RoboToys LEVEL 0x001: SELF-DIAGNOSIS
By lcarroll
- 327 reads
Graziano
G. Ravizza Presents:
ROBOTOYS
LEVEL
0x001 SELF-DIAGNOSIS
:-)
December,
Cyburg City,
MegaMart supermarket,
Aisle 21, rack number 30.
At 8:58am, our tiny hero found itself in the fourth box to the left,
right next to the “first edition” webpuppy special offer.
« Hum, batteries...?
Let’s see... one point three volts: a little low, a little low.
Senzium III Processor...?
Hum... 4 multiplied by 7 equals 28 minus 3 equals 25 the square root being... the square root being? Err... let’s leave it at that, let’s just
say it works!
Wheels, tyres and angle sensors?
Spinspinspinspinspin. They seem to be spinning. OK.
Acoustic sensors within the ears?
Testing... testing... is it working? 1-2-3 testing?!
TESTIIIING?!
Yep, looks like it’s working: good, good, very good.
Expressive mechatronics?
Seems like everything’s OK... apart from... apart from the servo control on the left upper lid: it’s almost blocked... »
BoSMi, that looked like a small mouse but was actually almost completely electronic, was starting its morning self-diagnosis procedure.
In fact, every morning, it was necessary for BoSMi to check its memory system, its interfaces for external connection, its sensors as well as the
mechatronics that allowed it to move and express itself.
The
self-diagnosis procedure would finish with a couple more tests: the
internet interface and the video games sensors.
« Internet
interface?
WWW WWW WWW... connection? It’s not connecting! The reception is poor.
Well, bless my megabytes!!! The game sensors are blocked! Err... ah,
yes, I forgot, they can’t work inside the box. It’s so narrow in here that you wouldn’t be able to play a nice VirtuaPong game even if you wanted to »
BoSMi found itself inside a box on a rack of the MegaMart store and was actually rather bored.
Since it had just checked that everything was more or less working, it could very well start thinking.
« Oof... there isn’t a lot to do around here: menus... accessories...
games... solitaire, cards, mine field or centipede? It’s always the same, every day the same! »
Its large mechatronic eyes examined the situation from a visual point of view, even though there was little light coming in through its left eye due to the almost blocked upper lid.
« Pretty girl coming from the right... passing right in front of me... going
away to the left. Not bad, that lady… Ah! It’s a shop assistant putting the boxes in place: good girl! »
Then its peculiar ears equipped with excellent acoustic sensors examined the situation from the auditory perspective.
« Not much noise... not much noise... The place must not be open yet »
BoSMi made a more thorough examination of the internal situation starting from the memories of its little artificial brain.
« I can’t recover my primary memory bank. Looks like there might be a block.
Maybe it’s encrypted. Well, bless my megabytes, I can’t remember
anything other than VirtuaPong... »
BoSMi then detected a very strong signal coming from its electronic stomach.
« Boy, am I hungry! Furby’s life, I am so hungry I’d eat a whole Lithium
accumulator. My batteries are almost flat! Better not make useless
movements and switch to stand-by mode »
BoSMi had put itself in stand-by mode, that is, it temporarily switched itself off to salvage its remaining battery power.
The place where it found itself was not that bad after all, sometimes a
pretty shop assistant even repositioned its box up and down. What
BoSMi did not understand was why it had ended up in that place,
inside a coloured carton box that read:
BoSMi: the robomouse!
100+ virtual pills
2 souls
Interactive CD-ROM included
Age:
6+
“Rubber hammer” accessory for “Hit the mouse and run” video game sold separately
There were at least a hundred boxes along rack 30 that contained a BoSMi, weren’t there? Maybe the real BoSMi, the one and only, was in the fourth box to the left. Maybe the others were simply toys that resembled it, just like the webpuppies were definitely toys, too stupid and repetitive, always repeating with their synthetized little voices:
« Hi mummy, I love you mummy, are you my mummy? »
The MegaMart had at least six or seven aisles with electronic games, from the latest models to the cheapest ones. The interactive Compact Disk area had thousands of items to choose from. The most played and expensive game of the moment was, no doubt about it, “Street Skater
Bonebreaker”, a punch-‘em-all game that simulated a few skaters’
gangs giving each other a good trashing.
