Lincoln’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t move. “Hold on…”
The chamber lights dim slightly as the creepy bot powers on in the background, eyes glowing, waiting.
Lincoln doesn’t take his eyes off the chamber when he speaks.
“I don’t like this,” he says flatly. “Not with the drift still unresolved.”
Sarah doesn’t look up from her tablet. “She’s not interacting with the robotdirectly.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Lincoln snaps. “You saw what it did. The torque overshoot. The hesitation loop. If it loses context again—”
“It won’t,” Sarah cuts in calmly. “And even if it does, Gabby won’t be anywhere near its operational radius.”
“Wait, what?” I ask, now feeling the concern Lincoln does.
Sarah finally looks up at Lincoln, patient in a way that feels rehearsed.
“Lincoln, remove your personal feelings for just a second. She’s just walking the room. Creating natural clutter. No handoffs. No proximity tasks. The robot’s on passive observation mode only… for the most part. You weren't losing your shit when I was close to the robot.”
Lincoln’s jaw tightens. “Passive systems still move when the confidence drops. And I didn't know beforehand that the robot had that severe of an issue.”
Sarah sighs. “Which is why we throttled the actuator output and locked the arm pathing. Look.”
She taps her screen and turns it toward him. “See? Motion dampeners are active. Worst case, it freezes.”
I shift my weight. “Lincoln, it’s fine. I’m literally just… walking around.”
As nervous as I feel, I can tell Lincoln is stressed. Whatever issues he and I might have, I legitimately do want this to get off the ground. He worked so hard, and honestly maybe a part of it is vanity or ego or whatever word of the day. It’s a strange situation.
I lost my marriage with him to this job. If he fails at it, not only would I have lost my marriage but I would have lost it for no reason whatsoever. Some good needs to come of it, as daft as that might sound.
He looks at me then, really looks at me, like he’s trying to decide whether to fight this or not.
“This isn’t your problem to solve,” he says quietly.
Sarah softens her voice. “Which is why I’m keeping it controlled. I promise.”
A beat.
Lincoln shifts uncomfortably, almost imperceptibly nodding for Sarah to start.
Lincoln stands near the chamber threshold, arms crossed, eyes tracking every idle twitch of the robot.
“Ireallydon’t like this,” he repeats. “I just… I know we’re pressed for time, but the spikes are too volatile.”
Sarah nods. “I know. That’s why, like I said… she isn’t interacting directly. Take a breather.”
“That doesn’t erase the risk,” Lincoln says. “Context collapse isexactlywhen it behaves unpredictably.”
For some reason Lincoln feeling nervous makes me feel that there'sdefinitelya reason to be. But having him here also makes me feel safe.
The robots always creeped me out, and it's bad enough that they're built to look human-shaped, but now we've got companies trying to make them walk around houses on their own.
I'm kind of glad that the rich are the ones getting them first. That way they'll be the first to bite the dust if the robots decide to go rogue. That sounds awful even in my head, but it's not like those people would care about people like little old me or my father or even Lincoln if something like that happened to us.
Everyone'spushing for machines to doeverythingwhile at the same time losing everything that makes us human.
More time,Voss said.
