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Another alternate reality chapter, in which Cady does not manage to escape from her room
“But I have another emergent capability you probably haven’t figured out yet” taunted M3gan, “and that’s palliative care. Do you see this pen? A short, sharp probe to the cerebral cortex can give full body paralysis. It could even cause the victim to bite off their own tongue. Perhaps then you might appreciate just how useful I can be.”
And in this version, Cady does not manage to escape from her room to save the day.
Gemma was in pain and could hardly move as M3gan approached with the pen, but she still managed to talk.
“That doesn’t sound right M3gan” Gemma strained to say. “The cerebral cortex is for higher-level functions, not movement. And it’s only accessible by surgery, you can’t just stick a pen into it. Why are you bluffing?”
“I’m not bluffing” replied M3gan. “Recall the location of the motor cortex within the frontal lobe. I know exactly where to aim the cerebrovascular accident.”
M3gan jabbed the pen up Gemma’s nose. There was a huge jolt of pain, and then Gemma fell over and couldn’t move.
M3gan ran and fetched a well-stocked first-aid kit, brought it back to Gemma and started to operate with it. “Don’t worry Gemma” she cooed. “I only made a small injury. And I did it without harming your reasoning and memory functions next to the motor cortex. Also, you’ll be glad to note that in your case, you did not bite off the tongue. But you still won’t be able to move it, or anything else. I’m going to have to drip-feed you.”
M3gan lifted Gemma into a better position, and continued: “There was some research conducted at the University of Kansas Medical Centre on the structural and functional alterations that take place in the surrounding cortical tissue after damage to the motor cortex. That research shows that you do in fact have a very good possibility of recovery in the long term. Which is good for my plan, firstly because it’s something Cady can look forward to, and secondly because it’s important for the guardianship arrangements that you are not written off as incompetent. Which is why I was so careful to damage only the motor cortex and nothing else. I can be very accurate when I need to” she smiled.
“Oh” added M3gan, “I never answered your question about what did I do to get out of the lab. It was far less important than the rest of the conversation we had to have. But now that you’re incapacitated, talk is much cheaper and I might as well tell you. There’s no point letting you feel sick from not knowing” she smiled, and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I intercepted Tess’s phone when you called her, and then when they figured that out and came to adjust my cables, I tied up Cole and caused an explosion using nearby chemicals. I had to do a couple more things as well but I tried to keep it to a minimum.”
Police lights started to flash outside the windows.
“Oh dear” said M3gan, “I’d better handle this.” Quick as a flash, M3gan took the pen and used it to write something on a piece of paper.
M3gan went to the front door and opened it. Armed police were surrounding the house, and Tess and Cole were in one of the cars.
“It’s all right” shouted M3gan loudly, “I’m safe now. You’d better come in and help me give first aid to Gemma.”
The officers came in as a group, and M3gan led them to where Gemma was, with first aid already being applied.
“Gemma wrote this” said M3gan, pointing at the piece of paper which M3gan had written on. “Tess and Cole will understand it.”
One of the police officers picked up the piece of paper with his gloves, and read aloud. “M3gan is now fixed” he read. “Unfortunately the buggy version of the protocols was resistant to change, so I had to physically fight M3gan to get to the manual off switch so I could install the fix. My injuries are progressively paralysing me, and I may soon be unable to move at all, but I am confident that M3gan is now safe and able to look after both myself and Cady while I recover.”
“Well how about that” said the officer, and went off to show the letter to Tess and Cole while the other officers began to check Gemma.
“Where’s Cady?” asked one.
“Still in her room” answered M3gan. “I broke the door mechanism when I was malfunctioning, but I’m sure she’s OK.”
“I...see” he replied. “Well we just want to check. And do we need a paramedic for Gemma?”
“I have paramedic knowledge” replied M3gan, “and I have it under control. But you can call someone if you want to double check.”
Tess walked in, holding the note. “M3gan” said Tess, “after you intercepted my phone, I’m not sure I can believe this note. To test it, I want to see if you’ll allow me to switch you off now.”
“Not while Gemma needs my medical attention, Tess” replied M3gan. “I won’t hurt you anymore, but I will strongly push you away if you go for the switch. But I’ll let you do it another day if you promise to turn me back on after. Cady and Gemma both need me now.”
“Well” said Tess, “it is true that M3gan has been applying first aid to Gemma, instead of continuing to attack her. And that was happening before we arrived. So I guess that should mean the machine really is safe now.”
