Work Text:
The lead technician, Colonel Green, stepped back from the table where he had been working on the stump of the left arm of an automaton, making it ready for a new weapons upgrade. He had the robot's right arm partially taken apart as a reference. The robot was strapped securely to the work table. It was powered down.
“I think we’re finished here for the day. This is a lot more tedious than I thought it would be. This thing has so much going on in here, we have to be very careful we don’t cross something up.”
Two more techs at a separate bench stood up from their work on the new weapon itself, comparing it to the older model set in a clamp on the bench next to them. They were trying to get theirs to deploy in the same manner as the old one. One of them said, “This thing,” he gestured at the weapon, “looks fine on paper too, but real world? Whew! I would certainly like to have met Colonel Walter. This machine and the weaponry he put into it, unbelievable for the 1890s. The man must have been beyond genius.”
“Yeah, well, if I don’t get home in time for supper tonight, the wife is going to be beyond angry at me. Let’s go.’’ Colonel Green shed his lab coat as they all left the room. As he shut off the lights, he slung the coat carelessly over his shoulder, not even hearing the dull metallic thud as something hit the door jamb on his way out. The door closed behind him.
In the darkness, the robot awoke, its eyes glowing large and green in the darkness. It tried to rise against the restraints but the movement sent a series of sparks coursing down its dissected and dismantled arms. It stifled a small groan, not wanting anyone to hear and tried to lie still, but the short circuits, once started, didn’t stop with the cessation of motion. It let out a whimper as pain shot up its arms and across its shoulders and chest. The long night had just begun.
It was early morning when Dr. Muriel Ramsay arrived on base. She went directly to the Robotic Labs hoping to get some work done before people showed up to bother her. She was heading for her office when she heard a strange whining sound. She walked slowly down the corridor trying to pinpoint the source. It was coming from behind the main lab door. The room where they were doing the weapons upgrades on the Walter robot.
Dr. Ramsay entered the room. There was the smell of ozone and oil in the air along with hot metal and pungent hydraulic fluid. She could hear the keening sound clearly now. It was low, like an animal trying very hard to conceal its pain, and failing. In the dim lighting she could see the automaton trembling on the table, struggling weakly against the metal straps across its chest and legs.
“It hurts,” it mewled. Then it sounded at if it were sobbing. That couldn’t be. It was a machine. She approached the table. The technicians had left for the night apparently with their job unfinished. Parts of the automaton’s arms were missing, the left one completely gone below the elbow, the other stripped of its armor, several finger tensors missing, wiring bundles pulled from their sheathing. They were in mid upgrade. There was a small drip of fluid from one of the hydraulic connectors in its upper left arm and a small spark was occasionally visible in the darkness, not always from the same side or from the same place. Its eyes were closed, tightly. Was it really in pain?
She touched its shoulder. It went very still and quiet, but couldn’t stop its trembling. It slowly drew in a ragged breath and whispered something unintelligible. Then a little louder, “Father? Father, it hurts. Why does it hurt so badly?” It seemed to drift off for a few seconds then again, “Father, why? Why…does it have to…hurt?”
Father? That was impossible. And robots couldn’t feel pain. Could they? Then she noticed the dark oil dripping from its tightly closed eyes, running down the sides of its face and staining the covering on the table. No. It can’t be…crying. It has to be a malfunction, a leak in the optics system? But, it wasn’t scheduled for optics replacement.
“It hurts,” it whimpered again in a shuddering whisper.
“Shh,” she said softly and patted its shoulder lightly. “Let me have a look.”
“Water…Father, may I have…some water…?” It began sobbing again, moving weakly against the restraints, trying to raise what was left of its arms, but was held fast.
Taking a look at the work orders on the clipboard she quickly read through them, frowning as she noticed the upgrade team had not powered it down as instructed. She flipped back through several pages of notes. It had not had water for quite some time either. That was the hot metal smell, like a steam iron left on and nearly dry. There was no order against it, so she went to the distilled water tap and filled a bottle there meant for the purpose of giving it water, a gravity unit, a small hose at its base closed off with a pinch clip. She brought the hose to its mouth. It knew what to do, grasping the hose with its lips. She opened the clip and let it drink its fill. It took the whole quart and wanted more. She refilled the bottle and brought it over. Again it drained the bottle.
