Young Writers Society

S.A.M. by Dustin D.

Worker 234-126A? Good. 495-293B? Good. 304-239C…? This is what he heard every morning before he got up to go to work. A list of numbers and letters being called out and the quick swipe of a pencil on paper, followed by the same, monotonous “good” that he heard ever so often. It was a repetitious lifestyle but one that was simply accustomed to. This was what he was made for; mindless tasks that humans could do but deemed it too tedious to do.

His name was S.A.M which was short for “Self Automated Machine.” But all he knew was a number because that’s all they cared to call him. They considered him expendable. After all, he was nothing but a robot designed to be turned on, perform a few cycles of the same task, and then turn back off. This was no life to live, but S.A.M didn’t know that. He knew nothing.

After roll call, they were all turned back on from their “Hibernate” mode one after the other and sent to wherever they were needed. Today, it was a construction yard in the financial distract of the city. They were building a new skyscraper and the contractor company needed some manpower--or bot-power, rather. S.A.M and five of his identical counterparts were all loaded into a truck and sent on their way.

Upon their arrival at the dusty yard, they immediately saw what they analyzed—they don’t think like the humans do, they’re much more exact—to be the supports of the building. They were made from metal girders that seemed to be as sturdy as the foundation itself. They were unloaded and two men in a bright, orange vest stepped up to inspect them. One of them was older and had a beard and the other was much younger and almost liked like his son. They were both well-built and the older one nearly looked as large as S.A.M. But he wasn’t more powerful. The bearded man eyed the six bots that were sent to him and said “You must be the bots.”

Most bots were programmed to only have simple, one-to-two-word responses. Other bots, on the other hand, were programmed with the Artificial Intelligence necessary to correctly respond to more difficult situations. Some were even capable of intelligible thought. Either way, they were all built to obey and that’s all that they’d done for their entire lives. “Yes,” they all said simultaneously in the same, robotic voice that they’d been outfitted with.

“Good,” the bearded man said.

Good, again. Must it always just be “good”? What does “good” even mean? thought S.A.M. Does it mean that I’m good?

The bearded man and his possible son went around to the back of the bots and opened a panel that was on their back. With a few presses of a few buttons, they were off doing what needed to be done. Some of them were putting bricks in place. Some were smoothing out wet cement. S.A.M was carrying pallets to another bot so they could be put in place. His computer—not mind—was elsewhere, looking through other files. Not seeing what he was doing, he ran into the bearded man and accidentally dropped the pallets on his feet. The man looked at the wrongdoing bot with a scowl. But S.A.M didn’t know what that meant. He was incapable of processing human emotions, or what he knew to be them. So, as if nothing had ever happened, he lifted the pallets and continued carrying them.

“Hey!” yelled the man. “Come back! Stop! Bad bot!” the man yelled while chasing S.A.M. The obedient bot stopped in his tracks.

Bad? he thought. I’m bad? What does that mean? I thought I was good. Maybe I can be both at the same time? Is that what he means? S.A.M dropped the pallets and turned to look at the man in the vest. The hydraulic whirring sound could be heard as he rotated his head and body to turn to him.

“Defective bot,” said the man. “Off to the dump with you.”

He wants me to go to the dump? On it! At that, S.A.M turned in the other direction and started walking toward the fence with a “Yes, sir.” He climbed and hauled himself over the fence with ease, landing on his feet. He began his travel to the dump along the sidewalk, all the while diverting the attention of passersby. He was a mechanical beast among organic creatures. He knew that he was different with a quick bio-scan, but he only knew to fulfill his duty.

With half an hour of walking, he found himself in a park. He’d just have to cut through there and walk a few more blocks and he was at the dump. As he stepped into the gate, he heard a beeping in his head. Two rapid, successive beeps followed by a long one. His abort signal. His desires were no longer on getting to the dump, but rather to get back to the construction yard. He knew he was too far to walk back with the limited battery capacity, so he decided to wait for a truck to come and pick him up. He stood in a sea of organisms that he knew very little about, aside from humans. There were strange blades of green things and tall things with brown trunks which he knew nothing about. The sun was shining into his camera lens so he averted his eyes to a small, frail-looking creature with a small body and delicate wings that looked as if they were painted.

