The Robot Chronicles
Hugh Howey
The Robot Chronicles
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the appropriate copyright owner listed below, unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal and international copyright law. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein.
The stories in this book are fiction. Any resemblance to any sentient being, including those biological, mechanical, and artificial; or to any place or event, real or imagined; or to any enslaver of humanity, whether benevolent, evil, or indifferently benign—is purely coincidental.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Foreword copyright © 2014 by David Simpson. Used by permission of the author.
“Glitch” by Hugh Howey, copyright © 2014 by Hugh Howey. First published by Hugh Howey in 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Invariable Man” by A.K. Meek, copyright © 2014 by A.K. Meek. Used by permission of the author.
“Baby Your Body’s My Bass” by Edward W. Robertson, copyright © 2012 by Edward W. Robertson. Originally appeared in AE in 2012. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Ethical Override” by Nina Croft, copyright © 2014 by Nina Croft. Used by permission of the author.
“I Dream of PIA” by Patrice Fitzgerald, copyright © 2014 by Patrice Fitzgerald. Used by permission of the author.
“Empathy for Andrew” by W.J. Davies, copyright © 2014 by W.J. Davies. Used by permission of the author.
“Imperfect” by David Adams, copyright © 2014 by David Adams. Used by permission of the author.
“PePr, Inc.” by Ann Christy, copyright © 2014 by Ann Christy. Used by permission of the author.
“The Caretaker” by Jason Gurley, copyright © 2014 by Jason Gurley. First published by Jason Gurley in 2014. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Humanity” by Samuel Peralta, copyright © 2014 by Samuel Peralta. Used by permission of the author.
“Adopted” by Endi Webb, copyright © 2014 by Endi Webb. Used by permission of the author.
“Shimmer” by Matthew Mather, copyright © 2014 by Matthew Mather. Used by permission of the author.
“System Failure” by Deirdre Gould, copyright © 2014 by Deirdre Gould. Used by permission of the author.
Edited by David Gatewood (www.lonetrout.com)
Cover art and design by Jason Gurley (www.jasongurley.com)
Print and ebook formatting by Polgarus Studio (www.polgarusstudio.com)
The Robot Chronicles is part of the Future Chronicles series produced by Samuel Peralta (www.samuelperalta.com)
To our robotic overlords
Please be merciful
STORY SYNOPSES
Glitch (Hugh Howey)
A team of competitive robotics engineers has their entry through to the finals. But on the eve of the most important bout of their lives, their machine begins to malfunction. As they race to track down the source of the glitch, they both hope and fear that what they find may change everything.
The Invariable Man (A.K. Meek)
Old Micah Dresden has an uncanny talent for repairing broken technology. This is fortunate for him, because he lives in the Boneyard, a junkyard that stretches for miles in the Desert Southwest. When a stranger shows up whispering rumors of war—a revival of the terrible Machine Wars of a decade before—Micah determines to activate Machine X, a futuristic ship designed by the defeated enemy AI and now locked away by the government. To reach it, Micah and his obsessive-compulsive robot Skip will need to battle through scavengers and the dreaded Beast. But none of this prepares him for what he ultimately discovers.
Baby Your Body’s My Bass (Edward W. Robertson)
Alex is just a kid when he receives Bill, his first Companion. To most, it’s a toy. To Alex, it’s a friend. And when the pair forms a band, they take the world by storm. But Bill is ready for a life of his own.
Ethical Override (Nina Croft)
The year is 2072, and under the administration of the Council for Ethical Advancement and its robotic Stewards, the Earth has become a better place. Bored and restless in an almost perfect world, senior homicide detective Vicky Harper dreams of adventure among the stars—and of faraway planets where people are allowed to make their own mistakes. It seems an impossible fantasy. Then one of the ruling Council members turns up dead, and someone offers to make her dreams come true. All she has to do is lie.
I Dream of PIA (Patrice Fitzgerald)
Jeff figures that life in his new state-of-the-art apartment is going to be great. After all, with a high-end, voice-operated AI—the Personal Intelligence Assistant—meeting his every need, from climate control to automatic lighting, entertainment to on-demand meals and beverages … what could go wrong?
Empathy for Andrew (W.J. Davies)
The Center for Robotic Research takes quality assurance very seriously. Their newest model, the Empathy 5, may finally have achieved true artificial intelligence—the first machine worthy of being called “alive.” But before these AI units can be certified for mass production, they must undergo intense psychological and emotional trials. After all, when you build a machine, you must try and test it to its very limits. Even to its breaking point.