The boys really liked it, especially for the mechatronic interface that
allowed them to actually feel the skateboard’s strokes on their
stomach or on their teeth. Their mothers did not like it nearly as
much, as after a rather harsh game the boy needed to be medicated and properly tended to: anyway, ten band-aids came included in the box.
The cheapest video game was “Fluffy Boy”, liberally drawing its
inspiration from the homonymous cartoon in which, in order to permit
the softish and frothy character to exit an unchallenging labyrinth
you had to find all the keys hidden along the track. Thanks to these,
you were then able to open the door to move on to the next level
that, more or less, looked just like the one before and that… what
a bore! You played with it once and then never again, no wonder it
was that cheap.
However, apart from video games, MegaMart had an incredible amount of interactive robots that for the most part filled aisle number 21.
There were some extraordinary robot dogs with a 64-function remote (wee included).
There were some robot cats able to purr in 128 different ways. A further 128 purring settings could be purchased in a separate cartridge.
Little robot spiders were a special item, which sold very well at the
beginning of every school year as they could be used to play a few
great tricks on the teachers: with a little patience, it was possible
to manoeuvre the robot spider’s two little cameras so that they
would always be pointed upwards. After that, it was really easy, with
your mobile video phone, to receive the images from the little spider
going on a mission under the teachers’ skirts and... wow ;-) Their
shrieks of terror were guaranteed as was, on the other hand, a
one-way trip straight to the principal’s office!
But MegaMart was a supermarket which supplied all sorts of product and not solely toys. Aisles 1 to 17 were filled with fresh, and therefore
expensive foodstuff, as well as groceries preserved with an ionizing
treatment that were clearly cheaper. In either case, it was obviously
modified food as for a few decades now genuine stuff had become hard to find.
In aisles from 18 to 20 were video games and different electronic games, other than the robotoys that alone filled aisle 21.
In the aisles following 21 were the domesticable appliances, a few old
models of black and white and colour TVs as well as the brand new
odorama TVs; a very large area was dedicated to mobile video phones.
Down the aisle to the right, in front of aisle 25 and next to the accessories to cook in organic safety, was the MegaMart entrance door. It was now 9am and the shutters were slowly rising.
« Come on, Tiberius, let’s go. Don’t waste my time, I have so many
things to do »
« But mum, just a second! I’m coming, I’m coming. I was just looking at a few things in the front window »
Tiberius and his mother were entering the MegaMart: Mrs. Theresa Bushnell was in a hurry to get the shopping done so that she could return to her traditional Saturday house cleaning .
Mrs. Bushnell’s shopping was a task that was to be carried out as
quickly as possible. No passage in the aisles was left to chance. The
track to be followed was perfectly planned as were the things to buy:
only the strictly necessary things had to be purchased, laying aside
any temptation for useless purchases. Nonetheless, sometimes,
puppy-dog eyes were enough to convince her...
« JUSTCOW skimmed milk, eight cartons: here, Tiberius, put them in the trolley carefully »
« Ok, mum »
« OLD MCDONALD'S FARM YOGHURT: 4 packs. Here, Tiberius, next to the milk »
« Stracchino cheese... there’s no EXTRAORG left! »
« Buy the one with mountain milk flavour, then » Tiberius suggested.
« No, no, I’d rather not. That stuff isn’t healthy, you have to try to
pick only the few genuine things that are left, my dear Tiberius. We’ll buy the EXTRAORG some other time. »
« But at least a couple of chocolate GRANDMA’S CREAMS...» asked Tiberius, looking at his mother with puppy dog eyes.
