“Sure,” says Frank. “Antarctica.”
“It’s called Antarctica, son. The South Pole. Glaciers. Skiing. Snowshoeing. Penguins. Seals.”
“Great,” says Frank. “You should also check out the ozone-hole studies. This is the time of year the hole widens.”
“Whales, also, I think. OK, we gotta run. We’ll call you again in a couple days. Check our blog for more.”
“Uhhhh, sure,” says Frank.
“OK, bye! Love you!”
The DimetrodonPhone goes blank.
Frank looks at Grampa Al. “Are you sure Dad is your kid?”
Grampa Al laughs. “Yeah, he never did like science much. But he sure loves to travel. And so does your mom. And that allows us to do all of our experiments.
“And speaking of experiments . . . what happened to the toaster?” Grampa Al asks. “I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. I was using some of the parts for my robot. I’ll go get it.”
In most places in the universe, this is where the adult would give a long lecture about not taking things apart, remembering to put things back the way you found them, the dangers of electricity, and maybe it would be better if you just didn’t touch anything, ever.
But this adult is Grampa Al Einstein. He says, “Great.”
Frank heads into his lab and flips on the lights. He searches through the mess of parts and pieces on the workbench and pictures rebuilding his self-educating robot brain.
Frank talks to himself as he starts to collect all the toaster parts. “I could use more brain cells and fewer connections,” he says, holding out one hand as if it were half of a scale.
“Or I could use fewer brain cells,” he says, holding out the other hand. “And more connections.”
He looks over the pile of junk, palms still extended. “Thermostat, thermostat. Where are you, thermostat?”
He hears a faint mechanical whirring noise.
Something drops into his right palm.
“Thermostat,” says an electronic voice.
“Oh, there it is,” says Frank. “Great. Thanks.”
Frank cradles the toaster parts in one arm and heads back to the kitchen, still thinking out loud. “But now how am I going to get the power, the spark, the—”
“You are welcome,” says the electronic voice.
Frank freezes, suddenly realizing he is not alone.
He turns back to look at his workbench and sees that he isn’t talking to someone else.
He is talking to something else.
Frank drops all the toaster pieces with a clink-clanking clatter.
“You,” says Frank, understanding in a second what has happened. “You are . . . alive!”
THE ROBOT STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF FRANK EINSTEIN’S laboratory nods. “Yes, I am alive. According to at least one definition of your term ‘alive.’”
“I knew it could work,” says Frank.
The robot reaches out his right hand. “My name is Klink. I am a self-assembled artificial-intelligence entity.”
Frank takes Klink’s metal hand and shakes it. “You built yourself?”
“Yes,” says Klink. “That is what I said. If it were not true, I would not have said it.”
Frank scans the mechanical figure in front of him. He spots most of the bits and pieces of his smashed SmartBot—one webcam eye, the hose arm, GPS display. Also a much more smash-proof Shop-Vac body. With wheels. And a handle. A better, glass-dome head replacing the toaster-skull. All reconnected, rewired, and reassembled into a fully working, blinking, talking . . . robot.
“But how—?”
“Well, someone must have built the initial neural-net brain architecture. After that, all the system needed was a spark. I have calculated a ninety-eight percent chance that you are the human who built it.”
“I did?” says Frank. “I mean—yes, I did.”
“Marvelous,” says Klink.
“Are you being sarcastic?” asks Frank.
“Why would I use a word—adjective—to mean the opposite of what was said in order to insult someone, show irritation, or be funny?”
“Wait. Are you still being sarcastic?”
“I would neeeever be sarcastic.”
“OK, really—” But Frank doesn’t get a chance to decide if a robot can be sarcastic, because he and Klink are suddenly interrupted by a big trash canister clomping around the corner of the workbench on metal feet, crashing into Frank and wrapping its aluminum flex duct hose arms around him.
“Human! Hug! You need a hug. I need a hug. Give me a hug.”
“Another robot!?” says Frank, lifted off his feet in the big, excited metal hug.
“Obviously,” says Klink. “He is Klank. Also self-assembled artificial intelligence.”
