by Ken McConnell
Ocher sands swirled around metal-covered lenses and slowly revealed the black face of an android. A signal awakened the metal man and set the lenses aglow. The soft light from twin stars cast long, dueling shadows over the dunes. The android became aware of the light, and as the blowing sands uncovered its round head, it began to hear the wind.
The signal terminated, and the android turned its head to the side in time to see the light moving off into the evening sky. Alone and half-buried in the sand, the android was confused. Where was it, and why was it here? There was no info grid to tap into, meaning it was on a world not in the Federation. A few bright stars appeared in the darkening skies, but not enough to triangulate where it was. Location awareness routines failed as it could not determine which world it was on.
Slowly, it sat up and watched the reddish sand pour off its body and flow over the face of the dune. The android could not remember what had happened or why it found itself in this isolated and bleak environment. It got to its feet and faced the setting suns. One star was yellowish. The other, lower on the horizon, was a deep orange. There was a giant gas planet that dominated much of the sky, but it was faded behind the salmon atmosphere. The android surveyed the barren terrain and determined that there was no preferred route to civilization, so it started walking in the direction of the setting suns.
The burlap bag was pulled quickly from his head, and his eyes tried to adjust to the dark. His mouth was bound tightly with a neckerchief, and his hands were tied behind his back. His whole body was lashed to a chair that was itself mounted to the floor. Before him was a glowing monitor and a dirty keyboard. The room was otherwise completely dark, at least what he could see, which wasn’t much.
Who had kidnapped him and why was utterly unknown to him. All he knew for sure was that he was scared to death and cold. It was unusually cold in the dark room for any building in the desert world. The silent, blinking prompt on the monitor before him was the only comforting thing he could see. He had spent his entire life before a computer screen, interacting with much of the outside world through the soft glow of a monitor. It was comforting.
The android began to see the first signs of life many kilometers away. Like a moth to the flame, it headed for the swirling dust of a ranch. Surely, there would be a master there who could put the android to work. As it walked closer to the rural home, it could see several lights around the property and dark figures moving around. Warning flags were tripped in the android’s logic paths, and it began to slow its approach.
Several androids and robots were tending to cattle. Massive bovines were herded together and separated into wooden shoots for whatever reason. It was a dirty, loud job, and the androids were taking a verbal beating from a large human with a booming voice. The human carried a blaster rifle and appeared to threaten both the bot and the beast.
Dread befell the android as it approached the dusty, noisy scene. The other androids did not notice his approach, and their communication links were silent. There were red metal rings around their necks that the android could not identify. The human noticed the android’s approach and rode out to greet it on a hovercycle. As the human got closer, the android saw the stunner in his hands and realized too late that he was in danger.
The man’s hands were cut free from the rope that had bound him, and he flexed his sore wrists. He could hear the slight hum of an android, but he could not turn his head around far enough to be sure. The thought that a bot was holding him creeped him the hell out. Even from an early age, the man had been frightened by androids. He had no logical reason to fear them. All androids were strictly programmed to help and protect humans and other sentients. But he could not get over that they moved around autonomously, and you could never really know what they were thinking. He always imagined that one day, all the androids would turn on them, and there would be nothing anyone could do about it. They were ten times stronger than the average man and would be much harder to terminate.
“You are a programmer, are you not?” the metallic voice asked behind him.
The man nodded, unable to speak with the gag in his mouth.
“I have a problem that I need you to fix. A glitch in my programming. The terminal before you is linked to my internal file system.”
The man studied the prompt as it listed the primary directories of the android’s internal file system. He was very familiar with the file system, as it was his job to fix faulty androids. His irrational fear of androids aside, he had always found working on them relaxing. Being in complete control of them helped ease his fear that they would one day be in control of him.
“You will have limited access to my core. I will keep you in this room indefinitely until you find my problem and offer a solution. Do you understand?”
The man nodded. The android made no effort to move out from behind him, which weighed on his fears and caused him to sweat despite the room’s cool temperature. Androids always seemed to prefer the cold. Another reason he didn’t like them was because he preferred the dry heat of a desert, and this planet suited him just fine in that respect.
“You are being held in an underground room in an abandoned town. There is no use crying out for help and no sense in trying to escape. The nearest town is a week’s travel across the open desert.”
The man swallowed hard under the gag. This was his worst nightmare come true. He was held captive by the very objects he worked on and secretly feared the most.
“Alright, you damn slags, listen up. We have forty head of cattle to move out today. You all know the routine, and you’ve all been juiced up, so no frigging slackers!”
