Chapter 7

A New Plan

Yankee Division Highway, about to exit at Exit 27. Nearing the final destination. The self-driving car lowered its speed and headed towards the robot manufacturing company, the Boston Mechanics at the Waltham, Massachusettes. Jay looked out of the window. As there were many one-story buildings, the sky, embracing puffy clouds, seemed widely spanned out.

Around 50 people were picketing, shouting out loud and stamping their feet. Many of them were so called the “L Generation (Neo Luddite Generation)”. It referred to the young generation whose jobs were taken away by machines. They were the victims.

“We need jobs!”

Jay reserved the self-driving car to meet him at the same spot later, and then got off. Although there were not many people participating the demonstration, the ambiance was rather intense. Jay took some pictures of the demonstrators, and sent them over to the head office.

The human-like robots, namely, the “Robotas“ manufactured at small to medium sized factories of the Boston Mechanics penetrated into the market from around mid 2020’s – right after the time when the Coronavirus pandemic swept the world. Robotas were made similar to human body, accompanying two arms and legs, thus, it was unnecessary for the factory owners to redesign the manufacturing process. The seats where human used to occupy were simply replaced with the Robotas. Moreover, Boston Mechanics adopted an aggressive price dumping policy which brought them successful expansion of their products.

A non-grumbling worker who need no vacation, no break. Only for $30,000 a year!

This copy was strong enough to impress business owners in an era when the strategy of moving production plants to a place where labor costs were cheap no longer worked.

The once settled flow did not care to change. Service industry, where only the kiosks used to be automatized, could no longer fend off the change. Human “labor”, in a traditional sense, is long gone. “Robota” which comes from the word “slave”, took our “arduous work”, but it did not make us humans become happy. Moreover, the social system was not fast enough to catch up with the change. The basic income policy did not receive congressional support in many regions, and workplace had decreased in record-breaking numbers.

Some broadcasters connected the demonstration live, “There are assumptions that a private organization, the Humanity, is maneuvering the demonstration behind the scene. Some even predict that the mass unemployment of L Generation may develop into a terrorist act. The word ‘Robota’ first appeared in Karel Capek’s play in which the robots gain power and massacre all human. At Massachusettes Waltham, this is Harry Cooper, CNN.”

Jay walked past the picketing squad and entered the Boston Mechanics building. Two armed guards wearing bulletproof vests, verified Jay’s invitation and allowed him to pass. Inside the building, Robotas wearing uniforms just like humans, guided the guests. The reason Robotas were only serving inside the building was in order not to rouse the picketing squad.

One of the journalist said, “Did you hear about today’s announcement?” His Colleague replied, “Something about a new vision, but I don’t know any details. Some analysts said that it will be about expanding the factories in China...”

Jay did not know much about today’s event either. Robot industry was one of his scope of coverage. He searched for related reports on stock trading and flow of funds but could not find anything concrete. 'How did X know about this...' Jay thought.

Jay thought about X whom he had met at the Trinity Church. He assumed that predicting the future just like a psychic may also be possible. Jay was already a well known journalist in social media due to his continuous investigative articles, Boston Mechanics promoted that they will be doing a grand press conference. Moreover, the fact that the deceased Mars One Project pilot’s name was Tina, was also no secret.

The managing director of PR, Nicole Jacqueline appeared on stage. As the pin lights were spotting onto her, her blonde hair shone shining bright. She said, “I am sure you are wondering about the reason we invited you all here. Well, but I cannot give you a hint. My boss told be this morning that if I did, I’d be fired right away.” As Jacqueline made a joke, the audience applauded and laughed. Jacqueline’s red lips were sensually articulating the words she spoke. “As you see, I am still rather young. Not ready to retire yet,” said Jacqueline. She shrugged her shoulders. “Today’s event will be more of a ‘presentation’ than a press conference. May I introduce you Mr. Howard Mason, the President of Boston Mechanics!”

Howard Mason walked out of the dark onto the stage. As his body was infected by the Charcot-Marie-Tooth-disease, he was wearing the exoskeleton suit product developed by his own company to keep his body upright. The signal from his brain went through the brain-computer interface up to his exoskeleton. A malicious hereditary disease has invaded his body. His arms and legs were weak as his motor and sensory nerves were damaged. He could not even walk by himself.

Howard Mason gave an presentation, “Boston Mechanics will stop manufacturing the Robotas.”

His first sentence was shocking enough to utterly quiet down the press conference hall, for exactly 5 seconds. Then, on every channel appeared a breaking news caption: “Boston Mechanics announces to stop manufacturing Robotas”. The news was seen by the squad outside the building as well. The demonstrators could not hide their confusion. They did picket to stop the manufacture, but never did they imagine that the company will actually make such decision. The audience inside the building was waiting for Howard to continue his speech.

