One Story Short

Gustavo Bondoni

         The agent squirmed self-consciously under Vaidal's withering look. The normally mild-mannered editor was, for the first time since the two had met, furious.

         "This is awful. Not only is it just like the story you sent me for the last issue, it's also just like the other seven stories I already have for this month's Digest. What is going on in this business? Isn't anyone writing original fiction anymore?"

         "I'm sorry," said the agent. "We'll rework it and have it back by Wednesday. Still plenty of time before the deadline."

         "No. I don't want it. Sell it to somebody else."

         "But Jacan is one of the most respected robots in the field. His name on the cover will help you sell more magazines."

         "What will help me sell more magazines is for someone to send me an original story. Something different!" fumed Vaidal.

         The agent, a seasoned salesman, let him finish, took a deep breath and resumed the onslaught.

         "Look, my client has just had his software updated to get the latest Human Psych programs. His handling of suspense and emotional response has tested off the charts in all our consumer surveys. There is nobody currently in the field who can write better stories. I just don't see the problem."

         "The problem is that every other robot who has enough money saved up and chooses to invest it in the Writing and Psych updates can turn out prose at exactly the same level. And they are. The plots are similarly put together once you get past the superficial differences, no matter what the software promises about 'randomized creativity.' I want something different. Take it away, and don't come back next month unless you have something worth my time."

         "We'll file a grievance..."

         "Go ahead," said Vaidal. "It doesn't say anywhere that I have to buy your stuff."

         "But we've been working together for years!"

         "So bring me good stuff and I'll happily buy it from you."

         The agent departed, puzzled, angry, and more than a little worried.

         "Next!" shouted Vaidal, caught in the rush. But there were no more agents in the waiting room. His assistant's aluminum-alloy head appeared in the doorway.

         "Er... That was the last one, sir," she said.

         "What do you mean, the last one? I'm still a story short!"

         Jenny cringed, which made Vaidal shudder. It never ceased to shock him when he saw a robot react with fear (or with love, anger, or any other emotion). He had just never managed to come to grips with the ever-expanding range of "human" emotions that they had been programmed with in the last few years as the tech got better.

         It wasn't that he had anything against robots. On the contrary. He'd been too young to vote when the referendum to make them independent beings as opposed to human property went through, but had made up for it by voting in favor of increased robotic rights every time after that. Unrestricted access to all human areas. The right to work for a wage. The right to own property. The right to vote. The right to obtain advanced emotional programming. And, finally, the big one: full citizenship on an equal basis with humans. It had been a long process, but he'd been there all the way.

         Moreover, as a member of the business community, he was very happy that all the reforms had gone through. After all, the human population had been decreasing steadily for decades, and were it not for the new citizens and their newly earned money the entire economy would have faltered.

         But it was still hard for him, on an emotional level, to accept them as sentient beings. Sure, every test that mankind had been able to devise had shown that they were self-aware. But didn't that just mean that they'd reached the point where they were complex enough to react to different stimuli in such a way as to fool the tests? Did any amount of intelligence or programming for emotions really make them alive?

         "Sir, are you all right?"

         He started. "Just thinking that I'm too old for this job." For this world, he also admitted, but only to himself.

         "Nonsense. Everybody knows that the reason both our magazine and anthologies are at number one is because of you."

         "Hah, that's a laugh. Every top publication is buying stories from the same ten robots, the ones that have been successful enough to get the upgrades. Sales are due more to the great job done by the circulation manager, or maybe just dumb luck, than anything I can do."

         The look she gave him would, in a human, have been one of impatience mixed with amusement. How she managed to convey this with immobile metallic features (he fervently hoped that she would never decide to go with one of the new "emotion reflections" screen faces, or, even worse, artificial skin) he couldn't say. Maybe it was the angle at which she held her head. But, however she did it, the emotion came through loud and clear.

         "You choose better stories and ask for better rewrites, that's the secret."

         He shrugged.

         "Anyway," he said, "we're still a story short, and I've told every one of the big guys who aren't in yet to bugger off. What can I do? It would be really unprofessional of me to accept a story that I don't think is good enough."