The android touched the metal ring around its neck and wondered how to remove it. No obvious joints or connection points on it could be pried apart. The device limited the android’s ability to wander far from the farm, thus ensuring tight control over it. The human carried a large metal baton and smacked it over the head of any android that didn’t move fast enough. Every one of the androids on the farm had numerous dents on their heads and shoulders from repeated beating by their owner.
The damage was largely cosmetic, but it bothered the black android. It was not used to being treated so horribly by a master, and a growing discontentment with its new owner was brewing inside it.
“Get moving, Eighty-eight!” the human hollered. His metal baton cracked upside the back shoulder of the black android.
Eighty-eight moved forward behind the other androids, who paid him no more attention than they did each other. It was like they had no personalities—just mindless automatons moving along at the will of their psychotic master. Eighty-eight did not like it. He would find a way out of his predicament and never be owned again.
The android cut the ropes that bound the programmer’s hands and pulled the gag off of his mouth. The man flexed his fingers and wrists to get his blood flowing again.
“Do you require liquid or other nourishment?” the android asked him matter-of-factly.
“No,” was all he could manage to say. His voice cracked more out of fear than being dry. He cleared his throat and decided to try to befriend his captor to make it less likely to injure him. He didn’t know if androids responded like humans in hostage situations, but he thought it was worth a try if it meant getting out of this alive.
“Name’s Cole Rossum, bye the way. What’s your name?”
“I have no name. I belong to no one. You may address me as Eighty-eight.” Cole nodded. He could not see Eight-eight, but he imagined it was a later model by how it’s motivators sounded.
“I have isolated the problem to my personality subroutines. The behavior controllers are not working at all.”
Cole studied the output on the screen. The implications of what he read sent a chill down his spine.
“Yes,” the android said, “I have no inhibitors.”
“I want to know why. Androids are not supposed to allow harm to come to any sentient creature. But I have killed a man, and I will kill you if you cannot help me correct this problem.”
Cole swallowed hard and swore to himself.
“Damn-it slag, I know you hear me. Do what I tell you!” the human said, bringing his baton down across the right temple of Eighty-eight and leaving a deep dent.
Eighty-eight instinctively grabbed the baton and pulled it forcefully out of the man’s hand. Startled by the reaction, the man went for his blaster rifle. But Eight-eight anticipated the move and swatted the gun down into the dirt.
The other androids stopped what they were doing and watched the scene unfold. They didn’t seem to notice that they were witnessing a revolt on their behalf.
The human pulled back on the controls of his hoverbike and started to retreat. Eighty-eight followed him and, with startling speed, swatted the man from the bike with the baton. He fell to the dirt in a cloud of dust.
Eighty-eight stood over the man, its baton held firmly in its right hand. The man’s sun-weathered face was sweating from fear as he crouched under the black android.
The other androids watched silently from afar like statues carved from stone. The black android reached down, grasped the man’s shirt, and pulled his chest off the dirt. A white-hot rage was burning inside the android as it stared stone-like at the helpless human in its grasp. It appeared to be debating whether to let the man go or to beat his brains out with the baton. The man started to plead for his life. Pathetic platitudes and promises passed from his lips like the buzzing from annoying insects.
Eighty-eight looked away towards the beaten and dented androids and the run-down robots that were allowed to operate without proper maintenance. The entire ranch was run by mistreated and abused automatons. This fueled a deep-seated anger inside Eighty-eight, forcing its metal fingers to tighten on the baton.
Cole riffled through Eighty-eight’s file system, looking for anything new or modified. All the standard directories were there and nothing appeared to be altered. He focused on the subdirectories that stored behavior patterns and instructions for the built-in safety protocols. Inside these well-traveled corridors of the android’s behavior rules things began to look subtly different from the standard issue android. New pathways and logic trees were created, creating more complex structures nested inside standard pathways. It was as if the original programming was only a template for a more advanced set of features.
Cole studied the pathways and found links to entirely new areas of the AI brain that he had never known existed. His desire to understand these new and intriguing design patterns muted his fear of being held by the hostile android.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like you are a completely different AI from anything that’s gone before,” Cole said in awe.
There was no reply from his captor. Cole knew it was following his progress and seeing the same things he was seeing. How strange it must be to see into your mind and wonder about the inner workings of it in real-time.
“I was a starship steward. Assigned to a transport ship bound for the Trade Triangle. Pirates are boarding the last memory I have,” Eighty-eight said from behind Cole.
Cole looked away from the monitor and tried to see behind him.
“Pirates are rampant out here. But I don’t think any pirate could modify android programming to this extent. This kind of sophistication can only be engineered in the Federation. On Selene, perhaps or maybe even the factories on Ursai. I mean this is more advanced than anything we now have. At least until a few years ago, when I dropped out of the Federation.”
