Where the Hell are my Pants?
by Dave Gauer, April 5, 2010 (started by Jennifer G., March 28th)
As I ran down the street, too scared to turn around, all I could really think was, where the hell are my pants?
I had been running for at least two blocks before this thought occurred to me. The air was cold on my bare legs, and I was starting to shiver. It was hard to understand how I had arrived at this pantless state. The rest of my clothing was in place: I still had my shoes and a pair of dark socks. My shirt and tie were a bit wrinkled, but entirely on my person. My underpants were, oh thank you, sweet and merciful fate, still covering my rapidly-cooling groin.
True, the robots weren't too fast. You could outrun them. But they would catch you at a walking pace. Worse, they wouldn't tire. They didn't need oxygen like I did. They didn't need to exercise regularly to keep from getting out of shape, as I was. They certainly didn't eat eggs and bacon, chicken fried steaks, mounds of delicious yellow butter, and ice cream with whipping cream on top. Nor did they smoke a pipe. I did all of those things and after just a few blocks my lungs were burning.
On the corner, a group of kids stood, leaning on bicycle handlebars.
"Run!" I panted. "Leave this place! Be running!"
They simply stared at me, eyes wide, unmoving. I remembered my lack of pants.
"Robots! They've taken my pants!" I managed to get out, now wheezing from the effort of running and shouting. I shook my head, disappointed that I had not been able to explain myself properly. Then I turned back and concentrated on the running. The street took a turn and I followed it. The kids on the corner were soon far from my thoughts.
Of course, it seems obvious now. Thinking machines are best left to do their work inside safe, virtual realms. There, they can happily seek out the flashing bits of praise and avoid the lurking bits of negative feedback. Little packets of life can wink in and out of existence: parents, offspring, generations and even whole races of beings innocent and blissfully unaware of the realm outside the hard-coded constants that define the walls of their world.
And so, our work began on the traditional path. In the safety of the virtual, we tested, we prodded, we graphed and charted, and like our test subjects, we adapted to the newly discovered truths of our domain. But at some point, we took a wrong turn. We found ourselves in a rut, our wheels spinning fruitlessly for days and then months. In desperation, we left the path of science entirely. Eager for shortcuts through the forest of feedback, we forged new paths of our own. Like ancient mystics, there were signs we chose to follow and the map of our new world became increasingly mystical and absent of objectivity.
Everything we built became a black box, the hidden layer of our neural networks unknown even to us, undocumented and hopelessly buried in lines of increasingly arcane and impenetrable code.
Practically hooded monks, rather than the bow-tie scientists we still pretended to be, none of us even raised any objections to the first attempts to take our work into the realm of real, physical objects. Simple mechanical tests gave way to image detection, spatial mapping, and - oh please do not judge us too harshly - random number generation by means of tumbled physical objects.
And then there were the robots. I first realized something was wrong with them when one of the 'bots stole a tuna fish sandwich from my lunch bag. We didn't even pause to think about the ramifications of what had just occurred. We laughed about it. Next was the graffiti that none of us could read scrawled with a jerky grease pencil across the wall. That's when we started turning the bots off at night. There was certainly no lack of warning signs.
Nonetheless, it came as a shock to wake from a nap at the lab, surrounded by robots, and missing my pants.
Up ahead, the street ended at an empty lot which was surrounded by a sturdy-looking wooden fence. I'd already run past a "Dead End" sign, apparently. I was in a cul-de-sac surrounded by old but well-kept houses. I stopped. I'd have to turn around and go back a hundred yards to the last cross street.
I turned. My heart was pounding hard; I could feel the veins in my arms and neck pulsing. There was no sign of the robots behind me. In fact, nothing moved on the street at all. It was still early in the afternoon and everybody was at work. Somewhere ahead of me, where I'd come from, a dog started to bark. I thought I could even hear the slightest whine of drive motors. For the first time in my life, I broke out in a cold sweat.
"Oh, hell," I said in resignation. There was nothing to do but run back the way I'd come. If I stayed here, in this dead-end, I was completely trapped. I ran. Sure enough, as I rounded the corner to the cross street and to freedom, I saw the familiar diamond-shaped back of a "Dead End" sign facing the way I'd come.
