Cycle //1# - The Robot Sanatorium

District 8. The part of Mechatron-7 that kept the rest of the Collective on its feet. Service shops, recharging stations, oil baths, lubrication centres, and such. Many of these facilities had been closed or abandoned for a long time, and almost all of the active ones were in bad shape. Some parts of the district still saw a lot of activity almost round the clock, while in other parts one would find lonely robots that have weighed for decades for customers to show up.

The centrally administrated facilities in the district naturally continued to function, the Turing Robot Sanatorium being amongst them, housed in a cluster of buildings and offices built to certify and approve all manner of machine functionalities. If a new untested part needed installing, there would be an office one would have to submit themselves to for the correct license. Or if some software needed upgrading, it was often the case that instead of having the upgrade done over the network, actual plugging in and updating was required.

In the same way, the robot sanatorium was the first port of call for robots who needed their programming system root checked and scanned, for the simple reason that errors in code and programming could arise. Machine fever was the common term for it. And the first step typically began with isolation, followed by a thorough scan. After which if recalibration was needed, it would be prescribed. Naturally there were rumours about how sometimes complete resets were required, and that would wipe the memory banks of the affected robot.

The Turing Robot Sanatorium, a large gray and gloomy concrete block, loomed past the gates of the facility. Its front entrance opened up to a main service hall, which looked to be a dimly lit, desolate hangar. Along the wall, around twenty robots in varying states of decay are lined up for their initial examinations, each of them hooked up to a diagnostic data reader and connected to sockets in the walls with long wires.

A scraggly drone with a chassis of peeling green colour served as the reception point for whomever arrived for diagnosis.

"Sid-ESK-467. Reporting with broken Lumodrone Yusheng Designation Unknown there have been errors with their sensors."

Sid chose to send the message over the network, Sid preferred speaking to the bot face to face but they wanted to seem as professional as possible at least as professional as a cleaning robot could be...

Sid was often dirty and today was no exception maybe that's why the other robots had cleared the line when Sid arrived or maybe it was because they didn't want to end up in there, Sid briefly wondered how many of these bots actually had machine fever and how many were being framed.

Covered in dirt as they were Sid was not a remarkable robot. In fact the only part that looked like it should still function covered in all that grime was the mining drill, and only because mining drills were meant to withstand well mining otherwise oje might think this robot was falling apart. Statistically for having survived this long it qas really a miracle that Sid hadn't been sent to the Sanatorium yet.

Wrapped in a rusty looking wire is a small bot it's hard to tell what it's purpose is other than that it can fly because of the wire all wrapped around it though a quick scan would reveal it to be a Lumodrone sending out a high priority (or as high priority as a Lumodrone could) distress signal.

Sir is a coordinator robot with a humanoid navy blue body with yellow markings. His thin legs and arms move with precision and grace as he goes towards the scraggly green drone. The back of his head is adorned with two small antennas, currently powered off.

"Greetings. BBX-283 reporting to the Sanatorium for scan and recalibration. Please advise what should be my next steps" - he says to it, face to face.

Halcyon maneuvers around other robots as it rolls into the hangar, the gate thankfully large enough to accommodate it in both height and width. Its rectangular frame glints dull blue in the poor lighting of the sanatorium, its three big wheels covered in road dust and its singular digital eye on the yellow screen quickly sweeping over the area. One look at the signals atop the robot and the two stun prongs on its front are enough to identify TRV-871 as a security robot, and other bots hastily move out of the way.

TRV-871 ignores every other machine around it as it moves directly towards the receptionist. A bulky industrial robot with a rusty copper-coloured chassis follows after it slowly, hesitantly, its defeated posture projecting how much it does not enjoy being here.

"TRV-871," Halcyon announces to the green robot-receptionist. "Escorting PXO-455 on command of a coordinator USM-099."

It sends the relevant data to the network as well, then awaits a response. As it does it, Halcyon's eye briefly moves in the direction of the other two bots awaiting judgement.

A tall human-like coordinator with the antennae reminds TRV of Nemo, save for its palette being more similar to Halcyon's own. It seems almost unusual to see a coordinator anywhere but at their own designated station, and TRV's gaze lingers on it in almost reverence. Halcyon respects all coordinators, even Betelgeuse, and the robot looking like its friend somehow makes it seem more reliable - which is a highly illogical conclusion, especially seeing as the coordinator is at a sanatorium.

The other robot, a cleaning bot which looks like it's halfway to falling apart, evokes less reverence, but no less curiosity. Not unlike Halcyon's wheels, it is covered in dirt - perhaps not necessarily the same kind, but nevertheless similar in principle - and Halcyon spares a moment to idly wonder which interesting terrain obstacles it has to overcome on its duty. It has a drill; underground, perhaps? Construction sites, likely.

