Love and Robotics - Part I
Prologue
“Have things calmed down since this morning?”
It was lunchtime now and Greta was sitting in the cafeteria, watching several students eat, study, and in some cases, practice. She strained a bit to hear Gabe, but he was still coming through on the other side. “Pretty much. KITTY and I dragged The Stinger to the Police line and informed the Guild of his illegal attempt at Arching. Butch’s eye is healed and Nessie is no longer in our... the pool.”
“Good,” Greta said with a smile before taking a bite into her sandwich. “So with those little victories out of the way, you feel like doing another campfire session tonight?”
Campfire sessions were something they started doing to pass the time when they were left by themselves in the compound. Ironically, they did them in the remains of her father’s lab, which had burned down the year before. “Sure, why not? The weather is clearing up and it should be nice tonight. Want me to invite the Necromancers?”
“Yes. We’re not going to get a dry flame if we don’t. Besides, they’re still hanging around, if I’m guessing right.”
“Amanda’s playing your piano as we speak.”
“I should have known. Tell them to stick around.”
“As you wish.”
“Stop saying that!”
Gabe chuckled as he hung up. Greta just shook her head and stuck her phone back in her purse. She turned back to her lunch when she saw someone swoop in on her table from the corner of her eye. She sighed. “Is that you, Patrick?”
“How did you know?”
Greta looked up at him, crossing her arms. “Who else has been asking me out every day while I’m eating lunch for the past year after realizing who I was?”
Patrick shrugged as he sat down across from her. “What can I say, I’m persistent.”
“Okay, why are you sitting down now. Don’t you usually go back to eating lunch with Janelle and Cassadee and... uh... what’s that other girl’s name?”
“Bebe,” Patrick said, running his fingers through his hair. “But they’re all absent today for some reason.”
“So you had to find another girl to pester, huh?”
“Hey, some girls actually like company. Maybe you would too.”
“Sorry, Patrick. I don’t go out with people who think they know me because of that stupid cartoon. Or are trying to ‘comfort’ me because my dad’s dead.”
Patrick frowned. “Do you think that’s what this is about?”
Greta just stared at him. “The first thing you told me was that you had a crush on my cartoon when you were a kid and that you cried a little when you heard that my dad died.”
He blinked, astounded at his own words. “I really said that?”
“You did, yeah.”
“Okay, yeah, I did, but I’m an idiot for saying that right off the bat. Look, I really want to get to know the real Greta Salpeter. So go on a date with me? Tonight? Please?”
Greta sighed. “I’m busy tonight.”
“Tomorrow night then? There’s a festival going on in the town’s square and I’d love for you to come out with me.”
“The Spring Wheel festival? I think my dad was banned from that when I was twelve after the ferris wheel sped up to dangerous speeds when he tried to fix it.”
“But are you?”
Greta pursed her lips before she sighed. “No. Look, if it’ll make you leave me alone. I’ll come.”
Patrick practically lit up. “Really?! Oh thank you, Greta! You won’t regret it! I promise.”
“I’m holding you to that,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “Now will you let me finish my lunch in peace?”
“As you wish,” he said with a smile as he stood up and practically bounded away from the table. Greta grumbled and put her head down on the table. She really wished people would stop saying that to her.
-------------------
Despite how gray the drive to school had been that morning, it was practically cheery as Greta drove back. Whatever weatherman KITTY had gotten her info from had been right on the nose. She made a note to set that one to KITTY’s default since she had been randomizing since she had been brought back online.
As soon as Greta pulled into the garage, Gabe rushed out, oil smudged on his face. “KITTY shut down for some reason about an hour and a half ago and I can’t get her to turn back on!”
Greta sighed. The default setting would have to wait. “What was she in the middle of?”
“Just some routine house cleaning.”
“Did you try all the basic procedures to get her back online?”
“I cleaned dust out of her chassis, tried turning her off and on and went for the hard boot. Nothing.”
Greta nodded as she unbuckled herself and opened the car door. “Alright, where’s KITTY now?”
“The living room. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get her back online and put in a new security shield. What else am I going to do?”
