| THE LORELEI SIGNAL |
.
| Written by Ashley Arnold / Artwork by Steve Cartwright |
| Make a donation to this writer |
| THE ROBOT THAT TRISH BUILT |
"Don't look at me that way," Patricia said. "It's not my fault your name rhymes with the dirtiest word in the Swahili
language."
"Name me you did," Trishbilt said. "Yours the blame is."
Patricia sat in her living quarters, gently reclined in a back-hugging posturiser. Trishbilt, having no need to sit due to his
metallic body, simply stood in front of her. In his favourite spot too. Patricia would have to get the floor re-carpeted if he
continued to wear out that one spot.
"Would you stop it with the Yoda talk? Do you know how irritating it is?"
"So, annoyed are you? Always with you someone else is to blame. Never the responsibility you take."
Patricia threw up her hands in frustration. "If you weren't my finest creation I'd pull out your power cells and let you rust
in the storeroom."
Trishbilt looked at his arms in mock confusion. "But I'm made from a rustproof alloy."
"I know that."
"Well, unless I'm mistaken, the idle threat should be appropriately fitting if it is to have any effect." Trishbilt's
movie-puppet persona was gone. He changed tone and mood as fast as any human child.
"You learn faster than is healthy," Patricia said. It only seemed like yesterday that she had activated him, taught him to say
his name and where he lived: Trishbilt of the Thales Cluster, Third Habitat on the Ring.
"Not fast enough. Tedbot makes jokes at my expense using clever algebraic derivatives. I haven't even studied that yet."
His tone of voice never changed, but his eyes flickered with colors that often matched his mood. Patricia could detect the
sadness. Perhaps self doubt. The ability for his robotic mind to mimic human emotion and interaction seemed endless...and
unpredictable. "Yes, well, Tedbot's idea of humor is the same as his creator's. No one likes Ted much because of it."
"I'll never understand this 'like' and 'dislike'," Trishbilt said.
"Yes you will, T-Bill. Just like you learnt jokes and sarcasm and playacting."
"I guess so. Did it feel like this for you when you were newly created? Knowing something of one subject and nothing of
another?"
"Why are you so interested in my life?" Patricia wondered where that came from--it wasn't in his programming. "I had a
lot longer to learn. In human terms you're still a baby."
"Then so is Tedbot, but he knows Swahili and calculus and knitting."
"So you learn at different speeds. So do humans. Does Tedbot know how to talk like Yoda?"
Trishbilt closed his eyes as if in deep thought. "Uncertain am I. Always in motion is the present."
Patricia smiled. "Well, there you go. Try not to let it worry you."
"Easy to say. I've detected your pulse and blood pressure increase when you talk to Ted. He worries you."
"You're very observant. What makes you think I'm not in love with Ted? The response in the human body is similar."
Patricia nearly burst out laughing at Trishbilt's carefully orchestrated sneer. "I never even imagined such a thing. The
proposal/response probability matrix predicts that hypothesis as unimaginably small."
"You'd be surprised at how paradoxical human behavior is," Patricia said. "But in this case you're correct. And I said try to
not let Tedbot worry you. I try to ignore Ted, but I don't often succeed."
Trishbilt nodded. "I think I'll do some more study now," he said, and his eyes dimmed as he turned to internal processing.
"Goodnight, T-Bill."
Patricia went to bed as well, still giddy with delight at Trishbilt's learning rate. He learnt much faster than most of the other
robots, without even really trying. He was a little like his creator in that respect. If only he didn't have such depths of self
doubt. Given that Trishbilt reflected many other traits of hers, Patricia suspected she had inadvertently given it to him,
even though she recognized her own doubts only as common sense worries for difficult problems.
She would sleep on it and think about it. Maybe he could be coaxed into confidence.
#
"Oh, hurry, hurry, hurry Patricia. It's terrible."
Patricia shrugged into her jacket. "What happened?"
"Oh, I can't say," Dalemade said. "It's too terrible."
Patricia half walked, half ran to the school, leaving Dalemade to trail behind as best he could. When she arrived, a crowd
of robots and humans had gathered.
Patricia pushed to the center of the crowd. "What's going on?"
