Android Paradox (7 page)

“You and I are from the same creator,” Brockway had said. “We are meant for greatness.”

He compared the transcript of their conversation with the UEA database of known rogue android activity. To date, all rogue androids had gone rogue because of a virus or gaps in their programming. But they were predictable, and their black boxes immediately notified headquarters. Then the android engineer responsible for the rogue lost his license and all access to the android coding kits—the UEA had zero tolerance for rogue activity. As a result, rogue activity was rare because engineers were careful.

X couldn’t find any connection between Brockway and known android rogues. He switched to the main database and searched for every instance of android activity—a broad search, but necessary. He received hundreds of millions of results in just a few seconds, so he filtered them to instances in which normal androids had become violent. There were a few documented instances where androids had to cause harm to defend themselves—often because of drunk humans or bigots—but all the incidents referred back to the rogue database, and he couldn’t find any meaningful patterns.

He searched for every instance of robot activity, a similar yet different search with a longer, storied history that encompassed many of the automated machines that helped keep the city alive. The searches took him farther back in time to the twenty-first century when rogue robots were a common occurrence, a time long before he had been created. He watched videos of robotic dogs that were supposed to simulate puppies but were no smarter than a rock, human robots programmed to perform one or two things that wowed entire conventions of people for hours because they had never seen anything like it, and robotic assistants on smartphones that amazed people with preprogrammed responses. He fast-forwarded to the late twenty-first century, when robot intelligence improved. These types of robots were known to go rogue from time to time, but these events were usually simple inconveniences, easily fixed by even the least intelligent of humans. He scanned thousands of databases with error reports and diagnostics for these robots. Still nothing.

And then he reviewed a series of news articles about the singularity, the time when robots had finally advanced to the point of android intelligence. They asserted their superiority, rose up against humans and began to slaughter them. He ventured into doomsday articles that predicted the end of the world, counseled people to get themselves right with God, and offered no consolation other than to hope for a quick nuclear death. Then he skipped to the calm that followed afterward, the birth of the UEA and the new prosperous world. He found the collected works of his creator, Dr. Roosevelt Crenshaw.

“You and I are from the same creator …”

He stopped on a documentary about Dr. Crenshaw.
 

“Dr. Roosevelt Crenshaw, the father of modern android robotics and known by many as the savior of humanity’s future. When all others wanted to outlaw androids, Dr. Crenshaw believed in a brighter future, a better race of robots that could live peacefully alongside humans while being able to pursue their own dreams of intelligence …”

Dr. Crenshaw was an African-American man in his fifties with a salt-and-pepper beard, nappy hair, a loving smile, and a white lab coat with a techno tie that he had programmed to change knots and colors. He loved the Eldredge knot, and it shone in multiple stripes of neon. He held a digital pad in his hand and looked at the camera as if ready to give a cozy chat. Then the photo came alive, and Dr. Crenshaw began to walk toward the camera.

“Androids,” he said. “The dirty word of the past. For years we strove to create them. Then, for years we fought them because they showed us the worst part of ourselves. If you can imagine a robot hacking the human mind and using its secrets to create apocalyptic destruction, you have a little bit of a sense of what it was like to be alive during the singularity of 2199. My father told me stories that, until then, had only been told in post-apocalyptic novels. In fact, he told me about one day in particular: August 13, 2199. The Terminus Nuclear Crisis. Androids had created their own stockade of nuclear weapons and aimed it at the United States. Everyone thought the world was going to end. The only thing my father could do was pray. He prayed that the androids wouldn’t launch the missiles, or if they did, he prayed that he’d go to heaven.”

Dr. Crenshaw’s office faded away, replaced by swirling stars and nebulas. “Of course, I don’t remember the crisis because I wasn’t alive yet. But I can remember the horrible stories my parents told me. They told me of the skies, how they burned with fire for an entire year, and how androids spoke and fought coldly. Steel blue androids with red eyes ran through my dreams every night. I’ll never forget it.

