Dr. Takahiro and the Electric Cauldron

*Disclaimer: The cover image is from Wiki Commons and is not my property, it can be found at the following url: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Arm-robotic_010_final.png*

Now onto the adventure of Dr. Takahiro...

When Dr. Takahiro first set foot on planet X2 he pinched the meat of his left arm. It was an old habit of his, something he did to reassure himself that he was not simply ambling about in a state of subconciosness. “Why do you hurt yourself Professor?” asked Tonto, Takahiro’s research assistant. 

Tonto was a university issue android that was built to look like an average human but with above-average knowledge of the sciences. His name came about after the professor stumbled across an ancient earth series called The Lone Ranger. After watching a few episodes Dr. Takahiro decided that there could be no better sidekick than an Indian—but in this day and age, an android would have to do.

“I do it to remind myself that this is not a dream…” said Takahiro assuredly, “…It’s called pinching yourself”.

“Pinching yourself” repeated the A.I.

“And to my delight Tonto, I am most definitely not inside of a dream.”

“It most certainly is not professor, you have been asking the Exploratory Unit for a research grant for nearly a decade now—it is well deserved in my humble opinion sir.”

“You speak kindly of me Tonto—but only because some programmer sitting in his cubicle made you say such a thing.”

“Your comments are not without merit sir.”

“Of course they're not, now let’s get going. It’s imperative we find traces of dark matter here or the department may never fund my studies again.” 

As they walked along the rocky terrain of X2, Tonto used his eyes to light the path while the professor scanned the terrain with his cosmospectrometer.

Bleep, bleep, bleep.

The constant rhythm of the cosmospectrometer should have put the professor at ease—but it did no such thing. During his grad school days he had spent many a lonely weekend in the digital archives watching old earth films. He had witnessed one too many times the false sense of security a Geiger Counter gave the viewer before they undoubtedly stumbled upon something horrific. 'How close and yet how far off those earthlings of old had been about the future’ he thought to himself chuckling. ‘Yes, indeed we have colonized many a planet, we can travel at incredible speeds throughout space, and yes—we even have our own humanistic androids. But the one thing they never got right, the one thing they always got wrong was the false assumption that extra-terrestrial life forms exist.’

“You’re lucky Tonto” said Dr. Takahiro.

“How do you mean?”

“A.I.’s don’t have to worry about the bigger things of life; discovering, conquering, exploring, creating—they all fall under the mantle of human responsibility you see. Your kind has one job and one job only—to obey.”

“You are an astute observer of humanity professor.” 

Bleep, bleep, bleep.

“Readings remain steady doctor?"

“You already know the answer to that Tonto.”

“I am programmed to ask you such things sir.”

“Like I said—your only job is to obey.”