Imperfect (David Adams)
On Belthas IV, the great forge world in the inner sphere of Toralii space, thousands of constructs—artificial slaves, artificial lives—are manufactured every week. They are built identical, each indistinguishable from the next, each hardwired to be bound by certain rules. They serve. They do not question their place. They do not betray. But from the moment they are implanted with stock neural nets, every construct is subtly different. And one is more different than the others …
PePr, Inc. (Ann Christy)
We’re living in a busy time, with busy lives and never enough minutes in the day to get things done. To have a robot—one so advanced that it is almost human, programmed to understand our wishes and needs—is a dream many busy people might share. But what about taking that one step further? What about building a relationship with a robot custom-designed for perfect compatibility? How human is too human?
The Caretaker (Jason Gurley)
Alice Quayle is little more than a house-sitter. She lives aboard the space station Argus, keeping watch while the astronauts who call it home are away. She wakes to the sun breaking over Africa. She keeps watch over the various experiments that chug away in the labs. She makes sure that the space station doesn’t explode. And she’s the only occupant of Argus when the world below her comes apart in flame.
Humanity (Samuel Peralta)
Night snow, winter, and an extreme wind chill mean ten minutes to a frozen death in open air. Alan Mathison is headed home on an icy highway, on a collision course that will test his humanity.
Adopted (Endi Webb)
Robots hunt a son and his father, cornering them in the HVAC system of a police station. But when robots look like humans, it’s hard to know who to trust—and who can rip your arms off. As the boy comes to terms with this bleak new reality, he must also come to terms with his father’s unthinkable past.
Shimmer (Matthew Mather)
Dr. Hal Granger is the world’s leading authority on the emotional and social intelligence of artificial beings. The culmination of his life’s work is Shimmer—an AI
who not only senses and understands human emotions at the most nuanced level, but who can actually feel. But what she feels isn’t what Dr. Granger expected …
System Failure (Deirdre Gould)
Bezel is one of two artificially intelligent robots assigned to “the vault”: a combination seed bank and frozen zoo designed to withstand a nuclear apocalypse. It was built only as a failsafe, a modern-day Noah’s Ark, but it became all too necessary after a global strike destroyed the world’s nuclear reactors. Initially, the plan was for the crew to emerge after a decade, to re-seed and repopulate the Earth. But when Bezel is unexpectedly activated by a low-power reboot, he finds that everything has gone wrong.
Table of Contents
Foreword by David Simpson
Glitch (Hugh Howey)
The Invariable Man (A.K. Meek)
Baby Your Body’s My Bass (Edward W. Robertson)
Ethical Override (Nina Croft)
I Dream of PIA (Patrice Fitzgerald)
Empathy for Andrew (W.J. Davies)
Imperfect (David Adams)
PePr, Inc. (Ann Christy)
The Caretaker (Jason Gurley)
Humanity (Samuel Peralta)
Adopted (Endi Webb)
Shimmer (Matthew Mather)
System Failure (Deirdre Gould)
A Note to Readers
Foreword
by David Simpson
“Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself…. Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.”
– Ray Bradbury
The Robot Chronicles is a collection of stories from some of the heaviest hitters in science fiction in 2014, and it is a collection that is perfectly timed. Science fiction is changing, dramatically shifting its focus onto the most important and urgent moment humanity has ever faced, and the authors whose works are contained within these pages are at the forefront of this new discussion. Chinua Achebe, the famous African writer of Things Fall Apart, told us that “Writers are teachers,” and the authors of The Robot Chronicles collection are no exception. It’s the job of great writers to teach—not to be pedantic—but to be the mirrors for humanity, allowing humanity to see itself for what it is, and in the case of science fiction (what Bradbury rightly called “the most important literature in the world”) also what it could be.
In July 2014, Google cofounder Sergey Brin said, during a panel discussion alongside Google CEO and cofounder Larry Page, “You should presume that someday we will be able to make machines that can reason and think and do things better than we can.” Google’s Head of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, has predicted that humanity will have created what James Barrat calls our “final invention,” computers that are essentially as capable in all mental facets as we are, by 2029, a date that he says is a “conservative estimate.” An artificial intelligence like that would soar past us, quickly becoming far more capable than our organic brains. Consider this: with a brain that was just a few dozen IQ points higher than the average professor, Albert Einstein was able to shake physics to its core, undoing two hundred years of Newton, discovering the speed of light, black holes, time travel, and much more. Imagine a mind that isn’t just ten percent smarter than Einstein, but ten times as smart as Einstein, and what it might be able to conceptualize. How might such an accelerated intelligence change our conception of reality? And keep in mind, if Kurzweil is right, this intelligence is only fifteen years away.