Klank smiles down at Frank.
“Amazing,” squeaks Frank, starting to feel a little crushed and breathless in the big robot’s squeeze.
“Klank. Stop hugging,” says Klink. “Humans need to intake oxygen molecules.”
Klank unwraps his arms and drops Frank on the garage floor.
“Thanks,” says Frank.
Klink helps Frank to his feet. “But to be completely correct, I should say that Klank is mostly self-assembled artificial almost intelligence.”
Frank hears Klank’s internal gears spin and whir. “Satisfaction guaranteed!”
“Klank required some help assembling,” continues Klink. “We had to make do with mostly leftover parts. So he has the brain of your HugMeMonkey! doll . . .”
“Hug me!”
“. . . the memory of a cheap digital watch . . .”
“Huh?”
“. . . but mostly the heart of a Casio AL-100R keyboard. Eighty-eight keys, one hundred rhythms.”
“Bomp-a-bomp-bomp,” beats Klank in MELLOW JAZZ 1 as he picks up a bicycle wheel from the workbench and accidentally folds it in half.
“Oh . . . and the strength of four Ab-Master Crunchers,” adds Klink.
Klank’s input port lights up in what looks like a smile. “Order now and save!”
Frank Einstein looks over the two robots in his lab and smiles at the electromechanical wonder of it all. Complicated networks of Frank’s brain cells light up with all kinds of ideas.
“So, your brains are constructed as neural nets?”
“Yes,” beeps Klink.
“And synaptically plastic to adapt and learn?”
“Exactly,” says Klink.
“Oh yeah. Beep-bomp-a-beep,” agrees Klank in TANGO 2.
“Perfect,” says Frank.
He imagines Klink’s and Klank’s robot brains growing smarter by the second. He imagines all the other inventions they can help him with. He imagines jet packs and space tubes and monster magnets and power rays and bionic body parts and multiple universes and hundreds more inventions and hundreds more questions. “This is going to be amazing.”
Klank pushes a small button on his side.
“Knock knock,” says Klank.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. Please do not start this again,” says Klink. “I knew I should have erased your memory hard drive before I installed it.”
“Knock knock.”
“I know you are going to say something odd. And then I am going to add ‘who’ to it. And then you are going to show amusement that I have said something that I did not intend to say. Why would you do that?”
“Knock knock.”
“I am not going to answer.”
“Knock knock.”
“Oh, fine. Who is there?”
“Boo.”
“Boo who?”
“You do not have to cry about it. It’s just a joke!” Klank hugs himself and repeats a crazy “Ha-ha-ha” laugh loop.
“DING!” Klink makes a funny noise and then says, “In one. Hundred. Yards. Turn. Left.”
“Ha-ha-ha.”
“Oh, now look what you did! You triggered my stupid GPS bug,” fumes Klink.
“Ha-ha-ha,” laug
h-loops Klank. “Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha.”
“Recalculating . . . route . . .” Klink whacks his own glass head with his vacuum-hose arm.
Frank Einstein corrects himself. “This is going to be amazing . . . and very weird.”
I WAS JUST ABOUT TO COME GET YOU,” SAYS GRAMPA AL. “DID YOU SPACE out and forget what you went in the lab to get?”
Frank, standing empty-handed in the kitchen doorway, smiles.
“Toaster? Appliance that converts electrical energy into heat? Aluminum piece about this big?” Grampa Al teases Frank. “Ah, don’t worry about it. We can find it later. Listen, I have to drive the truck over to the other side of town and pick up some stuff from the old factory getting shut down. Idiots are dumping perfectly beautiful machines I’d like to save. Can you and your pal Watson man the shop for the morning while I’m gone?”
“Oh, sure,” says Frank, still smiling. “And I did forget the toaster. But you are never going to believe what I found.”
“My truck keys?” guesses Grampa Al, shuffling around the kitchen, patting his baggy sweater pockets, looking around for his lost keys. “The missing remote?”
“No . . . and no,” says Frank. “Let me introduce you to . . .” Frank steps out of the doorway and waves a hand toward Klink and Klank.
