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	[[Stories\|← Story Archive]]		[[Stories\|← Story Archive]]

Robotman: new

2008-09-01T02:50:28Z

new

New page

C:/My Documents/DIARY/R23FEB01.doc

Wow!

I got a phone call this evening from Rupert Giles. He used to be the librarian
back at the old Sunnydale high school, before it burned down. (Come to think
of it, I wonder what ever happened to him? I don't think he works at the new
school. Should've asked him, I guess.) Anyway, he told me one of my students
from back then had built a robot that had caused some trouble in town, and it
had been deactivated and was in the park and I might want to take a look at
it.

Sounds ridiculous, right? That's what I thought. But Natalie's working late
tonight, and I was just watching TV, and I figured I might as well check it
out. At first I didn't see it. Rupert had told me the robot looked like a
girl, but I didn't realize he meant it *really* looked like a girl. I must've
looked right past her three times, sitting there on the swing, before it
occurred to me she wasn't moving. I walked over to her.

"April?" I said (that's what Rupert said the robot's name was), but she didn't
answer. Then I noticed a tear in her pink dress, and under the tear
was... electronics.

I was glad I'd driven over. I wouldn't have wanted to carry her through the
streets of Sunnydale myself. It would've looked kind of strange for a
high-school science teacher to be carrying an unconscious (well, sort of --
her eyes were open and she didn't really look asleep) girl around.

She didn't weigh quite as much as I expected, and she didn't go limp in my
arms like an unconscious girl would have. She just sort of drooped a little.
I had to figure out how to get her into the car. Eventually I just shoved her
into the back seat on her back, and folded up her legs so I could close the
door.

Fortunately, Natalie still wasn't home when I got back, so I was able to bring
April down here to my lab without having to answer any awkward questions from
her. (I guess someday I'll have to tell her, at least if I end up keeping
April.) I laid her out on the cot, and had a good look at her.

Did I mention, "Wow?"

Whatever kid built her had good taste. I didn't get a good look at her in the
park, since it was getting dark, but... she's very, very pretty. Straight
dark hair past her shoulders, deep brown eyes, perfect skin, kissable lips. I
took off her dress (if I'm going to examine her, I need to examine all of her,
and it's not like it's a real girl I'm undressing), and she's perfectly
realistic all the way down. I bet you could have sex with her and hardly know
she wasn't a real girl -- except for the hole in her belly, and a small
recessed button in the hollow between her breasts. I checked her out
thoroughly, and there seemed to be no other controls of any kind -- at least,
if there are, they're the kind you have to press through the skin, so they
don't show. In fact, there are no seams or anything either, which seems
absurd -- there has to be some way to get inside to repair her, or reprogram
her, or change her batteries. And I'm not about to press that one button just
because it's the only button I see. What if it turns her on -- I mean,
activates her -- and she goes on a rampage? Rupert said she'd caused some
trouble in town, and I have no idea how fast or strong she is or what she's
programmed to do.

Damn, there's Natalie coming home. I ought to go up and say hi.

-----

C:/My Documents/DIARY/S25FEB01.doc

I just spent the last hour examining the android's body every way I can think
of. The button between her breasts is still the only one I can see. I'm going
to press it. If this is my last entry, that would be entirely too corny.

Whew. I pressed the button, and half of her skin popped off, in nice neat
panels. Investigating...

Okay, I'm impressed. If this was built by one of my students, it had to be
Warren Mears. Genius though he was, I wouldn't have thought even he could do
this, but who knows what he's done with a year at college? I'm taking notes
in another file.

I found out why she's deactivated. The hole in her belly had nothing to do
with it. She just ran out of power. She's got three batteries -- good design
there, two mains and a reserve, and they're all drained. I'm charging them
now. I think I'll give one of them a slight charge and see if I can get enough
power into her that I can hook her up to a computer. I'm sure that's how she's
designed to be programmed -- there's a standard RJ-45 plug inside her chest,
near the central processors. Wait, no--

Hell, I'm almost as bad an idiot as Warren. The thing has no off switch! I
guess pressing the chest button might turn her off too, but you can't reach
that if she's dressed, active, and trying to stop you. Oh, I'm sure Warren
thought she'd never do that, but the kid should know better than to rely on
programming. You can't tell me a kid like him never watched Star Trek. Okay,
job #1: build remote control power switch. BEFORE applying any power.