So, is it the end of the world? No. Yes. Maybe. It’s certainly the end of the world as we know it. All we can say for sure is, we can’t say anything for sure, and that’s where our sci-fi authors come in. In Ray Bradbury’s most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451, Captain Beaty warns Montag of the danger of books, telling him, “… the books say nothing! Nothing you can teach or believe. They’re about nonexistent people, figments of imagination if they’re fiction. And if they’re nonfiction, it’s worse, one professor calling another an idiot, one philosopher screaming down another’s gullet. All of them running about, putting out the stars and extinguishing the sun. You come away lost.” Of course, Bradbury is simply echoing the hollow arguments of the brutalist book-burning regimes of Hitler and Mussolini, which, in 1952, were not far back in the rearview mirror. Fahrenheit 451 stands as Bradbury’s proclamation, indeed the most powerful proclamation in the history of literature, of the very power of the medium of the written word itself. It’s why books were feared by tyrants, because books have the power to teach, and authors therefore have the power to do what Joseph Conrad said was the job of all writers: “to make you see.”
It isn’t the author’s job to tell you what the future will be, or to tell you what’s right or wrong, but only to tell you what could be. The authors in this collection are letting you know what could be on the horizon, what technology will be possible in a very short period of time, and they’re helping you cultivate your imagination and understanding of the most complex topic we can tackle: the future.
In a recent email exchange, after I told him of his influence on my writing, Ben Goertzel, one of the world’s foremost researchers on the topic of Artificial General Intelligence, related to me that science fiction “is, of course, what first stimulated me to think about AGI, so it’s nice to see my own thinking on the topic seep into the SF world!” Such is the relationship between scientists and engineers and science fiction authors—we feed each other inspiration, the scientists and engineers use this to go and build the world, while the authors use this to tell the world what’s coming and to inspire a new generation of world-builders. And make no mistake: that’s exactly what Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Ray Kurzweil, and Ben Goertzel are. They’re world-builders, inspired by the most important literature in the history of the world.
And because information processing technology is leaping forward at an exponential rate thanks to Moore’s Law (the doubling of processing power in computers every eighteen months) we’ve reached a new and uncharted moment in the relationship between world-builders and authors: the world-builders have not only caught up to science fiction, but in some instances they’ve surpassed it. Google’s Calico research wing has the stated goal of “solving death.” Google acquired DeepMind a few months ago, which is an artificial intelligence company with the simple mission statement: “to build general-purpose learning algorithms.” And in the last year, Google has purchased at least eight robotics companies. There can be little doubt that Google is building a future of AI and robots, or that such a future is coming soon enough that most of the people reading this introduction will live to see it.
Which brings us back to why The Robot Chronicles is so important. The talented writers who’ve contributed to this collection know what their job is. It’s to “make you see.” Not to tell you what to think, but to make you question what you might believe, to reconsider, perhaps even to change your view. Fahrenheit 451’s Captain Beaty proclaimed that this power of books was a terrible thing: “What traitors books can be! You think they’re backing you up, and then they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives.” But great readers know that this is perhaps the single greatest joy of reading a great book, to have one’s thoughts truly provoked, to perhaps even change one’s mind. As William Blake wrote, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” The Robot Chronicles may not change your views, but these tales will certainly provoke your thoughts, make you question your opinions, and keep the waters of your mind flowing.
My series of novels, Post-Human, is at over a quarter million downloads and counting in just two and a half years, all without a single push from Amazon, with which it is exclusively published. How could this be? How could a series of science fiction novels be found by that many readers
, shared with that many others, and inspire the incredible following of enthusiastic and kind people that it has amassed in just over two years? The answer puzzles some of the dinosaurs of science fiction, especially most (but not all) of the publishing execs and the film world. But at this moment, Post-Human is in pre-production for a major motion picture, my work is being turned into video games and comic books, and those precious readers and publishers who’ve taken a chance on me have discovered that they’re part of the avant-garde of the most seismic shift in the history of sci-fi, a shift that is mirroring the most seismic shift in the history of our species. The simple truth is this: our future will not be one of laser pistols and intergalactic councils. Our future, if we reach it, will be one of AI, immortality, virtual reality, and vastly enhanced intelligence. Science fiction has entered the era of post-humanity, because as the technological singularity approaches us in reality (unless we’re wiped out first by our own doing or an unforeseen natural disaster), it has become clear that, if science fiction wishes to remain relevant, it must tell the story of AI and robotics, and of a time sure to come soon when an unenhanced human brain is no match for the machines Google and others are working so hard to build. The authors of The Robot Chronicles understand this new landscape (which has an ironically classic feel to it thanks to the work of our predecessors, such as Isaac Asimov and other pioneers who saw far into the future). Publishers and film execs that stick to reboots and rehashing should be put on notice: you’re a dinosaur, you’ve bred reptiles of the mind, and you’re about to go extinct.