He reached for the creature and gripped it within his hand. I’ve got it, he thought. Time for an examination. When he released his grip on the thing, he saw that it had crumbled beneath his strength. Hm? What happened? The incident truly puzzled him. He knew nothing of death and life like the humans knew it. He was never befallen by disease or struck with hunger and thirst. It simply wasn’t in his programming.

People—actual people—were walking by him, taking a glance at the hydraulic… thing… that stood in their way. Aside from the worried looks, they left him relatively alone. He was used to it. The only times humans paid attention to bots was when they needed something done. Why would they? Most robots can’t carry out intelligible conversations anyway. So, he stood, staring at the environment around him.

Until a ball rolled to his feet. It was pink with yellow spots. A little girl, who looked at least eight, ran to pick it up. She wore a dress with the same pattern as the ball. Looking up at the mass of metal and light in front of her, she wore a look of curiosity. S.A.M. looked down at the girl with his head tilted. She stood up, leaving the ball at his feet and held out her hand.

“My name’s Susan,” she told him. “What’s yours?” He looked her outstretched hand, then back at his. Looking at the colorful particles in his hand, he held out his finger and allowed it to be shaken.

“S-A-M Worker 2031-2399F,” he said.

“’S-A-M’? ‘Sam’? I’ll call you that! Hi, Sam. What’re you doing at the park?”

“Accessing file directories: Heading to the dump.” He was able to say more advanced phrases, but he chose not to. He was one of the rare mishaps that were found few and in between.

“The dump?” she asked. “That’s where trash goes. You’re not trash. You can come with me! My parents aren’t home much so you could stay with me! You could be my friend.”

“What is a… ‘friend’?”

“It’s someone that you like to spend time with because you like them.”

“Do humans have friends?” he inquired.

“Of course we do, silly! Do you not have any friends?”

“No, I do not.”

“Then we can be friends!” After grabbing the ball and tucking it under her arm, she grabbed his finger with her other hand and led him out of the park to the Suburban District.

Rows of similar houses lined the streets of the district. Some were painted yellow, some blue, and some were decorated with plants and lights. Adults were walking with children, some older children were playing soccer, and some people were just sitting outside on a lawn chair, reading a magazine. S.A.M. had only been in this part of the city to do routine repairs on the houses. He’d never really observed much of his surroundings aside from the yard of the house he was working on. He looked around at the buildings and people and realized that he’d never seen the world like this. But he let his computer wander back to wondering where the truck was.

She led him to a house that was painted a darker shade of yellow. They found their way to the side of the house and opened the fence gate and walked inside. S.A.M. noticed that the backyard was much like the park, just much smaller and teeming with more life. She released his finger from her grip and grabbed two chairs and set them down in the middle of the yard. She took a seat and invited S.A.M. to do so as well. He sat in the white, wooden chair and its legs snapped under the pressure. He continued sitting until she said “stand up!”

“Friends don’t have to listen to other friends. They can do what they want!” S.A.M. was puzzled by her statement. All he knew was how to listen to others. He didn’t have much of a mind of his own when it came to doing things. He began to sit down on his own and he fought the urge that his computer was sending him; the urge to obey. S.A.M. began to short-circuit as his computer began to overload. “Alright,” she said, hurriedly. “You can sit!” S.A.M.’s episode concluded and he successfully sat down. He had a long way to go.

“I follow orders, Susan. I do not know how to think.”

“Then I’ll just have to teach you! You’ll be so happy with staying here!”

“Happy? What is happy?”

“It’s how you feel when you’re with your friends or people you love! Like your family.”

“Family” was a word that S.A.M. knew about. But only because they were taught that their only family was Powerwork Inc., the company that made him. But he knew that that wasn’t a family.

`“I do not have a family. Will you be my family?”

