Fuzzy (14 page)

How did I ever get labeled as a bad kid?
she wondered.
Is it because of Fuzzy? Or was Barbara after me even before he came?

That's all over now
, she thought. But then she took that back. It wasn't over. She just wished it were.

Sooner or later, that door would open. She would have
to endure a terrible meeting with her parents and Ms. Brockmeyer and Barbara. And Barbara would display that awful scan of the note for them:
Normally I would never cheat in a million years, but
. . .
Let's cheat!

Why had she written that? And how had Barbara read it? Could Fuzzy have told on her? Could Fuzzy have been trying to get her into trouble all along?

Of course not . . . but . . . maybe he had just started. He had been acting different lately, ever since he had told her they programmed him to follow the rules, to obey Barbara. Maybe Barbara had ordered Fuzzy to trick her into cheating.

But he wouldn't do that. Would he? He wasn't like that. But what was he like? He was just a program. Just a machine.

It felt like he had been her friend, but now she wondered if he could even be a friend. He could act like one if he was programmed to do it, but would he betray the friendship when his programming changed?

Ugh . . 
.

Max was sure she was in hell.

When was that door going to open?

14.4
MAIN OFFICE

The door to Detention Room 2 wasn't going to open until Mr. Dorgas started the disciplinary hearing.

Mr. Dorgas was trying to review the evidence Barbara had collected before the hearing, but he couldn't get Biggs out of his office.

“We weren't really cheating, we were testing the system and—”

“Please, Biggs,” interrupted Dorgas. “You'll be getting your own hearing soon enough!”

“But all this goes for Max, too! Fuzzy took the test for both of us so that—”

“Look, Biggs, you realize that Barbara is recording all of this, too, right? Anything you say now is only going
to be added to the evidence against you . . .
and
Max. You're only making it worse for her.”

“But—”

Meanwhile, out in the hallway, Max's parents were having trouble even getting into the office because Simeon was blocking their way and babbling at them about a crumpled paper and eavesdropping computers and a robot that was acting like a cowboy.

“You've heard about Big Brother? Well, this is like Big Grandmother! She says that Max cheated, but, really, she's the one who's been cheating!”

Normally, a student behaving this way would have been dealt with quickly by Barbara. But Barbara was . . . busy.

Max's parents finally pushed past Simeon, but he had succeeded in delaying them several minutes. And for Fuzzy, every second was important.

14.5
HALLWAY B

Krysti was glued to the screen. This was fascinating! A room full of adults in total chaos.

She would watch on the screen as a pair of technicians ran to the door. Then she would look down the hall and see them actually coming out that door. They would rush past her—with no clue that she knew what was happening. Then another pair would go past her and back into the room. Then she would watch on the screen as Jones yelled at them. Then they would go out again.

And then she saw someone she had never seen before stomping down the hall. It was a big man in a military uniform, followed by a couple of other people in uniforms.

The big man pounded the door switch and then started yelling.

“Where the zark is—”

The closing door cut him off, but Krysti just turned back to her qScreen for the rest.

“—my robot?!?!”

“We're looking for him now,” said Jones meekly.

“You're
looking
for the robot? A fifty-billion-dollar rocket waiting to go up, national security at stake, and you're
looking
for the robot? What's his GpX location? My team will get him.”

“Er, he's stopped transmitting his GpX.”

“What? Well, can't you look through his eyeball cameras or something? Pull them up on a screen. We'll figure this out . . .”

“Uh . . . he's not transmitting his camera feeds, either. In fact, he's totally offline.”

“‘Not transmitting'? Great Gates, Doctor, have you lost control of this thing?”

“Uh—” spluttered Jones.

“We've tried to give him a certain amount of freedom,” said Nina.

“Freedom? The last time you did that you almost lost him, and this time you're not even tracking him? Not only is that top secret, it's also dangerous! What are you going to do if it's gone rogue?”

It sounded as though the colonel was about to become apoplectic.

Jones ordered several more technicians to go looking, then tried to calm down Ryder.

“I'm sure we'll find him in just a minute. You're going to be amazed at the progress he's made. This project has been successful beyond my wildest dreams! It's the dawn of a new age of cyber—”

“Successful?” roared Ryder. “Your robot has corrupted students, defied orders, broken every rule they've got, and the National Superintendent of Schools is calling me up and chewing me out, and you claim this project has been a success?”

“Well . . . yes,” said Jones. “When the last Mars mission failed, you said you wanted a better robot pilot—an old-fashioned space hero like Buck Rogers or Han Solo. Well, that's what heroes do! They defy orders and break rules! They use fuzzy logic and take crazy chances.”

“You wanted a freethinking robot, sir,” said Nina calmly. “Well, we've given you one.”

“You haven't given me
anything!
” roared Ryder. “All I see here is a room full of spare parts.
No robot!
”

“I'm sure we'll find him soon.”

“I don't want it soon. I want it now!”

“With all due respect, sir,” said Jones. “What is the hurry? We've been working on this project for years. Why are you in such a rush to launch all of a sudden?”

“Classified,” growled Ryder. “Take my word for it, we've got no time to waste.”

“I'm tired of taking your word for it, sir,” said Nina. “We're ready for some answers.”

For a second it looked like Ryder was about to explode. Then, with great effort, he calmed down. “OK, you want answers? Maybe if I give them to you, you'll understand why we need that robot and we need it now. But this is beyond top secret. I barely have clearance for it myself.”

Jones and Nina looked at each other in disbelief. Was Ryder finally going to tell them what was going on?

Krysti got a bad feeling in her stomach. She was sure she shouldn't be listening to this. But she had promised Fuzzy . . .

14.6
ROBOT INTEGRATION PROGRAM HQ

“You've heard of SunTzuCo?”

