The Machine

The low whirring of the machines in the background drowned out the soft scratching of Dr. Roberts pencil as he filled out the report on the device he was working on creating. Dr. Roberts is a scientist and he is in the process of creating a machine that can communicate with people and react to simple stimuli. This means that machines would then be able to think, talk, and after a little while, act like a human being. Even though this is a revolutionary creation there are many people who do not want Dr. Roberts to complete his project, he has even received death threats if he were to finish the machine. He was forced to move his lab into a subway tunnel in New York City that was no longer in use so that no one could be able to find his laboratory and possibly destroy his life work.
As Dr. Roberts is getting up to leave his lab and go home he heard a small noise in the back of the lab. He turned and cautiously crept towards the noise. As he rounded the corner of the main CPU unit of the machine, he saw a tiny shape dart into a small hole right above the base of the wall.
“Only a mouse,” he said to himself with relief, “now I better be getting home before it gets too dangerous out on the streets.”
He slowly turned and walked back to the door of the lab. Taking one last look over all of the equipment he closed the door and turned the heavy bolt with a resounding ‘click’.
As he was driving home, Dr. Roberts thought over all of the possible things that could make his machine unsuccessful. The only thing that could really hurt his machine was intentional sabotage or a physical problem like a torn wire or a blown fuse. Pulling into his driveway, Dr. Roberts comforted himself that there would be no way that anything could go wrong with his machine. He had even installed a drive that could shut the machine down if it got out of hand and started to become dangerous.
The next morning, as Dr. Roberts was making a cup of coffee, he heard his cell phone buzzing softly in his jacket pocket. The caller I.D. read, “Gina Fernandez”, Dr. Roberts lab assistant.
“Hello?” Dr. Roberts said into the phone.
“Dr. Roberts this is Gina, you need to get down here right now!”
“What’s the problem Gina?” he asked,
“There seems to be a problem with the machine. It is completely functional but it is far more intelligent than we meant for it to be, it not only is speaking and reacting to stimuli well but it seems to be able to remember and even has a personality! We just can't understand how the machine started working over night and is so intelligent.”
“O.K. i'll be right over.” Dr. Roberts said and hung up the phone.
Dr. Roberts pulled up to the parking garage near the subway and burst from his car and sprinted toward the door to his lab. The lab was in a state of confusion as Dr. Roberts burst through the door, there were lab assistants and workers everywhere running tests and trying to figure out what was wrong with the machine. Dr. Roberts saw Gina looking in the back of the machine with a flashlight and holding a clipboard.
“Have you found anything Gina?” Dr. Roberts asked.
“Yes there is one thing,” Gina replied, “this cable in the back of the machine seems to have been chewed by something recently. do you have any idea what it controls in the machine?”
“That is the cord to the safety drive!” Dr. Roberts exclaimed, “the machine must have gone out of control over the night and there was nothing to slow it down because the drive was not connected. The only question now is why the machine all of the sudden was completely functional.”
Just then a computer programer who was working for Dr. Roberts walked up with a thick file in his hand, “Dr. Roberts ever since eleven o’clock last night the safety drive has been off. I just finished a test on the machine and ever since eleven thirty the machine was able to work with everything that we have programed it to do so far and has built on itself and become much smarter. It has even gotten to a point where if we try to shut it down we cannot because it reacts and closes the circuit to the power device.”
“But how was the machine able to do all of this just out of the blue?” Dr. Roberts asked, “shouldn't it have been able to do all of this before?”
“That is where the safety drive being shut off comes into play. The drive was slowing down the machines processing ability and would not let the machine do these things on its own.” The programer replied, “now the only question is how the cord got disconnected?”
“Well I think that I know how that happened,” Dr. Roberts explained, “ last night when I was leaving there was a mouse in the back of the machine. That mouse must have chewed the wire and shut down the safety drive!”
“Dr. what should we do?” Gina asked.
“Well if the safety drive is broken there is no other way to shutdown the machine than to completely destroy it. I’m afraid we might have to destroy the machine.”
“But Dr. this is your life's work!” Gina exclaimed, “you can’t possibly be thinking about destroying it!”
“I know but it seems like I have to.” Dr. Roberts said, “I think we’re going to need to burn down the lab. It is an abandoned tunnel so no one will get hurt.”
“Alright, but i think you should at least see if there is a chance of saving it.” Gina said.
“If the drive is dead then there is no chance.” Dr. Roberts replied.
Raising his voice Dr. Roberts yelled out, “everybody out we’re going to have to burn the place down!”
There was a panic that ensued as everyone rushed for the doors of the lab. Machinery and computers were knocked to the floor as all the lab workers shoved their way through the doors and out into the cool fall air.
In the lab Dr. Roberts was making last preparations as Gina spread gasoline on a pile of all of the records of their creation. Dr. Roberts didn’t want anyone replicating his machine and taking credit for his discoveries.
“Is everything Ready?” Dr. Roberts asked.
“I think so,” Gina said, “do you want to light it?”
“I guess so.” Dr. Roberts replied.
Pausing to take one last look over everything Dr. Roberts and Gina walked slowly to the door of the lab. With a final sigh Dr. Roberts dropped the matched and watching in stunned silence as his life’s work went up in flames right before his eyes.