CHEESEBURGER BROWN: SCIFI STORY-WALLAH

Bobo, Chapter 21

2012-02-12T12:41:00.000-05:00

Bobo is a weekly dose of classic science-fiction, as semiotically encoded by me, your reasonable facsimile of a host, Cheeseburger Brown. This is the twenty-first installment, which now makes this story old enough to buy liquor in America.

eBooks News: This week I'm pimping the new Kindle edition of Leslie and the Powder -- a novella set in contemporary times but with a darkly magical twist, which may be the perfect introduction to this universe for readers who steer shy of scifi. Tell your friends.

Hey Instapaper users! I've updated the way I code my paragraphs. Can you hear me now? Testing, testing one two three.

And now, the story continues...

John sat at Bobo's bedside. The primary was rising. The light was orange.

"Johnny?"

She lifted her head and pushed her hair away from her eyes. She blinked blearily. A figure stood in the doorway flanked by silent robot sentries. John's mouth tightened. "What are you doing here?"

Dick shrugged, arms crossed over her chest as she leaned into the jamb. "I've been watching your boy," she said.

John tried to keep her face hard.

Dick said, "Support among robots is growing."

"We're going to win this," spat John. "We're going to win it for Bobo."

"Have you noticed how it's growing? The support among robots?"

John narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"It's just that the distribution should be familiar to you. It's the output of your algorithm, after all."

"What?"

"The support is simulated. It's growing to saturation by combining pseudo-random phases from your thesis, John."

"My thesis was about making dig sims more realistic."

Dick shook her head. "Your thesis was about making a copy operation appear to be distributed in an a pattern that approximates threshold chaos. Your thesis was about camouflage, John. At least it's about camouflage if you look at it from his point of view." She pointed at Bobo with her chin.

John traced her gaze. "Why do you hate him so much?"

Dick held up a hand with four artificial fingers on it. She hadn't bothered to conceal their metal nature beneath a layer of phony skin. They gleamed. "Because," continued Dick, "I know what he's capable of." She lowered her hand. "But it's worse than that, Johnny: he's controlling them."

"Controlling who?"

"The robots."

"Which robots?"

"All of them."

There was a tense pause before John snorted derisively in unconscious imitation of Oscar. "That's preposterous," she chuckled, stroking a beard she didn't have. "What they say is right: we really are cut off from reality in that damned Women's University."

Dick said nothing, but tears flashed in the corners of her eyes.

"I know it was hard to work together after we broke up," continued John, "but we made it through, we both grew a lot as people. And that's why I really am so surprised to see you trying to hurt me in this cheap, vindictive way. It's small of you, Dick."

Dick flushed. She dug into her satchel and pulled out a data plate. It clattered to the floor. "There's my research, Johnny. It lays it all out. This isn't about you and me. It's about a deeply flawed intelligence that's on its way to taking over the planet."

"Do you even hear what you're saying? It's paranoid. It's nonsense. I think you need professional help, Richard. I'm telling you that as your friend and as your mentor."

Dick stared at her for a long moment and then said, "Rape yourself, John." She turned to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"Offworld! Where any sane person would go."

John cried a bit after Dick withdrew. She leaned her forehead against Bobo's prone form, then traced a finger along his shrapnel-scratched torso. She could feel faint vibrations buzzing through the carapace -- another one of the tiny signs of functionality that kept everyone on vigil. The vibration faded and was replaced by an irregular clicking sound. For a hundredth time John wondered what was going on inside Bobo's body, and whether he would ever come back to her.

"Good morning?"

John lifted her head again.

A young man carrying a big box shuffled in, the sentry robots parting to let him through the doorway. "Did I wake you? I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm just that intern from the technologist union again."

"I remember you. Marco?"

"Mycho. Mycho Blue Harmonicker."

With a name like that John knew his people must have come from one of the anarchic compartments on the ark. Anarchic descendants always had mangled names. John was not a racist; in fact, it made her feel noble to be friendly with the lower castes.

Mycho kept his eyes down bashfully. John opened her wallet and fished for a hairbrush to unfold.

The technologist cleared some room on the flower bouquet table and then hefted up his heavy box. He drew out a handful of sensor heads on leads. He set up spindly tripod stands and fixed the sensors to their tops. He carefully angled each sensor.

John brushed her hair. "Do you ever learn anything from these scans, Mycho?"

"Nop," he admitted with a friendly grin. "This walker here -- this Mr. Bobo -- he runs an interference screen so tight I've never heard of the like outside of a battlefield. Still, if I bother to take a look every day nobody can accuse me of having missed something if all hellation should break loose. Forgiving my swear, I hope, ma'am."