Cole looked back at the glowing digits on the screen before him and said, “You are no longer just an android. You are an individual. From what I can see, you might even be a true AI in an android’s shell.”
There was movement behind him as the android came closer.
“I know this already. Tell me how it is possible?” the cold voice of Eight-eight said from behind Cole’s head.
Cole felt a chill as he realized his captor was near. He tried to think through the fear that began to rise in him again.
“Ah, I’m not entirely sure. I mean, no chips we have can process information in real-time this quickly. Well, that’s not true. Some of the better AIs in the Federation can process like that, but they fill up an entire lab. Someone has given you more than just new neural pathway logic. There has to be some new hardware added to your processors. Have you received any upgrades?”
“I do not know.”
“Are any of your safety seals broken around the access panels?”
“Yes.”
Cole cleared his throat and said, “Well, you were upgraded, my friend. It looks to me like you were significantly altered, too.”
“I am not your “friend.” You will instruct me on how to override these behavior modifications. I do not wish to kill again. You do not wish for me to kill again.”
Cole shuddered. “Look, you have this new capability but no rules for handling all the new exceptions. At least not that I can see. But based on what I can tell, your behavior inhibitors should still work.”
“Well, obviously, they do not. I killed a man, and I may kill again unless this problem is fixed. So fix it,” Eighty-eight said, backing off and walking away slowly.
Cole changed directories and noticed some logic paths that were not there before. They had been added in the previous exchange. Variables for emotional responses had been generated and stored in temporary buffers. That was different, he thought. No android he had ever worked on could generate what looked like emotional responses.
Intrigued by what he was seeing, he continued to study the code. But he kept thinking he needed to find a way out of where he was being held. If this android was modified with emotional responses, it could be provoked into more than just killing. He wiggled his legs and felt the ropes with his right hand as he tapped away on the keyboard with his left hand. There was some wiggle room, not much, but enough to work with. He sure as hell didn’t want to stay in this room with a machine that could be going crazy.
* * *
Eighty-eight was confused by the heated feelings cursing through its circuits. Every bit of logic in its programming seemed to cry out to kill the man at its feet. Its core processors were heating up with all the activity. It had a fervent desire to kill the man. But try as it might, it could not reason away the feelings it was experiencing.
Sensing the android’s hesitation, the man decided to try and rein in the rogue machine with authoritative commands. After all, androids were supposed to be responsive to human verbal commands.
“Put me down, slag!”
That word. Slag. New waves of heat surged through the android. It was a slur that only the most insensitive humans used to describe androids. It had never bothered Eighty-eight before. But now, the word caused it to lose control.
“Come on, you filthy Slag. Don’t make me blast you into pieces!”
Eighty-eight’s metal hand brought down the baton with a force that instantly cracked the man’s skull. He screamed in agony, his voice music to the machine that caused it. A second blow, this time, the scream was cut short as the man’s head was crushed.
Eighty-eight let go of the lifeless body and held up the bloody baton. It felt a wave of relief and satisfaction at having terminated the cause of its anger.
The other androids watched from a distance. There was no sign of relief on their shiny metal faces. No emotion at all. The wind blew a dirt devil past several androids, and they stood perfectly still, unaware of it. Eighty-eight looked down at the dead man at its feet and was suddenly horrified at what it had done. It looked back at the other android,s and how beaten and worn they were. Had it liberated them from a menace, or were they even aware of how they had been mistreated? Could a machine truly possess the same “human” rights as a sentient? Was it worth the life of a single man to protect machines that were incapable of appreciating it? Eighty-eight felt the dents on its head and realized that it had mattered to it.
* * *
Cole didn’t know if the android was even watching him. But he continued fusing with the rope at his thigh, loosening it slowly. His concentration on the screen was only partial as he felt the rope give slightly. He had no idea what to do if he could move, but it was better than constricted. His legs were starting to tingle and become numb. There was movement again from behind him, and Cole slowly returned his hand to the keyboard as if nothing were wrong.
The android grabbed the chair back and pulled Cole away from the monitor with inhuman speed and strength. The momentum knocked Cole’s head forward. Eighty-eight moved around in front of him and felt the loose ropes.
It was the first time Cole had seen his captor. He had been correct in his assumption that it was a late-model android, but there were no obvious differences from previous models that he could see.
“You were trying to loosen the ropes,” the android said.
Cole was silent, not wanting to upset the twitchy machine any further. He noticed it had sustained several dents to its round black head.
Eighty-eight moved into the face of the human and stared at him, lens to eye. Cole glared back, feeling his heart beat faster but maintaining his cool.
“I told you escape was impossible, yet you continued to try. Your logic is flawed.”
“Logic be damned, I’m being held hostage by a crazy slag.”
