Ani-droids 6

Ani-droids 1

Ani-droids 2

Ani-droids 3

Ani-droids 4

Ani-droids 5 

Yeah! Still!!

This is all first-pass writing so I'm perfectly aware it's gonna be super dry. For instance, I now have an idea for an earlier chapter that'd be significantly more "show" in regards to Mira's motivations and probably allow for significantly less technical talk or explaining things in chapter 1, but I'm not going back to fix it right now because it's better to keep the story progressing than start over every time I think I can do something better. I'm kinda nanowrimo-in it at this point.

Comments appreciated!

--

When we finally got to the industrial park, we were twenty-seven minutes late. I had to flash my employee ID at the gate, though of course Eo was let in without much fuss—ani-droids were just assumed to be easily monitored, and my pass allowed one ani-droid on site with me. So for a moment, I thought we’d managed to slip in undetected.

The industrial park was a lush and verdant place with neatly manicured lawns surrounding the whitewashed buildings with large picture windows surrounding them. Sky bridges arced overhead, swooping up to the central office tower where most of the high-ranking employees worked, including Koenig’s massive office at the top. Ani-droids were out and about making sure the grounds were neat and clean, cleared of any possible debris or muddy patches from the rains the night before. We parked in my designated spot without too much fuss, and entered through the sparkling glass entryway in the front of Building A.

Of course, that had to be the day in which the boss’s chief ani-droid was monitoring the main hall. Million was an Opera-class ani-droid, a short-stacked orange striped tabby with triangular ears. She was honestly worse than Bobby’s companion Dimes—it wasn’t just suspicion in her eyes, it was contempt.

“Employee ID!” She announced as we both entered the building, shoving her tiny hand up as if it’d stop us physically. I suspected that Million was probably packed to the bring with the latest gadgetry, but I’d never actually seen her in a physical altercation. Nevertheless, even though I was sure she recognized me by face, I didn’t want to push it.

Eo hovered around my legs as I pulled out my ID. “There.”

“Mira McAllister, you’re twenty-eight minutes late.”

“There was an accident on the highway, you can look at the report—”

“I did already, and compared the time of the accident with your arrival time,” Million stated. Her narrow slit pupils, set on a solid yellow back, were so piercing, it was as though she were reading my mind. “If you’d left ten minutes earlier like you should have, you would have arrived perfectly on time. From the heading you did take, even if you’d not encountered the accident, you would have likely been two minutes late.”

“That’s the other thing, I was in a car accident myself last night. See?” I was about to show Million the scrapes on my hands, but she swatted them away.

“Miss McAllister, I ask that you not repeat personal information on the company floor, financial or medical, as Koenig Industries cannot be held responsible for data breaches related to non-company matters.”

I sighed. “Yes, Million…” It always felt stupid having to acquiesce to an ani-droid. I thought they were supposed to serve us!

“In any case, unless the accident was within an hour of you leaving for work, the car hire could have easily been requested at the specified time. And even if your ani-droid is out of service, you could have hired a temp!”

Well, she had me there. I really didn’t have an excuse for working on Eo all night instead of sleeping responsibly like I should have. It just seemed like it violated the spirit of having suffered a damned car accident. Seemed like employees should have gotten those days off, like birthdays. (We didn’t get birthdays off but we should, is what I mean.)

“Now then…” Million marched around my legs, staring pointedly at Eo. “What is this unit? They seem to have been repaired quite haphazardly.” She tapped Eo’s more robotic, plastic-plated undersides with her claws, sounding a tink tink.

Eo tilted her ears curiously, a little apprehensive but nevertheless friendly. “Hi! Call me Eo.”

“Eo, you’re supposed to log into the system immediately after crossing the gate.”

“Oh… I’ve been trying, but I can’t,” Eo said. “My wireless port is read-only.”

“What? Is that a joke?” Million looked up at me to confirm it.

But I hadn’t any idea. The port was just supposed to be a universal adapter. “Read-only” in this case meant she could only pull information from the network, she couldn’t actually write to the network. The adapter should have allowed both, so that must have meant Eo’s OS simply wasn’t allowing read-write. Given everything I’d learned about Eo up to that point, this didn’t come as a shock.

“Her OS was damaged recently,” I said. “I didn’t have a lot of time to fix it up properly.”

“Mira fixed me up,” Eo said. “I’m acting as her assistant today, until we can fix Lily.”

“This is not acceptable,” Million said, hands planted firmly on her hips. “Eo’s OS architecture needs to be approved by the on-site computer.”

I hadn’t even taken a long look at Eo’s operating system. I’d seen all sorts, but it did tip my curiosity. After all, she was running on low-end hardware, but nevertheless seemed to be running at a similar efficiency to Lily… her unusual ability to follow instructions notwithstanding.

“You can do that manually, right?” Eo asked. “Just wire me up to the central computer however you need to to read my OS, and then once you’re satisfied, you can just send me instructions on my building tasks for today. I can confirm them with the computer at a terminal.”

