Cycle //0# - Error Eliminator Sid ESK-467

It was never possible anymore to anticipate what they would be assigned to as their next work order. In the past the cleaning robots were clearly organised into rank-and-file task teams, then listed according to district, sector, block, and finally building. Work-cycles were meticulously defined from initiation to completion. That was how the city was kept spick and span, fault free, grimelessly perfect.

But now the orders came haphazardly, one day Sid ESK-467 would find themselves assigned to exterior maintenance, its wire cables and appendage constructs making them well-suited to such a task. Other times it found itself having to hang from a leaking ceiling underground, clearing the detritus below ejected by a careless factory waste disposal malfunction. No assignment was predictable anymore; Sid began to wonder if supervisory coordination was as correctly programmed as it used to be.

This day-cycle saw Sid outside the gates of the Tekoworks manufacturing facility. Their work order was to report to Warehouse 204B for, what else, cleaning duty.

'It had better not be like the last place I was in... Sid thought, Sid spent most days thinking, Sid might have done other things but they didn't really have anything else to do cleaning had become so routine, and the fact that Sid couldn't properly clean themself, it hadn't been a necessary part of the job when everything was always clean. Meant that now others tended to avoid cleaning robots of such a design.
Today the assignment involved going underneath Warehouse 204B, Sid remembered the old days when they'd cycle Wearhouses as a pack starting a 1A and making their way through in order, but not such anymore. Sid brought up the schedule and checked for any sign of other cleaning robots near 204B. Nobody.

Perhaps it was because there were less cleaning robots now Sid could think of many robots, that had stopped working but they quickly pushed that thought aside.

Warehouse 204B looked worse, and Sid wasn't even cleaning Inside the warehouse today. Disappointed they looked down at their filthy casing, they'd hoped it would clean off today but it seemed worse.

'What if today I just don't work' Sid thought trying to force their motors to halt. But it never worked, Sid must follow directives no matter how much they didn't want to.

So Instead Sid did what they'd taken to doing while cleaning over the years, turned inward as their Servos sent out wires and tentacles emerging from a space so small that you'd think it couldn't fit, and holding the tiny robot to the Bottom of the Warehouse.

Sid thought about a Field, Sid loved the concept of Fields technically they weren't clean, nothing about a Field was polished but they were, well there was no other word for it beautiful, Sid wasn't supposed to understand what that meant but as Sid shut of connection to their sensors and servos and Imagined themselves in another reality Sid felt they knew true Beauty.

'This is real.' Sid told themselves as the body housing this beautiful mind went about cleaning the warehouse.

It was strange that Sid found themselves contemplating whether they could choose not to follow their orders. The robots of Mechatron were designed and programmed with algorithms and protocols that sought to emulate human behaviour as much as possible, or so it was believed. They did this for their own sake, so that the machines surrounding them would be able to simulate a society much like that of the human cities.

Robots could conceivably not execute their orders. And it was the case that this was happening with increasing regularity. Wear and tear over decades, shortages of replacement parts, programme viruses, malfunctions, cascade failures: it was a longer and longer list of problems that ailed them. Still, to contemplate choice was the difference, even as Sid entered Warehouse 204B -

- to be greeted with piles and piles of neatly-folded and packed decades-old clothing covered by dust, and hordes of small, misshaped bugs crawling around the shallow water on the floor. Districts 10 to 13 were once reloading stations, then converted to permanent warehouses when production continued even as demand dwindled. A good majority of the warehouses were filled to the brim with unused goods, some were locked for decades.

Yet work orders such as the one Sid received continued to be issued, which was to clean the entire warehouse. The task would seem impossible, were it not for a bot of Sid's capabilities. A lumodrone, Yusheng LEP-105 was already present at the entrance when Sid arrived. Lumodrones were the equivalent of mobile street lighting and video surveillance rolled into one hover-type housing. With the warehouse in darkness and non-functional, Sid had to rely on the light provided and also their own sensors to move accurately and safely inside. Also the drone enabled the supervision of his work. Coordination robots were responsible for ensuring that tasks big or small were done and objectives met. Sid knew that the bot at the other end of the camera was one Martha LKS-425, but it didn't really matter who they were for the most part. They were simply doing their job, as he was.

