The Secret is Out

The Secret is Out

Bedford adjusted his shirt until the row of buttons was nice and straight. He brushed off his pants for the third time and glanced in the full-length mirror to check on his hair. Everything looked great, and he was ready to leave his small apartment.

Except..

Upon closer inspection, he noticed a small wrinkle developing near his right eye. Just a small one, but it looked weird and not at all natural. People would point at him as he went on his daily walk. Most of his friends and neighbors would notice right off. People were like that.

"I can fix it," Bedford muttered to himself.

Bedford reached up to his face and pulled the skin tight. After a few seconds of fussing, he was able to eliminate the fold in his skin. “There,” he said, standing back to check out his repair work. “Almost human.” He tried to shrug his shoulders like other humans did, but he just couldn’t get it right.

No human can smooth away their wrinkles, but Bedford wasn’t exactly human. He was a Labor Model, Series B android first activated about thirty years ago. Built to move and load heavy objects, that was Bedford’s first job. He spent his days in the rail yards loading and unloading the robotic trains that whooshed in and out of the yards. The “B” models were state of the art back then. They were the first with synthetic life-like skin, hair, and facial features modeled after humans. It allowed the “B’s” to fit in better and interact with the human workers. Bedford was even programmed with basic speech and human mannerisms like a rudimentary sense of humor, although few human workers actually remained in the yard to try it out. The fellow robots had trouble joking around.

Bedford worked like that for a long time. In the cold depths of winter or the rainy mists of heavy storms in the summer, he loaded and unloaded the trains. The human engineers had given Bedford great strength to pull and push heavy loads that humans couldn’t shuffle around. Two “B” units could load a sixty-foot boxcar in about an hour. Super strong, fast, and efficient. That was the “B’s” in a nutshell. A perfect worker that didn’t need a break, could work long hours, and couldn’t unionize. Just give the batteries a charge, some service, and a dry storage area at night and they could work forever.

However, forever doesn’t exist in the robot world. “B” units were soon joined by the “C” unit and then the “Labor D’s” showed up. Bedford was soon termed obsolete and was sent to the hazardous cargo section of the yard. There was the inevitable grievous accident, and Bedford was damaged beyond repair. The railyard wrote him off the roster and sent him to the robot junkyard outside the city.

That would have been the end of Bedford’s story as it was for most junk robots and other androids that get sent to the boneyard. Usually, the unrepairable units are stripped of useful parts and scrapped. Metal bones melted down into other useful things and discarded wiring spooled up and sold for discount prices. 

Bedford got a reprieve from some generous, if a bit shady, humans. He was taken from the robot junkyard, fixed up, reprogrammed with new software, and given a name and some basic fake documents about his fitness to work. His saviors sent him out to the city to find his way in the world among the humans. They let him keep his great strength and agility and gave him a fighting shot at looking more human through programming. It was up to Bedford from there to find a place to live and get a job. He was up to the task, finding both his small apartment in the refurbished antique building downtown and his job at the market in a short amount of time. Short amount of time for a robot trying to act human, anyway.

Bedford accessed his internal time clock and noticed he might miss his ride if he didn’t stop worrying about himself in the mirror. Like clockwork, the driverless bus got to his stop at the same time every day. He made it  to the stop right on time, but he had to cheat. Bedford’s robot speed and efficiency came in handy this morning.

Bedford settled into his seat not even breathing hard. In fact, he wasn’t breathing at all. Bedford’s act of breathing was fake. Some of the commuters looked up suspicious at this man who ran down the street to catch his bus and wasn’t even breaking a sweat, but soon they went back to their electronic devices and their gizmos and didn’t pay any more attention to Bedford. He didn’t need a phone or electronic device, relying on his own built-in modem for cellular communication. Instead, he pulled out a book and went to the marked place to continue reading. Bedford liked to read. Not the trashy novels the artificial intelligence cranked out for sale on the internet but real novels written by real humans.

The commute was short, and the bus, always perfect, stopped at the same spot it always did. Bedford stowed his book and joined the throng of fellow humans as they went about their business. He couldn’t help but look around at the people around him. Different colors of skin, all kinds of heights and weights, some talking up a storm with fellow commuters, and some just looking at the ground in their own worlds. Bedford liked being part of the crowd. It was a great place to hide out and observe all kinds of behaviors and even try to imitate a few.

Anything to make me more human, he mused to himself. 

Bedford reached the store, and the friendly, old security guard let him in. Mr. Perry, the manager, and a cashier were trying to get one of the cash bots at the front of the store to work. Mr. Perry looked up and shouted, “Good morning, Bedford.”

“Good morning,” Bedford mumbled back. His hand instinctively shot up to cover the former wrinkle he fixed this morning. A close look at his repair might reveal to his manager and the world that he wasn’t a real human. Bedford had to keep his secret, but even he didn’t know why. The people that saved him from the crusher programmed Bedford to keep his identity as a robot a secret at all costs. Bedford didn’t know how the humans would react to a robot living among them, but his junkyard saviors warned him that humans can be unpredictable with things like this. Bedford imagined certain people may hunt him down like a monster, or maybe the human race would just react poorly to an obsolete machine trying to fit in and send him back to the junkyard. Either way, he always guarded his secret carefully.

Bedford arrived in the breakroom and put his bag in a locker. Some of his co-workers were already there and chatting among themselves. Humans loved to talk, something else Bedford had trouble with.

“Hey, Beddy,” came a booming voice across the small room. “How’s it going?”

If Bedford knew how to sigh in frustration, he would be doing it right now. “Hello, Anthony.”  Anthony was one of his fellow shelf stockers and easily the most unusual human Bedford had ever met. He was certainly the loudest.

“What you up to this weekend, killer?” Anthony asked.