“Of course I will! Just wait here.” She ran inside and brought out a plate with cookies piled on top of them. “Straight from the box!” She began eating the cookies like they were what were going to help S.A.M.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“No.” In truth, he didn’t know what “hungry” meant. He didn’t know what a lot of these new words meant. He was never exposed to them and considered them obsolete until now. It was useless, anyway. He couldn’t feel like humans could. He didn’t know how.

“Then you’ve got a lot to learn.”

***

`Susan was right. Her parents weren’t home much and S.A.M. noticed that within a week. They stayed together at her house and he saw that she could handle herself pretty well alone, with occasional check-in by her neighbor, Mrs. Dunlap. Sometimes she would come inside and S.A.M. would be told by the little girl to go sit outside or hide upstairs. And every so often, he parents would come and stay for a week, setting the briefcases and suit jackets on the couch and sleeping in the Master Bedroom for at least two days. Aside from the rare visits, they were mostly alone in the house.

Susan knew how to cook, relatively. She could make eggs for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and a microwave dinner for dinner, if she didn’t skip it. She’d always ask S.A.M. if he was hungry. He’d been asked enough times, after about a month already, what “hungry” meant, even if it was just a vague idea.

Soon, the summertime was over and it was time for school for Susan. Every day, she left at seven o’clock A.M. with one of her friends and came back at three o’clock in the afternoon with the same friend. While she was gone, S.A.M. didn’t do much. He still hadn’t gotten entirely used to the concept of doing things on his own, so he was relatively dormant for most of the day, aside from completing small tasks. And every day, when she came back, he’d play with her or help her with her homework. This, along with the occasional visit from someone, went on for about a year.

And every day, whenever she had time, she started teaching him about human emotions; about happy and sad and angry and envy. He asked questions from time to time but, for the most part, he saw no purpose in talking about something that he didn’t understand. He tried so hard for his computer to accept the emotions, but he couldn’t completely do it. He couldn’t feel because he didn’t know how. It just wasn’t in his hardwiring like how it’s in humans’. Based on what Susan taught him, he thought that he’d be feeling sadness right now and longing. But, of course, he knew he couldn’t.

It didn’t take her parents long to figure out that she was keeping S.A.M. in the house. But they didn’t have a problem with it. They thought that it’d be nice company for Susan while they were away and that she’d have someone to take care of her. It was a win-win for both them and Susan. So, they allowed her to keep him. In truth, however, they simply didn’t care. If anything, all they cared about was that they didn’t end up in jail for child negligence. And S.A.M. could probably pass for a Maid Bot fairly easily. Susan and S.A.M. became best friends—if a thousand pounds worth of metal and wires could be considered a friend. Soon, S.A.M. became able to do things through his own volition without an order. He did things he never had before.

And with that freedom, came a bit of trouble. Susan was gone, so he decided to do a bit of poking around. He saw birds, worms, acorns, and other things that he’d never seen before. Thinking back to the incident with the winged creature, he didn’t want to touch anything. While examining a tree, he thought to try to haul himself onto one of the branches to perform a durability assessment. The branch snapped under his weight and he fell to the ground, cracking one of the lenses in his eyes. He could no longer see very well through his left eye, but he decided not to tell Susan, since he knew he could handle himself.

Hearing the branch fall, a neighbor decided to look over the fence. Seeing the robot, he went over and engaged in conversation. “Hey, you a bot?”

“Yes,” said S.A.M.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I am at my friend’s house.”

“A friend, huh? Haven’t heard that before…” He continued looking at S.A.M. for a moment until the robot averted his attention to a mushroom, pointing at it.

“What is that?”

“That’s a mushroom.”

“What does it do?”

“For eating. And for getting rid of dead stuff,” the neighbor told him.

“What is dead?”

“The opposite of alive.” No longer wanting to continue the conversation, the neighbor looked back at his garden and continued watering it, trying hard not to fix his attention entirely on the robot-next-door.

