Fuzzy (3 page)

“Sort of,” said Nina. “Basically, most robots and computers are programmed to calculate, or even to analyze, but not to really think. We're trying to create a robot that thinks for himself. So he has to figure out for himself what two plus two is.”

“Tutu,” said Fuzzy.

Max found herself grinning. “Was that a joke? Does it tell jokes?”

“We're not exactly sure yet. We're still trying to understand him,” said Nina. “By the way, please feel free to talk to Fuzzy directly.”

“He's one of the most advanced robots ever created,” said Jones. “State-of-the-art speech recognition and language processors, plus we've loaded several slang and
idiom databases to help him talk to you kids. So, if you speak clearly, he'll understand you most of the time.”

“Hello, uh, Fuzzy?” said Max, still completely unsure where to look.

“Hello, Object 321,” said Fuzzy.

“Oh, uh . . . I think that's you,” Nina told Max.

“What? I'm an object? Or is that another joke?”

“Well, no,” said Nina. “We have turned off some of his nonessential programs. The name database must be part of that.”

“Yes. Fuzzy's sort of in recovery mode right now,” said Dr. Jones, a hand brushing at his nonexistent hair. “We had a little problem yesterday, as you probably saw when you approached him.”

“Oh zark . . . ,” Max began. “Like I said, I hope I didn't—”

“No, no, it's OK,” Nina quickly reassured her. “It wasn't you. We know exactly what happened— Well, sort of. We've just been watching you on the playback. These helmets let us see whatever Fuzzy sees and does. We're still trying to figure out why he fell.”

“Would you like to try it out?” asked Dr. Jones.

Max couldn't believe it: She didn't seem to be in
trouble, and it looked like she was going to get to play with the stuff! The helmet was a NebulonVirtX—a virtual reality device. Insanely expensive. She had only read about them on the net. She had never seen one.

“Absolutely!” she said. “But why me?”

“I'm not exactly sure,” said Jones. “But Fuzzy asked us to find you and ask for your help.”

“
My
help?” asked Max. “I mean, yeah, sure, I'd love to . . . but what can I do?”

“Well,” said Nina, “have you ever heard that thing about walking in someone else's shoes so you can understand them?”

“Um, I guess . . . ,” said Max.

“Well, with Fuzzy's technology you can actually do that.”

Nina carefully eased the helmet down over Max's head and onto her shoulders.

“Uh, it's all black.”

“It hasn't started yet,” said Jones. “OK, Fuzzy, playback from mark eighty-three.”

2.3
ROBOT INTEGRATION PROGRAM HQ

What Max saw almost made her freak out. There seemed to be numbers and words floating everywhere, right in front of her. They looked like the imaging on qGoggles run amok.

After a few seconds she realized what she was seeing. It was a 3-D display showing a fully dimensional video of the hallway, with kids pushing and shoving past. And each kid had a bunch of numbers floating over his or her head. Then she saw herself zooming toward the viewer, weaving in and out of other kids' paths, until she filled the screen.

Over her head it said:

Hallway.obj.321

Vel.34.2, 0, 22.43

Face.Recog: processing . . .

Meanwhile, words scrolled over all this like movie credits on very fast-forward:

Obj.avoidance(320) processing . . .

Find.path(a*) processing . . .

Right.leg(forward, speed:10.87543)

Obj.avoidance(321) processing . . .

Record.data.obj.321

Find.path(a*) processing . . .

Right.leg(back, speed:6.987654)

Balance.check() null pointer returned

Then it went black again.

She pulled off the helmet.

“Is that what Fuzzy sees? No wonder he fell over.”

She was surprised to see that both Jones and Nina were watching her intently.

“Exactly,” said Jones. “That's why we need your help.”

“I need a new hallway navigation program” came Fuzzy's slightly mechanical, disembodied voice again.

“Well,” said Max, “I can do a little programming, mostly Nix++ and some Nextran, but . . .”

“Oh, don't worry about that,” said Nina. “Fuzzy can reprogram himself.”