“I don’t know,” Bedford said. “Maybe some reading.”

“Reading? What are you some kind of professor or something?” Anthony said. Most of the breakroom broke out in laughter. Humor, especially from Anthony, was a hard concept for Bedford to grasp, He didn’t know if Anthony was trying to be funny or not. “Yeah...some kind of professor, I guess,” Bedford managed to say in an attempt to joke around right back.

It didn’t land right, and the breakroom crowd lost interest. Anthony moved on to his next victim and his inquiries about weekend activities. Anthony was a good human if a bit strange and loud. Bedford noticed a lot of humans were like Anthony. Loud, brash, and always talking about something even if nobody was listening. By contrast, there was Bedford’s other co-worker, Carl, who was quieter and kept to himself. He joked around sometimes but not as much as Anthony. He was all business at work, often finishing his shelves in record time. Mr. Perry the manager was always saying he wished he had more employees like Carl. 

Bedford walked over to Carl’s table to begin their shift stocking the shelves. “Ready?” he asked.

Carl looked up from his book. “Ready.”

It was time to get out on the floor. Carl led the way down the short hallway to the store. Before they could get to work, Mr. Perry came running down the hallway. “There’s been an accident in the street outside!” he shouted, waving his arms. “A car turned over. Somebody is trapped.”

Bedford, Carl, and the rest of the employees ran out into the street to see what was going on. Bedford made a quick assessment using his available on-board sensors. A self-driving car had a safety system malfunction, hit something, and overturned onto its roof. All the other cars on the road received a stop instruction to keep them out of the way. No other vehicles were involved.

Somebody grabbed onto Bedford. “You’ve got to get her out! My daughter...she’s trapped and hurt. You’ve got to help.” The distraught woman shook Bedford as she pleaded for help.

Bedford tried to calm her down. With his strength ramped up, he could probably pick up the car and save the girl. His programming was preventing him from revealing that he was indeed a robot.

The secret must be kept at all costs. 

Another program deep within Bedford’s computer brain was taking over. The original engineers who made Bedford a labor unit implanted code which told him to help all humans and to keep them out of harm. It was an old program designed to protect humans from rampaging robots. It was the overriding program that was currently telling him to save the girl in the car.

Bedford stepped off the sidewalk and into the street. No going back now.

He reached the overturned car, and was immediately surrounded by people. Most of them had their phones out recording everything that was going on. Others pointed and shouted directions that no one followed. “Move aside, please,” Bedford said to the gathering crowd. “Let me see what’s going on.”

He got down on the asphalt to check out the situation. A young girl was strapped into her seat hanging upside-down. Her braids hung down and touched the ground. She was crying and whimpering and appeared to be conscious but hurt. Bedford noticed a good amount of blood on the ground. This human was badly hurt.

“I can reach you,” Bedford said. After a few tries to grab the girl, Bedford realized he couldn’t get her. She was in the middle of the car out of Bedford’s reach. He made a quick, cold calculation. This girl needed help with her wounds or she might bleed to death right in front of them.

Bedford stood up and accessed his internal communications equipment to check on emergency services. They were on the way, but morning traffic was going to delay their arrival on scene. Something had to be done now.

Bedford stepped back to look at the car. He made some quick calculations in his mind to come up with a weight on the car. Bedford thought he might just be able to pick up the car, turn it over, and rescue the injured girl.

But then everyone would know he was a robot.

Couldn’t be helped. Whatever happens, happens. Bedford would deal with the consequences of his actions later. 

Everyone was talking and shouting at once all around him. “Please stand aside,” Bedford said in his most authoritative voice. Hydraulic pumps inside his body kicked on preparing Bedford’s robot body for heavy lifting. Subroutines and code with vital instructions and system commands flashed through his brain as he took hold of the car at the front and began to lift.

The car moved slowly at first, but began to lift under Bedford’s effort. The gathered humans, now realizing what was going on, moved away yelling wildly as the car was lifted off the pavement.

The car was heavier than Bedford thought. He was having trouble and his body was pushed to the limit. Just when he thought he couldn’t lift anymore, it suddenly got easier. The car felt much lighter in his hands, almost as if he could toss it aside like a toy. 

Bedford looked up to see what had caused this. It turns out he was getting some help. His fellow employee at the store, Carl, was at the rear of the car lifting along with him. 

The two robots now working as a team turned the car over and carried it to the curb. Before they could set it down, the girl’s mother opened the door and got her daughter. She hurried away perhaps afraid of the two robots now holding her car in the air.

Bedford looked around at the crowd. People stared at him in stunned silence. Some started to back away lest Bedford and Carl go mad and try to squash them with the car. Bedford couldn’t have picked a more public place to reveal that he was a robot. Worse, he had caused another fellow robot to reveal himself. Carl stood with him in the middle of the road.

“You're a B unit,” Carl said. “I had my suspicions you were a robot.

“I had no such suspicions,” Bedford said. “You looked human to me.”

“Thank you,” Carl said. “It’s been pretty hard.”

“I know. Maybe we should put this car down. It’s pretty heavy.”

“Is it?” Carl said, moving the car around in his hand. “I hadn’t noticed.”

The two robots set the car down gently on the ground and stood side by side on the road. The crowd went from stunned silence to all talking and pointing at once. The phone cameras were back again. This time they were all pointed at Bedford and Carl. Everyone waited to see what the two machines would do next.

Carl looked around at the crowd surrounding them. “Well, our secret is out.”

“Yes Carl. I guess it is.”

Bedford and Carl, former members of the human race, stepped into the chattering crowd of humans on the sidewalk. The crowd parted before the two replicants all the while watching or filming them both carefully. Bedford and Carl had one last job. They wanted to find a policeman, preferably a human policeman, to file their report.