RoboNomics

Chapter 19 - 2016

It's hard to believe that Mr. Peterson is over fifty. His brown hair has no trace of grey or silver. 

He and his wife sit on the gilded upholstery of their living room couch. I settle on a white damask settee across from them.

It's been a couple months since I was let go from my robot technician job at Crescent Street Public School. When I was first fired, I peddled my tutoring services online. What else did I have to sell but my ability to teach young children? 

My labor was becoming more and more obsolete and devalued as time went on. But at least I had one response from all the advertising I'd done: the Peterson family.

They live in the northern enclave of Yorkdale. Their house can easily swallow three of mine with room leftover for the front yard. Inside their home, everything is glass coffee tables and plush white carpets.

"We want to talk to you about Antonia. We've been re-evaluating her education," Mr. Peterson begins. "You've been great with her. You really have. I don't think she's ever had a better tutor."

"It must be your background," chimes in Mrs. Peterson with her Mandarin lilt. 

She's dressed in a gold tweed skirt and matching blazer. She has a sleek black bob and like her husband, is lacking a single grey hair. 

Mr. Peterson is not often at the house when I come to tutor his daughter. But when he is around, Mrs. Peterson lapses into the role of chorus girl.

"But they've come out with a new model," Mr. Peterson continues. "RoboNomics, that is. Apparently they're revolutionizing educational automation." 

I nod, thinking of the orange logo that Crescent Street's I.I.U. wore on her shirt.

"It's a soft-sided bot," offers Mrs. Peterson.

"Specifically made for special education purposes," says her husband. "We think it may be just what Antonia needs. We just don't want her...we don't want her to be...stunted in her education."

"You're saying I'd stunt her?"

"You can see what we need," replies Mr. Peterson. "We need to integrate her with the new teachers. We need her to be able to learn from them. If not, she'll be left behind. We need to give her every advantage that we possibly can. Her entire future depends on her learning to interact with the new teachers."

"You mean, the robots?" My eyebrows creep up my forehead. "So you're just assuming that those bots will always be teaching her? I don't know that it's a smart move. I just don't think these things will be around in the schools much longer. They can't. You can't possibly believe they'll last?"

"Whether they last or not," he says with a hard voice, "they are here for now. And we have to do what's best for Antonia."

I nod and look to the floor. I fold my hands in my lap and cross my ankles to try and mirror the couple's body language. 

But my emotions come to a rolling boil of rage. 

Around me the house buzzes with electricity. Its clean lines hide the electronic processes that surround us: the InvisiScreen TV can appear at a voice command or the touch of a button, the fridge wirelessly informs the store when it's time to restock groceries. 

Swarms of crawling plastic insects clean every surface when the family sleeps. They have given their lives over to machine labor and I am just another human body invading their perfectly automated space.

"Can I at least say goodbye to her?"

They look at each other. Secret communication with the eyes. 

"I don't think that would be a good idea. I'm not sure she would understand," says Mrs. Peterson. 

She doesn't look at me as she speaks. She doesn't take her eyes off her husband's face.

Antonia has Williams syndrome. I have no idea how the Petersons think she will thrive being taught by a machine. It will be like she is learning from a toaster for all the emotionality the new teachers have. 

Her parents are fretful about her, but they loved me when I first came to meet them and their daughter. Back then, they'd told me they were fed up with the teacher-robots of the pilot project. It had been music to my ears.

"They are just not social enough for her," Mrs. Peterson said at the time.

The little girl has a room packed with toys. Stuffed animals, dolls, even some which resemble plush versions of the cutesy robots that now populate toys stores. The doctors said it was an appropriate outlet for the endless hugging she does because of her condition.

"That's one of the biggest problems with the things," Mr. Peterson told me during that first interview. "She's can't hug them." 

Whenever her classroom's I.I.U. looked sad, Antonia would hug the bot. There were two problems with this habit, however. 

The first was that the machine's smooth plastic skin hid a metal skeleton. The second was that Antonia's sensitive perception of human emotion did not translate to the ambiguous A.I. programming. 

And so, Antonia came home some days with bruises on both her arms. The facial expressions of Antonia's robot teacher were close to human expressions but just slightly off and were indecipherable to the little girl. 

She was constantly attaching her little body to the I.I.U.'s arm, reading in its mechanical expressions the minutiae of human distress. She was falling far behind the progress she had made since she entered school.

"So I just can't see her at all? Don't you owe me at least a goodbye after everything I did for her? For you?" I ask.

"I'm sorry," says Mrs. Peterson. She seems genuinely distressed.

"It would just be too much for her," adds her husband.

(Continued in Chapter 20...)

*************************

Time lapse! It's been a little while since Andrea was canned from her school job, and here's a glimpse into how she's doing. What do you think she'll do next, after losing yet another job? Let me know by COMMENTING!

Also, please don't forget to VOTE for this chapter if you liked it. That always helps me know whether or not my writing is on the right (or write hehe) track!

Thanks for reading!

If you'd like to keep up to date with me as an author (and a human being), please follow me on Instagram and twitter @sawauthor or on facebook /sawauthor, or on all 3 platforms!