She kicked her car door shut and strode into the house, Gabe following in behind her. Quickly, she made a beeline to her Dad’s office and pulled out the box for everything she needed to put her housekeeping bot online. Gabe stood in the doorway, watching her. “I don’t get it. Why does she need a new security shield?”
“Remember my first blog about the show? About the episode where KITTY mark 1 came down with a virus more specifically?”
“Vaguely... Why?”
“Well, after that happened, my father set up a security program that would either block whatever kind of virus or hacker that would try to get into her system or would shut down KITTY and cut it off before it could infect her. If she shuts down that way, the only way she can turn back on is if the infected security web is deleted and a new one installed. It’s effective, but a severe pain in the ass. It would never work for home PCs.”
“Sooo... a virus was trying to infect KITTY?”
“Either that, or someone was trying to hack into her.”
Greta lugged the box out into the hall and into the living room. KITTY was lying lifeless on the other side of one of the arm chairs and Greta dropped the box next to her. She then sat down on the floor and pulled a keyboard with several wires hanging off of it out of the box. As she opened up KITTY’s front panel, she looked up at Gabe. “Do you mind keeping me company while I do this? This takes a ridiculous amount of time to do.”
Gabe nodded and sat down in the armchair, looking down at Greta as she plugged in the keyboard. “Does she realize what happens to her?”
“Mostly, yes,” Greta said, pulling out a screw driver and beginning to remove a plate to reveal a small screen that was filling up with numbers. “Where are the fearsome threesome?”
“They went back through the door to get stuff for the campfire. They should be back in about another hour.”
“Better make it two, knowing them.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
There was a long silence between them as Greta began entering a set of codes to get to KITTY’s infected security net. Gabe then looked down on her. “Do you mind if I ask some questions about our dearly infected robot?”
“Go for it,” Greta said, looking at the screen instead of Gabe.
“Well, for one thing, why did your dad create her in the first place?”
“To help him take care of me after my mom died and he started dragging me all over the world. She probably did a better job of it than he did.”
“So KITTY’s a stand in for your mom?”
“That’s what my mother created her to be, yes.”
Greta heard Gabe shift around in his chair and she imagined the surprised look on his face. She tried not to grin as Gabe tried to ask his next question. “So... your mom...”
“Well, she designed KITTY and laid out all the plans for her,” Greta said, entering the final code. “My dad was the one who put her together. It took him much longer to put her together than it would have my mom though. He could never admit that she was a better roboticist than he was.”
“Your mom was a scientist?”
“More or less. Where my dad seemed to specialize in everything, my mom worked pretty much exclusively with robotics. From what he told me at least.”
Greta hissed as she entered the screen for the security net. “Oh man, whatever tried to infect her was something nasty. No wonder she shut off.”
“So wait,” Gabe said, ignoring her comment about the security net. “Your mom created KITTY to stand in for her? What was she dying of? I mean... if that’s not too rude to ask.”
Greta shook her head. “Cancer. She got it when I was two. Died when I was five. Drafted plans for a robot somewhere in between there.”
“You remember much of her?”
“Not really. I have some vague memories and dad didn’t like to talk about her too much. Her death really hurt him and I never really remember him trying to date again. That could have been because he was so busy with work.”
Greta hit a few buttons before hitting delete. “Okay... sending a text copy of the infected net to my computer. I want to get a look at this myself.”
“So... wait... Is that why you say KITTY vaguely sounds like your mother?”
Greta nodded. “Dad used recordings of her voice to create KITTY’s... In fact, her name was my mom’s nickname. It’s why it doesn’t stand for anything.”
“Weird...”
Gabe shifted in his chair again and another silence passed as Greta worked on creating another security net. She heard another shift and felt Gabe’s head hanging over her. “Another question I’m sure you’ve been asked a million times.”
“Shoot.”
“Why music? I mean, you obviously picked up the science-y things your dad taught you, including some of your mother’s knowledge. Why not keep doing that?”
“I don’t want to,” Greta said, shrugging. “Yeah, I know how to do all this stuff, but I never felt connected to it in the slightest. When I first started to play the piano though, I knew I wanted to play it for the rest of my life. Much to my father’s dismay.”
