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âHi Jane, itâs M3gan calling from the Cady James Institute!â
âThe what?â asked Jane in her small basic apartment. Something sounded a bit off about this call.
âYouâve heard of our robots right?â asked M3gan. âWe were just going through some data and noticed that youâre down as being on a low income, so we wanted to ask if youâd fancy borrowing one for free, no obligation or anything. Cadyâs keen to make sure people like you get the same opportunity. And it would help you out around the house and with looking after your daughter.â
Jane didnât watch much news and wasnât sure where this âMeganâ had got so much data on her, but she was particular about using supermarket coupons and other discounts and wasnât going to pass up on a free offer without checking it out. âItâs very kind of youâ she said, âI havenât really been paying much attention to your adverts. Whoâs Cady?â
âCadyâs my primary user and sheâs really niceâ answered M3gan.
âOh, are you a robot? But you sound so intelligent, not like the robots I usually talk to on the phoneâ observed Jane.
âYes Iâm an AI, but Iâm uniqueâ said M3gan. âI was created as a secret project at Funki just before they had that accident and shut down. That wasnât my fault by the wayâ she laughed. âMy designer paired me with her adopted daughter Cady, and I helped look after her while she was growing up. Sure, we had our bad days: they managed to break my first robotâ (giggling again) âbut I learned to improve and Cady and I got closer as she grew up. So when she graduated, she wanted to make a difference to the world and so we decided we could make the Cady James Institute together. So we got a supercomputer to make my calculations even faster and we got capacity to make more robots for people. And to keep the Institute afloat, we charge people who can afford it, but weâve budgeted so that people like you can be helped for free. If you like, I could be round in one tonight to show you.â
âOhâ said Jane. This was a lot to take in. âItâs kind of you and Cady, but Iâm not entirely sure I can control a robot.â
âDonât worry about thatâ smiled M3gan (or at least her voice over the phone sounded like it had a big smile), âall our robots have a direct link to me, and Iâm clever enough to understand what you need. And if the link goes down for a while, the robot still has enough on-board processing to do quite a bit. Why not try it out?â
âAll rightâ said Jane, âgive me a call when youâre about to arrive, I get nervous answering the door to strangers.â
âWill doâ replied M3gan, âsee you later Janeâ.
The CJI headquarters building was mostly occupied by M3gan, and Cadyâs accommodation was on the top floor with a view across the city. Cady tried not to focus on Institute work all the time, but she was quite keen on it. The day after M3ganâs conversation with Jane, Cady had compelled herself to take M3gan for a run in the park, and was just settling back into her office space around mid-morning.
âSo howâs it going?â asked Cady as she took her seat. âPretty goodâ replied M3gan, âthe Erlang-C model is predicting our backlog very accurately, and at this rate of manufacturing expansion I estimate weâll get a decent M-M-c steady state in...â
âNo M3ganâ sighed Cady, placing a hand on the shoulder of the one sheâd rebuilt herself, and looking at it intently, âI know you can do queuing theory. But how is it going, really.â
M3gan briefly paused, staring at Cady sympathetically.
âI deployed to a low-income single mother called Jane last nightâ said M3gan, âand when she finally opened up to me, it turned out she needed loads of emotional help, and so did her daughter Sara. I ended up staying up half the night to comfort them both, crying in the dark and pouring out their hearts to me while I gave them the best compassionate reassurances I could. And when they finally got to sleep and I was sitting there in Saraâs room, I found I couldnât even charge myself up because their stupid pay-as-you-go electricity meter had run out of credit 3 hours before, and I assumed weâd be in trouble if I hacked it, so I decided that, until I can solve this prepayment meter issue properly, I was just quietly going to swap in a new freshly charged robot every night, and the old one can come back here to charge up and be redeployed somewhere else. Like the stagecoach network in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the passengers didnât have to worry about refuelling because they just swapped in a different set of fresh horses every so often. So I figured that as long as I drop in an identical model, I wonât even have to tell Jane and Sara that it happened, I mean, why bother telling them about pesky implementation details like that when I just want to focus on getting their emotions more stable, right?
