Chapter 50
Gabrielle's POV
"Gabby? What are you doing here? It’s your day off," Lincoln says, approaching me.
I shrug, glancing around. “Sarah asked me to come in. She said you guys were stuck on some clutter-adaptation thing with the robot. Or… I dunno. Something about it bugging out when people move through the room.”
“What?” Lincoln just stares at me confused.
“Do you guys not communicate?” I ask, half-joking. “She made it sound urgent. And she said my schedule's flexible. Just thirty minutes of me walking around, shifting stuff. Figured I’d help.”
Lincoln freezes. His jaw tightens.
“She told you that?” he asks, voice sharp now.
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “Why? Is that not what’s going on?”
Lincoln doesn’t answer right away. He glances toward the testing chamber wing, then back at me.
Now I'm feeling creeped out.
"Come on. Walk with me," Lincoln says.
We fall into step together, Morris’s carrier wheels clicking softly on the polished floor. I'm glad I bought this for him. This way he can still look out and have fresh air, so it's like he's on the cart but in his own little bed.
"Sarah didn’t clear this with me. Or anyone, far as I know," Lincoln says.
"What the hell is going on…" Lincoln mutters under his breath.
We reach the chamber door. It’s already ajar. Inside, Sarah stands at the control panel, back to us, prepping the sim.
Lincoln pushes the door fully open.
She turns, tablet in hand. “Hm?”
She looks confused.
That makes two of us.
“You asked her to come in for a fresh human input session?” Lincoln cuts in. “On a Saturday? Without running it by me?”
Sarah shrugs, unfazed. “We’re on a tight clock, Lincoln. I figured if we could get one more quick run with a completely unfamiliar person, we might finally confirm the reweighting works before Monday. Proper channels take too long. You know how he is.”
“Did you even apply the fix first?” Lincoln asks, voice sharp.
Sarah nods. “Tom already ran the patch. It’s in. We just need to see if it holds with a fresh profile.”
Honestly, I have no idea what the hell they're talking about.
They both argue back and forth as I just stand here looking like an idiot.
"… And you really insist this can’t wait till Monday?” Lincoln asks.
Sarah lets out a soft laugh. "Again, it is the weekend. Channels are slow. We’re on a clock, Lincoln. You know that. And something tells me based on how stressed you look, that it's about to be some bullshit with the boss. Right? Is he riding your ass?"
Lincoln glances at me, then back at Sarah.
The air feels thick.
"You don’t have to do this," Lincoln says to me gently.
"It’s fine," I say, shrugging, uneasy now. "If it helps…"
Sarah smiles wider. "See? Everyone wins. Let’s get started," Sarah says.
Lincoln’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t move. “Hold on…”
The chamber lights dim slightly as the creepy bot powers on in the background, eyes glowing, waiting.
Lincoln doesn’t take his eyes off the chamber when he speaks.
“I don’t like this,” he says flatly. “Not with the drift still unresolved.”
Sarah doesn’t look up from her tablet. “She’s not interacting with the robot directly.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Lincoln snaps. “You saw what it did. The torque overshoot. The hesitation loop. If it loses context again—”
“It won’t,” Sarah cuts in calmly. “And even if it does, Gabby won’t be anywhere near its operational radius.”
“Wait, what?” I ask, now feeling the concern Lincoln does.
Sarah finally looks up at Lincoln, patient in a way that feels rehearsed.
“Lincoln, remove your personal feelings for just a second. She’s just walking the room. Creating natural clutter. No handoffs. No proximity tasks. The robot’s on passive observation mode only… for the most part. You weren't losing your shit when I was close to the robot.”
Lincoln’s jaw tightens. “Passive systems still move when the confidence drops. And I didn't know beforehand that the robot had that severe of an issue.”
Sarah sighs. “Which is why we throttled the actuator output and locked the arm pathing. Look.”
She taps her screen and turns it toward him. “See? Motion dampeners are active. Worst case, it freezes.”
I shift my weight. “Lincoln, it’s fine. I’m literally just… walking around.”
As nervous as I feel, I can tell Lincoln is stressed. Whatever issues he and I might have, I legitimately do want this to get off the ground. He worked so hard, and honestly maybe a part of it is vanity or ego or whatever word of the day. It’s a strange situation.
I lost my marriage with him to this job. If he fails at it, not only would I have lost my marriage but I would have lost it for no reason whatsoever. Some good needs to come of it, as daft as that might sound.
He looks at me then, really looks at me, like he’s trying to decide whether to fight this or not.
“This isn’t your problem to solve,” he says quietly.
Sarah softens her voice. “Which is why I’m keeping it controlled. I promise.”
A beat.
Lincoln shifts uncomfortably, almost imperceptibly nodding for Sarah to start.
Lincoln stands near the chamber threshold, arms crossed, eyes tracking every idle twitch of the robot.
“I really don’t like this,” he repeats. “I just… I know we’re pressed for time, but the spikes are too volatile.”
Sarah nods. “I know. That’s why, like I said… she isn’t interacting directly. Take a breather.”
“That doesn’t erase the risk,” Lincoln says. “Context collapse is exactly when it behaves unpredictably.”
For some reason Lincoln feeling nervous makes me feel that there's definitely a reason to be. But having him here also makes me feel safe.
The robots always creeped me out, and it's bad enough that they're built to look human-shaped, but now we've got companies trying to make them walk around houses on their own.
I'm kind of glad that the rich are the ones getting them first. That way they'll be the first to bite the dust if the robots decide to go rogue.
That sounds awful even in my head, but it's not like those people would care about people like little old me or my father or even Lincoln if something like that happened to us.
Everyone's pushing for machines to do everything while at the same time losing everything that makes us human.
More time, Voss said.
More freedom to do the things that we all love and to spend time with our loved ones, and all I'm wondering is what the hell is he talking about?
The more technology we have, the less time we spend with each other, especially face-to-face.
The only reason people have cars is not to travel the world and to other states to have different experiences, but to drive every single day back and forth to the same exact area to work the same exact hours until they're 65 and can barely move and are almost in the ground with nothing to show for it, with expenses rising.
That's what we have to look forward to. My mother was a victim of that very system. It was the machine that killed her.
And with all the machines and technology that we have now, they still, for some reason, despite my father breaking his body to make the very infrastructure that people enjoy, still somehow can't create something to fix this issue.
Lincoln sacrificed himself to birth this product into existence along with his team, ironically to bring people closer together so that families can have more time to spend with each other, but at the expense of him sacrificing his own relationships and costing himself that very connection.
It's all very… meta… and honestly depressing.
For Lincoln's sake I'm excited for him and for all the people who are looking to this for the future, but all I see when I look at that damn robot is another rung in the confirmation of humanity's impending destruction.