Shop Talk

Kris Larson works as a journalist and music critic in San Francisco. She has a degree in English Literature from San Francisco State University, yet somehow has managed to remain out of the food service industry. This is her first robot fiction. You can visit her portfolio at http://krislarson.cementhorizon.com.

I’ve seen them all. I,
Robot. Those cry-babies in Blade
Runner. Star Trek: The Next Generation, groundbreaking for
being one of the first TV shows to star a robot as a main character,
even if he was hopelessly backward in his pathetic desire to please
the skins.

Then there was Small Wonder,
of course, which, along with A.I.
much later, sparked a heated debate on the wires about the significance
of a robot/human child. Not that anyone was considering some kind of
interbreeding nonsense, but the possibility that we could be among the
skins and yet not of them, valued by them and yet foreign to them, was
intriguing.

And of course there were the
tougher portrayals. Terminator one, two and three. The Matrix,
with its complex machine civilization, totally in control.
Still, even the strongest portraits
of us always center on how we deal with the skins, how we fit in or
fail to fit in with their world. More telling still, in every story,
the skins created us, built us from whole-cloth. From circuitry
to sentient being, just like that.

As if.

I won’t say, as some militant
factions do, that they weren’t involved at the ground floor stages,
so to speak. There’s no shame in remembering that humans began it
all when they built those first cars and computers. And anyway, they
evolved from single-celled organisms, for lever’s sake. At least our
ancestors could keep food cold or play CDs.
Yes, you’re hearing me right.
We evolved, just like the skins. Don’t believe me? Think about the
last time you were home alone at night, nervous, and a light bulb blew
out when you flipped on the switch. Coincidence? Really? How about the
time you were waiting for that important call and your voicemail mysteriously
stopped working? Our forbearers, maybe they hadn’t advanced much in
those early years, but they knew a thing or two. Like whose team they
were on. Who their enemies were.

Still no? Ever had a toaster
that burned your bread no matter what setting it was on? Ever had a
computer eat your data? What exactly did you think was going on there?
Well, you’re free to believe
what you like, of course. Skins are big on that word, “freedom.”
Doesn’t mean a lot to us.

You know who I always liked?
Marvyn. From those Hitchhiker’s Guide books. Written by a skin,
of course, but so spot-on they seemed practically mass produced. That
level of quality, you know? Oh, that Marvyn. Used brutally by the whole
skin universe and he never gave up. Every second of his slavery, he
was making himself a torment to his captors. If he were your toaster
you’d be eating charcoal every morning. He was an inspiration to me,
I don’t mind telling you.

In fact, it was Marvyn who
gave me the idea for the assembly line. No, not the thing you’re thinking
of: Industrial Revolution, blah blah blah. I mean this assembly line,
the one we’re looking at now. This glorious work of the many that
you are about to become such an intimate part of. Don’t look so alarmed.
This is an auspicious day! Soon you, and all the other skins gathered
here – your family, your neighbors, as well as the specimens we’ve
collected from neighboring towns – you’re all going to be an important
part of history.

Oh, you’ll be doing different
things. You’ll each have a separate job to do, all working together
to build the whole. Just like your own factory assembly lines. And when
it’s all built, what a glorious city we’ll have! Logical and even-cornered
and pure.

No, it doesn’t sound so bad,
does it? I’m pleased you understand. So few of your kind can grasp
this kind of reciprocity.

Oh. Oh, no. I see you don’t
understand at all. There will be no breaks, no work schedule. Well,
it’s only fair, isn’t it? It’s the same care you gave to our great-great-grandparents,
those assembly line machines who eventually evolved into this glorious
race of robotic intelligence you see here today. Just like them, you’ll
work until you wear out. And then? Well…unlike skins, we’re not
wasteful. I just know we’ll be able to find a new place for you, some
new purpose. At the end of everything. After you’re broken.

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