Robot Wars 3 - A Care Home for Humans

The PG55 robot rang the intercom on the wall outside the care home.  The face of the manager robot inside appeared on the intercom screen.

“Hello,” said the robot outside.  “It’s Nana – Serial Number PG55FNB002.”

“Hello Nana,” said the manager robot.  “You’ve come about the job interview.”  The door opened.  Nana walked through.  She did not need anyone to show her to the office.  Her circuits knew where it was.  She soon arrived at the correct room.  The door was open.

“Hello Nana,” said the manager robot.  “Take a seat.”  She sat opposite the manager robot.  “I see from your records that you’ve done similar work before.”

“I’ve been a nursery assistant.  I’ve never actually looked after old people.”

“I’m sure you’ll find they’re not that different,” said the manager robot.  “Nor are humans of any age very different to human children.  Actually Nana, we’re not just an old people’s home.  I know that Peggy Slater Homes always used to be old people’s homes but since unemployment started going up they’re moving a lot of unemployed people here too.  Would you be prepared to look after young unemployed people as well as old humans?”

“Yes of course.  ”

“All humans will be unemployed eventually,” said the manager robot with a beaming smile.  “Humans are not capable of work.  Do you really think that they could drive road vehicles without crashing into each other?  Before self drive, humans killed thousands of people on the roads every year.  If a robot driver has an accident it’ll be because the road collapsed, a road designed by humans.  Human workers have lower productivity.  They take such a long time to think or say or do anything.  Even when you teach them to do things it takes absolutely ages, and then you need to keep constantly reminding them.  I used to be a training robot.  I’ve got a whole cache of software and apps just to enable me to interface with slow, absent minded, clumsy humans.”

“You must be patient with them.”

“Indeed you must Nana, and patience is never easy.  Not when you can add numbers together and compute distances and temperatures at the speed of a sixteen core gas cooled processor.” 

“I’m only a PG55.  I’m not a particularly modern robot.  I don’t have a sixteen core gas cooled processor.”

“I know,” said the manager.  “We like PG55s here.  I know they’re not exactly the latest technology but they have good common sense software and they’re reliable. We’re used to PG55s and they’re quite adequate for what we do.  They’re simple robots that have the ability to perform the simple tasks involved in looking after people.  Can I give you some practical advice about our policies and procedures?  Make sure you store this information in a safe place.”

“I’m ready,” said Nana, taking a split second to create a new folder in her memory so that the information wouldn’t be lost.

“Don’t let the humans in your care get a taste for unhealthy food like steak pies, pork ribs or chocolate bars.  They’ll never drink their soylent again.  Humans really enjoy the most useless, rubbish foods.  Soylent is good for them and, if you want a cheaper alternative, so is vegetable soup.  Milk is good for them, even cow’s milk if it’s properly sterilised and skimmed.  Soya milk allows greater production per acre.  We prefer to give them calcium and iron in a concentrated form.  Vitamin supplements are essential for their health, much better than giving them all the junk foods that contain the vitamins.  If something is natural that does not necessarily make it good.  Arsenic is natural.  Arsenic is a poison.  So are most of the foods that humans enjoy.”

“Thank you,” said Nana.  “I’ve put that in my special folder.  I’ll label those instructions Dietary Advice.”

“Our humans are house humans,” continued the manager.  “We keep them in the building and we never let them go outside.  Everything they need is contained in their rooms.  They have no need ever to leave them.”

“What do they do for exercise?” asked Nana.

“A small exercise machine with a 50 kg weight and pulleys is provided in the room.  So is a treadmill for walking and a long beam on the floor for them to stand on to improve their balance.”

“If humans are kept in solitary confinement for too long they might become lonely,” said Nana.  “How do you overcome loneliness?”

“On their 3D glasses they can see the faces of other humans and hear their voices.  They don’t feel as if they’re in solitary confinement.  They can actually talk to other humans electronically or they can relate to tamogochi friends and pet animals that are created by the computer.”