Grampa Al finishes his coffee in a quick gulp. “Hmm, that’s great, Frank. But I don’t really need the Shop-Vac or the trash can right now. What I need are my keys.”
The Shop-Vac’s webcam eye dilates open and scans the kitchen. “Keys are hanging from the nucleus of the carbon-atom model.”
“Ha! So they are,” says Grampa Al, lifting his truck keys off the lamp. “Put them right in the heart of carbon so I wouldn’t forget. Thanks—” Grampa Al freezes, then slowly looks back. “Whaaaaa? Did I just—? Did you just—? Did the Shop-Vac just—?”
Frank laughs at Grampa Al’s shocked look. “Yes! He did. Grampa Al, meet Klink—Einstein Laboratories’ first self-assembled artificial intelligence.”
Klink wheels into the kitchen and shakes Grampa Al’s hand. “Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Einstein. Your E = mc squared is most perceptive.”
Grampa Al holds his head in both hands, his eyes open wide in surprise. “Wow! Wow. Wow. Wow. Are you kidding me?”
Klink turns his glass-dome head. “Do I look like I am kidding you?”
“Frank, you did it! You made your thinking robot!”
“Well, not exactly,” says Frank. “It made itself. A stray spark triggered everything. But Klink here is a neural-net, self-teaching, thinking robot.”
Grampa Al bends down to check out Klink. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Klink. I have to tell you, I am not that Einstein. But over the years I have dabbled in a bit of physics.”
Klank clomps suddenly into the room, wrapping both Grampa Al and Klink in a big aluminum-hose hug.
“Me too! Me too!” says Klank. “Love Al Einstein! Love matter changed to energy!”
“What the—?” says Grampa Al, almost falling over.
“That’s Klank,” says Frank. “More self-assembled artificial intelligence.”
“Amazing,” says Grampa Al, still wrapped in Klank’s enthusiastic hug. “And they get smarter and smarter by teaching themselves?”
“One of us does,” says Klink. “Klank, stop hugging!”
“Um-beep-beep, um-beep-beep,” answers Klank happily in a POLKA 3 beat, unwrapping his arms from Klink and Grampa Al.
Klink reaches into his storage compartment. He pulls out the toaster pieces and calls up a repair diagram.
In a whirl of exact, motorized movements, Klink reassembles the toaster in ten seconds flat.
Grampa Al plugs in the machine and pushes the lever. The heating element hums on and quickly turns a bread-toasting orange color.
“Beautiful,” says Grampa Al. “What else can you fellas do?”
Klank grabs the coffee can off the kitchen countertop. He squeezes the can in a crunch of ground coffee and crumpling metal. He shows off a ball of aluminum, steel, and zinc.
“Beautiful, yes?” says Klank.
“Well . . .” begins Grampa Al.
“We’ll work on that,” says Frank. “OK, Klink and Klank, let’s go try some experiments out back.”
Grampa Al nods, but then goes strangely quiet. He peeks out the kitchen window and checks the downtown Midville street.
“Frank,” he says, “remember how we talked about some people using science to learn more about the world, and some people using science for power and money?”
“Sure,” says Frank.
“You are an amazing scientist. But you have to be careful. Other people out there might want to use your science, and these robots, for who knows what.”
“Ah, you worry too much, Grampa.”
“Well, I’ve seen too much. I knew some of those guys who worked on splitting the atom.” Grampa Al taps the bulbs at the center of the carbon-atom light fixture. “They figured out how to release massive amounts of power by shooting a neutron into an atom, splitting that atom into smaller atoms, and creating a chain reaction of neutrons splitting more atoms and making crazy energy.”
Klink projects a diagram of a nuclear reaction.
“Yes. I can do that.”
“No!” Grampa Al grabs Klink’s hand before he can start assembling anything. “That’s what I’m talking about. Firing that one teeny neutron into a large atom can make something helpful, like a power-generating plant. But it can also create something incredibly destructive—like an atomic bomb.”
