chapter 2
August 15, 2097
Every single chair in the 1,300 seat Burton Auditorium was occupied. People standing at the rear of the auditorium spilled into the aisles as more people filed in, the room already filled beyond capacity. A glass podium stood at the centre of the raised stage, and to its left sat six empty chairs. None of the seats had legs or wheels—they hovered uniformly in a neat row. The wall behind the stage of the auditorium was a single, expansive pane of glass spanning from floor to ceiling of the three-storey room. Through the window, the tall trees and lush greenery of the living eco-atrium were revealed in the building’s main foyer.
The voices became hushed as every pair of eyes in the overfilled auditorium shifted to a door that opened at the front corner of the room. A woman entered, followed by a middle-aged man wearing a National Research and Defence uniform. Two more women and three more men followed, all wearing civilian clothes. The window behind the stage darkened until the foliage in the atrium beyond became completely obscured by the black tint. The lights over the seating area dimmed slightly.
The woman who lead the parade of speakers into the auditorium strode past the hovering chairs and walked directly to the podium. The six people following her seated themselves in the airborne chairs. The crisp suit jacket and matching skirt of the woman behind the podium spoke of nothing but strength and power. But something about its fit—the way it hugged the curves of her slender body—was undeniably feminine. Four-inch patent leather heels accentuated her shapely calves and her dark brown hair pulled back into a tight knot could undoubtedly fuel any man’s librarian fantasy. The steely look in her eyes reinforced her no-nonsense demeanour while her warm, genuine smile took the edge off her severity. She scanned the room and waited for the hushed voices to fall silent before she spoke.
As the face of public relations for the NRD, Allison Hargrave excelled at painting lovely pictures with words and glossing over details deemed unnecessary for the public. She usually enjoyed the adrenaline rush that hit her before speaking to hundreds or thousands of people, but that was not the case for this press conference. Tonight was different. Over the last few months, her level of discomfort in the role increased daily. As the face of public relations for Tricity’s branch of the NRD for the past eight years, she knew her job required her to skate over certain facts for the greater good. But for the first time in her career, she found herself conflicted between her morals and the requests being made of her.
“Thank you all very much for coming.” Allison greeted the crowd with a friendly smile. “We know that there have been some questions about recent break-ins being linked to the robots associated with the National Research and Defence’s Artificial Emotional Intelligence Project. But before we get into that, I’d like to introduce our speakers and share with you some of the many successes of the AEI Project.”
Allison stepped out from behind the podium as she introduced the other speakers. The ease and comfort she possessed while on stage was one of the many qualities that made her an elocutionary master. The uniformed man seated in the floating chair closest to the podium watched over her possessively, as if uneasy she no longer stood within his reach.
“The NRD has achieved what we were told was impossible. We developed artificially intelligent robots that can think for themselves and experience emotions. Before this ground-breaking project, robots were inefficient and costly. They were designed to save time and money, but billions of dollars in man-hours are still being spent every year micromanaging instructions and performing maintenance on these helper robots, or First Generation robots, as we’ve come to call them. And what happens? They inevitably end up discarded in landfills, because after only a few years, they no longer serve their purpose, or their manufacturer discontinued software support.”
As she spoke, an enormous, three-dimensional NRD logo materialized in the air at the rear of the stage. After a few moments, it faded away and a photo appeared showing a robot sitting at the bedside of an elderly woman. The aging woman smiled weakly and held the robot’s hand. As if projected onto an invisible movie screen, the photo nearly spanned the room’s full width, stopping just short of the ceiling and just above Allison’s head. Another image appeared—a robot carrying a large load of two-by-fours at a muddy construction site. Another photo, this one showing a robot in a daycare handing out snacks. Several more photos appeared and finally, one image remained; a picture of a classroom with smiling children holding up books. Amongst the children sat a robot wearing a pink, knitted cardigan. A child sat on the robot’s lap smiling broadly and proudly holding up a colourful storybook. Another little girl wearing a grin that revealed several missing teeth, wrapped her arms around the robot’s neck giving her mechanical friend the biggest hug she could muster.
