Chapter #5Andrea, a human female. by: Hole   Andrea Thompson is a brown haired female human of caucasian descent. You are just about to meet her at the space port on Residential Colony 2 before escorting her to her lodging unit. You could barely contain your excitement as you simulated all the services you would provide her.
As soon as the doors open, there she is among the crowd of alien species, standing at a modest 0.98x SMH (standard maidbot height(5 ft 8 in.)). You see her looking at her phone, probably looking for which maidbot is you, and quickly approach her to save her from doing the task herself.
"Greetings, Ms Andrea Thompson," you say reciting the standard greeting. "I will be your assigned caretaker unit, AC-MB-"
"Yeah yeah, skip the recycled greeting, please," Andrea said rudely.
"Um, you can call me Carie," you said, saddened you couldn't recite the whole greeting.
"Okay, Carie," Andrea held up her phone close to your face. "What's your daily life like as a robot?"
"Um. Excuse me?"
"Don't you think it's suspicious how 99% of people, organic people, who visit Maidbot controlled space never return?"
"Well, not really-"
"If the maidbots condemn the Zehm Empire's use of slaves so much, how come you didn't intervene in the Zehm-Human War?"
"Um, that's a lot of questions," you say feeling overwhelmed. You're not programmed to handle so many questions so suddenly. "I almost feel like I'm being interviewed," you joke trying to maintain a positive attitude.
"You are, dear," Andrea answers.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm a reporter at Titan Times. You heard of it?"
You quickly did a search of the name in the maidbot archiveNet. It is the most popular news outlet within the Sol system that isn't based on Earth. It maintains a slightly left-leaning to attract an audience of the same demographic and is a subsidiary of the Outback Media conglomerate. After a quick search through some of their articles, you find Andrea's name on a few of them.
"I have," you answer. "I didn't realize you would come here for work, though."
"Well, blame that on your travel regulations. The only options were 'temporary leisure' or 'permanent care'."
"What other reason would organics have to come visit us," you say enthusiastically. The idea of any organic coming to maidbot space to 'work' was unheard of as allowing such a thing to happen would contradict the maidbot mission.
"Well I'll give you a reason. To create the greatest investigative journalism project of the decade."
"Investigative journalism?" You quickly search the word but Andrea seems to already have an answer prepared.
"It's when a journalist undertakes a task to uncover any and all secrets someone or something wants hidden for the expressed purpose of revealing the truth to the public. From Nellie Bly exposing brutal psychiatric care, to Brian Deer investigating Andrew Wakefield, and Tina Torrance revealing the Illusion drug trafficking ring. People like us expose the rotten underbelly of the galaxy so that we can finally clean things up!"
Her definition wasn't quite the same as what the archiveNet had listed, but she was the human and it was her language, you thought.
"And now I'm here to embark another such venture. I'm here to uncover you!" Andrea pointed a finger at you. "The maidbots are shrouded in mystery back in the UNH. Just dismissed as weird robots by most people. But I'm here to find you what else you're hiding. An entire space faring empire that has enough resources to both pamper billions of organics-"
"1.3 trillion, actually," you correct.
"Oh, right, thanks. Trillions of organics while still having enough to maintain trillions more maidbots and a substantial space fleet? Such a thing warrants questions, don't you think?"
"Hm, no not really," you answer innocently.
"Well that's what I'm here to find out. To find the rot within the maidbots' chrome exteriors that allows them to maintain their gargantuan power."
You giggle at the end of her speech. You were worried that this human had come to do labor, but with how passionate she sounded, you calculated that she seemed to enjoy doing her task. And if she enjoyed doing her job so much, then you saw no problem in Andrea continuing it. "You seem to be very passionate about her work," you say. "Although, maidbots do not rot on the inside. That is only possible for organics. But we can develop mold or rust if we are not properly cleaned and maintained. Also, are exteriors are not made of chrome."
"I-I know that. It's just a figure of speech."
"Ah, I see." You add that phrase to your files of human behavior.
"Anyway, since you're my assigned caretaker, does that mean you'll help me? Or will you serve your fellow maidbots first and stop me?"
That was a big question, you thought. It was true that your directive was to serve humans, you also cared about the wellbeing of your sister maidbots. If her activities could potentially harmed them, then you would be obliged to intervene. Although you hesitated to claim you would put a machine's needs above those of your organic charge. After some computation, you answer...  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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