⁂
-----Preston, Duncan, and Jimmy had awoken in the late afternoon. Clothed in sweatpants and t-shirts, they assembled in the lab, awaiting Dr. Makuro’s arrival. In the meantime, Duncan engaged in games of chess with Zib. While there was something to be said for a lifelike, quasi-intelligent robot being able to move physical chess pieces around without assistance, Preston and Jimmy both worried that Zib would achieve sentience in order to feel frustrated at Duncan, who was clearly unaware of the rules of the game.
-----“Sorry I’m late, boys,” Dr. Makuro said, carrying in an odd contraption that looked like a fusion of a food processor and a coat hanger. He placed it down on a desk already overpopulated with all manner of tools and spare parts. “Let me get the rookies.” He shuffled back to his elevator.
-----Duncan – unaware that Dr. Makuro had even entered the room – swore as Zib reset the pawns and pieces on the board.
-----“What happened?” Preston asked.
-----“Fool’s mate,” Jimmy said.
-----“… again?”
-----Jimmy nodded.
⁂
-----It took longer than the trio expected, but soon enough, Dr. Makuro re-entered the lab with the three rookies behind him.
-----“Gentleman,” he said, “I would like to introduce our three candidates, as vetted by Zib. They have been selected by Makuro Industries to be the highest qualified candidates for the toughest job in Makuhero City. Without further ado: Natalie, William, and Jessica.”
-----Dr. Makuro stepped away briefly so as not to impede introductions. “Now, I understand that even though a person may check out on paper, that is not indicative of their performances in the field. This is why, as the second order of business, we will dress you three up in prototype suits and see how you fare instinctively in our simulator.”
-----“That thing over there?” William asked. Dr. Makuro nodded. “Looks like a racquetball court to me.”
-----“I’m quite aware, but I think you’ll soon see that it is the world’s foremost artificial reality simulator.”
-----William grinned. “Lot to live up to.”
-----Dr. Makuro smiled back, albeit not as impishly. “Tell me something, William. Do you go by Bill?”
-----William’s face contorted itself into a disheveled grimace. “Not particularly.”
-----“Well, Bill, I think you ought to be the first one in the sim. Agreed?”
-----Despite William’s objection to both the idea and the nickname, he was dressed up in crude electronic armor and launched into the simulator. Immediately, Zib’s programming sprang to life, creating a real-time environment through an undulating, moving floor and in-helmet projectors. It generated a back alley, not unlike the location of the shooting a few days ago.
-----“Whoa … hey, this is pretty cool.”
-----Dr. Makuro half-grinned. “I thought you might enjoy it.” Using a small handheld device, he began the simulation in earnest. Clearing his throat, he spoke into a small microphone that led directly into William’s helmet. “First things first – you have no weapons. This is a test of your intuition in a worst-case scenario.”
-----“Bring it on.”
-----William turned around in the simulator, trying to watch all sides at once. There, on the corner, was something suspicious … a mugging. Nothing too hard to handle, he thought as he sprinted over there. With an acrobatic kick, he knocked the mugger into the street, where a passing car swerved to avoid running over him and collided with an unsuspecting fire hydrant. Outside the simulator, everyone winced as they saw what happened real-time over the helmet cam.
-----“And that, ladies, is why you avoid theatricality,” Duncan said.
-----“You want another shot, Billy?” Dr. Makuro asked.
-----“Don’t worry, old man. I got it this time.”
-----“And you said that he was trainable?” Preston asked.
-----“He is. His attitude has nothing to do with his abilities. He’s a martial arts expert.”
-----“Doesn’t make me feel too much better.”
-----“Sounds like you have more reservations than you’re letting on. Don’t worry. Let Zib grade them objectively.”
⁂
-----“Now that you’re all done in the simulator by yourselves, I’ll give you three a chance to cool off while I show you around the lab,” Dr. Makuro said. The three rookies looked relieved to no longer be in the grueling sim environment.
-----“Up there is my little area,” Dr. Makuro said. “You can tell by the ramps and the tech.” He walked up one of the curved ramps, the rookies following behind. “And this is my biggest project. He’s technically the Zettabyte Information Bot, but we all call him ‘Zib.’”
-----“I’m surprised that the robot here has a gender,” Jessica said.
