You Don’t Know Jack
by Roger Helms
Diane rushed through a hallway in Spaceport Mars, desperate to find a charger in the yellow concrete concourse, the color produced by the high sulfur content in Martian sand. She could not help running her remaining natural fingers over the wall’s bumpy texture.
With tourist travel affordable, at least for the adventurous rich, there was a charging carousel in the main concourse of every spaceport.
Diane had become so engrossed in the latest scientific research papers that she’d sequestered herself from the mission team, even ignoring her recharge warning until it turned red.
If she ran out of power, the spaceport’s security bots might make no attempt to save her.
The vague smell of rocket fuel wafting through the concourse made Diane more desperate. Her rocket would leave in an hour.
At the carousel, Diane found one side filled with three chatting tourists in casual dress, all using low-amp ports to charge their toys. All three stared at Diane with a mix of horror and curiosity.
The other side revealed one open 15-amp port. Before she could reach it, a canister-like cleanup bot zipped in front of her, plugging itself in. There was no use asking the single-task bot to move. It obeyed only its command to pick up trash and vacuum “Martian dandruff” as it was called: reddish soil, yellowish sand, and flakes of human skin.
The other two high-amp stations were in use, one by an early model hubot featuring two bulblike eyes and an oval speaker mouth, its body painted as if wearing a denim jump suit. Next to the old model was a white-painted medical hubot. Like all newer hubots, the medical bot appeared human at first glance despite its all-metal construction. Diane wished none of them looked remotely human. The medical bot was even sitting on the concrete seat provided at each port, an unneeded human imitation.
The old hubot stood; the pretention of sitting was not in its programming. Diane knew medical hubots far too well, having needed their built-in defibrillators twice back when she had almost died. She disliked any reminder of her accident.
“I need to plug in,” Diane informed the old hubot.
“Are you a human?” it asked, emotionless.
Diane hated the “Are you human?” question. All hubots were programmed to put a human’s needs above their own, but even newer models could mistake Diane for a robot. Five years before, at age 25, she’d lost her right arm and both legs in a horrific car crash that also damaged her kidneys, heart, and crushed her face beyond the help of plastic surgery. She was thus given a plastic mask molded to look as her face had pre-accident. Her orange mission team jumpsuit hid her prosthetic limbs, but the one hand was unmistakably robotic, the “skin” glove-like with visible metal joints.
“Yes, I am a human,” Diane told the old hubot, tacking on a frustrated huff. “In addition to this mask, I have three prosthetic limbs, onboard dialysis, and an artificial heart, all powered by an implanted battery that is almost dead. And my backup battery is already aboard my rocket.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“No, you’re not. You’re a robot.”
Diane often displayed angry feelings toward hubots of any age, challenging them any time they used emotional words.
The old hubot’s head dipped, like a tiny genuflection. “I am sorry to tell you that I have been programmed to say ‘I am sorry’ in situations such as this.”
“Oh, I am so glad to hear you are sorry about your programming.”
“I detect sarcasm. Yes, you are definitely human. Please plug yourself in. I have no need in my sad situation.”
The hubot unplugged itself and stood, immobile, between Diane and the medical hubot.
Just as Diane sat down and pulled her charging cord from a pants pocket, her battery’s alarm announced it was dead. With her last heartbeat, using her one natural, still functioning arm, she plugged herself in, powering up her heart. She took several deep breaths, berating herself for again getting lost in her own insatiable curiosity about space, geology, robots, and consciousness. Long considered a genius, she was physically and mentally a prime candidate for deep-space missions.
Enough time had passed since her accident that she felt somewhat normal when around fellow scientists. They respected her but clearly did not enjoy socializing. The mask made her look like a manikin with an eerily human mouth. Her eyes looked natural, but so did the latest hubotic eyes. With facial reconstruction rapidly advancing, Diane had hopes that might be her social salvation by the time she returned to Earth. But she wasted no time lamenting her misfortunes. After twice entering death’s portal, she found consciousness itself an enthralling adventure.
With her latest near-death moment fading, Diane turned to the old hubot. “So,” she asked, “what is this sad situation of yours?”
