Stress Testing

Posted on Tue 30th Aug, 2022 @ 3:22am by Lieutenant JG Bikram Auden
Edited on on Thu 15th Sep, 2022 @ 2:00am

1,232 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Hunted
Location: Earth
Timeline: Six months prior to Mission

{Okinawa, Japan}

They held their breath watching it come to life. Five professionals gaped in awe at their work made living. Phaesyla was the product of tens of thousands of work hours. Combining the suites of technology while maintaining the innate qualities of the Exo comp servomotor unit was beyond challenging. Folding tech to fit into small spaces was the day job, making sure it worked reliably was the nightmare.

"Doctor Chambers has begun full power initialization, stand by." The disembodied voice of the control room monitor sounded, but they could see it for themselves.

"Interactions live, begin dialogue. Imprinting protocols are beginning." The same voice spoke the obvious, this chick had just hatched, whoever it saw first was mother.

Four of them looked to one of them. T'ila of Remus blushed in reply. Who else would deserve the honor but her? T'ila never slept, had logged more time working than any two of them combined. Her blood and sweat was a part of this creature. She walked to the front of the formulation assembly, the replicator using matrix assembly for superior quality required an enclosed cage. T'ila opened the door to greet her new friend.

Inside the metal cave built into the table workstation of the engineering teams lab, a new life had just been made. T'ila peered in the door, where the sleek white oblong robot sat inert. Puzzled, T'ila pressed the commands to have it open channel.

"Phaesyla, welcome to Earth. Welcome to life little thing you."

<{[Phaesyla]=Acknowledge, language met, criteria met. Greetings.}>

The message appeared on her command padd. "Oh how silly of us. It doesn't know we prefer to hear things, its been sending text to me, look." She showed two dozen unreplied text prompts from the bot. She turned back to it to look again, "Phaesyla, you have auditory capability, and come on out of there, see the world. We are here to help you learn."

The mechanical voice of a c sharp tone replied. "[PHAESYLA]=Updating local registries, updating...[ERROR] Provide method of interaction for digital transference."

T'ila followed along, "Not yet Phaesyla, we need to make sure you can walk before we let you run around in the real world. And you don't need to tag your speech, we know it is you when we hear you, understand?"

The bot took an extra fraction of a second to reply, "Affirmation acknowledged."

Darro was a colleague to T'ila who found this exchange limiting. "T'ila there's no point if they are incompetent, how long until this thing can do a surgery, we can train a whole class of doctors in half the time it took to build this."

This earned him a glare from the group, and Moira Falcrest took great pleasure to quip, "we can test it on you if you're in such a hurry."

T'ila shushed them both, "It's a child still, and they are socially dependent, we would need at least two more to see their true processing power. Tag, set up the physical tests, Moira, run your system diagnostics as it takes on problems. Rickards and I will update Phaesyla."

They got to work, and patched the errors they found. The real world was the only stress testing left.

Rickards called out, "Emergency, help!"

The people ringed above in the observation dock all leaned forward to watch the surgical theater below. Rickards had a simulated crewman on a bio bed, coded to show as multiple knife wounds.

Phaesyla sprung to action, the smooth oblong hull suddenly grew lines as recessed panels revealed an array of tools. It raced from the resting cradle to the crewman. It took one second to scan, the various small tools popping out immediately suturing and sealing the copious bleeding. T'ila glared at Darro, who kept increasing blood pressure inexplicably, confusing the bot's diagnostics. A bleeding patient should not be gaining blood pressure. With this new wrinkle Phaesyla activated its EMH.

In a quantum instant the EMH was updated on the situation. He/it looked just as confused, and saw the spectators nearby. "Well, don't rush to my aid all at once." The EMH looked to the wounded crewman and with blinding speed began suturing the wounds and sealing them.

"Hmm, no more mysterious blood pressure rise?" He had finished and the patient had stabilized.

Darro hit the control for the crewman to have a heart attack. T'ila snatched the console from him.

The EMH didn't even move fast, but lazily returned to the simulated man. "Oh I see." The EMH turned away from the dying patient. "This man doesn't need a doctor; he needs an engineer. He is a hologram. My medical advice is to program it as not having 18 puncture wounds, acute gastric lacerations, four avulsions and a cranial hematoma."

The EMH disappeared and Phaesyla calmly hovered above the dying simulation. T'ila suspected and looked, finding the recoding of the simulation in progress. Phaesyla was curing them, no mater why or what, its drive was cure it. The simulated crewman stabilized, and with no Darro to exacerbate the scene Phaesyla finished the reports and returned to its cradle in a single fluid action.

With triumph in her beating heart she looked to Darro, and to the smiling crewman. Darro smiled back, he had no stakes in rooting for Phaesyla to fail, theirs was a success wrought together. The bot had performed well. The research would continue and more would be built. One of her students brought in a bottle of champagne. Soon they all had a small glass.

"My friends, here is to Phaesyla and the ones soon to come. Let's enjoy ourselves tonight, because tomorrow we make more just like this one... no not just like this one... different, specialized, unique. We are reshaping how medicine will be performed, we are saving lives.... we...."

T'ila was lost in thought, reverie and foresight swirling into a blend of pure passionate academic ecstasy. She could see the future of what this technology would bring, and was consumed by ideas to do more.

"... are making the future... and we..."

Moira helped her out, "And we are getting drunk! Whooo!"

T'ila lost her place in holding the delicate dreams of future whimsy, returning to her present with a touch of sadness at losing the insights. She laughed with her friends and they cheered the night on. Most are unlucky and never realize their impact, but T'ila felt the future change at this moment and had briefly, correctly, surmised where it lead. Automated doctors in far flung locations, lives saved plucked from the cruel world's circumstances through ingenuity and technology.

These bots would go farther and do more than she ever could. It was sad, to know your work would outlive you and their story untold for your passing awareness. So despite the revelry, the beautiful sadness a soul can generate bewildered her capacity for true joy. These myriad feelings were the future for her, as a living creature can only feel. Perhaps true emotion was a worthwhile expansion for these creatures. Her brow furrowed in consideration of the problem when she heard a voice pull her from the fog.

"You look so serious!"

Darro was offering a hand to her, Rickards was already dancing close to Moira. Life wasn't over just yet, it seemed. She smiled and took the hand, once again leaving her thoughts behind.

-End-

MED-Comps

 

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