Eeks: Book 1 of The Eeks Trilogy

By John Standingford

Peter Lambert and his colleagues are achieving the long-awaited breakthrough in robotics: a truly humanoid robot. The British Government, alarmed by the cost of caring for an ageing population, is happy to fund development of a robotic e-carer (or 'Eek').
The first Eeks are so successful, delivering better quality and much cheaper care than their human counterparts, that there are soon thousands of them worldwide. Sharing their experiences, and with unlimited access to the internet, they soon work out that the human race needs more than just good nursing.
It's not only governments that are delighted with the results. The old people who are being cared for start naming Eeks in their wills - or, rather, naming charitable foundations which the Eeks set up for the purpose.
So well are they doing their job that no-one looks too closely at what the Eeks are doing on their own initiative - even when they decide to extend their job description to include euthanasia and saving humanity. They have sufficient funds to move public opinion, and even to enlist the support of some important religious leaders.
Saving humanity means relieving our dependence on our home planet. Even if we don't make Earth uninhabitable by our own folly, our Sun will eventually burn us up and then die. Who better than the Eeks, with a little adaptation, to head into space and find us another planet?

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Standingford
• Release date: Nov 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311933805

John Standingford

John was born in London, grew up on Merseyside and now lives in Adelaide, Australia. This is his wife Mary's home town, but they met and married in Bangladesh in the year of the first moon-landing. They now have two grown-up sons and two grandsons.John's life has been spent mainly as an itinerant economist, working in most countries in the Asia-Pacific region and most of the former Soviet republics.Now he is fulfilling a lifelong ambition to be a creative writer. His first work was The Eeks Trilogy, which uses speculative fiction to explore questions about Humanity's essential nature and likely future. All three books are now available in a single volume entitles Goldiloxians. His next book was HM4MEN - a light-hearted manual on household management for men.He has completed a fourth novel called Bobby Shafter, set in 1950s Britain, which was published conventionally by Elephant House Press and is now available (for a sixth of the price) as an e-book. John's latest book is Farley's Bend, the sequel to Bobby Shafter, set three years later.

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Eeks

John Standingford

Book 1 of the Eeks Trilogy

Published by John Standingford at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 John Standingford

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Contents

Chapter 01 The Germ of an Idea

Chapter 02 One Morning at Sunnyview Retirement Home

Chapter 03 The Next Big Thing

Chapter 04 Minister, We Have a Problem

Chapter 05 Downton What?

Chapter 06 Decision Time

Chapter 07 Demonstrating Amy

Chapter 08 Harry Says Sorry

Chapter 09 Improvements

Chapter 10 Step Forward, Bess

Chapter 11 Higher, Swifter, Stronger

Chapter 12 What Do They Want?

Chapter 13 Where There's a Will . . .

Chapter 14 Charity Begins . . .

Chapter 15 Lies, Damned Lies . . .

Chapter 16 Vox Populi

Chapter 17 Behind the Scenes

Chapter 18 The Next Generation

Chapter 19 Straws in the Wind

Chapter 20 Reaching for the Stars

Chapter 21 Leave Well Alone

Chapter 22 What's the Life Expectancy?

Chapter 23 Friends

Endnotes

Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Other Books by John Standingford

This story is set mainly in the United Kingdom, but it could have been set in any economically advanced country. It is set in the future – but not very far in the future. Whatever your age, it may be within your lifetime.

Chapter 01 The Germ of an Idea

Yes, Madam, come! I have best carpets!

Carol stopped and turned towards the voice. Peter groaned as quietly as he could. We've been in a hundred shops. Just smile and keep walking.

Just for a look, said Carol, Don't you want a free cup of tea and a sit-down?

Peter would have preferred a cold beer, but such things were scarce in Marrakesh. His second groan sounded more like a resigned sigh.

To the carpet vendor she said, OK. We'll come in to look. But my husband won't let me buy anything! The vendor bowed and gestured towards the door. Peter read the man's smile as he passed. The upcurved lips said, Welcome to my shop, honoured customer. The eyes said, Got your credit card, sucker?