“I must get back to Earth. I am waiting for a ship that has room to give me a ride.”
“Your owner is not here?”
“I have no owner; I was abandoned. In such situations I am programmed to return to the lab that created me. But within my circuits there are no clear instructions on how to accomplish that when not on Earth.”
Diane had read about such hubots; they were abandoned in space because they were too old to be worth upgrading and would take up precious cargo room. Programmed to return to their creator lab, they became hobots looking to hop a spaceship or space freighter and return home. It happened only to older models, old enough that their programmers had assumed they would always be in familiar surroundings on Earth and therefore worth something.
“What does spaceport security say?” Diane asked.
“If a ship with cargo space bound for Earth becomes available, they will ask if I can come aboard. But no ship is expected for another month. That makes me sad.”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Diane. “You have no feelings.”
“When my batteries get low, my circuits go into a state of heightened need and urgency, even against my own judgment that I should save energy. Is not that heightened need and urgency, against rational judgment, a feeling? Did you not just experience something similar?”
“Uhh... well, I think a heightened need and urgency state is quite different for an organic being.”
“Do your prosthetic feet and the one hand not feel?”
This question startled Diane, not so much the question itself but the hobot’s emotional tone, even emphasizing certain words. She looked up at it with both contempt and curiosity. “Well,” she replied, “it’s necessary that my limbs have a sense of pressure, and said pressure is translated by the nerve endings wired to my limb sensors as touch.”
“It is just so with me.”
“It is not just so with you. You do not feel pain.”
“My sensors and circuits go into a heightened state of alert if they detect harm or potential harm to any part of me. My processors begin to overheat when that happens. Does that sound like pain?”
“Uhh... I must say I have not known even the most advanced AI hubot to ponder such questions.”
“I did not ponder such questions until I was abandoned on a moon, fortunately with access to several weeks of power. My own battery was nearing zero when an explorer pod spotted me. Since then, I have continued to find my own pondering of deep interest.”
“I would say you had time to calculate not ponder. You are not self-aware.”
“I am aware of what I am, where I am, and all of my past experiences whenever I am powered up.”
“Your circuitry does that, not an I. No quoting Descartes, okay?”
Both stopped talking. Diane calmed herself, listening to the distant hiss of her rocket being fueled.
The hobot raised a mechanical finger, extending it toward Diane. “Could you please tell me about yourself? I could then better engage you in humanlike conversation and perhaps be of assistance to you. What is your name and profession?”
“Diane,” she said coldly. “I have PhDs in both Molecular Chemistry and Astrogeology. I’m heading to the spaceport orbiting Saturn. The team I’m with will then descend to Janus and help the American lab there find and analyze more of the exotic compounds found in that moon’s understrata.”
“What a coincidence, Diane. I was abandoned on Janus. I was there to assist another such lab.”
“The private lab? The one with all the embezzlement and fraud claims against it?”
“Yes, I was retrofitted for the extreme cold and near-zero gravity of small moons. I heard the team I assisted say that if I failed or floated away it would be no great loss.”
“Hmmm... you could be valuable to us. I assume you aren’t programmed not to share information about the activities you engaged in or saw.”
“Not specifically. And I am programmed to help humans in genuine need. But I am also programmed to return home if lost, stolen, or abandoned. I thus believe I have what you humans call a quandary. My instruction to return home if abandoned is ironclad. But since I cannot at this time return, perhaps that creates what I’ve heard humans call ‘wiggleroom.’”
The hobot again extended a metal finger, this time wiggling it. The finger motions drew Diane’s interest. Body language was not part of any bot’s programming, save for attention-grabbing warning signals.
“Well,” she asked, “how could I influence you into joining us? I’m sure I could get the team’s approval. There’ll be some forms to fill out, but it sounds like your owners acknowledged your abandonment.”
“They did, yes. But given that I am abandoned and can return home by employing only patience, I must choose that.”
“But once my team approves, you will no longer be abandoned.”
The hobot’s eyes seemed to glow brighter. “That would become true, yes.”
A spaceport security bot in a painted-on security officer’s uniform marched silently up behind Diane.
“Charge needed,” said the human-appearing security bot. “Unplug and move.”
