Charlie Robot, page 1
Charlie Robot
By Benedict J. Martin
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2014 Benedict J. Martin
All rights reserved
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is dedicated to my wonderful wife, Nancy. She always believes in me.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
Chapter 1
It started in the lunchroom with easily the worst headache I've ever had. I'm still not sure if it was a migraine or not; I didn't see any flashing lights or smell toast burning. Whatever it was, I was considering curling up underneath the table with a bucket when Doug came bursting through the door, looking the same as he had that morning he discovered someone had stolen his Vespa.
"He's gone!" he exclaimed.
I sat up, wincing from the glare of the fluorescent lights. "What are you talking about?"
"I went across the street to get myself a coffee, and when I came back, he was gone!"
Words cannot express just how rotten I felt right then. Had it been about anything else, I would have told him to leave me alone. But this was Steven he was talking about, and forcing myself from my chair, I chased Doug to the holding room at the end of the hall.
Maybe I should take a moment and explain what was going on. Doug ran a lab in Vancouver, British Columbia, where—for the past two years—we'd been hard at work developing a robot that not only behaved like a human but looked like one as well. Steven was the fruit of that research: an android so lifelike, a person could spend an entire evening playing board games with him and never once suspect they were in the company of a machine.
"Didn't you lock the door?" I asked, swaying in the entrance to the android's little room.
Doug stood with his hand pressed up against his forehead, looking very pale. "I thought I did! Honestly, Charlie, I could have sworn I locked it!"
Doug could be so frustrating sometimes. He was—and this is no exaggeration—a genius; able to not only write code, but test it as well, all within the confines of his head. And his talent didn't stop at programming; he had an uncanny ability to find patterns in nearly everything he saw. From crowds at a hockey game to Scrabble tiles lying in a jumble on a table, he had only to glance at them and he could discover things that would leave you shaking your head in amazement. I never truly appreciated what the human brain was capable of until the first time I shared a taxi with Doug and watched him create anagrams from sentences in the newspaper he was reading.
Yet as brilliant as Doug was, he was also an idiot, constantly missing appointments and forgetting the simplest things. Like locking doors.
"How long were you gone?”
"I don't know. An hour?"
"An hour? Doug, he could be anywhere by now!"
"I know! I know!"
"What about the security cameras?"
Doug's gaze fell to the floor. "They weren't on."
"What do you mean they weren't on?"
"Remember how I was going to upgrade the hard drive? You know, so I wouldn't have to back it up all the time? Well, I took the old one out, and... well... I guess I never got around to doing it..."
"But that was over six months ago!"
"I'm sorry, Charlie!"
It would have been so easy to lose my temper right then, maybe ram his head through the wall. Instead, I took a moment to calm myself.
"Well, we can't just stand here. We've got to get out there and find him!"
Doug looked at me and shook his head. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"I'm supposed to be presenting Steven at an investor's meeting."
"Call them up and tell them you can't go."
"I can't! I promised them last time they would get to see him. Seriously, if I don't show up with Steven, they're going to cut off our funding."
I closed my eyes, unable to escape the pounding in my head. "What time does it start?"
"Ten o'clock."
"Doug, it's ten-fifteen!"
What was already a bad situation had suddenly become much worse. Doug wasn't exaggerating when he said we would lose our funding. Through the years he had developed a reputation as someone who couldn't follow through on his ideas. It wasn't justified; on two separate occasions he'd been on the cusp of revealing what would have surely been a world changing invention, only to have his work stolen by a rival organization. And while he'd been successful in lobbying the various backers to continue funding his quest to develop an artificial human being, appearing at the meeting empty-handed would have seen our funding not only stopped, but our equipment seized as well. With only a few days having passed since a house fire had destroyed everything I owned, losing my job would have been the absolute worst thing in the world.
"You were supposed to be there fifteen minutes ago," I said, gesturing to the old black-and-white clock on the wall. "What are we going to do?"
"The only thing we can do. You're going to come with me and pretend you're Steven."
It's a shame the security cameras weren't working, because I’d love to have seen the expression on my face.
"You can't be serious.”
"We don't have a choice. If I don't walk into that conference room with an android in tow, all our years of hard work will be flushed down the toilet."
"But... but... why me? Why can't you do it?"
"They know who I am, Charlie."
"What about Naomi?"
"Naomi? Are you kidding? She's so bad at telling lies even Steven can tell when she's trying to slide one past him. Besides, she's away visiting her mother. No, it has to be you, Charlie. And we have to leave now."
The notion I could walk into a room of high powered professionals and pass myself off as an android seemed ludicrous, but with time running out, I had no choice but to follow Doug outside and wait for a cab. Meanwhile, my headache wasn't going away.
