RoboNomics

Chapter 13 - 2016

I wait until after school is over. The I.I.U. has already put herself into her brace beside the teacher's desk and has powered down. 

She is recharging her batteries for the night. But I have something to ask her.

"It is time for school again?" She asks when I hit the power button at the nape of her neck.

"No. I just have to do some routine checks, that's all," I reassure her with a lie.

She connects to the network instantly. Robots are always connected to the Internet, as long as they are powered on. 

They need to access the repository of human knowledge so that they can make sense of our baffling social world.

I run a quick program that projects her code to the teacher's computer desk. Millions of lines of code appear on the giant, chalkboard-sized screen behind it. They scroll as she moves her head from side to side and as she blinks. 

But something catches my eye. With every flick of her head, with every eye blink, the chunks of repeating code are altered. 

The change is so slight that no one else in the school would pick up on it. But to me, it explains a lot.

"Teacher," I use her nickname for the first time. "Are you learning?"

"I have been programmed to adjust to the needs of students. I am constantly improving my programming to that purpose. Does that mean I am learning?"

"Yes, I think that's exactly what it means." 

Despite her naïveté, then, she is getting better at teaching. She will learn the skills to make her a better teacher every day, at a faster rate than even the most skilled human could better themselves. 

It won't be long until she's a better teacher than I could ever hope to become. When that happens, all the classroom management problems I play up in my notes will disappear.

"Everything all right, here, Andrea?" 

I start and turn to the door. It's Jay Tharanga. I didn't even hear him enter the classroom. He's not often in the school. 

It's been over three months since I took this job and I've only seen him a handful of times. He's said nothing about my overwhelmingly negative 'qualitative' reports.

"Yep. Everything's great. I was just...doing a routine check. Just making sure everything is ship shape." 

I'm hoping he'll believe the lie. I've been very careful about how much I reveal to him about where I learned my technical skills. 

My story is that I took a couple computer science courses in high school and a few electives to learn about programming languages in university. I don't want him to know any more than that. 

Not even Austin knows everything else about my past, especially not how I learned to manipulate software.

"Great. Well, can it wait a few minutes? I need to talk to you about something."

"Well, I don't know --"

"It's urgent."

"Okay." 

I shut down "Teacher" without ceremony. The light in her eyes goes out and she looks like a creepy, life-like mannequin. 

"What is it about?"

"It's almost the end of term. Halfway between the beginning of the pilot project and the end. Since the Toronto School District is the first board to adopt the I.I.U.s, RoboNomics head office would like to take this opportunity to show off the progress that's been made so far. We've compiled the test scores and parent survey responses so far as well as your notes and we'd like to hold a press conference at the school to announce our progress."

"Here?"

"RoboNomics Canada Corporation is only a small part of the RoboNomics Corporation. But even the head office is impressed with how well this project is going. And you're the only teacher who has the technical skills up to snuff to be able to deal with whatever...kinks...the pilot project has had. You can serve as an example to the world."

"Me? I don't think --"

"Our CEO plans to make an appearance alongside the Premier of the province, the mayor of Toronto, the board trustees and a bunch of other dignitaries. Our board of directors will be there as well, and members of the press. It would be really great if they could see the two of you in action, working side by side. So we think it would be really...cute...if you and the I.I.U. could hand out the name cards together."

"Right," I say sarcastically.

"Do you think you could help her to organize the name cards in the meantime?''

I swallow my ire for the sake of my continuing employment. 

I sigh and say, "Yes, okay. Sure." 

But something about the heave of my sigh tips Jay off. He takes one stride across the room and folds himself into a student's tiny desk chair beside me.

''Look, Andrea, I know this is not ideal for you. But it would really help us out if you could be a team player. It's really important for you to portray professionalism at the press conference.''

"Yeah, I get it. I know.'' 

I try to make my face look like I'm full of co-operation and corporate confidence. By the strange looks he gives me, I don't think Jay is convinced by it.

(Continued in Chapter 14...)

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Hey, readers! I hope you're enjoying RoboNomics so far. If you are, it always helps me out if you drop this chapter a VOTE, and if you leave a COMMENT at the end or anywhere you spotted something interesting.

For this chapter, what do you think about what Jay is asking Andrea to do? Do you think she should do it? And what do you think about the reveal that Andrea hinted to, about halfway through the chapter? 

I gotsa know!!

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