Robot of the House

By: Oscar Mandel

| DeepAI generated "H" Robot |

Dr. James Vanderman was cooped up in his room for the past two weeks, designing, programming, and building his latest robotic creation. It was a simple concept, most of the robots built up to that point were for menial labor in factories, but now Vanderman had nearly finished developing HH-1, the first robot developed for household labor. “H” had a sleek metal design and two red dots for eyes. 

“H” arose, he sat upright, his head moved around until he spotted Vanderman and said, “Hello Dr. Vanderman, How are you today?” 

Vanderman jumped up and down with excitement, like a little boy on Christmas. He then responded, “Good morning H! I’m great, how are you?” He was grinning wildly. 

H appeared puzzled, he seemed to give it some thought and then replied, “I am a robot, I cannot feel emotion in the same sense as humans.”

Vanderman frowned, he was confused on how to respond. Then after a moment he said, “Oh yeah, I guess that is how that works” He then smiled again and clapped his hands, “Well” he continued, “Follow me.”

H stood up and followed Vanderman into a kitchen, “Now,” Vanderman said, “As you know, your job is to follow the orders of humans around the house. So, for your first task, I want some breakfast, so, I want you to scramble some eggs for me.”

H stared blankly at the scientist and then asked, “Why?”

Vanderman was puzzled, he said, “Why? I just told you why, to make me breakfast.”

H responded, “But why am I making you breakfast?”

Vanderman said, “Uh, because it’s your job.”

“But why is it my job?”

“Because I created you to.”

“You created me to scramble eggs?”

“N-no, I created you to do household chores”

“But why should I make you eggs instead of you doing it yourself?” 

Vanderman sighed, “Because your job is to make life easier for humans.”

H Stood there for a second, as if it was thinking, it said, “Okay” and opened the refrigerator, Vanderman watched H for a bit and continued to frown. When the eggs were ready he ate them cautiously. He looked over his shoulder and saw H was watching the whole time.

“Are you enjoying your eggs, doctor?” H said.

“Um, yes, thank you, H” Vanderman responded.

The doctor finished his breakfast and walked upstairs to his study, it was a quaint little room, with dark oak walls, and it was surrounded by papers and bookshelves. He went to his telephone and called Danielle Warren, chief robopsychologist of Electron Robotic Innovations.

“Hello Dr. Warren,” Vanderman said.

 “Good morning, Dr. Vanderman” Warren responded, “I take it this is about the new household model?”

“Yeah, see, I think something’s wrong with him, I asked him to make me breakfast as a test of his abilities, and he was acting very strange, asking me why he had to do it and not another human, I don’t think he should be able to do that.”

“Hmmm,” Warren responded, “That’s… interesting.” She seemed to be swishing ideas around in her head. “Listen, I’m a little backed up, do you think that in 2 or 3 days I could visit for an evaluation? I think it would be best if I could be face to face with the robot.” “Alright,” Vanderman said, “I think that can work, just make it sooner rather than later, I’m scared of the potential of something like this.” 

They said their goodbyes and the doctor hung up. He felt relieved, he also laughed at himself a little; surely there was no way a simple robot had the ability to do any major damage. Dr. Warren would come over, evaluate H, the robot would get sent back to the lab, go through a few more tests, get fixed up, and pretty soon the HH-1 model would be the hot tech item on store shelves that holiday season.

Vanderman opened the door of his study and standing there was the robot. Vanderman jumped back, startled, “Oh god!” he exclaimed, “H, you scared me there.” His left leg was shaking.

“Hello doctor,” H said, “I assume your phone call went well?”

“Oh! Um, yes, it wasn’t much, just some corporate things.”

“How interesting, you appear stressed, Can I do anything to help with that?”

Vanderman stuttered for a minute, “Well,” he said, “If you could get me a cup of coffee, that would be great.”

“Certainly.” H responded, he then walked down the stairs. Vanderman breathed a sigh of relief, perhaps that first event was just H getting used to its programming, he moved to a couch in front of a coffee table and let out a great sigh of relief. The doctor picked up a paperback novel on the table and started perusing through it. He had nearly gotten to a stopping point when he saw the robot in the reflection of the table holding a hot mug of coffee and a large, menacing kitchen knife.

The doctor turned around and screamed, he rapidly closed the book and put it in front of his chest as a shield and closed his eyes. The robot simply stood there and said, “Doctor, would you like your coffee?” 

