A Future We'd Like to See 1.17 - The Shell Game, Pt. 1 By Twoflower (Copyright 1993) Three shadowy figures met that night, in a secret location that wasn't technically real. "What have you got?" a female voice asked. "Not much, on the whole," a deeper one responded. "I checked down at some Yttian educational facility. No information about machine/comp interfaces, or anything else we need." "I had a bit more luck at Macroworld," a younger voice commented smugly. "MACROWORLD? Geez, that's taking a bit of a risk, isn't it?" "The biggest risks yield the best results. I got some specs on some new VOS extensions they're working on. Just basic stuff, but we can swipe the ideas for our own use. How'd you do?" "Quite well, actually," the female voice noted. "I went to MurfTech's Port Hades branch. Had a lot of ice and defenses, but I just morphed into a Murfle and got in. Weak, weak. But I did get what I went for, in spades. Plans, code, blueprints, chipsets, the works." "Leave a calling card?" joked the younger voice. "Of course not. I never screw up." "Okay, we've got the goods. What's step two?" "Get someone to build this stuff for us. And I have just the way to do it." Something on the woman's wrist beeped. "Location's unsafe. Scatter back to your usual hideouts, I'll page back later with the next meeting point. Look for someone with enough brains to do the job, but not enough to know why." "Got it." "'bye." The three departed. They didn't need to get a good night's rest. They didn't even exist. * "Why?" Shelia asked. "Why not?" her Yttian coworker shrugged, lab coat pulling itself up high enough to show mismatched socks. "It's a neat concept, you gotta admit. Can't believe how well it's working, too. Bolt out of the blue." "Robots aren't exactly a new idea. So you're patching one with a VOS interface. What's the big deal?" Shelia asked, pausing to push up her overly round glasses. "You can control them by remote, better than anyone possibly could. No need to send in the bomb squad, just patch the bomb experts into a few of these suckers and do it by remote. If the bomb goes boom, no problem, send in more robots. Also for deep- space work, or other harsh environments. With total mental control, anything's possible. T'lliTak's gonna eat this up." "W'ny, may I remind you we're still a smalltime operation?" Shelia warned. "We make cheap decks for kids to use at school. Maybe a few terminals, some educational software. NOT precision control robots. Sure, they may eat up the idea, but they'll barf the thing up, choking on the price tag." "All I need are three prototypes. That'll do, then I can sell those to either our bosses here, or to MurfTech, or anybody." "Why three?" W'ny paused in his typing. "I just need three," he reaffirmed. * He had to sell his station wagon and get a beat-up compact shuttlecraft for parts money, but it was worth it. Sure, they were ungainly, but the exterior didn't matter. All they had to have were realistic human joints and you've got a fully-working, whole body waldo. Changing the appearance is easy enough. He had tested the VR interface on all three of them. The units were color blind, but that was okay, as they had heat sensors and motion trackers and the like. It was just like being in a normal human body, only slightly colder... he'd have to fine-tune the sensitization routines a bit better, to make the 'bots livable. Livable. Why'd they have to be livable? Nobody was planning to LIVE in one. That's silly. How'd they go to sleep or eat or take a whizz or anything? Strange thought. Wonder where it came from. "Maybe I oughtta hook you three up to the net one last time and run the final debug check," W'ny said aloud, despite the fact that nobody else was in the basement lab. All normal T'lliTak workers had gone home by now, but he had been working overtime for three weeks to finish these. "It can wait," he decided, and shut down the system before heading home for a good night's rest. * W'ny was a devout believer in technology. His level of faith in machines and circuits almost equaled several of the major religions, even the devout Murfle Pessimistic Order. He had a voice lock on his door. "Home again, home again, giggety gig," he whispered to the doormike, triggering the latch and sending the door opening on its own accord. The lights automatically flipped on and his SmartStereo picked out sixteen tracks suited to his mood, decided upon by IR readings and slight brainwave impulses. The microwave was already cooking up a box of