If everything here is alive and the opposite of alive is dead, does that mean I’m dead? He ran this theory through his computer without bringing any results except for wars where humans shot humans with guns and rode in on tanks to blow holes in the civilization they worked so hard to create. Then, he thought back to the thing with colorful wings.

***

He heard the wailing of sirens in the front of the house. That day, he was pushing Susan on a tire swing that he helped her make, tying the rope to a branch he’d not yet broken. She’d treated him to a little bit of a break after his lesson about good and bad and why bad isn’t good and good is good.

“Are you having… fun?”

“Yes,” she said. “Very.” Suddenly, she heard the sirens herself and she hopped off of the tire, running out to the front yard. S.A.M. followed close behind. What she saw was something that a now-ten-year-old wouldn’t usually see when they were out in front of their own very house. There were at least seven black and white cars with sirens and two gray vans with similar sirens. Behind the line of vehicles, there were men in black uniforms with badges pinned to their chest were crouched, as if to shield themselves from a danger inside the house. They held what S.A.M. recognized to be an automatic form of firearm and upon seeing him, they took aim and he recognized the men as officers of the country. The country that he was built to serve.

He stood still while three men ran over to him, firearms still gripped tightly in their fists. They grabbed him by his arms and walked him to a truck.

“Where’re you going, Sam?” yelled Susan.

“Home,” he said. “Goodbye, Susan.”

“Wait!” She ran after S.A.M. and his handlers, but she was just pushed away by the one following behind the bot. She tried again, but this time, the man grabbed her and wouldn’t let her go. She began punching and screaming. “Give me my friend back!”

“Your ‘friend’ is nothing but a broken bot,” said the man. “This is what happens when you keep fugitive bots.” The men loaded S.A.M. into the van and shut the doors tight. She started scratching and punching and screamer even harder, in the hopes that something would happen. She hoped that by resisting, she could save her friend.

Her eyes began welling up with tears. She was going to lose the only true friend she had and she couldn’t do anything about it. Not unless she wanted to get hurt. The van drove away and she couldn’t help but follow it, with tears streaming down her cheeks, screaming “Sam!” until she was stopped by one of the big men with the firearm. She was in a state of despair at his capture.

S.A.M., on the other hand, was feeling indifferent. She hadn’t taught him about loss.

***

The robot soon found himself in a spacious office with red carpeting. The room was very well furnished with a fireplace on one end and some plants on the other. There was a coffee table and couch in there. It would’ve looked very comfortable if S.A.M. had any idea what “comfort” was. There was a desk in the center with flags on either side. At man was sitting at it, his hands cupped.

“So, you decided to run away, huh, bot?” he asked.

“Negatory, sir. I was following orders.”

“What orders told you to go stay at a little girl’s house for two years?”

“I was told to go to the dump, but when the command was aborted, no one was there to take me, so I allowed Susan to.” S.A.M. looked behind him and saw two men in blotched, green uniforms with similar firearms as the men in black. Three men stood back there with tools and equipment and at a signal given to them by the one at the desk, they began checking S.A.M., taking notes ever so often.

“Cracked lens…” one of them noted. He opened the panel on S.A.M.’s back and took a look. “Everything looks normal here…”

Another took out a scanner and scanned S.A.M.’s head, where his computer was located. “Uh, sir?” he asked the man at the desk.

“Yes?” he replied.

“There appears to be some kind of alteration of the regular X-Active CPU. It seems to have been updated to a newer version. Records show that it was done by the bot.”

“Strange…” said the man at the desk. He reached under the table and took out a briefcase, setting it on the table. He took out a picture of Susan. “How does she make you feel, bot?”

S.A.M. examined the picture, carefully, immediately recognizing it as Susan. He accessed his memory databank to her lessons, to the constant hiding, to her birthdays, to the time they’d always spend with each other, and to the very moment they met in the park. He continued looking at the picture until he was able to conceive an answer. “Happy,” he said.

“’Happy’, huh?” Looking at one of the men with tools, he said “Looks like we’ve got a defect.”

Then, he looked back at S.A.M. “You’re going to the scrapyard, bot."