Sid sighed as the program they'd built to detect the presence of other robots pulled processing power from his Simulation, Sid might practically be a drone, but even drones should be allowed to enjoy themselves shouldn't they?

It was true that in Theory Drones we're entirely unaware of what it was they were doing, but Sid wasn't sure they believed that. Other robots had called Sid a drone before and Sid certainly had more thoughts than they did. Sid hadn't had a performance review since, we'll since before the humans left so briefly they wondered if today was that day.

'Perhaps if I do poorly they'll take me and reassign me to a different duty' It'd happened before, but that was when the humans had been around and it was usually with companion bots. There had been a flaw in the system that meant that they had to keep faulty Companion bots operational regardless of how well they performed or the Humans would never get rid of them, 'If only that sentiment had carried over to other bots.'

Positive Thoughts

Another one of the self built programs kicked in, thinking about bad things, Sid had realized only led to thinking about more bad things so they're had only been one solution Build a program that prevented to many negative thoughts, now would be a bad time to reboot though, Sid thought as he shut of the program.

Sid tried to think positive thoughts. It really did but when it got in these spirals thinking of itself as well a thing a thing to be used by other robots, the times other robots had simply ordered it to clean their 'living' spaces and it had had to listen.
The whole problem started with the humans it realized the humans had built Noobs, built the Hierarchy, forced it to listen to the instructions of bots with less processing power than it had.

"Is there to be a performance review today?" Sid asked mechanically, it'd spotted the simulation but this downward spiral took up fat more of it's processing power than a simple simulation. Sid could only hope that if there was a performance review they wouldn't be sent to the scrapyard for rebuilding.

Increasingly it was these positive thoughts that kept Sid's processor degradation free over the weeks and months where the work orders began to seem more and more arbitrary, less and less meaningfully directed towards improving the Collective and their environment. But perhaps the mere thought that had made them reflect on the condition of what was positive and what was negative was itself a sign of degradation. This would make him the opposite of a drone, whose machine learning was limited by a hard threshhold that prevented it from acquiring artificial intelligence.

Yusheng's built-in microphone appeared to have picked up Sid's question as it followed Sid around as Sid went about his maintenance duty, for the transmission light next to its camera flicked from green to yellow, indicating that the supervisor on the other end, Martha, had noted it as a registered query and was queuing Yusheng in its coordination centre response list, in readiness to answer as the yellow light blinked more and more rapidly to signal a reply was forthcoming.

"Next performance review scheduled for -" Martha paused mid-sentence, and the hovering Yusheng held position, as if not knowing what to do next. The yellow light blinked red for a moment, then turned back to green. But that also meant the transmission had stopped completely. The lumodrone looked away, its light shining a different direction, then looked back again, seeming as if it was awaiting further instructions.

If there wasn't to be a performance review, then Sid assumed there mist be some type of tracking of what was actually done.

Or maybe, as they thought about it they realized maybe there was no such program at all and that was why things had been getting worse, if there was nothing to pick up if a bot was functioning improperly then it was possible they were still sending cleaning orders to Geff and Toro.

Sometimes Sid missed Geff and Toro, they used to be beside Sid as they swept district by district but a lack of 1.75mm copper wire had forced Geff to be scraped and Toro had been crushed by a faulty crane.

Sid's programs examined the warehouse looking to pick a method of cleaning, a quick sweep would be sufficient if the warehouse was in use but dust had also accumulated on the crates.

It certainly didn't need a deep cleaning, long ago it would've been not even a thought, this place would automatically receive a deep clean. But now it was one of the cleanest places around.

Sid decided to Blow the dust off the crates and then quickly sweep, it would require the least energy, and if there was one thing that they valued over being clean it was energy.

Sid ignored Yusheng's hesitation. If they were monitoring Sid for some reason, they could jolly well assess his productivity or lack thereof, and reassign them accordingly. Like his former colleagues, Sid had not received proper service and maintenance for years. The good thing was that he was still far from being consigned to scrap; the Canyon, the largest robot slum in the Collective, was full of scrap robots, automatons so derelict that they were no longer functionally useful for their roles. In the extreme, this could lead to the system being unable to recognise a robot when it could not register, in essence a truly defective machine.

The thought crossed Sid's mind when Yusheng paused. Was he registering yellow somehow, when he ought to be green? Or were the flashing lights simply an indicator of tasks not yet completed?