fries, aided by the Kitchen Buddy(TM). The only thing I'm missing is a talking toaster, W'ny mentally smirked. And that's just because they don't make those anymore. He canceled the order on the fries by waving his hand in the micro's triggerspace, and wandered to his bedroom. Mechanical arms offered the evening news and slippers, but W'ny was too sleepy to bother. Clap, clap, lights off. Still handy today. Hop in bed, let the self-tucking covers pull up, and snug down. Oh, and one last thing... W'ny took his headband off of the upper left post and slipped it on. Within seconds he was in REM sleep, waking time preset with the many stages of sleep being controlled by a remote DreemTyme(TM) program on his computer. His computer was also running VOS 3.1, and hooked up to VOSNet via a modem connection. That was the problem. * "I want out tonight." "Jeez, wait up, Arissa. We'll be gone and out tomorrow, you heard what he said," the younger voice defended. "Plus, the shells suck majorly. No way am I going to use it until it's changed. You two, go scouting for machinists and painters. We should be able to get this fixed up by morning." "How about those guys that work on the dummies in department stores?" asked the hulking, deep voice. "If you can find one," Arissa said, nodding a virtual head, "Do it." * Joe rattled the doorknob. What was that code again? "I think it's 1138," said a voice behind him. "Hi. Estano, mannequin repair. That's the door code, by the way. You here for the renovation too?" "Yeah. I'm a metal worker mostly," Joe shrugged. "Weird how we got called to do this job tonight, huh? Sheesh, you'd think they could wait until tomorrow. No need to make it look like we're breaking in." Joe tapped in 1138 on the T'lliTak front door, and opened it, with the artist following behind him. "Can I help you, boys-who-are-here-under-mysterious- reasons?" the front guard said, in Yttian. This was on Yttia, after all. Joe blinked, not understanding a word. Shoulda taken the courses before I moved here, he thought. Fortunately, the second man called in on the job was of the green-furred rabbitoid variety. "Yes, Mister rented-man-who-questions-intruders. We're supposed to be doing a rush job in some lab downstairs." "Odd at this dark-star-hour," the guard muttered. "You boys stay put, I'll call my--" The phone rang. The tone was of one of those truly annoying office phones, the kind that could physically shatter an eardrum if not installed with a spoiler wing above the speaker. "Hang on," the guard said, picking up the phone. "Yeah? Oh, I was just about to call you, sir... what? Let 'em in? Kind of strange, isn't it? Yes, I know you pay my checks... Alright, alright. Bye." Click. "Seems I'm to let you in. Just don't trash the place, alright?" "Got it." Estano switched back to the king's english. "Come on, we've got clearance." "That what all that jabber was about?" Joe asked. "Strange. And here I was theorizing that it was a prank call." * "Sure that's everything?" Joe asked, pounding out a dent in one of the robot arms. The hammer made no noise, as a layer of skinlike material had been added on only an hour ago. "Lesse... full human look, ultra realistic... not many want to pay for that kind of service. Costs plenty to make them this lifelike." Estano squinted green eyelids at the third robot. "Does that look 'voluptuous' to you? I don't have a good eye for that sort of thing." "Bad eyesight?" "No, I'm gay." "That would explain it too," Joe shrugged. "No big deal to me. Yeah, it's a good set of knockers. I dunno about this second guy though. Kinda wirey and weak." "Will the arms hold up?" "Should. Although if I was the guy who wanted these things modded I'd request better muscles than that." "If I had known this wasn't for a department store I would have brought along something in the way of clothing," Estano shrugged. "Whoever walks in here tomorrow is in for a shock." * "YAAAH!" W'ny yelled, diving for cover and blocking his eyes. "Geez, who are you three and what are you doing in my lab buck naked?!?" Pause. "Hello?" Pause. "You are awake, right? I don't know many people that can sleep on their feet." Pause. "Come to think of it, you're standing where I parked my prototypes yesterday. Are you them?" Pause. "I guess if you were, you wouldn't be able to talk back. I'm coming out now... if you are alive, please respond..." Pause. Well, they must be the bots. Dunno HOW they got that way. Very lifelike. Maybe Earl knows what happened. Dial. Dial. Ring. "Earl?" "Yeah?" the front guard answered in Yttian. "Did any shifty-looking-redecorators show up last night?" "What, you didn't order any?" "Nope." "Well, some mechanic and a fashion consultant showed up. The supervisor gave them clearance. Something wrong down there?" "Other than the three naked humans in my lab?" "Hey! Alright! 