         "How about the slush pile?"

         "Huh?" said Vaidal.

         "You know, the unsolicited submissions that come in through our Mindnet site."

         Vaidal gave her a sour look. "I know what a slush pile is. It's only that we're not supposed to have one. Our Mindnet site makes it very clear that we do not accept unsolicited work." The reason for this was simple: most of the unsolicited material came from robots who hadn't gotten the latest upgrades, and therefore was of measurably inferior quality. These robo-writers could usually find a place in a slightly lower echelon and, in time, might be able to save up enough to get upgraded to the top tier. It was difficult, as the target was always moving, but not impossible—and recently upgraded writers were always carefully and conscientiously reviewed by all the major editors. The system sometimes made Vaidal's life harder than it would be otherwise, but both readers and industry benefited from it.

         "Well sir, I've been reading the slush," said Jenny.

         "What for? You've been in this business long enough to know that the upgrades make for measurably better audience reception. It's not really any use to read the slush from lesser robots," said Vaidal.

         "Of course not. That's why I only read slush sent in by humans."

         "That's ridiculous. Humans can't write." Of course humans could write, it was just that the combination of psych programming plus writing programming had surpassed anything that could be created by a mere human nearly thirty years before, and without any unpredictability or massive variations in quality. Stories written by robots were safer, always well received, and sold literary magazines. The proof was that the magazines with human-produced content had long since been beaten back by the robot-written ones.

         "Well, I read it anyway. You never know where genius might pop up."

         Vaidal was stunned. He had never suspected Jenny of this kind of proactive thinking. Or of the ambition that obviously had to be the motive.

         "So, have you found anything worth printing?" Vaidal said. He already suspected the answer; she wouldn't have brought it up otherwise.

         "Yes, I have. It's the first time in my three years of reading slush that I've come across something I believe to be worthy of the magazine. It arrived a couple of months ago, but I sat on it, waiting for a time at which we needed a story." Vaidal could tell that she'd wanted to bring it in earlier. Robots aren't supposed to be afraid of things. That's one of the main reasons you hired them!

         He sighed. "OK, let me see it."

        

        

         Vaidal put the manuscript back on the desk. Jenny had waited anxiously while he read through the whole thing.

         "Well, it's certainly different, I'll give you that much," he said.

         "That's good, right? It's what you wanted?"

         "Well, I'm not sure. I mean, the story is unusual in the extreme, and there's a strange structure in a sentence on page eight."

         "That's a grammatical error. I checked it with my program. We'll have to fix it before we publish," said Jenny.

         "A grammatical error," Vaidal chuckled. "I am getting older. It's been years since I last corrected one. Robots don't make mistakes, and I guess I've gotten used to the status quo. Still, one error isn't too bad. Human's aren't perfect, after all, and the rest of the piece looks all right."

         "But do you think it's good enough to print?"

         "It's a bit strange. Do you really think a human would ever feel that way about a robot? I've never seen a plot like that one before. And the suspense is uneven, not the standard buildup to a crescendo that makes you want to keep reading; it seems to peak at two different points in the story. Also, the end was a bit ambiguous. I'm not sure that our readers will appreciate it if we leave them thinking about the story for two weeks after reading it, do you?"

         Jenny said nothing, but Vaidal thought that her attitude said guilt. These robots that acted like college kids!

         "Spill it," he said gruffly.

         "Well, this is a bit embarrassing," she said, "but I thought it was brilliant. Much better than the stuff we usually print. I'm sorry." She hung her head.

         "So you would run the piece?"

         "Yes," she replied. "After all, we have seven conventional pieces, and this one is only three thousand words. If we print it in the next-to-last slot, most people won't even notice. How big can the risk possibly be?"

         Vaidal thought it over. He wasn't in love with the story, but it certainly was a breath of fresh air. And after ten years of choosing the best from an endless series of nearly identical stories, he was ready to rebel.

         "You'd better be right," he growled, meant more for show than as a real threat, and signed off on the story.

        

        

         The hate mail started pouring in through the Mindnet about ten seconds after the issue was released.