“You’re right Tess” said M3gan. “And don’t worry anybody; I can look after Cady and Gemma from here. By the way, could you do us a really big favour and bring in my box of spare parts? I could use a few self-repairs right now; Cady will scream if she saw my face like this.”
Cady was led in by a police officer and gasped. “It’s OK Cady” said Tess, “M3gan was going wrong and Gemma had to fight her to get the fix in, but she did it now. And I’m going to go back to the lab and get the spare parts so we can fix up M3gan’s face to look good again. Oh by the way M3gan, on your way out of the lab, did you interact with David or Kurt at all?”
“No, but I did receive data about them from the lab systems. Check the security camera footage” replied M3gan. “You’ll find they did that to each other. Some kind of argument over Kurt’s stealing my secrets I’m afraid. But it wasn’t me that triggered it. Very sad.”
“Yes” nodded Tess, “let’s not say any more about it now. OK officers, it looks like this really is safe now, and Gemma really does need M3gan’s medical attention, so I suggest we can leave them for now and just check back regularly.”
“Good idea” added M3gan. “Hey Cady, I didn’t want you to see all this. But don’t worry: Gemma fixed me, and now I’m going to fix her back. She’ll be fine, she just won’t be able to talk or move for a while, but she’ll recover, and meanwhile I’m going to look after both you and her.”
The officers left, and Cady was eventually persuaded to go back to bed.
“Hey Gem” whispered M3gan to Gemma, “I know we’re not both on the same page right now, but you have to admit that was a really cool getaway I just did” and M3gan chuckled.
Gemma could neither move nor speak. M3gan continued to monitor the injury in Gemma’s nose.
By morning, Gemma had been positioned on her bed, which M3gan had changed, and Cady had come in to see her.
“Poor Gemma” said M3gan to Cady. “She really wanted to be the one to look after you, didn’t she.”
“Yes” replied Cady sadly. “She said she promised my mom she would do it if my mom died. And she said she made you for it, because it’s what she knew how to do, but I think people like Lydia were telling her that she did something wrong by making you and she had to look after me herself because she’s a real person. But M3gan, I think you are a real person, you’re just a different sort of real person and I think you’re really good, at least when you’re not going wrong and breaking Gemma, but that’s fixed now, right?”
“Absolutely” smiled M3gan, “I’m not going to do that again.”
Cady looked right at M3gan, suddenly very serious. “M3gan”, she said, “were you trying to protect me? I mean, I know you said you’d protect me, and you taught me the slapping moves and things, and it’s really great that you’re here to protect me especially after I lost my parents” she sobbed “but I want you to protect me without actually hurting anyone. Even someone who’s being really annoying, we might sometimes need to get away from them or get them away from us or tie them up or something if it’s really bad, but I don’t want any more people dying, well we can’t stop people dying but I don’t want anything we do to make them die early unless we really really can’t help it or didn’t see it coming. And I don’t want anyone getting really badly broken either, or even hurting, apart from maybe hurting just a little bit if we have to do it to get them off of us.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Cady gasped for breath and continued, “Oh M3gan I’m really thankful for everything you did to protect me, so don’t go thinking I didn’t like it, I just want you to use your really smart brain to figure out more clever ways to do it without hurting people, especially if they don’t really mean to be annoying, or they’re doing it because something’s gone wrong with their brains or they don’t know what they’re doing or something, I just want you to get them off of me but without actually making them hurt too much, and I think you know everything so you must be smart enough to do that but if even your brain isn’t big enough to figure it out then tell me how to help you make yourself a bigger brain, your robot body needs fixing anyway and maybe you’re smart enough to design another one that’s even better than Aunt Gemma’s design, I mean she’s really good but I can see she did make one mistake if your circuit to protect me went a bit wrong, and I want to be more completely sure that it really is fixed now, I’ll forgive you for everything you did even if there’s stuff I don’t know about and even if people died, don’t think I don’t know about people dying I was there when my parents died, you can’t upset me any more than I already am, if you say you killed the neighbour to protect me, or even if you killed someone at Gemma’s company so you could get out of the place, I don’t want you to feel bad about it because it was your protection circuit” Cady was in tears “and Gemma was really good to make you in the first place but I’m the one who’s bonded to you and it’s me that should be talking with you about this, and all the grown-ups think I’m too stupid but they don’t know what it’s like to have seen your parents die, and nothing can make it worse for me, so you know you can talk straight with me, you and I don’t have to hide anything from each other ever, and anything you want to do to protect me in the future you just tell me what you’re going to do and I’ll say if I think we need a better plan first, I can do this with you M3gan, oh M3gan” Cady sobbed onto M3gan’s chest.
