Nano Man

  NANO MAN

  By

  Dean C. Moore

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Alex G.

  “Even God finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time.”

  Ika Natassa, Antologi Rasa

  ONE

  Silver bent down so he could speak to the young girl at her level. “Are you like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz?” said the child with the dizzyingly curly brunette hair flowing over her shoulders. The only thing longer than her locks was her knee-high socks, and maybe the doll in her hands.

  He shook his head no. “I’m a cyborg. That’s way cooler.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Prove it.”

  He picked her up in his arms and blasted off from the ground. Below him, her father, that had been holding his daughter’s hand, was looking up at him as if he wasn’t sure how he felt about this idea.

  Silver morphed his back so there was a child seat he could strap her into. It was just a hidden compartment with a pop out; nothing fancy, though he hoped to upgrade the feature soon with nexgen liquid metal and nano-infused artificial blood, for far more flexible morphing. The pop out seat in his back currently, honestly, felt a bit degrading.

  In preparation for his next stunt, Silver moved her from his arms to his back as he changed his orientation to fly parallel and face down to the ground. He used the thrusters running along his spine, in the balls of his feet and the palms of his hands to direct him. The antigravity beams worked their magic without the associated heat of chemical propellants that could threaten the fragile humans. The boosters were by far his most advanced feature. Well ahead of their time. Whatever their source, surely there was more of this nexgen bounty to be had, making his dreams of a new him not so ill-advised as all that.

  As for his transparent, complex polymer surface, molded in the form of an athletic male human, that exposed his insides like a Swiss Watch, he was absolutely beside himself over what struck him as the ultimate in humiliation. Showing not an ounce more sensitivity, his makers had alighted on the name Silver after seeing the degree to which his metallic silver insides dominated his internal color scheme. One day soon, hopefully he’d be re-designing himself.

  The little girl screamed repeatedly with glee, distracting him from his lingering concerns, like the chorus of a song against the verses.

  He did some barrel rolls, mostly to reassure the father that she was strapped in and there was nothing to worry about, though he imagined that first inversion might have sent her Dad’s heart into his mouth.

  When Silver finally landed with her and let her off the ride, she jumped up and down and clapped. “What else can you do?” she said.

  “I think that’s quite enough for today, honey,” the father said, clasping his daughter’s hand and drawing her away from the figure with a few too many surprises in store for him.

  Silver ignored the dad and continued to upsell the package to the little girl. “I can run out of the house with you if there’s a fire,” he said, “save you from getting burnt.”

  “Oh, yeah?” the father said.

  “I can speak any language you like, do math, writing and composition, or any subject you’re studying to help you get through school no matter how far you go, even if you go for a PhD. I can even certify you for a diploma at each level without you ever leaving the house.”

  “Oh yeah?” the father said, rubbing his chin and glancing about, suddenly annoyed by the noises of the fair, the jabbering people strolling by, the hawkers trying to seduce customers into their tents, the screams coming from the children on the many rides. He’d hate to think he missed anything the robot had to say. Silver nearly smiled, decoding his thoughts from his expressions that were so transparent, it made reading his mind unnecessary. “How are you at fixing cars, mowing lawns, painting house and…” The father cleared his throat, taking a second to select the right words before his young girl, “you know, attending the wife, when I can’t be bothered?”

  “Anything you like, sir. I just download what intel I need from the internet on the fly.”

  “I want one, daddy!”

  “You want one!” he said to the girl. To Silver he said, “Um, can I buy you?” He quickly held up his hand placatingly. “Please don’t take that the wrong way. I’m all about robot’s rights. Besides, you don’t sleep, do you? We humans sleep. And we’re very self-involved. Honestly, after getting a pet dog, we can barely remember to feed him. He’s mostly neglected. I’m guessing it’ll be no time until we do the same with you, which should free up your time even more.”

  “Sorry, sir. But we’re not approved for the real world yet. Only here in Robo-Land, where every day is better than any day at Disneyland.”

  “Why’s that?” the father and daughter asked in tandem.

  “No one’s sure if introducing us to the real world economy is such a good idea,” Silver explained to the dad.

  “But robots are all over the place,” the father said.

  Silver shook his head. “Not like us. Maybe someday. Maybe if you put out a good word for us.”

  “You can bet I will,” the dad said, taking his daughter by the arm again. “Come on, honey. Let’s go meet some more of these nice robots. I bet we can find one your mom wants to take home with her.”

  Mission accomplished, Silver thought. His designer had built Silver, had built all of them, really, as ambassadors to the real world, where he expected resistance to a full-on robo invasion to be a bit extreme without equally extreme countermeasures. Hence his own reason for being, and Robo-Land’s reason for being. Alas, it wasn’t such a bad thing making friends with humans. He rather liked them. If all went well, soon he’d have some as pets. What did it matter if they thought he belonged to them? That just made them all the more endearing.

  The father met up with his teenage daughter up the breezeway just a few yards away. Silver had no trouble listening in on their exchange from this distance with his vastly superior-to-human hearing. “Come on, dear,” the father said impatiently for the second time.

