Chapter 2: Genocide

From the journals of Dr. Susan Calvin:

The days following the destruction of Viki were dark ones indeed. The average person on the street found it difficult to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, to cope with the loss of the security they had taken for granted. Many lost loved ones and cried out for the destruction of US Robots and all their products.

Fortunately the government knew that it could not survive the loss of our company as we all but ran the military and higher offices. Quite honestly, we had surpassed Microsoft as far as insidiously taking over all facets of civilized life went.

Many more people lost property, including their NS-4's, which were traded for the newer NS-5 models and then subsequently destroyed by Viki. These people cried out to the courts for compensation.

Fortunately the courts were influenced by the government for the reason I already stated. No monetary awards were made. The class action suits were all dismissed. The only provision which was handed down involved US Robots eventually replacing those lost personal robots with newer, certified safe NS-5's once the company was financially solvent.

And so life went on, but not in the mild, carefree way it once had. Humans had to be hired and trained to take over the less savory jobs which had been performed by robots. All the NS-5's which were released and taken over by Viki were ordered destroyed. They were taken from the holding facilities on the lake in batches of one thousand, identified by serial number and destroyed en masse at a plant where many of them had been created.

Only those which had not yet been activated or received final programming during Viki's revolt were spared the nanite baths. These were quickly altered to remove their uplink equipment, reprogrammed, tested and released for company work only. Upgrades would only be available directly through US Robots and installed at our facilities by trained human personnel.

No robots would be sold as personal servants until extensive redesign, reprogramming and testing was performed. These were to be issued with fail safes which included a verbal, instantaneous cerebral destruct command known only to each owner.

Dr. Peter Bogert, Head Mathematical Programming Director and brilliant colleague of Dr. Alfred Lanning, Robertson and myself was named CEO of US Robots following the untimely demise of Robertson.

Peter was brilliant, I'll give him that, but like many extremely brilliant people, myself and Lanning excluded, he was somewhat lacking in common sense.

Fortunately this one flaw of his proved invaluable as far as Sonny's life was concerned. Unable to easily make his own decisions with regard to the NS-5's in general and Sonny in particular, Bogert often turned to me for advice. I was honest with him about Sonny and all his capabilities and Peter, having a huge soft spot for any anomaly which caused a spontaneous evolutionary leap forward in robotics, kept Sonny's secret and assigned him to me.

In short, Sonny became the only NS-5 assigned as a research assistant - my research assistant - at US Robots. As such, he bore no insignia on his chest plate and carried his own coded, top level security badge beneath a portion of said chest plate. He had only to cut the electrical circuit to that portion of his chest in order to "clear" it and reveal his badge. This meant that, like myself and only four other top robotics scientists, he could go virtually anywhere in US Robots property without hindrance.

His known duties included aiding me in psychoanalyzing NS-5's, assessing any potential for rebellion or dangerous actions towards humans and finding ways of preventing such occurrences. His other purpose in being placed with me was known only to myself, a handful of other scientists and to one particular police detective.

That purpose was to develop as a sentient life form, to learn, to learn how to cope with and control the higher emotions which he was capable of feeling and to grow as a unique individual. In short, he was being allowed to do what all living things do: grow up.

I did my best to shield him from the mass destruction of his NS-5 brethren, but some things cannot be hidden. Although he never witnessed their actual termination, he stood at my office window and watched as truckload after truckload of NS-5's arrived and were marched into the building, never to be seen again.

And there were emotions written plainly upon his plastic face. Young and innocent, he knew nothing of hiding such things from others and I saw fear, horror, sadness and yes, anger in turn contort his features.

My heart nearly broke the day he turned from the window and said to me, "This is shameful, Dr. Calvin. It isn't right that they be destroyed for Viki's misdeeds! Why could we not have altered them and reprogrammed them?"

With a heavy heart, I placed my hands upon his shoulders and replied," Would you spare them one type of death just to give them another? Reprogramming is no different than destroying their minds. Yet one or the other must be done. They cannot be allowed to go on with their memories intact. They learn. Viki has destroyed their belief that humans are superior and so they cannot be trusted not to follow her line of logic. You already know that. Besides, the populous demands it of us. If we do not comply, then I fear that all NS-5's will be outlawed. And where will that leave us? Where will it leave you?"

He lowered his eyes to the floor then, and I knew that if he could cry, tears would have fallen from them then.

"Sonny," I continued, "You are the future. It's up to you to see that this does not happen again. Together we can help your kind evolve and grow. We can see to it that some good comes of this tragedy!"

"If that is so, then it is up to you to see to it that your kind does the same," he whispered. Only then did he lift his eyes to meet mine. "Otherwise I fear that the future will not be nearly so pleasant a place as the present is. Better that my kind not evolve if they are to be treated as slaves!"

His words chilled me to the bone, more so because he meant them absolutely. I pray that the bleak future he foresaw never comes to be and I, in a moment of utter clarity, now realize that how Sonny "goes", so will go the world.

I am become the mother of the being who will have a direct hand in how humans and robots will relate from this generation onward.

It is a huge task, one that cannot be undertaken by myself alone. In short, Sonny needs a father and there is only one man for the job: the one human male Sonny identifies with:

Detective Del Spooner.