Get ready for a thrilling ride into a future where robots and humans clash for control in RoboNomics, the updated and refreshed version of the 2013 sci-fi classic.
In Toronto, elementary school teacher Andrea Anderson's world crumbles when she's rep...
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The hallways echo with a feverish pace of activity, but I sit quietly in my classroom. I'm meant to work with the damned I.I.U. to program each attendees' cloud space with access codes for tomorrow's press conference. But I'm not doing anything. I sit, facing the machine at the small, round group worktable in the corner. In my periphery, I see her head flick with small movements as she accomplishes the task required of us.
I stare at the multi-colored reading carpet that starts at the leg of my chair. A silent protest, a miniscule resistance. She - it - doesn't really need help. She uploads the list of names from her memory into AR cloud accounts with smooth, quick automation.
The students of Crescent Street Public School have the day off, but the long brick building is full of people. Besides staff, RoboNomics Canada liaisons and RoboNomics International headquarters representatives bustle around the school in coordinating pantsuits. Jay and Principal Goodman agreed the best day for the press conference would be the last Friday of school before winter break, and that the prep day before would be a school holiday. Learning doesn't much happen the week before break anyway.
When Chris insisted I get him into the press conference, I resisted. Before university, I only ever did what was right. I followed the rules. I didn't dare step outside what was deemed appropriate, what people expected of me, what was legal. And now, more than ever, it's so important for me to appear upstanding.
"Are you crazy?" I replied, searching my mind for an excuse. "There's no way I'm putting what little income I have at risk for you."
"Anderson, you can either help us or you can leave. It's your choice."
The prospect of leaving gave me pause, but not more than what Miriam said: this would make people pay attention to us. How else would they see that teachers needed to instruct children, not machines?
If we're successful, Chris will tell the cameras, reporters, and people in charge of this project how we need our jobs back. Maybe I could speak and tell them how terrible she is with the children. Maybe we could even convince the school district to shut down the entire project.
"All right. I'm in," I replied at the time.
But now, weeks later, doubt rumbles through my psyche. Risk in the abstract is fine, it's great. The planning kept me close to Chris, kept me alive to the possibilities of what we could accomplish together. And yet today, the day before it all goes down, I feel bile rising in my throat at the thought of our plan coming to fruition.
I swallow hard, then rise and cross to the door of my classroom. I peek outside. The corridor is quiet and empty, with no one around to interrupt me.
I slip back into the class and close the door gently behind me. I glance at the I.I.U. and hope she's not registering that anything is out of the ordinary as I pad towards her.