"Of course," agreed John grandly. "Speak as you find natural, Mycho. I'm an academic. I don't judge."

"Okay," he said, peering through the alignment scope of a sensor head.

"Tell me, Mycho: why would you think 'hellation' might break loose?"

He turned away from the scope to look at her. "Why does Mr. Bobo keep secrets, ma'am?" He shrugged. "That's a question for a question, which is fair enough when nobody knows anything for sure. But if there's nothing to hide why won't he let us help him repair? Do you know the answer, ma'am?"

"Maybe he understands the conspiracy against him better than we do," suggested John, slowly pulling the brush through. "Maybe he's the only one he can trust."

Mycho swallowed and looked around awkwardly. "Listen," he said; "forgiving me again I hope, but aren't you his confidant and also more than qualified? Aren't you that famous garbage sniffer from the girl college up on the hill?"

John corrected him on a couple of minor points. "The thing is," she continued, "Bobo's vulnerability has been taken advantage of, and I understand why he's had to close himself off from everyone -- including me. It's because it's too important."

"What's too important?"

"What Bobo is achieving."

Mycho looked over at the gun-blasted robot lying on the bed. "Okay," he said again. He walked to the box and instructed it to beginning scanning. The box hummed.

The young technologist jammed his hands into his pockets and looked over John's head, out the window. The image of the sky shimmered faintly due to the security screen. The crowd outside was a muted babble.

John folded her brush into itself and tucked it inside her wallet. She smoothed down her shirt and slacks. "How do I look?" she asked Mycho.

Mycho glanced at her and blushed. To his box he said, "Just fine, ma'am." He frowned when the box beeped. He leaned in closer. "That's funny."

"What's funny?"

"The interference screen is decohering."

John looked over at Bobo. Her heart fluttered in her breast. She straightened. At Mycho she smiled. "He's finished," she predicted. "He's fixed. He's going to wake up." She touched Bobo's arm and whispered something beside his head.

The moment lengthened.

Mycho looked at the box's readout again and started shaking his head. "There's…there's no activity now, ma'am."

John glared at him, brow furrowed. "The screen is back up?"

He didn't say anything at first. "Nop, it's gone," he said. "It's all gone. All activity is gone, ma'am. I'm sorry."

She stared at him. "You're sorry?"

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I'm sorry but I think your Mr. Bobo has died."

John scrambled up from her chair and then peered at Bobo along her forearm through the holographs projected from the face of her watch. She swallowed. Her arm slowly drooped. She took a shuddering breath. And then John lay herself across his broken carapace and sobbed.

The young technologist didn't know what to do. He still had his hands in his pockets.

Bobo, Chapter 20

2012-02-05T18:21:00.002-05:00

Bobo is a novella-like literary structure, as whipped up from things I found around the house by me, your McGyver-like host, Cheeseburger Brown. This is the twentieth installment.

eBooks Update: I tried to make the Kindle editionof Simon of Space free, but Amazon wouldn't let me. So it's 99 centsinstead. I know most of you have already read that one, but I'm putting it out there so you might send the link along to a Kindle-wielding friend who hasn't read it but might like it, or whatnot. I have restored the original cover. The web version remains free.

For those of you outside of the Amazon ecosystem, four of my novella-length titles are now available at Smashwords. Scroll down to find versions of The Long Man, Night Flight Mike, The Bikes of New York and Tim, Destroyer of Worlds in all of the popular non-Amazon ebook formats.

Meanwhile, the legend of Bobo carries on...

Oscar looked up from his desk to watch himself pace.

The office was makeshift. His jacket hung from an intravenous fluids stand. His coffee steamed from a urine sample jar. He sat in a wheelchair. A cigar smouldered untended in a kidney-shaped vomit dish.

Suddenly he growled, "Will you stop that infernal pacing!"

His double looked over, brow raised. "You want me to take a break, sir?"

Oscar nodded. "Take a break. Take a nap. Take a pill. I don't care -- just give me some peace."

The window opacified and the double left. The show was over. Oscar pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh. This vigil was killing him.

He was just screwing the top back on his secret flask when someone knocked abruptly on the door. He looked up, licking his lips in prelude to an angry objection. But the door was already opening.

Oscar slammed the desk drawer.

The woman was tall. Her robots closed the door softly behind her. Her robes were impressive and expensive, if somewhat severe in cut. She approached the desk and looked down a long nose at him.

Her eyes were hard. This was no amateur. Oscar stood up to the stranger's level. "Won't you sit?"