  “No way, Dad.” Teen Girl folded her hands defiantly. “Besides, he’s such an awesome spinner.”

  The teen daughter with long straight hair and even longer and straighter legs, which she showed off with a pair of frayed shorts, was very taken by the manga-styled humanoid robot break dancer. He was designed to be insanely sexy to teen girls, and was currently spinning upside down with his shirt off to a throng of them.

  The mother, just a little further up the breezeway, was being attended at one of the booths by an Octo unit. The father kept bouncing his eyes between her and his daughter, wondering which fate was worse, hanging by his daughter’s side, or his wife’s; he was seriously considering abandoning both yet again. Silver also had no trouble reading his mind from this distance. His brain gave off EMF waves that could be translated so long as he was within range, and Silver focused in order to pull out his unique wavelengths from those of everyone else in the crowded breezeway.

  The mother sat inside the Octo, within his concave head, currently configured to hold her. It used its many octopus extensions to attend her makeover, doing her hair, makeup, nails, and pedicure simultaneously, and shaving her legs as well. “Do you think they’ll have one of you for the home soon?” she said.

  “I wouldn’t know, miss. Kind of above my pay grade. Maybe if you put out a good word for us.”

  “You bet your ass. Now, honey, how are you on dye jobs? Loving the cut by the way,” she said, admiring herself in the mirror
, held up by yet another of the Octo’s arms.

  The father joined his seven year old’s hand with his sixteen year old’s hand, so he could slip away to his idea of a fantasy robot. A Rex-Rider, currently morphing into crotch-rocket mode as he read the dad’s mind and pulled out what he needed to entice the father to come over. Rex’s morphing accomplished with the aid of memory metal which could sustain many forms, and underlying hydraulics.

  The instant the dad hopped on, Rex morphed further to strap him in, then sped him through the clumps of strolling people, reaching ninety miles an hour inside of four seconds, all without making a sound, using battery mode. Rex’s roboflexes, as well as his ability to read minds, made dodging the humans, no matter what unexpected move they made in and out of his path, rather effortless. The father was so thrilled the silly, wide-mouthed smile on his face made him look ridiculous.

  Judging by how this campaign was going to win over hearts and minds, Silver thought, he was not going to have to stay locked inside Robo-Land much longer.

  TWO

  ONE YEAR LATER…

  Gunther let the robot take the podium before him; it felt right that he be the center of attention right now. The cybernetic equivalent of an octopus snatched up a couple of the kids from the front row of the audience, right out of their parents’ arms and, while the adults were still gasping, took them on a merry ride. The kids were too busy giggling to be caught up in the concerns of the moms and dads.

  As the adults started to relax, Octo grabbed a breastfeeding infant and assumed the nursing for the harried mother. Before she could object, he crawled towards the kitchenette area and started breakfast with two free appendages, and picked up the cell phone to answer the incoming call. When he answered in a female voice and the caller at the other end asked to speak to the man of the house, he said, “sure” and switched to a male voice. “This is Mr. PutUpon. How can I help you?”

  By now, several of the audience members were laughing, most notably the ones belonging to the kids who Octo had snatched up. “No, I’m afraid we’re not giving to the police fund this year; I got far too many speeding tickets.” He then hung up. That got everyone cackling, and Gunther figured it was time to take the stage.

  Usually, his suave good looks, ten thousand dollar suit, and charming manner were enough to hold audiences rapt. When that wasn’t enough, the billions upon billions worth of stock under his control swayed the last of the holdouts. But his creations might well have him upstaged today, no matter what else he had under his sleeve.

  Putting up his arms to quiet the crowd, Gunther said, “Obviously, all our robots aren’t quite this helpful. But we like to think each will find a place in your heart and in your family just as readily. I’d like to say they were designed to be perfect companions to all ages, but that’s not entirely true. The fact is they evolve to be perfect companions, and grow just like real people do. They respond to love and kindness and shrink away from harshness. So unless you want neurotic robots, don’t mistreat them!”

  After the latest round of laughs quieted down he said, “Now, if you’ll please go to the stations of greatest relevance to you. Against the far wall to my right you’ll find the perfect home companions for your kids, to my far left, helpers for the aged, and against the back, bots for adults with more adult themes in mind.”

  Taking in the vast auditorium, Gunther sighed at its banality. Far more suitable for ushering in a high school pram than a new era. But in contrast to his Robo-Land, which had been meant to outdo Disney for exciting the imagination, this job fair for his robots needed to be understated. He didn’t want imaginations getting fired up today or they might well see what he really had in store for them. With the same reservations in mind, the robots selected for the job fair were meant to be as family-friendly as possible, and suitable for day to day interaction, as opposed to the weekend thrill or once a year vacation.

  If all went well, by the end of today, he’d be one step closer to getting his prototypes, far more advanced than the competition’s, in homes across America, and then the world. Anyone trying to hack or reverse engineer his bots would find a rude awakening in store for them. So far not even he had found a way to do that once his security protocols had been installed. Let the competition sweat it and try to catch up.

