FanStory.com - Robot Legacyby Bill Schott

Balka Fee, BF, project coordinator and task supervisor, examined the data from the progress of terraforming the prospect planet, Earth. A review of hundreds of scans revealed life had taken hold and was spreading across the surface and reaching the depths of the oceans.

Raising her gaze to the left corner of the data screen, the image switched to that of a man, suspended by thousands of fibers, as perhaps a spider may have held a trapped insect at the center of an otherwise empty web, within a darkened cubical.

Felister Monbal, FM, former engineering director and chief fabricator for the reformation processes on the planet Earth, was undergoing the cleansing and recalibration phase.

The man's body, made featureless by a bio-skin which enveloped his frame, vibrated like the gyrations of a button at the center of a child's string toy.

Morgram Weem, MW, former assistant director and chief transportation engineer for the reformation processes, witnessed the reorientation of the director, and pondered how he might bypass that "re-tooling" and continue with his current mind and general constitution.

Immediately after the robots had been deployed to Earth, FM had generated a message to the project coordinator, BF, suggesting that MW may have introduced a radical element to the robot subroutines.

This message was sent immediately, with the slight secondary adjustment of having the perpetrator's and accuser's names reversed, and rerouted electronically to seem to have originated from MW, rather than FM.

Empathy for his colleague, presently undergoing what might be called a re-filling procedure, was tempered with the knowledge that, if not for his practical pre-strike message editing, it would be him receiving the coordinator's remedial indoctrination.

A pulse began at MW's temple, signifying a message from the coordinator.

"Yes, BF. How may I be of assistance?"

"Two more robots will be required. What do you need to be effective?"

"Will FM be available as an assistant?"

"Perhaps, eventually. His immediate use would be as a block to wind or sunlight."

"Is there another person you would suggest?"

Balka Fee considered momentarily, then cleared her throat.

"I have an experimental cybernetic humanoid that may prove useful in the interim."

MW looked out into the emptiness, past the suspended effigy of his former superior, and smiled.