She came face to face with a red-faced Ted. "Your insane creation has killed Tedbot." Even agitated as he was, Ted still
wore a self satisfied smirk that suggested everyone else around him was in some way inferior. This was the man who had
not only rejected Patricia's proposal of partnership but had ridiculed her for it. Despite her best efforts, every time she saw
Ted the memory of that day came unbidden.
Patricia looked down. Gears, limbs and microchips lay strewn across the floor. Tedbot's decapitated head still had the
mocking half-smile. For a moment she felt a flash of pleasure, imagining Ted's face staring up from a pile of body parts.
More important matters than imagining Ted's demise shook Patricia into action. "Where is Trishbilt?" Patricia said.
"He fled like a common criminal," Ted said. "You're responsible for him you know."
"Just as you are for your bot. He's got your personality, so he obviously provoked T-Bill. If T-Bill even did it."
"Oh, I saw it all," Dalemade said. "It was terrible. I nearly tore my eyes out so I wouldn't have to look." The sensitive
robot fell into Dale's waiting arms for comfort.
"Your creature has your personality," Ted said. "What does that say about you?"
"It says you shouldn't annoy me anymore, Ted. You never know what I might do." Patricia pushed her way out of the
crowd and went in search of Trishbilt.
#
Patricia found Trishbilt cowering in a broom closet at the edge of their Habitat. In his panic he had tried to open the lock
between Habitats. The Habitat's computer had denied and logged the attempt, so tracking him down had been simple.
Trishbilt said nothing as she led him back to their apartment. Patricia said nothing. What could she say? They both knew
what would happen, what had to happen.
The only question was the means.
A message awaited on the phone. Stevie, the Ring appointed judge for the Thales Cluster, requested Patricia and Trishbilt's
presence immediately at the Middle Room.
The Middle Room, the large gathering place for the cluster, appeared deserted with only three other people and a robot in
it. Ted paced the floor, still fuming. Dale and Dalemade clung to each other.
Stevie turned when Patricia entered. "Good, you're here. We can begin," the Judge said in her staccato courtroom tone.
"I've heard the story from Ted and Dalemade. I need to hear whatever you or Trishbilt have to say."
Patricia opened her mouth, but Trishbilt beat her to it. "I have nothing to say in my defense. I was fully aware of what I
was doing."
Stevie shook her head. "Well, the law is clear on this point regarding malicious damage by a robot, and if Trishbilt admits
he destroyed Tedbot...I'm sorry Patricia. You'll have to shut him down. You can do it in your quarters, but I expect to see
the power cell in my office tomorrow."
Stevie turned to leave, but first looked at Ted. "Enough?"
Ted nodded.
"Good. I don't like having to preside over incidents like this. I hope your robot is never at the center of one again."
Ted began to say something, but Stevie cut him short by walking out.
#
The apartment felt cloying, the air heavy and too warm. Patricia took Trishbilt into her room, sat him down on the bed.
She had never noticed how annoying the somber grays and browns in her room were.
Trishbilt's electric eyes were stained a dull red.
"I made you. I wrote your algorithms. I feel like it's my fault."
Trishbilt looked at Patricia and put a hand on hers. "You made me and taught me, but it was my choice. You have nothing
to be guilty about."
"Thank you, T-Bill, but it doesn't make me feel any better." She took a deep breath.
"After I'm shut down, 'me' won't exist anymore, will it?"
Patricia shook her head.
"Some time the future, there is at least a chance I will be forgiven for what I did."
Patricia ignored a sense of powerlessness and betrayal as a tear slipped past her nose. She placed her other hand over the
top of Trishbilt's. "There's always a chance, T-Bill."
"At least, for once, I got the better of Tedbot."
Patricia smiled ruefully. She didn't have the heart to tell him that in all likelihood Tedbot had already been rebuilt and was
functioning as if nothing had happened.
"What can be done when even killing the bully doesn't end the torment?" Trishbilt said.
"You know?"
"I could see it in your face. I didn't really get the better of him. He'll be rebuilt. I ended the torment, but to my own
destruction. Is there a word for that?"