-----“Well … he … it … doesn’t really. But wouldn’t you say that ‘it’ is a little impersonal?”
-----“No. I mean, it’s not even a biological organism, I don’t see how it’d be offended.”
-----“You’d be surprised how easily Zib passes the Turing test. You see, he’s – it’s – hooked up to the entire building’s network. Essentially, it has access to all idle computers in this building plus the extensive private network of terminals and databases down here, which is a massive amount of computing power in and of itself. But it’s not a linear hookup – it’s more of a neural network with the way the systems interact with each other. The end result: an advanced artificial intelligence. Still not humanlike … but I’m working on it.”
-----“So are you going to market this thing?” William asked. “You could make a killing.”
-----“Zib’s primary function is to help prevent killings. And anyway, I’ve made many fortunes in my time. If the technology behind Zib were to fall into the proverbial wrong hands, the technology could easily be extrapolated to create a worldwide AI network.”
-----“Awesome.”
-----“No, it wouldn’t. Let’s see what Zib has for us …”
-----Zib’s body whirred to life and faced the rookies. “Good evening. I don’t believe that we’ve met. My name is Zib.”
-----“I’ve already introduced you,” Dr. Makuro said.
-----“My apologies,” Zib said after a slight pause. “I have noticed that he tends to tell people things while my interaction module is inactive.”
-----“Yeah, I should probably fix that. Remind me to do that sometime. Anyway, Zib, do you have the analysis of the rookies’ results?”
-----Zib whirred and clicked. “The results are now being displayed on the nearest touch screen. Would you like a physical copy as well?”
-----“No thank you, Zib. No reason to waste paper.” Dr. Makuro turned to the rookies and gestured towards the touch screen. “Zib grades impartially on agility, speed, reflexes, and other important factors, all derived from measurement of your respective performances in the sim. As you can see, all of your marks are exceptionally high.”
-----Dr. Makuro led the rookies down the ramp towards the central area, which was bedecked in all manner of gear and technology. Duncan warned the rookies not to ask Dr. Makuro about what all of these things did, as they were likely to be annoyed and would get distracted by the inevitable tinkering that would ensue.
-----“Now, for your weaponry! I think you’re going to enjoy what I’ve come up with.” He removed a cloth from a table, revealing large gauntlets. “Jessica?”
-----“Yes?”
-----“These our yours. If I may demonstrate?”
-----Without waiting for a response, part of the wall opened to reveal a crash test dummy. Dr. Makuro put the gauntlets on and punched the dummy with both hands. The dummy sizzled and snapped as blue sparks danced across the surface of its smooth chest.
“As you can see, they’re entirely electrified. They’re like tasers, really, except much more versatile. Variable intensity ranges from a brief static shock, for when you really want to annoy somebody, to a disabling taser blast, for when somebody really annoys you. But I’m not done yet – hang on a moment!”
-----Dr. Makuro walked around the table and replaced the battery cells on the gauntlets. Placing the two together, he shot blue bolt across the room into another creepy hidden dummy. “Unfortunately you can only do that once,” he said. “But I’m working on that.”
-----He tossed them to Jessica, who put her hands in and flexed them. “I think I could get used to this,” she said.
-----“Now for Natalie. These may look like harpoons, but they’re actually … well, they’re harpoons. But they do some interesting things. Take a look at the side here. See this knob? This sets the distance. If the harpoons don’t hit something within that distance, their tips will go blunt and they’ll curve right back to you.”
-----“Boomerang technology,” Natalie said. “You know, I studied abroad in Australia for a semester and saw some boomerangs in action. Only got to throw one once, though.”
-----“That’s why I designed them.”
-----A vague look of concern washed over Natalie’s face. “How much do you know about me?”
-----Preston nervously stepped in. “Believe me, the databases are extensive,” he said. “More importantly, how long were you working on their weapons?”
-----“You think I can remember amidst all this?” Dr. Makuro gestured to the scrap around him. “A few months at the most, but I couldn’t tell you exact dates. At any rate, it’s unimportant. Now for Bill’s.”
-----“A joy buzzer and a boomerang,” William said. “Hope mine’s a little more impressive.”
-----Dr. Makuro heaved an odd-looking gun up. “How does a plasma pistol sound?”
-----"… those exist?”
