Welcome to Life
#1 of The Robot (Scifi Themes)
This is the first installment of a long overdue commission for Xenin - you can thank him for this one coming onto light, and I must say, I've greatly enjoyed expanding on some of the themes that have only been hinted at in earlier stories set in this universe of sorts. Hopefully you'll enjoy this and tune in for the next chapters as well!
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SUITE 257 - ROCCO BUILDING
The room was immaculately clean, to the utmost, really. Not a single surface showed as much as a speck of dust, being constructed of some semi-opaque material of milky white consistency. Everything seemed very orderly and arranged, and controlled, indeed, from the buzz of the negative pressure air conditioning vents to the movements of the suited figures within the room. The shapes wearing white, skintight outfits moved in an unspoken choreography, and their activity was concentrated upon the form of the body on the raised surface at the center of the room.
It was a magnificent sight, silvery in color, albeit in many places, sections of the outer skin had been left open yet to admit access into the inner workings of the machine. Optical circuits curled away from ports and into corresponding receptacles on the table, pouring data into monitors that hugged the walls of the room, and were also set onto arms that reached down from the ceiling, amidst the bright, surgical lighting beamed from their own fittings above. Carts held a myriad of instruments the people in the room passed back and forth from one another, while words full of cryptical vernacular were occasionally exchanged.
"...auxiliary access point?"
"...liquid compressor pressure is at 34.5 and steady."
"...adjust the subharmonics on the gyroscopic discriminator."
"Set!"
"Excellent!"
One of the suited figures seemed especially keen with his eyes, looking at the proceedings. His gaze switched between the monitors, the working staff, and the shape on the table, unhurried, seemingly content to follow without interfering too much.
"Are we ready?" the man spoke in a voice that filtered itself into the ears of those in the room through the radio circuits built into their helmets.
"Every functional system checks out nominally, sir!" said one of the furs around the table, a wolverine whose earnest smile could be seen through the plastic faceplate that showed a shadowy reflexion of the silver shape on the table.
"Power storage facilities are operating within established parameters, sir!" a cougar continued the stream of good news.
"Motor control and secondary processing systems are standing by," said a beagle.
"It is ready, sir!" commented a fox.
The suited fur looked at his four colleagues, standing by the table and each maintaining their customary curious, gentle gaze upon them. If it wasn't for that, and the perhaps somewhat stiff postures of their arms, they could have easily been mistaken for biological lifeforms, he thought. In this environment, their somewhat lacking...fluidity was really a requirement. Their unnaturally precise movements were an asset when manipulating parts that were both abhorrently expensive and sensitive to mechanical stress.
There was still something that had to be done yet, and that part of the procedure he would always reserve for himself, no matter if the anthrobotic assembly team might just have been a little bit more efficient at it.
"Cato, bring me the foam," the suited figure spoke.
"Yes, sir!" the wolverine turned around and walked smoothly over to one of the nearby carts, upon which a stainless steel containment vessel sat, with a black, heavy power cable connected onto it. The cart was quickly pushed over to sit right next to the construction table, and settled there.
"Here it is, sir!" the wolverine, Cato, spoke. "Do you require other assistance at this point?"
"Susanna, open the cradle," the male replied.
The vulpine member of the crew touched a few controls on a computer console embedded to the head of the bed, and the resulting reaction happened on the silver-colored homunculus laying dormant upon the table. Two of the panels upon its chest slid slightly apart and then turned upwards, to expose yet another section of the inner cavity within its torso.
"Pythagoras, activate the cradle,"
The beagle tapped on another set of computer controls. This time the result was an audible one - a kind of a humm, a subtle noise, emanating from within the motionless body on the table.
"Cradle power level?" the quiet man sounded almost impatient now.
"Coming now to nominal operational standard," the beagle replied.
"Thank you, Pythagoras," the male said."Inform me if there is any deviance from the standard."
"Yes, sir!" the beagle sounded eager.
"Cato," the man spoke to the wolverine. "Open the containment vessel."
The wolverine's heavy gloves were set onto the stainless steel tank, and opened its top to reveal the interior. The suited male moved over to it, and the wolverine anthrobot stepped aside in deference to their master of tasks.
"I am taking out the foam container," he said, "Susanna, reduce light levels to 20 percent."
A kind of a darkness fell, not complete, but enough to show that a dim light shone out of the container that had just been opened. It did not deter the man in his white suit, who placed his paws within the container, and lifted something that was released with a click. What he brought out was a cylinder, transparent, and shining that same blue light that gained in intensity now that it was out of the container and could freely radiate into all directions and compete with the displays in casting such an indirect illumination into the laboratory.
"I have released the foam container, " the man said, "Pythagoras, open the port."
The man turned, holding the cylinder in his paws. It seemed to require some effort, and he moved with deliberate slowness. The capsule continued to shine, and cast its light over the faceplates of the four anthrobots and the one man studying the moment.
"Port is open," Pythagoras noted.
It could be seen as a small opening over a roughly spherical object imbedded inside the sternum of the shape lying on the table. It shone with red light, just a subtle shimmer, but in contrast to the blue glow of the tube on the paws of the figure whom now placed it against this very same opening. There was a click, when parts connected, yet the male kept his paws in place.
"Open the interlock, Pythagoras. Susanna, raise core power to 15 percent."
A double "yes,sir" echoed off the two anthrobots working on their consoles. There was no sense of urgency in their words, yet the man holding the cylinder could not entirely quell the sharper movements of his tail.
"Core power is at 15 percent, sir."
"Infusing," the man said, simply.
The blue glow within the cylinder transported itself upon the sphere within the body. It took perhaps the space of five seconds, certainly not long enough that they might relax upon this action.
"Close the interlock," the man said.
He withdrew the cylinder, and placed it onto empty space on nearby cart.
"Richelieu, are you ready?"
"Yes, sir," the cougar replied, standing in front of the bank of display screens, paws hovering over certain touch sensitive controls he could access rapidly if needed. "Everything is standing by."
"Susanna, raise power to 40 percent," the man said, "Richelieu...your turn."
"Initiating spin randomisation, sir."
"Core power is up to 40 percent, sir."
"Spin randomisation in 10 seconds. Nine seconds. Eight. Seven. Six..."
"Susanna, core power to 50 percent."
"50 percent, sir."
"Three...two...one, spin!"
A red flash of light engulfed the blue uniformity of the sphere, and then it was gone as quickly as it was, only lingering as an afterimage in the eyes of the male whose eyes were not highly sophisticated ocular systems, but good old biological eyeballs.
"Power status, Susanna?"
"Modulation steady at 1.5 Gigahertz, sir."
"Richelieu?"
"Receiving initial telemetry, sir."
"Sir!" yelped Cato.
The man looked over to the wolverine. He could easily see why. The silvery eyelids of the anthrobot had opened and were now looking directly upwards with eyes that were almost shockingly...normal...compared to the rest of the body from which they gazed from.
"The internal pathways are being formed," the cougar announced, "the core is already accessing accessory pathways."
"I can see that the visual systems are activating," the man said.
"The core is accessing the sensory units," Richelieu noted. "Heuristic activity is rising at an exponential rate as projected."
"Take core power up to 90 percent, Susanna."
"Increasing power to 90 percent," the anthrobot replied.
The man leaned over the blinking eyes of the silver anthrobot lying upon the table, and smiled.
"Hello," he said, "welcome to life, my friend."
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