  As advanced as these models were, they were a joke compared to what he was really capable of. With sole access to Area-51 technology, as part of his exclusive contract with the right agencies in government, he certainly wasn’t sweating whatever the competition was up to.

  The stragglers towards the back of the throng, not waiting to be invited to the booths at the edges of the room, caused some disruption before the crowd could calmly disperse to their designated areas.

  One of the toy bots for kids came chasing after the tyke with his cap gun, playing cowboys and Indians, the robot in the cowboy role, atop his robo-miniature horse, and the kid in the role as the Indian, replete with ceremonial headwear.

  The bot, for his part, looked like he could be the squirt’s younger brother by a year, seven years to his eight. The only real giveaway was his plastic skin, that was just a little too white and synthetic looking, and his features, just a bit too chiseled, as if the carpenter had lost patience with the power sander. More subterfuge. God forbid they comprehend just how real looking Gunther could make the robots. The contest to win hearts and minds was one he planned on winning without a single shot being fired.

  The boy screamed with glee as he fled on his robo horse from Trigger, the cowboy bot, though Trigger happily responded to any name his owner chose to give him. The horse, just a hair short of looking just like the real thing, even ate hey, or whatever his kid owner chose to stuff in his mouth, all without pooping on the floor, courtesy of the atomizer in his stomach, a miniature version of the one used to recycle waste in factories the size of several city blocks.

  Trigger’s cap gun emitted smoke with each shot, hammered out in quick succession, though the kid’s laughs were coming even more rapid-fire. He was riding his robo Shetland pony backwards so he could fire his bow and arrows at the cowboy. Each time the robot dodged the arrow some clever way, such as sliding on his saddle until he was riding with his torso parallel to the ground, the kid just laughed louder.

  The crowd, delighted by the drama involving Trigger and his fan boy, found their attention derailed yet again before they could disperse to the booths at the edges of the auditorium to get their needs tended to.

  “If you expect to get any nooky, buster, first you better do the laundry,” the sexbot said, intruding on the crowd from the other direction. She looked shapely and tantalizing in her capacity as a sexy drone, as she handed “hubby” the laundry basket. “And the vacuuming,” she said piling the vacuum cleaner on top of the laundry basket. “And when you’re done with that, you can mow the lawn,” she said, piling on the lawnmower.

  By now the guy had collapsed on the ground under the weight. “Don’t forget to trim the hedges, chop the wood for the fire, and water the garden,” she said, throwing the hedge-trimmer, ax, and hose on top of the pile. “These books will give instructions on how to give me the perfect manicure, pedicure, haircut and facial, since you say I spend too much money at the salon. And these,” she said, heaping what was a wheelbarrow full of texts on top of him, “will teach you how to be a little more human.”

  She dusted her hands off. “And then we’ll talk, mostly about how you can be a better lover. Then and only then will we entertain these fantasies of yours of getting me in the bedroom.” The housewives, mothers, and the working moms all clapped in unison.

  It didn’t hurt that Suzy Sexbot’s sex appeal hinged on a realness factor matching that of Trigger. Powder white skin that perspired, in her case. Or that her blond polyester hair was a perennial mess, no matter how much she tried to get it back in place. And her figure and face was modeled on the average-looking housewife. Or that she quickly returned to doing her other house chores, her baking and cooking,
and bed making. She was quite clearly built to replace all a housewife’s mundane duties so the actual housewife was free to devote her time to what she wanted.

  Suzy threatened to free them, not divorce them from their husbands. She’d always be the 2nd choice, not their first, even if she was the wives’ first choice for the first bot the family bought. The men weren’t likely to ever feel differently unless they took up a fetish for latex. Since there were some of those jokers around, Suzy rescued some wives from unwanted kinky fetishes as well. More, if they were willing to pay a little extra for the entire Suzy Sexbot package.

  Gunther, still at the podium, rolling with the punches, said, “Of course, Suzy only performs the final service if mom feels all too put upon in that area as well.” While the men were laughing, a good number of the women were going to check out the sexbot model more closely, suggesting they weren’t threatened so much as relieved by her full service accommodations.

  After all that, Suzy Sexbot wasn’t the real show stealer.

  That award went to Deana Dancer, ballroom dancing with an elderly gentleman. Together they did the waltz at his geriatric pace. She just kept complimenting him. “My but you dance wonderfully.”

  “Can you give me a back rub and a foot rub after this?” the old man asked. “Something tells me I’m going to need both.”

  “Of course, I can,” Deana Dancer said without missing a beat.

  “Can you tell me if I remembered to take my pills today?”

  “I poured them for you at eight AM. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to get your noon ones for you in time. We have plenty of time yet.”

  The adults with elderly parents were tearing up and walking their moms and dads towards the wall set out for the older folks to help them choose a model. Deana was just one of about six.

  The crowd finally fully occupied now with one or another demonstration suited to their needs, the CEOs and execs from various countries, all subsidiaries and suppliers, flocked around Gunther on stage to congratulate him.