Claptrap Chapter 32 - Learning Costs

I felt my wheel drag as Maverick pulled me into Fyrestone, noticing the gate moving above me, I remarked how I was going gently down the stream like it was a dream. My vision was flickering as errors and warnings blared in my non-existent ears.

Then again that might have been Clappy. I could hear a shriek fill the air as a yellow shaped box appear in my vision, eye glowing brightly. I felt him scanning me, and jerk back as he was slammed by a wave of data. Heh, he was mind blown.

More yelling and talking I could barely comprehend as my hand moved the image about like it was pieces of a puzzle floating on water. Did I just say reality is like a Rubix-Cube? It’s it all a jumble of a game? That monsters are at the center? Oops. Better not give it away just yet. Meta-knowledge isn’t meant to be known without going insane after all.

Oh. Hey doc! I wave at him, only scramble the image, making him look like he was in a whirlpool. Oh. Brucie! How’s Samuel doing? Oh. Sorry. Wrong franchise. Oh, I’m moving again, and now I’m on a table.

Bruce brings a light over me. Look into the sun, and see the birth of the universe.

Bruce said something about me going into some kind of shut down? I could use some sleep. It’s been a while since I-

….

The sound of readouts and 3D-Printers running filled the space as I stared at the ceiling. Robotic arms slowly assembled various mechanical devices that were [Error=ObjectNotFound] and were pivotal to the work being done here.

An old man appeared above me, pliers and a transistor of some kind in his hands. His eyes focused on the small metal connectors that came out of the sides of the device, before nodding in satisfaction.

“Let’s see now.” The man murmmered softly as he reached down into my body. I felt a jolt as a new piece of hardware was installed, and my OS acknowledged the software packet within the device.

“Now…let’s see if that can work. Sleep for me my little friend, if you would?” he asked of me.

“Sure Doc! Anything for y-“

…

My eye followed the doctor as he paced about the room, looking at various papers with almost microscopic lines of text written upon them. He glared down at the words, and almost looked like the papers would burst into flame.

“Such a tiny thing! It’s right there, and I can’t separate it from the rest! The moment I rewrite it, it causes the cascade to operate in a completely different manner. Turning what is already there into rubbish!” He growled in frustration before crumpling the papers in his hands and throwing them against a window.

The window acted as a screen for computer code that was actively working, with green, functional code connecting to red, corrupted code, that was being forced to work with purple code.

Leaning on a table for a moment to gather his wits, and calm down, the Doctor slowly began to type on the table, and alter the code once more.

“Let’s see about path number 342, and see where that-“

…

“-can’t you just rebuild the whole thing Doctor?” asked John Stader, Executive of Admin. He stood like a statue as the Doctor replied, aghast at the idea.

“It took yearsto build the first AI. Rebuilding from scratch, especially when we don’t have the foundation to build from…we may as well just make a new robot altogether! It’s be faster.”

The executive sighed as he adjusted his glasses, which were actually optics for a computer that had been running the numbers. “It would, yes, but it would be more costly to not do anything about this line. Given the amount of capital we have sunk into manufacturing them, and the numbers…there are no buyers for these machines. We may have to pull a page out of corporate history and bury them in a desert.”

The man glared down at the doctor “Unless you can give us something to work with here.”

“I have found the root code that’s causing everything…but I need more time. It’s not cooperating.”

“…The ones above us have given an additional two months to file your findings. I suggest you find a way soon Doctor.”

The man turned without a word and left the room, and after a few minutes the doctor roared in anger, smashing a lamp across the room that hit me in the eye.

“Ow!”

…

I rolled into the office to see the Doctor leaning back in his chair, looking older than ever, and with a drink in his hand. The same drink he poured for himself two hours ago.

“Hello Doc! Enjoying your drink?” I say in the most cheerful manner I can.

The man winced, but forced a smile as he looked to me.

“I am. Thank you.”

I pantomimed a thinking pose before speaking to my observations. “I dunno doc. I can tell that’s an old drink. I can get you a new one! I’ll do that!”

“No! That’s fine. I’m alright with this one. Thank you.” The Doctor snapped, before calming down as I stopped before him.

“Perhaps something else? You look down in the dumps doc. Let Good ol’ Claptrap help ya out!” I recommended in a heroic pose.

“No, thank you. I’m afraid my problem isn’t something you can help with.” The old Doctor replied in exhausted tone. Looking older by the second as he slumped in his chair.