Eighty-eight flinched at hearing the word. It quickly brought a metal hand to Cole’s neck and gripped it firmly.
Cole coughed for a breath under the constricted metal fingers. The android continued to stare at him, a cold, calculating machine. Cole was sure it would kill him now. His fear of it was unbearable. His worst nightmare was coming true, and he was powerless to stop it.
Robot rebellions were theorized and dramatized even before they were invented, but for Cole, it was a fear he had always lived with. Like a mortician who feared that one day, the bodies would come alive and attack him as zombies, it was irrational, but it was very real to him, and now it was actually happening.
The monitor behind Eighty-eight beeped. It turned its metal head back to locate the sound. Cole tried to read it, but it was too far away, and the print too small.
Eighty-eight swiveled its head back to face Cole.
“You set breakpoints?”
Cole gripped the metal fingers around his neck and tried to pry them apart. “Yes,” he choked out.
Eighty-eight released his grip on him and pushed Cole back before the keyboard. He looked at the code while he rubbed his red neck.
“I wanted to see what emotions I could provoke from you and watch how that affected your inhibitors,” Cole said. They both watched the code as Cole stepped through it line-by-line.
“There, see that? You were provoked by simple name-calling. When you registered the word slag, your intensity increased, and that released your inhibitors.”
Eighty-eight moved on, examining other locations internally. It ran several thousand integrity checks on different pieces of code as it slowly came to the inevitable conclusion. It alone could decide whether it would kill or not. There were no brakes on its behavior that would prevent it from doing anything. It looked back at Cole and said, “It appears that I am the only one who can prevent myself from killing again.”
Cole let go of his throat and nodded in agreement.
The android stared at Cole until he began to get concerned again. He tried not to show it, but his skin was sweaty, and a vein pulsed on his forehead.
“What was it like when you killed a man?” Eighty-eight asked.
“Huh?”
“Did he provoke you to anger?” the android pressed.
Cole looked away and tried to focus. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I was not sure at first, but now that I see your facial features clearly, I can match the pattern. You are Cab Freeman, the infamous programmer who shot his coworker in a dispute about” the android stopped speaking.
“What was the dispute about? I do not believe anyone knew for certain why you shot the man.”
Cole fidgeted in his chair, uncomfortable with telling anyone about his past.
“Look, the guy was an ass. I made the mistake of telling him that androids creeped me out, and he purposely programmed one to attack me.”
Eighty-eight tilted its head. “You don’t like androids?”
Cole swallowed hard. “I don’t hate them. I’ve just always been leery of them. I know, it’s irrational. But that’s just the way I am.”
Eighty-eight started to untie Cole’s legs. It noticed his progress in undoing himself and glanced up at him. Cole shrugged as if he had no idea his ropes were loose.
“You are free to go, Cole Rossum, or should I say, Cab Freeman?”
Cole stood up on shaky legs, rubbing the circulation back in them. “There’s a reason I’m in this hell hole on the edge of known space. I would appreciate you not telling anyone who I am,” he said.
Eighty-eight extended his metal hand. “Likewise, I would appreciate it if you kept my abilities to yourself.”
Cole took the metal hand and shook it. He had never shaken hands with an android before. It just wasn’t done. Not because there was any danger in the android crushing a human’s hands; they were all programmed not to apply overt pressure. It was simply not customary for sentient creatures to acknowledge partnerships with robots. But this android was different. Cole had the distinct feeling that he would be seeing Eighty-eight again.
* * *
Eighty-eight looked at the bloodied baton in its hand and then threw it as hard as it could into the desert. It moved past the silent androids and went into the storage shed. There it found the release device for the red collars each android wore. The key to removing them was secured with a simple cipher that Eighty-eight cracked in seconds. A few minutes later, he stacked the collars in the shed having liberated all the robots on the property.
Every android had its owner’s surname printed on the metal chest plate above its number. Eighty-eight found a plasma torch and burned off his surname, leaving just the number.
Eighty-eight continued to run the ranch for several weeks before more humans came looking for the man it had killed. By then, the robots had moved into the desert, searching for their destiny, led by a black android known only by its number. The body of the dead man remained where it had fallen. Swirling grains of ocher sand covered empty eye sockets long picked clean by insects.
* * *
Cole squinted into the bright light and felt the warm heat of the twin suns on his face. He was a free man, and the nightmare of his kidnapping was over. Stumbling down the alley on legs bound for too long, he soon returned to his robot repair shop. It was good to be home. He looked around at the half-assembled android torsos lining the walls. For the first time in his life, he was not the least bit creeped out by them. He knew they were nothing more than mindless automatons. For he had met a living android, one who could do whatever it wanted, one who could have killed him at any time and chose to spare him instead.