A mischievous smile enlightened Mrs. Bushnell’s face. « They aren’t on the list but... all right, a couple more creams won’t be the end of the
world. Good boy! »
Tiberius’s mum was a great mum. The thing is, she had been left alone rather early –too early – when Tiberius was just nine year old:
sometimes life is harsh.
« You have to get used to it. Things don’t always go as you’d like them to » his mum would often tell him.
In such hard times, at the end of the month it was a difficult task to
balance out the expenses while managing two kids: that is why Mrs.
Theresa was so careful and methodical.
It was she who, practically alone, carried the whole family forward:
Tiberius, Kiki and even Pucci, their cat.
« Mum, mum, why don’t you buy Pucci these? “CRUNCHMIAOW, the kibbles for your
cat with bioprotective B6 vitamines”, they look tasty »
« Leave it, Tiberius, we have to get these ones, they’re cheaper. Plus, that’s genetically modified food: it’s not even good for cats, remember.
Hold the trolley for a second, I’m going to get three boxes of cookies »
Tiberius was a very good kid himself. He of course loved his mum very much, even though sometimes he did not understand her.
Not only did Tiberius not have particular problems in school, he was actually really good at maths and had two great passions: video games and robotoys.
It is not as though he had a lot of them at home, actually, he basically
didn’t have any since his three year old sister Kiki’s favourite
activity was to hammer, open and break them apart.
Tiberius did not whine a lot though, he was rather mature already. He clearly understood that there wasn’t much money and that this Christmas too he was going to have to choose only one gift: the right one.
« Hi Tiberius » said a plump child with a large, friendly face behind a
trolley full of drinks, chips and cookies.
« Hi Ricky » answered Tiberius. « What brings you here at this time? »
« You don’t know? » said Ricky in amazement. « The world-wide launch of the new awesome robotoy starts this morning: the web-bot spider! I’m here with my dad and, as soon as the sale begins, at 9:15 on the dot, I’ll grab one: if I manage to »
« Oh, right, the web-bot spider, I read about it yesterday on “game&video dot com” » answered Tiberius. « It looks like a great robotoy, even though six-legged electronic spiders are nothing new »
« But this one’s amazing, it’s much cooler » Ricky burst out, excited.
« Apart from the weapons, the box includes two hundred and fifty-six
substitutable souls: all of which are rather evil. It’s also equipped with one thousand and twenty-four pills to program it: eventhough, actually, I don’t really understand how they work »
« It’s not difficult » said Tiberius with a smile. « Instead of programming
the robotoy, you give it a few pills to get the behaviours you want.
For instance: a “slowac” pill to make it slow down or a “aphonan”
pill to turn its volume down, a “dumbine” pill to make it do funny things, a “sleeptightin” or a “bequietin” pill if you want it to turn off. Easy, right?! »
« Well... yeah, it looks... easy enough » agreed Ricky, who still didn’t
look like he fully understood.
« You know, Tiberius, that the sale of those stupid, boring, childish, but
above all girlish webpuppies also starts today? They look like old
rag dolls! » Ricky said in a disgusted way.
« Yes, Ricky» confirmed Tiberius: « I’ve read that “version 2” is being
launched today. But, you know, they aren’t really boring, they’re
just robotoys for little girls, with all those cyberdiapers and robodummies, with a remote to make them say “mum” in one hundred
and twenty-eight different ways... »
« Tiberiuuus» Mrs. Bushnell was calling them. « Tiberius, come on, come here with that trolley, let’s finish the shopping. Ah, there’s Ricky:
hiii! »
« Mum’s calling me, sorry Ricky, gotta go » Tiberius waved goodbye.
« No problem» answered Ricky. « I have to run and start queuing if I don’twant to miss my chance to get a web-bot spider. Good morning Mrs.Bushneeel! Bye Tibe! »
:-(
Three characters dressed elegantly in black had just entered aisle 21, the MegaMart aisle where the robotoys were stored. These characters were wearing impeccable black jackets, polished black leather shoes and dark glasses with an integrated flat micro-screen on the left lens.
One of them, the tallest one, who was holding a black leather briefcase, gave an order to the other two.