“Obviously,” said Jones, “it would be no big deal to program a robot to follow a path from point A to point B, but navigating a hall full of kids is much more complicated. The point with Fuzzy is that he doesn't
need
to be preprogrammed. He can figure things out for himself and then constantly update his programming to get better and better.”

“Right,” said Nina. “So, eventually he would learn how to get through the halls here—even when they are packed with a bunch of crazy kids—but we can't have him out there falling down again and again.”

“And we're on a tight deadline,” interjected Jones. “We need to get on to the big stuff.”

“Right,” Nina said again. “The big stuff—going to classes, meeting the other students, and so on. That's what we're really here for. So he needs someone to
quickly teach him how to get through the halls, and we noticed on the vid that you do it pretty well.”

“You were great, Object 321,” said Fuzzy. “I saw you weaving through the crowd. But you never bumped into anyone. You understand how hallway navigation works. You can help me.”

Max didn't think her hallway survival skills were any better than anybody else's. But it would be crazy to tell them she couldn't help . . . because she really wanted to. And yet it felt a little like she was getting her driver's chip early. Sure, she'd love to drive a car, but shouldn't she get a lesson or something first?

“What if I try to help but he ends up falling over again?” she asked. “What if I break him?”

Dr. Jones laughed. “He's designed to survive a lot, even something as rough as landing on another planet—or, I mean, some really rugged place like that. We've had him walk through two deserts, a jungle, and a mountain range. So I don't think you can damage him. Just help him figure out the little stuff, and if any big stuff happens, we're monitoring everything and we'll be right there.”

“Will you do it, Object 321?” asked Fuzzy.

“Yeah, sure, I'll try. But, please, just call me Max.”

“One second, Object 321.”

There was a long pause. Longer than one second. Then, so suddenly that she jumped, the robot came to life. He walked across the floor and held out his hand. She put out hers, and the robot shook it. His hand wasn't cold as she had expected.

“Thank you, Max,” the robot said.

Max smiled. “The first thing I need to teach you, Fuzzy,” she said, “is that only old people shake hands.”

2.4
HALLWAY B

“What rules do you use to walk down the hall?” Fuzzy asked.

“Rules?” Max mumbled. “Uh . . .”

Fuzzy, Jones, and Nina all stood there looking at her, and she had no idea what sort of rules there could be for walking down a hall, other than not shoving anyone and not falling down. Then she remembered how Fuzzy had been running that face recognition routine when he crashed.

“First of all, don't try to recognize everybody's faces this time. Trust me, it's all just going to be a big blur.”

“OK, Max, I will turn the facial recognition software off again. But I will create a special subroutine to recognize you.”

“Wow, thanks,” said Max, genuinely pleased. “A subroutine just for me! I guess that's the robot equivalent of becoming friends.”

(Jones and Nina decided not to mention that Fuzzy had millions of subroutines, which are just small programs that a computer can call on to do a specific job and then turn off when the job is done.)

“OK,” Max was saying. “I thought of a rule: Don't walk along next to the wall, because you'll just get blocked by the water fountains.”

“Do you know what brand the water fountains are?”

“Uh, what? No, why?”

“I am going to download their dimensions and add them to my WallAvoidance() subroutine.”

“Uh, I wouldn't worry about it,” she said. “You know, I think maybe we're making this too complicated. Maybe if you come to class with me, you can just follow me down the hall and see what I do.”

“Great,” said Nina, “that's exactly what we're hoping for. Why don't you go to your next class? If he makes it, great. If not, we'll be about twenty feet behind you.”

Then a bell rang.

“Uh-oh . . . I'm going to have to go kind of fast,” said Max. “You ready?”

Dr. Jones looked a little unsure. “Perhaps we should . . . um . . .”

But Fuzzy said, “I am ready, Max,” and they took off.

“Remember, we're behind you in case anything goes wrong!” called Nina. “Fuzzy . . . be careful!”

How embarrassing
, thought Max.
Poor Fuzzy. Nina's like a kindergarten mom
.

2.5
HALLWAY B

Fuzzy obediently adjusted his settings to use extra caution.

The hallway was packed as everyone went from homeroom to first period. It was twice as crazy as Fuzzy's last hallway trip.