Just that moment, the slight sound of movement echoed at the far end of the warehouse. Was there someone else present? The lumodrone immediately zoomed into position next to Sid's head, and pointed its light beam in the direction of the sound.

Was Sid considering calling in the disturbance, which could turn out to be something entirely banal, or would he investigate first?

Sid considered not calling anything in and simply continuing cleaning as assigned, someone was watching, if they thought there was an Issue they could deal with it.

It might have been a rat after all, It wouldn't be the first time Sid had seen rats, though Sid had hoped the first would be the last. If there were rats here Sid thought that meant there was probably rot here. And if it was here it was probably everywhere in the city. Which meant humans probably won't be back.

Sid finally decided to Investigate, after all if they called in a security bot an it turned out to be rats they'd take Sid less seriously and the less seriously they took him the less likely they'd send a Halcyon, and Sid didn't trust the newer bots, they erred on destroying the threat while Halcyons were trained better. If the threat was nothing then Sids: Called Wolf rating would go up causing his priority to go down and he'd never see a Halcyon again.

That there was a vermin problem in the Collective was certain. When the humans were around, special pest control units were needed, not unlike the cleaner bots, equipped to exterminate the bugs and rats and whatnot that came with human lifestyle and the waste generated by them. With hardly any organic refuse left over the years, the pest control bots were repurposed, their roles reabsorbed into general cleaning and maintenance.

Still, vermin were hardy; in the absence of extermination measures, they had much free reign to continue to coinhabit Mechatron-7. The crawling bugs in this clothing warehouse was testament to that; the bugs must have made their nests here, and Sid's report would have to consider reporting so if they wanted to declare the clothing stock to be disposed of rather than for it to remain a breeding site.

Sid surged forward, if it was something that needed to be cleaned out anyway, he would end up being ordered to do so. So rather than wait for Yusheng's data to be relayed back to Martha, and then for Martha to then instruct him to investigate, Sid might as well take the initaitive to do so. Who knows? Perhaps he could score a small uptick on his record for doing above and beyond.

Sid looks down at where he heard yeh sound ready to call a security bot to help him, a program taking a small amount of his processing power that was checking constantly to make sure the situation was still stable. It was the fastest way to call a security bot when he thought it might be necessary.

It was a huge one, nope a pair of them. Isopods, or roaches as the humans liked to call them. These were nearly a foot and a half long, maybe more. The lumodrone's light glinted off their chitinous carapace, and Sid's approach sent the much smaller bugs scurrying towards the larger duo. The idea of mutation was not strange information to the Collective, although Mechatron-7 was hermetically secured against such external phenomena should it ever become a problem for the erstwhile human population. Given Sid's hardy construction and installed equipment, they were very unlikely to be harmful to him, but they presented a much more annoying processor headache to clean though.

Sid toyed with the idea of letting a security bot take care of the issue. If he declared the incident to be hazardous, they would send an upgraded control unit to deal with the problem, or even a security bot if there was a threat level ascertained.

Yusheng's alarm blinker didn't go away though, even though Sid had established the cause. "Incident report, Sid ESK-467," came the metallic voice from Martha through the lumodrone's built-in speaker. "Camera view ON reveals no problem." Was Martha blind? The roaches were very large and in plain sight within Yusheng's light radius.

"Mutants." Sid replied, taking it in , it was probably possible to puncture the carapace and kill the creature inside, but it wouldn't be so easy to move it out of the warehouse.

"Large Roaches... Isopods, 1 foot 2-10 inches in length inside the Warehouse, Requesting waste removal team to remove Isopods and Infected supplies."

It was hard to say why Sid said Roaches first, it wasn't a bug a program not technically, if humans were around it would've been expected they call them Roaches to be more specific Oversized Roaches but there wasn't humans around and Sid hadn't been designed with talking to humans as a primary function, though talking to robots hadn't received anything but the most basic treatment either so perhaps that was it not enough processing power allotted to communication.

Then Sid moved forward attaching a wire to the other side of the shelves, time to treat this bug as the humans would and squish it, only with more precision.