The shorter ones, who, moreover, were equipped with a wireless device stuck in their ear, started walking parallel to one another on the two sides of aisle 21: they then started examining the boxes one after the other with an odd circular sensor, that had shining stripes going
from its centre towards the edges. They were looking for something
among the robotoys boxes.
The sensor the elegant character on the right was holding in his hand was lit in yellow. Then the character moved it close to a “BARD storyteller” box and the sensor instantly lit in a very bright red. He similarly examined all the webtoy boxes.
« Aisle number 1, on the right; nothing, sir! » said, in a professional way.
The character on the left rested his circular sensor on an AUTOCAT box, the four-wheeled robocat.
The sensor immediately shone in a red colour. Then, in the same fashion, he brushed the sensor over all of the AUTOCAT boxes, including the 32 Megabytes ones: the shining stripes were still lit but the colour remained red.
« Aisle number 1, on the left: nothing, sir! » stated the second character in a steady voice.
« Very well, gentlemen. Mr. Delta, proceed to the right, Mr. Epsilon to the left. Let’s carry on quietly, gentlemen, please...» ordered the tallest
one calmly, still holding the briefcase in his hand.
Delta and Epsilon, walking parallel to one another, got to the second rack.
Delta moved the sensor closer to the DOGGY ROBOBOW-WOW. He examined one robot dog at the time, but the sensor was still red.
Epsilon was moving the sensor closer to the expansion cartridges for
AUTOCAT’s purr, but he was interrupted immediately.
« No. Not there, Mr. Epsilon, never mind the accessories; it cannot be there » ordered the tallest one calmly.
« All right, Dr. Estraven » Epsilon deferentially agreed. Nonetheless he
added: « And yet it hasn’t been found in any supermarket, in any
store, not even in the lousiest little shop. I’d suggest we start
looking a little more thoroughly... »
« Never mind, Mr. Epsilon » Dr. Estraven answered, slightly annoyed,
but trying nonetheless to conceal his disappointment. « Don’t
bother, just look where you were instructed to. The uploader must be
here, there’s no doubt about it so, please, just follow the orders.
Come on, gentlemen, to the next rack, quietly... ».
While the elegant characters dressed in black were examining every rack on aisle 21 with their shiny sensors, Mrs. Bushnell and Tiberius were browsing through a few discounted organic pasta boxes.
Ricky, on the other hand, had managed to queue in the very first positions with his dad, ready for the amazing web-bot spider sale to begin.
« Ding-dong-ding-dong: please be advised that down aisle number 21 the amazing, fabulous, super-extraordinary sale of the cyber-super-evil
web-bot spiders and of the robot-super-cute “version 2”
webpuppies is about to begin » the voice on the MegaMart speakers
started reciting rhythmically.
« We only have a limited number of stock today, so hurry up if you don’t want to miss yours! »
While walking between shelves, Dr Estraven had a sudden inspiration: « The web-bot spiders and “version 2” webpuppy launch?! Hum... right
within our new extraordinary robotoys? Hum... genius, genius! The
very last place we would have looked. That programmer really was a
genius! From a certain perspective it’s a real shame we lost her...»
Delta had just examined all webpuppies, but the first version, the old ones on aisle 21, rack number 29. He had found nothing. He was now examining the first box from the left on rack 30 and the sensor remained red. He moved the sensor closer to the second box. The sensor was still red. He brushed the third box with the sensor as well, but it still shone a bright red. He moved the sensor towards the fourth one but...
« Delta, Epsilon, gentlemen, attention, please! » Estraven’s voice summoned his two assistants, who immediately withdrew their sensors, thus stopping their research.
« Gentlemen... » ordered Estraven. « Let us proceed straight down
there, where the sale is about to start! »
« Quietly, doctor? » asked Epsilon.
« Quietly, doctor? » repeated Delta.
« No. Let us hurry, gentlemen! » said Dr. Estraven, rather breathlessly.
