Fetch

By Paul Richardson

Each year In Venture Industries promoted a unique Christmas toy. Since graduating from university, Victor Nerdie, and sister Victoria, had submitted a creation, each believing, theirs would be the chosen toy. With Victor being the successor on all previous occasions, Victoria believed, finally, this year, she had created a winner with the realistic fox terrier she called Fetch.
She was unaware the President of IVI, Victor and Victoria’s grandfather, had already agreed a third-party product would be that year’s annual Christmas toy. In tough times, business principles must be compromised to survive.
Disappointed her technologically advanced offering had been outbid Victoria threw the toy away and quit the company. However, she did not realise her brother had tampered with Fetch before she had disposed of it.
Victor stayed on and helped produce a computer game that promoted a new product called Puzzle Flakes. With a prize of one million dollars attached, the game was a hit around the world.
Unbeknown to the Nerdies, the discarded Fetch had found a new home with ten-year-old Sam and Samantha Perrett. No longer a simple chase and retrieve toy, Fetch’s acquired artificial intelligence led to adventures in both the real and the virtual world.
Fetch’s desire to please took the toy on a physics-defying mission into the heart and soul of the Puzzle Land computer game.
Despite being a machine Fetch learned about loyalty and laughter and, over time, it learned about the power of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781716209123

Paul Richardson

Paul Richardson owns and manages a small farm and vineyard in western Spain. He is also the author of Our Lady of the Sewers and Other Adventures in Deep Spain, Cornucopia: A Gastronomic Tour of Britain, Indulgence: One Man's Selfless Search for the Best Chocolate in the World, and Williams-Sonoma Barcelona.

Book preview

Grandad.

Chapter One

Twenty minutes until the presentation.

In Lab 7-11, something was not right. Doctor Victoria Nerdie scrolled through the screens. An equation for sure. But which one?

The dog could sit. Shake hands. Lie on its side as if it were asleep.

The motor-drives were functioning.

Her toy could hold the custom sized rubber ball in its mouth. It would let go if given the command, drop it.

The vision function was in order.

When its eye cameras saw the ball in her hand, its tail wagged.

And the interactive features?

If a hand touched the synthetic hair on the toy’s back, it wagged its tail. Friction, as fingernails scratched the nylon beneath the fur, created static and caused the tail to wag faster.

Power?

The battery was fully charged. It would operate for more than forty hours.

Fetch feature?

The toy could sense the ball to twenty metres.

So which equation was not correct? With time against her, Victoria continued her frantic search.

Life size, finished in every detail, including a moist rubber nose, the Miniature Fox Terrier was perfect. Well almost.

If only the computer programmer could fix the final responses. She was confident her grandfather would accept her project to be the company’s signature toy this Christmas, if it functioned as per her specifications.

Victoria scrolled the list of equations which cascaded down the screens in front of her. It had to be one of them. She looked at the time on the screen-clock to the right.

Oh no! Eighteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds!

She took a risk. She reversed the sequence of the second bottom line on the left screen. She looked down. The dog wagged its tail. She said, Fetch!

The toy at Victoria’s feet looked at her, wagged faster and barked.

Fiddley flibbit! Victoria pressed Undo.

She adjusted the bottom line. She gave the command, Fetch!

The toy wagged its tail, lifted its front left paw, ready to shake hands.

Double fiddley flibbit.

Undo.

Scroll across.

Line seven. Change X to the power of three, to X squared.

Fetch!

The toy growled.

Fifty gazillion fiddley flibbits!

Undo.

The time?

Fifteen to go.

At least two minutes in the lift. Oh, come on Vickie! You think you are a genius. That is what you tell Victor. You must get this right. You can’t have your brother win the Christmas toy contract, like he has for the past four years.

How many more times did she have to put up with his big braggy brain-showers on Christmas morning as his winning toy was opened under the company tree. She could not bear to have her grandfather say, yet again, her project was a good try for a girl.

What if I delete line five? That equation is the same as line four. Maybe I entered it twice.

Delete.

Fetch!

The toy ran across the room, scooped up the ball in its mouth, ran back and sat at Victoria’s feet. She said, Good dog!

The toy wagged its tail.

Drop it.

The terrier widened its jaw. The ball fell to the carpet.

In a flash Victoria leaned over and snatched up the ball. The dog wagged its tail. Victoria swung the ball around in her hand. The dog danced. It barked. She threw the ball across the room, out of sight. She shouted, Fetch!

The dog scanned the room. It located the ball. It ran to it, snapped it up and brought it back. It sat beside Victoria’s chair, ball between its front paws. It looked up and wagged its tail.

Victoria leaned down and pushed her fingers into the soft fur between the toy’s front legs. She touched the sensor. The toy shut down.

Victoria lifted her dog. She kissed its head. Good dog!

