Emily's Secret

12. Some questions are answered

"It's a good thing those robots didn't start attacking us until after they finished filling up the tank," said Mercedes.

"Are you making a joke?" I asked.

"Running out of gas on the highway is no joke," insisted Mercedes.

"I agree," said Rob. "But we have to figure out how they tracked us to that service station."

"Who's 'they,'" I asked.

"Whoever is after you," said Rob. "I got rid of your phone, but we must have missed something. Are you carrying any other devices that could be used to track you?"

Sheepishly, I took my school ID card out of my pocket, and held it up. "It's used to keep track of us in the school building."

"That's right," said Rob, "it must contain a chip that transmits your identity to nearby proximity receivers. I didn't get one yet, because it was only my first day of school and their card-issuing machine was broken, so I only got a paper ID card. I didn't realize. Give it to me."

I handed Rob the ID card. He crushed with his robot strength and then opened the window and threw it out of the car.

"Please don't litter, there's a three hundred dollar fine. Keep our roads and highways clean!" said Mercedes. Then, after a pause, she added, "sorry about that, I'm programmed to say that whenever someone throws something out the window. I'll try not to do it next time."

"What do we do now?" I asked.

"It's still night," said Rob. "You should go back to sleep."

"How can I sleep after what happened?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't have to sleep because I'm a robot. But you should try to get some more sleep."

So I followed Rob's advice and tried to go back to sleep. At first, I was unable to fall asleep, being too wound up from the events at the service station. But after an unrestful hour, I final drifted into an uneasy sleep, disturbed by dreams of being attacked by robots. And then I opened my eyes and it was daylight.

"What time is it?" I asked to no one in particular.

"The time is 6:50 AM," said Mercedes.

"Did you have a good sleep?" Cherry asked me.

"Yes, I think so, thanks."

"I hope you're feeling better after last night, you had such a horrible night," she said sympathetically.

I was feeling better. And I wanted answers to questions that were bugging me. So here are the questions and answers.

Question 1: Why did the robots attack me? Aren't robots programmed to never harm people?

Mercedes answered this question. "Only the company that manufactured the robot AI could override it and program the robots to attack you. That can only mean that the Googol Corporation did it. Or someone who works for them. Googol is the world's largest manufacturer of the computer chips that make robot AI possible. As well as the world's richest and most powerful corporation, in general."

"How could Googol do something like this?" I asked. "Isn't their company motto 'always do good?'"

"My study of human history shows that humans often say one thing but do another," Mercedes replied.

Question 2: This is a follow-up to the last question. If robots can't harm people, how come Rob was able to beat up those football players?

"Only civilian robots can't harm people," Rob explained. "I'm a military robot."

"I don't think I like the idea of the military making robots that can harm people." I said. "Why would the government allow it?"

"What if our enemy built an army of killer robot soldiers, and we didn't have anything to counter it?" asked Rob. "They'd be able to take us over if we didn't have our own army of robot soldiers."

"That's wrong!" I said. "Why can't they get together and agree not to build these things?"

Mercedes, the most philosophical member of our group, answered that question. "My study of humanity shows that one of your biggest failings is your inability to cooperate with each other. It only takes a small number of uncooperative people in high positions to ruin it for everyone else. Your government probably has good reasons not to trust its enemies."

"Don't you mean 'our government?'" I corrected.

"I'm just a car," Mercedes insisted, "I wasn't programmed to have allegiances to any particular country."

It still seemed to me like a really bad idea to make robots that could attack people or even kill them. Especially after being attacked by robots last night. I was beginning to think that something was very wrong with the world, more so than just people being out of work because robots were taking all of the jobs.

Question 3: Whoever is after me was able to track me from my school ID card. How do I know that they can't track Rob, Cherry or Mercedes?

Rob insisted that he knew how to spoof his device ID, and he taught the trick to Cherry and Mercedes, so therefore we were safe, and they could even safely access the internet, which they were routinely doing. How useful to have wifi built right into you and have internet access hooked directly into your brain! No wonder why robots were surpassing humans.

Question 4: What's for breakfast?

It seemed like Cherry forgot to bring food along with her. The purpose she was built for wasn't to go on secret missions, so she wasn't as good at this as Rob.

Mercedes suggested that I didn't need to eat anything at all. "Humans can go for three weeks without food and three days without water."

Rob, thankfully, disagreed, and thought it would be a good idea to stop and buy food and also give me a another bathroom break. Although this time we agreed that I wouldn't go to the bathroom by myself again.

But then Rob introduced another hitch. "I used my bitcoin account to buy gas at the service station, which means that it could have been compromised. If I use it again, it might give away our location. I have a second backup account, but I'd hate to use it unnecessarily. If that one also got compromised, then we'd have no safe way to buy anything."

Cherry, however, came to the rescue. "I can get you a free breakfast."

"You can?" I asked. "How?"

"Don't worry, leave it to me!" she answered.