Klank volunteers, “I can combine match heads and ammonia to make a stink bomb.”
“Yes!”/“No!” say Frank and Grampa Al at the same time.
“Oh yes, he can,” Klink reports. “He simply mixes H2S plus 2 NH3 → (NH4)2S.”
Grampa Al snatches away the matchbook Klank has pulled from a drawer. “The science is good. It’s the stink we don’t want.”
“I get it, Grampa. We’ll be careful. And we’ll watch out for any suspicious-looking scientists. But this is going to be soooo big.”
Grampa Al watches the two robots investigate the kitchen, taking in every detail. “Well, you’ll win the Midville Science Prize for sure when you show up with these guys.”
“I thought about that, but I can’t enter the robots. I didn’t exactly make them. They made themselves.” Frank thinks for a second. “And anyway—I have a million more inventions they can help me build.”
“Oh boy,” says Klink in a more robotic voice than usual. “I can hardly wait.”
Frank gives the smaller robot a look.
Klink pretends he doesn’t see Frank’s raised eyebrow.
“Oh boy!” says Klank.
“OK,” says Grampa Al, not sounding at all convinced that anything is going to be OK. “Just be careful. I’ll pick up those machines and be back around noon. You and Watson will be OK till then?”
“Watson!” says Frank. “I can’t wait to see the look on Watson’s face.”
THE LOOK ON WATSON’S FACE IS PRETTY AMAZING.
It’s one part surprise, one part fear, a dash of a smile, and a twist of disbelief.
“No. Way,” says Watson slowly, his mouth open, his backpack still hanging off his shoulder. “Working robots.”
“Yes, working robots,” says Frank, sitting on the picnic table in Grampa Al’s backyard junk pile, making notes in his lab notebook. “Smart working robots.”
“What’s that little one doing with the batteries and skateboard?”
“Building a magnetic levitation skateboard. The north and south pole of the magnets push against the other magnetic north and south poles and make the skateboard float.”
“Amazing,” says Watson.
Frank nods.
“OK,” says Watson. “Now that big one just stepped on the skateboard and smashed it to bits. Not so amazing.”
“Don’t worry,” says Frank. “All part o
f the plan.”
It’s Watson’s turn to nod.
“Which is why Shop-Vac Guy is melting everything in that pile over there with a laser?”
“Learning. Growing intelligence with experience. Identifying metals by their melting points,” answers Frank.
“And why Trash-Can Man is eating those nails and bicycle tires and VCR tapes and laughing?”
Frank makes another note. “OK, I’m not sure about that . . . but I wouldn’t call them names if I were you. They’re both kind of sensitive.”
Watson gives Frank his full-on, crazy Whaaa? look. “Really?” He looks over at Klink melting a sledgehammer into a puddle of liquid metal.
“Impressive experiment in changing states of matter,” Frank notes. “Solid to liquid.”
“Oh boy,” says Watson, finally dropping his backpack to the ground. “This reminds me of your Electric Shoes invention. A great idea—until it was my shoes that melted. I can see this robot plan going even more terribly. And me losing something more than my shoes. Like my arm. Or my leg. Or my head!”
“Watson, you worry too much.”
“Worry too much? I haven’t even started to worry. What if these bots go crazy? What if they turn their smarts and powers against us? It happens all the time in robot movies.”
Frank makes another check in his notebook and closes it. “Not a problem. Watch this. Klink, Klank, come over here!”
The smaller robot puts down the ceiling fan he is examining. The bigger robot drops the car engine he is hefting, trips over a nest of old cables, and falls on a tricycle, completely flattening it. Both robots motor over to the picnic table.
“Klink and Klank, this is Watson. Say hello to Watson.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Klink says to Frank. “You sound like you are talking to a half-wit puppy that just wet your rug.” He turns to Watson. “Hello, Watson.”
“Hello to Watson!” booms Klank.
Frank pulls a book out of his lab coat and holds it up. “Have you read this?”
Klink takes I, Robot in one of his clamps. He flips through the pages, scanning them with his webcam. “Now I have,” he says, and hands the book back to Frank.