at him, the flash of the

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strobes creating dark shadows along the contours of her face. You don’t know why your own alarm is going off? Christian started to reply, but had nothing. Instead he rolled his eyes and gestured over Anna’s shoulder towards the control panel beside the head of the bed. As he did, a small red light on the panel started to blink. A moment later, Christian’s housekeeping robot rolled around the corner and into the bedroom. It was a modified pissbot, a special design created by The Professor as a birthday gift to Christian. While it outwardly resembled the Bathroom Buddy™, the droid’s programming and accessories were enhanced to make it the perfect valet. It quietly and efficiently handled every chore in the quarters, including vacuuming, dusting, cooking and doing the laundry. The droid, unperturbed by the flashing lights and blaring sirens, moved silently to the edge of the bed where Christian sat. “How may I be of service to you, Mr. Christian?” the robot asked in a crisp English accent. Anna, who programmed the accent, thought it gave the housekeeping bot extra flair. Conversely, Christian felt that it made the robot seem snobbish. In any case, with his hands over his ears and the alarm practically shaking the room’s foundations, at the moment Christian didn’t hear a thing. “HEY, ROBOT!” Christian yelled, “TURN OFF THE DAMNED ALARM!!!” The bot paused for a moment as it churned through the data. It then replied in the same voice it used a moment 2

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before, sounding all the world like a British officer in colonial India giving some bad news to an outcaste. “I am dreadfully sorry sir,” it said.” The security clearance for resetting alarms is set at Level 12. I have but a Level 7 clearance. I cannot stop the alarm. My apologies, sir.” Unfortunately, the alarm drowned out the robot’s voice, and Christian did not hear the explanation. Additionally, in what would later be deemed a poor design choice, this pissbot and the millions of others like it lacked anything at all resembling facial features, blinking lights, or any other non-verbal method of indicating that it was processing a request. The combination of these coincidences was lost on Christian. Sitting there on the bed in his red silk boxer shorts, all Christian could see was a highly-advanced, gleaming Seamantium paperweight that wouldn’t do as its master asked. “HEY ROBOT!” Christian went on, anger fueling his shout. “I TOLD YOU TO TURN OFF THE DAMNED ALARM!” Proximity sensors indicated to the housekeeping bot that it was rising rapidly off the ground, which caused a microsecond of confusion within the unit. In turn, the bot’s advanced artificial intelligence responded to this unusual state with a flurry of activity in its electronic brain. A search of memory storage recalled several previous instances of involuntary levitation, all of which resulted in physical damage to the robot and numerous repairs to the mirrored walls of the quarters. Comparative 3

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analysis reviewed current data against what was held in memory from the other instances and found not one, but two significant abnormalities. For one, Christian did not appear to be drunk. For another, the volume level in the personal quarters was off the charts. After digesting all the data, the pissbot came up with just one possible solution: Yell. “I DID NOT REALIZE THAT YOU COULD NOT HEAR ME, SIR,” the pissbot screamed as it rotated in the middle of the room. With a little luck (and some understanding on Christian’s part), it might avoid a lengthy visit to the maintenance bots upstairs. “I AM DREADULLY SORRY, BUT I DO NOT HAVE THE SECURITY CLEARANCE TO RESET THE ALARM.” Christian glared at the bot. Smashing it against the wall might make him feel better, but doing so would probably not help with the alarm. He set the bot down, heavily, on the floor next to the bed. “CAN YOU AT LEAST TURN IT DOWN? I’M SICK OF ALL THIS YELLING!” “BUT OF COURSE, MISTER CHRISTIAN,” the pissbot replied happily, pleased with its good fortune. The sound of the alarm immediately faded into the background. Christian and Anna both tentatively removed their hands from their ears “Why didn’t you do that before?” Christian asked, one index finger working rapidly inside his ear canal. “You did not ask me to do so,” the bot replied. Christian’s temper began to flare again, but before he could use his telekinesis to throw the housekeeping bot 4

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across the room, he felt Anna’s hand on his shoulder. “What is happening?” she asked, her voice serious. “Is the facility under attack?” “No, madam,” the bot replied, moving slightly away from the edge of the bed as it did. “We are not under attack, nor does any type of attack seem imminent. However, it seems that there has been a mishap with one of my fellow droids. Perhaps you would care to adjourn to the Control Center? I am certain you will learn more there.” Christian rubbed his face. If he had wanted a smartass, he would have hired a real English butler. He would have to talk to Anna about reprogramming the housekeeping bot’s personality. “Okay, robot,” he said resignedly. “Back to work.” “My pleasure sir,” the robot said, and hastily left the room to resume its less-hazardous cleaning duties. Christian got up from the bed and offered a hand to Anna, who took it politely, and the two walked across the bedroom toward the control center next door. “I cannot believe all of that disturbance was for a problem with a single robot,” Anna remarked. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have given the pissbots quite so much latitude in designing the security system,” Christan answered. “I will tell you what I think about that as soon as my ears stop ringing, comrade,” Anna said slyly as they entered the control room. “But why do you not know more about your own security? Why didn’t we come in 5