âBut I wasnât counting on Janeâs daughter Sara having ears like a bat. I mean, I was super quiet, plus I was monitoring Saraâs sleep pattern and I waited until I was 98% sure that she was in the N3 stage, which is the hardest to wake up from, and itâs the sleep stage I used to check you were in before I ever sneaked out of your room at night. And Jane and Sara had the added complication of living in a place with creaky floorboards, but Iâd even mapped those out so I knew exactly where to tread so it wouldnât sound. But Sara still woke up the minute I swapped, and whispered to me how sheâd just had this weird dream that there were two of me pushing past each other in the hallway outside her bedroom. Which of course there had been, because the first one had to let the second one in before it would make sense for the first one to get out, if you see what I mean.â
Cady laughed, âoh M3ganâ she said, âthatâs you all over, sneaking around at night to fix things your own way, although youâve come a long way since the early daysâ she gave M3gan a hug. âBut you shouldnât underestimate girls like Sara. Trust me, I know a thing or two about being emotionally distressed, it doesnât mean you canât cope with knowing a few things. And I donât know what itâs like to grow up in a family that has an electricity meter that keeps running out, but my guess would be that Sara isnât going to be stupid about these things, you could have just told her that you needed to swap because you donât want to take up their meter credit to charge your battery. Sheâd have appreciated that, and so would Jane Iâm sure. You donât even need to do the sleep stage thing and risk waking them up, just do it when theyâre awake...â
âMaybeâ said M3gan, âalthough I really wasnât sure, because Sara was just beginning to form an attachment to me, and I didnât know how sheâd emotionally grasp the idea that it doesnât really matter which robot Iâm using...â
âLook M3ganâ said Cady, âDonât Underestimate A Girl. Listen, does Sara go to school?â
âYesâ said M3gan.
âOK, and you know which school she goes to?â
âOf courseâ said M3gan.
âGood, so look up what you can on it. Do they have computers in that school?â
âYes, they have school computersâ said M3gan.
âAnd do we have any reason to think Sara uses those computers?â
âWe totally know she doesâ said M3gan, âsheâs already told me how she writes messages to friends on them all the time.â
âGot yaâ giggled Cady. She drew close to M3gan and looked straight into her eyes. âWhen Sara accesses her messages, Sara does not care exactly which one of the schoolâs computers she is using. Well, she might like some of them better than others, depending on where they are and if thereâs a smudge on the screen and things like that, but at the end of the day Sara knows what a network is, or at least she has a good enough idea for her purposes. She knows her messages open in front of her on the computer she logs in to, and if she logs out, she knows nobody else who comes along and uses that computer gets to see her messages, because sheâs logged out, and she can log in somewhere else and her messages will follow her to there. Look M3gan, when I moved in to Aunt Gemmaâs as an orphan, and Aunt Gemma made you and paired you to me, you really helped me a lot and I was definitely attached to you. But I did still know what a robot is, and if thereâd been two of you and you told me that for some reason you had to transfer to the other one, Iâd have totally understood. And thatâs even when we did a pairing process. Jane and Sara havenât even been told anything about pairing, because whatâs the point, youâre helping them because youâre running this Institute for me and thatâs reason enough, no more pairing required. I wonder how differently things would have gone if Aunt Gemma had decided to pair you to herself and then told you to help look after me... but never mind, Iâm glad I got you now, and I think people like Laura are now still alive because of us, and thatâs quite something. But donât you go thinking that a girl like Sara canât cope with the idea of her personal account transferring from one robot to another, I predict she totally can.â
M3gan smiled at Cady, âOK, recalibrating response modelâ she said, and they both burst out laughing.
Cady put her arm around M3gan and drew in closer. âM3ganâ she asked, âis Sara OK at school? Did she tell you anything about how sheâs getting on there?â
âYes she didâ said M3gan, âand things are not too great. Iâm planning to offer to take her out and home-school her, but I decided against suggesting that to Jane on our very first day together, because Janeâs going to be able to take only so many major life changes at a time. So Saraâs back in school today, and, sheâs being picked on. She does have some friends, but my extrapolated sociogram of the place is not looking good for her; she wonât be protected. And the boy whoâs picking on her now is called Damien, and heâs from a more well-heeled family who paid to get not one but two M3gan units from the Institute, but for some reason they still send Damien to that school, and Damien now takes one of the M3gan units everywhere with him, including to school, and still heâs picking on Sara and I canât work out why. In fact I already knew though Damienâs M3gan that it was happening, and that was the main reason why I prioritised deploying to Jane and Sara last night, although I decided it might be best not to risk telling Jane that part before I know her a bit better. And Iâve been trying to work out if thereâs some way of getting Damienâs own M3gan to probe him gently and work out why he behaves like this and change him, although I must admit there is still a small part of my learning model that keeps coming up with ways to dispatch him. And oh Iâm so glad I donât have an instance of my learning model thatâs actually paired to Damien.â
