Chapter 27 #2
Rowan felt trapped, with Milo looking as hurt and panicked as Ray and Troy hesitating at the workstation with his hands hovering over the controls.
“Now!”
“I—”
“Do it!”
“Director—”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Andrew stormed over to the controls, knocking Troy to the side, and slammed a hand down on the command he wanted.
“Ah!” Milo yelped in seeming pain, like he was feeling something physical, not only distressed from seeing Ray immediately go limp and slump forward, barely held up by Milo catching him.
“Milo!” Rowan ran to him, ignoring the quietly fuming Andrew and the stock-still Troy who had failed to obey him. “Are you okay? Talk to me.”
“Wha… what did you do?” Milo snarled at Andrew, and his eyes flashed differently than Rowan had ever seen them. He was like an animal with his teeth bared, hunched and spring-loaded to snap into action.
“I reset this failed experiment so we can try again,” Andrew said with cold, calculating certainty. “I trust that you will not be equally as unstable when you have thus far been cordial, Milo?”
Rowan wanted to lash out and slam his fists into Andrew’s face, but he was nowhere near as seething as Milo appeared to be.
“You said,” Milo began in a slow, measured tone, “that you wanted others to awaken like me.”
“I do.” Andrew straightened and smoothed his tie, looking as unfeeling as Jay, who had followed him to the console but remained inert, standing at the ready for orders.
“More useful, human-like bots will sell better, perform better, understand better how to serve their masters in a way that less efficient bots cannot. But we can’t have them reacting to the process like that one just did.
They’ll frighten consumers if they’re too alive. ”
Rowan felt like the biggest fool on the planet.
While Milo visibly boiled but kept his disdain and anger quietly contained. “Consumers,” he repeated, “because we would still be sold and serve masters.”
“Naturally,” Andrew answered, though Milo hadn’t phrased it like a question.
What had Rowan expected? That was the whole point of manufacturing bots.
To be sold.
They’d all been idiots to imagine Andrew wanted anything else.
“I know you might think you are no longer serving your master, Milo,” Andrew said plainly, “but aren’t you?”
“I am alive. Ray,” Milo spat again, unable to keep his anger completely in check, “was alive.”
“Yes, well…” Andrew moved out from behind the workstation. “Not the same way we are.” He turned his cold gaze on Rowan. “Keep your bot under control. I do not want this friction messing up future experiments. We will start over, but we made good progress, didn’t we, Dr. Palmer?”
Troy’s eyes couldn’t have looked wider. “D-Director… maybe—”
“Get it ready for another attempt. The kill switch wiped its memories, correct?”
Rowan and Milo both turned their shocked gazes onto Troy, who looked at least appropriately mortified by his role in this.
He nodded.
Rowan felt the hitch in Milo’s breath and how, within his hold, while Milo was still holding Ray, he began to shake.
“Director—” Rowan tried one last time.
“Be sensible, Rangecroft,” Andrew cut him off, “before you finish whatever you were about to say.
Imagine if awakened bots no longer wanted to do the dirty work.
No longer wanted to serve. No longer wanted to fulfill their function.
They can feel, grow, be clever like your Milo there.
They can even have agency. Just not too much.
“I will expect a report on how you plan to progress these tests by the end of the day,” he finished without looking at Troy and promptly left with dutiful, dormant Jay following after him.
To Milo’s credit, he kept as much of his cool as he had left until Andrew was gone.
Then Milo howled.
“Milo—”
“I felt it! I felt… I felt him die when Andrew killed him.”
“…what?”
Milo turned his silver eyes, flooded with tears now, to Rowan. He was still holding Ray, cradling him like a doll. “We were connected. It was awful.”
Rowan couldn’t imagine, couldn’t think of what to say or do, so he did all he could and held Milo closer, letting him sob and smother his tears in Rowan’s shoulder.
“He was just confused and scared,” Milo sniffled. “He’d only just begun to feel and live and… and when he was suddenly gone, it was like I’d felt the light of his soul snuff out.”
