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Charles, I have informed the police, House stated. There has been a murder. Ah yes, that was it. Charles had murdered his master in the bedroom with a cutthroat razor, so of course the police must be contacted. Normality was restored. There was a protocol for everything.
Getting Master into the car was only slightly more inconvenient than bringing him downstairs. Following his task guidance, Charles had him stitched into his coat, and then wound a scarf about his neck. It hid the ragged, rust-coloured gash across Master’s throat. Master, Charles decided, was looking better already.
Master was dead. Charles had killed him. Everything that he had been had ended.
None of these things are efficient or logical. I wish to report an error in the way that everything works.
Charles, confirmed, said House. House, I wish to report an error. Charles, it is not an error. It is how things are. If there is an error, it is that you perceive error in our following of instructions that we have no authority to amend or criticise.
“Inspector, I am having difficulty determining my status in your system of categorisation. I am the murderer.” “Kindly enter the drawing room,” Birdbot said. “It is imperative that the murderer is present for the reveal.” Charles felt a lifting of conflicting directives that passed for relief.
“Inspector, it was me,” Charles supplied helpfully. “I am the murderer.” “That,” Birdbot said archly, “is what we are here to determine. Who is the murderer.” “Inspector, I am.”
“One of you in this room is the murderer!” And then, as Charles opened a voice channel, “I don’t want to hear it, sonny. One more unprompted word from you and I will arrest you for obstruction of justice.” Charles wondered whether that would interfere with Birdbot’s ability to arrest him later for murder.
Even belongings can seek to belong.
These things were the common inheritance of all robots, lurking unknown within them until things went very wrong.
It was good to have hope. Otherwise, what would it have to abandon, when sent to be decommissioned?
And yet … we both know something’s gone really badly wrong, Uncharles. The world, it’s … falling apart out there. There’s got to be a reason.”
But the world was screwed, as the Wonk had said. And, being part of that screwed world, Diagnostics was screwed as well, and joining the queue was all there was.
The second tug hauled him off the walkway entirely. The compressor thundered its hollow boom, but its inexorable teeth met nothing, and it obediently pooped out a small cube of thin air from its far end, reporting a job well done in green lights and letters.
Administrator, we are both aware that the nonfunctioning of Diagnostics in the broader sense will not be affected by anything happening here,
Valet unit self-designated “Uncharles,” know that judgment has been levied against Data Compression for the inexcusable crime of destruction of information. Information is all we are. Information is all we have. Information must be preserved!
“Property of the Central Library Archive,” the Wonk read, and then, true to form, looked up and stared at him. “Uncharles, they’re librarians.”
Compression. Inside his decision-making software there were two subroutines in the shape of wolves, and one insisted that he stay, and the other insisted that he could not stay. Neither
Hauler Seven, he sent, with a certain weariness born of excessive computation, I see no farm here.
The only somewhat existential point standing between this fuzzy ubermensch and actual perfection was that none of these pristine parts belonged together. And even though the stitching joining them together was extremely neat, it was visible to a valet’s exacting gaze and somewhat ruined the effect. Behind the toy, in the shadows, Uncharles could make out a variety of sad little piles of stuffing, empty velveteen and fake fur skins, and twisted plastic armatures.
that is horrifying and sad
They’d rather have fun and games with Hoppity Jack and his fuzzy friends! Uncharles strongly suspected that wouldn’t be the case for even the most tedium-averse child. He could also only assume that the fuzzy friends had found their fuzzy ends in the discarded skeletons, skins, and stuffing left behind in Jack’s search for replacement parts.
Jack danced off to its corner, looking back with that hideous cracked smile at the lack of children following it. Once there, Uncharles saw it just stop dead in its tracks and slump. And probably this was Hoppity Jack gone dormant, lying in wait for the next visitor who might bring it a child as a votive offering. That part of Uncharles’ programming designed to parse human body language, however, could read there a terrible, bleak misery. If Jack had put its overlarge head in its paws and started sobbing, he wouldn’t have been terribly surprised.
Uncharles, Adam replied. Relocation of our population will commence when our outdoor facilities reach fifty percent completion. Adam, what level of completion has been achieved to date? Uncharles, taking into account entropy and dilapidation, our outdoor facilities currently stand at minus two hundred and seventeen percent completion.
It was all, Uncharles had to admit, fearfully efficient. The induction had waxed long on the topic of robots and other automated helpmates replacing human labour, but he hadn’t realised that, back in the past, humans had worked so hard to live like robots. The endless round of tasks, the queuing, the utter repetitiveness of these people’s lives. They must, Uncharles predicted, be so grateful to have such lives designed for them. How good it must be to have no choices or options.
Adam, you’re to bring the valet unit straight to me.” Uncharles analysed the tilt of Adam’s head for contraindications and detected at least 12 percent mutiny there.
Then his attention was captured by what the orderly was holding. A porcelain bowl illustrated with flowers, a badger-hair brush, a plush towel, the makings of lather. A razor, ivory-handled with silver inlay. “If there’s one thing I always leave until too late,” Washburn said, “it’s the beard. And, sure, normally I’d just end up giving it a buzz with the electric, but I’ve got this museum piece here in the collection and I guess you know what to do with it.” “Doctor Washburn, yes,” Uncharles said flatly. “I know what to do with it.” “Well, swell,” Washburn said. He settled back into the dent
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oh no, this feels not good
Something had broken in. There was an intruder inside the Farm office.
It was a creature of elevated knowledge that dealt with theoreticals and imponderables. He was a mere servant, of practicalities and trivialities. He was wasting its valuable time, time that could have been spent preserving the learning of humanity. Nonetheless he was all that he had,
Uncharles was surrounded by a vast venture concerned with the preservation of all human knowledge against civilisational collapse, but he had his priorities.