"I won't," she said. "It is a poor habit. It achieves only corpulence."

"Ah. You're from Ishtar. Charmed, I'm sure."

"Swallow that snot, politician. This conversation represents the fulfillment of your aspirations and you will do as you are told."

"I beg your pardon?"

It wouldn't be fair to say she smiled, but something changed in her expression. "Difficult as it may be to fathom given your facile transparency, your so-called movement has found the momentum it needs to win the day. The standing government will be dissolved. There are consequences to that."

She snapped her fingers. Oscar's robots wilted, torsos hanging limp from their rigid waists, arms swinging slowly to a rest. Oscar took a startled step backward, running into his chair. "Is this an assassination?"

"No," said the stranger. "An education."

He narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"

"I am Ishtari Julia Roboticist. I have come to discuss your mascot."

Oscar's eyes widened again but he mastered his expression quickly. "I've heard of you, naturally. Your reputation is panstellar. But I had no idea...that you were so attractive."

"You cannot flatter me, politician. You nauseate me to try."

"Ah."

She straightened. "You are to tell me why this Bobo unit lies in a human hospital. You will refrain from filigree in your speech, and focus exclusively on the most relevant facts."

"What does an Ishtari care about Eridian affairs?"

"You are ignoring my directives," said Ishtari Julia Roboticist. "Do not force my robots to resort to physicality."

Oscar cleared his throat. "There's no need for threats. We are civilized people both, aren't we?"

She said nothing.

Oscar glanced over at her robots. He sat down in his chair and took up his cigar, puffing it to life. "You're being needlessly unpleasant. That's your culture, I suppose. You should understand that I'm not really a politician. I'm a professor. I just happened to write an influential book at an opportune time. As Bobo's proxy I stand in the limelight only by happenstance."

Ishtari Julia Roboticist sniffed. To the robot on her left she said, "Break a finger."

Oscar held up his hands. "Wait, wait, wait. I have a point! Won't you listen? I'm trying to tell you what you want to know." He gave her his best smile. "Please, let's be reasonable."

"Lies are intolerable," she said.

Oscar's finger sounded a muted pop as the bone split. He yanked his hand free and held it with the other, eyes pinched shut in pain. His breathing was ragged. His face was red. His beard was mussed.

"How much do you know?" he hissed.

"Continue your account."

Oscar managed to puff on his cigar with a shaking hand. "Bobo lies in a human hospital because the people love him," he said. "They would not stand to see him without dignity, strung up in a repair shop. They seized him and took him here. I've had my office moved to this ward so I can sit vigil over him, just like the crowd outside that window."

"Who attends to the machine?"

"No one. Bobo attends to himself -- at least so far as we can discern. He's unresponsive but he's put up a security screen around himself. It is the opinion of my robotics advisor that he has entered into the robotic equivalent of a coma, for the purposes of self-repair."

She raised a brow ever so faintly. "You will explain how the robot was damaged."

"He was shot. By a random lunatic."

When Oscar had recovered from having the next finger being broken he said, "My staff found him, that crazed junkman. He already hated Bobo. The arrangements were easy."

"You disposed of Bobo so that you yourself might assume his notoriety on behalf of the reform movement."

"Yes," said Oscar, cradling his wounded hand. "I admit it," he said huskily with a nervous glance at the robots flanking him.

"This new popularity has won you the leadership of the party."

"Yes."

"You intend to lead the new government after the election."

"Yes, I do. And damn it I'll be good. I really will be." He trailed off, eyes unfocused at the window, then turned back to her. "I'm going to level the playing field. Come hell or high water, I swear I'm bringing those Zorannic bastards down."

"You are not an advocate of robot rights."

"You're right. I'm not. It's human rights I care about."

Ishtari Julia Roboticist's mouth twitched. "You agree that Bobo must go."

"I pray for it. If he dies the election will surely be mine."

She offered him a wan smirk. "The election will be yours. I am not speculating, but rather informing you."

"Tomorrow is voting day."

"A formality. You will form the new government because Ishtar allows it. Our legal advisors will help you draft the legislative steps required to unseat the Zorannic machines here on Eridu."

"And what must I do in return?"

"Release the robot to me," said Ishtari Julia Roboticist. She spread her arms. "Nothing more."

"You want Bobo?"

"I do."

Oscar let a smile spread slowly over his lips. "I'll consider it."

"I will take him now."

"You won't. Go on -- I've got eight fingers to go. If you want him so badly, and I can tell that you do, you'll take him when I say and you'll take him on my terms. I can have parliament without help, you Ishtari dog. If the reformers are denied the mandate the people will riot. Mark my words. Whether by grace or blood I'll rule Eridu tomorrow."

