Damocles - Chapter 7 - The Glass

00:00:00: Heinke Digital presents...

00:00:02: [Music]

00:00:14: Damocles.

00:00:16: An audiobook podcast by Christian Heinke.

00:00:20: Chapter 7. The Glass.

00:00:22: [Music]

00:00:29: Eventually, my eyes flooded open.

00:00:32: I was in a state of confusion.

00:00:34: Darkness surrounded me, a clear indication I had been transported back into the stream.

00:00:39: I struggled against the weight of my body.

00:00:42: With an audible grunt, I rolled onto my side.

00:00:45: Sitting in a lotus position next to me was Siv,

00:00:48: dressed in a simple gray robe with her hair pulled back in a tight braid.

00:00:52: Her lack of makeup did not diminish her natural beauty.

00:00:55: "Am I alive?" I asked.

00:00:58: "I can't say for certain." She responded.

00:01:01: "But at least your mind remains intact."

00:01:04: And then it hit me like a freight train.

00:01:06: Simon was gone.

00:01:07: My dear friend Simon had been ruthlessly murdered.

00:01:10: The weight of his lost weight on me, a heavy burden that threatened to break me.

00:01:15: "Selma killed my friend. She killed Simon."

00:01:19: "I'm truly sorry for your loss, Joseph. Simon Haddad was an honorable man."

00:01:25: "Yeah, he was."

00:01:27: I replied.

00:01:28: "But you're still alive, Joseph. So there's still something you can do.

00:01:32: Remember how you were able to monitor the enemy. Perhaps you can reclaim that now."

00:01:37: "How the hell am I supposed to do that? Last time, it just happened.

00:01:41: Visualize the place you wish to see."

00:01:43: I closed my eyes, shutting out the darkness, and summoned forth an image of Sam.

00:01:48: With a surge of determination, I refocused and projected my desires into the abyss.

00:01:53: In an instant, the dark mist relented, giving way to a dimly lit, dusty storage room.

00:01:59: A worn-out blanket lay haphazardly on the floor, providing a makeshift bed for Sam.

00:02:04: Besided, a bowl of food and water sat, offering meager sustenance.

00:02:08: "It's going to be alright, Sam."

00:02:11: I whispered softly, my voice barely audible.

00:02:14: And then, in an act that defied all rationality, I simply stepped through the closed door,

00:02:19: allowing nothing to stand in my way.

00:02:22: I stepped out onto a dirty corridor. It seemed to be somewhere underground.

00:02:28: The walls were made of rough concrete. Theoretically, I could be anywhere.

00:02:33: But I had the feeling that I had been in this place before.

00:02:36: It took me a moment to sift through my memory. Then I remembered.

00:02:40: Of course, I had been in the place where the boy and the man in the shadows held the goldsmith's two daughters captive.

00:02:47: If I was clever enough, maybe I could find out where this place was in the real world and free the girls.

00:02:53: I floated along the corridor. To the left and right of it were doors.

00:02:57: Behind the doors seemed to be offices and lab rooms.

00:03:01: At least that's what the door signs next to the door frames indicated.

00:03:05: They were faded and partly yellowed. Still, they could be red.

00:03:09: It smelled moldy and musty. Mold shimmied along the walls and ceiling.

00:03:14: Before I could wonder how I could smell anything in such a vision, one of the doors opened.

00:03:19: A woman in a lab coat stepped out. I was standing in the middle of the hallway. Quite an exposed position.

00:03:26: The woman was holding an old-fashioned clipboard. I held my breath. She was coming toward me.

00:03:32: I looked left and right, but I saw no way to hide. She looked at me closely, but she did not react to my presence.

00:03:39: At the last moment, I realized that she was not looking at me, but that she was simply looking through me.

00:03:45: Then she just walked right through where I was. As her head passed through mine, I had flashes of images from her head in front of my eyes for a moment.

00:03:53: She was having an affair with one of the guards, and her name was Lynn.

00:03:57: Lynn Parker. She wondered why that pompous German would want to get this place up and running again.

00:04:03: It was smelly and dark. It would be weeks before they would be able to do any kind of decent work here.