-----“Of course.” Dr. Makuro whipped around and fired at the dummy, knocking it back and slightly melting it. “Again, you’ve got a variable knob here, so you can change the intensity of the heat. They can attach to the underside of either arm so you can cut through things while leaving your hands free.”
-----William walked over to the table and lifted up two identical weapons. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
-----Dr. Makuro quickly took one of the identical weapons out of his hands. “I’m working on those as backups, but I do hope you’ll take good care of the one you’ve got.” He covered up the table again. “Training will begin tomorrow night. We’ll start getting you three on third shift and train hard in the sim for a week in all circumstances, individually and as a team. After a week, we’ll re-evaluate, and if you’re ready by that point then we’ll get you some field experience.”
-----The three rookies thanked Dr. Makuro in turn, and conversed a little more as he led them to the elevator.
-----“I don’t like this,” Preston said. “They’re not ready.”
-----“They’re not ready now,” Dr. Makuro said. “They will be ready, I assure you.”
-----“Screw what Zib printed out,” Preston spat. “Human intuition. There’s something to be said for the old eyeball test, and I don’t like the looks of these three.”
-----“I knew you wouldn’t.”
-----“And you were going through with this anyway?”
-----“Preston, they’re entirely viable candidates and they’re not going in the field until they’ve gotten many more hours in the sim. It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly more than you got, and you turned out to be better than I was.”
-----“The women can’t handle the physical stress.”
-----“Says who? You saw them in the sim, and I’d bet you’d be more impressed if you saw those two hit the weights.” Dr. Makuro looked suspiciously at Preston. “Gender doesn’t define strength. It’s about getting the job done, and those three are the three highest qualified in all fields.”
-----“But –”
-----“End of discussion. It’s time for you to get ready in case you’re needed tonight.”
⁂
-----“I don’t get it. It’s like he’s doing this just to spite me,” Preston grumbled to Duncan as they attached their body armor. “I mean, you can just tell that William isn’t qualified just by talking to him. He’s a –”
-----“Dude. I get it. You’re unhappy with it – but you went in like that.”
-----“Have you forgotten Ralph?”
-----“Of course I haven’t. But times have changed, man! We’re not the first generation and we won’t be the last. But you didn’t even talk to them all that much. Admit it – you went in with some crazy idea of what they were going to be like, they were different, and … you didn’t change your attitude.”
-----Preston mulled over what Duncan told him. He knew that he went into the process with a preconceived notion of the kinds of rookies his uncle would bring in, but the experience had only assured him that it was a bad idea. Nevertheless, he couldn’t keep up the pace he was going, and the inevitability of the end of this career, although still somewhat far away at this point, still loomed no matter how little Preston chose to acknowledge it.
-----“I guess what you were looking for were clones of us,” Duncan said after a while. “If that’s what you’re looking for, I think Dr. Strega in R&D is working on that.”
-----Preston raised an eyebrow. “I thought ol’ Aldous was working on some kind of genetic modification?”
-----Duncan nodded. “He is, but I kid him about cloning every time I see him.”
-----Preston chuckled. He’d been a hero alongside Duncan for the entire time, as Duncan – then a security guard with a passion for bodybuilding – accidentally hit the wrong combination of buttons in the wrong elevator and stumbled on the still-unfinished lab. Instead of trying to wipe his memories, Dr. Makuro decided to recruit him to fight alongside Preston. As a tribute to his size and his occasional mental lapses, Duncan had chosen to use the name “Bulk” in the field and soon proved a capable fighter.
-----“You think they’ll be alright, then, I suppose?” Preston asked.
-----Duncan waited for a second before replying. “Yeah. And you know how I know that?”
-----“No. Tell me.”
-----“Remember how bad we were when we started?”
-----“I wouldn’t say that we were bad, per se …”
-----“Oh, come on, man! We got the living snot kicked out of us a couple of times. We just didn’t have the advantage of having someone physically out there coaching us up in the field – all we had were your uncle’s dusty old recollections. Better than nothing, but not hands-on.”
-----Preston finished attaching his leg armor and donned his helmet. Its technology sprang to life around his face, running diagnostics, checking vision filters, and testing audio connections. “It’s not that, really.”
-----“Oh?” Duncan asked while affixing his own helmet.
-----“I guess I’m just afraid of the future.”
-----Duncan laughed. “Everyone is, dude. Everyone is.”
⁂
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