2.3 ROBOT INTEGRATION PROGRAM HQ
What Max saw almost made her freak out. There seemed to be numbers and words floating everywhere, right in front of her. They looked like the imaging on qGoggles run amok.
After a few seconds she realized what she was seeing. It was a 3-D display showing a fully dimensional video of the hallway, with kids pushing and shoving past. And each kid had a bunch of numbers floating over his or her head. Then she saw herself zooming toward the viewer, weaving in and out of other kids' paths, until she filled the screen.
Over her head it said:
Hallway.obj.321
Vel.34.2, 0, 22.43
Face.Recog: processing …
Meanwhile, words scrolled over all this like movie credits on very fast-forward:
Obj.avoidance(320) processing …
Find.path(a*) processing …
Right.leg(forward, speed:10.87543)
Obj.avoidance(321) processing …
Record.data.obj.321
Find.path(a*) processing …
Right.leg(back, speed:6.987654)
Balance.check() null pointer returned
Then it went black again.
She pulled off the helmet.
"Is that what Fuzzy sees? No wonder he fell over."
She was surprised to see that both Jones and Nina were watching her intently.
"Exactly," said Jones. "That's why we need your help."
"I need a new hallway navigation program" came Fuzzy's slightly mechanical, disembodied voice again.
"Well," said Max, "I can do a little programming, mostly Nix++ and some Nextran, but …"
"Oh, don't worry about that," said Nina. "Fuzzy can reprogram himself."
"Obviously," said Jones, "it would be no big deal to program a robot to follow a path from point A to point B, but navigating a hall full of kids is much more complicated. The point with Fuzzy is that he doesn't need to be preprogrammed. He can figure things out for himself and then constantly update his programming to get better and better."
"Right," said Nina. "So, eventually he would learn how to get through the halls here—even when they are packed with a bunch of crazy kids—but we can't have him out there falling down again and again."
"And we're on a tight deadline," interjected Jones. "We need to get on to the big stuff."
"Right," Nina said again. "The big stuff—going to classes, meeting the other students, and so on. That's what we're really here for. So he needs someone to quickly teach him how to get through the halls, and we noticed on the vid that you do it pretty well."
"You were great, Object 321," said Fuzzy. "I saw you weaving through the crowd. But you never bumped into anyone. You understand how hallway navigation works. You can help me."
Max didn't think her hallway survival skills were any better than anybody else's. But it would be crazy to tell them she couldn't help … because she really wanted to. And yet it felt a little like she was getting her driver's chip early. Sure, she'd love to drive a car, but shouldn't she get a lesson or something first?
"What if I try to help but he ends up falling over again?" she asked. "What if I break him?"
Dr. Jones laughed. "He's designed to survive a lot, even something as rough as landing on another planet—or, I mean, some really rugged place like that. We've had him walk through two deserts, a jungle, and a mountain range. So I don't think you can damage him. Just help him figure out the little stuff, and if any big stuff happens, we're monitoring everything and we'll be right there."
"Will you do it, Object 321?" asked Fuzzy.
"Yeah, sure, I'll try. But, please, just call me Max."
"One second, Object 321."
There was a long pause. Longer than one second. Then, so suddenly that she jumped, the robot came to life. He walked across the floor and held out his hand. She put out hers, and the robot shook it. His hand wasn't cold as she had expected.
"Thank you, Max," the robot said.
Max smiled. "The first thing I need to teach you, Fuzzy," she said, "is that only old people shake hands."