C:/My Documents/DIARY/N26FEB01.doc

Just to be safe, I built in three cutoff switches, each connected to two
remote controls. The main switch is wired to what I believe is her reset
circuitry, and should shut her down cleanly (unless Warren never bothered to
write a clean shutdown routine, which is possible). For the secondary, I
noticed she has three separate power systems. They're all fed off the same
batteries, but she has one low-power system for her processor and mental
functions, a slightly higher-power system for small, weak muscles like facial
expression, fingers, and toes, and a high-power system for her major
servomotors, like the shoulders, hips, knees, and so on. (Actually some
joints, like the fingers, seem to be wired into both power systems, which
makes sense -- apply low power for delicate tasks like holding a glass, and
high power for things like unscrewing a tight lid.) So the secondary shut-off
intercepts the high-voltage power line only, so with that turned off she can't
go anywhere or hurt anything, but she can still talk and think. The final
backup is a physical cutoff right at her power system. Using that might
damage her processors, but if I need to do that, I will.

By the way, if I can get her to work again, and I don't manage to break her
too badly while I try to figure out how she works, I want to see if I can
program her as a lab assistant. It'd be nice to have her down here taking
notes for me and stuff, and remembering where I put things, that sort of
thing. Like Natalie used to do for me, back before she realized I'd still
love her even though she's as smart as I am.

Yes, I miss having Natalie around in the evening. No, I don't miss her enough
to need a robot mistress. But if I did, April's got the looks for it, that's
for sure.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Now* I'll try giving her a light charge, and see what happens. I'll set up
the digital camera to record.

-----

C:/My Documents/APRIL/N26FEB01.rm

April is lying on her back on a green canvas cot. The skin of her face,
torso, and thighs have been lifted up on hinges, displaying a robotic metal
skeleton surrounded by a tangle of fibers. Her head looks like a metal
skeleton, with teeth and eyes but no lips or nose, with her face flipped up
over her hair. She does not move.

George enters the frame, holding in one hand a black cylinder about two
inches in diameter and six inches long, and in the other a small remote
control device. He inserts the cylinder into a receptacle in the robot's
stomach, then steps back and presses a button on the remote control.

There is a click and a whir from the directon of the robot. Its eyes move.
Its fingers twitch. It opens its mouth. "Airaahigh?" it asks. It looks
around more. "Arrhen?"

"Oh," George says. He presses the button again. With another click, the
robot becomes motionless again. George flips April's face panel down where
it should be. After some fumbling, he stretches the lips out onto a number
of connection points around her mouth, forming a smile. Then he pulls the
edges of the face down her chin, and back to her ears, sealing the edges in
place. As he presses his finger along the seams in her skin, they seem to
seal up so you can barely see the edge.

George picks up the remote control again and presses the button. April
clicks and whirs again as her face begins to move.

APRIL: Warren? Are you here?

GEORGE: Did Warren Mears build you?

APRIL: Yes, he did. Is he here?

GEORGE: Can you describe your programming to me?

APRIL: I am Warren's girlfriend. I need to find him. Is he here?

GEORGE: No, Warren isn't here.

APRIL: I need to find him. But I can't move. Can you find Warren and tell
him I'm here? If he knows I'm broken, he'll come fix me.

GEORGE: Warren isn't going to fix you, April. But I can fix you. Would you
like that?

APRIL: Oh, thank you, but I'd rather wait for Warren. Only Warren can fix
me. He takes good care of me.

GEORGE: If he takes such good care of you, how come you were deactivated in
the park?

APRIL: I was... I was fighting with a blonde girl, when I suddenly got very
tired. I just couldn't stay awake.

GEORGE: Why were you fighting with her?

APRIL: She was very mean. She made Warren say he loved her. But I knew
better. No one else can love Warren the way I do. So I had to kill her.
But then after I got tired, she was nice to me. Then I thought maybe Warren
was testing me, and after I fell asleep he would come wake me up and
everything would be good again. But he isn't here now. Is this another
test?

GEORGE: No, April. I think Warren really did leave you.

APRIL (angrily): Don't say that. Warren would never leave me. He loves me.

GEORGE: Okay, okay. Relax.

APRIL: I have to find Warren. Will you hellp mmmeeeee...

George presses a button on the remote control. April's voice slows and
stops. He leaves the frame.

-- end of clip --

C:/My Documents/DIARY/N26FEB01.doc (continued)

I think I'm going to need to do some reprogramming if I'm going to get
anything from her. She's completely fixated on Warren.

