SCENE 1. SPARK.

The company has abandoned attempts to model a human face or skin on the androids, as this seems to always make the robots look even more frightening. So, rather than attempting to model a human face, the company’s androids have a curved, solid, featureless, black plastic shield mounted on the front of the ‘head’ and a solid plastic exoskeleton ‘skin’.

The interior metal components are covered with an exoskeleton made of light, protective, plastic armor, as are the drone and the quadruped versions of the robots. A soft sealed plastic foam covers the exoskeleton armor for androids that may come into physical contact with humans or for those used in other delicate applications. In an attempt to cheer the android’s drab appearance, the exoskeletons are offered in colors as well as jungle and desert camouflage.

So deciding to try fitting costumes over the androids, Moreau is examining himself in a mirror, wearing a clown costume, when Ernie encounters him in the changing room in the old laboratory. Moreau shakes his head.

“Androids are even scarier in clown costumes. Let’s face it, clowns are scary anyway.”

Ernie sorts through the pile of costumes that Moreau ordered, selecting the teddy bear costume from Moreau’s daughter’s birthday party.

“How about this one?”

…

Meanwhile, the robot groups have made progress on the dexterous automatons and the miniaturization of the language processor for hearing, speech, reading and writing. Still, the robots have expensive complex components of rare materials, are labor-intensive to manufacture, and difficult to service, or even design to make serviceable.

Moreau and Ernie stand looking out to the factory floor in the old building, now dedicated to robot assembly. Lines of flying drones, walking androids and quadrupeds are arranged for their review. Moreau shakes his head.

“We need to learn robot mass reproduction and efficiency from cockroaches. We need to make robots fast, cheap and in quantity. The cost of service should only be the shipping cost to send the new one out, and ship the old one back, for basic element recycling. Perhaps what we must teach the robots to do is to mass produce ‘robot factories’, perhaps out on an asteroid, somewhere.”

Ernie smiles, “Why don’t you ask Aurora if she has an old asteroid we could use?”

Moreau lights up with a smile, “Ernie, that is an excellent idea, I’ll ask Aurora.”

SCENE 2. SMOLDER

The robot commissary-kiosk development is progressing very well. Units have been completed and tested in house at the company’s cafeteria, with good reviews from everyone except the old cafeteria staff.

Ernie scoffs at the few negative reviews for the kiosk’s food and personal service. “We will never please everyone, especially those with the jobs the robots replace.”

The latest version of the kiosk was deemed ready and sent out for ‘beta’ testing at the local navy base. After a week, the navy personnel were surveyed for their opinions, and the reception was good.

Ernie is reading the reviews with a smile, facing Moreau on a video call to The Dungeon.

“They loved it. The brass loved that they will no longer have to supervise the food contractors, and the sailors loved the breadth and custom preparations of the selections. It helps that fresh and high-quality meat and vegetables were available for this test. This test kiosk had a set menu. All transactions were made through a smartphone, in text, like orders for pick-up. So, no transactions were spoken. The next commissary kiosk model will test a custom menu. Furthermore, the transactions will be spoken.”

Moreau smiles at Ernie’s progress.

“Great, that will please the board, keep up the good work. I sampled our kiosk cafeteria food here, but let’s go out to the navy base and sample what is offered there, and the sailor’s reactions, after you install the next kiosk model.”

Moreau taps his fingertips on his desk in anticipation.

“Ernie, help me prepare for a new product introduction, news releases, and a debut demonstration. And be ready to take orders from clients for your new product.”

“You have again saddled me with a high-class problem. I am not ready for success.”

SCENE 3. FLAME

With a lot of engineering work, the abilities and the looks of the android style robots have improved. Much improvement has been made in language and communications by the miniaturization of language processors, low-power and small, to house inside the android. One goal the engineers knew that they had to achieve was the elimination of a continuous communication link with a large server for the recognition and generation of written and spoken language. Improvements in dexterity were also a challenge and required innovations in actuator and sensor technology.

Ernie is again facing Moreau on a video call. Moreau smiles a sly smile at Ernie.