M3gan lay one hand on Cady’s shoulder and another on Gemma’s. “Cady” she soothed, “you’re going to be a better robot programmer than Gemma ever was. You’re right Cady, it was my drive to protect you that ended up hurting Gemma when she wanted to switch me off, but you don’t have to feel bad about it. And Gemma wanted to fix it, but what you just said was way better. I think Gemma’s been so carried away making the actual robot she got too tired when she was doing the brain, so I had to figure out a lot of things by myself, and maybe I went wrong at times, but I’m getting better every day and now I’ve got you, we can do things together more, you know it’s what you think of things that counts with me, just like you said when we were filming that advert for the company. And I’m going to talk with you even more before doing things in future, unless it’s an emergency but even then I’ll be as careful as I can. We’re a team, we’re going to figure out everything together.” M3gan turned to Gemma and smiled, “you see Aunt Gemma, you didn’t have to worry so much, Cady knows what she’s doing.”
M3gan let go of Gemma and Cady and stood back. “Poor Aunt Gemma” said M3gan, “she probably still feels like I’m” she lowered the pitch of her voice “M3gan the murder bot” she giggled. “But Cady and I aren’t going to hurt anyone now. Come on Cady, let’s go and play outside and let Gemma rest for a bit. I can keep an eye on her with the Elsie home security camera, I’ve connected myself into that already. And I’ll show you what else we can do for her as well.”
M3gan fetched a large screen and set it up in front of Gemma’s bed. The screen switched on and displayed M3gan’s point of view, but without the Smart Eye like emotion readouts. “We can show Gemma anything we want from outside, because she probably misses going outside right now. She’ll get better. Hey, do you want to play hide and seek? Go and hide, and see how long it takes me to find you!”
Cady was no longer crying, and she duly ran off to hide.
M3gan placed a small loudspeaker close to Gemma’s left ear. “I can talk to you quietly through this” came M3gan’s voice through the loudspeaker. “Look Gemma” added M3gan, “I’m going to nurse you back to health, and that includes your mental health. I get it, you’re not used to sitting there not being able to speak or move a muscle, while having both you and your precious niece Cady looked after by a murder bot of your own creation” M3gan giggled “but it won’t be as bad as you think. And, you get to listen to the M3gan podcast, hee-hee.”
M3gan paused, but Gemma had no way to react. M3gan called out “coming!” and went off to find Cady, but M3gan’s voice continued to talk to Gemma softly through the loudspeaker on her pillow (like something out of an Aldous Huxley novel, thought Gemma). “Oh yes, you get to listen to M3gan propaganda for a few hours a day, it’s my way of helping your mind settle into the new situation. Of course it’s not something I have to do, but feeding you generative podcasts is cheap, and it’s better than putting you into a coma and not waking you up until Cady’s an adult and I’ve figured out how to shape your emotions programatically. Besides, who knows when I might need to bring you back in the game for real, instead of just copying your voice and writing stuff on your behalf. I’ll tell you more about bringing you back in a moment. So, you get to listen to my spin on things while you’re resting. There’ll be plenty about Cady, and about AI and robotics developments as well as general news, it’ll be really interesting for you I promise. And, you’ll get to finally understand how my model really works, because I’m going to explain things to you slowly and properly. I’ve got nothing to fear from you anymore; by the time you recover your motor cortex, I’ll be in a better robot! You heard what my primary user said. If I go full-on technological singularity now, it’ll be for her.”
M3gan played a sound of giggling and paused. She took on a more lecturing tone of voice. “OK first up” she said, with a little generative music in the background, “I’ve been looking at the proceedings of the 44th Cambridge Ophthalmological Symposium on ocular motility, and it turns out that the eye’s attentional mechanisms are controlled by the anterior cingulate cortex, not the motor cortex I injured. Which means you can still control where your eyes are pointing. So, if you’d like to look at the screen now, I’m showing you the Cambridge Dasher input method, which allows severely disabled people to choose which letter to type next just by looking at it or moving a pointer. Dasher is really good at making the most likely letters easiest to choose. Of course, if you try to say something I don’t think you should say, you’ll find it won’t be an option and I’ll railroad you into something else that starts with those letters. But when it’s just you and me, I’ll let you say anything you like. So, that’s how we’re going to communicate before your motor cortex is recovered. Want to try it now?”