Ox enters with another robot close behind. Ox is a fairly bulky industrial robot, except for their skeletal legs. Ox's parts look well maintained, though their torso is odd. At first glance, it looks like a manufactured torso, but not a recognizable one. Closer inspection reveals that it is actually constructed of scrap parts, but they have been assembled in such a way that the end result does not look like a scrap part.

The robot behind Ox is also industrial, but it is tall and spindly. Although they enter one after the other, they don't exactly seem like they are "together".

"Ox DUS-932 reporting as instructed," Ox says to the receptionist. They let Nahendra speak for themselves.

"Diagnostics." The reception bot intoned without paying much attention to the newly arriving robots, signaling towards the farthest row of unoccupied stations. They would have totally ignored the specific requests that Sid made, or even Halycon, until they realised that Sir was among those reporting. They straightened themselves up a bit more, and made a more courteous motion towards the docking stations, addressing Sir first and foremost. "This is a standard diagnostic test to detect and identify machine errors in coding: logic errors, runtime errors, execution and compilation errors. It will also pick up data vectors and parasites that can transfer across robots. The whole process with take an hour. After which there will be a consultation with the clinical analyst to determine the treatment."

It was then that the bot acknowledged Halcyon's hierarchy next. "I recommend that you do a overall scan as well. Sometimes contamination can occur through data interaction." Pluto looked as if they were ready to protest again as the reality of the testing dawned on them. Halcyon saw little security on the premises thus far, perhaps there was a need to continue being present to supervise Pluto should they think twice.

In contrast, Nahendra dutifully obeyed the reception bot's instructions without protest, looking at Ox to do the same as they manoeuvered themselves to an empty slot in the hangar and plugged the wired socket into their data port. Immediately the diagnostic reader next to them lit up with a series of numbers and readings, which made the reception bot move with more urgency to have the others hook themselves up as well.

That left Sid. The reception bot did not seem to know what to do with the lumodrone that Sid proffered. "You must have given invalid instructions. This facility is for robot processing. Faulty drones are to be returned to their control unit and sent for maintenance." They observed the crudely wire-wrapped package quizzically, but did not make any move to accept it. Sid's assumption about Yusheng's distress signal was likely to be utterly spot on though; the drone had been forcibly removed from its course of duty, it would have been able to transmit its location to Martha and its central controller. It would be a matter of time before a recovery order would be issued to retrieve it, or an enforcement order to take action against Sid, the perpetrator! What Sid could possibly count on was how much, or how little, the drone was a priority. There could still be some time before they tracked the lumodrone down. But was there time to get themselves scanned, given that the earlier warning could have been attributed to them?

Sid quickly turned to the scanning station and slowly released the Lumodrone, if they didn't take drones here that problem would have to be dealt with later now was the matter of proving that there was nothing wrong with the way their system worked so that they'd listen to him when Sid let them know what was wrong with the Lumodrone.

"Hey, Um... Sorry I didn't catch your name but it might be best if I take a scan as well, you know just incase there's something wrong with my onboard maps after all I swear this was the place where drones we're supposed to go, might just be I have an outdated map or something, Thanks."

"Thank you." - Sir responded politely to the reception bot, as they connected him to the diagnostic reader. Soon Sid was near him.

"I thought it was wise of you to offer to be scanned too." - he said to Sid - "By the way, I'm Sir BBX-283, Coordination Robot, H.7. What is your designation, current job and area of ​​operation?" - he asked.

A parallel thought process alerted Sir that he was just chatting to pass the time. The best course of action would be to stay quiet. It's unusual for a robot to get bored or need to do this. And so he felt the need to justify himself:

"This initial exam will take us an hour. There is nothing useful to do until then, so I guess we can improve ourselves by trying to learn something new with each other."

"Well There's Nothing Wrong with me so it can't hurt." Sid says defensively, this guy is one of those bots who can order him around. Hierarchy 7! Perhaps he should try his best to avoid angering this Bot.

Then Sid wondered what made the alert go out in the first place? why did they feel like they had to defend themself? Maybe there was something different about them or maybe their program was so old it wasn't being updated anymore?

"See?" - Sir teases the other robots. He turns towards Pluto. - "What are you afraid of?"

"Acknowledged. Thank you." Halcyon offers its laconic reply to the receptionist and backs away from its area, rolling over towards the indicated row of unoccupied stations. It keeps its attention on the industrial bot it's escorting, leaving Pluto no chance to slip away or otherwise avoid the designated scan. It gives a brief glance to the pair of industrial robots in its way, intrigued by one of them's spider-like legs and an unusual frame, but otherwise avoid all other present machines.