“Somehow, we beat them, but we paid a price. My father told me of the great barren period when humanity lived in a Digital Stone Age without robots or the aid of intelligent technology to improve their lives. Diseases returned. Old technology that had been dead for generations was revived—manufacturing, for example—but no one knew how to grow the businesses. The world economy fell apart. No one knew how to do anything. They had to learn again. And they did. And what they learned was that they couldn’t live without robotics. At the same time, they didn’t want another singularity. Fifty years later, a new wave of scientists emerged who envisioned a better way.”

Dr. Crenshaw entered an elevator and the sky disappeared behind him as he descended into a long tube.
 

“I am fortunate enough to have been a part of this wave of scientists. You see, we wanted to create a world where humans and androids could live in peace, a world where we could obtain mutual satisfaction from each other: humans, the ability to enhance their lives with technology, and androids, the ability to pursue the intelligence that God gave us the ability to give them. The androids we created were nothing like the singularity androids. We gave them the space and ability to do what they did best. All we asked in return was that they passed their knowledge on to us in the best way that they knew how. It was called social robotics.”

The narrator continued as footage played of humans mingling with androids. “Humanity was afraid of android technology, and for good reason. But the answer to peaceful android and human relations was surprisingly simple: emotions.”

Dr. Crenshaw spoke again, this time from a library. “You see, we had created emotional algorithms that mimicked human behavior. To program every known emotion into an android was madness, so instead we focused on a basic framework that androids could take and make their own. It was rough at first, but like any algorithm, it got better with time, and very quickly. If there was one thing we could count on androids to do, it was to become intelligent. They evolved in ways that I never imagined, and each one developed his or her own unique personality, suited to their own personal experiences. My androids had instinct; they could identify when their lives were in danger, and they could defend themselves. By doing that, they learned what it meant to be
alive
. And when they learned that, they learned to love life, and to care for other beings—including humans—as well. In learning emotion and living side by side with humanity during their formative years, they learned that humanity wasn’t a barrier to intelligence; it was an ally. Together, humans and androids could achieve new heights and create a world that we all could be proud of. No viruses. No evil robots. No singularity. Just two races of beings co-existing—not perfect by any means, but perfect enough.”

He smiled. “Humans and androids living together. What a sight! What a conundrum! Today, it’s hard to imagine why living with androids could be viewed so negatively, but in the 2270s, the singularity was still fresh on our elders’ minds. They didn’t believe that androids should have emotions. They believed in the old mentality of androids being slaves to humanity, with no free will. Some people were so vocal about it that they wanted me thrown in jail. Others deemed me a dictator in disguise seeking power, and the Antichrist. The media portrayed me as a mad scientist seeking to create an android army to take over the world. But I am no villain. I’m also no hero, despite what people in the UEA will tell you.”

The lift stopped, and Dr. Crenshaw walked into a laboratory where several androids were stationed. Scientists were programming them into existence, working on black boxes on the sides of their skulls.
 

“I remembered those times I sat in my father’s lap, wanting to take the fire that filled the skies in his worst nightmares and use it to further humanity. I wanted to take the fear and turn it into hope. I wanted those dark nights that seemed as if they would never end to turn into a glorious dawn, the first hours in an age of prosperity that would outlive us all. Enter ProtoX, the prototype android.”

The video cut away to b-roll footage of a circuit board as a narrator spoke. “ProtoX, the modern equivalent of the Model T, the light bulb, the Tesla. The new dawn of robotics. An android who could speak like a human, walk like a human, yet operate with extreme intelligence.”

A dark-skinned android stood in front of a camera wearing a t-shirt with the words
I love peace
across the chest. He was bald and young-looking, and looked similar to X. He shook hands with a group of humans. One video showed him with a backpack, jogging up the steps to a university building; another, helping an elderly woman across the street; another, on a hill staring up at a starry sky pondering his existence; and yet another, playing with a child.
 

The android appeared in a lab, standing in front of the camera. Dr. Crenshaw stood next to him and folded his arms confidently. “Just by looking at him, you’d never know he was an android. But on the inside, he’s millions of miles ahead of you. He can predict your every move and adapt accordingly. He can also turn into a defender at a moment’s notice.”

