The Leaking Drain

                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.”