She noticed its bellows weren’t working as hard now, but it was still trembling, its arms twitching spasmodically, the sparking wires glinting brightly in the semidarkness. “This isn’t right, she muttered under her breath. She looked around, trying to find the handheld control unit used to power down the machine. She didn’t see it. “Probably in someone’s coat pocket,” she muttered to herself.
The automaton moaned again weakly. “It…hurts….” Its head rolled from side to side, its expression a grimace.
“Lie still. Let me have a look at your arms.” She turned on one of the overhead exam lights. It winced at the sudden brightness and turned away.”
It was a simple matter of disconnecting a few power circuits in each arm to stop the shorting. The leak was another matter, it was coming from a connector on a pressurized line, something she was not supposedly qualified to work on, though she knew she could repair it. Not wanting to disobey orders, she found some plumbers’ tape on one of the trays and wrapped it tightly. It should hold until the team showed up in a few hours.
“I can’t shut you down, I’m sorry. But that should be better now. Is it any better?”
The robot nodded, its tremors lessoning. It turned to face her, opening its eyes for the first time since she entered the room. “You’re….you’re not…,” it stammered. “Where? Where….” It looked about the room in terror. Then it settled back on the table and began to sob again. The sincerity of it tugged at her heart.
“Shh…. It’ll be ok.” She put a gentle hand to its shoulder again and patted lightly. She didn’t know why she did it, why she was offering comfort to a machine.
It shook its head. “Not okay. This is never okay. I don’t want to do this any more. Please. I just want to go home…home to my family and….” Then as if it were suddenly remembering something, the crying started anew. “My family….”
Family? This was very strange, why would it think it had family. But then, she had never interacted with this machine while it was online. She had only ever been a part of the diagnostic team, only seeing it when it was powered down on the table for systems testing. She wasn’t on the Tesla cannon upgrade team that had been so derelict in their care of this obviously valuable military asset. She had no idea what its operating programming might be when it was at home with “family.” It occurred to her that its family might be its military unit. Certainly no warbot would be allowed to live in a residential family home, especially a robot that was as heavily armed and government funded as this one.
“I want to go home,” it whispered as more tears fell.
“You’re here for upgrades. As soon as those are done, you’ll be able to go home.”
“No,” it sighed. “No. They will send me into battle.” It looked over at the weapon being constructed on the opposite bench. “They will send me out with that to…to kill.” It shook its head. “This is not what I am. I’m not…I can’t…please, I just want to go home.” It closed its eyes tightly and sobbed.
She reached over to the tray and picked up an absorbent cloth. Gently she daubed at the oil leaking from its eyes. A horrible thought suddenly came to her. Could it be possible that this machine was sentient? That it understood what it meant to kill? That it had a…conscience? It seemed pretty obviously self-aware. Maybe? She studied its face. Oddly expressive for metal plating. But when it opened its eyes and gazed up at her…those eyes…pleading was the only way to describe them, somehow filled with a deep emotional hurt. Those eyes melted her heart. She put a hand to the side of his face.
“Do you have a name?” she asked.
“My name is The Spine.”
“The Spine? That’s an odd name.”
“Not really. You’ve seen the steam stacks on my…on my…spine…. The name was given to me because of those.”
Dr. Ramsay glanced over at the clipboard on the bench. Those stacks for which he was named, those were on the list to go. In order to power the new Tesla cannon, they were going to have to upgrade his whole heat sink system and at the same time restructure his steam venting system. His entire spinal process was scheduled to be replaced at the end of the week. How would he react to having them replaced if they defined his name? Should she tell him now? And when did she start thinking of him as “he” instead of “it.” She decided against telling him just now.
The door opened. It was Colonel Green. “Major Ramsay? What are you doing in here? And why is that machine powered on?”
“Someone left him on all night. He was awake when I came in this morning, short circuiting and needing water. He also has a hydraulic leak that needs tending before the tape fails.”
“That machine was powered down when I left last night.” The man came over to look at the tape on the line. “You’ve powered off some circuits here. That is above your pay grade.”
“You might want to check the hand held. Sir. In your pocket perhaps? And no, no it’s not above my pay grade to turn off simple circuits that are short circuiting. The hydraulics line though, well…I just used tape. I could have repaired that as well, but that is considered above my pay grade.”