"Fool," I muttered.
Then I saw them. Faster than a walk, but slower than a run, they came. First there came a pair of the WHOOTY-1 models, driving on rubber treads. Their two large, glassy eyes, round heads, and dull bilateral spikes (redundant 2.4 GHz short-range antennas, now useless outside the lab) gave them a distinctive Great Horned Owl-like appearance. Just rounding the bend, at least fifty yard behind the Whooties, came Zardoz, one of the most advanced robots we'd built. It was big, wheeled, and powerful. It was also wearing my pants in its central torso area.
"You bastards," I whispered under my breath. Fear once again overcoming my exhaustion, I sprinted down the cross street. A couple houses later, I turned around. The Whooties were turning the corner behind me. My dead-end mistake had cost me a valuable lead.
Of course, I had no idea what they might do should they catch up with me. But I was certain it wasn't going to be something I would like. They'd already crossed the line by stealing my pants.
I was breathing hard again. I stole another glance backwards. They were still back there, keeping pace. I would tire long before they did. Then they would have me. I had no weapons but a small pen knife in my shirt pocket. I could feel it jouncing against my chest as I ran. It would be a feeble defense in a last stand.
I looked around at the houses on either side of me. No open doors or garages. Not even a cracked window. Then I caught a glimpse of blue. I cut through a side yard towards it.
The swimming pool was covered by a blue tarp, secured at the corners with white nylon rope. I ran around it, nearly tripping over a corner of tarp, but catching myself. I snatched the pen knife from my shirt pocket and opened it. I stood, hunched over, gasping for breath. My heart pounded violently in my chest. The robots would be there in moments.
The Whooties came across the grass and into the back yard where I stood. They slowed as they approached the swimming pool.
"Come on," I said under my breath. "Get some."
They decided to proceed forward at exactly the same time, driving carefully over the slightly raised rim of the pool and onto the tarp. The nylon ropes creaked with the strain of the weight. I dove to the right and sliced madly at the rope, cutting at a 45-degree angle. The strands parted immediately and the tarp caved into the pool. The water was crystal clear below. I heard a splash and then another and was sprayed with droplets as the Whooties sank like rocks to the bottom of the pool. I caught a brief glimpse of them, still moving, just below the turbulent surface.
I heard Zardoz approaching, its motor a lower pitch than that of the Whooties. I looked up. Zardoz had stopped at the edge of the pool. As I stared at it, all I could think about were decision trees, pre-calculated lookup tables, and the fact that my pants were about to get wet.
I reached slowly down to my shoe. Zardoz's sensors panned down to track my movement. I untied the shoe and slipped it carefully from my foot. I held it up above my head, keeping my actions slow and controlled. Zardoz followed the movement of shoe. I held the shoe to the left, then to the right, then up and then down. I threw the shoe to the ground. Zardoz did not react. I waved my hand, slowly at first, and then quickly up and down. Nothing.
I breathed out heavily and walked around the pool. I kept my eyes firmly locked on the big robot, watching for the slightest movement. Then I was standing behind it. With a trembling hand, I reached out and grasped the rear access panel latch. I turned it clockwise and pushed it in. There was a click and then the panel swung open. I reached inside and pulled out the three solid-state memory cartridges. I held them for a moment in my hand and then threw them into the pool.
"That's what you get when you take my pants before getting all of your bugs worked out," I told the immobile robot.
I reclaimed my pants and put them on. I retrieved my shoe. Then, with a grin, I kicked Zardoz into the pool. I repaired the severed nylon rope with a knot and secured the tarp. Though it was cool, the sun was still high in the sky and soon the puddles of water around the pool would evaporate. Other than the disabled machines lying silently at the bottom, there would be no sign anything had occurred at all.
The kids were still on the sidewalk corner as I made my way back. They had been talking animatedly amongst themselves, but became silent as I approached.
"Hi kids!" I said cheerfully and with a wave. And then the strangest thing happened. The solution to Zardoz's tracking logic bug occurred to me.
"Huh," I said to myself. Perhaps on my way back, I would stop by a sporting goods store and acquire a shotgun.