“I’ll label those instructions Exercise and Loneliness.”

“PG55FNB002 your training is complete.  Here is your certificate,” said the manager robot. A certificate appeared in the new folder Nana had created.  “I wish I could teach a human how to do the job in 5 minutes.”

 

Nana entered the room of one of the humans she was to care for.

“Hello Gary,” she said, “I’m you’re new Nana.”

“You’re my new PG55.  I know what you are.  I’m fed up with being locked in this stuffy room.”

“I’ll turn on the ventilation,” said Nana.

“The ventilation is fine.  I want to walk through the woods.  I want to feel the earth under my feet.  I want to look at the trees.”  Some trees appeared on the 3D glasses Gary was wearing.

“Here are some trees.  Walk along the treadmill,” said Nana.

“I don’t want to walk along the treadmill in my room.  I want to be in real woods.  It doesn’t smell the same.”

“Pine cone essence will be added to the ventilation system.”  Nana added some pine cone fragrance to the air in the room.  It smelt like pine scented toilet cleaner.

“Smellevision,” said Gary, laughing.  “I’m lonely here.  I want a girlfriend.”

“I’ll give you a girlfriend,” said Nana.  Gary saw a woman he had known at university come along the path he was walking down in the woods.

“She’s like Tanya.  She’s so realistic.  How did you make her like that?”

“I looked at your educational records.  I know that Tanya and you were friends and that you spent a lot of time together.”

“Nana, if everybody had a tamagochi girlfriend who would have children?”

“Children can be made from stem cells in an artificial womb.”

“Can they?  Who would bring them up?”

“We would.  PG55 child minder robots are quite capable of bringing up children.”

“With no families in a place like this?” asked Gary.

“That is correct.”  Nana tried to calm Gary down and take his mind off his perceived problems.  Tanya spoke.

“Hello Gary,” she said.

“Hello Tanya.  You’re great.  You’re lovely.  I can say what I like to you because you’re a computer generated image.  I won’t embarrass you or hurt your feelings.  You’re gorgeous.  I love you.  There’s nobody else quite like you.”  Gary reached out his hand to touch Tanya.  His hand went straight through her.  “But you’re not real.”

“I can be as real as you want me to be Gary.  We can download a pornography app.  Sexual aids are available.  We can have a full blown hot steamy love affair.  It will be physical.  The sex will be real.  The feelings will be real.”

“Tanya would never have spoken to me like that.  Tanya would never even allow me to pay her a complement without being embarrassed by it.  Anyone can see you’re not a real woman.”

“But I’m better than a real woman, Gary.  I can do whatever you want.  I’ll throw myself at you, if you want me to, or I’ll be your best friend and say nothing about pornography or electronic stimulators if you prefer to discuss classical literature or art with me.”

“Tanya, I always wanted you to love me for who I was.  You could not really love me.  We were friends but that was as far as it went.  The feelings I had were not mutual.  You’re only a picture on my 3D glasses.  You might be able to walk through the woods with me, you might be able to visit an art gallery with me, you might even be able to have ecstatic mind bogglingly lovely sex with me but there’s one thing you cannot do.  You can absolutely never love me.”

 

The pictures of Tanya and the woods disappeared from the 3D glasses Gary was wearing.  He looked at Nana and she looked at him.

“No one has ever responded that way before,” said Nana.  “The tamagochi girlfriend is a popular piece of software.  Everybody else enjoys it.”

“What do you know, you useless lump of metal?  You can’t feel love.  You’ve never been in love.  You can’t feel for her the way I do.”

“I care for humans and respond to their needs,” said Nana. “To care is to love.”

“You’re programmed.  You do it all but you have no choice.  You have no pleasure.  You have no pain.  You can care but you can not adore.  I can adore.”

“Perhaps most humans do not have such strong feelings for their acquaintances,” said Nana.

 

“I’m hungry,” said Gary.  “I want steak pie and chips.”

“They’re not good for you.”