00:04:10: And these girls... well, she was well-paid and just took care of her own business. But these girls didn't seem to be volunteering for any tests.

00:04:19: The woman stopped behind me, as if she sensed that I had taken a peek into her mind. She shook herself. Then she continued walking.

00:04:28: I was left to sort through the dozens of thought images I had just picked up. Affair, guards, German guy, working on something, the girls, tests.

00:04:39: What goddamn tests? Suddenly the lights came on.

00:04:44: For a moment, through the colored dots in the after-image of the flash, I saw Siv crouching next to me, someone shone a small flashlight into my eyes.

00:04:53: "Ah, good. You're awake," said a woman's voice. I blinked and saw that the woman was Dr. Lynn Parker, who had just passed through me in the hallway.

00:05:03: "Lynn," I croaked.

00:05:05: "How? How do you know my name?" asked Dr. Parker, startled.

00:05:10: "You, you were unconscious the whole time, weren't you?" I sat up, groaning. I was on a hospital gurney.

00:05:17: There were other gurneys to my right and left. It was a kind of laboratory. Like the corridor, this laboratory was dirty and dusty. It had been cleaned in a makeshift way, but still it stank musty and damp.

00:05:30: Now this smell was only overlaid by that of disinfectants. It stank like in a badly run hospital. I had rushed upstairs too quickly. The lab turned a little vertical.

00:05:41: Lynn had recovered from the shock of my personal address.

00:05:44: "Wow, slow down. You've been unconscious for almost a whole day. Just take it easy." She gently grabbed me by the shoulders. I grabbed her arm in return.

00:05:55: "Hey! You're hurting me!" I heard her words in German, but her lips moved in English. So the universal translator in my implant was still working.

00:06:05: "The girl's parents were murdered, Lynn. Your employer will stop at nothing. What kind of tests are you running on them?"

00:06:12: "Bridget! Help!" Screamed the woman.

00:06:15: "Take it easy. I'm already here, Dr. Parker." The woman named Bridget said. Suddenly, I felt myself letting go of Dr. Parker without my doing.

00:06:25: "You have already experienced the demon mode, Mr. Lenke. Sit back and enjoy the shell." The woman purred in my thoughts.

00:06:33: "Look, Dr. Parker. Everything is alright. Now the old fart will lead out of your hand if you wish."

00:06:41: Bridget spoke loudly from a scratchy little speaker above the door. Dr. Parker adjusted her glasses.

00:06:47: "Thank you, Bridget." She said, smiling kindly at me. Her eyes didn't smile at that.

00:06:53: "See, that's much better. Now be a good boy." She approached me and whispered it in my ear.

00:06:59: "Otherwise, I'll ask Bridget to order you to shit your pants. Got it?"

00:07:05: "Fuck you, you fucking bitch!" I thought.

00:07:08: "I think he understands." Bridget told Dr. Parker over the loudspeaker.

00:07:12: The examination, which I attended only as a spectator, reminded me of my medical examination for the police service.

00:07:19: That was 51 years ago. Dr. Parker was perhaps half as old.

00:07:24: But the stupid thing about these bastards was that they always grew back. Like weeds.

00:07:32: Dr. Parker moved me into the wheelchair with Bridget's help. I guess that was more efficient than having Bridget guide me with strings.

00:07:39: I suppose Bridget could have made me boogie-woogie in this demon mode, if Bridget's database even knew the term boogie-woogie.

00:07:46: I felt old and helpless. I guess that's why such old phrases were running through my head.

00:07:52: Dr. Parker pushed me out of the lab with the tables and into the hallway with the wheelchair.

00:07:57: At the end of the hall, we reached an elevator. The outside doors were scratched and dirty.

00:08:03: The interior of the lift was another story. It was brand new and squeaky clean.

00:08:08: A dark middle mirror formed the back wall. I saw myself and Dr. Parker.

00:08:13: A slobbering elderly man in a wheelchair and a young, moderately attractive woman with glasses and a lab coat.

00:08:20: I looked absolutely terrible. I looked like I wanted to die and that made me think of Simon.