She looked up at Gabe, who was smiling a bit. “How’s the process coming?”
“Good. Working on installing the new security net now.”
Greta looked back down on the screen as she quickly configured the new net. “Oh! I should have mentioned it earlier, but it looks like I have a date tomorrow night.”
Gabe fell silent for a few seconds, before he said, “Really?”
“Yeah. Well, mostly to get this guy to leave me alone. He’s been trying to get me to go out with him all year. I mean, he’s not terrible. Just a bit like a puppy.”
“You need me to come with?”
“I’ll be fine, Mary Poppins,” she said with a grin as she heard Gabe grumble at his unofficial nickname. “It’s just the Spring Wheel festival. I’ll be surprised if they even let me in consider the fact my dad was banned from it before I got into high school.”
“Still, you have my number just in case. And you remember what I taught you if some guy tries to make a pass at you, right?”
“Of course. Don’t worry. I’ve spent my whole life making quick escapes.”
“Good. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you weren’t around anymore.”
“Find a new job and lodging? I’m sure Butch could hook you up with something.”
“That’s not what I meant...”
Greta looked up at him, eyebrow raised. “What do you mean?”
Gabe just stared at her, then shook his head. “You know what, never mind.”
Greta blinked, but returned to her work without further question. She knew that pushing it with Gabe wasn’t going to work. Silently, she finished constructing the new net, slowly unplugged the keyboard and began to put the plate back on over the screen. “Okay, if I did this right, she should turn back on with no problem.”
“And if you didn’t?”
“Then we’re stuck without a housekeeper.”
Greta finished fastening the plate back on and pressed a button under it. The robot whirred to life and KITTY slowly sat back up. “Miss Greta, have you fixed me?”
“I have,” she said with a smile. “Do you remember anything before you shut down?”
“I was just dusting the living room, Miss Greta. I only realized I was being hacked before I shut down.”
“Whoa whoa,” Gabe said, jumping up from his chair. “You were hacked? By who?”
“No clue, Mister Gabe. I just know it feels different than having a virus.”
Greta nodded and patted KITTY as she stood up. “KITTY, remind me to run some diagnostic tests tomorrow to make sure you’re not further infected.”
“Yes, Miss Greta. Do you need me to do anything else right now?”
“No. That’ll be all, KITTY. Keep an eye out for the Necromancers though. They should be here within an hour or two.”
“Yes, Miss Greta.”
KITTY then wheeled herself away and Greta plopped down in the chair Gabe had been occupying. Gabe looked down at her. “You think she could be infected further?”
“It’s a possibility,” Greta said, rubbing her eyes. “From the looks of it, the net I extracted was partially destroyed. Whoever tried to hack her could have easily let something slip in before the override happened.”
Gabe sighed. “Do you need me to do anything?”
“Just get the campfire area ready. I need to get my stuff out of my car and take a closer look at the security net. Possibly forward any findings to the Guild if we’re dealing with yet another wannabe arch.”
Gabe nodded and began to walk off. “As you wish.”
Greta rolled her eyes. “Shut it, Carey Elwes. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it!”
-------------------
“Goddammit!”
“Butcher, is anything wrong?”
The Butcher sat straight up as he felt William enter the room. He removed his goggles and turned to look at him. “The first plan did not go as expected, Master. The Salpeter robot shut down before I could get past the firewall. Now I can’t get past it at all...”
“It’s alright, Butcher,” William said as he brushed his delicate fingers against his jaw. “There are other ways we can spy on the Salpeter girl and get her into our fold. How are the Dolls?”
“They should be online within the next twelve hours, Master.”
“Excellent. We can see what they see, right?”
“Right. That’s default programming.”
William grinned his vampire grin and patted Butcher on the head. “That should work for now while we construct another plan. You might earn your fangs yet, my dear mechanical genius.”
The Butcher smiled as William turned. “I would like that, Master.”
“I know you would,” William said, not looking back at The Butcher, “but first thing’s first. I have to let an old friend know I’m in town.”
