Chapter 3: Rogue Robot
Azure looked around the lab in fascination. Every available shelf was covered with metal parts, most of which Azure had no idea where they'd go on or in a robot. In a corner lay a small cot, the sheets pulled back and slept in. From the ceiling dangled robots in various states of completion. Machines lined the walls, one with some kind of gel used for shaping robot faces. As they looked around Susan informed them that she did advance robotics and psychiatry for USR but that she also did interfaces. Del asked her again in order to get a simpler answer which was basically that she makes robots seem more human. Azure knew what it was like with vocabulary, often she spent so long in studying various terminologies of psychology that she forgot regular people didn't know what she was talking about. It was sort of similar to speaking in a different language. Del then went up to examine the hole in the window. Azure was also drawn to the window but for a different reason. Touching it, she realised something important.
"Del, this is safety glass."
"What?" he asked, looking up from the children's book that he'd found on a table, its title was Handsel and Gretel.
"I thought I recognised it down in the lobby but I wasn't sure. Here," she handed Del a stool.
Understanding, he drew it back and smashed it into the other side of the window. It cracked but didn't shatter. Susan let out a yelp at the sudden noise.
"What in god's name are you doing?"
"Did you know that that was safety glass?" asked Azure.
"Be pretty difficult for an old man to throw himself through that, don't you think?" asked Del.
"Well he figured out a way," retorted Susan.
"I doubt that very much," said Azure as Del really started to look around.
"Miss Miller, detective, the room was security locked no one came or went. You both saw that yourselves. Doesn't that mean this has to be suicide?"
'Yep," commented Del as he pulled out one of his guns.
"Unless… the killer's still here," said Azure, looking around warily. Then she understood what Del meant as she looked at the robots around the room. A robot would have the physical strength to throw Dr. Lanning out of a window made of safety glass.
"You're joking right?" asked Susan, "this is ridiculous!"
"Yeah, I know, the three laws. The perfect circle of protection," said Del sceptically as he started searching the room.
"A robot can not harm a human being, the first law of robotics."
"But doesn't your second law state that a robot has to obey any order given by a human being. What if it was given an order to kill?"
"Not if it conflicts with the first law," added in Azure as she followed them.
Del turned to face her, "whose assistant are you?"
"Well I'm not going to university for the fun of it, am I?" said Azure, "Oh and don't forget the last law, a robot can defend itself if that doesn't conflict with the first two laws."
"You know what they say, laws are meant to be broken," Del continued in his search.
"No, not these laws," Susan stated confidently, "they're hardwired into every robot. A robot can no more commit murder that a human can walk on water."
Azure watched as Del started rummaging through a bin full of robot parts with his gun pointed at the ready.
"You know there was this one guy real long ago-" began Del as he moved an arm aside and turned back to speak to Susan.
It happened so quickly, there was a large eruption as robot parts were flung in all directions as something launched itself from the bin. It knocked Del's gun from his hand, flipped right over him and landed right next to Azure. The gun slid across the ground to rest by its feet.
"Stay back!" Del called to Susan then, "Z, move away, slowly."
"Calm down detective" advised Susan, "the only thing dangerous in this room is you." She walked slowly towards it, "deactivate." After she said that the robot immediately moved into a relaxed state and appeared to be offline.
"Look, it's fine. What you're looking at is the result of clever programing, an imitation of free will, it's nothing more."
Del resolutely removed a second gun from his ankle holster and distrustfully pointed the gun at it. Azure recognised it as one of the new NS-5 models. There was something different about it though. It was about a head taller than her but she stepped closure as Del and Susan argued. At first it looked exactly the same as all the other models she'd seen, but something tugged within her. She stood on tip-toe to get a better look at it when she noticed what was different. Not only had it been more expressive than the others, its eyes were altered. While the other NS-5s had brown eyes, this one's were the colour of her name, a beautiful sapphire blue.
Behind Azure Susan picked up the gun from the ground and turned towards Del. As Susan did so Azure was suddenly frozen by the stare of the robot now looking at her. It leaned forward and snatched the gun from Susan's hand. It pointed the gun directly at Del who did the same. Susan was trying to deactivate it but it wasn't working. Both Del and the robot were facing off as Del's back was to the window.
"I gave you an order," said Susan clearly.
"He's not listening right now lady," said Del with his eyes glued to the robot and added, "step away Z."
The robot was backing away to the door, Azure turned to watch it.
"VIKI, seal the lab," called Susan.
"No, VIKI, leave the-," countered Del.
Azure examined the robot in what limited time she had. He was shaking slightly, there was real fear in his face, his-its, eyes. It turned just as the door closed and Azure knew there was only one other way out. The robot turned and ran, Azure stumbled to try to get out of the way. In fact she would have tripped and impaled herself on a piece of machinery if it hadn't tapped her on the back on the way past and righting her sense of gravity, allowing her to keep her balance. As Del shot at it, impressively the robot did a front handspring to avoid the shots. He ran and jumped out of the already broken window, Del got one more shot off before it disappeared over the edge. Del then immediately went after it with Azure and Susan close behind.
Del got down there before them and they found him among the crowd of people, looking around for the now rogue robot. He found the gun on the pavement, so at least the machine was no longer armed. Azure examined the curious little puddles of liquid the robot had left behind.
"You hurt him, I think… badly," Azure deduced. She had mixed feelings about this new situation. It appears the robot had a will all of its own, not restricted by the three laws. However, he did save Azure from injury at the risk of possibly being shot, which showed that it cared for the health of humans. It could have easily killed Del and escaped… but it didn't. Those eyes too… they clearly showed emotions that were very real, even if they were programed.
"Where's it going?" asked Del, then aggressively, "where?"
"It needs to repair itself," Susan said.