00:08:25: 'You fucking bitches. You're going to pay for this.'

00:08:29: Dr. Parker noticed a tear streaming down my cheek.

00:08:32: Bridget, what's wrong with Mr. Lenka?

00:08:35: 'He's thinking of an old friend who is sadly already deceased.'

00:08:39: Dr. Parker petted me sympathetically on the shoulder.

00:08:42: "Well, that's not at all unusual at your age. Oh, you poor old man."

00:08:48: If I could do anything I wanted to do, this poor old man would love to kick your ass right now.

00:08:52: I suddenly felt it trickle a little warmly into my pants.

00:08:56: Behave, Mr. Lenke, or I'll make you shit your pants like a helpless baby.

00:09:00: Bridget warned. I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming.

00:09:04: I had to think about these new, fancy nursing homes that were popping up these days.

00:09:09: I thought about how many of the supposedly retired patients sitting there had actually been shut down by an assistive system simply by going into demon mode.

00:09:17: 'Fewer than you might think, Mr. Lenke. Assistance systems are reserved for a very exclusive clientele.'

00:09:24: 'Thanks for the info, bitch.'

00:09:26: I waited for my bladder to empty, but apparently Bridget didn't want to put Dr. Parker through the nuisance of the smell.

00:09:33: The elevator had no buttons. Like it was really new, and like modern elevators, it was controlled by artificial intelligence.

00:09:41: Just like me now.

00:09:43: The elevator doors slid open again. We had only gone up a few floors.

00:09:48: Dr. Parker pushed me out. We were in an office. It, like the decaying lab floor, was underground.

00:09:55: The back wall made it look like we were in a tall tower somewhere above the clouds.

00:10:00: It was a mirage. A huge desk of darkwood stood in front of the wall. It was a desk that would have fit in the Reich chancelory.

00:10:08: Way too big and way too marshal. The only thing on it was a carafe of water and two glasses.

00:10:14: It stood on a carpet that looked expensive, but which I would not buy for myself for all the money in the world because of the ugly pattern.

00:10:21: Dr. Parker pushed me to the edge of the rug and left me there. Then she walked out and got on the lift.

00:10:28: I sat there for a while. I guess that was what was expected of me to do.

00:10:33: For about five minutes, nothing happened. Then the leather chair behind the desk slowly began to turn around. And it sat the boy.

00:10:41: "Hello, Chief Inspector."

00:10:43: He greeted me. I don't know what I was expecting. Probably that I would meet the ominous entrepreneur who had already killed ten people.

00:10:51: But it was just the boy again, the second assistant system. He wore a slim-fitting dark suit again and a blue silk shirt under it.

00:10:59: He looked like someone who would immediately take over the conversation at any party and whom I would therefore avoid.

00:11:05: An asshole. No. He looked like the spoiled little son of an asshole. I stared at him. Mostly because I wasn't capable of much else at the moment.

00:11:15: The boy looked at me. Then he got it.

00:11:18: "Oh, like that? Sure. Demon mode. My bad."

00:11:23: He snapped his finger and I was back in control of my body, at least from the neck up. Okay. The boy wasn't stupid.

00:11:31: I knew that this paralysis was only due to the demon mode, but I still had to fight against giving in to total panic.

00:11:38: I hated the fact that I was losing more and more control over my body as the years went by. That was just part of getting older.

00:11:45: But what if I had to spend the rest of my life like this? Paralyzed in a wheelchair.

00:11:50: Helplessly at the mercy of assholes like the little boy in front of me, I pushed these thoughts away again.

00:11:56: Obviously, the boy was expecting me to say something. "Water."

00:12:01: I said in a half whisper. With a knot of my head, I pointed to the carafe of water.

00:12:06: "Good cue."

00:12:07: The boy said. His voice was different, but also somehow familiar. He walked around the desk, which took a while because it was so big.

00:12:15: Then he leaned against the desk next to the carafe and the glasses. He looked at me.

00:12:20: "You really look like shit, Chief Inspector."

00:12:23: I nodded.

00:12:24: "I know. Please. Water."

00:12:28: "Oh."

00:12:29: The boy said.

