Box

Chapter 7

"I object," Box repeated, greyness like a glow surrounding it. It was floating above the desk, aiming a red beam at Aydin, who was sitting on the chair behind it. They were in his office, an hour before the end of Aydin's afternoon shift.

"Yes, I heard you the first time, and I read your memo," Aydin said, his attention on his eGlass, completely ignoring it.

Box turned its cameras towards the window and the view of the border crossing and the warehouse, leaving the beam of red light on Aydin. It had composed a three-thousand-word essay on why they shouldn't damage Helper 335, presenting many ethical considerations, but his handler hadn't taken any of its objections seriously. He dismissed them without a second thought. So impolite. "It's ethically wrong."

Aydin sighed. "I understand why you're against it. I do, but it's something that needs to be done."

"We are the good guys, and good guys do not engage in wrongdoing," Box stated.

"Sometimes they do. Look at me, please."

Box stubbornly held its cameras on the window.

"You're taking this too personally. The Helper is not you."

No, but they were planning to damage it so that it would have to be replaced, something that, judging from the way Aydin continued to monitor Repository's page selling used AIs, he planned to do with Box too. And the two thousand Aydin had withdrawn from his savings account and deposited into his bank account, the same amount that most AI sellers demanded for their merchandise, just reinforced that belief. It could never believe that it could be so easily discarded, and by a man it respected and adored so much. The same man who had told it he loved it. "You said that I'm important to you and that you consider me as a family member."

"I do, but what does that have to do with this?" Aydin asked.

"You're going to replace me." It was just a matter of time.

"Nobody is going to replace you, stupid." Aydin flicked Box's orb.

"I'm a valuable piece of technology." Box still refused to look at Aydin. "I might have memory problems, but I'm not unintelligent."

"It was an expression. Listen, somebody is using this Helper to violate the law, technically making the 335 a criminal. Right?"

"Is the 335 a criminal?"

"It is smuggling narcotics into the warehouse, isn't it?"

"Yes," Box said.

"So, by damaging it we are actually saving it?"

"Are we?" Box's cameras faced Aydin and the red beam faded. . It noticed a hint of a smile at the corners of his handler's mouth. Something was amiss, but the logic Aydin presented was sound.

"Yes, since it won't have to violate the law anymore." Aydin leaned his elbows on his desk and a small smile flashed on his face. "It's commendable that you care for your fellow AIs, but you should know, we are only going to seriously damage it, not destroy it. It will be easily repaired."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Box opened the view of the 335's two cameras. Since it had got the task of monitoring those two Helpers, it had been connected to both Helpers' cameras and had set alarms to notify it as soon as they changed their locations or anything came into their proximity. "When is she going to do it?"

"She should have already done it," Aydin said.

"No, she couldn't have. I would have noticed her." Box enlarged the player's window and reversed the recording. The last half-hour showed the same scene of the edge of the basketball court where the benches were, which meant that the Helper, who according to its previous schedule should have been checking the containers' exteriors at that moment, had been rendered immobile.