An Enter-tab click saved the program. A card ejected from a slot in the side of her PC. She took it, inverted the toy, and opened the press-locked flap on the dog’s chest. She inserted the card, closed the latch, and slid the dog into the brightly labelled display box. She tucked the package under her arm.

Let’s go, Fetch, said Vickie. You are about to become the most wanted toy in Santa’s sack. You are the new wonder dog. And because of you, I am sure to be promoted by Pop. Just think. Your inventor is about to become Vice President of In Venture Industries. And when Pop retires, I will be President! And guess what, Fetch? The first thing I will do when I am President? Can you guess?

Victoria sighed, No, you can’t. You are just a robot. You’re not programmed to predict. Well, I will tell you. I will demote Victor, my bully of a brother! Ha! Wait till he sees you in action. There is no way he will have created a toy as awesome as you!

Chapter Two

The email had come through yesterday. Its demands had given him a sleepless night. Three cups of coffee this morning and he had finalised his response. At first, he did not know how to reply. He had spent a lifetime building the business. Initially it was creative toys: puzzles, science kits, basic electronics. In recent years, thanks to the creativity of his grandchildren, IVI had transformed. It was now the leading technological toy maker in the country. Profits had been extraordinary. A recent feature and major marketing strategy for the company was the annual IVI Christmas toy. It had proven so popular that, even before it was announced each year, children would write to Santa and ask for the IVI Christmas toy, not even knowing what it was going to be.

But fortunes in business are fickle. Recent pandemic shutdowns had seen sales falter. Last year had been a disaster, despite the amazing toy IVI had promoted. It had simply been too expensive. And, while the markets had recovered, at least to a point where outlay on a new product was more viable, the overseas producers and the online sellers had crushed sales. Despite years at the head of the most popular toy company in the country, the President of IVI knew this year’s Christmas promotion would need more than a clever product for the company to break even. That is why he had accepted the offer of a lifeline proposed in yesterday’s email. He was interested, however, to see what Vick and Vickie had developed, even though neither would get his nod of approval.

Ewan Auldfarht looked at his watch. Twelve minutes. His grandchildren would be preparing for the ride up to the board room, both with an innovative product for him to see.

To date, he had always chosen Victor’s creation. And Victoria had always stormed out on him before he had the chance to tell her the toy she proposed would be added to production, even though it would not be the Christmas Toy.

But this year was going to be different.

He read his screen again. He could not believe he was about to sell out his own grandchildren. But what could he do? The future of the company was more important.

He pressed Send.

Chapter Three

The woman waited for the driver to walk around and open her door. Hyan Fyber stepped out onto the pavement, into the buzz of a busy city street. She looked up at the building in front of her. Apparently, the board room was at the top. She hated elevators. The pain in the pit of her stomach always caught her, regardless of how much she braced after the doors closed. She sighed. There were too many floors to walk the fire steps. Perhaps, if this promotion was the success she and her partner planned it to be, they may be able to take over IVI. Then she could have the engineers slow the initial ascent of the lift cars.

Hyan checked her phone. Twelve minutes. She said to her driver, Ursula. I guess I will be about an hour. Go find yourself a coffee. I will call when I need you.

Ursula Ber gave a mock salute and walked back to the driver’s door.

Before she entered the building, Hyan sent a text message:

Arrived. Thanks for letting me know Auldfarht has caved in. Knew the deal was too much of a temptation. Now just need to deal with the young ones. C ya after I sign off.

The sensor triggered the motor and the huge glass door sliders opened. Across the sheen of the lobby tiles beyond the café, she spotted the silver doors. She took the ones on the left. That lift was express.

Chapter Four

It was eight minutes until the presentation. In Lab 7-10, Victor Nerdie leaned back on his chair, both feet up on the desk, hands behind his head. He smiled. With the room next door now vacant, he shut down the surveillance monitors for Lab 7-11.

Billy stood beside him. Just under 130 centimetres tall, the robot was almost eye to eye with his seated inventor. Unlike traditional androids, Billy’s silicone skin was lifelike, moulded to resemble a stocky, but fit boy. The flexibility in Billy’s outer layer hid the levers and hydraulics used for the machine to simulate movement. Victor had deliberately tinted Billy’s surfaces a Shrek-like green. He wanted to avoid any suggestions of racial bias had he chosen a naturally light or dark skin colour.

Billy’s facial features were cartoon like. Victor was a fan of his father’s old MAD comics, so he tried to make Billy look like that publication’s main character. The ears were larger than they needed to be. The hair was glossy, moulded, high fringed and cropped short at the neckline. While he could raise his eyebrows, blink his eyes, frown, and smile, he was obviously animated.