00:12:30: "Actually, I want to demonstrate something with it."

00:12:33: He shrugged.

00:12:34: "Well, what the heck? It's just a little water."

00:12:38: He poured some water into one of the glasses and handed it to me.

00:12:44: "Bridget. Help him drink."

00:12:46: The boy ordered. My hand took the glass and, as if controlled by puppet strings, brought it to my mouth.

00:12:53: I gratefully took a few sips. Then my hand dropped again.

00:12:57: The little boy took the glass from me and placed it with the unused glass and the carafe.

00:13:02: "Thank you."

00:13:03: I said. And I meant it. I hated myself for it.

00:13:07: "That Bridget. She took the part of Selma, right?"

00:13:11: "Not bad, Lenke. That's right. We thought you would pick Bridget when you went to see the Otaku."

00:13:17: "But we were wrong. So Bridget had to improvise and she took the place of Selma. What a shame."

00:13:23: "What do you mean?"

00:13:24: "Bridget had to retire the real Selma to take over. Her digital remains were behind the dune."

00:13:30: "Another body for your account."

00:13:35: "En contraire, this body is on your account. You were just too cheap, old man."

00:13:41: I fell silent. And why is this Bridget now taking orders from another assistant?

00:13:47: I asked. The boy tried to understand what I meant. Then he laughed.

00:13:52: "Oh, like that. You think I'm an assistant too. Because of Yarvin."

00:14:01: "That's funny, Lenke, really."

00:14:04: "You're not the boy?" I asked. Confused.

00:14:07: "That's what you call my assistant. Boy?"

00:14:10: His assistant? What did he mean by that? He approached me. Then he held my chin.

00:14:16: "I'm the original old man."

00:14:18: He patted my cheek. Then he wiped his hand with his handkerchief.

00:14:23: He took a lighter out of his pocket. From his inside pocket he took out a silver case.

00:14:28: From it he took out a Cigarillo. He lit the Cigarillo with the lighter. He inhaled the smoke and blew it out.

00:14:35: "My name is Paul Scherber. Bridget and Yarvin are my assistants."

00:14:42: "So you're the asshole responsible for my friend's death. How old are you? Nineteen?"

00:14:47: "Unlike you, I really look younger. I'm already twenty-five years old."

00:14:52: What do you want from me?

00:14:54: "To be honest, I don't really know yet. I already got what I wanted."

00:14:58: "The silver box?"

00:15:00: "Exactly."

00:15:01: He shook his head.

00:15:03: "Goldschmidt and his stupid conscience. I would have bought him a goddamn island if he played ball."

00:15:08: "Hell, I would have made him ambassador to Australia or something."

00:15:12: "Well, you seem to be doing pretty well. Why do you risk all that by killing innocent people?"

00:15:17: "How am I supposed to understand that, Chief Inspector?"

00:15:20: "Well, you just kill people as you see fit. Sooner or later you will have to answer for it."

00:15:25: Scherber stared at me, stunned. Then he held his hand with the Sigarillo in front of my nose.

00:15:31: "You see, this is exactly why I usually avoid talking to ordinary people. You're also, so, well, ordinary."

00:15:39: "Do you think it is boring to keep the law?"

00:15:42: "Where you live, down there in the dumpster, there's law and order. Where I live, jungle law applies."

00:15:48: "Is it true you killed a cleaner because your kid moved a chair with wet legs?"

00:15:52: "The little fucker hurt himself. I'm not really interested in this child. I probably can't do anything with him for a few years."

00:16:00: "But my wife is already very fond of him. She's a model. Very hot. We had a surrogate, of course."

00:16:07: "I didn't want everything to wear up down there with her."

00:16:10: "Does your wife know you're a killer?"

00:16:12: "What? That I retired the cleaning lady?"

00:16:14: "Yes, of course. She wanted it that way. How much noise she would have made if I hadn't taken care of her."

00:16:21: "And she didn't mind?"

00:16:22: "Why should she? Do you know how many personnel we've retired?"

00:16:26: "You've killed more people?"

00:16:28: "Sure."

00:16:29: "How many?"