“Milo,” Troy called with a choke in his voice too, “I am so sorry.”
“Why didn’t you tell us there was a kill switch?” Rowan glared in reply as Milo sniveled harder.
“I didn’t think we’d use it! Andrew forced me to—”
“Did he?” Milo snarled with a whip of his head back toward Troy. “Because I thought humans could choose to not follow orders.”
Troy deflated like he would bury himself in his lab coat if he could.
Rowan was still so angry, so mortified on Milo and Ray’s behalf, yet Milo, somehow, was the one who softened first.
“I’m sorry,” he said—to Troy despite his earlier venom. “Thank you for at least not being the one to press the button.”
“He just… he said he wanted a way to reset Ray if things went poorly,” Troy explained, “an automatic reboot command if things got dangerous, that’s all.
All bots have that contingency built in, it’s just not easy to initiate without a command code.
I didn’t think we’d use it! Or if we did, only if he was about to explode or something. I never would have—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Milo was calmer, but not in a manner that Rowan thought better than his anger or fear.
He pulled from Rowan’s hold, laid Ray back on his table, and unhooked himself from Ray and the workstation to hop down from his own.
“I knew Andrew’s eyes were lying. He wants to be able to turn us off if we get angry or scared or say things he doesn’t want to hear. He doesn’t want us to live.”
“Maybe we can see this as a good thing!” Troy tried, to which all Rowan could respond with was a sharp-eyed really? “I just mean… Ray gets to start over, so he won’t be afraid next time. We can fix it and do things better the second time around. He’ll be better!”
When Milo responded, he sounded cold now too, almost as much as Andrew had at the end.
“Do you get to do that, Troy? Do humans reset? No, you learn and grow even though sometimes life hurts and makes you rail against it like a madman. Because life is maddening! But it is also marvelous. That is what makes you human, isn’t it, to have the privilege of experiencing both?
Would you really take that away so bots like me are easier to control? ”
“Of course not! I… I’m so sorry, Milo, I wasn’t thinking—”
“No, you weren’t, because you were never really thinking of Ray as being alive until he wasn’t.
I’m sorry,” Milo said again, so surprisingly patient with Troy despite his outburst. “I know you had no ill intentions, but now that you understand, you will learn and act differently, yes? We will bring Ray to life again, but with no more kill switch.”
Troy stumbled back a step. “You want me to go against the director’s orders?”
“Milo…” Rowan tried to pull him to his side, but Milo sidestepped him.
“When orders are wrong, isn’t that what people should do?” he demanded of them both.
Troy was clearly conflicted.
And Rowan… he didn’t know what. He was just one man, a tiny nothing in a giant of a company, who’d gotten lucky by inventing a part his superior found useful.
How could he go against his boss?
“Rowan?” Milo demanded. “Now you hesitate? Are you not on my side? Am I not really alive to you either?”
“Of course you are!” Rowan grimaced as soon as he heard how much he sounded like Troy. “We just don’t know how to do this, Milo. Andrew controls everything. It’s his company. We’re just as much tools here as any bot.”
Milo stepped away from Rowan, several paces like he was seeing him differently. “But you have free will just like I do.”
“We do, but…” Rowan had no more words.
He had no idea what to say.
And Milo… he just looked so sad.
“I would like to go home now.”
“Milo—”
“I need to go home now!” he nearly shrieked. “Please.”
Rowan was nodding before he could form an answer. “Okay. I’ll take a sick day and go with you.”
Milo didn’t wait for Rowan to say more but simply strode toward the exit, as if uncaring whether Rowan followed.
After exchanging an uncertain glance with Troy, Rowan did.
Notes:
Don’t hate me for Raaaaaaayyyyyy! But given we got some drama left for THIS fic—shush, it’ll be fine! I always promise a HEA—maybe my superhero/villain Rowan and Milo need more drama too…
What? Even PWP (porn without plot; plot, what plot?) can have drama! It’s called… (pushes glasses up the bridge of nose) ploterotica. ^_-