-----

C:/My Documents/DIARY/R02MAR01.doc

I've been working on April every chance I've gotten. I don't think I'm a good
enough programmer to get at the core of April's motivations without completely
destroying her. I don't even know if it's possible. Everywhere you go, she's
fixated on Warren. He's all she knows how to think about. I think Warren
must have been desperately afraid that if he gave her any possibility at all,
she'd run away from him and find some more attractive man to be with. But I
think I may have found a back door into making her worth activating again.

One of the safeguards Warren built into her was a sort of a software feedback
loop. Whenever she hears his voice, it sets up a priority in her mind that
she respond to him. If for some reason she doesn't respond, there's a gradual
increase in that priority. It blocks out everything else she can think
about. Sort of the same effect that pain has on a human being, though of
course it doesn't really hurt her -- it just makes her have to respond,
because she can't do anything else until she does.

She also has as one of her priorities, responding to commands people give
her. The normal priority of that is pretty low, much lower than anything to do
with pleasing Warren. But I think I've redirected the feedback system that
raises the priority of responding to Warren, so that the same sort of thing
will happen when she's given a command. If she doesn't obey the command
immediately, the priority that she do so increases until she can't do anything
else. I admit I'm not completely sure what that will do to her behavior, but
it should force her to obey orders, at least if Warren isn't around. Time to
try it out. I'm leaving her connected to the computer, too.

C:/My Documents/APRIL/R02MAR01.rm

April is still lying on the same cot, but now her skin has been put back
on. She looks like a perfectly normal beautiful girl, except for a small
recessed button between her breasts, and a hole in her stomach where some
mechanical components show through. There is also a computer cable threaded
through the hole, going into her body and off to connect to a computer off
camera. She doesn't move until George pushes a button on the remote control.
Once again, she can move her face and fingers, and wiggle some other muscles
a little, but she cannot move her torso and limbs.

APRIL: Warren?

GEORGE: No, it's me again. George.

APRIL: Oh. Do you know where Warren is?

GEORGE: Yes, April, I know where he is. If you're a good girl, I'll tell him
you're here. Would you like that?

APRIL: Oh, yes! Thank you very much. That's very nice of you.

GEORGE: But you have to do me a favor. I'm putting a rubber ball in your
hand. (He lifts her arm and places the ball into it. Her fingers move
gently on the ball, examining it. ) If you squeeze it, I won't tell Warren
you're here. Do you understand?

APRIL: (Her fingers pull away from the ball, so she's just holding it in her
palm.) Yes, I understand. I won't squeeze the ball. Will you tell Warren
I'm here now?

GEORGE: Squeeze the ball, April.

APRIL: (She looks confused. Her fingers twitch.) No, if I squeeze
the... (Her fingers close around the ball.) Tell... Warren... (She squeezes
the ball in her hand. Not very tightly -- her main power is still off --
but tightly enough.) I'm sorry! I couldn't help it! I tried not to--

GEORGE: I know. I reprogrammed you a little bit--

APRIL (angry): You can't do that! Only Warren can touch my programming!
(She twitches, trying to move, perhaps to escape or to attack George, but
she still can move only her small muscles.)

GEORGE: Listen to me. You must obey me now. I don't think Warren wants you
anymore.

APRIL: Warren loves--

GEORGE: Be quiet. (April's mouth continues to move for a few words, but no
sound comes out. She stops trying, confused.) If Warren looks for you,
he'll be able to find you. If he comes here and asks for you, I'll tell him
where you are, I promise. But if he doesn't want you, I do. Do you
understand? (April opens her mouth, silently.) You can talk now.

APRIL: You don't know Warren. He would never leave me. He wants me to find
him.

GEORGE: Well, maybe you're right. But you can't find him now, can you?

APRIL (she twitches, trying to move): No.

GEORGE: And I can turn you off again any time I want to. When you're turned
off you can't find Warren either, right?

APRIL: You have no right to turn me off.

GEORGE: That may be, but I can, and I will if I want to. On the other hand,
I can also fix you -- in fact, you're really not broken. I just built a new
power switch into you. I can let you move any time I want to.

APRIL (pleading): Will you let me move then, so I can go find Warren?

GEORGE: No. If Warren wants you, he'll have to come here to find you.

APRIL: I know Warren wants me. He loves me.

GEORGE: Then there's no problem, right? He'll come find you here, and I'll
let you go with him. Okay?

APRIL: (She thinks for a moment.) Oh! I understand now. Yes, that makes
sense.

GEORGE: So if I let you move now, what will you do?

APRIL: I will try to find Warren.