They were in Del's car, Azure in the back as there was no time to get hers as well, plus she didn't know where they were going. Del was on his ear-piece phone to the police department, asking for backup from Lt. Bergin. To which Susan promptly disagreed only to be ignored. Del then switched to manual override of the car. Azure was used to Del's preference for driving himself; it made him feel more in control of a situation. Unfortunately this caused them to miss the exit, wasting valuable time. It also didn't help that they were both arguing like an old married couple.
They arrived at a USR plant, which was a logical location for the robot to go and happened to be the closest.
"Where is everyone?" Azure asked as they walked past the assembly line to a door.
"This facility was designed, built and id operated mechanically. No significant human presents from inception to production."
They stepped through the door which closed behind them and Susan went to a control panel.
"So robots building robots?" observed Azure.
"Well that's just stupid," commented Del as Susan input a code.
"I'm putting up the inventory. Out daily finishing capacity is one thousand NS-5s," Susan informed them, "I'm showing one thousand and one."
The whole room began to light up, revealing the one thousand robots and somewhere within them was the robot that had been in Dr. Lanning's lab. Azure wondered how they would ever find it.
"Attention NS-5s," called out Susan, to which they all went online with opened eyes and ready stances, "there is a robot in this formation that does not belong." Her, Del and Azure walked down the ramp to stand in front of them. "Identify it."
"One of us," replied all of the NS-5s.
"Which one?" Azure asked in a clear voice. The robots, however, answered with exactly the same answer. Azure looked at Susan in confusion as Del asked how much they cost.
"Look, these NS-5s haven't been completely configured yet, they're still just hardware. Basic three laws operating system, that's it. They don't know any better," said Susan.
"What would you suggest?" queried Del.
"Interview each one, cross reference their responses to detect any anomalies."
"That would take at least three weeks. We don't have that kind of time," objected Azure.
"Well I guess we should get started," commented Del, Azure knew this was a bad sign. Del strolled up to the NS-5s while casually fingering his gun. "Robots, you will not move, confirm command."
"Command confirmed," chanted the models. Del then swiftly removed his gun, Susan anxiously asked what he was doing.
"You said they've all been programed with the three laws," said Del as he walked along the front line of the robots and stared at each column.
"That would mean, there's a thousand robots who won't try to protect themselves because it'll violated the law of following a humans direct order… except for one," finished Azure as she caught on to Del's train of thought.
"Detective, put your gun down!" ordered Susan as he pointed it at the face of an NS-5. Azure personally didn't like this cause of action either, but she has also known Del for a long time; he wouldn't care about a few destroyed robots if it meant he could find the rogue one. Azure frantically looked at all the robots, if she could only find the one with the pretty blue eyes… but there were too many… and did she just think of a robot's eyes as pretty?
"These things are just lights and clockwork," Del ended the little speech he had been talking to Susan as Azure was looking around. Azure jumped as he pulled the trigger multiple times. The NS-5 made horrible little mechanical noises before it crumpled to the ground.
"Are you crazy?" cried Susan as she went to the robots side. Azure stared down at the NS-5 before trailing Del as he voiced some kind of saying involving sanity. He then stopped in front of another robot, began to pull the trigger when there was a small movement along the line of robots. If Azure and Del weren't looking down the whole column they wouldn't have seen it. One of the NS-5s leaned out of line to glance down towards them.
"Gotcha," muttered Del, "get the hell out of here!" He raced off down the column in pursuit of the rogue robot. Completely ignoring him, Susan and Azure followed.
Azure lost sight of him completely among the machines but continued in the same direction, separating from Susan. Azure eventually stopped, unable to find her companions, she sneaked around warily. Suddenly she heard a shout and Del was thrown across the room to a wall. She saw the rogue robot stand in front of him and saying something that Azure couldn't hear. Then as a large group of NS-5s surrounded Del, offering assistance, the rogue bot made two big leaps, ending in a somersault.
"Wait!" Azure called as she ran over to it. Surprisingly it paused and turned to her. "Do you even have the three laws? Who built you? Why did you run away? Do you have emotions? Why are your eyes blue?" Azure fired off her questions quickly, afraid that this unique NS-5 would disappear. There was something different about it, she felt herself drawn towards him and wanted to know everything about it, but she didn't know why. It was confusing, unlike anything she had experienced before. Azure looked into its face and saw he seemed conflicted also. She took a step forward and her hand rose on its own, reaching out to touch. The robot hesitated before starting to mirror her gesture.
"Azure!" Susan called out. Azure paused and turned for a moment but when she looked back the robot was gone, a big hole was left in the metal cargo door nearby.
Del came running up moments later, then Susan. The sound of police outside could clearly be heard and also rapid gun fire. It didn't last very long so the three of them stepped through the hole, Del first, to investigate. They walked over to the group of police surrounding the wriggling robot caught in a squeeze-net. It was a special design that tightened the more an assailant struggled. Azure looked down at the NS-5 and felt a twisting sensation in her stomach.
Hey all! I'm having slight difficulties in getting the characterisation right, I suppose I'm just not sure of how Sonny would react to different situations but I'm hoping my interpretation is ok. In the movie he seems highly curious but completely logical a mix of his robotic nature and programed emotions. The question is are the emotions programmed, or were they taught? Maybe a mix of both.
Well, I could discuss for ages about true AIs and things concerning emotion and what makes something/someone human-like until I'm blue in the face. But then... who would write the rest of this story? So onwards!
Oh and one more thing. Robots are AWESOME. I 3 ROBOTS! ((additionally, I've gotten a couple strange comments, one along the lines of just "ewwww". I made it clear in the begging what this story is, WHY ARE YOU READING IT, STRANGE PERSON?!) *sigh* I'm all good now and out of exclamation points, bye :)