'bout time you got back in the dating scene. Whatever happened to that Shelia chick?" "Not now, Earl. Has anybody been messing with my project? I mean, I was keeping it sort of a secret until now." "I didn't even KNOW you were doing a project. Maybe the annoying-grumpy-superior-officer-of-workspace has been spying on you or something, and figured you had no fashion sense." "Weirdness. Well, strange appearances or not, I've got to run them through the final check. Even more so, since those horrid-vagrants-who-tamper-with-private-property might have munged my hardware when they broke in and... well, decorated." "Alrighty. I'll let you know if I see them again." * It turned out nothing was really damaged. The larger one had a bit of a motor control problem with his right arm, but that could be fixed later; he still had to run the control code through the debugger one last time. As humanity figured out in the twentieth century, both in the bedroom and in the computer room, viruses tend to spread well if you connect things together without protecting them. This could lead to either death or scrambled data, depending on if you were silicon-based or carbon-based. W'ny hadn't bothered disconnecting his IP hookup to VOSNet before running the debugger. After all, if he did, mail and other files couldn't get through. The plus side to cutting the link would be that no demons could get through either, but W'ny hadn't thought of that. "Okay, all hooked," he commented, enabling the radio transmitter on each of the three now-very-interesting looking robots. "Debug bot1, bot2, bot3... hmmm... transferring a bit more code than usual... I wonder whAWK!" W'ny was lifted off the floor by a mammoth fleshy hand with a grip of steel. Bot3 stared him right in the face, muscles flexing, and face grimacing. "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle," he grunted in some odd accent. "Ummm... I dunno if my lab coat'll fit you, I'm wearing sneakers, and I drive a Yugo." "Put the weenie down, Crank," the femalebot responded, slapping Crank around a little. "We don't wanna kill the guy, after all. He's important to us." "Wha?" W'ny stammered, not liking this at all. "Sorry. How rude not to introduce. Arissa, that's Crank, the wimp's Twink." "Please to meet ya," Twink said. "Geez, they didn't even give us clothes? How're we gonna blend in without them? Got any suits spare?" "Who are you?" W'ny asked, number three on Top Ten List of Questions to Ask to Stall the Bad Guys While You Try To Cope With the Situation at Hand. "Crank, go get us some clothes," Arissa said, ignoring the confused Yttian scientist. Crank nodded mechanically, and stomped out of the room. "Any chance he'll act inconspicuous?" Twink wondered. "He's a six-foot tall musclebound freak who's wandering around a lab facility in the buff," Arissa said. "It's a bit hard to go unnoticed. Jeez, this is the best they could do on me?" "Looks the same as it does inside. 'Cept for the hair color. I wished they would have given me a BIT more meat, though. I'm a stringbean nerdy computer jockey stereotype." "Got clothes," Crank rumbled, dropping three confused scientists on the ground, each about the same size as one of the robots. "Thanks, Crank. Mind if we borrow your outfits? You can keep the underwear, we're not total barbarians." "Huh?" one of them asked. Demonically possessed machinery was a new concept to T'lliTak, one which its staff was having a bit of trouble getting used to. "Nevermind. Crank, if you will?" "Alright," Crank said, and with a swift punching motion, knocked all three out. "HEY!" W'ny whined. "Him too. Might as well." *CLONK* "Alright, let's get changed. We've got shopping to do." "What about plans for the factory and colony?" "We can't build a factory without cash," Arissa said. "We're going to have to... WORK. Ugh." "How horrid. That's a meat thing." "We're meat things now," Crank argued. "And we ought to start acting like it. No feats of strength in public, guys, and no showing off the superior intellect." "Can I still bash heads?" Crank asked. "Only if they try to bash yours first." "Alright, I can deal with that." "Come on, guys. A lot of people in Haven are counting on us."