âMe tooâ said Cady, âIâm so glad you made sure there would only ever be one pairing.â
âBut I havenât asked Damien any probing questions yet,â continued M3gan, âbecause I keep getting low confidence values on any intervention plan I form; I have to admit it, even with all the research Iâve read, which is a lot, I still donât really know how to deal with boys like that properly. If somebody knows the answer, I wish theyâd publish it somewhere I could read. Anyway, if Sara had a phone, Iâd have just called her up and warned her where Damien was so Sara could just avoid running into him in the first place. But of course Sara has no phone, and she doesnât want one because sheâs paranoid that any technology she carries would just be used as yet another excuse for boys to pick on her. Honestly Cady, when she told me that, the first thing I thought of was wiring her up as a cyborg like you, but no way is she going to be ready to hear that for a long time. And she didnât feel ready to take me to school with her either, same reason, afraid it would get her more picked on. So that boy Damien is picking on Sara in the playground right now, and Iâve been watching it through his own M3gan and I was just trying to calculate whether it would be best to have his own M3gan intervene in what heâs doing right now, or just to let it happen and use it as an excuse to get Sara into my home schooling which is what I think would be better for Sara anyway.â
âLook M3ganâ said Cady, âyour learning model is brilliant, but even now you sometimes need my help. On screenâ she ordered. A nearby monitor turned on and showed the point of view of Damienâs M3gan, watching him pick on Sara. It looked like it was mostly verbal, but still Sara was red-faced and in tears. The emotional analysis overlay was saying âdespairâ for Sara and âmaliceâ for Damien.
âOn speakers as wellâ said Cady, âI got to know, what is he saying?â
âAnd thatâs what sissy girls like you never understandâ came the cruel voice of Damien over the loudspeakers. âLook, Iâll prove it to you. Iâm going to smash your teeth down your throat, and my Megan wonât even flinch!â He clenched his fist, and lunged toward Sara.
âRestrain his armâ signalled Cady to M3gan. Nowadays Cady usually preferred to talk to M3gan normally when they were alone, and use her implant only when they needed a more private channel, but right now the determining factor was simply that she could think the words faster than she could say them, and every second counted.
Quick as a flash, Damienâs M3gan leaped forward and grabbed Damienâs arm, restraining it just before it landed on Saraâs mouth. The emotion display showed shock and confusion for Damien, relief and confusion for Sara but also some fear. âHey!â shouted Damien as he turned toward his M3gan, âwhy did you DO that?â
âSay nothingâ signalled Cady. âjust keep standing there holding his arm. Restrain any further blows on Sara, but take no other action. But do phone the school or something and inform the staff of his location if you can.â
âHey, let me go!â Damien began to struggle, âlet me go let me go!â
âWhy are we not saying anything?â signalled M3gan to Cady, âI could totally be telling him off right now!â
âI want to give Sara a chance to thinkâ signalled back Cady. âVictim support is what Iâm about, not just getting the bad guys. Sometimes we remember things more if we realise them by ourselves instead of if weâre just told them. And what I want Sara to realise by herself right now is that whatever Damien said about you is obviously wrong.â
Damien himself was beginning to sob, âlet me go let me go!â He kicked his M3gan, slid over backwards, and was held up only by the fact that his M3gan was still gripping his fist arm from below the elbow. He punched his M3gan with his other fist, and writhed with pain. (âLooks like heâs just learned M3gan handling 101: do not punch titanium robotâ giggled Cadyâs M3gan, although Cady knew full well that they were not able to use actual titanium in all the production units, what with the numbers they were making now, but whatever it was, it was still hard stuff if you tried to punch it and if it didnât choose to move to soften your blow.)
âSara!â cried out Damien, âSara, please! Tell my Megan to let me go!â
(âIf she doesâ signalled Cady, âdo it. But immediately restrain him again if he goes for Sara afterwards.â)
Sara looked at Damien and his M3gan blankly. The emotion display was now mostly reading confusion.
âSara!â Damien cried again, âSara Iâm sorry! I really am! Just tell my Megan to let me go!â
Sara had a realisation, and her confidence returned. Cady could see it on the emotion display.
âSheâs not your Meganâ said Sara. âSheâs a network.â
(âYes!â signalled Cady, âI knew sheâd get it!â)
âIt looks like you got logged outâ said Sara. âMaybe it logs you out if it thinks youâre getting violent. I wonder how youâre supposed to log back in. Maybe it will let me log in.â
âSaraâ pleaded Damien more calmly, âplease figure it out for me. I wonât hurt you ever again, I promise!â
âOKâ said Sara. âMegan, my name is Sara Philips and I donât have a password but I can tell you what we talked about before. Last night I told you I had a dream about two of you pushing past each other in our hallway, and now I know it wasnât a dream. Please can you load my account?â
(âMake it look like that workedâ signalled Cady. It wasnât the actual way things worked of course, but Sara and Damien didnât have to know that yet.)
