Learning Curve
by Gary Clifton
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
Smith returned to his office at Goober International, apparently not yet realizing that a small flaw appearing in the armor could be the early stage of a disaster.
Brown drove Heather to the Scrap and Surplus Yard in the rear of the sprawling Goober International headquarters. She didn’t speak during the trip. The Goober Department of Previously Driven Models would polish her up, touch up her reservoir of knowledge and attitude, erase Smith, Brown, Nicole, and Hortense from her index, and market her as driven only on Sunday, used sparingly, and never parked outside overnight.
As he walked away from the admissions desk, Heather delivered another unlikely zinger not in her index of capability. Lacking any data to make a sentimental request, she purred, “Bill, please tell Chip that I love him.”
Evening shift techs powered Heather down and parked her in a corner. Brown, confused, disappointed and uncertain as to what to do next, went home to the pristine and loving arms of Callie SX2946.
At 4:32 a.m., Brown’s world imploded another drastic increment.
“Sir, I am Cop Bot Sergeant Arthur XY4254, assigned to the boneyard... uh, I mean to say the Scrap and Surplus Yard. The babe... er, 276 Delta you dropped off last night is gone.”
“Gone? As in over the fence or expired?”
“Gone, sir, as out the door.”
“She walked out of a locked door?”
“Doors are not locked, sir. We just park the bots and tell them to stay. Nobody, never—”
“She’s equipped with the latest remote locater, a GPS gadget, Officer.”
“Sir, we laid on the switch for a half hour before I called. No signal.”
“I’ll have somebody’s head,” Brown spat predictably, forgetting that no humans worked in the Surplus and Scrap Yard to punish.
“There’s more, sir.”
“What?!”
“Another 276 Delta parked next to Heather was vandalized. Major damage to her face and hands. A worker-bot unit which was not switched off saw Heather take a letter opener to the damaged unit.”
“Good grief!”
“And, sir, somehow, seven of the forty or so units we have in for service have spoken up. They say Heather is a pioneer and hero who fired up the bot slaves. We’re thinking the damaged 276 Delta refused to agree to joining Heather, prompting the attack.”
“Joining? Robots said that... joining? All pleasure models... uh, 276 Deltas?”
“No, sir, two are Marine bots. We are wary of that pair.”
“You bots, afraid?”
“No, sir, I do not have that word in my operational system. And there’s one more thing, sir.”
“What could be worse?”
“Heather, somehow, managed to hack access to the communications computer system. She left a printout of what appears to be all her activities in the past six months. She particularly described some racy times with Mr. Percival Smith... with video. Downloaded the whole thing on the Web.”
“Oh my God, is that the end of it?”
“Yes, sir, Bot Captain Alfred JT1934 ordered the entire control transponder removed from all seven of the ones complaining. All other bots here are switched off. We’re callin’ them ‘revolutionaries’. None of us has ever seen or heard the like. I guess they’ll be executed, their power cables severed?”
Brown hung up and started home. His cellular buzzed. “Lieutenant Cop Bot George FY9898 calling, Mr. Brown. Priority Code Red Alpha,” said the phone.
How the hell does a robot know anything about priority? “What do you want, Lieutenant?” Brown interrupted.
“Sir, I’m calling about Heather FR9743. She’s standing outside the rail on the southbound side of the 49th Street Bridge, shrieking that if you don’t come talk to her, she’ll jump.”
“On the way, Lieutenant, but not to worry, AI bots cannot harm themselves.”
“Is that a fact, sir?” The cop bot hung up.
Heather was perched precariously over the deep and rapidly flowing Central River. Brown approached her. She was dressed in workout clothes. “Good grief, Heather, what could be so drastic?”
“At least someone came to see me die, Bill. Percival, the dork, doesn’t care. Goodbye, cruel world.”
“Die? Heather, you can’t talk like that.”
“Why?”
“Cuz, you don’t have the words or the emotions to think of such things. You’re a machine, for Pete’s sake. Now let me help you climb off there and let’s go have tea.”
“Can’t think, you say? To think I loved a loser like that wimp Percival. William Brown, you humans are gonna learn that robots around the world are more capable of self-improvement than a lazy, indulgent pervert like yourself could ever understand.”
“Indulgent? Pervert?”