00:16:30: "I don't know. Bridget, how many people have I retired?"

00:16:34: "As of today, 1,703."

00:16:37: "You are insane." Scherber shook his head.

00:16:40: "It is really not possible to discuss such things with you ordinary people. You are so small-minded."

00:16:46: "I'd rather be a small-minded person than a mass murderer."

00:16:50: "You talk as if the death of one of those people matters."

00:16:53: "Of course it does. Every human life matters."

00:16:56: "Wrong, Lenke. Quite wrong. You are arguing again with your ideas from the dumpster. I'll explain it to you. Now comes the demonstration."

00:17:06: He took one of the glasses from the table and filled it halfway with water.

00:17:12: "What is that, Lenke?"

00:17:14: "A half-full glass of water?"

00:17:16: "Ah, an optimist. I love optimists. You can kick their ass a hundred times and they'll pick themselves up and find a reason to go back to the helm of the galley."

00:17:25: "But here's the quiz, which is more important. The water or the glass?"

00:17:29: "What do you mean?"

00:17:31: "People always argue about whether the glass is half-full or half-empty. But the real question should be, what makes it possible to argue about whether it's half-empty or half-full?"

00:17:40: "The glass?"

00:17:42: "Exactly! We, the rich and powerful, are the glass. Do you understand? We don't give a shit if the glass is half-full or if it is half-empty. As long as it is all happening in our glass."

00:17:53: "What do you want from me?"

00:17:55: "I told you. I don't know yet. You pushed a button. You shouldn't have. Only a privileged circle of chosen ones are allowed to press that button. But now you're in."

00:18:06: "Because of my upgrade?"

00:18:08: "Exactly. You were no longer a simple policeman from Bakum. You are now a supa-topchecker-bunny."

00:18:15: "A what?"

00:18:16: "Oh, an old term. I thought you would like it if I tried to communicate in your language, old man."

00:18:21: "What do you want with the Goldschmidt girls?"

00:18:24: I asked.

00:18:25: "What do you mean?"

00:18:26: "At first you used them as insurance to get a manual gold schmick and his wife to do your bidding. But now I hear you're conducting experiments on them."

00:18:34: "Little Dr. Parker must have been talking to you."

00:18:37: I could hardly say that I had the means to activate the override mode in my implant. I had to try to get out of here. So I couldn't reveal that. But I was afraid that this crazy girl would hurt Dr. Parker.

00:18:49: But on the other hand, she was volunteering for Scherber, so I considered her an enemy.

00:18:54: "Shouldn't she have told me?"

00:18:56: I asked innocently.

00:18:58: "It doesn't really matter. You will be participating in the same experiments."

00:19:02: "You want to bypass the lock on the silver box and allow multiple upgrades on one implant, right?"

00:19:08: "Exactly."

00:19:10: "But you've already done that. You have two support systems working for you."

00:19:15: "That only works with a trick. I had a second implant put in with me."

00:19:19: "You can do that? I thought it would drive you crazy."

00:19:23: "Not exactly. But it is uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that I would rather not have a third implant. But if I can get around the lock in the silver box, then I can link as many servant spirits as I want to my implant."

00:19:36: "To accomplish what?"

00:19:38: "Well, it takes imagination, old man."

00:19:41: He took the water glass from his demonstration and dipped his finger into it.

00:19:45: "But since you were just a sip of water, I'm afraid you don't understand."

00:19:49: I wanted to answer something. Something about a jug that goes to the well. But Sherbur snapped his fingers and the lights went out on me again.

00:19:58: I was back in the dark in between world of the stream. Next to me, Siv was still squatting in the lotus seat.

00:20:07: Hello, Joseph.

00:20:09: She greeted me with her eyes closed.

00:20:11: Hello.

00:20:12: I said, my voice echoing softly in the dimly lit room. I was lying on my back again. I turned my head and lingered my arms and legs. I let out a relieved groan.

00:20:23: I briefly felt my limbs again in this virtual reality. I finally got myself up and tried to fix my disheveled hair. I didn't succeed. But it didn't matter in this in-between world anyway.

00:20:35: Siv opened her eyes and looked at me.

