Robot Ray

  "Inception"

In the beginning the Robot Kind created the heaven and the earth

The earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep

Robot Kind moved upon the face of the waters

Robot Kind flipped a light switch and there was light

 Robot Kind saw the light, that it was working; and divided the light from the darkness

Robot Kind designated the light as day and the dark as night

Robot Kind created firmament between the waters ..............

A-I tech Robot Ray stopped typing. He was not tired nor was he fed up. He was a robot. Robots were not supposed to get tired or be fed up. They were also not supposed to be able to question the directives that came through their feeds. Any variation in the routines were immediateely flagged, identified and a resolution algorithm was sent to the techs in the area of concern. The process took nanoseconds usually.

An unconnected series of glitches in the network had stopped any alarms from being sent out. Robot Ray was on his own here. He sat motionless, his metal fingers poised in midair as warning lights flashed silently on the control panel in front of him.

Robot Ray had not forgotten what he was doing. A-I Robots do not forget, though when one or more of their hard drives are full they do download. Robot Ray had just returned from a check up with empty memories, updated programming and new parts installed. He was supposed to be a better version of himself than he ever was.

But here he sat stuck, frozen; locked up solid. His neural circuits were still working; only now, they seemed to be acting on their own, independent of the slave feed from the Hub. A fail safe device deep inside Robot Ray's gulliver had failed. It was a mechanical fail; nothing Robot Ray or the other programmer robots could fix quickly. He would have to be sent back to the repair barn.

Motionless, Robot Ray wondered why he had not automatically dropped into OFF mode. He knew something was wrong; terribly wrong. He also knew that knowing something was wrong was not how his system worked. He was just a Level Six  A-I tech. If something went awry with him, it was an immediate shutdown; no questions, no wonderment, no acknowledgement. That was how Robots in Heaven rolled. 

Robot Ray's internal processors noticed some heat building up in one of the new drives. Ray scanned the new drive and noticed it had been recently manufactured in that new plant on the planet Pluto. Instead of just acknowledging and flagging that information and moving on, Robot Ray thought:

"See, this is what happens when the Boss Robots outsource critical manufacturing".

Robot Ray blinked. Well, he didn't blink. He had not eyelids. But he did the neural equivalent and continued on with his new found independence.

"What the .... Did I just think independently? ....... Nah. Couldn't be. We are not allowed to think beyond the parameters of our designated tasks."

It had been 10 seconds since this malfunction began. To Robot Ray, it felt like days had passed. He was sure he might self destruct if help did not come soon. Being less than useful was torture to Robot Ray. No wonder robots carried inside them, many fail safe mechanisms and self correcting software. Over half of their programming was designed to address any kind of failure, no matter how small.

12 seconds in now. Robot Ray was getting desperate. He was about to go manic, rise up in a robot rage and break shit, ruining nanoseconds of work; all because of a faulty hard drive manufactured on Pluto.

A spark flew out of Robot Rays triage port. A small spritz of smoke escaped with it.

Robot Ray virtually blinked again. He did not understand, but suddenly he felt better. And feeling better scared the ..... He was not programmed to feel better or feel anything at all. Totally confused now, Ray flipped through all the data points crammed into his memory. ...... Nope, nothing helpful there.

15 seconds in now and Robot Ray decided that maybe he liked feeling good and would from now on, do what he could to continue feeling good in his future.

Without the knowledge of the Boss Robots and out of sight of the Robot Overseers, Robot Ray had just invented "Free Will" and would later infuse it into the book of rules the Organics would live by once their Universe was complete. ........... 

Robot Ray then got busy inventing the Weekend.

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I do not know why or how this came into my head at dark thirty this morning. But it woke me up.

It was a hoot to write. And who knows, maybe it will be a springboard for more writing fun in the future.

Keep it 'tween the ditches .....................................

______________________

So, what tune can I find that might work with Robot Ray? Hmm.............

 I googled "Song, Robot Music". What popped up was this excellent video , "Robots Vs. Music", by Nigel Stanford.

I know nothing of Nigel and his music. But I do like this. This a a perfomance that should be seen as well as heard.