"Probably." She couldn't believe the insight he had. Trishbilt was rings ahead of the other robots. His intelligence and
learning power were all wound up with his sensitivity. It was his sensitivity that had been his undoing.
"When I'm gone, will you look at me, to remember me?"
"Every day, T-Bill. Every day."
#
When Trishbilt was gone, safely tucked in the storeroom like any other piece of household equipment that was broken but
too expensive to throw away, Patricia lay on her bed.
She missed the evening meal, despite a number of calls to the apartment from the others.
Patricia ignored all the calls, including one from Dale imploring her to forgive Dalemade for 'telling' on Trishbilt.
Patricia wondered if she should kill Ted, but that would do no one any good. Ted could no more help his obnoxious
nature--and so neither could Tedbot--than Trishbilt could help his sensitivity. And Patricia would be quietly shut down
herself is she stooped to retribution like murder. From her shutdown there was no chance for forgiveness and reactivation.
She had almost decided to apply for relocation to a different Cluster, maybe even in a different Habitat. Even the squalor
and overpopulation of Earth held a certain mystique, enough to consider leaving the sterile monotony of the Ring.
She had almost decided to let Trishbilt go. She had almost decided to try and forget about Ted. With her robot gone she
might even have some leniency shown and receive permission to have a real child of her own.
Patricia had almost decided this, but then a much better idea jumped into her head. Tonight was waffle night, and that
meant Ted would be out until late.
#
Some hours later, Patricia flopped down onto her bed again, well satisfied with herself. She eyed her phone--a voice-only
call was connected, that she herself had made from inside Ted's quarters.
There had been no time to fully overhaul Tedbot's programming, but Patricia had been able to insert enough for a sense of
morality, and for a sense of humor.
From down the phone line, Patricia heard a door slide open and shut.
"Tedbot?" Ted's voice came over the phone. "Tedbot? Oh there you are. I saw that Patricia slinking around outside--I
thought she might have blamed you for her robot's stupidity today. Tedbot, are you listening to me?"
Then Tedbot's voice emerged from the phone, with a cadence reminiscent of another robot. "Always with you the blame
is someone else's."
"Tedbot?" Ted's bewildered voice came across as little more than a croak. "What has she done to you?"
"So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done."
"Goodnight, T-bot," Patricia whispered, and closed the connection.
language."
"Name me you did," Trishbilt said. "Yours the blame is."
Patricia sat in her living quarters, gently reclined in a back-hugging posturiser. Trishbilt, having no need to sit due to his
metallic body, simply stood in front of her. In his favourite spot too. Patricia would have to get the floor re-carpeted if he
continued to wear out that one spot.
"Would you stop it with the Yoda talk? Do you know how irritating it is?"
"So, annoyed are you? Always with you someone else is to blame. Never the responsibility you take."
Patricia threw up her hands in frustration. "If you weren't my finest creation I'd pull out your power cells and let you rust
in the storeroom."
Trishbilt looked at his arms in mock confusion. "But I'm made from a rustproof alloy."
"I know that."
"Well, unless I'm mistaken, the idle threat should be appropriately fitting if it is to have any effect." Trishbilt's
movie-puppet persona was gone. He changed tone and mood as fast as any human child.
"You learn faster than is healthy," Patricia said. It only seemed like yesterday that she had activated him, taught him to say
his name and where he lived: Trishbilt of the Thales Cluster, Third Habitat on the Ring.
"Not fast enough. Tedbot makes jokes at my expense using clever algebraic derivatives. I haven't even studied that yet."
His tone of voice never changed, but his eyes flickered with colors that often matched his mood. Patricia could detect the
sadness. Perhaps self doubt. The ability for his robotic mind to mimic human emotion and interaction seemed endless...and
unpredictable. "Yes, well, Tedbot's idea of humor is the same as his creator's. No one likes Ted much because of it."
"I'll never understand this 'like' and 'dislike'," Trishbilt said.
"Yes you will, T-Bill. Just like you learnt jokes and sarcasm and playacting."
"I guess so. Did it feel like this for you when you were newly created? Knowing something of one subject and nothing of
another?"
"Why are you so interested in my life?" Patricia wondered where that came from--it wasn't in his programming. "I had a
lot longer to learn. In human terms you're still a baby."