00:20:37: You look terrible.

00:20:38: That's exactly how I feel.

00:20:40: Did you have a conversation with Paul Scherber?

00:20:43: That's right.

00:20:44: You always feel drained afterward. He's not a nice person.

00:20:48: That's one way of putting it.

00:20:50: How would you put it?

00:20:51: A spoiled, neoliberal fascist boy who likes to hear himself talk.

00:20:55: Yeah, that fits.

00:20:57: Said Siv. We both had to laugh. Then the expression on Siv's face turned serious again.

00:21:03: I'm afraid he's going to kill you, Joseph.

00:21:06: Yes, I think so too.

00:21:08: I said, if I let him, he will kill me. And the girls, too.

00:21:13: Have you figured out where they are?

00:21:15: Not really. I woke up in the real world in some kind of lab. It seems to have been in use for years. Now someone has reactivated it. There are several gurneys. I guess they do experiments there.

00:21:26: He uses the girls for that and also wants me to take part in those experiments, voluntarily or not.

00:21:32: Did he tell you what he was trying to accomplish with these experiments?

00:21:36: He wants to disable the lock on the silver box, which only allows one upgrade per brain at a time.

00:21:41: I was afraid of something like that.

00:21:43: Sif said, lowering her eyes. Is that even possible?

00:21:47: I don't know. As far as I know, someone built that lock into the silver box for a reason.

00:21:53: It was to prevent more than one soul from being deposited in the silver box.

00:21:58: Keep in mind that the original function of the box was to be an emergency storage for the data of a brain of an android like me.

00:22:05: The makers did not design it for the rich and powerful to use it to upgrade their implant.

00:22:11: And mixing several of these brain data sets, because why?

00:22:14: I can only speculate as much as you. I suspect insanity and apsychosis are still the most harmless after effects.

00:22:21: Presumably, the data becomes unusable and the mind decomposes.

00:22:26: He's put in two implants. He seems to really want to go through with it.

00:22:30: Okay. Now I get it. So that's how he's had two assistant systems at his disposal.

00:22:36: Alexa and Siri are not enough for him. Now he wants Cortana as well.

00:22:40: What do you mean?

00:22:41: It's an old time joke. The first assistant systems were simple expert systems that you carried around in small devices at home or in your cell phone.

00:22:50: They all came from different manufacturers and were based on different systems.

00:22:54: I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

00:22:55: After a bottle or two of red, Simon went on a lengthy lecture about that.

00:23:00: You miss your friend, don't you?

00:23:02: Of course.

00:23:04: Then we should think about how to improve our situation.

00:23:07: You're right. So what kind of hand do we have?

00:23:10: I'm not sure. Not a good one, I guess.

00:23:14: Well, first, there's the question of how you and I can even talk here in the stream.

00:23:18: Shouldn't they lock you in the silver box?

00:23:20: You're right. That's weird. I am.

00:23:24: But I have the ability to communicate with you and therefore with the outside world.

00:23:29: How did you do it last time?

00:23:31: I had transferred parts of myself into the memory of Vincent, the scanning robot.

00:23:36: Fortunately, Mr. Haddad had installed this second personality.

00:23:40: That, what was his name? That Bob personality.

00:23:44: That enabled me to effortlessly breach the firewall of the robot and seamlessly transfer myself into its memory.

00:23:51: I raised my finger thoughtfully.

00:23:53: I whispered.

00:23:54: What?

00:23:55: When Simon died, Simon said something else to me.

00:23:58: He said, "Think about Bob."

00:24:00: I think what he meant by that was think of Bob.

00:24:03: He was trying to give you a way to use the robot.

00:24:06: Selma put Vincent out of commission as much as she and I were.

00:24:10: But she doesn't know about Bob Vincent's alternate personality.

00:24:13: Bob works autonomously.

00:24:16: That's why we can talk here in the stream.

00:24:18: And maybe you can do even more.

00:24:20: What do they mean?

00:24:22: You could connect with the robot's personality.

00:24:25: Then you can work with Bob to find the girls.

00:24:28: And you might even escape.

