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A Cave of Steel (a microfiction ditty)
by X. Ho Yen
08 May 2021
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Aroeste looked upon the librarybot with awe and fierce intent. Decades as a librarian takes a toll.
Over the edge of her artificial cellulose book she studied the old librarian, watching for signs of rigidity in its routines.
The librarian glanced her way. She raised the book 1.062 cm, blocking. The reshelving cart rolled past. Aroeste remained still, then followed.
She sniffed. Was that pungent smell a pneumatic pressurant leak? Did that squeak indicate a failing bearing in the old librarian’s mechanical hands?
Aroeste smelled opportunity. Her only path to the librarian job was dead librarian’s boots, so to speak. And she almost had enough evidence to get the AtoZ replaced.
In the ‘Be-Bo’ aisle Aroeste planned a social test, to reveal soft wear, not just physical wear. But as she calculated, the AtoZ turned.
“May I help you?”
At 0.91 seconds Aroeste detected two frayed subharmonics in the AtoZ’s simvoice – failing D-to-A circuits? To Aroeste’s next-gen hardware, the failure was as plain as the average-human-shaped nose on her simskin face. Her eyelids autonomically rose one millimeter at the discovery.
It noticed! Seeing she was an android, it switched to software D-to-A and cleaned up its voice before finishing the word “help”.
“Nice try!” said Aroeste, and ran off to present her case to the Library.
A human strode up. “Hey, where can I find ‘The Caves of Steel’?”
Though apprehensive about Aroeste, the AtoZ answered. It didn’t notice the Voltaire book in a sensor-defeating mesh under the human’s jacket.