Million sighed, with a heavy groan, and folded her arms across her chest. She was the only ani-droid I’d even seem who emoted so negatively. “Ugh. I’ll have to figure out how to work the schedule around this.” One second passed. “Okay, it’s been scheduled. You’re to report to Diagnostic Center Five immediately. I hope you don’t need me to draw you a map.”

Most ani-droids couldn’t master the art of sarcasm, but Million was a natural.

“No, I can see the map.” Eo said with a wave. “Thank you!” She immediately walked off. “I’ll see you later, Mira!”

I waved at her, then looked down at the frustrated cat. “Can I get to work now?”

“Yes, I’ve marked it on your time card that you are thirty-five minutes later.”

“You’ve been detaining me!”

“For good reason! And marking you down as using up additional site resources without prior authorization. That’ll be taken out of your paycheck.”

I rubbed my face as I walked on past the ani-droid, but Million didn’t attempt to stop me. I had no idea how much they’d bill me for that, but it certainly wasn’t going to be any more than Eo could have possibly earned me over the course of this workday.

“Oh, and you’re scheduled for a meeting with Mr. Koenig in Office Suite Four,” Million called after me. “It’ll be just before lunch break. Do not be late.”

I immediately perked up. “He got my message?”

“I think that was implied by him having scheduled a meeting in the room you requested,” Million snipped.

Oh. That was… a little unexpected. I’d nearly forgotten about the message altogether, with everything that happened… was I even prepared? Did Koenig want me to make a presentation? I mean, I wanted to speak with him, but I didn’t really think it’d happen so soon, or…

Or, well… the fact that it did happen so soon was, perhaps, a big red flag. Maybe I didn’t want this as badly as I thought…

—

Passing by rows of skyway plants and more ani-droids going here and there, I eventually arrived at the Quiet Room. For a room that was officially called Office Suite Four, it wasn’t like any of the others—from the outside, it looked awkwardly grafted onto the skyway, a giant concrete box just jutting outward, through the glass walls toward the center of the park grounds below, its back end propped up on three square pillars. It was completely out of style with the rest of the building, which is probably why I’d remembered it so well.

I knocked on the door to the old man’s private office. Having no response, and the meeting time rapidly approaching, I opened it up, only to enter a tiny entryway into the middle. The sign said, “interior door will not open without closing exterior door first.”

It was odd, because the exterior door wasn’t all that different from any others, besides feeling slightly heavier—more like a fire door. But closing the outer door, I grabbed the handle on the inner one. The handle still didn’t budge.

“Who is it?” came a voice on a tinny intercom, followed by a loud fit of coughing. Yup, that was Mr. Koenig.

“Uh. Mira McAllister,” I said to the room. “You asked to see me.”

“No recording devices,” Koenig said. “Coat off. The scanner will sweep you.”

I took off the work coat and hung it up on the hook provided, after which a machine whirred. A black box swept down on a rail on the opposite wall, flashing me with several colors of laser light.

“Okay, no electronics,” Koenig said. “Good. You can enter now.”

I was halfway expecting him to tell me to take my shirt off—that was the kind of man Koenig was—but the latch on the inner door clicked. I pulled it open and entered.

The room was very dark, with only dim lighting all around, and a large wooden desk in the center. The only real decoration was the bit of fake potted greenery at the corners, but other than that the two side walls were covered in bookshelves filled with binders.

Koenig turned in his wheelchair from behind the desk. The old man had perhaps once been handsome, but he was left quite emaciated from his age, his head thin with more liver spots than he had hair. An oxygen hose was clipped to his nose. He coughed repeatedly as I entered, though hardly made an effort to move into the fit.

“So,” he said. “Explain to me what was so important.”

“I…” I started, suddenly having stage fright. This was a fine time to forget why I came! “Well, sorry, I need to gather my thoughts. I was in a car accident, see, and—”

“McAllister,” the old man wheezed, “I do not particularly care. You called this meeting and I want you to justify it to me.”

“Certainly sir—I was just a little surprised you called this meeting so quickly.”

Koenig shook his head. “ You wouldn’t just write an email to me to tell me you had an interesting experience at the symposium, or heard a neat lecture. The eight years you’ve been working here, I have not once invited you to a company picnic, or to watch my hypothetical kids for the afternoon, or to look over my personal ani-droids. We are not friends, I am your boss, and you would not have written that letter unless if was something you felt was critical to the industry.” He wheezed into a half-cough, and pounded a fist on his chest.

“So you’re aware of the encroaching limitations of computer processors?”

“My dear, I would not be in the position I am in the condition I am unless I kept my fingers constantly on the pulse of world events. Yes. The processor as we know it has reached its upper limit. I suppose someone like Dr. Wyman would have suggested something ridiculous, like start computational theory all over from scratch. You’re not just here to parrot his claims, are you?”

“Well, no sir. My personal thought was not exactly of the approved variety.”

“I have heard this before,” Koenig said, “From more qualified engineers than yourself. You spoke to a federal agent about this, though?”

“Well, Bobby agreed with me that Wyman’s approach was not feasible. So I asked, maybe we should start a commission to investigate the Behavior Code.”

