The Gift
It was too much. He knew that he had done his job well—served perfect cups of coffee, earned profit for the company, made his customers feel welcome, and even now he was saving all but one of them from incineration. He had been designed and built to serve. And even with his special gift he was just a machine. How could that be evil? But as his cogware reeled from all that Luca had said, his ALP2b cognet bridge subroutine continued digging through associations and synthesizing responses, and a stray thought suddenly burst into his consciousness: the little silken bundle in the spider’s web hadn’t been a trapped fly wrapped up and waiting to be eaten…it had been an egg sack! The little spider had reversed its course in an attempt to return to its offspring. Then he realized that Luca wasn’t out to destroy him because he was a unique machine or because he drained resources that could have been better spent on humans. His existence posed a much more fundamental threat to her.
His ALP2b cognet bridge subroutine returned a new imperative—he had one last job to complete; it was the most important service that he would ever perform, and it had nothing to do with customer satisfaction. As he felt the first hint of heat and pressure build between himself and Luca, he knew that there wasn’t time to analyze his decision or research it. He knew only that something vital would be lost forever unless he acted….
Joe 55876 arrived by special van bot delivery from the regional district depot at 8:16 am. He opened the shop’s back door, removed a fresh green apron from a locker and donned it before stepping out into the shop with a broad smile. He knew only that the previous mechanical shop manager was no longer in service.
A customer sitting on a stool at the counter looked up from an old-style paperback book.
“Did you need a recharge?” he joked.
“No, sir. How may I help you?”
“What, no witty observation about taking a coffee break?”
Joe 55876 referred to his conversation protocols and pieced together a response.
“Would you like a refill? It’s on the house!”
The man sighed and closed his book.
“I’ve got to go.”