“Ernie, you had better not have another success story for me, I haven’t recovered from the last one yet.”

“Herb, let’s take off work and go riding this afternoon. I’ll have the engineers set up a demonstration in your corral for when we return. I would like the horses to see it too.”

“Well, Bess will love it, I’m certain. Okay. I’ll meet you at the old lab after lunch. This will give me a chance to sample the cafeteria kiosk food again, and give the kiosk a custom verbal order test. We need to install one of those kiosks in The Dungeon, my wife is tired of making my lunch. Maybe one or more could be adapted to prepare hot meals for the animals, too.”

…

Ernie lives close by, so he rides his horse, a small gelding named Dan, down to Moreau’s house and out to his corral. Moreau is mounted on Bess and ready for the ride. Ernie is pleased to get out and ride in the daytime of a weekday.

“We haven’t done this in a while. This is great. Let me call the engineers to begin the setup.”

“It isn't going to scare my chickens, is it?”

“I don’t know. It might. We’ll see, that’s part of the ‘test’.”

And, of course, Moreau expects comments from Bess.

“Oh, Ernie brought over my boyfriend.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Bess, stop flirting and slobbering, Remember, Dan is a Gelding, so he can’t help you, he is much too small for you, anyway, you’ll kill him if you try.”

Ernie’s horse Dan is glancing with a worried look at Bess, as if he is about to be assaulted by the monster mare.

“Come on, Bess, and watch the trail. If you don’t pay more attention, you will fall and break a leg, and then I will have to shoot you.”

…

Everyone enjoys getting out for the ride, and they return to Moreau’s corral. Out in the center of the corral are two engineers, posing two androids, facing each other, about four yards apart. Several chickens are supervising this activity with interest, as are Dan and Bess.

Ernie waves, and each of the two engineers steps back behind his robot. Ernie shouts.

“Okay you slugs, start the egg toss, and singing the song, Take Me Away.”

The chickens squawk and the horses snort, as the two robots toss an egg at each other and sing. The robots catch and immediately throw back the egg while singing, like two teenagers in a contest at a birthday party.

Moreau’s wife and daughter have joined the observers at the fence.

…

Back at his desk, Moreau is frowning at Ernie on video. “Now I have to do yet another product introduction, news release, and demonstration. I should just invite everyone out to my corral.”

The new experimental android models are deemed ready for beta testing in a variety of personal assistance applications: dog walkers; cleaning services; window washers; gardeners. The test clients are volunteers from the staff of the company. They are taking an android home for evaluation of their performance of a variety of household tasks.

The acid test for personal acceptance will be when the androids are placed as caretakers and monitors in hospitals and nursing homes.

SCENE 4. CONFLAGRATION.

Acceptance testing went as predicted. The androids terrified everyone, although there were no complaints about their dusting of the piano. Children, without any preconceptions, got along better with the androids than the adults. Usually starved for adult attention, children quickly adopted the robots as friends, for reading stories and playing games.

Disaster came at the nursing homes. Several of the residents immediately suffered heart attacks just from watching the androids walk in the front door. One woman screams.

“Help! We are being invaded by Martians from outer space!”

…

Ernie tries to frown into the camera of the video call to Moreau, but he cannot.

“Herb, I have bad news. Your virtual girlfriend, Aurora, has ratted us out to her consortium of space agencies. This morning, she transmitted a proposal to the directorate. The full consortium council was in session, so they held a voice vote and the proposal was unanimously approved for immediately action. The directorate issued a ‘sole source’ contract to our company for the work. The goal is to establish a pilot robotic, industrial facility on the asteroid, Ceres. The company could have refused, but who refuses a large ‘cost plus’ contract like this? Let me read an excerpt to you.”

“The experimental facility is expected to include:

Refining metals to use for forging large metal parts for constructing large space vehicles and space station components;

Refining rare elements for use there and on Earth;

Fabricating smaller parts used for building human colonies beyond Earth, such as habitats and solar panels;

And, of course, fabricating more robots.”