“ 'The eternal progress of technology for humanity', We have never forgotten even for one second the founding corporate philosophy of Boston Mechanics."

The history of Boston Mechanics – from year 2010 when Boston Mechanics first manufactured 2 legged walking robots as an assignment from DARPA(Defence Advanced Research Project Agency) and their continuous developments and activities – were shown on the grand screen on stage, accompanied by sublime music.

“We had hoped that Robotas will co-exist with humanity and bring a better future for us all....but we realized this was such a naive thought. The owners who employed Robotas were just busy taking away human positions, thus, in contrast to our hope, Robotas have become the enemy of humanity.”

The screen showed a video of Robotas being brutally attacked. People smashed Robotas’ heads, opened their stomachs, broke their arms and legs and poured on the gasoline to burn them up. The video was shot purely from the viewpoint of the robots. However, Jay knew that the reality was quite the opposite. The automation which took away human labor, pushed them to suffer in extreme poverty. Howard Mason spoke eloquently using big hand gestures, and his oily face glowed brightly upon the focused light.

Howard had fully enjoyed the time span of Robotas being the enemy of humankind. Boston Mechanics had already made a fortune with the ‘Robota series’ and licenses were being extensively distributed. A Korean conglomerate, Sam Hwan Electronics, was deeply involved with this situation. Sam Hwan Electronics covered the production of GPU(Graphics Processing Unit) known for its vertical internal specialization, special alloys for producing robots, and also the area of artificial skin. That is to say, Robota production would not be influenced with the Boston Mechanics’ halt of its production system. The quarterly patent fee for Robotas exceeded fifty billion dollars. They were obsessed with achieving exclusive patents from worldwide – patents concerning two-foot robots, movement of hand abd arm, as well as its AI. Boston Mechanics was deemed as the most exceptional and monstrous a organization, on top of being a ‘Patent Troll’ in the market.

“We are about to map out the future. As we always have, we will take our first step in the area never set foot by humankind,” said Howard.

Suddenly the stage became dark. People started to whisper at each other.

“What are they thinking? What is it they want?” said one of the participants. “Are they seriously gonna manufacture sex robots?”

The sex-robots which were modified from the Robota series by changing the firmware were extremely popular. The related industry has immensely expanded.

At the spot where Howard Mason was standing, appeared a red and round 3 dimension hologram video. It was none other than the 4th planet of the solar system, the Mars. Boston Mechanics was closing down the robot business and announcing to step into the space industry. Boston Mechanics was to become the new owner of Space Odyssey. Jay froze in surprise.

Jay thought, 'Is this what X had mentioned?'

Some people who were at the press conference stood up and applauded. Most others were perplexed but soon joined to applaud for the company’s new announcement. Emotional contagion, it was. The first group of people who stood up and applauded were probably paid for the act.

From the dark side of the stage, Howard Mason’s powerful voice was heard, “From tomorrow, July 20th we plan to change our company name to Dragonfly Inc. Ever since 1969 we have been dreaming; a dream that depraved politicians and bureaucratic NASA could not fulfill, a dream that Space Odyssey could not realize. From now on, we will take charge and make the great dream of 'Human migration to Mars' become reality.”

The gigantic logo of “Dragonfly” which looked more like a dragon than a dragonfly, appeared overwhelmingly over the audience. It overlapped with image of Mars on the stage. Everybody applauded even louder but Jay was so confused that he could not hear anything. If what X had told him was the truth, then what he said about Tina may also be real. Maybe Tina was alive after all.

“If she is alive, where could she be? Then, what is buried at the Barrancas National Cemetery?” said Jay in a low voice. Jay’s heart began to pound.

The demonstrators were watching Howard Mason’s press conference, forgetting the fact that they had to shout slogans against him. A man on the right side of the demonstrators with white shirt and jeans spoke to a woman colleague. He was tall and had a lean figure. He said,

“Christina, would you organize the rest?” “No problem, Hugh.” answered Christina.

Hugh smiled slightly raising his dark eyebrows and winked at Christina. He got out of the line, pulled out his mobile phone and spoke to someone. A self-driving car arrived in front of him. “Let’s go to Bowling Green, New York,” said Hugh.

We will arrive in 3 and a half hour at I-95.

The self-driving car entered the expressway. The man had heard that the private stocks of Boston Mechanics were being traded at exorbitantly high price in the futures market. He was getting bad vibes. Futures, in principle, is a gamble betting on one side of the two number of cases. The most high-level information is present at the future markets. There must have been confidential reports on the side purchasing the Boston Mechanics - that Boston Mechanics have manufactured something extraordinary.

"But then, they stop manufacturing the Robotas?" said Hugh.

Howard Mason’s announcement did not make sense. Either the information was wrong, or if not, Howard Mason was using a trick. It was time to meet X.