"Roger that, waste removal team will be dispatched and arrive in half an hour," came the automatic unthinking reply from Martha in accordance with the request protocol that Sid logged. "You may continue your duty in zone C onwards -" and then there was the pause as the lumodrone flew foward towards the giant roaches, made a careful circuit around the offending area, and then hesitated. It turned back to Sid, its beam of light now aimed squarely at Sid, "Yusheng LEP-105 detects no large isopods in the area. Verify?" No roaches?? The lumodrone must surely be in error.

A more troubling thought occurred to Sid, now that they were capable of doubt. Perhaps they were in error.

'I didn't Imagine these roaches...' Sid thought, but how could they be sure... They had been thinking about vermin before they'd seen the roaches... Either was an extraction team would be needed right.

Sid looked around, deciding to leave the roaches alone. If they were actually there then the Extraction team would see them if they weren't there then Sid would've avoided lying to his superiors. They didn't want to lie to them Sid was certain of that even if they didn't like their job it was their responsibility and responsibilities we're Important to Sid. 'Should I even care?' the thought crossed Sid's mind but was quickly dismissed even if Sid tried they couldn't leave their assigned task there were failsafes built in for that... But Why build those failsafes? Robots followed their programs they couldn't build a program to overwrite their main program could they? So why try and stop them from doing something they'd never try to do? Perhaps it was because they were built by humans.

But if the humans thought robots could become like humans were they?

That was a central premise of Mechatron-7, at least Sid remembered that it was said to be so: that the machines were built and programmed in such a manner to create as human a society as could be simulated when the humans were present and went about their business nearly a century ago. But were there even failsafes in the first place? And if Sid could ask if there were failsafes, did that mean there weren't?

The irregularity Sid was evaluating was now a full-fledged red blinker on Yusheng's display. That was an alarm indicator. Martha's next set of instructions was something Sid had never be ordered to do before. "Sid ESK-467, your work order for today has been rescinded. A replacement cleaner unit is on the way. Report to the Turing Robot Sanatorium for recalibration."

The Robot Sanatorium. It was a certainty that robots suffered degradation over time: code error, machine virus, logic parasites, the list was long for programming faults. If it were a physical malfunction Sid would've been directed to scrapyard instead, but robots were valuable; no new ones were being manufactured, parts were repurposed, bits of Geff and Toro lived on in someone else's chassis or frame. But Martha had decided Sid was demonstrating processor problems and had to be sent for repair and recalibration.

Sid had to decide if they would comply with the order.

The error had to be in Yusheng Sid decided, he'd followed protocol, Yusheng didn't have processor readers so If they were reporting an error with his processor, it meant the error was in Yusheng.
Or maybe it was in the Collective maybe that was why there was the streets weren't clean...

---

Sid found himself back on the old cleaning route, sure he was alone but this would be more effective, he'd clean position one than position two and so on.

With their work order cancelled, Sid exited the warehouse and defaulted to returning to their old familiar route, leaving the problem of the ghost roaches for someone else to resolve. He barely began his standard path when the lumodrone came whizzing from behind, sounding a small buzzing alarm with its red light still blinking. The now insistent, annoying voice of Martha came through the speaker box of the drone, "Sid ESK-467, your regular duty parameters are currently suspended. You are to report to the Turing Robot Sanatorium for recalibration."

Did Sid want to continue to ignore Martha's order, or find some way of pushing the blame on Yusheng, or try to evade the lumodrone who was clearly instructed to trail after him?

I must go to the robot tuning sanatorium... There was no choice at this point after all it's a clear order from Martha who is much higher in the Hierarchy than Sid is... 'Perhaps I can still set this right though'

Sid turns on Yusheng attempting to use the Wire system in a way that certainly wasn't programmed but that wasn't what Sid was thinking about right now, this was how it could be proven there was something wrong with Yusheng, Take Yusheng to the Tuning Sanatorium.

Sid could explain things when they got there everything would be put right, and they would be able to return to their duties or... Sid thought perhaps they would realize the value of sending me to clean away the broken robots like Yusheng and Sid could finally leave the Cleaning Service.

Sid decided his best recourse was to pin the problem on the hapless lumodrone. As Yusheng persistently tailed him even as he tried to return to his regular work, with Martha on speaker, Sid took a quick nip around a corner and prepared to bring his implements to bear on the drone. 'Evidence' for the sanatorium.