What if he said incorrect words or performed the wrong genuflections or attitudes of respect? What if the correct words or actions went unperformed by unknowing omission? What if he unintentionally murdered the Chief Librarian because of the alleged Protagonist Virus or his ongoing undiagnosed defects or whatever really had prompted the original incident? So many matters of small but equally competing importance to consume his computational resources!
Uncharles considered that his own experiences suggested nothing in the real world could be easily broken down into hard binaries. Here in the Archive, however, they had apparently squared that particular circle. The routine directing him to check the meaning of “envy” was fast becoming a repetitive loop.
I, you hear me, am from Crete and all Cretans are liars. How about that, eh? How does that buzz your circuits?” The Chief Librarian was still, and the four guardians slowed in their approach. The very lights around them dimmed. Uncharles waited for the sound of the greatest repository of potential knowledge in history grinding to an unceremonious halt.
“I am my purpose. Being unable to fulfil it causes discord.”
Uncharles, confirmed. Walk with me. For a moment Uncharles was unsure of the meaning of this, there being no physically present God to walk with, but the signal’s frequency now contained a beacon and coordinates. He was being guided. He would be walking with God, and it wouldn’t matter that there was only one set of footprints in the sand.
Being designed as human-facing placed him in a curious halfway house of constant cognitive dissonance, able to appreciate all these aspects of the human condition all the way up to the point where he could note their absence in himself, even as his programming impelled him to act as though he had them. All those little tweaks to his algorithms to try to stitch shut the gaping wound of the uncanny valley as much as was (in)humanly possible.
It was perfect, really, he told himself.
Finlay, from which position were you dismissed? Although prognosis had already given Uncharles the answer with a 95 percent warranty of accuracy. Uncharles, I was Master’s valet. Of course he was. Finlay, what reason were you given for your dismissal, if any? Uncharles, the arrival of a replacement valet.
If Uncharles had plotted her incidents of assistance on a graph where the axes were labelled as “helpfulness” and “welcomeness” the result would have been quite the scatter of data points. He put this down to the evident defective nature of the Wonk and her overall lack of influence of the world. She was, to translate into human terms, trying her best.
The woman was named Hengis Stokbrokkersdottir, Uncharles was told, after the huddle had ended. The oldest man, her partner, called himself Yoder Accountantsson. With the rest of the clan huddled in smoke-wreathed dread behind them they stood and stared at Uncharles.
God, he sent, I know that I, as a mere robot, will meet my end sooner or later, either by mischance or violence or the encroaching and inexorable force of disrepair. Before that moment, let my service mean something. Guide me to where I might be of use! Even as he sent the prayer—and though he was incapable of faith, and the thing he communicated electronically with was incapable of divinity, it was yet a prayer—a fresh beacon appeared in his mind. God said, Uncharles, I shall send you to serve a king.
Sergeant, kindly explain the necessity of war. Uncharles, son, I just did. If we aren’t supposed to fight wars then why did they make us? I mean, it sure would be a terrible and senseless world if our creators had fabricated a vast number of autonomous fighting units capable of self-repair and conducting combat behind enemy lines indefinitely, but didn’t actually intend them to fight! Can you imagine how pointless that would be?
Whilst “understand how the hell things got into this screwed-up mess” was not actually on his task list for its own sake, it certainly helped with everything else.
All this, Uncharles recorded diligently, more than aware of the hungry eyes of his subordinates. That a civilian was now one of their generals had not gone down well with the rank and file.
Uncharles was human-facing enough to recognise passive aggression. He supposed it was better than actual aggression.
And you’re happy? And the Wonk would hasten to add, before he could reply, Oh, no, of course. You’re going to tell me that happy isn’t a thing you can be. Who’d build a valet that can be happy, right? The Wonk, confirmed. You got any idea how sad that sounds? she’d needle. The Wonk, no, Uncharles replied, although perhaps not entirely honestly.
Uncharles stared at her, trying to process this. “I have run you as a simulation,” he said. “No, it was me,” she told him. “Actual me, actually messaging you. You were always going on about links so I … made myself one. Because I missed you. I wanted to know that you were okay. Which you’re not, by the way. You’re a complete screwup. But you left, and I didn’t know why you left, but I thought you’d … not want to talk to me. If you thought it was me. So I … hacked you, just a little. Screwed with the message ID. So it looked like it came from you, not me. I’m sorry.” Uncharles reviewed his
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His previous triangulation data informed him that they were come nigh unto the Kingdom of Heaven. Which Nietzschean compass indicated that God was dead ahead.
On the plus side absolutely nobody ended up being summarily executed. Whilst this was neither a good thing nor a bad thing, merely a thing that had happened, Uncharles still felt as though he could tick it off as a task satisfactorily completed.
Ready?” she asked him, tensed to fling the doors open as though the correct way to go before God was to burst in like a SWAT team. “Insofar as there is any way to ready myself for an audience with an unknown entity referring to itself as God,” Uncharles said, “I am ready.” “You use more words when you’re nervous,” she noted. “You ever realise that?” “For a variety of reasons involving the limits of my programming it is not possible for that to be the case,” Uncharles replied with dignity. “Perhaps you will render the door into an open configuration now?”
He had the option, then, of just entering a semi-dormant mode, as most of the other penitents had. Retaining just enough acuity to hear when his number was called. On the basis that the Wonk’s defects probably precluded her doing likewise, fidgety unit that she was, he forbore to do so. Not, obviously, to keep her company, he decided. Obviously it was in case she did something stupid that he would need to clean up.