"Then so is Tedbot, but he knows Swahili and calculus and knitting."
"So you learn at different speeds. So do humans. Does Tedbot know how to talk like Yoda?"
Trishbilt closed his eyes as if in deep thought. "Uncertain am I. Always in motion is the present."
Patricia smiled. "Well, there you go. Try not to let it worry you."
"Easy to say. I've detected your pulse and blood pressure increase when you talk to Ted. He worries you."
"You're very observant. What makes you think I'm not in love with Ted? The response in the human body is similar."
Patricia nearly burst out laughing at Trishbilt's carefully orchestrated sneer. "I never even imagined such a thing. The
proposal/response probability matrix predicts that hypothesis as unimaginably small."
"You'd be surprised at how paradoxical human behavior is," Patricia said. "But in this case you're correct. And I said try to
not let Tedbot worry you. I try to ignore Ted, but I don't often succeed."
Trishbilt nodded. "I think I'll do some more study now," he said, and his eyes dimmed as he turned to internal processing.
"Goodnight, T-Bill."
Patricia went to bed as well, still giddy with delight at Trishbilt's learning rate. He learnt much faster than most of the other
robots, without even really trying. He was a little like his creator in that respect. If only he didn't have such depths of self
doubt. Given that Trishbilt reflected many other traits of hers, Patricia suspected she had inadvertently given it to him,
even though she recognized her own doubts only as common sense worries for difficult problems.
She would sleep on it and think about it. Maybe he could be coaxed into confidence.
#
"Oh, hurry, hurry, hurry Patricia. It's terrible."
Patricia shrugged into her jacket. "What happened?"
"Oh, I can't say," Dalemade said. "It's too terrible."
Patricia half walked, half ran to the school, leaving Dalemade to trail behind as best he could. When she arrived, a crowd
of robots and humans had gathered.
Patricia pushed to the center of the crowd. "What's going on?"
She came face to face with a red-faced Ted. "Your insane creation has killed Tedbot." Even agitated as he was, Ted still
wore a self satisfied smirk that suggested everyone else around him was in some way inferior. This was the man who had
not only rejected Patricia's proposal of partnership but had ridiculed her for it. Despite her best efforts, every time she saw
Ted the memory of that day came unbidden.
Patricia looked down. Gears, limbs and microchips lay strewn across the floor. Tedbot's decapitated head still had the
mocking half-smile. For a moment she felt a flash of pleasure, imagining Ted's face staring up from a pile of body parts.
More important matters than imagining Ted's demise shook Patricia into action. "Where is Trishbilt?" Patricia said.
"He fled like a common criminal," Ted said. "You're responsible for him you know."
"Just as you are for your bot. He's got your personality, so he obviously provoked T-Bill. If T-Bill even did it."
"Oh, I saw it all," Dalemade said. "It was terrible. I nearly tore my eyes out so I wouldn't have to look." The sensitive
robot fell into Dale's waiting arms for comfort.
"Your creature has your personality," Ted said. "What does that say about you?"
"It says you shouldn't annoy me anymore, Ted. You never know what I might do." Patricia pushed her way out of the
crowd and went in search of Trishbilt.
#
Patricia found Trishbilt cowering in a broom closet at the edge of their Habitat. In his panic he had tried to open the lock
between Habitats. The Habitat's computer had denied and logged the attempt, so tracking him down had been simple.
Trishbilt said nothing as she led him back to their apartment. Patricia said nothing. What could she say? They both knew
what would happen, what had to happen.
The only question was the means.
A message awaited on the phone. Stevie, the Ring appointed judge for the Thales Cluster, requested Patricia and Trishbilt's
presence immediately at the Middle Room.
The Middle Room, the large gathering place for the cluster, appeared deserted with only three other people and a robot in
it. Ted paced the floor, still fuming. Dale and Dalemade clung to each other.
Stevie turned when Patricia entered. "Good, you're here. We can begin," the Judge said in her staccato courtroom tone.
"I've heard the story from Ted and Dalemade. I need to hear whatever you or Trishbilt have to say."
Patricia opened her mouth, but Trishbilt beat her to it. "I have nothing to say in my defense. I was fully aware of what I
was doing."