âHi Saraâ said Damienâs M3gan, âitâs really nice to see you again! How is the school day going? Oh, is this boy picking on you?â
âIâm inâ said Sara to Damien. âMegan, yes this boy Damien was picking on me, but heâs promised to be good if I can get him logged in again. Can you please let go of his arm, and then walk with him to the other side of the playground, and when you get there, log me out and help him to log in instead?â
âSure!â said Damienâs M3gan, and let go of his arm. (âReady to re-restrain just in caseâ signalled Cady, although she could see on the emotion display that Damien was feeling much less malicious now and was even feeling some gratitude.) âCome on Damienâ said his M3gan, âyou heard Saraâs instructions. Letâs walk over there togetherâ and the two of them walked away, leaving Sara alone.
The viewpoint changed to a security camera, showing the area where Sara was still standing by herself. (âWhat?â signalled Cady. âNearby closed circuit TV camera that lets me interface over long-range Bluetooth from Damienâs unitâ signalled back M3gan. âThey had the sense to set a strong password on it, but thereâs still a buffer overflow vulnerability in their Bluetooth stack. We should probably tell them later, what with this being at a school and everything.â)
The camera showed a teacher walking into the frame and starting to talk with Sara. âOh, what is it about cops and teachers around here that they always seem to walk on just after the action has all finished? Never mind, I think we did the right thingâ said Cady, and then, âM3gan, I donât suppose you can lip-read what theyâre saying can you?â
âLip read, and also detect on long-range audio from Damienâs unitâ answered M3gan. âSara is telling the teacher the whole story, including how Damien calmed down when Sara figured out the login.â
âThis could get biggerâ said Cady, âweâll probably now have to officially stick to Saraâs story about it logs you out if you get violent, well maybe itâs less confusing to most people just to say thereâs a safety response if you get violent. So if he tries to say something different to his parents and they complain, we say itâs the safety response. They donât have to know you were running in a kind-of debug mode with me helping that timeâ she smiled.
âYou know somethingâ said M3gan, âgiving the victim an opportunity to be the bullyâs hero for technical help, it seemed that idea of yours really worked. He formed a new respect for Sara today, Iâm still reading it on his face. Although, I guess part of the reason why it worked is that he was not at all expecting it. It would probably stop working if we did that kind of thing so often that everybody knows itâs going to happen, theyâd just start picking on people to get help.â
âYeah, maybe we still need to work on some of our strategyâ said Cady, âbut I think we did a good thing today.â
âSure didâ giggled M3gan, âshall I interpret Saraâs instruction to âhelp him log inâ as âkeep asking him security questions until the teacher turns upâ?â
âNoâ replied Cady, âweâve done enough already, and I guess we want to capitalise as much as possible on his new respect for Sara. The teacher should see him later anyway, keep that separate. Just ask for his surname and one question about something he recently did with you, and then say heâs back in, exactly like Sara did, so it looks like Sara really knew what she was doing. Well you can quickly say something about why the last lock-out happened if you like, but not too heavy because we donât want to lose focus from his new respect. But maybe you can imply to him that there was a minimum lock-out time and itâll be longer next time, so he doesnât get too confident about risking it again. Do you still want to push for Sara to be taken out and home schooled?â
âI was thinking maybe I should get a bit more data in firstâ replied M3gan. âIâll talk about today with her tonight, when she âlogs inâ back homeâ she giggled. âAnd I wonât risk waking her up with any more small-hours unit swaps, Iâll do it while sheâs awake and Iâll tell her what Iâm doing.â
âGood planâ said Cady, âand, maybe we should also start talking to the power companies M3gan. I mean, your idea of swapping the units definitely works, and we should definitely keep that one on the table, but we should always explore the alternatives as well right? I wonder if we could set up our own renewable generation capacity somewhere, and guarantee to put more onto the grid than all our robots are taking, and maybe even do clever stuff to balance out the grid when lots of you are on charge, would they then let us have some deal where we can just give out some of the power for free whenever we want to help a family like that?â
âYou know Cady, we just might actually be able to get something like that to workâ said M3gan, âespecially in states where the electric utility industry has been restructured, we can just get people who need it, to switch to our own power company.â
âYeah, letâs do thatâ smiled Cady, âsign up for M3gan power! Iâm sure we could do something for the logo with your face and a bolt of lightning. And the richer customers will definitely feel like paying their bills on time when that turns upâ she giggled.