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here as soon as the alarm went off?” As Christian looked at the mass of technology that surrounded them, his eye was drawn to the plexiglass box on the center console that contained the button which would trigger the signal for the pissbots. He shrugged. “Didn’t think to do it,” he said. “This whole place pretty much runs itself, and I never really learned about what all I could do from down here. In fact, I almost never come in here. To be honest, I believe the only thing I ever intended to do from here was push a button. “As such,” he went on as he pulled a comfortable office chair away from the console and offered the seat to Anna, “would you mind taking the wheel?” Anna shook her head in minor disbelief, but sat down quickly at the workstation. Working rapidly, she logged into the system with her own password and found the controls for the alarm, which she finally, thankfully, turned off. Only then did she start reviewing the information related to the cause of the alarm. “This is interesting,” she said, almost to herself. “Very interesting, indeed.” “What? What?” Christian stuck his head over Anna’s shoulder, intending to get a better view of the monitor, but was distracted by the plunging neckline of her dress. He leered for a moment, then forced himself to pay attention to the task at hand. Anna went on, having not noticed Christian’s visual detour. She was absorbed in what she saw on the screen. “It looks like one of our pissbots went into action early, darling,” she said, her finger tracing a line along the 6

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display on the monitor. “But it is hard to tell exactly what happened. The defense mechanism was activated, but it stopped suddenly.” “What do you mean? Christian asked. “How did that happen?” “I do not know, and that bothers me,” she replied. “Once the defense mechanism is triggered, there should be no way to stop it until it completes its cycle. I need to know how this happened.” Christian stepped back away from the console as Anna began hammering furiously at the keyboard, her gaze fixed on the monitor. After a few minutes of rapid-fire typing -- interspersed with various sighs of “hmm” and “ohh” -- she stopped and swiveled in the chair to face her lover. “This is infuriating,” she said, a veneer of scientific incredulity on her face. “I cannot make contact with the unit, although the records do not indicate any type of damage... I simply do not understand what is happening here. In fact, there is no way this could happen. The only thing that would stop the mechanism is a massive electromagnetic pulse, one of the magnitude associated with an atomic blast. This just does not make any sense.” “So... just where did this happen?” Christian asked. He wanted to change the subject, because Anna’s selfrighteous scientific jags always made him feel slightly insignificant. Saturday night was not the time for such things. “This particular pissbot is stationed in northern Georgia,” she said, turning back to the console and 7

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drumming her fingers on the side as she studied the screen, looking for some clue to whatever it was that had caused the bot to stop functioning. “I didn’t know we had any pissbots there,” Christian said, his voice brightening. “Was it close to South Ossetia? Something probably happened with a highranking government official, they would be the only ones there who could afford one... “ “No, not that Georgia,” Anna interrupted. “It was Georgia in the southeastern United States, not the former Soviet Republic.” “Damn,” Christian said. “I was hoping we might have an international incident on our hands.” Anna gave a half-hearted laugh as she scrolled through another screen of data. “Da, as interesting as that would be, I do not believe that is what is going on here,” she said. “What I do believe is that we need to do something about this mysterious problem.” Christian paused and scratched his chin. “Tell me... what do we know about the pissbot’s status?” “Nothing,” Anna said. “It was in top operational condition when the defense system activated, and none of the status reports indicated any problem. It just stopped.” Christian was quiet for a moment, then slowly turned Anna in her chair so she was facing him. “Do you know who Burt Reynolds is?” he asked. “I do not understand what that has to do with any of 8

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this, but, da. An old American movie star, yes?” she answered. “I remember seeing a black market copy of ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ when I was younger. I was lucky. I had a Betamax.” Christian thought it very unlikely that anyone else on the planet had ever uttered such a statement before, then went on. “He also made a movie called ‘Deliverance’,” he said, “and it featured what I would imagine are the typical residents of northern Georgia. So, chances are that we don’t need to do anything. I imagine that a nosy yokel damaged the pissbot’s transceiver just before being turned into a pile of dust. “On the other hand,” he went on, looking Anna in the face, “what are the chances that someone could have captured the pissbot? Or have escaped the defense mechanism?” Anna smiled. Her work had made certain that either option was incredibly unlikely. “You are more likely to be struck by lightning,” she said, “while standing on the moon.” “That’s good to know,” he said. “Now, what do you still need to do before we execute The Plan?” Anna ran through her to-do list in her mind. “I need to make some modifications to some of the psychic integration code; and there are the nanovirus upgrades to complete before I upload the final instruction software to the bots in the field,” she said. “All right,” Christian said, suddenly decisive. “Focus 9

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on the psychic code, then run a simulation on the infection rate. I want to know how well we will do with the nanoviruses we have now. Instead of initializing The Plan next month, I want to do it next week.” An evil grin spread across Anna’s upturned face. Christian might not know how to run a control center, but that wasn’t what she liked about him. “It will make for a very busy week, my darling,” she said. “All the more reason to have as much fun as possible tonight,” Christian said as he turned and walked out of the control room. “I’m taking my shower. We leave for the cocktail party in 15 minutes.” To be continued...

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