Koenig perked up at this, his speckled eyes widening.

“In a federally-approved way, I told him,” I said. “But no matter how I couched it, he flat out told me it was just plain impossible. He made it sound like there was just no possible path to reform!”

“That is how the federal government is with it,” Koenig said, falling back, only to double over in a forceful hack. “So he didn’t provide you with the raw code?”

“Well… no. I didn’t expect him to, but I at least expected him to, you know, make some calls. Someone out there must have had authority and there must have been someone I could have come in contact with. Since there isn’t… well, you were my other alternative.”

Koenig stared at me, and I tried not to wince at his gaze. “You think I have a copy of the raw behavior code?” He asked.

I didn’t want to insinuate that Koenig’s connections were less than legal, so I told him, “If the government doesn’t have it, someone must, and so far as I know, you’re the other side of that coin. Either you have it, or your know some other wealthy businessman who must. Right?”

Koenig doubled over in a massive coughing fit. I stood there awkwardly, until it became almost embarrassing. “Sir? Are… are you alright?”

He finally sat back up, wiping his mouth with a a handkerchief. “McAllister, perhaps I should apologize but you are severely mistaken. I do not have a copy of the unencrypted Behavior Code. No one has it. To my knowledge, it has never been unencrypted, and if it has, the data was quickly lost.”

“Really? I mean, the government must have it laying around somewhere. You mean to tell me that in the hundred years that it’s existed, nobody’s managed to—”

“McAllister, you misunderstand,” he creaked. “I have looked into it. All my life. For the last fifty years. I have spent favors. I have done favors. I have greased every single palm I possibly could. I’ve been given promises of ‘this is most definitely the code you’re looking for’ and it turned out to be a sham, either an obvious fake, or a procedural manual everyone and their grandmother knows exists already. Some other promising leads simply dried up without collecting a reward. I have not been able to find a trace of that unencrypted code. If the federal government had a copy, it would be with me now. At this point in my life, I must presume they do not have it.”

I didn’t doubt that he was telling the truth. He wouldn’t have called this meeting with me if he did have it and was simply holding out. No, he was hoping I was perhaps a new lead.

And judging from his condition, I always assumed the rumors were true: Koenig was certainly hoping for a medical breakthrough, to get himself out of that age-wracked body of his before it was too late. But the Behavior Code was an obstacle in the way of everything. We were just a tiny ways away from being able to accurately transfer the entirety of a human’s cognitive function to a computer. If the industry stagnated now, he’d certainly die before the breakthrough happened.

It was basically the same thing I was after. I wanted a robot that could think like a human—well, that required being able to build a compact computer OS that was just as sophisticated as the human brain, at at least the same speed as the human brain.

“However,” Koenig said, pulling himself out from behind his desk and wheeling slowly across the carpet in my direction, “If you are indeed interested in the same thing I am, I should let you know that the reward I am providing—off the record of course—is quite substantial. I don’t believe I must emphasize, you would not need to work for me any longer. Of course, even if you don’t come to me for the reward, it would be just as well if you managed to provide it to someone—anyone—who could do something with the raw Behavior Code to mitigate our circumstances and get us out of this stagnation quickly. Go to my rivals if you must, if you feel it is safer or if they offer you a larger reward. Or if you wish to be altruistic, find some way to publish it anonymously. All I care is that it is made available somehow.”

“But I don’t have it,” I said. “I came here hoping I could find some other lead… I mean, it has to exist. Someone had to write it, after all.”

“There was one lead of mine that was most promising,” Koenig said, looking up at me with a paralytic stare. “About a decade back, during a Walkabout in Australia, by chance I happened upon a very sophisticated robot decaying in the desert. One that was human in appearance, down to the smallest detail. I examined the entire thing as well as I could, but none of the circuitry was familiar to me, and little of it was signed except with some glyphs. Of course, I had the misfortune of being with my ani-droids at the time, and though I’d instructed them to preserve the body for study, the Behavior Code had insisted they dispose of it instead. But I knew what I saw. That machine was not manufactured by anyone in the industry; if it had, it would have plastered it all over the news. Even if it was a prototype, I still haven’t seen anything as complex since, not in part nor in secret. So far as anyone knows, that robot was impossible. And yet I had it in my hands. If you ever found anyone, somehow, who was able to build that robot, I guarantee you that they have the answer to bypassing the Behavior Code, and probably have for a long time.”

“That’s absurd,” I said. “That sounds like conspiracy talk. That’d require whole manufacturing plants kept entirely secret.”

“Then so be it,” Koenig said. “I know what I saw. And you know what I want. My advice to you is to not speak of this with any ani-droid. At all. If you really want to pursue this, if you must pursue it, it’s going to be by your own hands.”

As he said it, he reached out and took my hand. I shrieked and backed away. He didn’t seem terribly surprised, he just laughed in a way that sputtered into another fit of coughing.

I didn’t care anymore. I just opened the door to leave.

“If you want it, don’t speak of it,” Koenig told me through labored breaths. “They have eyes and ears everywhere save the most remote of places.”