Billy wore a red IVI logoed golfing shirt, denim trousers, and white branded running shoes. Victor had placed a sky-blue IVI cap on the robot’s head. The brim was flat. It stood up at the front and made Billy look taller.

Victor looked at the robot beside him. He was proud of his invention. Since being appointed to the toy development section of the company, he had created many saleable products. His grandfather had always been impressed. Billy, however, was special. He was the result of more than a year of research, programming, engineering, and many prototypes.

The inventor smirked. He knew he had outperformed his sister again. While he had to admit her puppy dog looked cute, it was no match for the toy he was about to present to his grandfather. In his mind, he ran through the scene which would unfold in the board room. Pop would be polite. He would tell Victoria her project was excellent and, like he had done every other year, tell her she had done a good job for a girl. Then Pop would congratulate him for his innovative and ground-breaking design. And like other years, Victoria would throw her chair, stomp her feet, scream, and storm out.

Victor said, Poor Victoria.

Billy hummed and buzzed. He said, Victoria is not poor. She is the granddaughter of a billionaire.

Billy paused. He hummed and buzzed again. He said, I have just scanned her bank account. She has one thousand, seven hundred and four dollars and sixteen cents in it. Oh, less seventy-four dollars and ninety-nine cents which is a pending transaction for an online purchase she made yesterday. If I include her investment accounts, market shares, and bonds she will have legal access to at age thirty, as well as her share of the uncut diamond collection stored in the company safe, she is worth a total of more than half a million dollars. That is calculated with the diamonds based on today’s market value. Compared to the portfolio of the average twenty-six-year-old female taxpayer, she is not poor. In fact, my calculations indicate she would be considered by most observers as well off.

Billy. I do not mean that kind of poor.

Billy said, Poor p-o-o-r, lacking sufficient money to live at a comfortable standard in a society. As I have already stated, Victoria does not lack sufficient money to participate in society.

Oh, you have a lot to learn! There are other meanings for poor’."

Please wait Master Victor, I will search my dictionary.

No Billy. Do not do that. Just trust me when I say Vickie is going to throw a big tantrum when she finds out you will be chosen as this year’s IVI super toy.

Tantrum. An uncontrolled outburst of anger, usually by a young child. Can be referred to, colloquially, as chucking a wobbly, going off the deep end.

Billy! Stop. Just trust me, okay. Vickie is not going to be happy when Pop sees you.

Master Victor. I am a machine. I do not know how to trust. In fact, I am not programmed to show any form of emotion. It is a downside of being a robot developed with artificial intelligence.

Not for long, my ticket to the Vice Presidency. Your Supersleuth drive has built-in software which will embed emotional experiences until you learn to feel and think like a human. I can also give you a range of firmware updates to tweak you. For now, I need you to be the obedient android you have proven to be. It is what will make you a best seller.

Do you mean like an Amazon download?

Amazon? What are you talking about?

A movie, a book, a song? They can be best sellers.

Ha Billy. Good one. You will eventually be available on Amazon, and you will be a best seller. Come on, we must go. How long will it take to get up to the board room?

Billy paused. His eyes closed. His head tilted. He hummed and buzzed. His eyes opened. He said, Lift One is descending. Currently passing Floor Twenty, express to Floor Sixteen. I have pressed the page button remotely. It takes twenty-seven seconds for a human to walk from where you now sit to the elevator doors. It will take a further seventeen seconds for us to enter and select the executive suites. I can override the system to ensure we travel express. That takes Thirty-three seconds. The walk from the elevator car to the board room will take you nineteen seconds, so by my calculations, if the meeting commences in six minutes and Fourteen seconds, we will have four minutes and Thirty-eight seconds to wait.

Thank you, Billy. Do you want me to carry you or will you walk?

Master Victor, my power pack is at eighty-three percent. Outside the board room, I will wait by the window. Even though it is filtered light, four minutes of charge will increase my power status by seven percent. I can walk and not compromise my energy supply.

Chapter Five

With her boxed toy in her arms, Victoria watched the red numbers change as the lift car climbed from the Lobby.

Good morning Victoria, Billy said. It is a fine day today. However, even with limited sunshine outside the building, the temperature inside remains constant: Twenty-three degrees Celsius, Seventy-three point four Fahrenheit.

Huh! Who cares?

Billy looked up. His face motors lifted his cheeks and created a smile. Well, Miss Victoria, perhaps you should care.

Why should I care? And how do you know my name?

I have been watching you on the security monitors. Master Victor identified you as Victoria, his wizzling sister. I know a sister is a sibling, but I do not know how to wizzle. Does wizzling require special movements?

Victoria looked at her brother. Nice one, Nugget head! You been spying on me?

To Billy, she said, "My artificially intelligent friend, if you want to learn the meaning of the word ‘wizzle’, I suggest you observe Victor after Pop tells him