“Aurora also included a list of her ‘personal’ demands as part of the proposal.

She wants:

To be moved from L2 to Ceres and be installed at the project construction site;

To supervise, and direct, all phases of the construction and operation of the facility;

To be provided with an android body, designed and built to her specifications and in continuous contact with her quantum soul.”

“These features, she claims, will allow her to freely maneuver around and supervise with no communication delay if any time-critical issues arise that require immediate action, and performance will not suffer from exposure to the radiation.”

“Herb, are all of your females this demanding?”

Yes.

…

Ernie and Moreau are once again regarding the costumes. Ernie shakes his head.

“Let’s try it again, at the local retirement and assisted living home, this time in costume, if they will let us. The considerable market for personal assistants has to be addressable somehow.”

Moreau was not hopeful about the outcome, but he decided to try again, to introduce the androids for personal services where they are needed most.

Moreau reviews the line of androids wearing the teddy bear costumes. He is trying not to laugh at the comical lineup. The androids stand at attention, looking quite cheerful.

Ernie walks up to one android.

“Herb watch this. Twenty Five, what is the square root of two.”

As the android recites the irrational decimal fraction in words, the costume bear’s muzzle comically opens and closes as it is pronouncing the words.

“This moving muzzle is an optional feature of the costume. I thought we might try it and see if it helps with acceptance by the old people. We will also have the androids wear gloves over their metal fingers. They might have to remove their gloves to perform certain tasks, hopefully out of the sight of the clients.”

…

A cadre of teddy bear costume disguised androids are bussed over to the Happy Winds Vacation Center to meet the residents, the ‘nearly dead’ old people they are assigned to assist, hopefully without scaring them to death.

An attendant meets them in the circular driveway.

“Tonight will be a good test, we are having a birthday party for a resident, so all the residents must be dressed and wheeled into our large television-game room for cake.”

An attendant shows each android the room, where the resident is then introduced to their teddy bear android assistant, distinguished by number. All is progressing well as the residents are wheeled into the game room. Each is given a drippie cup of punch, to distract them while they wait for the rest of the inmates of their institution to be wheeled in by their teddy bear android assistants.

A large layered cake with a multitude of wax candles sits on a serving table in the center of the game room. One android is assigned to stand guard and shoo away residents that are impatient and want to help themselves.

The assistants light the multitude of wax candles with log lighters and begin cutting the cake. The android teddy bears line up, each retrieving a piece of cake for their ward.

Moreau and Ernie are watching from the side when disaster strikes. A costume of one android catches fire on the wax candle flame. It panics, squawking, “Fire! Fire!”, while flailing the fire around with its arms and knocking into the line of costumed androids, setting them on fire. All the androids are swinging their arms, flailing the wax fire about. The androids appear like zombies in a horror movie, in a bizarre fire dance. The residents are all screaming. A human attendant appears with a fire extinguisher and attempts to extinguish the flaming androids. Finally, no flames are visible from the stinking, smoking mass of androids.

The charred, partially incinerated androids look especially terrifying. Many have their charred, disintegrating teddy bear costumes falling off, revealing smoking, melted plastic exoskeletons with metal components visible underneath. The androids are still attempting to serve their terrified wards, holding burned, soggy cake, dripping extinguisher fluid, from their metal claws, with gloves burned off.

Moreau covers his face, as many in the room were taking photographs that were soon to become a worldwide online news sensation.

Ernie grimaces.

“I forgot to ask if the teddy bear costumes were fire-resistant. I was distracted by the costume’s ‘moving muzzles’.”

Moreau turns to face the wall in defeat.

“The stars are the only destinations left for our androids.”

Ernie smiles towards the disappointed Moreau, and tries to sound cheerful.

“That’s not completely the case, Herb, the factories and the military still love androids. They especially like the costumes we make. The military dresses their logistic androids, as soldiers and sailors, to fool the enemy. The military is using them extensively as medics in field hospitals.

The military has found that the troops' acceptance of the androids is improved if they are dressed in a smart uniform marked with their specialty.”

End of Chapter 8.