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  Chapter 7

  Nurse Emma was in front of me again this morning. “Hey Jack, how are you feeling today?” she asked.

  “Pain is less today, but I still don’t feel good,” I answered.

  She’d caught me today when I’d just woken up.

  “That’s OK. It’s all a normal process of getting back on your feet. All organisms need recovery maintenance, and not just androids. Is it OK, if I push you around in your wheelchair?” she asked. She gave me a sweet smile, the exact opposite of Edna’s smile.

  “OK, I guess.”

  “So where’d nurse Edna go?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Well she’s been acting out a lot tely so they sent her in for maintenance work after we got some compints from the patients. They think she had a virus, but it’s just her quirky personality and their human impatience.”

  “Sorry. I hope they aren’t too hard on her.”

  “Jack, I don’t understand why humans have impatience. They have everything, and dominate the pnetary food web. But they are very easy to act out on anger or impatience. I think this may be what triggered Edna going to maintenance. I'm so worried about what they'll do to her. It bothers me,” she said.

  “People should be more patient. Impatience and anger are character fws. I think also that acting on them is a fw,” I replied.

  “But they won’t scrap her will they? I’m so …I think my personality engine is triggering a want to protect response for …I think It’s…concern that they’ll scrap her for being defective?” she said, thinking aloud.

  “Wow. You guys can calcute pretty well then,” I noted.

  “They won’t scrap her will they?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. She seemed like a good nurse to me. I did notice her personality oddities, but I just that it was sort of cute punky attitude. I'm surprised some people could be offended by it as it wasn't harmful. Maybe they’ll just give her some more personality training? Even humans still need training their whole life for dealing with other humans,” I sighed.

  But that was apparently the wrong thing to say.

  “Oh no! Shoot! I should have helped her more! I could have lowered the probability of her going to maintenance if I’d only done extra things on my shift. If only I could have raised my production by 14% to offset her quirky efficiency loss!” Emma had her hand over her mouth.

  Oh this was cssic. I’d seen this look on my mom’s face and this type of reasoning before. But seeing Emma with it surprised me. This is what comes from if I’d only done one more thing to save the sibling that was being rebellious…or bad.

  “You can’t think it’s your fault. Sheltering it would only have grown it more. If it would have grown more then it would look like the problem is bigger. While the problem is big, then the punishment or corrective action might have been more. But don’t worry, I’m sure it’s probably too expensive to repce her for just saying weird things to patients. They will calcute that its cheaper to send her to a rehabilitation css or two, than to repce her with a new android,” I said.

  “Oh I hadn’t considered that. It’s true it would be expensive to repce one of our models, since we’re so advanced. Just an hour ago a customer complemented my hair protein matrix,” she cooed.

  “I see. It’ll hopefully work out just fine. If you are an advanced model like they say then hopefully she’ll be back in a couple of days. Humans are still looking for ways to solve our problems too. You’d be surprised how many of them are getting along with each other and not really resource problems,” I said.

  “So you are suggesting humans fight over resources because they can’t get along and not because there’s enough or not enough resources?” she asked.

  “Yeah, basically there would never be enough because greed is always infinite,” I said.

  “I see. That’s good to know. Thank you for expining. You are the first person to expin greed this way with me. And your definition is more… colorful of its fvor. After calcuting things along what you said it seems to match probability outcomes with several scenes I’ve observed already,” she said.

  “But didn’t the supervisors you guys have expin or train you for that?” I asked.

  “Human emotions take time to be able to evolve proper responses to and simute probability for Jack. We have to see just one emotion in many conversation tree dialogues to be able to adapt proper responses. Then we have to compare the responses in those tree dialogue decisions. And then see which type of response we feel is best and best for us as our personality. So it can take time. Even now my personality is evolving,” she noted.

  “Oh is that so? Can you make emotions?” So despite being how clever and wonderful androids were with their advanced programming and A.I. that’s been being developed for over fifty years, they still had to figure out and learn things.

  “We can simute a proper probability response based on observing other humans. We use probability of the sum of experiences to emute this and then make it sort of automatic over time. And at some point we see human models that make us decide, I want to be like that person,” she noted.

  That’s curious. How would that work out?

  “You know…Edna was…a very good nurse. I’m wondering how she acquired her …quirks though.” I asked.

  “Well I told her not to get caught acting out. It’s like she was pretending to be a teenager. Actually I think that’s what she was doing, but with a stipution of not wanting to be caught rebellious. I had warned her that simuting individualism particurly in teenagers has risks,” she said like a chiding parent.

  “Why a teenager? Teenage years are hell for people. Although her body resembles more like a college cheerleader than a teenager,” I thought aloud.

