Librarians Vs. Robots: Flash Fiction Friday

Another wonderful random-draw prompt from Chuck Wendig, this time two lists of character-things. Draw one from each, and set them against each other. To my delight, my first roll got me the utter appropriate Librarians vs. Robots. In 999 words, then, my take on it. You know who's gonna win :)

Librarians vs. Robots

Abigail let her glasses slide down her nose so she could look over them at the patron who had just entered the library. Hers was a quiet and well-run library, and she did not allow troublemakers. This one looked like a troublemaker.

The patron approached the desk with the slightly awkward gait that gave away even the best robots. It was unaffected by the over-the-glasses gaze of the librarian, and made its request in a surprisingly human voice.

“Might I get a library card?”

Very polite. Abigail wasn’t fooled. Nor was she willing to discriminate against any potential borrower of books. She might see trouble coming, but even an obvious troublemaker could get a library card, and use it until he gave cause for action. She handed over the application.

“Fill this out. I’ll need to see photo ID and proof of address.”  In a way, this was a test. Robots didn’t get government ID cards. They had permanent ID numbers engraved on them. She’d heard that some were trying to pass as human, though, and presenting forged IDs. She sighed and rolled her eyes at Steve.

Steve rolled his eyes back. He’d worked as a bouncer at a nightclub before finding his calling as a librarian. His bouncer physique did wonders for keeping the teens in order, and he could spot a fake ID a half a mile off. When the robot reached for a wallet, Abigail stepped back and gestured for Steve to take her place. She busied herself sorting books. It was a handy occupation, appearing to take all of one’s focus while actually leaving her free to watch the library.

Steve glanced at the ID the robot handed him, and shook his head. “I’m sorry. This is not a valid ID card, Mr. Rochester.”

Abigail smiled to herself. Mr. Rochester. Give the machine credit for trying. Too bad Steve was more of a science fiction guy. Why did the robot want to pretend, anyway? As far as Abigail knew, there was no rule against giving a droid a library card. He just had to admit that was what he was, and show his ID number. Though proof of address might be a different matter.

About then, another patron approached the desk. This was a young woman, but Abigail had a strong feeling that the girl was another robot. Just what was going on here, anyway?

Steve was directing his patron to the reading room, without issuing the card. Abigail’s patron wanted to find books on tropical fish, and she spent a couple of minutes directing the droid to the right section.

Three more patrons were lined up at the desk when she finished, all robots. All were polite, all were terribly demanding, though they did have a dampening effect on the teens.

Only at closing time, when they all filed quietly out of the library, did Abigail realize what they were doing.

“They’re studying our jobs!” The staff had gathered in the back room to discuss the invasion. “Someone has decided we’re expendable.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sally said. “I mean, I guess they could sort and shelve, and spare us the backaches. I need my job, though.” She stopped talking and looked thoughtful.

“Right,” Abigail said. “But I’d like to see one of them trying to do a reader’s advisory for a 9-year-old who loves Hank the Cowdog and needs something that is just like it only at a higher reading level.”

Steve looked thoughtful, but he didn’t say anything until all the others had vented their worry and their contempt for the machines.

“How long do you think it will take for each of them to read a section of the library? And they won’t forget any of it.”

***

For the next three days the robots came, and no one knew what to do. They never broke the rules, so they couldn’t be asked to leave. And then the memo came from higher up: the robots were to be integrated into their staff. The bosses made it sound like this would be a great help to the humans, but they could read the handwriting on the wall.

If only the robots weren’t so damned polite, Abigail thought. If they would slip up even once, they could be managed.

And then came the preschool visit.

Classes came fairly often from the local grade schools and preschools, to learn about all the wonders a library could offer. Abigail ordinarily handled those visits, but this time, she professed to be too busy reorganizing their reference system according to suggestions made by the robots (which really were were good suggestions, even if the staff did resent the source).

She assigned “Mr. Rochester” to handle the preschool visit. The boss had, after all, assured her that a week was sufficient time for the robots to learn everything they needed to know.

“Three classes?” Sally asked. “I thought you never allowed preschools to bring more than one class at a time.”

Abigail shrugged. “They say these new employees can handle anything.”

***
The result became known in robotics literature as the “toddler effect,” and it was two centuries before programming reached a level of sophistication that could adjust to the randomness of toddler behavior, multiplied by 40.

In the short term, it took Abigail and her human crew a week to restore order to the Children’s Room. The robots could have done it faster, and without the aching muscles, but they had fled, and refused to return. All but Mr. Rochester. That unfortunate droid had been decommissioned by a particularly inventive 4-year-old, using her library card, a board book, and, to Abigail’s regret, one of the library’s pet goldfish.

They held a funeral for the goldfish, and presented the budding engineer with a handful of stickers as a prize for her creativity. Abigail caught Steve high-fiving the kid. “My niece,” Steve said.

After that, the librarians went back to running the library in their own quiet way.

