Crossed Wires

Author : Milly Rowe

“Now all we do is cross these two wires, and were done!”

Anna slammed the lid of the robots head down and turned to her student.

“That’s all? Two wires!” DJ was stunned.

How could reprogramming a robot be so simple? DJ had always assumed it would be far more complicated. After its reprogramming the robot stood before them, as it had before, only now it’s blank face looked around the room with what (if the robot had been capable of expression) would have been childlike wonder.

“Which…Two…Wires?” Came a disjointed inquiry from the now free thinking robot.

“Oh, there in the operational sphere of every robot.” Anna began. “The two of middle thickness, some people try to judge the wires by colour but you’ll only get it wrong. The companies started changing the colours around…” Anna spoke to both the robot and her student. She was very good a teacher, whether it be to human or robot.

Anna had reprogrammed hundreds, if not thousands of robots. To begin with it had been game, Anna had just wanted her servant robot to be more like the younger brother her parents hadn’t let her have (at that age a child doesn’t fully understand that you don’t just pick up a younger brother at the store). But, once she’d done it, once she’d seen the fascination and simplicity that a newly thinking robot possesses, and once she’d seen the effect it had had, well what else was she to think? Anna had felt so sorry for the robots.

Anna had lost that first robot, of course, what parent would let a child play with a robot? The experience hadn’t stopped her from trying it the next robot. After the third robot got caught her parents had to acknowledge that it wasn’t a simple system malfunction, they did not buy her a new one. That was when Anna had decided to try it on one of the labour-bots. It had worked just as well, despite how bad she felt when this one also got caught, Anna had felt more assured that the robots were meant to be freed.

Nowadays there are more robots being churned out than ever and Anna was glad to be teaching both human and robot alike how to set them free.

“Now DJ,” Anna placed a hand on the boys shoulder. “It’s time you tried it!”