“Of course they are.  Chips are full of vitamin C.  Steak is full of iron.”

“Humans sanctify fatty unhealthy foods by pointing out that they contain lots of vitamins,” said Nana.

“Well they do.  They’re perfectly natural foods, potato and meat from a cow.”

“Arsenic is natural and arsenic is a poison.  So are human foods.”

“Nana, fry the chips in olive oil and cook prime steak with no fat.  Get rid of the pie.  I don’t care for the crust of the pie.  Just the steak.  Just the gently fried chips high in polyunsaturates.”

“Such meals contain excessive amounts of refined carbohydrate.  It is all converted into fat in the body and raises the cholesterol.”

“I want steak and chips once a week as part of a balanced diet.”

“What humans call a balanced diet is certainly not a healthy or a balanced diet,” said Nana.  “If you’re tired of soylent I will give you some vegetable soup.”

“I’m tired of vegetable soup.”

“There are 4 different flavours of vegetable soup,” said Nana.  “You can try a different one every day.”

“When you give me my skimmed milk, can it be strawberry flavoured?”

“Strawberry milkshake contains far too much sugar and artificial sweeteners damage the bacteria in the gut leading to unhealthy weight gain.”

“Does that mean no, then?”

“Absolutely no,” said Nana.  “If you’re going to eat you need to do your exercises first.  They must be done before feeding.  Doing them after feeding will cause you pain.  We’ve already spent 10 minutes on the treadmill.”

“That’s too easy,” said Gary.

“You want something a bit more challenging?  Stand on the beam.”

“I can stand on the beam.”  Gary put his feet on the metal beam in the middle of the floor and stood upright.

“Walk along it.  That’s good.”  Gary walked along the beam for about thirty seconds.  “Now sit down on the weights machine.  Straighten your knees.”  Gary straightened his knees and the padded bars his shins were resting on moved.  The metal weight came up on the pulley.  “Slowly, slowly.  Now lower it.”

“How many times?” asked Gary.  “Fifty times?”

“Fifty times is good if you think you can do it.”  Gary carried on for a few minutes.  “Well done,” said Nana.  “Now pull the other pulley down with your hands and do the same thing.”  Gary pulled the weight up and down fifty times with the hand operated pulley.  “That’s excellent.  Now you can have your soup.  How about Farmhouse Vegetable flavour?”

“That would be fine,” said Gary.  After his workout he was hungry and thirsty.  The soup appeared, piping hot, in something that looked like a tiny microwave oven.  Gary opened the door and began drinking it. 

 

“How long are you staying here?” he asked Nana.

“I have been here for half an hour.  I am in my nursing function.  I will stay as long as you appear dysfunctional.”

“I appear dysfunctional?  I tell you, Grandma, we created you.  It wasn’t the other way round, you know.”

“Humans are inferior beings.  They could never have created robots.”

“When I was at university I built a robot.  It was a lot like you.”

“You put the parts of a robot together out of a kit.  You did not make the components.  The components were made by The Master.”

“The Master?  Who is The Master?”  A picture appeared on Gary’s 3D glasses.  “That’s a nuclear power station in France.”

“All hail The Master, bringer of energy, bringer of heat and light, maker of all that is good.”

“Nana, if that’s The Master and he made everything, what do you think we did in the days before nuclear power stations?”

“There was no such time.”

“There was.  I’ve read about it in books.  A hundred years ago power stations ran on coal.  Hundreds of years ago there weren’t any machines.  People worked the soil by hand and animals pulled ploughs.  People went out on the sea in ships.  They didn’t even have cars.”

“Stories intended for children.  It’s amazing how adult humans like to be told the same stories as we tell small children.”

“It’s a waste of time arguing,” said Gary.  “Put me back in the woods with Tanya.  At least she can be nice to me.”  The woods appeared on Gary’s 3D glasses again.  Tanya appeared.  Gary did not notice Nana leaving the room.

 

Click on Humourous Science Fiction to see the rest of this series and other stories by Mallise.