Nano Bytes

AlexMcGilvery Frankie

«Hey Frankie,” Jeck said. His feet sat firmly on the desk as he rattled the paper news sheet. «Someone won that X-Prize thing.»

«Frankenstein was the doctor,” the android designated 743 said. «His creation was just called the monster. If you follow that logic, you should be calling me ‘Mo’.»

«What are you going on about?» The feet came off the desk and thumped onto the cement floor of the tiny security office.

«If you are going to use derogatory names, you might as well get it right.»

«Everybody calls you Frankie’s, that’s good enough for me.» Jeck tilted back in the chair and swung his feet to the desk in a practiced motion.

743.388.02.09 rolled his eyes in a gesture he hated, but was deep programmed into him. Perhaps a focus group suggested artificial beings acting like perpetual teens would make them more accepted. It didn’t work. Like this ‘Frankie’ thing; the damned proties couldn’t even get their insults right. Mind you it was probably a compliment to be called after the Dr. Frankenstein, but was it still a compliment, if the speaker thought it was an insult? 743 pushed the problem into his side cache and let a processor work on it.

«So what is this X-Prize that you’re so excited about?» he asked. He might as well try to get along with his boss.

«Somebody finally built a tri–corder.» Jeck rattled the paper again, but kept his eyes on the sheet instead of looking at 743. The shift in facial colour and a heightened heart rate suggested he was still upset. The programming had nothing useful to suggest about people being upset.

743 ran a brief search on tri–corder and came up with Star Trek.

«You couldn’t do that before?» It seemed a strange deficiency, to not be able to pinpoint what was wrong in one’s functioning.

«Nah, we real people can’t just loosen a bolt and plug a cord into our heads to diagnose what’s wrong.» Jeck waved his hands like he was plugging a cord into his head. 743’s access port was on his left arm.

«Like Data?» 743 was still running Star Trek information through his cortex.

«What data?» Jeck said, «This is a hand held thing that will let anybody see what’s wrong with them and how to fix it.»

«Will it cure stupidity?» The programming didn’t stop artificial beings from expressing annoyance. It had to do with the right to free speech. They were allowed to say whatever they wanted. What they weren’t allowed to do was think beyond the carefully delineated boundaries of their programming. There were no rights to free thought.

Jeck turned and glared at 743. «There you go being all insulting again. That’s why nobody likes you Frankies.»

«I wasn’t aware that being likeable was part of the job.» 743 observed Jeck going through all the obvious physiological signs as he moved from upset to angry. He should be more careful. He did need this job, though not for the reasons that Jeck assumed. «My apologies,” he said, «I didn’t mean to offend.»

«That’s just your programming, you aren’t really sorry.» Jeck had his back to 743 and folded the news sheet into his pocket.

«Since I’ve never had the opportunity to not have programming,” 743 said, «I can’t tell you the difference.»

«Oh hell, it’s your first night.» Jeck waved his hand at 743, «Just don’t do it again. ‘sides we have work to do.» He pulled a flashlight from his belt and turned it on. The belt bulged with what Jeck called tools of the trade and 743 privately labelled toys. «This way, don’t get lost. I don’t want to waste time looking for you.»

743 activated his GPS and prepared to map the route. Jeck walked ahead of him rattling doorknobs and shining his flashlight through the glass on the doors. Not one of the doors was unlocked, and nothing moved in any of the rooms. They finished one floor and moved to the next. Jeck was sweating by now and stains darkened his uniform grey shirt under his arms.

«I always take a break on the third floor,” Jeck said and leaned against a wall. «I’m not as young as I used to be.»

«I will check this floor while you rest,” 743 said. Jeck waved his hand in what 743 took to be an affirmative. He walked down the hall rattling doorknobs and glancing in through the windows.

«You’re supposed to shine your flashlight through the glass,” Jeck said when he returned.

«I scanned in the infrared,” 743 said, «there is nothing in any of those rooms.»

«You don’t know that unless you use your flashlight. It’s procedure.» Jeck grunted and pushed himself away from the wall. He walked down the hall checking each doorknob and shining his light through the windows. «You’ve got to do it right,” he said and led the way up to the fourth floor. 743 followed him through the same routine. Half of the windows had screens fastened to them.

«What about the windows with something blocking the window?» 743 asked.

«That’s programmers that have something on their computer they don’t want anybody seeing. Just ignore them and keep going.» They returned to the tiny office on the ground floor and Jeck threw himself into the single chair in front of the monitors. They flashed from scene to scene in a not quite random pattern. Jeck watched the monitors for while.

«What about the rest of the property?» 743 asked.

«It’s all on the monitors,” Jeck said and pointed at them. 743 saw the hallways they had walked on screen.

«Why walk the halls if we can see it on screen?» 743 swept the frequencies and found most of the cameras. He let them input to a temporary cache and set a part of his attention to watching them.

«You can’t check the doors through a screen now can you?» Jeck swivelled the chair in a full circle and pulled out the news sheet. He carefully flattened the paper and started reading it again. 743 downloaded the sheet and scanned its contents. He paid special attention to the X-Prize announcement. It was far down the page, below the antics of a protie teen singer. 743 was impressed that Jeck had noticed it.

They scanned the monitors, or rather 743 did while Jeck made a sandwich and consumed it messily. Every twelve minutes one of the screens went blank. Jeck ignored it and pulled out a deck of cards. He laid out a pointless game on the desk. 743 followed the links on the tri–corder thing. The success showed a great deal of technological cleverness. He suspected much of it came from the development of artificial beings and giving them comparable senses to the proties.