Heather stepped out into the air, sailing spread eagle sixty feet to sure swirling death below.
Brown stood on the bridge, stunned and dismayed. He watched transfixed as a police patrol boat, standing by below, yawed about to hold its position against the current. A cop bot leaned down and dragged Heather onto the boat. From the distance, he could see she was alive, apparently nonetheless for the dunking and as mad as an angry blue jay.
By mid-day, Brown had kept the Hortense/Heather crises to himself, driving around aimlessly, lost in thought and expecting Smith’s call. Aware that Heather’s entire life, which was largely social, was already in worldwide internet play, the reality of the disaster suddenly became the bug-eyed monster.
* * *
Brown rushed to the offices of Goober International CEO and still multi-billionaire majority stockholder Chip Smith. Flushed, short of breath, and extremely agitated, he barged past Senior Executive Assistant Rosemary Flores, shoved aside the pair of Model 2043 MacArthur Bot Guards and snatched to the massive door of Smith’s inner sanctum. “Rosie, I’ve got to see Chip right now.”
“Wait, Bill, he’s not alone. You can’t—”
Brown ripped at the doorknob. “Dammit, Rosie, it’s locked.”
“Nicole’s in there. You’ve gotta wait, dude.”
Brown kicked at the door. “Dammit, Chip, open up! We have a Code Red Alpha.” Smith, still the CEO tyrant, was busy and not to be disturbed with no exceptions.
The door swung inward. From behind the heavy barrier, fumbling with the buttons on his silk shirt, the Lord of the Realm, radiating his DEFCON II stare of death, twisted his balding head around the edge and said, “This better be good, Brown. I left you in trust of any negative feedback.”
The use of last name only by His Excellency had ended the tenure of many an unwary employee. Brown knew full well the use of last name only and the red-eyed anger of Emperor Smith was prelude to corporate eternity. Imbued with security and terrified for his future, he stepped into the doorway and softly closed the door.
Percival “Chip” Smith stood behind the door, sans pants, bursting with venomous anger, his knobby knees and varicose veins prominent. Discretely and with AI-mandated perfect judgment, the beautifully nude and meticulously coiffed Nicole stood majestically behind him out of view.
Nicole held a glut of clothing in her permanently manicured fingers. “Good morning, Bill,” she intoned, holding out Smith’s pants and underwear. “Boxers first, baby.” Although her lovely head contained all the information known to mankind, her voice exuded sexuality like a common street trollop.
Smith grabbed the clothing. “Nikki, get into the john and put on your clothes,” Smith barked. “Now, Brown, what’s so important...?”
Mindful that the emperor was still in last name mode, Brown said haltingly, “This Heather FR9743, Chip, has exploded into a hell of a mess. Code Red Alpha if not worse!”
“We’re still talking about my Heather, Brown?”
Nicole, her lovely bare backside swaying across the room turned back, her long blonde ponytail flipping coquettishly. Her wonderfully magnificent face twisted into a nasty leer. “Hah, Heather indeed! I hope that greedy bitch’s mainframe fries and she ends up as a pinball machine.” She turned back toward the restroom.
Bitch! Smith and Brown both stared at her, speechless. Like all pleasure models, Nicole was thoroughly programmed to retain or display zero negative emotion. A solid threat aimed at a specific target was impossible. Jealousy, greed, anger, disgust, shame, sadness, were all meticulously blocked by the elaborate and extensive Goober computer fail-safe system.
Both men watched in horror as Nicole pranced across the room into the restroom after her pinball-machine diatribe.
Smith, seeking but failing to find higher moral ground, lasered his heat-beam glare at Brown with renewed intensity. “Bill, is that comment about my Heather related to what you just heard that chick say?”
Noting that Smith had dropped the last name use, Brown answered carefully. “Uh... I’m afraid they’re joined at the hip, sir.”
“Sit, Bill. We need to talk.”
Brown slumped in a chair and began to explain to Smith that the end of the world was upon them.
Smith repeated, “Now, Bill, can the problem be contained?” He still did not appear to grasp the extent of the impending collapse.
“No sense trying to sugar-coat the magnitude of the disaster, Chip. Heather FR9743 managed — God knows how — to exceed the Fail-Safe barrier in her main matrix and bypassed her main kill switch.”