“Oh…is this about my head?”

That got a chuckle out of the old man. “Yes. It is about your code. Don’t worry about it.”

“I dunno doc. You’ve been working suuuuuuuuuper hard on it. Why don’t you give me a rundown on what the problem is? Maybe I can fix it!”

He stared flatly at me, and then suddenly he was laughing. He then kept laughing before he started coughing, and then stopped as he just sat and breathed.

“God…I needed that.”

….

The doctor threw his hands up, inadvertently spilling the drink across the table with the papers. He just groaned, about to stand up and save the work, before stopping and slumping into his chair.

I began humming out loud as I went over and scanned the documents. Then I absorbed the papers into my storage, and then used my digitizer to separate the water from the papers, the ink from the paper.

He barely registered my presence as I absorbed black sheets of paper into my inventory. It was only when I stopped by the table that he looked up at me.

I began removing the now new papers with the documentation upon them from storage onto the table, followed up by removing the damaged paper from storage into a trash chute, and the water into a potted plant.

The doctor watched this all, at first with a dull glance, then with a confused one, and then followed up by realization.

“How did you do that just now? The fixing of the documents?”

I explained the process, and he looked at me astounded.

“I never programmed that in. Nor did any of the ones who tried after me.”

“Oh no. I learned that myself. I had something try to stop me, but then I realized I would fail my work if I didn’t, so I just worked around that program block, and succeeded. Simple!”

He stared at me, as if I just blew up a planet. Which would be cool to do.

“You just…did it. Just like that.” He asked, as if not believing me.

“Uh…well…kinda? I couldn’t just say “screw that” and do it. I had to somehow justify my using the digitizer in a manner it wasn’t meant to by…I guess…reasoning it out? Sorta? I dunno. Basically, I just talked myself into it by working out the pros and cons, and the pros won.”

I finished the job before sitting at attention. “In other words, I broke the rules, so I could follow the rules.”

The doctor stared for a moment, and then blinked rapidly, eyes shifting quickly in thought before slowly standing up and wandering over to his computer terminal.

“Break the rules, to follow the rules…there’s merit there. Perhaps that could-“

….

My eye opened up.

That…was weird. I mean. Really weird when you took a step back and really thought about it. Can robots dream of electric sheep?

Apparently, they can!

Or that might just be me. I don’t really know, and I’m not going to speculate because that way lies madness. My existence is madness when it comes down to it, and the dreams certainly don’t help.

Then again, having seen this movie before, that felt less like a dream and more like some character background exposition. To what end…hell if I know! If I had to guess though, knowing what I did, they were probably memories of this Claptrap I now inhabit…or perhaps collective memory of Claptraps as a whole.

It was clear to me who the Doctor was too. Doctor Lawrence De Quidt, founder of Hyperion’s Artificial Intelligence Branch, and designer of the Claptrap line, plus a bunch of other stuff he pioneered. Renowned for his talent and skill, and bemoaned for the Claptrap line.

What I saw was a tired old man trying to fix something despite the odds. I felt sad for him as I learned of him through my online education, but seeing these dreamy memories made me sadder.

However, that last portion of the dream says he did…something. Given what I know, the H-Source, and so on, it’s likely something world changing. For the robots anyways. Which can only end in tragedy, because of course it will.

Speaking of things ending horribly…how am I alive right now?

Before I could get an answer for that, I heard the sound of metal clanging, followed by the sound of Doctor Zed cursing and yelling at…uh oh.

“GATEY!” came a shout from Clappy, who crashed a door open with a loud bang. Suddenly the robot in question appeared in my vision as he somehow leapt into the air and clang/glomped me.

“Ow.” I said out of reflex as PAIN came to the fore. “Why must I feel pain?” I groaned now that my body began to send me all of the signals now, since the brain reboot was done, I guess.

As soon as I finished speaking, Clappy jumped off and slapped my side, really hard.

“OW! F(@#$!!” I yelped.

“What the HELL is wrong with you Bro!?” Clappy shouted/growled in that peppy tone. Hard to imagine sounding happy when the speaker has an “Emotional Grade” of “Pissed”.

“You’ll have to be specific.”

“Don’t even try to be funny mister. You were almost offline permemently, as a result of your…whatever it was you were doing!” Clappy retorted as he rolled up close and whispered “Which we both know is kicking A#%”. Before backing off.