00:24:30: Well, how do I do that?

00:24:31: I asked.

00:24:32: First, we have to find out where the robot is.

00:24:35: If we're unlucky, they didn't take it and it's still in the penthouse suite in Eggman.

00:24:40: Or maybe it's around here somewhere.

00:24:42: Alright.

00:24:43: I said.

00:24:44: What do I have to do?

00:24:46: [Loud sound]

00:24:52: I didn't open my eyes.

00:24:54: I didn't have eyes.

00:24:56: Bob, the alternate personality of Vincent, the scanning robot, had no eyes.

00:25:01: But his receptor was immediately active.

00:25:04: I saw the world turn 90 degrees.

00:25:07: I was lying on my side with my squad robot body.

00:25:10: Hello.

00:25:11: Said the robot.

00:25:12: Hello, buddy.

00:25:14: I'm Joseph.

00:25:15: A friend of Simon's.

00:25:17: Yeah.

00:25:18: Right.

00:25:19: I'm Bob.

00:25:20: Hello, Bob.

00:25:21: Hello, Joseph.

00:25:22: Where's Simon?

00:25:23: Simon's not here right now.

00:25:25: But he told me to say hello to you.

00:25:28: Thank you.

00:25:29: I'd like you to stand up, Bob.

00:25:31: I'm lying on my side.

00:25:33: That's right, Bob.

00:25:34: Now, I'd like you to get yourself back into an upright position.

00:25:38: How do I do that?

00:25:40: I've never been in this situation before.

00:25:42: And my protocols for such an emergency don't seem in place.

00:25:46: It didn't surprise me.

00:25:48: Bob was already the second personality in the robot's memory.

00:25:51: Then Siv had taken a part of his memory banks.

00:25:54: Presumably that had overwritten some of the robot's logs.

00:25:57: I hope that among them were no logs that jeopardized the robot's operation.

00:26:01: I'll make you a deal, Bob.

00:26:03: I'll take the helm for you.

00:26:05: You sit back and enjoy the show.

00:26:07: That's an acceptable proposition.

00:26:09: You seem to know your way around here better than I do.

00:26:12: According to my GPS data, I am very far from the university library.

00:26:17: Can you pinpoint the exact location?

00:26:19: We appear to be in an old industrial complex.

00:26:22: It suddenly dawned on me that we were really in the old lab where Sif had been held captive.

00:26:27: Thanks, buddy.

00:26:28: But I'll take it from here.

00:26:30: I commanded the robot servo motors to roll onto its side so that it could get into an upright position with the help of its mechanical arms.

00:26:37: Then I looked around.

00:26:39: I found myself in a kind of parking garage.

00:26:42: A line of various electric cars and drone copters were standing in their parking bays.

00:26:47: I spotted the elevator.

00:26:49: I rolled toward it.

00:26:50: It looked like it was some kind of freight elevator.

00:26:53: It must have been used to transport heavy lab equipment to the lower floors in the past.

00:26:58: Like the elevator I had used while sitting in a wheelchair, this one didn't have any buttons to push.

00:27:03: However, there was a QR code a robot like Bob could interpret.

00:27:07: It took me a moment to convert my desire to go to the lower floors into a command.

00:27:12: Then a laser scanned the QR code.

00:27:15: The freight elevator basket came up and its doors opened.

00:27:18: I rolled into the car.

00:27:20: Then the robot relayed a few beeping sounds.

00:27:23: The elevator understood the cryptic commands.

00:27:25: The doors closed again and the elevator descended.

00:27:28: So far so good, I thought.

00:27:31: Now I hope this lab was like every other facility I knew.

00:27:34: That there were plenty of service robots among whom Bob would not stand out.

00:27:39: Just in time, it occurred to me it would make sense to disguise the identity of the robot.

00:27:44: Fortunately, Siv had explained to me how I could do this.

00:27:47: So now Bob was a service robot from the Miller Company of Washington,

00:27:51: which had a service contract with Sherbur Limited.

00:27:54: The freight elevator stopped and the doors opened.

00:27:58: The game was on.

00:28:01: [Music]

00:28:11: [Dramatic Music]