Colonel Green reached into his pocket to pull out the hand held control unit. He glanced at it, looking back at Dr. Ramsay with a scowl. He angrily punched the red shutdown button. The Spine shuddered and powered down.
“You might have at least warned him you were going to do that,” Dr. Ramsay said angrily.
“Major Ramsay, this is a machine. Nothing more. It has some very clever programming, but that’s all it is. Programming. We could wipe it away with a few simple key strokes.”
“You wouldn’t.” Ramsay looked at her superior with fire in her eyes.
“Don’t give me a good reason.”
“You’re not even remotely curious why he appears to be self-aware, how he learns, how he adapts…”
“That part I can answer. It was given adaptive programming a decade ago. A joint venture with Walter the Second, I believe. All those Walters run together for me. I hear the fifth Walter is 7 or 8 now and in an orphanage. Sad story, that.”
Dr. Ramsay was skeptical. It can’t all be just programming. Her curiosity was piqued. Now that she had discovered that a blue matter powered robot could be sentient, she wanted to learn how that had come to be. And having discovered that sentience, she felt it her duty to see that this robot made it through what was to come, to be there for him whenever she could. She looked over at the powered-down automaton with a sad smile. There was no way to stop the procedures, but she hoped she could make the results easier for him to bear.
Even though she could sense that her commanding officer was slightly angry with her she said, “Sir, I’d like to be present before and after the heat sink procedure.”
“You’d clean-room scrub just for that?”
“Yes sir. I would like to observe the procedure as well. But I understand if my security clearance is not high enough.”
“Your security clearance is plenty high enough. Truth be told, I wish your seniority were higher. You are a skilled technician. .” He thought for a moment. “You may stay in the gallery to watch the procedure. You can stand by the table when it’s powered down and when it’s brought back online. However, you may not participate and you may not distract the team doing the work.”
“Understood sir.” She beat a hasty retreat before he could change his mind.
*
The upgrade team had the automaton lying prone on the clean room table, arms raised, head turned to the side. The robot was strapped down as a safety precaution. They had just finished the new heat sink installation and were working on bringing the robot’s systems into synch with it.
Dr. Ramsay watched from the gallery as the four technicians, dressed identically in the same clean room scrubs she wore, finished the last adjustments on the Walter robot - The Spine, she corrected herself. Well, now he has a spine built entirely of titanium alloy. She smiled under her mask as she remembered his reaction to being told his old steam stacks would be replaced. The moment she had shown him how the new heat sink worked, instead of the sad reaction she had expected, he had looked at diagrams and with a look of delight had said, “This is great! I’ll have Stegosaurus fins!” It was a totally unexpected reaction, but over the past week she had come to expect the unexpected. She had found him to be both charming and yet incredibly childlike in his inquisitiveness. She was certain now that his self-awareness couldn’t just be the programming.
Colonel Green spoke. “Core online and temperatures holding steady. Pressurized systems are nominal. Electrical generators online. Ready for power on?”
“Ready,” replied one of the other technicians.
“Major Ramsay, as promised.” He gestured for her to stand next to him at the automaton’s side. She did, and put her hand on top of the robot’s hand. “Be careful there," Green admonished. "This one always tenses when it’s plugged back in. It could crush your hand and I don’t want to fill out the paperwork for that.” Ramsay nodded. She already knew that.
“Power on.”
With a whine of servos The Spine awoke. For a moment he seemed unfocused, then his eyes clenched tight. Dr. Ramsay realized he was integrating the new firmware. “Give it a few minutes for your new systems to load. Whatever you are feeling should go away.”
“It’s not feeling anything, Major Ramsay. This is simply a learned response to an unknown situation.”
Dr. Ramsay knew it was pointless to argue. There was a moment when The Spine’s whole body tensed . The heat sink protrusions slowly extended as steam was vented. His looked up at her in terror.
Colonel Green said, “Clearing procedure. Normal." The fins slowly retracted. Green gestured to a technician. "Okay. Let's get him up." They did and once they got his motor systems recalibrated, they took him away. Dr. Ramsey could only watch after him when they did. She never saw him again after that. But she was set upon a path of life's work to find out how, just how a robot could become sentient.