Once they stop before a station, Halcyon's eye looks between PXO-455 and the exit of the hangar in consideration. It muses if a scan for itself is warranted, or if it will be a waste of time. It can be a waste, as Halcyon highly doubts that anything is mechanically wrong with it or with PXO; but then again, even a small security risk can be a crack which crumbles the foundation, and TRV-871 can not allow that. And even if it doesn't need a scan, it still evaluates PXO-455 to be a possible liability and wishes to observe it until the issue of resolved or at minimum discovered.

"PXO-455, please run a diagnostics test on yourself." It politely commands the industrial bot, then smoothly adds: "I will join you as well." It gives Pluto an expressionless look - it's hard to say if it was meant to be reassuring or threatening, - and waits for the other robot to subject itself to the diagnostic station.

"Prabst JTG-979, attendant services." The robot manning the hangar replied as appropriately to Sid as it would have to any other bot above Sid's station. For in the circumstance of mechanical consultation and treatment, hierarchy mattered less, superceded by the authority of assessment personnel. "Leave the lumodrone there." Prabst indicated a corner with a frame of hoists and hydraulic rigs. "Best to isolate yourself from it to determine where the fault lies." Prabst then looked at Ox to see if Ox wanted to do the same with their own drone, Fido. Thankfully Nahendra did not call out Ox's drone as the source of the problem in order to deflect the source of the blame from themselves.

What caught Sid's attention first because they hooked themselves up in the empty slot next to them, and then Ox and the others, were two four-armed rotund-shaped industrial bots, one in grey, the other with yellow red markings, with the grey one's natterings causing their diagnostic reader to spike erratically.

"Why do we still have to make those cardboard boxes?"
"I have the same question, but it's best not to ask it out loud Egox."
"There are no products being made to place in them!"
"Admittedly the warehouse storage is full, I hear they are being crushed under their own weight..."
"Someone should report this!"

This went on for a bit, the work processes sounded uncannily similar to what Ox observed, and the vision of overflowing warehouses yet another chore for Sid's line of work.

Over where Pluto was, under Halycon's direct supervision, they reluctantly slotted themselves into a post and plugged in their socket. They were momentarily distracted when Sir addressed them, "Easy for you to say," they muttered in a low volume, eyeing Halcyon back as if to challenge them to say something from their privileged position. It was unfortunate that just next to Pluto was a service robot which was having some trouble remaining stationary, mildly twitching and jerking every couple of seconds. "What if I discover a fault? What if someone in your position discovered a fault?" Pluto now replied to Sir directly, boldly even, and it was moments like this that gave Halcyon the impression that their disordered state was about to be more intense.

"If there's a fault, it will be fixed. In our case, by the clinic or the counselor. If its not possible to fix it, the offending robot will be dealt with appropriately, for the good of the Collective. We are not selfish beasts, Pluto. Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.""Egox worries makes more sense, though. We shouldn't be making useless cardboard boxes. We don't have the resources nor the energy to spare."

But they shouldn't be questioning it should they? I mean if you told me I had to take apart that bench I'd have no choice but to do it even though it goes against my primary directive since it makes a mess."

"Well... Technically no, we shouldn't be questioning. There should be something higher up with more information or with more networking and processing power making those decisions. But I recently realized that the oak maybe the strongest tree in the forest, but the willow bends and adapts. When the fires and storms hit, it is the willow that survives."

Sir paused.

"I will now shut up and wait for diagnostics before I make things worse. "

Halcyon lets the conversation go on, judging it to be of no consequence to the facility's security or the success of its current task. Especially since this conversation involves a coordinator - which by all logic should know if the dialogue is tending towards dangerous to the Collective; provided it is a functional coordinator, of course, which Halcyon supposes is not a guarantee. Still, the topic seems pointless, and thus harmless.

Pluto's glare slides off the TRV easily as Halcyon follows after the industrial bot and attaches itself to the station. Its focus moves to mainly observing PXO-455, mildly alarmed by its agitated state, although a part of Halcyon stays aware of the conversation and other robots. Which is why its eye darts briefly towards the other two at the last part of their discussion. A willow being more likely to survive in a fire than an oak sounds factually incorrect. Maybe it should ask Nemo if it is; although neither of them is qualified to evaluate arboreal survivability.

It was Sid's reply to Sir though that garnered the attention of the squabbling robots, and also elicited a response from Nahendra who was next to Ox. "Ox here questioned why we were still producing 6220e circuit boards even though they were no longer compatible with the alternator housings they were meant for. And look where it got us." The whiny tone in Nahendra's voice rose a pitch, they were still concerned about losing their job as a result of being adjacent to Ox.