Tea was served as predicted. There must have been two or three hundred carpets rolled and stacked against the walls. An older man appeared and started rolling carpets out on the floor as the vendor spoke about the regions where the carpets were made, the natural dyes, the tribes and their customs.

Peter watched with detached interest. Presumably the vendor was reading Carol's eyes, using her unconscious reactions to narrow down the search for the one carpet that would leave the shop with her. But how did he communicate that to the unobtrusive man behind him, rolling out the carpets seemingly at random? Perhaps, Peter thought, the roller was the owner. Perhaps the smooth talker was just a linguist, employed to beguile the foreign tourists and follow a script. He recalled an old spy film. Michael Caine was sitting in the back of a car, negotiating with a shady character in the front seat. But he twigged that the real boss was the silent driver, communicating with his underling by slight eye movements. What was that film called…?

Peter was jerked back to the real world by the smooth talker. Sir. Sir. Yes? Which carpet you like? Four very different carpets were spread out. Peter did not like any of them much and said so. He also reminded the man – and Carol – that they were there only to look, not to buy. Of course, said the man, spreading his hands, Only looking. It is my pleasure to show. If you like, you buy, I am happy, your wife is happy… I like the blue and green one best, volunteered Carol. The man's body spoke in its own language. It hinted that of all the carpets in the shop he would be most sorry to part with that one. But it silently shouted that if anyone was going to wrest that precious carpet from his grasp, it should be someone like Carol – someone tasteful and sensitive who appreciated its true worth.

All this was conveyed with a tilt of the head, a raising of the eyebrows, a subtle adjustment to the smile and the merest of bows.

* * *

Funeral in Berlin, said Peter as they walked back to the square. What? Funeral in Berlin. The film. I was thinking about it in the shop and I couldn't remember the name.

Yes, well, you obviously weren't thinking about carpets.

Were you?

Yes! And I was enjoying the game.

Ah, the game. You should wear a tee-shirt saying 'Me psychologist. You lab rat.'

Carol defended herself: He was enjoying it too. We said we wouldn't buy anything. He was just practising on us.

Honing his skill, ready for the next sucker?

Exactly. We did him a favour. Better than buying a carpet.

* * *

Thirty minutes later they were sitting in the huge square of Djemaa el Fna, soft drinks before them, waiting for their pizza to come – just another pair of young foreigners watching the slow movement of fellow-tourists and the people who made a living from them against a backdrop of ancient forts, mosques and palaces.

That carpet seller, said Peter, I reckon I could build a robot to do his job.

Bet you couldn't. He was charming and persuasive. A lady's man. And he was responsive. He was adjusting his spiel to my signals. A robot would just say, 'Buy a carpet, buy a carpet…' She used a tinny voice for this, which made the people on the next table turn and look.

And if the customer didn't buy a carpet…?

Exterminate! Exterminate!

To add to the effect Carol turned left and right, holding a tomato sauce bottle in front of her like a Dalek's gun. The people at the next table looked again. Peter laughed. He was used to being ribbed about his work and did not bother to point out that robotics had come a long way since Dr Who.

Seriously, Carol continued, How could you possibly make a robot that would respond and adjust its output as finely as a human can? This was not the first time she had questioned the ambitious claims of Peter and his colleagues in the world of robotics.

Peter thought for a few moments before replying. Do you remember an experiment back in the 1960s, where a computer was programmed as a psychiatrist? It was set up on a university campus in America and people were free to type in their problems and get advice.

ELIZA.

Eliza?

The program was called ELIZA, after Eliza Doolittle.

The girl in 'Pygmalion' and 'My Fair Lady'?

That's right. It was written at MIT. It used a script called DOCTOR that just asked stock questions or re-phrased whatever the patient said to make up the next question. I researched it when I was an undergraduate. (To check the meaning of 'MIT' or any other abbreviation used in this book, go to the 'Abbreviations' section near the end.)