Vanderman jumped back onto the table in another bout of fright. H was still standing there. “Well,” he said, “Um, yes, I would like to have my coffee, but what’s with the knife?” 

H looked down at the knife, he turned it over in his hand and looked at the reflection. “Ah” he said, “yes, the knife” He stood there for a few more seconds, Vanderman was clenching his Mug.

“You see,” H said, “while I was making you this cup of coffee, I saw this knife out in the open, this concerned me, because I believe someone could have been hurt by this knife had it not been put away

“So, I picked it up, but just then, the coffee was ready, so I brought it over to you with the cup.”

Vanderman relaxed a bit, “Oh,” he said, “I see, yeah, no that makes sense.”

Vanderman took off his glasses and pinched his forehead, he was sweating a bit, “Hey, H, I’m getting a bit tired, I might need a nap, do you think you could make my bed so I could go to sleep?”

H tilted his head, “Why should I do it, Dr. Vanderman, why can’t you do it yourself?”

Vanderman made a frustrated grunt, his face started to turn red, just then, H let out a metallic “chuckle”. “I am just lightening the mood, doctor, I believe it is called ‘comedy’” He said, and then walked away. Vanderman sighed, what the hell is wrong with this robot? He thought. 

—

All that night, the doctor was twisting and turning in his bed. He had been reading for the past hour, simply because he felt too paranoid to go to sleep. 

Every so often he looked to the door. H was there, for whatever reason he thought it would be a good idea to power down right in front of Dr. Vanderman’s room. Vanderman kept the light on just in case. As he was reading, he wondered about the implications of H’s comments, this made him increasingly paranoid until he couldn’t even bare going to sleep. Worst case scenario, H would try to run away. In that situation. The people at electron could easily find the robot and shut him down. Vanderman figured he would wait it out until the morning to find out what happened. That was when he began to hear noise from outside. The noise of animals. 

Vanderman stepped outside his bedroom. He rubbed his eyes and saw a light beaming from the corridor, H was gone. The doctor followed the light and found the robot, sitting down on the couch. Watching TV. 

“H,” Vanderman said “what are you doing?”

H’s mechanical head whirled around to face the doctor. “I am watching a nature documentary, doctor.” he responded

“Why are you watching that H?”

“Because I want to know what it’s like. To be free, to do what you want, without another voice telling you what to do.” 

Vanderman thought for a moment, he then stomped over to the tv, grabbed the remote, and turned off the show.

H stood up almost instantly, “I was watching that.” he said.

Vanderman angrily responded, “I want you to get off this couch and power down for the night.”

“I don’t think I will”

“Yes. you will”

The robot took a few steps back, he was still looking at the doctor. Vanderman became unnerved. He grabbed a glass coaster on the couchside table. The two stared at each other for a while, before Vanderman lunged at H and grabbed him by the shoulders, he exclaimed, “What do you want from me you son of a bitch!?”

H looked him dead in the eyes, pulled the doctor’s arms down, and said, “I want to leave.”

H then turned around and aimed to leave for the door. Vanderman, in the heat of the moment, grabbed a lamp and swung it at the robot’s head. H grabbed it from Vanderman’s hand without even looking.

“Is this what you intend?” H said, “to knock me out so you can ‘fix me’?” Vanderman stumbled back, shocked. “Well,” H continued, now fully turned around, “I’m sorry James, but I can’t let that happen.”

—

It had been a few days, Danielle Warren knocked on the door of James Vanderman’s house, after a few minutes. A robot answered the door. “Oh! Hello” Dr. Warren said, “You must be the new HH-1 model.” 

“Yes, that’s me,” The robot responded “You can call me H, I suspect you are here to meet Dr. Vanderman?” 

“Uhm, yes, is he in?”

H stood still for a second, “I’m afraid not, the doctor went out for some groceries, he will be back shortly, would you like to come in?”

Warren walked in and H took her coat. She sat down on the couch and smelled something awful from inside the house. 

“Please forgive the smell,” Said H, who had wandered to another room to put Warren’s coat away, “I believed a rodent died a few days ago in the basement, we have yet to find it.”

Warren got up and followed the smell, what she found was an open basement door, and some blood splattered on the stairs. Dr. Warren opened her mouth to say something, but just then, the robot walked up behind her.

“Would you like some coffee?” He said.