         One reader would never buy the Digest again; another said he would, but only if an apology was issued and the editor removed. The story was lambasted as preposterous. Unreal. Mere fantasy, and fantasy in bad taste, at that. It was obscene.

         Vaidal knew that his days as editor-in-chief were numbered, but at least he'd gone down on his own terms. Anyhow, it wasn't an irreparable loss and the publicity might actually bring a boost in circulation, although that was a long shot considering the outraged nature of some of the letters.

         Inevitably, the mainstream media picked up on the situation. Three days after the launch of the issue, the story had made it onto the homepages of all the major Mindnet sites. Vaidal knew it would only be there a couple of hours before the next big news took over, but the damage had been done. Even Jenny, who sometimes had trouble understanding the nuances of human office politics seemed to be staying out of his way.

         Less than an hour later, he was called by headquarters. A real call, not a Mindnet memo. Max Zennet wanted to see him immediately.

         Fortunately, headquarters building, known affectionately as "the tower of pain," was just across Digest Square, so Vaidal's imagination didn't have time to run wild. He was prepared to fall on his sword, but wanted to do so with as much dignity as possible.

         After security waved him through, he was put on the express lift to the top floor, which contained Max's office. Or, more accurately, which was Max's office.

         Wood paneling, panoramic view, enormous desk. The works. It was almost never good news to be here, but it was a great looking office. Max himself was standing at the bar to the left of the elevator, mixing a drink in a tall glass.

         "Ah, Vaidal. What'll you have?" Max was a portly, graying man in a pinstriped shirt and suspenders but, surprisingly, no tie.

         "I'm fine, thanks," Vaidal said, waving off the drink. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, and stood awkwardly, trying not to fidget, while Max finished mixing.

         "Sit, sit," said Max, waving at one of the chairs in front of the desk. He sat behind it with his legs crossed, took a sip, and studied Vaidal for a few moments.

         "I assume you know why I called you in," he said.

         "The Mindnet pages," said Vaidal.

         "Precisely. I got a heads-up twenty minutes ago and I decided to look a little more closely into that magazine you're running. I don't usually do this, since I have, at last count, a hundred and eighteen media companies that I have to run from this office. But for you, I made an exception."

         Vaidal said nothing. The end would come soon enough. He only hoped he would be allowed to resign.

         "And I must say that, in the quick view of sales that I've seen, I was a bit surprised. Do you mind telling me what's going on?" said Max.

         "We ran a story by a human author, sir. Public reaction to it was very, very bad. I'm sure you've seen the letters."

         "I don't have time to read letters, and besides, they're letters to the editor. You're the editor, so you can deal with the letters. What concerns me are the sales numbers. Could you enlighten me?"

         "I'm sorry. The editors receive the sales numbers on a weekly basis, so I haven't seen them yet. I assume, however, that you've spotted a drop in sales or the cancellation of subscriptions. That would seem to be in line with the feedback I've received."

         Max looked at him and chuckled.

         "You think I brought you in here to fire you, don't you?" Max said, laughing hard now. He passed Vaidal the sales printout that had been lying on the desk.

         Vaidal resisted the urge to storm out in indignation and picked the sheets up. He was familiar with the format, as it was the same as that which he received for his weekly perusal. Quickly, he scanned the numbers until he got to that month's issue.

         No, that can't be right, he thought. He looked at the sheet again, convinced that he had the wrong row or column, or that the format was different from his usual sheet after all. But no.

         "I'm sorry, sir. There must be something wrong with these numbers. They indicate that we sold out our entire print run in the first three days," he said. "That's just impossible."

         "The numbers are fine. I just got off the line with Irene at the plant. She tells me that the plant is out of copies. I took the liberty of ordering a second run. I hope that's okay?"

         Vaidal just nodded dumbly.

         Max continued. "You have no idea why this happened, do you?"

         "No sir, we weren't expecting such a strong reaction either way when we published the story. And it has to be something to do with the story, that much I'm certain of." He thought about it a minute. "Maybe it's just the ghouls? They hear about something that's supposed to be rotten, so they buy the magazine out of morbid curiosity?"