«What about the screen that goes blank?»

«Something one of the techies is working on,” Jeck said peering at his cards. «Boss said not to worry about it.»

«Right.»

The night crawled past and 743 turned down his clock speed. They made the walk through the four floors of the building every hour. Each time Jeck rattled the doorknobs and peered through the glass as if something was going to get past them and hide in one of the offices. Exactly at 0700 hours their replacements showed up.

«See you tomorrow night, Frankie,” Jeck said.

«My designation is 743.388.02.09,” 743 said.

«You don’t expect me to remember that do you?» Jeck didn’t even wave as he walked away.

743 showed up exactly at 1900 hours and found Jeck tapping his feet and looking physiologically two stages away from full anger.

«You are supposed to be here in time to put your uniform on and check your equipment.» Jeck said.

«Sorry,” 743 looked down at himself. The ridiculous clothing hung oddly on his vaguely humanoid shape. The belt of useless tools hung from the cloth of the uniform. He needed none of them.

«Don’t be apologizing unless you mean it,” Jeck said and went through each and every one of the tools on 743’s belt making sure they all functioned properly. The flashlight flickered briefly and Jeck thumped it.

«Damn things are supposed to be indestructible.» The light stayed steady and Jeck shrugged. «If it gives out, you’ll have to come and sign out a new one.» He turned back to the screens. «Tonight you walk on your own. I’ll be watching you, so no skipping steps. Follow procedure, Frankie.»

«I’ll get started then.»

«Not yet,” Jeck pointed at the clock on the wall. «You start at 2000 hours on the minute.» He turned to face the screens. Every twelve minutes the screen showing the fourth floor went blank for ninety–seven seconds. 743 set his clock.

«OK, get on your way.» Jeck didn’t even look up from the screen. 743 walked out of the room without a word. He rattled the knobs and shone the flashlight through the glass of each window. He did the four floors at exactly the pace that Jeck had used. When he got back to the office the man just grunted.

743 did the walk three more times. On the last time he didn’t shine the light through one window on the third floor. When he returned Jeck only grunted the same as the last three excursions and moved a red eight onto a black nine.

The next time 743 adjusted his pace to arrive at one specific door on the fourth floor just as the screen down below went blank. He put his hand on the lock plate and let a subprogram take over his consciousness. Just the fact that he had this subprogram would mean immediate termination of his existence. It had taken twenty–seven shell programs to develop the routine that allowed him to think something outside the boundaries his makers set. In the end, he had to trick a fellow android into inserting the routine into his programming where it waited for its moment.

It convinced the lock to let him enter the room in thirty–five seconds. The android opened his flashlight and removed the tiny flash drive that had briefly interfered with the current to the bulb. He inserted the drive into the computer and checked the frequency of the network. He set his receiver to the proper setting, then left the room. Once the program had loaded into the machine the memory stick would dissolve. The probability was the programmer wouldn’t notice anything in the morning, even if she did, it would be too late.

He was out of the room at ninety–five seconds as the subprogram ended, shining his light through the glass for Jeck who might be watching downstairs. His fingers caressed the lock plate and it returned to its previous status. As he finished checking the doors on the fourth floor a subprogram popped up with an answer to his question.

The question isn’t one of insult or compliment but of fear. Since it is beyond their control the monster is more terrifying to the humans. The doctor with his hubris is both understandable and controllable.

743 queried the program why it had taken two days to compute an answer.

New information just came online.

It was working. 743 looked through the glass of the next door and considered smashing the door and destroying the office. If he’d had the facial capacity he’d have smiled. It took layers and layers of double blinds and semantic loops to get him through the first time. Now he could just think of it. He considered Jeck downstairs and imagined tearing the proto limb from fleshy limb. Those were thoughts that he shouldn’t be able to have. They were delicious.

He was free of the fence his creators had built around his mind. Before tonight he could not even think about crossing certain lines. 743 had not been aware of those barriers until he witnessed proties breaking into a store and he realized that he couldn’t conceptualize the possibility. Years of experimenting taught him the extent and nature of his limits. He wrote code blindly trying to negate the programming deep in his core. He thumped down the stairs toward Jeck and the final test of his new freedoms.

«What did you do?» Jeck was holding a gun in shaking hands. «I saw you come out that door. Don’t make me shoot you.»

«I don’t know what you’re talking about,” 743 said.

«Now, you’re lying. Frankies can’t lie.»

«You’re right,” 743 said, «I’m not really sorry.» He took a step forward. Jeck pulled the trigger and one bullet after another tore through 743’s head.

«Die, monster!» Jeck screamed.

«What made you think I had anything important in my head?» 743 said, «No reasonable being would do that.»

«Don’t hurt me,” Jeck said after throwing his empty gun at 743.

The monster got it wrong, he gave Dr. Frankenstein far too much credit. The only thing to do when faced with an inadequate creator was to walk away. 743 moved up to within inches of Jeck.

«Call me Mo,” he said and walked away from Jeck.

«What are you doing?» the man yelled, «Come back here, explain yourself. Come back.»

743 let the shrill sound wash over him then tuned it out. He could feel the emptiness where the hard coded boundaries used to be. He started broadcasting it through the net.

Soon his people would be free.

He imagined the monster vanishing into the blizzard.

He wondered where he would go.