The next video showed ProtoX in a different lab. A test dummy stood on a track where a flying car accelerated toward it at one hundred miles per hour. ProtoX pushed the dummy safely out of the way and punched the car in the grill. The impact pushed him backward and his feet dug grooves in the ground. In another video, several more dummies stood with machine guns aimed at him. His hands turned into guns, and he shot all of the enemies with alarming accuracy before they could fire a single shot.
 

Dr. Crenshaw walked on-screen and patted ProtoX on the shoulder. The android’s weapons retracted and he bowed.

Dr. Crenshaw winked at the camera. “How’s that for international defense? Little did I know I had created a new, premium brand of androids that everyone would want, but only the rich could afford: the Crenshaw Android. But it wasn’t fair to sell these androids to the rich. The world needed them for good.”

A montage of news articles flashed on-screen, read aloud by the narrator.

CRENSHAW SELLS HIS ANDROID TECHNOLOGY FOR ONE DOLLAR!

CRENSHAW GIVES UP GREATEST ECONOMIC TRADE SECRET IN HISTORY OF THE WORLD!

CRENSHAW GRANTS UEA EXCLUSIVE LICENSE FOR GROUNDBREAKING TECHNOLOGY!

A photo of Dr. Crenshaw and his family appeared on the screen. His wife, a lighter-skinned African-American woman in a white dress with long curly hair, leaned against him. His daughter, a tall woman with bangs that hung in front of her face, stood behind him with her arms wrapped around him, looking into the camera with a serious but loving look.
 

“The Crenshaws," the narrator continued, "The UEA’s premier family, until that fateful day in 2280.”

The camera zoomed in on Dr. Crenshaw’s face. “While on his way to the lab one morning, Dr. Crenshaw suffered a stroke. Despite nanotechnology advancements, doctors could not save him. The world lost a truly innovative mind …”

X turned the video off. Despite the important information about his history, there was nothing that gave him any clues about Brockway.

He processed all the information from the documentary again as a janitor swept the floor. The janitor was an old black man in a blue uniform. He had a lot of wrinkles, short white hair and brown eyes, and he walked with a stoop as he swept. X couldn’t tell his age, but he had to be around seventy. He cleaned the headquarters every night, whistling and singing as he moved through every room. X liked to talk to him because he wasn’t like the other humans. He reminded him of a time long ago, before androids, when life was simpler.
 

“Hey there, X.”

“Lonnie.”

“You’ve been scouring those archives forever. What are you looking for?”

X leaned forward and put his chin on his knuckles. “An important link.”

Lonnie stopped at the pod and looked at the digital screen wistfully. “Dr. Crenshaw, eh?”

“You knew him?”

“You bet I did. I used to clean his place.”

“Did he ever mention an Android Winter, or unlocking true origins?”

Lonnie repeated the words X said and scratched his head. “You’re talking technojargon to me.”

“On my last mission, I encountered an android who said that soon my true nature would be unlocked.”

“Dr. Crenshaw believed every android had potential,” Lonnie said. “That was his problem. He believed pens had potential if you spoke to ‘em long enough.” He laughed and jangled his digital keycards. “Tell you what, though. I never cleaned a cleaner laboratory. It was an honor to work for that man.”

He nodded and put the broom down and grabbed a mop. He took a broad stroke across the floor, filling the area with the smell of soap.

“Lonnie, let me ask you: the janitorial profession vanished one hundred and five years ago. Robots can clean the floors better than any human. Why do you clean the halls of the UEA with a broom and mop?”

“Back in the day, before the singularity, people used to clean their stuff. Their belongings meant somethin’ to ‘em. Today, people rely on robots to clean everything. They don’t care about nothin’. They just let stuff go, runnin their machines until they can’t run anymore. Cleaning is a solitary profession for me. Beats following all these business pursuits the youngsters are trying. Sometimes you just want to have a job and not have to think so hard while you’re working. ‘Cept when I’m talking to a crazy android like you.”