"Are you alright?" Doug asked.
"It's my head," I said with a grimace.
I was standing there with my eyes closed, feeling the cool of the morning air on my face, when the cab appeared. Once inside, Doug coached me on what I needed to do to make everything believable.
"The most important thing is, remain calm. I'll take care of the speaking. All you have to do is stand there and maybe shake some hands."
"What if somebody asks me a question?"
"Answer them. It really won't be that difficult. And remember, you only have to do this until we find Steven."
To hear Doug explain it, you would have assumed it was as easy as ordering sandwich meat from a deli.
"I'm not happy about this," I said. "I think you forget you're not the only one with something at stake here."
Doug merely laughed, averting his gaze out the window.
"I'm serious, Doug. Other people might find this whole 'absent minded professor' shtick endearing. I personally have had enough. In fact, if I didn’t have so much invested in this project, I'd be out looking for another job."
"I'm sorry," he said, looking chastened.
It wasn't often Doug could be made to apologize for something. I hated to admit it, but the fact that he had just done so gave me considerable satisfaction.
We arrived at the hotel at ten-thirty precisely. True to form, Doug had left his wallet at the lab, and it fell to me to pay the driver.
"I expect to be reimbursed for this," I said, following Doug through the hotel's front doors. Doug, though, was too focused on the investor's meeting to hear me.
"Remember, I'll do the talking," he said, leading me across the plush merlot-colored carpets of the hotel lobby. At this point, I was certain the entire exercise was doomed to failure; all those years of hard work, all those late nights in the lab, all of it wasted, because my idiot boss forgot to lock a door.
We arrived in front of a big, shiny wooden door labeled, Conference Room C.
"Are you alright?" Doug asked, preparing to enter.
"I'm not even going to bother answering that."
"Well, here goes..."
For some reason I'd expected a group of twenty, maybe thirty investors. Instead, I discovered a room filled with people, two hundred easy, sitting in tightly packed rows of folding chairs, chatting noisily to one another or on mobile phones. Not only that, but there were a handful of people against the back wall with television cameras.
"Are those reporters?"
Doug pressed forward, hurrying to a podium at the front of the room. I could tell from the expressions of those present they had no idea who I was. Taking a deep breath, I walked to a spot to the left of the podium and stared at the floor.
"Good morning," said Doug.
He paused so those in attendance could return the greeting. Only none did, preferring to sit with their arms crossed, grumpy expressions decorating their well-to-do faces.
"I know I've been saying you would have an opportunity to see what I've been working on for quite a while now. Unfortunately, security issues forced me
I think the masses were confused, because they remained in their seats, frowning.
"I know just looking at him he looks like a real man, but everything you see here, from his face to his feet, was created in a lab."
"You mean, like a robot?" asked a man sitting in the middle of the first row. (I kid you not, but he looked and sounded like a grumpier version of Lou Grant from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.)
"Yes," said Doug, smiling, "a robot."
"That's just a person in a lab coat," said a woman near the back.
I have to give Doug credit, because I know if the situation were reversed, and I were the one making the presentation, I would have folded the moment I entered the room. As it was, I was having a hard time not throwing my hands in the air and asking for everyone's forgiveness for insulting them with such a pathetic performance. Doug, though, managed to remain surprisingly cool.
"I don't blame you for being skeptical. In fact, I welcome it. I mean, what better way to know you've truly succeeded in creating an artificial man than when, at the unveiling, the audience accuses you of deceiving them?"
That last line made me smile. How shameless, I thought. Lying to them, and then using their doubt to bolster your claims.
Doug stepped toward the audience. "Would you like to have a closer look?"
Three or four of them leaned forward like they were going to stand, before the fear of looking silly forced them to remain in their seats.
"Come on. Have a look and tell me if that isn't the most realistic android you've ever seen."
It's funny how crowds can be. Whether it's trying a product at a kiosk at the mall, or inspecting a man posing as a robot in a conference hall at a hotel, all it takes is one brave soul to step forward for everyone else to decide it's safe enough to try it as well. In this case, it was the Ed Asner-lookalike in the front row. Knees popping loudly, he raised his barrel frame from off his chair and walked right up to me, peering into my eyes so closely, I could feel the breath from his nose on my cheek.
"You're telling me everything about this man is artificial?" he asked.
"One hundred percent," said Doug.
"So why are his eyes glistening? An artificial eye should be, you know, dry."
"Silicone. Even when dry, applied properly, it looks just like moisture."
Lou Grant donned a pair of oversized reading glasses and resumed his inspection of my person. By this time he'd been joined by half-a-dozen others, and it wasn't long before I was surrounded by a gaggle of frowny-faced men and women intent on discovering the detail that would expose me as the fraud they all suspected.