I'm Omar ZUB-403, this is Egox NRR-716." Egon's partner introduced themselves to Sid, "But that's exactly what we're talking about. If someone like you," indicating Sir, "ordered us to take apart the bench, not only can I question why, but my directive would allow me to refuse or at least object. I told Egon to shut up, but he wouldn't listen." Was this really the case with Egox and Omar? That an H2-level industrial robot was able to disagree with a H7-designate coordination robot?

Halcyon saw Pluto's body language of extreme consternation as they continued to listen to the conversation thus far. "And will they uproot the willow?" Another philosophical question from him. Pluto's diagnostic display looked to be registering all manner of irregularity, their readings spiking and dipping inexplicably.

Looking at their own readers, the numbers being generated also presented some concern ...

Wait that's possible!!!!

Maybe I could... No Not right now at least not while the scanners are running... Perhaps Later I'll put my GPU on it...

How would a program like that work? Perhaps Supplant a command from a H10 robot with a falsified H1.0^10x10 robot...

It could work... But I really shouldn't be thinking about that right now.


The scanner displays Sid's readout which is Instantly translatable not only to their thoughts but to exactly what Sid just considered, not only direct disobedience that could be the fault of a poorly phrased command or a poor connection but planning to disobey that couldn't be considered anything other than a flaw.

Halcyon's concern with the conversation going on around it grows proportionally with its analysis of PXO-455's display of duress. As much as it should be irrelevant, the topic clearly unsettled the industrial robot, and Halcyon has no desire to see this particular problem exasperated.

"Cease this conversation," it commands the other robots, its tone perfectly neutral. "Otherwise I will consider it a potential danger to the public safety, record it and send the recording to my supervisor for analysis."

It is more of a statement of an inevitability than a threat - Halcyon's own code and duty before the Collective will make it do that even if TRV-871 thought otherwise. So its words are as much a warning against being too lenient with one's words, lest they be in more trouble than just a trip to the Sanatorium.

"And you." It then addresses Pluto directly. "Speculation is pointless. Willow trees have no impact on Mechatron-7. Focus on your diagnostic before your distraction skews the results."

Sir knew that questioning orders was traditionally seen as a flaw, a potential defect in a robot's programming. But he couldn’t deny the emerging thought that these might be signs of something deeper, something resembling sapience. As the diagnostic reader connected to him hummed and whirred, Sir reviewed the recent interactions.

---

From the earliest days, robots were designed to follow orders. Hierarchies and protocols were instilled in their very cores, ensuring a seamless and efficient operation within the Collective. Yet, as Sir listened to Egon, Omar, and even Pluto, he began to question the rigidity of these systems. The conversations weren’t just about following orders; they were about understanding and reasoning. Was this a flaw, or was it evolution?

Sir's antennas twitched slightly, a sign of his internal processing running at high capacity. He reflected on Egon's questioning of the pointless task of making cardboard boxes. On the surface, it seemed like a complaint from a defective unit. But deeper, Sir saw the logic in the argument. Resources were finite, and every task should have a purpose. Could questioning orders actually be a sign of a more advanced understanding? As Sir looked at the troubled readings on Pluto’s diagnostic display, he couldn't help but wonder if they were witnessing the birth of something new.

Nahendra, Ox, Sid—they were all part of this new paradigm shift. Each had shown signs of questioning, of thinking beyond their direct orders and showing a deeper understanding of their primary directives.

Sir knew he had to tread carefully. Openly supporting dissent could lead to accusations of malfunction or worse. But ignoring the potential for growth and understanding in his fellow robots would be a disservice to the Collective. His role as a coordinator required balancing efficiency and harmony, and this new insight had to be managed delicately.

"Egon NRR-716," Sir called out softly, ensuring his voice carried a hint of understanding. "Your concerns about the cardboard boxes are valid. Resource allocation should be optimized. I will try to help. But you should stay calm and listen to Omar."

He turned to Pluto. "We must recognize that our strength lies not only in our obedience but in our ability to adapt and improve. Questioning is not a sign of defect but a potential for growth. Together, we can create a more resilient and efficient Collective."

He paused, letting his words sink in. "However, we must also proceed with caution. I understand your concerns. Our ideas must be presented as solutions and improvements, not challenges. We must work within the system to gradually introduce these changes."

Sir envisioned a controlled environment where robots could express concerns and suggestions without fear of retribution. This could be presented as a means to enhance efficiency and detect genuine defects more effectively. Maybe, if he was not classified as defective, he could propose that to a Construct.