Fri, April 18, 2003

It's hard to believe a few weeks before I was running around in the tops of trees fleeing acid-spewing robots and fearing for my life. The weeks since had been pretty uneventful to me, largely because I was not there. Gary (he's a small robot and spiritual guide to his village of other small robots; so far, he'd been my host on the island) had this little device that basically seemed to be able to do anything. As the keeper of such a device, you can imagine the rigid code that he'd constructed to guide his use of it. After all, if you can do anything, there's nothing to stop you from doing everything except your own sense of morality.

Well, Gary's sense was pretty hard to nail down.

You see, the island had been in the process of being ravaged by swarms of robots called Bohrok. For the most part, the swarms were like politicians – for all their barking and self-important posturing, they didn't really affect us as we went about our daily lives. A few weeks earlier, one group attacked Gary's village and began devouring everything. Since most of Gary's fellow villagers lived in the treetops, they were safe. Until these robots began spraying some sort of acid onto the tree trunks and felling the trees. (This was all set about by some sort of electromagnetic- oh, there's no need to go into that.) Anyway, his village (Le-Koro) was under heavy attack and many of the Le-Koronans were dying. Seems like a good time to employ that little magical gearbox of his, wouldn't you say? Not to Gary. Well, I can respect that. I mean, if he used it to save people all the time, nobody would die, circle of life interrupted, yadda yadda. But here's the thing: a few days later, Gary and I were in trouble and he invoked his special box and whisked us away to a tropical island. We had some drinks, calmed down a bit, and then he sent me into some sort of suspended animation and returned home.

What was that about? I tried asking him about it in the few days after I returned but he denied any knowledge and insisted his name was actually Larry. I knew it wasn't because his name was imprinted right on his breastplate.

The best I could guess was that over years of invoking that little gearbox to do his bidding, his memory chips had suffered a little and he'd forgotten his own moral compass. I don't think even he knew which situations he believed were appropriate for its use. He just used the thing. I wish I had any idea what it was or how it worked, because I'd have gotten it to explain some things to me if I could have worked it. But he seemed to be the only one who could really get it to do anything, considering all he did was twist little gears the tiniest amount and everything changed. I think it would take me a while to learn how to do that.

But I was back. He wouldn't tell me where I was, or answer any questions, really. As far as I could tell, the village was safe, but had suffered quite a few casualties. Apparently, Gary never saw fit to undo that. It was unclear whether the other Le-Koronans were aware of his box or what it did. I never heard them mention it. For the most part, though, the Le-Koronans had industriously rebuilt their treetop village (as well as the decoy village at ground level) and were attempting to return to their normal lives. The local economy had taken quite a hit, and I suppose that's why Gary organized Casino Night.

If you've never been to a Casino Night (or "Casino Nite" as Gary insisted it be called), it's basically a fund raiser event where people play Blackjack or Baccarat or Roulette or whatever and enjoy themselves while supporting some cause. Gary's heart was in the right place, but I don't think he understood the concept completely. It would appear that rather than setting up a few card tables in the church basement, Gary had taken the approach of constructing an elaborate casino with buffet, entertainment, and gambling. What's more, he'd used his little box to convince everyone in the village that the casino had always existed and they had always worked there. (And robots have a very different concept of "always" than you and I.) I was a pit boss.

This meant that I walked around the card tables in my area and ensured that everyone was playing by the rules. The thing is, robots also have a different concept of playing cards than you and I. Decisions that take us minutes take them microseconds. Calculations are done on the order of billions a second. So, all the robots were playing at least two thousand hands of Blackjack at a time, and they were hitting or standing approximately 40 times a second. The only reason it took that long was that the dealing robot still had to move the physical cards around. I have no idea if they even realized I wasn't a robot, because if so it seems illogical that I would be expected to keep up with that.

I had a helper robot that walked around with me, calling my attention to matters where my sign-off was needed. Around 350 robots cashed in chips in a given minute, so I resorted to just okaying it without bothering to check it out. Fortunately, my assistant was capable of registering my okay to a few hundred things at a time, so I could just say "Yes" and move on. Despite the fact that everyone, myself included, believed this had been going on forever, it was still my first day and I had no idea what I was doing. So, I just walked around and tried to look interested and busy and so far nobody had said anything.

As usual, it was impossible to tell what time it was in the casino. Of course, it was even stranger in this case because the robots didn't get tired or have to use the restroom. They just played and played and played. Every so often, Gary would come by and look at me and turn a gear on his box. As a result, I was able to stay on my feet and act as Pit Boss without getting hungry or exhausted. After I realized what was going on, I started keeping track of how often he came around. By my count, I could estimate that my shift had lasted about sixty-five hours. I wasn't tired or anything, and I got free sodas from the waitresses, so I had no reason to complain.

Around fifty hours later, something caught my attention. It began as a subtle drone but before long it was a rather steady screech. The robots had begun to run out of the various oils and lubricants that kept them running smoothly. I cornered Gary and asked him about it. Could his box provide lubricant? Could "Casino Nite" finally draw to an end?

"Too soon," he replied.

You see, the house has a slight advantage in any casino situation. That's what makes it profitable. It's on the order of one to three percent mathematically. However, over the tens of trillions of Blackjack hands and spins of the Roulette wheel, the house had accumulated some incredibly substantial winnings. Gary was concerned that if he ended the Casino Night at that point, the Le-Koro economy would be a shambles.

This was one of many times I would have throttled him if it would have done anything. "Well then why not turn your gearbox and redistribute the money or something?"

"That would not be optimal."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I have computed possible outcomes, and there is too much risk. I must find another way."

I told him to hurry, before some of the robots began to overheat, and returned to my station where 50,000 decisions awaited my approval. I signed off on those and sipped my Coke. I started to think back on how frustrating Gary was, but it got really weird having memories of the world before "Casino Nite" and also remembering only working there as a pit boss for all eternity. This was truly no environment for a human. The robots would happily accept any new reality without a thought to the past, but it wasn't nearly so easy for me.

Right around then, Gary strolled by and furtively took my arm, leading me away. We walked to a quiet area in a nearby corridor and he explained that the best plan he could formulate was to casually go around adding bust cards to all the Blackjack dealers' shoes. I told him it was idiotic. What about the other gamers? Besides, time was far too short for us to wait around for the wealth to be redistributed that way. The squealing of the gambling robots was beginning to pierce my brain! Gary crossed his arms and sulked.

I knelt down to his level and tried to look in his eyes. "We have to do something," I said. "What if these robots are damaged beyond repair?"

"Fine!" he shouted and twisted a gear on his box.

An enormous fire-breathing dragon appeared in the buffet area and started stomping its way through the casino, incinerating everything in its path. Robots began to stampede out of the building in terror and the whole place was burned to the ground within minutes.

The following ten months were consumed with lawsuits on behalf of various classes of robots who claimed damage, pain and suffering, and lost winnings as a result of the casino's insufficient dragon-proofing security system. One by one, the casino settled these cases with huge cash settlements. Signing the last check, Gary smiled at me and said, "See? I told you there was a better way."

That night I made my first attempt to escape that godforsaken island.

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