“Just keep behind me,” said Max, “and I'll plow a path.”

Fuzzy noticed that she didn't exactly
plow
a path. Sometimes kids moved out of her way, and sometimes she moved out of their way. He recorded some data on all this so that he could run simulations later. But mostly he just tried to stay right behind Max, without stepping on her.

Max stopped suddenly, and Fuzzy, with a reaction time much faster than any human, instantly stopped, too. He
shifted slightly to see what was in front of Max that had made her stop.

It was Object 429, a large male human.

“Max! It's right behind you!” the male object said.

“Yeah, Biggs, it's right behind me,” Max said, imitating Object 429's tone. Fuzzy detected that she appeared uncomfortable with the encounter, perhaps because other kids were staring at them now. “Listen, I'll introduce you later. We got to get to class.”

She sidestepped Object 429 and kept going. Fuzzy did the same thing—exactly.

“Wait! What is going on, Max?” hollered Biggs, and he started following her, too.

“Look, Biggs, it's not a parade,” said Max, stopping again.

Fuzzy stopped instantly again, too, but Biggs didn't. He slammed right into Fuzzy.

Max cringed, expecting another robo-crash. But Fuzzy just made a bunch of little steps with his feet and stayed upright.

“Wow! This thing is pretty cool!” said Biggs. “Can I try to push it over?”

“Yes, Object 429, you may test my balancing capabilities.”

“No!” said Max, jumping between them. She looked back to see if Jones and Nina were still nearby. They were, and Nina slipped up next to Max and whispered, “It's OK, we want to let Fuzzy interact with the other students. He'll be OK.”

“So much for the kindergarten mom,” Max said so softly that only Fuzzy's enhanced hearing picked it up. But she stepped back and said aloud, “All right, Biggs, go ahead and act like an idiot if you have to.”

Biggs shoved Fuzzy as hard as he could. This time, Fuzzy didn't even make the tiny steps. He just shifted his weight into Biggs precisely enough to stay motionless.

“Wow!” said Biggs, rubbing his fingers.

“Threatening behavior identified,” came a flat, grating female voice. Sure enough, Barbara's avatar popped up on the nearest wall screen, the extra-stern version this time.

“I wonder why she never sounds human like you do?” Max whispered to Fuzzy.

“I wasn't trying to hurt him!” pleaded Biggs to the screen. “He said I could! And so did that lady!”

“Vanguard Middle School has a zero tolerance policy regarding threatening behavior and physical contact. Tap
the review button on my screen if you wish to review the policy.”

“No, thanks,” muttered Biggs.

“Discipline tags assigned to J. Biggs . . .”

Fuzzy detected an expression he would have called, from his studies of human expressions, a smirk on Max's face. Until the Barbara avatar kept going.

“. . . M. Zelaster, and F. Robot.”

“But we didn't . . . ,” Max started to say, when a bell rang.

Max looked around. “Oh no! We're the only ones still in the hall.”

“Tardiness tags assigned to J. Biggs, M. Zelaster, and F. Robot,” continued Barbara. “Thirty seconds until violation is upgraded.”

“
But—
” said Max and Biggs at the same time.

“Maybe you'd better go on to class,” said Nina. “I didn't mean for you to get into trouble. I'll talk to your principal about it.”

They walked down the hall in silence. Biggs was mad at Barbara. Max was mad at Barbara
and
Biggs. And Fuzzy was trying not to fall over.

2.6
SCIENCE CLASS

They got to the door and it slid open, interrupting Ms. French, who had already started the UpGrade test review.

“I see you got to meet the new robot,” Ms. French said.

“Yes, this is Fuzzy. Fuzzy, this is Ms. French.”

“Hello, Ms. French,” said Fuzzy.

Max was pleased to see that he didn't try to shake her hand or call her an object. He must have turned the face recognition back on. He was already learning how to be social.

“Well, um, hello, Fuzzy.” Max could see that Ms. French, who was only about fifteen years older than her students, appeared to be stressed. Friendly but stressed. That was her usual look, actually.