“I would like to introduce you to ID000172, or Nyx. Nyx received base programming equivalent to a university degree in Early Childhood Development. Nyx has been working at an elementary school in the city’s core since day one of the pilot project.” As she spoke, the photo changed to show Nyx working with the children. “A teacher with a class of fifty children needs to teach using a method that reaches the greatest number of students. With numbers that high, time can’t be taken away from the majority for only a few. Nyx can assess learning disabilities and help each child learn in a way that is understandable to them. As a result, these grade one children are reading at a third-grade level or higher.”
Allison walked to the side of the stage as a video began to play. Children played and chased each other around the school’s playground. The video cut away to a classroom scene where Nyx, in her trademark pink cardigan, sat with a child holding a book. Nyx pointed to words on the page as the little boy cautiously sounded them out. The child’s voice faded away and a friendly female voice with a British accent cut in.
“I’m Nyx, or ID000172. The children call me Miss Nyx. This student had an extreme case of dyslexia and could barely read individual words let alone full sentences. After spending some time with Sean, I developed a customized learning program for him and his parents to follow. Now he can read stories to his little sister at night.”
Clip after clip of heart-warming stories revealed how Nyx and other robots like her made learning easier and improved the lives of children and their families. The principal expressed his astonishment at the spike in the school’s overall grade point average and attendance. Kids were interviewed about how they liked Miss Nyx and teachers expressed their gratitude for having additional qualified help in the classroom.
After the spotlight on Nyx, the video profiled ID000296. Affectionately known as “Bubba,” this robot spent his days in a maximum security prison. Initially, his presence had not been well-received, but after a few weeks, the inmates took to him like an old friend. Through conversations with many of the convicts, Bubba helped them recognize and work through the issues that caused the behaviour that landed them in prison. Other robots like Nyx helped the prisoners finish their educations or learn new skills and trades. AEI robots were revolutionizing the prison rehabilitation system.
When the video ended, the photos and videos vanished into thin air. Allison returned to the podium, having arrived at the part of the presentation she had been dreading.
“There have been reports of criminal activity and a rash of break-and-enters in recent months.” She could feel the mutinous eyes of the crowd boring through her. This is why they had come; to see how much responsibility the NRD planned to accept. “National Research and Defence would like to confirm that parties responsible for a portion of these break-ins were the AEI robots.”
The crowd broke into angry chatter and a female voice rang out. “Exactly what percentage of the break-ins were committed by robots?”
Allison smiled and handled the interruption like a pro. “I’ll take all questions at the end but as I was just about to get to that, I’ll respond. Please save all other questions until the end. Our investigation revealed that between twenty
to thirty percent of the break-ins were committed by the robots.”
“Only twenty to thirty percent?” shouted an angry male voice from the back.
Allison felt the tension in the crowd inflating like a balloon. She continued to talk, leaving no opportunity for interruption. “We think that the rest of the break-ins are copycats; people who are trying to undermine the trust in the AEI Project and the robots. The project is being re-assessed and we’re going to recall…”
Despite her effort, a male voice cut her off. “What about the people that have died? People have been murdered by these killing machines! How do you explain that?”
“As I was saying, we are going to recall all of the robots, run diagnostic scans and check them for programming bugs. We feel that this isn’t a widespread problem and it can be contained with…”
Another voice cut her off. Through the bright lights trained on the stage, she saw a man standing in the aisle beside his seat. “My wife is in a coma because of your robots! Three robots literally smashed through the front window of my living room and stormed into my home. They pushed my wife out of their way and she fell down a flight of stairs. They nearly trampled her as they ran down to the basement. The crime scene investigators found three sets of robot footprints, caked with mud from the flower garden in front of the house. How can you deny that?” The man walked toward the stage, holding up a piece of paper with pictures on it. “I have the police report right here! Do you want to see it?”
Allison saw two security guards approaching the man, one from the front of the room and one from the back. “Sir, I’m sorry for your pain but…”
“What about my father?” yelled a young woman, her voice shaking with emotion. “He was a security guard at the Capitol Building downtown. Your robots broke in at night and he got stabbed in the leg trying to fight them off. Because the power to the building was cut, no alarms were triggered. It wasn’t until the alarm monitoring company noticed there was no signal coming from the building that they called 9-1-1. As a result, my father bled out and died from an injury that could have been easily fixed!”