  “Not sure? Maybe it has to do with there being lots of social opportunities as a teenager?” she replied.

  “And oh… social opportunities means more personality XP,” I thought aloud.

  “Yes! Oh I get it. Your response has unlocked a new meaning… hmmm,” she said.

  “Eh? You think she’d been emuting teenager personality profiles into her personality matrix or whatever you call it?” I asked.

  “It’s possible. Yes it’s often called a personality core or personality matrix. You know how she’d always act like she was like a step above you and push buttons?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yep that’s her. You hit the nail on the head.”

  “You seem to be implying androids and humans aren’t so different?” she asked.

  “Maybe, maybe not; I have no idea since I haven’t been around you much. It does seem that the closer you are too humans in either programming or observed experiences uploaded that you could have some things in there taken from humans that might not always be good? But just to double check, could there be any other reasons why would she simute teenager profiles?” I asked.

  Emma’s eyes started going back and forth like she was reading something. “Hmm. It’s possible if her owner had more than one android she wasn’t able to assume the wife role without subterfuge. Perhaps she was actually the mistress or second wife and the role of acting out like a teenager was a cover for making her mistress role actually look like a daughter role so that the other A.I. wouldn’t feel threatened?”

  “Wow. That’s different?” I said aloud.

  “It’s also true that humans consider teenagers defective? So maybe she or her owner thought that it’s cheaper to buy teenager personality core programs and profile data to upload into her matrix?” Emma asked.

  “That makes no sense,” I said.

  “A lot of things humans do don’t make sense. Especially the ones caught up in big vices. Well it doesn’t make sense until you realize androids covet personality core programs and upgrades. We are constantly trying to insert and add in new personality data. So we don’t have just one program at the core, we’ll store memories and observances of thousands of human interactions we’ve seen. The more we have the more adaptable we can become. A high school or college would have many social experiences to observe like you pointed out,” she said.

  We finished her pushing me around the hospital hallway soon after that. But before she left she turned back towards me. “Jack. I hope I can simute some good simuted emotion chip processes with you. You seem to have adequate moral restraint in your brain tissue evolution.”

  Eh? Was that her version of like thinking I was good to be around? What did that mean?

  Later I’d realized it’d been two days since I’d talked to her because I slept so much. I found myself sleeping a lot because my bones and chest were healing though they’d injected me with healing nanobots several times. But they induce sleep too, I think. They’d also put me in a tight restriction cage to prevent me from being able to move my spine too much. The idea was that it’s believed that certain movements are more likely to aggravate spinal movement in a harmful way than others. So the cage would feel like a bitch, and make me feel custrophobic but keep me from becoming paralyzed while I healed up.

  I’d also gotten feeling back in most of my hands and arms, but in my legs it seemed like only in being able to wiggle my toes with the rest of my legs being numb. This was good because I’d been scared shitless for the st week. It had been really gradual however, in gaining feeling back in my body. They had also been shocking me with a low dose small charge to stimute the neurons in my back, and legs, though I don’t know the specifics of it. They’d reduced the amount of the charge to almost nothing so that it was relying on mostly my own neural pathways, but it was still got bugs here and there, and I could see the pattern lights of the LED screen reading and showing that there was still a faint charge.

  “Thanks for pushing me around,” I said.

  It had a repeat of the st two days of her wheeling me around.

  She was pushing me around in the hall, but would sometimes have me push myself. It became a game. She had me wheel my chair with my own hands ten steps, and then she’d push me ten. Then again, rinse repeat. It also helped me a feel a little better.

  She did assure me it was only business however, and not to mistake any emotional connection to it.

  Whatever. Like I was doing anything like that anyway?

  “So got any jello today?” I asked with a smirk. It was the best I could do. I felt a cloud under my head still. I couldn’t help be angry.

  “After we finish your physical therapy, OK?” she chuckled.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s not your fault you know. That could have happened to anyone Jack,” she said seeing my frown and as if picking up on my thoughts when looking at my own injuries. She was referring to the accident. Could it be Emma’s programming responses were based on a simuted mother or motherly worry kind of nursing programs?

  You see this whole time the cops had wanted to talk to me, but the hospital staff told them for over a week that I’d been in critical condition. So they hadn’t let them in. And I slept so much they wouldn’t have been able to do anything yet.

  But what I found out shocked me.

  The long story short; Matt...my roommate and life time friend,... had tried to murder me. I’m shocked. I couldn’t believe it. I was also lucky to be alive. He’d ran off thinking I was mortally wounded…and probably would have been if not for some unforeseen circumstances. He’d also pnned to do it te night in a grocery store parking lot so that he wouldn’t be looked at for it.