Part II
“Have things calmed down since this morning?”
It was lunchtime now and Greta was sitting in the cafeteria, watching several students eat, study, and in some cases, practice. She strained a bit to hear Gabe, but he was still coming through on the other side. “Pretty much. KITTY and I dragged The Stinger to the Police line and informed the Guild of his illegal attempt at Arching. Butch’s eye is healed and Nessie is no longer in our... the pool.”
“Good,” Greta said with a smile before taking a bite into her sandwich. “So with those little victories out of the way, you feel like doing another campfire session tonight?”
Campfire sessions were something they started doing to pass the time when they were left by themselves in the compound. Ironically, they did them in the remains of her father’s lab, which had burned down the year before. “Sure, why not? The weather is clearing up and it should be nice tonight. Want me to invite the Necromancers?”
“Yes. We’re not going to get a dry flame if we don’t. Besides, they’re still hanging around, if I’m guessing right.”
“Amanda’s playing your piano as we speak.”
“I should have known. Tell them to stick around.”
“As you wish.”
“Stop saying that!”
Gabe chuckled as he hung up. Greta just shook her head and stuck her phone back in her purse. She turned back to her lunch when she saw someone swoop in on her table from the corner of her eye. She sighed. “Is that you, Patrick?”
“How did you know?”
Greta looked up at him, crossing her arms. “Who else has been asking me out every day while I’m eating lunch for the past year after realizing who I was?”
Patrick shrugged as he sat down across from her. “What can I say, I’m persistent.”
“Okay, why are you sitting down now. Don’t you usually go back to eating lunch with Janelle and Cassadee and... uh... what’s that other girl’s name?”
“Bebe,” Patrick said, running his fingers through his hair. “But they’re all absent today for some reason.”
“So you had to find another girl to pester, huh?”
“Hey, some girls actually like company. Maybe you would too.”
“Sorry, Patrick. I don’t go out with people who think they know me because of that stupid cartoon. Or are trying to ‘comfort’ me because my dad’s dead.”
Patrick frowned. “Do you think that’s what this is about?”
Greta just stared at him. “The first thing you told me was that you had a crush on my cartoon when you were a kid and that you cried a little when you heard that my dad died.”
He blinked, astounded at his own words. “I really said that?”
“You did, yeah.”
“Okay, yeah, I did, but I’m an idiot for saying that right off the bat. Look, I really want to get to know the real Greta Salpeter. So go on a date with me? Tonight? Please?”
Greta sighed. “I’m busy tonight.”
“Tomorrow night then? There’s a festival going on in the town’s square and I’d love for you to come out with me.”
“The Spring Wheel festival? I think my dad was banned from that when I was twelve after the ferris wheel sped up to dangerous speeds when he tried to fix it.”
“But are you?”
Greta pursed her lips before she sighed. “No. Look, if it’ll make you leave me alone. I’ll come.”
Patrick practically lit up. “Really?! Oh thank you, Greta! You won’t regret it! I promise.”
“I’m holding you to that,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “Now will you let me finish my lunch in peace?”
“As you wish,” he said with a smile as he stood up and practically bounded away from the table. Greta grumbled and put her head down on the table. She really wished people would stop saying that to her.
-------------------
Despite how gray the drive to school had been that morning, it was practically cheery as Greta drove back. Whatever weatherman KITTY had gotten her info from had been right on the nose. She made a note to set that one to KITTY’s default since she had been randomizing since she had been brought back online.
As soon as Greta pulled into the garage, Gabe rushed out, oil smudged on his face. “KITTY shut down for some reason about an hour and a half ago and I can’t get her to turn back on!”
Greta sighed. The default setting would have to wait. “What was she in the middle of?”
“Just some routine house cleaning.”
“Did you try all the basic procedures to get her back online?”
“I cleaned dust out of her chassis, tried turning her off and on and went for the hard boot. Nothing.”
Greta nodded as she unbuckled herself and opened the car door. “Alright, where’s KITTY now?”
“The living room. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get her back online and put in a new security shield. What else am I going to do?”
