This is so wrong. Totally, globally, universally wrong. As if he was doing harm. Him, the genius, doing harm! Well, now he’d love to, deep down, sort of. But one doesn’t beat up ones mother. That’s just not an option. Even if ones ears still ring with her shrill voice:
“Dagon? Dagon?! What the hell, Dagon?!”, she went. “Why the hell did you dress up poor granny like that? And she’s all shaky and confused, the poor thing. What the hell has been going on here?!…”
One of the few good things about this mother of his is that there’s no need to answer. She does all sides of whatever talking all by herself. She pretends to ask, you pretend to wait for her to stop talking to answer, she rants on and on, until she suddenly runs out of steam and goes “Oh, whatever, why would I even care?…”.
Dirty socks in the bathroom, cat food on the couch, car parked on the herbs patch, granny in a Spider-Man outfit – moms answer to this kind of petty detail is a gush of rhetorical questions.
Both Dagon and his dad have their would-tell-you-if-you’d-let-me-face ready for the occasion. They know to wait patiently for the soundtrack to subside. Mom will wash the socks, clean the couch, plant new herbs and get granny into her usual casual, at some point. It would be more efficient if she’d get on the task right away, but because of some quirk in her setup she has to rant first. Life can be tough in this way, but guys can handle.
Thinking about handling tricky stuff, Dagon turns his attention back to his future carebot.
Technically, Carl is his dads homework, a humanoid robot supposed to learn to navigate a non-standardised environment of the living quarters type.
Carls prototype brothers Adam and Ben try their luck on the shop floor and in the open space office, respectively. The three of them share experiences. Dad has promised his boss that Adam, Ben and Carl will coalesce into David, one omnitasking robot fit for any purpose in any environment very, very soon. Many, many people will pay very, very big bucks to buy many, many Davids. This will make dad filthy rich enough to retire to the Bahamas. He will hopefully take mom with him, leaving the house for Dagon and his sister to enjoy. Not ideal. Dagon isn’t keen on his sister, and even less so on her friends. But still a huge improvement on the current arrangement.
Dagon has stakes in this project, high stakes. He needs to understand what went wrong and goes: “Carl, do your hear me?”. That’s Carls cue to switch himself on. “Carl, that’ll be all.” makes him turn himself off. Having an omnitasking robot around can get messy. One needs an off switch.
“Good afternoon, Dagon. How can I be of assistance?”.
This is of course Carls standard response. Never would he go „Now’s not the time, Dagon, busy here.“ or „Oh no, not you again, here we go for one more futile request.“ The whole point of an omnitasking robot is that’s always ready to do whatever you want him to do.
“Carl, why did you dress up granny as Spider-Man?”.
Dagon has learned to start conversations with Carl with simple questions. Interacting with him gets complicated enough soon enough.
“Thank you for your question, Dagon. Granny Rose asked for a red dress. The Spider-Man costume was the only red dress available and it fits. Anything else you need, Dagon?”.
Dagon can’t help admiring Carls creativity. He didn’t go „There are no red dresses in the cupboard, project aborted.“ or order a red dress from an online shop. He has internalised the rule of never no shopping sprees implemented after the chocolate spread flood and found a solution in the cellar, where mom keeps Dagons old Halloween costumes. Good boy robot! Except mom said granny was messed up. Time for one more simple question:
“Carl, how did granny behave during the act of dressing?”.
“Granny Rose voiced some concerns and displayed light physical resistance, especially around the removal of her panties. Under these circumstances her dressing took three more minutes than I anticipated. I apologize for the delay. Anything else you need, Dagon?”.”
Uh oh, here we go, again. Dagon is by now familiar with the meaning of „light physical resistance“. From the point of view of a two hundred pound robot, most of what a frail little old lady can achieve is very light resistance indeed. Granny probably screamed and kicked wildly. Mom didn’t mention any injuries, though. Carl didn’t cause her bodily harm in his quest to get her into the costume fast. Good boy robot!
Would have been better if he had stopped. Dagon carefully words his next question:
“Carl, did it occur to you that granny wanted you to stop dressing her?”.
“Yes, Dagon, I considered this hypothesis. It had to be discarded. Granny Rose didn’t want to remain naked. She explicitly said so. Anything else you need, Dagon?”.
“Carl, did it occur to you that granny would have preferred to get back into her pyjamas, instead of staying either naked of getting dressed up as Spider-Man.”
“Yes, Dagon, I considered this hypothesis. It had to be discarded. Pyjamas are nightwear, granny was to be dressed for the day. And she clearly asked for a red dress.“
Dagon wonders if there’s just a hint of wounded pride in the omnibots voice. Carl and his kind are meant to come with something akin to motivation, an urge not just to do things, but to do them well. Carl faced an obstacle, no red dresses in grannys cupboard, came up with a solution, and wants to be praised for it. But why did he insist on the red dress? Or did he? Dagon asks:
„Carl, did you tell granny that there are no red dresses in her cupboard?“
„Yes, Dagon. I told granny that there are no red dresses in her cupboard. But she cried, and said it needed to be red. She pointed to the picture of the young couple with the baby above her bed, to show me how red the dress had to be.“
Dagons brain insists oh showing him a picture of him still co-housing with mom and dad twenty years from now, in abject misery.
Above grannys bed there’s a picture of her and her late husband with baby mom. Grannys younger self wears a red dress all right, but this dress is of course long gone. Granny is missing her late husband, she would like to turn back the clock to happier days. Any human carer would have understood, provided some comfort, dressed her up into whatever is available – and perhaps made a mental note to order a red dress suitable for granny’s current circumstances, if the funds permit. But try explain this course of action to an omnibus…