This Is X-7, Reporting For Duty. Bleep Bleep and Bloop Bloop and All Of That Robot Jargon (717 hits)
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Submitted by NerfHerder <NerfHerder.at.comic.com> (View user info) at 2005-08-19 11:40:00 EDT
"Chris, can you hear me?"
"01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 00110101 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101101 01101001 01101110 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01101101 00101110," I replied.
"Oh," cursed an old man in his late 50s, with hair not quite as white as his flowing lab coat. "I forgot to change the damn thing from binary to English. Hold on, folks."
...and then darkness...
But it was the darkest darkness that one could ever know. Before I had awoken, I had no idea what light was. But I had tasted the goodness of whatever lies before me; I wanted more. Instead, I was plunged back to the place from which I had come. But just as fast as I was jerked back into darkness, I was jerked out of it.
"Alright, that should do it," spoke the man in the lab coat. "Okay, how are we feeling today Chris?"
Now I could truly arise and take in the sights and sounds around me. I was lying on a metal slab, all around me were flesh-covered humans, some with faces, others appeared to be using their back as their front side at the time. This didn't concern me nearly as much as the tubes full of liquid around me. Each colored different than the last. Their beauty was radiant, and I could only imagine that their purpose was ten fold their aesthetic purpose. I asked the man in front of me who had been speaking,
"What are these tubes around us for?"
The man, instead of answering my question, turned to his audience and flashed a toothy smile.
"You see, ladies and gentlemen, your many investments were not in vain. It took me much longer than expected. But now, I present to you the first robot with true human emotions!"
One of the audience members with a face raised their hand into the air and motioned towards the white-haired man. He recognized her by using one of his fingers to point at him while the rest stayed back in their fist home. The audience member pushed her way to the front, so that her words could be more easily understood.
"Doctor Pushnell," she asked, "How can you tell it has emotions? So far all it has done is rise up. And I think I've seen robots sit up before." Her response garnered spattered chuckles from the crowd. But the chuckles seemed to be more nervous than amused.
"My dear girl," the doctor addressed the question, "when Chris woke up, what did he say? Nothing of the sort that a regular robot would say, I can tell you that. None of the ol' 'This is X-7, reporting for duty. Bleep bleep and blop blop and all of that robot jargon.' Instead, he asked what all of the colored liquids in the test tubes were."
The audience looked as confused as I would have looked, if it weren't for the fact that I didn't have muscles under my metal.
"Don't you see, m'dear," the doc continued. "The robot's first words were that of curiosity. Curiosity is one of the basic human emotions that we are all born with. So it is with Chris."
My politeness chip told me it would be an appropriate time to but in and receive an answer for the question I had asked nearly 5 minutes ago.
"Doctor," I spoke, "you tout my emotions as a proud father would. But you treat me as a neglected bastard." The chip beeped inside my head and I lowered my face forward, without knowing why. The doctor rushed to my side and put his hands on my supple metal flesh.
"M'boy...m'poor poor boy. There there." For some reason, the tones in which he spoke caused me to raise my head a bit and look into his eyes. There, I found earnest comfort and reason to raise my head a bit more. As I did so, the doctor gave me the answer I so longed for.
"I'm afraid they're nothing more than colored dye, m'boy." The doctor giggled as he looked out into the audience. They laughed along with him. "I'm afraid all mad scientists are required to have a certain allotment of unknown liquids in their lairs, even though it doesn't do us a bit of good. Oh well. Looks cool, doesn't it?"
I scanned the setup in 0.000003 seconds and immediately replied,
"I would've required a nuclear bomb in every basement or something spiffy like that."
I mentally patted my humor chip and turned to my audience to see if they were laughing. I was instantly rewarded with cautious laughter. Each of the faces before me looking into other faces, looking to see if it was alright to laugh. One by one, as the crowd realized it was okay to laugh with the robot, they exploded into voluminous laughter. The sound bounced off the stone walls of the mad scientist's lair and echoed back into my ears.
This felt good. This felt right. I never wanted that feeling to end. And what better way to continue the feeling than become not only the world's first robot with emotions, but perhaps the greatest stand-up robot comic since JokeMastarr 3000.
"Father," I looked into my scientist's eyes with the deepest emotion that I could muster: greed. "Father, I want to be a comedian."
My sensors buzzed and whirred, straining to retrieve some sort of sign from the scientist that would allow me to follow my life's aspirations.
The scientist cupped his hands together and brought them up to his face. From his lungs up to his face, there seemed to be a roll of air at very short intervals. My sympathy chip kicked in, and I put my cold, metal arms around my scientist.
"No!" The scientist screamed as he threw my arms away and leapt up. "It wasn't supposed to be like this! You were supposed to be a thing of scientific achievement... or even a thing of beauty. But look at yourself. You want to shill yourself out to be a cheap purveyor of laughs. No creation of mine will do such a thing."
The doctor's face had stopped leaking droplets of water and had turned bright red as he charged towards me.
"By the powers I have invested in myself, I can unmake what I have made." The doc's hands flew over my skull. Detaching cords here and wires behind me and inside me.
I looked into the doctor's face and this time he did not return my glare. I heard the screams of the mob just beyond my field of vision. Their fear spurred mine. An entirely new emotion. How interesting it felt.
"Ah, this will be the end of it," the doctor said, with a completely different look upon his face. A look of self-importance. A look of happiness.
"If this is how humans express emotion," I said right as the doctor began to pull my last plug, "then I don't want to be anything close to human."
Yank.
User Reviews
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-05-26 03:07:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-02-01 18:56:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2005-11-17 17:02:04 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
No Comment
Submitted by Saxon (user info) at 2005-09-19 21:45:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have missed your stuff. welcome back man.
Submitted by kai070169 (user info) at 2005-09-18 22:18:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
computers rule
http://www2.ubersite.com/m/65741
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-08-20 02:13:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Glad you came back. Even if it was for only this post.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2005-08-19 18:32:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
wow...
OK, I'm converted
Submitted by tinactin (user info) at 2005-08-19 17:31:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What everyone else said. Good stuff. I havent posted in a few months either
Submitted by GodLovesALittleLovin (user info) at 2005-08-19 14:54:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
another for one of the best posts i've read here lately. You got style Chris! Flaunt them threads mofucka!
Submitted by GodLovesALittleLovin (user info) at 2005-08-19 14:52:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you still got it, and you got it good. This is why I check this site still. Please keep posting or i'll be forced to blow up the internet.
Submitted by Ainkara (user info) at 2005-08-19 14:49:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Heh...
Submitted by Unabonger (user info) at 2005-08-19 14:39:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"just 5 more minutes, mom."
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-08-19 14:12:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2005-08-19 14:05:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
bloop, bop, beeep.
boop.
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-08-19 13:31:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
wow, a Nerfherder post. I'm sure it's good, so +2.
Submitted by NerfHerder (user info) at 2005-08-19 13:13:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks, Phallic. It means a lot, it does.
And Sully, I've been working as a counselor at a jewish summer camp in Missouri for 2 1/2 months. No, I'm not kidding. Or Jewish. Stories may come forth, or not. We'll see.
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2005-08-19 13:10:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2005-08-19 12:30:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You know you are one of the reasons i signed up to this site. If you dig up some very, VERY old link i have you listed as my favorite author along with CBG
Now, over 1 year and 99 posts later, i dont think i can possibly thank you enough.
But i'll try. Thanks, Nerf. Thanks for reigniting the passion.
Submitted by SullyThePirate (user info) at 2005-08-19 12:21:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The hell you been?
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2005-08-19 11:49:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
great