"There's snot in his right nostril," said a severe-looking woman, peering up my nose.
"For authenticity," explained Doug.
"He smells of body odor," said another woman, pushing her nose into the fold of my armpit.
"Okay, that's enough," I said, jerking my shoulder away.
Doug, bless his mad scientist heart, stepped right in there and ushered them to a spot closer to the podium.
"Alright, now. I think Charlie might be feeling a tad overwhelmed. This is his first time in front of a crowd, and as gratifying as it is for me to show him off, it's probably time I returned him to the lab."
Not surprisingly, Doug's pronouncement was met with murmurs and groans.
"You can't leave, yet," said a pretty blonde-haired woman, hurrying around the perimeter of chairs. She wore a tight-fitting black jacket with matching skirt, and funnily enough, blindingly white Adidas running shoes.
I recognized her as a reporter from a local television station. Doug, though, refused to allow himself to be pressured into remaining any longer than he had to.
"I'd love to stay and be interviewed, but I really need to get him back to the lab. I mean, look at him," he said, gesturing at my face. "His circuits are clearly overloading. If I don't get him out of here soon, I'm afraid something might explode."
I smiled and twitched my eye.
"What about the presentation?" demanded the Ed Asner lookalike.
"What about it?" responded Doug.
"There's no PowerPoint. Or literature. You can't have an investor's meeting without PowerPoint and literature!"
"Don't worry. You'll be receiving all that by e-mail. Now, if you'll excuse us, we really have to get going."
Doug raised his hand in farewell and hurried toward the exit, leaving me to follow him outside to a taxi waiting to whisk us back to the lab.
"So, what do you think?" Doug asked as the cab pulled away from the hotel. "Did it work?"
"I think you're an idiot, that's what I think."
"Come on, Charlie, you did a great job. There's no reason to be upset."
"No reason? Did you see that lady sniffing my armpit?"
I could see Doug found the whole thing amusing. I, on the other hand, was fed up, and spent the rest of the cab ride watching the storefronts roll past my window.
Did it work? Perhaps if I'd had time to prepare, had glued a bolt or two to the sides of my neck, maybe then I would have felt better about our chances. The fact it hadn't descended into something ugly was a testament to Doug's remarkable performance. I'd always known him to be awkward in public situations; watching him order food at a restaurant where he wasn't familiar with the menu never failed to leave those present, waitress included, cringing. And while he wasn't exactly Dean Martin up there, he wasn't bad either. In fact, he was entirely believable.
As the taxi rolled to a stop in front of the building that housed our lab, my thoughts turned to our little android runaway. Where could he have gone? Was he somewhere nearby? Or was he running down a freeway somewhere, desperate to put as many miles between himself and the lab as possible? Whatever the answer, we had to find him, and we had to find him soon.
Chapter 2
How does one find a runaway android, anyway? Having had neither my morning coffee nor anything to eat, and with my headache beginning to subside, I decided to ponder the question from the shadowy comfort of my local Starbucks.
I can't function without coffee. I remember in college, in a misguided effort to make myself healthier, I went three weeks without caffeine. It was awful. Not only was I nasty to be around, but I had a headache that lasted four days. And when it finally left, it took my personality along with it. Oh, sure, I looked normal, and maybe my teeth were whiter, but I'd turned into a moron, dumbly staring at menu boards while everyone else ordered something to eat.
And it wasn't only my decision-making skills that suffered. I'd turned into a wallflower, as well. Things that used to drive me up the wall would fly past me completely unnoticed. I didn't argue anymore. I knew something had changed, but it wasn't until I found myself nodding in agreement with a philosophy major about the merits of Intelligent Design that I understood just how far I'd fallen, and it was then that I knew I had to get back on the sauce.
Venti Americano in one hand and plain bagel with cream cheese in the other, I eased myself into a comfy leather chair and immersed myself in the daunting task of figuring out where Steven might have gone.
I didn't blame him for running away. If I were locked in a room where the only entertainment was counting ceiling tiles, and men in lab coats entered at seemingly random times to play word association games, I'd try to escape too.
I couldn't imagine what he must have been thinking right then, how utterly confused he must have been.
Did I forget to mention Steven didn't know he was a robot? It's true. From the beginning, Doug's aim was to endow a computer with true self-awareness. For anyone else, such a goal might have seemed farfetched—a fanciful notion that, even if never fully realized, might lead to some significant advances in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Doug, though, had every intention of succeeding. And he did, creating a whole series of computer programs that were not only capable of learning things on their own, but reflecting on what they'd learned as well. I still remember the shock I experienced when, after answering a whole string of questions about what it was like to walk down a crowded sidewalk, the computer started to sob—I mean, really sob—about how unfair it was that it wasn't a person.