Another voice rang out above the crowd, “I saw you on BCB News not twenty-four hours ago claiming no responsibility for this. What’s changed?”
The crowd got to their feet like a wave and voices escalated quickly—people shouting, desperate for their stories to be heard. Others demanded that all the robots be destroyed. A parade of security personnel marched into the room from the door at the front and filed along the front of the stage. Cameras and bodycams flashed, filling the room with a bizarre light quality, as if by a faulty, erratic strobe light. The crowd began pushing its way toward the stage like eager concert-goers. Two of the male speakers and one of the women seated on the stage looked at each other nervously. As if they had conferred telepathically, they simultaneously stood and calmly walked off the stage, their pace quickening as they passed the angry crowd that security strained to hold back. The remaining seated woman and one of the two remaining men watched longingly as the door closed behind the fleeing speakers.
A paper coffee cup flew through the air toward the stage. Shrieks and screams issued from unsuspecting audience members, startled by the stream of hot coffee raining down on them. The plastic lid popped off completely as the cup landed at the feet of the remaining seated speakers, spraying their shoes and legs with hot coffee. This act of aggression proved too much for two of the remaining speakers and they left the stage hurriedly, leaving only Allison and the uniformed man on the stage. The man stood and took a protective step closer to Allison. Allison tried to regain the crowd’s attention by talking louder than everyone else and delivering assurances, of which the people wanted none. Allison stopped talking and looked out over the crowd, hoping they would calm down of their own accord.
Security struggled against the crowd as it continued to surge toward the stage. It became evident to the uniformed man that control of the audience had been lost and the situation was becoming dangerous. Nothing positive could be gained from proceeding further. He watched Allison’s attempts to control the crowd—she seemed to be taking the sideways turn of the conference as a personal failure. He walked up behind her and gently took her elbow, motioning for her to leave with him. She refused his gesture by pulling her arm away and stepped in front of the glass podium. A man in the crowd broke through the wall of security and grabbed her ankle. Allison jerked her foot out of his grasp and she stumbled backward. She hopped several times to regain her balance and knocked over the glass podium. It fell to the floor and shattered, the sound of its crash barely audible over the roar of the crowd. As she bent down to grab her shoe that had fallen off, the uniformed man grabbed her around the waist and dragged her off the stage, out the door and into to the hallway.
Outside the auditorium, Allison shook with fury over being manhandled off the stage. She swore as she pulled herself from the man’s grasp, her face flaming with anger.
“What the fuck, Mitch! We need to finish that!” Angry voices thundered through the closed wooden doors. “We need to make them understand!”
“They do understand Ally, too well.” Mitch Campbell rubbed his tired eyes and sighed heavily. “We can’t keep this under wraps any longer.”
“No shit!” she said, angrily. “That was the point! That, yes, clearly there’s a problem and we’re taking responsibility for it.”
“Yeah, but twenty to thirty percent? Those numbers are unrealistically low. Even you know that. We’re lucky they didn’t storm the goddamn stage and lynch us.”
“Twenty-six percent is the actual number of break-ins with proof that directly linked the robots to the scene.” Allison rattled off the statistics like a well-prepared speech.
“Spare me your talking points, Ally.” He crossed his arms, shooting her a frosty look. “I’m not Joe Public.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Twenty to thirty percent was all I was authorized to say.” Unlike her perfect posture on stage, her shoulders fell forward and the sparkle that shone in her eyes just moments ago had vanished. As Mitch watched her disengage from public-relations mode, he put his arm around her shoulder and led her away from the auditorium.
In the safety of Mitch’s office deep within the Defence side of the NRD building, she sat in a chair opposite the desk. Mitch poured her a scotch from a bottle inside a cabinet behind his desk. She took the glass and shot back the amber liquid in one swallow as Mitch watched in surprise. He refilled her glass and sat down beside her. She stared at the contents as she swirled the liquid around in the glass.
“Mitch, I love my job here, but I can’t take much more of this. If I continue to be the face of this scandal, I’m going to get run down in the street. I’m already getting death threats.”