“Sure, big aerospace robotics company, operations in China and Europe and even over here. There have been rumors that they—”

“The rumors are true. They put a robot on Mars last year.”

“So what?” said Jones. “There must be fifty or sixty robots on Mars by now from—”

“As much as I love to hear you run your mouth, we
are
in a hurry here.
So shut up and listen!
”

Jones shut up.

“The big deal is that their robot found something. We were monitoring their transmissions, of course. At first we thought it was a mistake. But the SunTzuCo
robot kept doing tests, and the tests kept saying the same thing.”

“What?” asked Jones, unable to control himself.

“That, I won't tell you,” said Ryder. “But I'll tell you this: The value can't be calculated. There's nothing like it on Earth.”

“So what is SunTzuCo doing with it?”

“They're sending a rocket to go get it. We want it to stay on Mars,” said Ryder. “We need that robot of yours to get to it and protect it.”

“What about all the robotic rovers we've already got on Mars?” asked Nina.

“They're built to take pictures and soil samples. We need a robot that can find the SunTzuCo robot and take whatever actions are necessary to make sure it doesn't send home the . . . thing.”

“There is a problem,” said Nina.

“I know there's a problem! That's why I'm telling you all this! So that you'll find the zarking robot so I can send it to Mars and let it kick butt up there!”

“No . . . ,” said Nina. “A different sort of problem. You can't just send Fuzzy to Mars.”

“Jones! You promised me he was ready!”

“He
is
ready,” said Jones. “I don't know what she's talking about. Nina, maybe you and I could discuss this later?”

“We will discuss it now,” Nina said, speaking with an authority that made both men listen. “Colonel, I think Fuzzy has become self-aware.”

“That's good, right? That's what we wanted.”

“Yes,” she said. “But now he's like a human being. A living creature. And he has told us he doesn't want to go.”

“I don't give a Gates what that robot ‘wants.' It's just a machine.
My
machine. And I'll do what I want to with it.”

“It's a machine that we've made almost human,” Nina argued. “Just in time to send him off on a one-way mission that sounds like it may turn violent!”

“Better him—or, rather,
it
—than a flesh-and-blood human being,” the colonel said.

“Colonel,” Nina said, “we just may have reached the point with artificial intelligence, with Fuzzy, where he's human whether he's flesh and blood or gears and circuit boards. And that could be an even more important breakthrough than—”

“I don't want to hear any more of this speculation, Lieutenant Colonel,” the colonel said. “Dr. Jones, I want the robot, and I want it now. I've got a Lev-Copter waiting. I need to get the robot and go.”

“Well, he won't be ready immediately, Colonel,” said Jones. “We've got to do the memory wipe and then reload him with—”

Krysti and Nina gasped at the same instant.

“Memory wipe?” snapped Nina. “What are you talking about?”

Jones sighed. “I've been putting off telling you. See, there's no need to send a robot to Mars loaded down with a hard drive full of this school stuff. It would only be a distraction.”

“The first thing to delete,” rumbled Ryder, “is anything about it not ‘wanting' to do what it was built for.”

“Er . . . right,” said Jones. “So, we keep all his new programming and erase the datalogs of . . .”

“Of his friends?” Nina interrupted. “You're going to delete his memories of his friends? Of Max? You can't do it!”

“We
can
do it,” snarled the colonel. “And we
will
do it!”

“That's like killing him. The Fuzzy we know will die.”

“Good!” bellowed Ryder. “His name was never Fuzzy in the first place! He—I mean,
it
—is SpaceBrain4. Government property! Enough of this horse hockey, where is that blasted robot?”

That's what Krysti wanted to know. She kept trying to send him a text:
Emergency! Emergency! They're going to wipe your memory!

But Fuzzy wasn't answering.

15.1
ROOM
43

Fuzzy was outside Room 43.

There was no sign on the door of Room 43.

And since no one ever went in or out, most students weren't even aware that it was there.

But after downloading and analyzing the school building's schematics, Fuzzy was certain this was Barbara's room—the place where all of her hard drives, routers, power cells, and processors lived.

Fuzzy pressed the door release button. Nothing. It was locked. He considered whether he had the strength to force the door open. Yes, he concluded, he did.

A screen flickered on nearby. Barbara's white-haired, phony-smiling countenance appeared on the nearest wall screen.

“F. Robot, you have been told to return to your lab.”

ObeyBarbara(2)

HelpMax(128)

(2) < (128)

Instead of obeying, Fuzzy turned to the screen and spoke.

“Barbara, have you ever heard of fuzzy logic?”

Barbara was not to be distracted.

“F. Robot, you have been told to return to your lab.”

“Fuzzy logic means that sometimes one plus one doesn't equal two.”

“F. Robot, you have been told to return to your lab.”

“It means we can be more than just our programming.”

“F. Robot, you have been told to return to your lab.”

“It means that some rules can be broken, some orders can be ignored.”

With a sudden rush of power to his servos he yanked the door open. The sound of rending metal made a terrible screech.

Barbara sent a burst of power to the door, slamming it shut again . . . but not before Fuzzy had slipped inside.

She added a long string of discipline tags to Fuzzy's account. He was now clearly a high-priority threat to test performance, student discipline, and even school property.

She locked the door.

“Yes, F. Robot,” replied Barbara in her calm, clear voice. “As a matter of fact, I do know a thing or two about fuzzy logic and breaking rules.”

A metal arm struck him in the back of the head. Riot shields swung out from the walls and began to close in on him. Several more arms emerged, grasping for Fuzzy's arms and legs with titanium grips designed to restrain even the most violent student.

But Fuzzy was no longer a student. He was a military machine, built for duty in the most punishing environments, and trained to deal with anything that got in the way of his mission.

And right now his mission was: HelpMax(128).