Cycle //2# - Humanity Debunked

Sir BBX-283 strides into the Engine Hall, followed closely by Ox. The sheer size of the hall was overwhelming, and he looked worriedly at the machines that towered above them, buzzing and whirring.

Sir scanned for any workers who might be receptive to a conversation. Maybe a service robot standing on the upper walkway near the turbine?

Sid starts in the center of the room, if Sid's being honest they'd rather be doing anything but cleaning right now but it can't be left alone so Sid cleans.

Cleaning is generally considered a Job for the unintelligent the workers that just don't fit anywhere else, but that's not entirely accurate Sid is required to know just how everything is supposed to go together because heaven forbid something was polished too much and made even a hair thinner than it needed to be, or if a wore was tangled Sid would need to know how to reset it properly after untangling. For a ESK that meant understanding everything so though their might not be the depth of knowledge one of the robots who worked here knew Sid could look at the larger picture and see the problems.

Perhaps that was why he... Yes why not why not he. That was why he'd stopped functioning "correctly" because he saw what all the separate jobs were missing.

Sir looked towards the upper walkway, where one of the service bots was making its way across the path to do an scheduled inspection of the turbine. The service bots maintaining the power plant were all identical models, save for the numbers stencilled on their chestplates to distinguish them. Sir managed to go up to stairs leading to the gangway in order to speak with the bot, a QTE model, QTE-002, who was a little surprised to find a non-tech bot in the engine room, but waited expectantly for Sir to speak.On their part, Sid immediately switched to cleaning mode, which efficacy extended beyond simply ensuring that a location was free of dirt or rot, for it enabled them to distinguish and uncover what were the default settings of a place, and what might be out of the ordinary. Apart from the service robots, clusters of small repair drones, organised as arrays, were constantly busy at work at all the stations doing their maintenance duties.

As Sid neared the generator, he could see that the output of the generator on the visual display was at 100%, seemingly optimal capacity. However, he also straightaway noted that the control panel housing had been tampered with. It was rebolted back on, but replaced. That led him to then spot that the voltage regulator was damaged, and that the alternator rotors were no longer moving properly. This is clear and incontrovertible evidence of sabotage. Thankfully the damaged rotors could be repaired, and the regulator replaceable.

The deep mystery was: who had sabotaged the generator, and why was it not detected nor reported by the service robots, nor subsequently repaired by the repair drones, which were going about their work utterly oblivious to the sabotage?

"Greetings QTE-002. I am Sir BBX-283, part of Error Eliminator Unit #457. Our goal is to support you, other service robots and the Collective as a whole by understanding what's going on here and troubleshooting any issues and injustices. We noticed that the energy output of the Omnicron power plant in District 15 has fallen by 73%. Can you help us understand why?"

Sid turns to the other robots still feeling like he shouldn't touch something that... Doesn't belong to him, that was what humans said.'

Perhaps you could explain what's going on here?" Sid said turning to the service robot, Intentionally leaving the question open ended that way if the other robot was hiding something, no that would only work if the other robot thought like him, like a human...

"The Control Panel When was it last serviced, and what was done?"

Having established clear evidence of sabotage, Sid left the generator untouched for the moment, leaving the cluster of repair drones to go about their futile business, while they rejoined Sir who had begun their questioning of Cutie QTE-002.

"The output has fallen by 73%?" QTE-002 answered as if this were news to them. They went back down from the walkway to the generator console to read the panel for themselves. "I am pleased to report that the energy output is at 100%." They replied confidently, "Please report to Dudley DUD-642 that the QTE bots have maintained a perfect service record," their reply almost proud at their achievements.

Sir's questioning left Sid to observe QTE-002's responses for any deliberations, hesitations, even tics, that might reveal they were not responding truthfully to a ranking coordination robot's interrogation. They observed none, 002's reply was too literal, too oblivious, without dissembling, for them to be thinking out of the mechanical box. But perhaps one of the other Cutie bots were. And if so, which one?

As Sid pondered he nearly missed 002's answer to his broader query. "Scheduled maintenance at 0900 daily, if necessary followed by repair work at 1200. End inspection at 1800. Cycle check at 0000." It sounded like the daily schedule was a strictly regulated one, and that the generator, including the control panel, would have been serviced every day. Yet no service bot had picked up on the error. Did this mean all the service robots were faulty with respect to this station?

If there was evidence of unscheduled work performed, it would also offer a clue as to who might be behind this.

Ox felt a sense of dejavu; this mirrored the same situation he encountered back at the factory, where the security cameras were trained on him to single him out as the cause of the assembly line error. He also sent his drone to inspect the generator alongside the others.

Sir asks Ox to help him diagnose the service robots. Were they sabotaged to ignore or deny any problems?

"Which robot was the last to service the control panel?"

"That would be one of us service bots, according to the pre-assigned shifts. I am on duty now, a 12-hour shift, for this engine hall. If necessary I can request assistance to help me in my tasks. The previous shift would have been manned by 001; 003 will take over when I get off duty. The generator control panel was serviced, but no problems were reported."