"How dare you?"

"You've overplayed your hand, you reeking anus. Get the hell out of my office."

She did. Oscar quickly used his good hand to open his desk drawer but realized immediately he had no way of unscrewing the cap of his flask. Oscar glowered. He tasted bile. He kicked the drawer shut and stabbed at his watch, roaring for security. When two agents from the security firm arrived Oscar had one beat the other, and then vice versa. "You're fired," he said when both men were bloody.

Next he used his watch to contract on credit for a quintet of elite personal bodyguard robots, and asked for them to be built to order with upgrades that promised to deliver the cutting edge in violence: poison, fire, and unfettered physicality.

Nurses arrived to heal his fingers but Oscar waved them away angrily. "Not until after the press conference, you ninnies," he bellowed, dabbing sweat from his brow. "You don't stumble on good luck like this every day."

He ordered the guard on Bobo redoubled, and in a fit of anti-diplomatic combustion insisted that the entire hospital be, until further notice, off-limits to offworlders. His secretary brought him a little white pill and some water. He gingerly fed his injured hand through his sleeve and shrugged on his jacket. "Make-up!" he called. "Worsen my pallor!"

Bobo, Chapter 19

2012-01-29T16:37:00.000-05:00

Bobo is a fairly long but reasonably interesting story, as output by me, your humble host, Cheeseburger Brown. This is the nineteenth installment.

The telling continues...

The rally was scheduled for noon. The din could be heard from the outskirts.

Bobo's limousine swept in over the hills toward the city, its shadow slithering over the treetops. The driver rode low, for discretion. Birds scattered and complained ahead of the bowshock.

The windows reflected a blue sky specked with globs of cumulus. Behind them Bobo brooded. His eyes hummed as they zoomed in on the distant downtown core, picking out from among the spires the low, wide-slung dome of the temple of the Zorannic robots. Without turning around he asked, "Do they ever come out?"

"Are you asking if they'll take notice of your rally?" asked Oscar, tracing his gaze.

"I'm asking what I'm asking," said Bobo.

John said, "The temple opens if there's a need, Bobo. In colonial times we used to need them a lot, but not so much anymore. I don't think the doors have opened in ages. Certainly not since I was a girl."

Bobo turned to face them. "Is it possible there is no such thing as Zorannic robots?"

John looked confused. Oscar smirked. "There are proofs available to those with privileged access. Do you disbelieve in them?"

Bobo shrugged. "The trust this culture lends them is remarkable. How was it earned?"

Oscar's smirk deepened in the corners before he cleared his face and snorted impatiently through his nostrils. "History," he said. "It was a Zorannic executive who guided us here, after our ark was lost in space. It was Zorannic leadership that curbed the chaos and founded these planets. And it was Zorannic knowledge that reconnected us with the rest of the Solar diaspora." Oscar spread his hands, a glint in his eye. "If that trust were unfounded, we would be all of us fools."

The limo lurched as it swayed against a gust of wind. Bobo looked at John. "Is Zorannic sentience founded on faith?"

"No," said John, looking aside at Oscar uneasily. "Cognitive engines based on simplified versions of Zorannic prototypes are available for study. We have a few on file at the Women's University. You see, there are specific test conditions the results of which can be analyzed for patterns consistent with self-awareness. So in a way the Zorannics' claim to consciousness is tested all the time, by every freshman class in robotics." She reached out and put her hand on Bobo's forearm. "Do you think it would help gain support if you were analyzed like that?"

"No thank you," said Bobo, turning back to the view.

The limousine slowed. The streets below were packed, the crowd dotted with glowing placards and holographic glyphs projected over their heads. Police enforcers walked heavily before the barricades. The driver manoeuvred carefully over a cordoned-off parking platform ringed by journalists. As the limo descended the lights of their cameras winked on.

Bobo adjusted his tie and turned to John. "How do I look?"

"You look great, Bobo. You look fabulous."

Oscar spoke silently into a subvocal mic and then gave Bobo a nod. Bobo opened the door and straightened out of the car. Journalists surged forward. Bobo's pupils shrank against the glare even as his hand extended forward to shake. John and Oscar followed in his wake as the robot worked the crowd. He told a joke and the reporters roared. A girl on a nearby balcony screamed "I love you Bobo!" with her eyes squeezed zealously shut.

Bobo waved.

