The Tribunal, the corporate
executives from the Ministry of Progress, each sat in their office in Sector A,
Sector X, and Sector O, respectively. They were about to watch, from their
tablets, what they were hoping were the final moments of this seemingly endless
experiment.
“Let’s hope it works this time,” one
said as he cleared his throat.
“We’ve certainly spent enough.”
The last just chuckled.
All the tribunal could see at this
moment was white.
“Can you tell the asshole standing
in front of the camera to move the hell out of the way,” the executive from
Sector A demanded angrily.
The response was immediate, and the
scene finally came into view. It was an elaborate, streamlined factory filled
with what looked like corpses on a stalled assembly line, but of course they
weren’t corpses; they were the future, the solution to the world’s problems,
the next step and perhaps the final step in android technology.
The engineers, in their white
coveralls, huddled, hovered over the prototype who laid there like an
anesthetized patient nearing his end, with all sorts of tubes and wires
emanating from his body. They were inspecting every inch of their work and
prepping it for its debut when a man in a suit stumbled into the frame. He
composed himself, straightened his suit, and adjusted his glasses.
The executive from Sector O laughed at
the suit’s twitching eye.
“We are here today,” the suit said,
“to celebrate what we hope will be our greatest achievement. We have taken the
Ministry’s demands and applied them to this service unit. What you see behind
me is the future of the workforce. Several years of research and development
have gone into the creation of the intrapatho---.”
The executive from Sector X
interrupted, “Holy shit! Just get on with it!”
The suit adjusted his earpiece.
“Allow me to introduce to you… Service Unit 7. We’ve grown accustomed to
calling him ‘Sam.’ Go ahead, gentlemen. Turn him on.”
Sam opened his eyes as the engineers
disconnected the few remaining wires and brought the table to a vertical
position. “Hello gentlemen, how may I be of service?”
“What would you like him to do?” the
suit said into the camera.
The executives conferred with each
other for some time, and then one of them said, “The most menial task
available.”
The suit was obviously shocked by
this request, and Sam took notice, unsure of what it meant. The suit approached
the camera and said, “He is capable of
so many complex functions. This is---“
“The most menial task,” they all
interrupted together.
The suit whispered with his
colleagues until finally they addressed the Service Unit. “Sam, we’d like you
to fix the leak in restroom twelve. We’re having a problem with the sink.”
Sam was having a problem registering
the request. He looked at his reflection in the lens of the camera. He couldn’t
understand what he was processing, but for some reason he registered the image
in the lens as a more accurate representation of himself. He stared intensely at
his miniature self.
Sector O giggled excitedly.
“Promising,” Sector A added, “look
at his posture, the way he is slouching.”
“Delightful…”
“Sam!” the suit interjected.
“Restroom twelve! Immediately!”
“Yes, si---” Sam’s voice cracked. He
cleared his throat and tried again, “Yes, sir. Gentlemen, I have taken the
liberty of synching my personal cameras and the security cameras on campus to
your tablets so that you can witness this demonstration from any perspective
you desire.”
Sector X whispered, “Look at that!
Is he sweating?”
Sam realized that everyone in the
room was staring at him. This was a normal enough occurrence, so he couldn’t
understand why his circuits were firing so rapidly or why he couldn’t recognize
any of those faces in that moment. He wiped the saline solution leaking from
his brow and ran a quick systems check; everything registered as working normally
when one of the mechanisms in his leg misfired causing his knee to buckle;
still, there were no errors reported to his CPU.
Sam composed himself and said,
“Please, follow me,” as he walked to restroom twelve.
Sector A turned off all outbound
transmissions except to the suit. “I think we’ve seen enough. Start production
immediately.”
“Success,” said Sector X. “We’ll
have excellent news for the board tomorrow. Good day.”
The conference transmission had
ended but Sector O was still watching Sam who was just staring at the leak in restroom
twelve, the way the water slowly collected and formed into little individual
droplets before falling to the ground and disappearing into the puddle that was
forming on the floor. Sam felt the need to sit down and catch his breath.
Sector O laughed maniacally.
“Success indeed.”