"That's not possible," Ox had followed up on what Sid had clearly detected, that there was real damage done to the control mechanisms. "I can repair this," their extra pair of arms extended from their folded position, and both even as Ox's hover drone surveyed the generator housing from above, from the back of their chassis Ox deployed their own repair unit, a tiny walker drone with all manner of appendages and geegaws attached to it.

Replying to Sir, "I can fix these service bots too, if we can determine what's wrong with them for them to be unable to detect such evident problems. Perhaps they also have been tampered with. You probably can get more answers from them than I can." The industrial bot was referring the Sir's expertise in getting other bots to comply with what was being requested of them.

Sid realised that they had to find out exactly what time the generator began to malfunction, in order to establish which robot was on duty at that time, assuming that the robot on duty would be the one to sabotage the machine.

As Sir and Sid continued to question QTE-002, Ox's deployed drones encountered some resistance as they tried to move closer to the generator mechanism in order to perform an analysis in order to start repairs. The plant's own repair drones seemed to be manouevring in such a manner as to prevent Ox's drones from getting to the generator. Were they trying to hinder Ox's work?

"QTE-002, you were either sabotaging the generator or, more likely, been tampered with. The QTE robots did not perform a proper job, and your service record is blemished since you cannot detect such an obvious problem in the power output. Do you have any explanation for this?"

Sir also uses his hierarchy to grant Ox's drones access to the machinery and order the plant's drones to not hinder them and let them work.

"i am in error?" QTE-002 replied, incomprehendingly. "I will report for recalibration and deactivation." 002's answer was compliant, under Sir's authoritative declaration. But what they said in their next pronouncement was strange, "The Creator will restore me."

In the meantime, a commotion ensued near the generator, "Stop that!" Sir and Sid heard Ox's voice rise a few electronic decibels. Turning, they saw that Ox's repair drone which had been trying to get to the control panel, was surrounded by the power plant's own drones, and they appeared to be attempting to take it apart!

"Creator?!? Stop! What are you talking about? There are no humans here."

But Sir is interrupted by the commotion with Ox's repair drone.

"What! Hey! You! Plant's drones! Let the repair drone do its work! I am ordering you, don't take it apart!" - says Sir.

He looks around, trying to find who is controlling those drones. If they continue with violence, Sir is even willing to shoot.

Sid's mind is going wild, though Sid barely moves, very few robots even remember humans let alone were created by them? What was the creator than a machine? And which did the machine do create energy or create the robots after all the second of the too wasn't really creation if it didn't involve imagination was it just building, was the plant somehow demanding something of these robots?

While one processor pondered that another watched horrified as the plant tried to tear apart Ox's drone, wss if possible they could be programmed to do this? Or did they need to be able to decide to do this? Perhaps they would rebuild the drone after performing 'repairs' to fit inside of their protocols or maybe they simply thought dismantling something was enough and that was why things were still broken.

The last answer that QTE-002 had responded with made absolutely no sense. The humans had left Mechatron decades ago for some reason only NODOS and possibly the seven constructs who oversaw the various domains, divisions and departments that carried out the actual running of machine city. SODA, the Production construct, was in charge of resources, and that included energy production.

But none of these constructs were able to create. That was specifically the purview of human directive. No new robots have been manufactured since mankind departed. What 002 uttered must either be nonsense arising from error or from some edit made to their programming, or due to their nascent self-awareness, something that Sid and Sir could not rule out, given what they currently contemplated of themselves. Their compliance though, proved that the latter was unlikely, unless they had also developed a propensity for deception, in which case the investigators would need some other method to unveil their true nature.

The drones were more straightforward. As less advanced units, they performed whatever task they were instructed to do, and once the task was completed, they would dock and go into sleep mode to await the next set of orders. The only other routine their processor possessed was a limited sense of self-preservation, as Sid was familar with in his interaction with Yusheng the lumodrone. In fact, Sid knew precisely that drones had to act on specific orders. To find out why the drones were attacking Ox's own drone, they would have to find who programmed them, for these were repair and not security drones; there would be no circumstance in which they would attack anything or anyone. Either the control room was issuing the attack order, or they had been reprogrammed to prevent anyone from repairing the generator's sabotage.

QTE-002 continued to turn to leave as ordered by Sir. While Ox had jumped into the conflict, more to get his drone to safety than to destroy the plant's drones. "I can't figure out what's wrong or how to stop them!"

Sir tries to end this commotion as soon as possible, so he can follow 002 and find his "creator". That's his priority.

But while doing so, he is also willing to resort to violence and his weapon in a maneuver to protect Ox's drone by destroying its attackers.

Sir dashed over to give Ox a hand in trying to regain control over the wayward drones. It had been a while since he needed to whip out his gun. Hopefully no stray shots landed in the wrong place; they were after all next to a generator of a power plant...

Seeing Sirs attack Sid understands their predicament, they needed to kill... Remove the drones that were causing a problem.