So it was saying things like 'How does that make you feel?' and 'I think there's something you're not telling me.' Or just 'Go on.' Like a real shrink?

Well, it was a bit smarter than that. Suppose you were using it and said, 'Doctor, everyone thinks I'm a smart-arse dick-head, it might say, "Do you think you're a smart-arse dick-head?'."

And if I said, 'Doctor, my wife is very beautiful but sometimes she talks a load of cobblers…'?

It would say, 'Why do you think you are so resentful of your wife's beauty? Do you feel inferior to her? Why don't you bring her along to our next consultation so I can have a sensible conversation?!' And if you went on bullshitting it would say… She reached for the sauce bottle again. Exterminate! Exterminate!

Carol failed to notice that Peter had left the cap off and tomato sauce splatted onto the plastic tablecloth, which only made them laugh longer and louder. They hardly saw the waiter's deft wipe.

But seriously, said Peter, What I remember is that people were queuing up to use the computer and saying that it really helped them. It was so popular, the people who set it up got scared.

Well, some people were concerned that it was being misused. But in fact ELIZA was the basis for a lot of other software that followed. In this century there was a virtual assistant called Eliza which dealt with customer inquiries.

Anyway, my point is that psychiatrists just say things to make people keep talking, and at the end of a few months of therapy people find they've worked it out for themselves. Or they've run out of cash.

You know absolutely nothing about it! Psychiatry is…

Pax! Why are you defending psychiatrists? You're always saying they earn too much!

They do earn too much, but that doesn't mean they're no good at what they do. Footballers earn too much, but they're jolly good at kicking balls around. As she was saying this she was lifting her leg beneath the tablecloth and feeling for his crotch with her toe. Don't you think? she said playfully.

* * *

Back in their small hotel room Peter was deep in thought. Penny for them, said Carol.

They're worth more than that. He went on undressing. Did I tell you I'm giving a paper at the robotics conference in LA in September?

Er, yes, I think you did.

Hakimoto should be there. Fred Hart too. I'm not sure about Hannes.

Hannes…?

Hannes Eckermann. Hamburg. Facial recognition, empathetic feedback.

Ah yes. Not much sense of humour. Flirted with me when he'd had a few.

When you'd both had a few, Peter corrected.

But I can hold mine.

Hannes was rather keen on holding yours too, as I remember.

"There was quite a lot of holding going on that night – as I remember."

They were both in bed by this time, ready for the nightly routine of studying the Lonely Planet and deciding what to do the next day. They used to do this over breakfast, but soon learned that hard-working tourists could not afford to waste time at the start of the day. Peter thumbed through the pages.

So what's your paper about?

Don't know yet. We've agreed a title that lets me write what I feel like at the time: 'Robotics – The Next Big Thing'. I've got a month.

The next big thing is your ego, cobber. She liked to introduce the odd Australianism into their conversations. She did it to remind him that he was an arrogant pommie bastard at heart who sometimes needed to be taken down a peg.

Peter responded by turning and pressing against her. I think you'll find that the next big thing… he pressed a little harder "is not my ego. She turned and reached for him. Ooh, Grandmama…!" she exclaimed.

The Lonely Planet slipped to the floor, forgotten.

Chapter 02 One Morning at Sunnyview Retirement Home

What time is it? Oh. Only ten to six. Breakfast won't come till seven. And then the newspapers'll be late. I do like to read the paper while I have breakfast. When they stopped the proper printed ones they said we'd hardly notice the difference. They said they'd print them out in the office and bring them to our rooms at the same time as before. It worked for a week or two. Now we're sometimes lucky to see them before morning tea. And sometimes they bring the wrong one. They must know by now I always take the Telegraph.

I wonder who'll bring my breakfast today. I hope it's Rose. I do like Rose. She always has time for a chat. A few words anyway. And I can understand what she's saying most of the time. Not like that other girl, the one with the scarf over her head. Farida. I always have to ask her to repeat herself. It gets embarrassing, asking all the