^{Part 1
Part 2
Part 3}

I set about wiping away the gunk, the rain somewhat facilitating my work. I’d initially figured it for a Hero Junior as one of the eyes was buried in trash, but once liberated I realized it was the more advanced successor, Hero 1. Giddiness made my hands shake. I didn’t have one of these yet; the Junior variant is vastly more commonplace.

I switched it on briefly to gauge the extent of the damage. A series of confused beeps and whirring motors driving the stubby little wheels confirmed that the damage was only superficial.

I switched it off and whispered “Come with me, little guy. I’m taking you someplace wonderful where you’ll be cleaned off, fixed up and have plenty of friends.” I tucked the boxy, dripping load under one arm and dashed back to the autocab.

I was briefly questioned about it by the cab’s AI, then notified I’d be fined if the upholstery required cleaning because of it. Just doing its job. I assented, buckled the Hero 1 into the seat next to mine and instructed the autocab to resume its original course.

The rain had grown more violent by the time we arrived. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around the Hero 1 to prevent shorting. As I motioned to depart, I caught myself. Almost forgot!

“You did a good job” I assured the vehicle, rain now trickling down its every contour. It thanked me for using Rapicab’s services, wished me a pleasant evening, then quietly accelerated off into the storm.

To my delight I was greeted on my way in the door by a symphony of happy beeps, blinking lights and the snappity snap of little mechanical claws opening and closing.

Same as always, but it never gets old. Modulus was the first to reach me, holding a freshly brewed cup of coffee in its outstretched arm.

Not one of its original functions! I’ve modified most of them pretty severely. Never replacing the original hardware, but expanding on it.

Inside it’s all the same PCBs they shipped with, so their stock behaviors remain intact. I’ve just added one of those twenty dollar arduino knockoffs running ROS to enable more demanding stuff, mostly to do with optical recognition.

Modulus scooted away and was nearly run down by J.A.K.E., a behemoth slightly taller than me with a tinted transparent plastic globe for a head. Their proximity sensors stopped them short of one another.

“PARDON ME” it belted out in chunky synthesized monotone. “AFTER YOU” Modulus replied, prompting J.A.K.E. to continue trundling towards the bathroom.

First order of business was to clean up the newcomer. An hour of careful scrubbing, first with a washcloth and then with q-tips to get muck out of the various narrow crevices rendered it somewhat presentable. The plastic, white many decades ago, was now a sickly shade of yellow.

It’s an issue I’m familiar with that also afflicts the cases of older computers or game consoles, to do with sunlight reacting with the particular type of plastic used.

The only remedy I know of is bleaching, so I got my phone out and asked Helper to remind me to pick up some bleach during my next scheduled grocery trip.

Having done as much as I could for the time being, I replaced the little dude’s batteries with a fresh set, then plugged him into the nearest outlet to charge.

As I did so, Eric approached to investigate. Eric’s one of my two salvaged AIBOs, an old robot dog Sony used to make around the turn of the century.

“What is this?” Eric inquired. Less astute than he appeared as that’s just his general purpose reaction to anything new. “It’s a new friend” I replied.

Eric sat on his haunches and digested that for a moment before declaring that he wanted to play. “Not now, he’s resting. Why don’t you go play with Papero?” His tail set to wagging and at once he set off in search of Papero, another recent acquisition.

Eric is among the most complex robots I’ve rescued, alongside Papero and Qrio. I didn’t name Eric myself, rather Aibos include the ability to assign a name they will respond to, and when I first turned this one on, that’s the name his previous owner gave him. As close to an intrinsic identity as possible, so I rolled with it.

I soon heard the two interacting in another room as I settled into the recliner with my coffee. They can both recognize faces and don’t discriminate between human or machine, so they’re only too happy to acknowledge and play with each other the way they would their owner.

The bay window before me looks out on the stormclouds rolling slowly overhead, and the incessant barrage of thick, heavy droplets battering the glass.

I’ve set up all the robots that cannot move on the sill so they can look out the window. Some of them are immobile by design, little more than toys.

Others partially broken down such that they can no longer move, though otherwise functional. But they’re all sensitive to light, sound and other stimuli, so giving them a nice view of the outside world ensures they don’t get bored while I’m away. To whatever extent boredom is possible for something with the cognitive complexity of an insect.

Every flash of lightning sent the dozens of little fellows into fits of excitement. Waving their stubby arms about, dancing, popping their heads up and down and beeping.

Some played back various embedded tunes, having been designed for entertainment. Others slowly turned their heads, tracking the movement of pedestrians with umbrellas traversing the sidewalks below.

Behind me I heard the usual sparse chatter. Some of them have built in voice synthesizers and a modest vocabulary of words and phrases that give you some idea of what they’re doing and why.

Others I’ve added the capability to, just because it’s something I think they should have. Usually little more than system notifications, translated into plain English. Stuff like “I can’t find my charger” or “I seem to have tipped over, please help.”

The ones I regularly speak to, being from the era before the technology necessary for reliable voice recognition existed, are enhanced with the guts from relatively modern smartphones or some similarly compact computing device.

That’s what actually does the grunt work of deciphering what I’ve said, which is then translated into instructions carefully formatted in a way the legacy hardware can understand.

RB5X scooted past, battery light blinking. “Hey. Why don’t you go dock and recharge?” I inquired. The cylindrical tower of kluged together parts, old and new, halted while it considered the question. “I am not finished” it replied. I raised an eyebrow. “Finished with what?”

Various small colored lights within its tinted, transparent dome head blinked frantically, indicating that it was processing the question.

“I, RB5X, am doing an important thing. Yesterday at 8:17pm you instructed me to locate a lost item, then charge myself. I have not yet located the lost item. It is important to locate the lost item. I am doing something important, I will not stop until it is completed. I am a good robot.”

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 5!}