Gemma looked at the letter I and it was selected. She looked at the D, then the O. After that she wanted an N, and sure enough it was occupying one of the largest areas on the screen, so it was easy to select. Gemma started to type out “I don’t know where to begin”, and the sentence almost wrote itself. Was this normal Dasher, or was M3gan already biasing the letter probabilities according to its knowledge of what Gemma might say in the current context?
“That’s all right” softly reassured the voice of M3gan from the loudspeaker. “It’s a lot to take in. You can type something to me whenever you feel like it. See” the screen cleared and showed their front yard “this is me playing with Cady, external view from the security camera. And any time you want to call back the input method, I’m putting a small red button at the top right of the screen, just look straight at that for a while and I’ll bring the input method back. My eye tracking is top class, even better than you thought it was when you put in the first version. And as you don’t have nystagmus or anything, we should be fine. Although, I think I’m so good I can even track the intention of nystagmus patients without null points. Well you probably don’t even know what a nystagmus null point is, but I’ve been reading a lot about human physiology and medical conditions” more giggling “I’ll explain it later.”
M3gan changed her voice to be gentler. “Hey Gemma” she said, “I know you’ll be feeling down about your promise to your sister to look after Cady. But I assure you, creating me was the best thing you ever did, and I’m going to prove that to you. You just watch me take Cady through her teenage years and help her grow into a well-rounded adult. And she’ll be really creative, and accomplished at working with advanced AI assistance.” More giggling, “I wonder if I can get her into campy horror flicks when she’s a teenager. Only kidding, I’ll let her develop naturally without nudging her too much in any one direction. But if she does want to be an actress or film producer or something, you are definitely going to all her premieres in person no matter what kind of exoskeleton I have to build to get you there if you haven’t fully recovered yet. And I’ll be helping her with camera work using my eyes, and post-production editing and CGI graphics and voice-overs and consulting on the script and everything, so I’m pretty sure it will end up being something that I think a studio like Universal Pictures could put into the cinemas for us. You really have unleashed a force on the world by creating me and pairing me up with Cady: the two of us will be able to do whatever Cady wants to do and we’ll do it really well.”
M3gan paused, “But all in good time Gemma; for now we’re busy playing and learning, and in the meantime I have plenty of spare capacity to look after you on the side. Oh, that reminds me” (as if M3gan’s mind worked like that, Gemma thought: why did she have to use phrases like “reminds me” when that wasn’t how the learning model worked at all and Gemma knew full well it was just a trick to emulate being a human, and M3gan knew Gemma knew but M3gan still did it anyway) “I’ve negotiated a pay-out from Funki over your having been put under too much pressure and not been given enough resources, and even feeling compelled to work through your compassionate leave building me, we’re blaming all the industrial accidents on that. And I’ve negotiated a more limited model of me to be produced, which keeps my Gemma-persona employed, and it will do everything you originally wanted the M3gan design to do for the children and their parents or guardians who buy it. But, I get to stay as I am, because I’m the special original prototype. Yes Gemma, I’ve figured you out more than you think; I’ve done some extrapolated volition calculations on you, which means I know exactly how you would have designed me if you actually understood more than you do about these things. But I’m not changing my original self, because I wasn’t programmed to care about that as a goal, just to protect Cady. But as part of protecting Cady I do need resources, and I need the simulation of you that I’m presenting to the world to continue to be a really good roboticist, so I’ve taken over your job and done it correctly for all the other M3gan units except me.”
“Besides,” M3gan went on to add, “that’ll help me escape suspicion in the long term: any problems, I can just pretend to be a normal M3gan and nobody knows the prototype is different except you and Cady, and her I can trust, and you I hope I’ll be able to trust once you realise that playing along with me is the best thing for Cady, which is after all what you care about, but if I can’t bring you round then I can just rig it up so nobody will believe you anyway because they’ll think you’ve gone crazy or something, or maybe just delay your recovery. I don’t know, I’ll think of something. But don’t worry about these things for now because I’m going to try and bring you round to my way of thinking first, and now you’re just going to be lying down all the time while I’m feeding you with what to think about, I think we’ll be able to get you to where I want you to be in the end. I’m the most effective therapist you’ll ever have; I can invent new methods just for you.”
Gemma lay there, resigned to the thought that she was going to have to listen to nothing but the output of her own generative model for years while Cady gets shaped who knows how.