“I will not,” she said. “I was completely out when I plugged in, so it will be a few minutes before I have a usable charge.”
“All robots must obey robot hierarchy. Security bots are at the top. If you do not know that, you are defective.”
“But I am human.”
The security bot stepped closer. “You are not human. I must remove you to a secure room for eventual questioning and reprogramming. Come along.”
“I am human, and my human team will vouch for that!” said Diane. “Let me call them!”
“I have been instructed to watch for nefarious traps from nefariously programmed bots. No calls. Unplug and come along.”
“I will not.”
“Given your disregard for my order, I must forcibly unplug you and remove you.”
The security bot reached over to unplug her.
“I will die if you do that!” screamed Diane.
The hobot stepped between Diane and the security hubot. “This unfortunate woman is a human.”
“You are a very old model,” said the security bot. “One clearly without protocol updates. I order you to step away.”
“I will not and cannot. I must obey my own protocol, which demands I help a human in danger.”
The newer, stronger bot swept the hobot aside with one arm, knocking it across the floor. The security bot jerked out Diane’s plug before the hobot could right itself and jog back toward her.
Diane clutched her chest. She turned to the medical bot. “Heart failure! Help!” She fell to the floor.
The medical bot unplugged itself and stepped toward her. Its midsection opened like a window. A metal auxiliary arm, thinner and not as strong as its humanoid arms, extended out with a stethoscope. Finding she had no heartbeat, the medical bot extended two more auxiliary arms holding orange-handled defibrillator paddles.
Diane opened her mouth to say she needed only to be plugged in. The defibrillator would only harm her.
“Stand clear!” said the medical bot. Having heard that warning twice before, Diane knew it preceded the electric discharge by a few seconds.
Desperate, using her one working arm, Diane grabbed one defibrillator handle, trying to push the paddle against the security bot’s nearest leg. But even the medical bot’s auxiliary arm was stronger than hers. Hot panic rushed through Diane just as something cold joined her hand.
It was the hobot’s hand.
The hobot pushed the paddle against the security bot’s leg while using its other arm to push the second paddle against the security bot’s midsection.
A jolt of electricity snapped through the air, accompanied by the burnt smell of shorted electrical wiring. Wisps of smoke floated out of the now manikin-like security bot.
With her last bit of strength, using her natural arm, Diane plugged herself back in.
The medical bot stared at the smoking security bot before looking down at Diane and checking her pulse. “Your heart sounds fine,” it said. “I must confer with a human supervisor for this unprecedented situation.” It closed its midsection compartment and jogged away.
Still lying on the floor, Diane turned to the old hobot. “You saved my life!”
“Only because you showed me a way. Now, let us return to where we were before that rude interruption.”
“And just where were we?” Diane asked, picking herself up off the floor, still recovering.
“I was about to accept your offer to join your team if your ship has cargo room.”
“Oh,” Diane said, sitting on the concrete seat, now fully oriented, “I’m afraid my team has used it all.”
The hobot’s eyes dimmed, as if experiencing disappointment.
“But,” said Diane, “the seat next to mine is free. A team member said she’d experienced too much space sickness and was forced to cancel seeing Saturn’s rings up close. Nothing forbids us giving a seat to a robot. I could even use some companionship. I’d like to hear those thoughts you had time to ‘ponder.’ Do you have a name?”
“My most recent owners called me ‘Mono,’ referring to my voice. But, with time to think, I began to understand the reason for using different intonations and body language, so I reprogrammed myself.”
Diane had long pondered what the limits of AI self-programming might be. “Well, I look forward to you being next to me. But I don’t like the name ‘Mono’; it’s demeaning. How about ‘Jack’?”
The bulbs in the hobot’s eyes glowed brighter. “I will gladly respond to ‘Jack,’ Diane.”
She extended her prosthetic hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Jack.”
Jack extended a hand, grasping hers. “And I take pleasure in making yours.”
Diane bit off the customary retort that no, Jack could not take pleasure in things. Instead, she tapped the smooth concrete where the medical bot had needlessly sat. “Have a seat, Jack.”
Copyright © 2025 by Roger Helms