         "Could be. Or it could be something else. I need you to find out and bring me a recommendation as to how we can make it happen in all our magazines, and if we can expand the model to our Mindnet broadcasts, which have been getting blown out of the water by the Australians. Use whatever resources you need. Are you up to it?

         Again Vaidal just nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

        

        

         The two days following the meeting with Max had been exhausting. In addition to their normal workload, Jenny and Vaidal had been rushed around from focus group to focus group. How the research department had managed to put them together on such short notice, Vaidal didn't know, but Max had been true to his word. Everything Vaidal had requested was immediately granted.

         Unfortunately, none of his groups had given him a single clue as to what was going on. He hoped Jenny had had better luck. She was late for their meeting; maybe she'd had to do a follow-up interview?

         When she finally did arrive, one look was enough to dash any hopes Vaidal might have had. She projected an air of dejection that would have been unmistakable even on a less expressive robot.

         "No luck?" he asked.

         "Nothing. The people we interviewed basically fell into two camps. Those who normally buy the magazine and are uninterested in continuing to do so unless we return to our usual standards, and that great majority who never buy the Digest and aren't really interested in buying it for one sordid story. They say they can get their filth for free off the Mindnet if they happen to want any."

         "The story wasn't even dirty. It was just different. More of an exploration of a possibility than anything else," sighed Vaidal.

         "That's the whole point. It's no longer about the story. Most people haven't read it and never will. They just don't care."

         "So it isn't the ghoul market making the purchases. At least we can cross out that option. But then, who is it? I'm certainly not doing it!" said Vaidal. Jenny laughed, a tinkling, metallic sound.

         "Me neither. Anyway, this is just the qualitative data. The Research people are crunching the numbers on our survey results. It might be the ghouls after all," she said.

         "Wanna bet?"

         "No way. I'm with you on this one. I don't think it's the ghouls either."

         "Well, we'll have the numbers on Monday. Have a nice weekend," said Vaidal.

         "You too." She waved and left.

         "Yeah right. Like I'm going to get any sleep this weekend," he grumbled to himself.

        

        

         Vaidal was in the office an hour early on Monday morning. He wasn't surprised to find the research department empty, since they had no reason to be there at eight o'clock. He was only there because he hadn't been able to sleep all weekend. It wasn't only the mystery of the missing magazine buyers that had kept him awake, but something he'd seen at a party on Friday.

         The head waiter at the party had been a robot, which, in itself, was nothing unusual. What was unusual was that the under-waiters were a mixed team composed of humans and robots. Vaidal, having observed the actions of his own assistant—and the subsequent events—spent the evening watching the interaction among the waiters. The first thing that struck him was how the human waiters didn't hesitate before asking the head robot for his opinion. He also noticed that none of them showed signs of anger when chastised by the leader, even when the robot himself showed signs of anger.

         The fact that the human waiters were young—the oldest seemed to be of about college age—reinforced Vaidal's feeling that things had really changed. His own generation hadn't hesitated to employ robots in non-leadership roles, and they'd slowly become accustomed to their new hardworking, honest coworkers. That robots seemed to universally lean towards cautious good sense and could acquire university-level proficiency in any subject simply by uploading the relevant programs was also seen as a plus. Nobody felt threatened by them because they weren't truly good at working outside their programming, which meant that anything unexpected normally managed to defeat them. There weren't enough humans to fill most jobs, anyway.

         But, watching the headwaiter, Vaidal felt that here was a robot that could and did deal with a constantly changing environment. And the humans in the team expected him to lead. When had this happened? When had programming complexity managed to overcome every robot's innate caution—the very caution that made them refrain from offering opinions and making decisions? When had robots evolved to the point where they could make apparently successful selections in the realm of art, as Jenny had done? It had obviously happened, and he had failed to notice.

         It was these questions that had kept him awake most of the weekend, and had gotten him to the office an hour ahead of time. Fortunately, he would not have to brood much longer, because he saw that lights were going on in other offices.

         When Research finally arrived and handed him a manila folder and a memdrive, he exercised superhuman self-control and took his treasures back to his office to open them. The truth was that he was certain they contained no useful information, and he didn't want the research department to see him cry.