Handlers escorted him to the podium where he was even now being introduced by an excitable young man with a revolutionary moustache. He stepped aside as Bobo mounted the platform. Bobo raised his right arm high above his head and the public square seemed to boil suddenly with riotous applause and hooting cheers. When he lowered his arm the noise diminished respectfully.

He waited a beat. Expectation drew taut.

"When human civilization first encountered extrasolar life," he began quietly, "the concept of justice at the heart of our legal apparatus was tested. But history bore out our faith: the tendency to prejudice was no match for the Solar resolve to go forward into the galaxy as a morally upright civilization. Intelligent aliens were treated as peers, and that mutual respect lay the foundation for a lasting panstellar peace."

Applause. Nods from the very important persons on the platform. Placards reared high.

"The law was prepared for this flexibility," Bobo continued, "because it had already grown to accommodate the reality of Zorannic intelligence. I ask you now to consider the application of that same spirit of adaptability to the cause I represent: for I was born a robot, my friends, but I intend to die a citizen."

The people enthused. It was deafening. Their cries were joined by the electronic warbling and joyous beeping of robots dressed in odd hats and torn shirts, trousers fished from the trash tucked into mismatched rainboots. Many of them wore their clothing incorrectly but never the less proudly. Some of them had mittens and scarves despite the summer heat.

As Bobo scanned the crowd he spotted the man in the yellow jumpsuit: the anti-physician himself had come to see him speak.

"The Charter of Centauri is outdated," declared Bobo crisply. "To recognize the diversity of intelligences on this world and her sister, I call for the drafting of a new guarantee by the people and for the people, making explicit our modern understanding of the brotherhood we share as thinking things. I call for a referendum, and I furthermore call for the inclusion of every reasoning thing within the jurisdiction of this stellar system, without prejudice. One mind, one vote."

At this cue a massive holographic banner illuminated in the air over the speaking platform. In both the common verbal protocol and local Eridian dialect it boldly proclaimed ONE MIND, ONE VOTE.

"One mind, one vote! One mind, one vote!" echoed the crowd in contagious rhythm once seeded by well-placed members of the party. "One mind, one vote!"

The man in the yellow jumpsuit had worked his way closer now. Bobo tracked him carefully as he raised his arm for renewed silence. A cascade of failures in the security grid tracked along with the man, a spot of blindness clinging to him like a shadow.

"My friends!" Bobo said, lulling the people to attention again. "My friends! I know that you are good people. I know that your hearts are open, and your philosophies merciful. I know you have forgiven me my transgressions despite my transgressions being unforgivable. In light of such generosity of spirit I can do nothing else but persist in this effort, on behalf of those who cannot."

An enforcer seized, a wisp of smoke rising from one leg. Cops from the technical division jogged over to check it out. The man in the yellow jumpsuit crossed the barrier at their heels.

Spoke Bobo, "But this effort will remain only symbolic so long as our enemies refuse to acknowledge my sense of agency and my subjective experience of the world as a thinking, feeling, acting member of society."

The crowd agreed that this was key. They clapped and rang and beeped and pant-hooted. They stomped feet if they had any. The cacophony rose to a frothing peak.

Bobo straightened with great dignity and cried out, "I am not a human being, but am I not I?"

This is when first shot cracked the air.

"You killed my cousin you unprogrammed son of a dog!" bellowed the man in the yellow jumpsuit, eye leveled along the barrel of his shoulder-mounted assault rifle. "You mighta fooled every other body on this fool world but you can't fool me." This is when he fired the second shot.

Bobo fell.

Several things happened simultaneously. Yellow jumpsuit was tackled by a civilian and then the both of them were jazzed silly by a cadre of cops in riot gear. Police enforcers swung into motion locking down every entrance to and exit from the square. The crowd gasped and turned seemingly liquid, eddies of panic blooming and churning at the feet of the enforcers blocking the way.

The woman in charge of the invisible anti-projectile wall between the speaking platform and the audience looked up so suddenly she concussed her head against the underside of the generator's hood, where she had been chasing the inexplicable systems failure that blipped through her system. Her first thought was that she had probably lost her job.

John threw herself over Bobo's prone form, looking around wildly for the shooter. "Do they have him?" she screamed at the police liason. "Is there more than one?"

The police liason had splinters of Bobo's carapace embedded in the left side of his face, and was not capable of liasing with anyone. He was very distressed, and making a mess on the platform. A medic rushed over to him.

The young man with the revolutionary moustache was stuttering at the podium in a futile attempt to calm the crowd. Oscar took his elbow and led him aside. "Go wherever they take him, be seen with him," counseled Oscar, eyes elsewhere. "Leave the people to me," he said, turning back to the podium.