She kicked her car door shut and strode into the house, Gabe following in behind her. Quickly, she made a beeline to her Dad’s office and pulled out the box for everything she needed to put her housekeeping bot online. Gabe stood in the doorway, watching her. “I don’t get it. Why does she need a new security shield?”
“Remember my first blog about the show? About the episode where KITTY mark 1 came down with a virus more specifically?”
“Vaguely... Why?”
“Well, after that happened, my father set up a security program that would either block whatever kind of virus or hacker that would try to get into her system or would shut down KITTY and cut it off before it could infect her. If she shuts down that way, the only way she can turn back on is if the infected security web is deleted and a new one installed. It’s effective, but a severe pain in the ass. It would never work for home PCs.”
“Sooo... a virus was trying to infect KITTY?”
“Either that, or someone was trying to hack into her.”
Greta lugged the box out into the hall and into the living room. KITTY was lying lifeless on the other side of one of the arm chairs and Greta dropped the box next to her. She then sat down on the floor and pulled a keyboard with several wires hanging off of it out of the box. As she opened up KITTY’s front panel, she looked up at Gabe. “Do you mind keeping me company while I do this? This takes a ridiculous amount of time to do.”
Gabe nodded and sat down in the armchair, looking down at Greta as she plugged in the keyboard. “Does she realize what happens to her?”
“Mostly, yes,” Greta said, pulling out a screw driver and beginning to remove a plate to reveal a small screen that was filling up with numbers. “Where are the fearsome threesome?”
“They went back through the door to get stuff for the campfire. They should be back in about another hour.”
“Better make it two, knowing them.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
There was a long silence between them as Greta began entering a set of codes to get to KITTY’s infected security net. Gabe then looked down on her. “Do you mind if I ask some questions about our dearly infected robot?”
“Go for it,” Greta said, looking at the screen instead of Gabe.
“Well, for one thing, why did your dad create her in the first place?”
“To help him take care of me after my mom died and he started dragging me all over the world. She probably did a better job of it than he did.”
“So KITTY’s a stand in for your mom?”
“That’s what my mother created her to be, yes.”
Greta heard Gabe shift around in his chair and she imagined the surprised look on his face. She tried not to grin as Gabe tried to ask his next question. “So... your mom...”
“Well, she designed KITTY and laid out all the plans for her,” Greta said, entering the final code. “My dad was the one who put her together. It took him much longer to put her together than it would have my mom though. He could never admit that she was a better roboticist than he was.”
“Your mom was a scientist?”
“More or less. Where my dad seemed to specialize in everything, my mom worked pretty much exclusively with robotics. From what he told me at least.”
Greta hissed as she entered the screen for the security net. “Oh man, whatever tried to infect her was something nasty. No wonder she shut off.”
“So wait,” Gabe said, ignoring her comment about the security net. “Your mom created KITTY to stand in for her? What was she dying of? I mean... if that’s not too rude to ask.”
Greta shook her head. “Cancer. She got it when I was two. Died when I was five. Drafted plans for a robot somewhere in between there.”
“You remember much of her?”
“Not really. I have some vague memories and dad didn’t like to talk about her too much. Her death really hurt him and I never really remember him trying to date again. That could have been because he was so busy with work.”
Greta hit a few buttons before hitting delete. “Okay... sending a text copy of the infected net to my computer. I want to get a look at this myself.”
“So... wait... Is that why you say KITTY vaguely sounds like your mother?”
Greta nodded. “Dad used recordings of her voice to create KITTY’s... In fact, her name was my mom’s nickname. It’s why it doesn’t stand for anything.”
“Weird...”
Gabe shifted in his chair again and another silence passed as Greta worked on creating another security net. She heard another shift and felt Gabe’s head hanging over her. “Another question I’m sure you’ve been asked a million times.”
“Shoot.”
“Why music? I mean, you obviously picked up the science-y things your dad taught you, including some of your mother’s knowledge. Why not keep doing that?”
“I don’t want to,” Greta said, shrugging. “Yeah, I know how to do all this stuff, but I never felt connected to it in the slightest. When I first started to play the piano though, I knew I wanted to play it for the rest of my life. Much to my father’s dismay.”