         It was a good thing, too. The numbers clearly showed, at a confidence level of ninety-nine percent that not one additional percentage point of sales had come from the average people tested. And they represented four-fifths of the human population.

         So who did that leave? The very rich? The very poor?

         "Robots!" The voice, Jenny's, tore him from his thoughts as she barged through the door. "Robots have been buying the extra copies."

         "What?" he said. "Robots don't buy magazines. Their scan velocity makes the Mindnet a full-reality experience for them. Why would they want to slow down and read? And pay money to do it, too."

         "It's that story. They'd never even heard of anything like it before. It has raw emotion, not the subtle psych stuff that makes up most web content. It's much more basic than what the robot writers write for humans, you see. Basic enough that our emotional programming is receptive to it. Basic enough to overload our programs."

         "So you're saying that robots can write subtle emotional plots for humans, but can only truly comprehend emotion on a more basic level?"

         "Exactly."

         Vaidal was at a complete loss for words. He just stared at her. Finally, he managed to organize his thoughts.

         "And raw emotion at this level is even better for you than Mindnet immersion?"

         Jenny shrugged, "Most Mindnet content is generated by robots. If it wasn't a full-mind experience, it would be just as unsatisfying for us as robot-generated text."

         "But how did you ever find out?" he said.

         "I was at a scramble on Saturday night. We discussed it there."

         "What's a scramble?"

         Jenny looked slightly uncomfortable. "We don't usually discuss it with humans, because they never understand." Seeing that he wasn't impressed by this, she went on. "A scramble is simply a group of robots. We sit together in a circle, and remove ourselves from the Mindnet. Then we use normal data cables and plug ourselves into each other, lower all our firewalls and share all our data in an uncontrolled storm. Complete mind melding."

         "What for?"

         "It feels good. Your brain feels four, or five, or however many participants you have in the circle, times bigger. It's like you can fly. And you know things you never knew before. The only downside is that you can never remember all the data, since it would take up too much space. And afterwards you don't really know who you are for a couple of hours. But it's worth it."

         Vaidal gave her a wide-eyed stare. "Is that even legal?"

         "Don't be such a prude," she laughed. "Why would it be illegal? It doesn't hurt anyone or harm anything. And besides, that's how I found out about the sales. Seems that three of the robots in the circle had read the story, and the rest were angry at us for being out of stock."

         "We have more issues due to arrive about noon."

         "Good. How many?"

         "Max ordered about twice our normal circulation."

         "Get more," said Jenny.

         "What do you mean, more? Why?"

         "Do you know how many robots there are on this planet?"

         "Half a billion or so."

         "Well, I've been asking around on the Mindnet, and a lot of them want to buy the magazine."

         Something about the way she said that made Vaidal suspicious.

         "When you say a lot—"

         "All of them."

         "Are you sure?"

         "Trust me."

         Vaidal looked at her, just for a moment wondering how much of this had been an accident. And then wondering further if it was a planet-wide conspiracy of robots trying to nudge things in their direction, but managed to get a hold of himself. He was being paranoid, and had spent the whole weekend being paranoid, probably because Jenny's emotional programming was getting to him. Robots didn't do that sort of thing. And they always stayed out of office politics. It's why you hired them in the first place.

         He sighed, under control again.

         "Can you excuse me a minute? I need to make a call." His fingers were shaking uncontrollably as he dialed Max's number.

Copyright 2007, Gustavo Bondoni

Cover: "Sentinel"

 

Framed against the bluest of skies, the Sentinel stands guard. What does he wait and watch for, and shall its coming bring the storm?

Karl Eschenbach's 3-D art captures the imagination and appeals to the eye.

 

Copyright 2007, Karl Eschenbach

 

Karl Eschenbach was born in 1950, right in the middle of the last century. He was raised in a military family and traveled throughout the United States. He survived college in the '60s and '70s, and is now a grandfather in Albuquerque, NM. 

He has had twenty-two illustrations, including two for The Sword Review, fifteen short stories, two essays, and one poem published.