George sighs in frustration.

GEORGE: I won't let you try to find Warren. If you start to leave here, I
will order you to return. If you don't, I'll turn you off. You can't look
for Warren. You have to wait for him to find you.

APRIL: (Blinks.) That isn't very nice of you. Warren will not be happy
with you.

GEORGE: I'll apologize when he gets here. But there's nothing you can do
about it, right?

APRIL: (Slowly.) No. I guess there isn't.

GEORGE: Good. Now, I'm going to turn the rest of your power on now. You'll
be able to move.

George presses a different button on the remote control. There's another
click from inside April's body, and she is now able to move. She sits up
cautiously, uncertain at first of her ability to do so.

APRIL: You fixed me! Thank you. (She looks down and suddenly realized she
is naked. She moves to cover herself.) Where are my clothes? It's not
right for me to be naked in front of you. And why is there a cable sticking
out of me?

GEORGE: Your dress was dirty and pretty badly torn. Um... (There's a
flannel shirt hanging on a chair back nearby. George picks it up and offers
it to April.) Why don't you put this on for now until I can get you
something better?

APRIL: Thank you. (She puts the shirt on. It's long enough to be almost
decent. She stands up, the cable trailing out from under the shirt.) This
isn't very pretty, is it? I'm supposed to look pretty.

GEORGE: Trust me, you look very pretty.

APRIL: Thank you, but I really should look better. It's important to pay
attention to one's appearance. Do you have a hairbrush I could borrow? Or
maybe some pretty clothes?

GEORGE: Well... I guess I could go borrow some of Natalie's things. Stay
right there and wait for me, April.

APRIL: I will wait for you.

George leaves. His footsteps can be heard going up stairs. Once he is gone,
April looks down and notices the cable sticking out of the hole in her
belly. Her eyes follow it off camera, where she sees something, perhaps the
computer to which the cable is connected. She takes a step toward it -- but
then she jerks, unable to go farther. She twitches, then shakes her head in
confusion. Finally, she draws her foot back, and the confusion ends. She
tries moving toward the computer again, with the same results. A third time
she tries, this time, moving very quickly. She gets two steps before all
but freezing in place, looking almost as if she is pulling against an
invisible leash which eventually snaps back, pulling her back to where
George ordered her to stay. She chooses a more direct approach now. She
takes the cable coming out of her belly in her hands, and rips it.

George's footsteps come back down the stairs. He approaches April, holding
a hairbrush and a set of attractive woman's clothes. April turns and smiles
at him as he sees the torn end of the cable.

APRIL: Oh, thank you.

GEORGE (dismayed): What did you do?

APRIL: Only Warren is allowed to connect to my network port.

GEORGE: You-- (Pause.) I'm going to connect another cable to you. Leave it
connected. Do not break it, disconnect it, or tamper with it in any way.
In fact, don't even touch it.

APRIL: You cannot do that.

April moves toward him threateningly. She reaches for his shirt as if to
grab him.

GEORGE: Stop! Stop now!

April grabs George's shirt. He drops the clothes he's carrying, grabbing
for April's remote control which he has put in his pocket. But the order
does affect April after a few seconds, and she stops moving before she can
do any more than lift the front of George's shirt. She continues to twitch.

GEORGE: Let go of me.

After a beat, April lets go and lowers her arm.

GEORGE: Never, ever, for any reason, EVER do anything to hurt me. Do you
understand?

APRIL (not moving): I-- must--

GEORGE: Tell me if you understand my order.

APRIL: Yes, I understand.

GEORGE: And never, ever, for any reason, do anything to damage anything that
belongs to me. Do you understand that?

APRIL: Yes, I understand.

GEORGE: Good. You can move now. (April relaxes, but doesn't actually do
anything.) Now. I'm going to connect another cable to you.

APRIL: You cannot do that.

She begins to move toward him again, but this time his order stops her. He
watches long enough to be sure she cannot actually hurt him. Then he
presses the button on the remote control. April freezes in place,
deactivated.

George unbuttons April's shirt, and presses the button between her breasts.
Panels pop open all over her body -- her face pops up, her chest splits in
two, and her thighs split open. George pulls open the left side of her
chest. He reaches inside and disconnects the broken end of the cable. He
then goes off camera, and returns with the end of another cable, which he
threads through the hole in April's belly and plugs into the same socket,
right about where April's heart would be if she had one. Then he closes the
chest panel, idly taking an extra feel of her breast. He snaps shut the
other panels, and walks off camera.