***

You don't mess with the Ninja Librarian

Flash Fiction Friday: The Machines of Jest

Time for another Flash Fiction challenge from Chuck Wendig, king of brilliant and profane writing advice, and home of the best weekly writing challenges.  This week, he gave us a list of 20 potential sources of conflict for a story, and I spun the virtual wheel of fortune.  Change gave me "machines are taking over."  So I give you. . . 


The Machines of Jest
I may be the only living person who really knows what happened on Surely You Jest.  The planet, originally 165432Bb, was named by the first settlers for their reaction to its rocky surface.  It had been classed as suitable for human habitation, but it clearly wasn’t going to be anyone’s vacation paradise.  Later, when 165432Bc was settled and found to be marginally more pleasant, the settlers named it Don’t Call Me Shirley.  Naturally, the two became known as Jest and Shirley.

The effort required to make Jest genuinely habitable was immense.  To meet it, the settlers developed and deployed machines on a scale that at that time had been tried nowhere in the galaxy, and they were sophisticated machines.  An ordinary tractor-bot couldn’t handle the rocks or the slopes.  Jest tractors had what amounted to human reflexes to stabilize them.  And so on.  Since the incident on Jest, I think they make settlement machines a little differently, and usually send them in alone.  But back then, they dumped off settlers on any habitable world with a selection of resources, and left them to figure out how to make a go of it.

By the time the region around the original settlement, Jester, was rendered both habitable and arable, the residents had figured out how they could inside and do the work remotely.  Right from the start, in the manner of humans everywhere, the Jesterites had worked to make the machines more independent, to free the operators to do other things.  Early models required a driver on board, directly controlling operations.  Then they started to drive them remotely, but still in real time.  Gradually, they learned to program the machines for a full day’s work and just let them run.

At some point, several generations from Landing, someone realized that no one was programming the machines at all anymore.  They didn’t make a big deal about it.  Some worried a bit, but most agreed that it was a good thing, freeing the citizens to create a rich culture.  And it was proof of their own skills, to be the first in the galaxy to make truly independent machines.

I learned all this from the Galactic Records library while I was on my way to Jest with a load of—well, never mind what.  I always read up about my destinations, and I the idea of independent machines made me a little uncomfortable.  But, I’m from Last Stop, where we always keep our fingers on the buttons and figure work is a good thing.  At least, the Elders think that about work.  I figured adventure was a better thing, so I took to space freighting.  I’m Indie, so I get around, wherever the cargos want hauling and the price is right.  But I’ve only gone to Jest once.

A thousand square miles of terra-formed farmland surrounded the city of Jester, providing everything they needed.  And not one single human moved in all that land.  Just the machines, going about their business.  It bugged me.  I felt a bit squirmy even before I landed.

Last Stop, which was actually a rather early stop in terms of galactic settlements, had been inhabited for about 100 generations.  Jest has only been human space for five.  Five generations maybe wasn’t enough to forget that the first generation had short, nasty lives, cut off by lung disease from the dust and cancers from the radiation of 165432B, which was stronger than that of Sol on Earth.  People who stayed inside lived longer.  It’s not so surprising that staying inside became a goal for most inhabitants.

It only took me a couple of days in Jester to see it, though.  The machines were up to something.  There was less work being done, and a surprising stream of machines coming in with repair requests.  Sometimes the Techs couldn’t even recall what the machines had needed.

I watched a machine go back out after “repairs.”  It headed straight for the horizon and disappeared.  Maybe it worked out there.

An hour later, another did the same.  After the third machine in as many hours had followed the same path, I got out my ground scooter, the one-man air bike with double hover, and followed.  Two hours of fast travel bought me an answer I wasn’t sure I wanted.

Forty-six large machines congregated in a valley far from Jester.  While I watched from what I hoped was a hidden point, a forty-seventh joined them.  They all looked like they were designed to destroy things.  I figured they were supposed to be the ones pushing the frontiers, turning Jest’s rock into soil.  I moved a little closer.

One of the machines rotated its scanning cameras to view me, and rotated slightly to improve the view.  Immediately dozens of scanners locked on me, and I began to sweat.  When the first one moved, I hit the rocket-boost on my bike and got out of there.  I stayed as high as the bike would fly all the way back to the city.

#

I couldn’t convince anyone in Jester that there was a problem.  None of the techs could recall exactly what they’d done to the machines, besides “routine maintenance,” but that didn’t seem to bother them.  In the end, I did the only thing I could do.

I got out of there and left Jest to its fate.

Oh, I notified the Galactic Central Settlement Commission, but I doubted they would do much.  Bureaucracies move slowly, and I had a feeling the situation on Jest was going to change fast. Maybe they’d be in time to evacuate some of the people to Shirley, if they could convince any they needed to go.

As for me, I’m not taking any more commissions to that system.  The machines are taking over, and I don’t want to think what might happen if the contagion spreads.


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