Eating with Robots

How the Best Machines Behave

The elevator door closed silently, effortlessly. It's how the best machines behave. I looked around and saw how fancy this lobby was. Nice places hide behind crappy exteriors; these days nobody with means wants to attract attention. The molding at the ceiling's edges was ornate and had the dull shine of real gold leaf, the pristine original. Gold sold at more than five thousand an ounce at even the sleaziest recyclers. I'd watched dad sell all ours.

A small door opened in the corner of the lobby, and a floor bot rolled out. It was only a foot tall and shaped in an almost perfect cube. It started vacuuming the room methodically. First it traced the southern wall, and then it stepped over with precision to cleanse the second foot-wide strip of marble floor. Most of my glassies had bounced towards the northern wall. I would have plenty of time. Then a second machine appeared; it was smaller but quicker. It had more sophisticated sensors and went directly to the first of my hard-earned marbles and sucked it up. I heard the glass ball ping around inside the metal box. I didn't want to lose any more, but for some reason, I wasn't moving. These days, robots like these were expensive and rare because the masses of unemployed were willing to do the same work.

Then an even smaller robot darted out and scanned the whole room. It assessed where the greatest concentration of marbles was and headed straight there. I ran and jumped right in front of it. It stopped and backed up a respectful two feet. Its head spun once, and then it started to side-step me. I tiptoed in the same direction. It followed the same pattern. This is fun. I felt smart, but I wasn't sure how I could win. After sparing through a few more jumps, I bent down and shoved the bot away. It whined as its motor resisted. I turned and ran for my marbles.

A man entered from a gold-trimmed door hidden within the decorations of the ornate walls. I hadn't noticed it before. The tall, thin African-American was slipping on a dark, trim vest. An untied bowtie hung around his neck.

"Can I help you, young man?"

"No. I'm just waiting for my Dad."

"I've not seen you here before." His face was not unkind, but severe.

"He's upstairs finishing up some business." Dad would be proud of my pun.

"This is a private lobby. These are residential apartments only. Your father's not a door-to-door man, is he?" He stared straight into my eyes, ignoring the ricochet of marbles pinging inside insatiable robots. My dad had taught me to stare right back, to say whatever I wanted, because the lie didn't matter, just the attitude.

"Oh, he's not selling anything. He's tuning some guy's piano. Hey, can you help me get my marbles? I spilled them all, and my dad is mad. He made me stay down here and pick them all up, and now I'm never gonna get 'em back."

"Sure Sonny." He snapped his fingers twice and the bots froze in place. He pressed a couple of buttons on the closest one. All the machines rolled back toward their assigned doors dropping marbles, like pellets, in still, straight lines. The man followed me around, bending gracefully at the waist to scoop up marbles. Why wasn't my dad back?