Broken

[Aardvark]

"Such a pity, such a waste," commented Ng when the figure was wheeled into his lab. At first glance, he was looking over a 6'2 male, perfectly normal in every aspect, except that he was dead. Ng pondered as he went over the incident report. Something so simple had caused this. But how? And why? Without sparing a seconds thought for the body, Ng brandished a scalpel and slashed open the cadaver's abdomen.

 

Revealing a complex array of circuitry and wiring. A solid hundred million worth of circuitry and wiring, now little more than a junkheap. A wisp of smoke arose from the incision. Ng took a large whiff. He loved the smell of fried silicon at 3:14 in the afternoon. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves, more out of habit than anything else, and probed the robot's innards.

 

It had been designed beautifully from the ground up. Ng knew this, as he was head designer on the project. But the design process had been a democratic process. Someone came up with a better way to do something, it was put to the vote. And Ng didn't get the veto power he so desired. This would never have happened, he thought to himself, if only they'd worked as a team and done things his way. He placed a pen torch between his teeth and used the scalpel to search through the complex wiring of the robot.

 

Hmmm.... not here. Must be in the chest cavity. He dreaded opening that area up. Although he'd approved the power process, he had second thoughts when he saw how it was installed. One of his colleagues had commented that it was his own mortality thumbing it's nose at him from afar. And he was almost inclined to agree. The power regulator and distributor unit resembled a human heart a little too much for his liking. And the power cells, although nothing more than grey rectangular slabs, were positioned like lungs on either side. Looking upon them was like seeing an abstract artist's view of an inside out man. But pressure from on high meant he had to fix whatever it was.

 

He sliced up from the solarplexus, then along each collarbone. Another thing that gave him the creeps was the robot's endoskeleton. It resembled a human skeleton too much. He made another two cuts along the bottom ribs, then pulled the plastiskin aside. Far too similar for his tastes. But the project was to design a robot that would pass for human on the outside. So they'd stuck with nature. He undid the series of bolts up the sternum, then pulled the ribcage open. He'd insisted on the well oiled hinges. Other options had been removable ribs to a ribcage that came right off with ease. But his logic won out in the end.

 

Ohh... He'd found the problem. The power regulator segment had burned out. In human terms, he'd had a heart attack. There didn't seem to be any other damage, but he would replace the wiring to the segment anyway, as a precaution. Possibly also replace the power cells, just to be safe.

 

A heart attack... what had caused this? The incident report was about as useful as cross trainers to a quadriplegic. Best way to find out would be robot's eye view. He closed up the ribcage, rolled the robot over and sliced the back of it's head open, revealing a console port. He plugged a cable into it and fired up the robot's sensor logs. It had been designed to interact with it's environment as a human would, allowing it to pass for human. But, as advanced as technology was, they simply couldn't replicate the whole spectrum of human reaction and emotion. So for now, they'd installed a logic decision process. They'd done their best to program various emotions into the machine, but the end result was never what was desired.

 

Sensor log segment... console port upload detected... no, earlier than that.... tactile sense ambient temp.... no, not that... damnit. The machine's logs were recorded logically. Every so often, there was a sensor sweep. Every sensor, be it tactile, aural or olfactory, would report. Then there were the reports from a sensor detecting a significant variance. He could read through it without getting lost, but it was a pain. Someone else's contribution, he reassured himself while flicking through the entries.

 

Ahhh, this might be it. Final log segment. Ambient temp: 21, ambient light... useless. He scrolled down. Ahh... here we go. Social interaction initiated: Subject Female. Tactile sensor 34 active. Aural sensor recording.... logic circuit failure.

 

A woman had said something to him and he'd had a heart attack. Dr Ng didn't know he wanted to hear what, but he searched the aural logs anyway. When he found it, he laughed. There was no way he could present this to the committee. He would go with excessive powerdrain from logic circuits. And maybe recommend a separate emotional processor. He had an odd feeling his project would need it

[Alaeha]

*Laughs* That's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. "logic circuit failure"

 

Intergender relations and logic are almost always mutually exclusive...

[Ayshela]

*LOL*

 

oh, beautiful!!! and you know, if you switched the genders from the ground up it would work every bit as well!

 

*LOL*

[Rhapsody]

Lol, very clever.

 

Technical and engaging and humorous all at the same time.