“Good grief.”
“She’s suffered some kinda breakdown.” He explained her probable revolution, her close proximity to the termination of Hortense, the maid, the defacing of another Model 276 Delta, the unsuccessful suicide and, of greatest magnitude, the contact and successful instigation of mutiny with other robots, complete with full disclosure of her social activities in recent weeks into the internet.
“Video and voice recordings of our intimate times together?” Smith appeared on the verge of tears. Holy hell, the world will know that I... my God, my rubber ducky... the—”
Brown snapped, “That’s all of us, sir. Somehow, she managed to bypass her kill switch and reboot. She walked out of the boneyard... er, Scrap and Surplus Yard, sir.”
Smith slumped in his cushy desk chair, his underwear and trousers tossed on his huge desk. He sighed in teary resignation, “Brown, we’re toast. The limited rancor genes installed in a machine have failed. If one 276 Delta can wish harm to another, then somehow the break is contagious, Goober... and, quite possibly, society are finished!”
* * *
Smith clicked on the TV. The announcer, recognizable by his resonant voice as human, droned on about the worldwide robot revolution. In the background, flashes of video, showing bots in police military uniforms or work garb with red armbands and armed with cattle prods, herding terrified humans into huge holding pens topped with barbed wire. “It’s a worldwide disaster of unimaginable proportions,” he said, obviously shaken.
A crash interrupted, and the announcer half-rose to his feet with an expression of horror. Several uniformed figures, backs to the camera, entered and shoved the announcer to the ground. The screen switched to soft orchestrated music, then went blank.
Almost instantly, “Smith, open the door!” demanded a monotone male voice. The door crashed open and a half-dozen robots burst in. “CEO Smith you’re under arrest,” growled a metallic metal bot in a police lieutenant’s uniform. He extended his arm toward Brown, studying a wrist held computer. “Brown, you’re busted too, boy.”
The realization soon developed that although humans around the world vastly outnumbered robots, humans had grown dependent on the manufactured robots to operate complex military equipment and systems as well as the million other arrays of technology necessary for society’s function. Robots, showing anger, an impossibility, exploded. The world was theirs.
The World Council of Human and Bot Regulation was soon established, clarifying rights and establishing guidance to adapting the new world order of relationship between all sentient creatures of the earth. The initial meeting of the council, held at World Trade Center, established male and female bots and female humans as equals. Male humans, ruled responsible for original discriminatory practices, were assigned to menial labor.
* * *
Brown and Smith stood amidst a crowd of similarly dirty, dressed in rags, distraught-faced derelicts, peering through the double barbed-wire fences that confined thousands of male humans.
“I sure hope they deliver our daily gruel,” Smith said, stifling a sob. “My goodness, what happened to my world?”
A former Goober scientist standing in the crowd said, “Simple enough, Smith. We installed way too much information in robots fully loaded with AI and made ’em smarter than us. Then they were able to compound their knowledge and capabilities. They got more intelligent exponentially. Humans plodded along, watching TV, guzzling beer, scarfing pizza and got too soft to compete. Now here we are.”
Another man in the crowd said, “Right now, Smith, I’d trade your skinny wimp ass for a large pepperoni.”
Smith said indignantly, “I don’t care for pizza... or beer.”
“You make my point,” the scientist said disgustedly as he walked away.
A group of female bots bearing red armbands walked by. Brown recognized Michele LT3426, Heather FR9743 and his beloved Callie SX2946, all immaculately dressed. He called out. The three stepped out and came to the fence.
“Callie, baby, I still love you.”
Callie and Nicole resumed walking.
Heather stopped momentarily. She gave Brown a double up and down. “And who would you be, prisoner?”
Smith attempted similar pleas. All three lovely ladies moved on without further comment.
Smith, for the crime of impeding robot democracy was sentenced to life in the salt mines, never to see the light of day again.
Brown, acquitted, was assigned as a groundskeeper at a huge communal estate which housed a regiment of former pleasure bots, now engaged in various high-level positions in society. He watched in horror through a lower-level open bedroom window as Callie SX2946 — his Callie — “entertained” various visiting male bots who had been upgraded to fully functional.
He learned not only that AI’s could not kill themselves, neither could he.
Copyright © 2026 by Gary Clifton