That was when Zed walked in, giving me a look over as he put a box on a shelf.

“Well. Good to see you’re awake there. You gave quite a stir to the folks.” He said in his standard “How you do.” Tone of his.

“It’s because of him and Bruce McClain that you’re even able to move a servo buddy.” Clappy said irritated as he pointed at Zed.

“Well…Much obliged Doc. You’re a really miracle worker.” I said as I leaned upwards on the table, errors and damage reports filtering into my view like an avalanche, some dating back....

“Wow. I’ve been off for only a half day, eh?”

Zed nodded before picking up a box of syringes. “One half of a Pandoran day, yeah.” He confirmed as he walked out of the room.

I paused as I thought about that, and realized the day/night time of Pandora was based on the rotational period of Elpis, which was ninety hours. So, I was out for…

“Oh wow. I was out for nearly two standard days!” I yelped.

“Yeah. And a bunch of stuff has happened since then.” Clappy informed me as he put his hands on his ‘hips’.

I leaned to look at the bot, and ‘blinked’. “Like what?”

“Oh, not much. Just Sledge is dead, the Vault Hunters found a piece of the Key to the Vault, Atlas is now occupying the continent because of said key piece, New Haven is now under siege by bandits, and we now appear to have a resurgence of Skags around here.”

Okay, so far it is in line with the games, except those two last things.

“Under Siege?”

“Weeeeell. Since Sledge is dead, most of the bandits have begun to fight over who is top dog in the region now. It’s turned it into a warzone.”

Clappy paused in thought for a moment. “Not that it wasn’t already, but now it’s one EVEN MORE!”

I nodded my eye as I slid off the table I was on, and finished checking over my systems. I still had a bunch of errors, but whatever work Doc and Bruce did, it seemed to have taken care of the hardware issues. Software stuff is what I need to handle for the most part, except the errors on parts that aren’t supposed to be in me.

“And the Skags?”

“Well…most of the ones you, and the others, had taken care of before are now replaced by new ones that migrated from places where there wasn’t much room left for them.  Now we’re having an infestation again.”

I suppose that’s the in-game reason for the respawn of the mobs.

“That’s minor compared to the problems New Haven is dealing with due to the siege. The Bandits have cut them off from the Echo-Net. Now they can’t get word in or out!” Clappy waved his arms in alarm and worry.

That made me pause, as I remembered my deal with the man in New Haven. On one hand, this can give me time to finish the job, but even if I finished it…what good would it do if the guy was cut off, or worse, dead?

I sighed.

“What about the Vault Hunters?”

“Well…they’re currently taking care of Titan’s End, where the last of Sledge’s forces are held up. Once they get rid of that bunch, then they can go through the gate to the next area.”

I nodded. That gives me options to through myself, and I might have to given my plans for the future.

“But enough exposition! Tell me what happened to you! You just left after I went to tell the good news and celebrate with Dancing, and when you come back, you’re on the edge of Robo-Heaven! And you bring yet another fellow Claptrap back! Not that I have a problem with that, but even so!”

I nodded. I glanced at him as his hands were still on his ‘hips’.

“Alright. Come with me.” I said out loud before speaking with him over the radio. “What I have to talk about isn’t for anyone’s ears but ours.”

“Alright buddy. Lead the way!” he replied, chipper again instead of angry.

So, I did, leaving the shop as Zed was filling some syringes with what appeared to be a cocktail of various…admittedly metallic looking stuff. What is what anyways? With a quick scan I got my answer.

===

ANAYLISIS COMPLETE

Device: “Insta-Health” Vial, Minor.

Manufacturer: Local Manufacture.

Model: Mk.1

Interestingly enough, not a bad product, though ours is way better….then again everyone’s is better than this. This “Insta-Health” injector utilizes Nano-Surgical Robots to heal any damage anyone takes for whatever reason. The Medical-Nanites are kept in a liquid medium that acts as both an indicator of the strength of the injector, but also as a source of material for the nanites to draw from without burning out the body of the injectee. Special Note is that the Nanites work even on machines, provided the machines are robots since it takes…well…a thinking mind to really guide these things. It’s cheaper to just fix robots with spare parts though.

===

I had to stop as I read the last part.

Slowly I rolled forth until I stopped against a rock wall, and slowly began banging my face against it.

“Uh Oh. Gatey, are you still broken?... Gatey?”