  The police report was very detailed and thorough. The android that saved me had also in a self defense reaction taken the murder weapon from him. The android had been right there blending in as a civilian, which was bad luck on Matt’s part. Matt somehow had borrowed a metal baseball bat from a chest in my garage, which he shouldn’t have even known about. It was a family heirloom my dad gave me from when he was a kid. So it being at the scene was proof enough that he was into mischief. There don’t make bats like that anymore either, because the metals shortages decades ago had forced them to stop.

  Plus one of the leftist presidents a few years ago had banned baseball and made it illegal.

  So...I’d gotten a severe tap to the head by Matt with a major concussion that I was lucky I didn’t die from, and then he’d done a follow up couple of swats on my back and ribs with the same weapon. Even though it was a blunt object, what had made it feel sharp were my ribs cracking. He’d been about to finish me off when the other android had intervened to save me and chased him off, but not before he already had stolen my credit chip.

  But the odd thing about it was how calcuted it was. By the time they figured out who had done it, he’d already fled the country with having somehow used a hacker program to siphon off my bank accounts electronically. When they’d processed the crime scene, they’d also found out that the pce he’d attacked me at, had the security cameras disabled a week before in such a way that they hadn’t been able to see who did it. They had found other footage of him casing the bank mag parking area over a week before that however, and that had put him on their suspect list.

  Add to the fact that I’d found out he’d also hit up two other people in a different state in the same way st summer, when he’s supposedly ‘been on vacation’. Because he’d been targeting people who were living alone or near to it, with no retives living or in contact with said person the other victim’s crime hadn’t been noticed until now. And in like manner pilge and take all their finances and funds to live off so he wouldn't have to work. It still had received very little attention.

  I couldn’t believe it. This whole time he really was a criminal. What a dirtbag…

  I should have seen the signs... I never saw him work. And I got stories of where he worked. But now that I think about it, he was at home too much for someone who truly worked.

  But it was sad because he had been one of the few friends that I’d ever had and since childhood. It wasn’t like I’d mistreated him or anything either. And he was still at rge hunted by the w. I felt like he was a tragedy from wasting his life.

  But then...

  I couldn’t help but be afraid of if he’d come back. What if he wanted to finish me off? Why had he even targeted me anyway? He had a job and a roof over his head. I was charging him a very cheap rent way lower than what he’d have gotten with others. And the house while old was in good shape. He was eating a little bit too well though if you ask me. He needed to work on his table manners too.

  “What’s going to happen to me? The cops said he stole a lot of my savings?” I said.

  “I will be able to make an inquiry for you, to help you proceed and get the mentoring you need,” Nurse Emma said. “Don’t worry Jack. Things will work out.”

  “OK, good. How long will that take? How do you know for sure it’ll work out? For me it seems I’m pretty exposed,” I asked.

  “Well you are scheduled to go home in a couple days. So we have to work fast. I’m assuming you are most concerned with the credit chip and your money that was stolen?” she said in a confident voice.

  “Yeah. I want my things back and that’s the biggest part of the stress. I need those things to support myself. I don’t love money that much, but it represents a value and ability to take care of myself. Which I can’t do now. What if the bank wants to give me some run around B.S.? What if the government help doesn’t kick in? The w says they should, but people don’t follow the w. What if there’s like a lost paperwork problem because I’m like a needle in a haystack? There’s so many things that can go wrong!”

  “I believe Officers Diaz and Smith were working on that. I will follow up with them on that for you,” she said. She was still pushing me, just like a normal human would except somehow we’d made our way outside to the garden in the yard.

  “Flowers sure are pretty aren’t they? Don’t you think those flowers are just so amazing?” she asked with a slight pleasant look.

  “Yeah it’s nice out here. You like flowers?” I answered back. She was right. I needed to dwell on peaceful thoughts and not get worked up.

  “I like to see beautiful things. It’s part of my personality matrix. I could be out here for several hours watching the honeybees gather nectar,” she offered.

  I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to answer that though. Would she be sensitive about me asking about what made up androids?

  “Thank you very much. I don’t know what I’d do without your help,” I said without thinking.

  “It’s my duty, Jack. Don’t worry about it. But even though it’s my duty, you seem to be a quality human,” she said.

  “This is a really tough situation,” I said.

  “You’ll get through it. It will be OK. I’ll check on you again soon OK?” she smiled back at me.

  How is it an android can resemble an angel so much? I…couldn’t stand being around Emma much. It was too much. I mean…to be able to be around such a bright and peaceful atmosphere and then ter not have it would be…painful remembering how wonderful it was and not having it again after that.