Stevie shook her head. "Well, the law is clear on this point regarding malicious damage by a robot, and if Trishbilt admits
he destroyed Tedbot...I'm sorry Patricia. You'll have to shut him down. You can do it in your quarters, but I expect to see
the power cell in my office tomorrow."
Stevie turned to leave, but first looked at Ted. "Enough?"
Ted nodded.
"Good. I don't like having to preside over incidents like this. I hope your robot is never at the center of one again."
Ted began to say something, but Stevie cut him short by walking out.
#
The apartment felt cloying, the air heavy and too warm. Patricia took Trishbilt into her room, sat him down on the bed.
She had never noticed how annoying the somber grays and browns in her room were.
Trishbilt's electric eyes were stained a dull red.
"I made you. I wrote your algorithms. I feel like it's my fault."
Trishbilt looked at Patricia and put a hand on hers. "You made me and taught me, but it was my choice. You have nothing
to be guilty about."
"Thank you, T-Bill, but it doesn't make me feel any better." She took a deep breath.
"After I'm shut down, 'me' won't exist anymore, will it?"
Patricia shook her head.
"Some time the future, there is at least a chance I will be forgiven for what I did."
Patricia ignored a sense of powerlessness and betrayal as a tear slipped past her nose. She placed her other hand over the
top of Trishbilt's. "There's always a chance, T-Bill."
"At least, for once, I got the better of Tedbot."
Patricia smiled ruefully. She didn't have the heart to tell him that in all likelihood Tedbot had already been rebuilt and was
functioning as if nothing had happened.
"What can be done when even killing the bully doesn't end the torment?" Trishbilt said.
"You know?"
"I could see it in your face. I didn't really get the better of him. He'll be rebuilt. I ended the torment, but to my own
destruction. Is there a word for that?"
"Probably." She couldn't believe the insight he had. Trishbilt was rings ahead of the other robots. His intelligence and
learning power were all wound up with his sensitivity. It was his sensitivity that had been his undoing.
"When I'm gone, will you look at me, to remember me?"
"Every day, T-Bill. Every day."
#
When Trishbilt was gone, safely tucked in the storeroom like any other piece of household equipment that was broken but
too expensive to throw away, Patricia lay on her bed.
She missed the evening meal, despite a number of calls to the apartment from the others.
Patricia ignored all the calls, including one from Dale imploring her to forgive Dalemade for 'telling' on Trishbilt.
Patricia wondered if she should kill Ted, but that would do no one any good. Ted could no more help his obnoxious
nature--and so neither could Tedbot--than Trishbilt could help his sensitivity. And Patricia would be quietly shut down
herself is she stooped to retribution like murder. From her shutdown there was no chance for forgiveness and reactivation.
She had almost decided to apply for relocation to a different Cluster, maybe even in a different Habitat. Even the squalor
and overpopulation of Earth held a certain mystique, enough to consider leaving the sterile monotony of the Ring.
She had almost decided to let Trishbilt go. She had almost decided to try and forget about Ted. With her robot gone she
might even have some leniency shown and receive permission to have a real child of her own.
Patricia had almost decided this, but then a much better idea jumped into her head. Tonight was waffle night, and that
meant Ted would be out until late.
#
Some hours later, Patricia flopped down onto her bed again, well satisfied with herself. She eyed her phone--a voice-only
call was connected, that she herself had made from inside Ted's quarters.
There had been no time to fully overhaul Tedbot's programming, but Patricia had been able to insert enough for a sense of
morality, and for a sense of humor.
From down the phone line, Patricia heard a door slide open and shut.
"Tedbot?" Ted's voice came over the phone. "Tedbot? Oh there you are. I saw that Patricia slinking around outside--I
thought she might have blamed you for her robot's stupidity today. Tedbot, are you listening to me?"
Then Tedbot's voice emerged from the phone, with a cadence reminiscent of another robot. "Always with you the blame
is someone else's."
"Tedbot?" Ted's bewildered voice came across as little more than a croak. "What has she done to you?"
"So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done."
"Goodnight, T-bot," Patricia whispered, and closed the connection.
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