:-o
« Hey, what are you doing?! Are you skipping the queue? » a lady in
dismay asked Epsilon, who had jumped right in front of her, in first
place for the webpuppies. There was an immense queue behind him.
« What manners! » more than one person in the queue exclaimed in an angry voice.
« Better let it go, did you take a look at those clothes? Who knows
what kind of people they are… » the lady’s worried husband
whispered to her.
« Excuse me, why don’t you wait in the queue like everybody else? Do you think you’re smarter than those behind you?! » Ricky’s dad said,
elbowing Delta, who skipped the queue anyway, jumping right to the
first position for the web-bot spiders.
« Why isn’t he queuing like we are? Who does he think he is? » a person in the second row burst out.
A man who was at least 6-foot-11, with shoulders as broad as a mountain, dragging along a tiny, tiny child by his hand, got out of his place in the web-bot spiders queue and moved towards Delta, fuming. He stuck one finger under his chin and, just like that, he lifted him up at least two inches.
« Look here… » growled the man, bursting with rage. « You either queue like everybody else or I’ll kick… I’ll kick your… »
continued the angry man with a word we cannot report.
« Gentlemen!» Estraven’s steady voice drew everybody’s attention. « My dear gentlemen… » he was calm, almost seraphic «… it will soon be Christmas! Let us not spoil these beautiful holidays. We should all
be more understanding, maybe even with those who did us a little
wrong. There, there… let us all be nicer to each other and, this
way, we will be nicer towards ourselves »
The livid man dropped Delta and then went back to his place muttering to himself.
« You’re very lucky that Christmas is near! You’re very lucky indeed… »
Delta wiped his forehead, which was running with sweat, with a perfectly ironed and folded black handkerchief, and then set his jaw back into place.
Everybody in the queue was waiting for the fateful moment in which the sale was going to start.
9:15 on the dot: « Ding-dong… The special sale has started! »
« Here’s your web-bot spider, sir » said the shop assistant with a smile,
handing out the first box.
« I want to choose it myself! » answered Delta with resolution, starting to brush his sensor over every box stacked up on the counter. Epsilon
was doing the same on the “version 2” webpuppy boxes.
« What are they doing?! What are those shining gadgets they are moving over every box? » exclaimed the lady behind Epsilon.
« Just forget it » her frightened husband suggested her. « I told you they were strange people. Let them choose their robotoys, they’ll be out of here faster that way »
Delta’s and Epsilon’s sensors were still glowing red. But now, the shining stripes were running from the centre towards the edges at a very high speed. As they drew closer to the new robotoys boxes, the sensors went crazy, but the doctor’s two assistants weren’t surprised at
all.
« There’s no uploader here! » said Epsilon, wretched, after he
checked the last “version 2” webpuppy box.
« It’s not here either » Delta said, coming out of the queue with no web-bot spider in his hands.
« What, after all this mess you’re not even buying any? » The shop
assistants who were handing out the two robotoys asked, almost in
unison. The people in the queue were perplexed too, but their doubts
soon vanished: after a couple of seconds, they were all busy grabbing
one of the most advertised robotoys of the moment.
« Hurry up, gentlemen » said Dr. Estraven, resolute, to his two assistants. « We have only been wasting time. Forgive my mistake, I overrated Dr. Sally’s abilities, as usual… luckily we lost her. We have to
finish our research where we left off, exactly from the fourth box on
rack number 30. The uploading program we are looking for is in those
last three racks, I am certain! »
The sensor Delta was holding in his hand drew closer to the fourth box from the left on rack 30. The sensor’s shining stripes were running from the centre towards the edges at an even higher speed than before: but
they were of a glowing brilliant green!
As soon as he turned to tell Dr. Estraven about the extraordinary finding, the box was gone: Tiberius had grabbed it and was turning it in his hands to check its content.
Our protagonist, who was dozing off in stand-by mode inside the box,
didn’t take notice of any of this: when BoSMi was asleep, it was virtually impossible to wake it up.
- Log in to post comments