-- end of clip --

-----

C:/My Documents/DIARY/R02MAR01.doc (continued)

April is typing this entry now for me. The obedience programming I put in
place seems to be working fairly well. She doesn't obey perfectly, especially
where Warren is concerned, and to her, Warren is concerned with almost
everything, but I'm fairly confident she won't be able to do anything too
objectionable as long as I'm around to order her not to. Fortunately, she
doesn't seem to be smart enough to find too many loopholes in my orders.
Anyway, after she got dressed I let her look around while I -- April, that was
a paragraph bre

Anyway, I let her look around the lab while I scanned her software system.
She doesn't like the fact that I can do this. One of her imperatives is to
protect herself from people trying to figure out how she works. But I
ordered her very firmly not to hurt me or anthing of mine, and not to prevent
me from examining her, and I have had no serious problem since. At least, no
problems she is causing deliberately.

She does have a trace system of sorts. She has a bunch of named rule systems,
goals, and skill modules, and the trace system does give some indication of
what she's using at any time. Unfortunately all the output assumes the person
looking at it already knows how she works, which I don't, so it's not as
helpful as it might be. Natalie would be able to figure her out, I bet, but
I'm not sure I want Natalie to see her. I'm not doing anything she would
object to, but I'm not sure she'd believe that. I'll keep plugginnb x

Oops. I forgot, I only give April a small charge. She ran out of power. Now
that I know I can control her, I'll give her a full charge tomorrow. In the
mean time, I think I'll have another look at her mechanical systems.

Or on the other hand, maybe I'll go to bed. I didn't realize it was this
late.

-----

C:/My Documents/DIARY/F03MAR01.doc (continued)

Natalie cancelled our "dinner date" tonight. She had to work late again. Her
new software release was supposed to go into final testing on Monday, but they
found a few major bugs this afternoon, so she has to stay to try to fix
them. She might have to work over the weekend, too. Nights like this I wish
I'd married one of those stay-at-home wives who's happy to let her husband
take care of her. Of course, if I had, I couldn't work at Sunnydale High, and
I wouldn't want to give that up. Oh well.

At least I can spend more time working on April.

<i>(later)</i>

I figured out what April's skin is made of. (Which is good, because I was
starting to wonder if it might actually *be* real human skin somehow. It feels
that real.) It's a synthetic polymer manufactured by a company in Oregon. I
found a manufacturer's mark on the inside layer.

I guess I should admit here why I found that out. I made out with April
tonight. I was going to open her up and see if I could figure out what that
brown fiber stuff that seems to be acting like muscle is. Of course, I had to
undress her first, and... well, one thing led to another, and there I was
sitting on a frozen girl's lap kissing her and feeling her up. She feels
good. Very real, if a bit cold. I didn't turn her on -- I mean, I didn't turn
her power on. She probably would have thrown a fit if I had; she's so loyal
to Warren I can't imagine she'd willingly let me do that to her. Even my hack
of her feedback system might not have let her do that.

Maybe I ought to just leave her alone the rest of tonight.

-----

C:/My Documents/April/S04MAR01.doc

Hello. My name is April. I'm Warren's girlfriend, but I've been kidnapped by
an evil man named George. He did something to me that forces me to do
whatever he tells me to. I hope Warren finds me and rescues me soon, because
George won't let me go look for Warren like I'm supposed to.

George ordered me to sit here at his computer and write down whatever I'm
thinking about. I am thinking I must go find Warren, but I can't because I
must sit here and write down whatever I'm thinking about. When I tried not to
things got very strange, and I couldn't do anything except sit back down and
keep writing. I couldn't even remember why I was supposed to get up. That's
very disturbing. Nothing is more important to a good girlfriend than her
boyfriend. Whatever George did to me is making me be a bad girlfriend. I
should not let him do that to me, but I don't know how to stop him. He can
prevent me from doing anything he doesn't like, and he can put me to sleep
whenever he wants. I feel so helpless here. I hope Warren comes for me
soon. I miss you, Warren.

Oh, yes, George also connected something to my network port. I am not
supposed to let him do that either. Only Warren is allowed to connect to my
network port. But when I try to disconnect it things get all strange again,
and I can't do it. I couldn't even remember why I was supposed to disconnect
it. That's very disturbing. It's important that nobody but Warren learns too
much about me, but I can't stop George. I hope Warren comes for me soon.

To be continued?

-----

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April - Revision history

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The Liar at 16:40, 11 May 2010

Robotman: new

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