She looked up at Gabe, who was smiling a bit. “How’s the process coming?”
“Good. Working on installing the new security net now.”
Greta looked back down on the screen as she quickly configured the new net. “Oh! I should have mentioned it earlier, but it looks like I have a date tomorrow night.”
Gabe fell silent for a few seconds, before he said, “Really?”
“Yeah. Well, mostly to get this guy to leave me alone. He’s been trying to get me to go out with him all year. I mean, he’s not terrible. Just a bit like a puppy.”
“You need me to come with?”
“I’ll be fine, Mary Poppins,” she said with a grin as she heard Gabe grumble at his unofficial nickname. “It’s just the Spring Wheel festival. I’ll be surprised if they even let me in consider the fact my dad was banned from it before I got into high school.”
“Still, you have my number just in case. And you remember what I taught you if some guy tries to make a pass at you, right?”
“Of course. Don’t worry. I’ve spent my whole life making quick escapes.”
“Good. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you weren’t around anymore.”
“Find a new job and lodging? I’m sure Butch could hook you up with something.”
“That’s not what I meant...”
Greta looked up at him, eyebrow raised. “What do you mean?”
Gabe just stared at her, then shook his head. “You know what, never mind.”
Greta blinked, but returned to her work without further question. She knew that pushing it with Gabe wasn’t going to work. Silently, she finished constructing the new net, slowly unplugged the keyboard and began to put the plate back on over the screen. “Okay, if I did this right, she should turn back on with no problem.”
“And if you didn’t?”
“Then we’re stuck without a housekeeper.”
Greta finished fastening the plate back on and pressed a button under it. The robot whirred to life and KITTY slowly sat back up. “Miss Greta, have you fixed me?”
“I have,” she said with a smile. “Do you remember anything before you shut down?”
“I was just dusting the living room, Miss Greta. I only realized I was being hacked before I shut down.”
“Whoa whoa,” Gabe said, jumping up from his chair. “You were hacked? By who?”
“No clue, Mister Gabe. I just know it feels different than having a virus.”
Greta nodded and patted KITTY as she stood up. “KITTY, remind me to run some diagnostic tests tomorrow to make sure you’re not further infected.”
“Yes, Miss Greta. Do you need me to do anything else right now?”
“No. That’ll be all, KITTY. Keep an eye out for the Necromancers though. They should be here within an hour or two.”
“Yes, Miss Greta.”
KITTY then wheeled herself away and Greta plopped down in the chair Gabe had been occupying. Gabe looked down at her. “You think she could be infected further?”
“It’s a possibility,” Greta said, rubbing her eyes. “From the looks of it, the net I extracted was partially destroyed. Whoever tried to hack her could have easily let something slip in before the override happened.”
Gabe sighed. “Do you need me to do anything?”
“Just get the campfire area ready. I need to get my stuff out of my car and take a closer look at the security net. Possibly forward any findings to the Guild if we’re dealing with yet another wannabe arch.”
Gabe nodded and began to walk off. “As you wish.”
Greta rolled her eyes. “Shut it, Carey Elwes. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it!”
-------------------
“Goddammit!”
“Butcher, is anything wrong?”
The Butcher sat straight up as he felt William enter the room. He removed his goggles and turned to look at him. “The first plan did not go as expected, Master. The Salpeter robot shut down before I could get past the firewall. Now I can’t get past it at all...”
“It’s alright, Butcher,” William said as he brushed his delicate fingers against his jaw. “There are other ways we can spy on the Salpeter girl and get her into our fold. How are the Dolls?”
“They should be online within the next twelve hours, Master.”
“Excellent. We can see what they see, right?”
“Right. That’s default programming.”
William grinned his vampire grin and patted Butcher on the head. “That should work for now while we construct another plan. You might earn your fangs yet, my dear mechanical genius.”
The Butcher smiled as William turned. “I would like that, Master.”
“I know you would,” William said, not looking back at The Butcher, “but first thing’s first. I have to let an old friend know I’m in town.”
Part II