Robot Show in the Luna Ballroom
The flickering glow of sunset filtered through the blinds into Tarik's cramped apartment. He was already awake, sipping a coffee. He was tending to his meager window box. He didn't have soil, a luxury few could afford for personal use, but with a nutrient-rich mycelial blend. He was coaxing a new strain of phosphorescent fungi, rumored to be high in Vitamin D, to blossom. It was one of his small hustles, another few dollars if it took.
His unit, like the many others, were made out of an old shipping container and reinforced in concrete. Shelves were made from salvaged plastics and wall cracks were filled in with iron-infused mud. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and the thousand people crammed together in tall stacks.
A tiny chime cut through the evening hum. Tarik glanced at the small tablet mounted above his bed.
GIG REQUEST: PRIORITY ENTERTAINMENT PACKAGE
CLIENT: MARSBURG SPACE CORPORATION
VENUE: LUNA BALLROOM, MARSBURG
DURATION: 3.0 HOURS
PAYMENT: QUOTED & ESCROWED
Tarik let out a sigh of fatigue. Marsburg, the Luna Ballroom. He'd only seen it in screenshots from half a world away. That meant peak opulence. The money would definitely be good though, probably enough to cover his energy costs for the next few months and replace the failing moisture vaporator for his mycelium box.
"Alright you luminous parasites," he muttered as he looked down. "It's time to dance for your dinner."
His work preparation was a ritual he had developed and refined over multiple years. First he chugged down a nutrient slurry, a foul-tasting gray mix of proteins and carbohydrates. Then he climbed up to the alcove which served as his cockpit. It wasn't much more than a niche carved into the wall. He had taped to the walls scavenged acoustic foam and draped with blackout fabric.
He took a soft anti-static cloth and polished the sculpted surfaces of his Maestro. It was by far the most valuable item in the apartment, including himself. Polished iridium-alloy joysticks, gleaned from a decommissioned IMF maintenance drone sat in the middle of an apparatus of pressure-sensitive keys whose symbols had worn off from use. Feedback pads promised to relay the tiniest sensation from remote automaton. Wires snaked from the Maestro to an overclocked CPU that had seen better days.
Tarik settled into the worn chair and settled into the comforting fabric. He flexed his fingers and felt the cool metal of the Maestro's controls. With a few familiar keystrokes, he powered up the system. The panoramic-sized monitor turned on and displayed a series of diagnostic messages as it booted up. Everything looked ready.
He initiated a primary connection test. For a moment, the screen only showed the sterile interior of a fancy garage full of sleek white walls.
Tarik took a slow, deliberate breath, the kind he always took before surrendering himself to the machine. The money was waiting for him. So he toggled the sync command.
It was less of a consciousness transfer and more of an overlay. He grafted his will into the sophisticated hardware of a robot thousands of miles away. One moment, Tarik was in his dim alcove. The next, his senses exploded with the hyper-reality afforded by the robot's advanced sensor suite.
The panoramic screen had turned into a world of blinding, almost offensive luxury. The Luna Ballroom was a fantastic image of aggressive opulence. Giant paintings of abstract art hung on the walls, digital ones whose patterns were constantly shifting. Holographic chimeras, peacocks with six legs and bulging eyes, flittered through the air and occasionally clipping through guests.
The air itself, as interpreted by the robot's electronic nose, was a miasma of twenty synthetic perfumes competing against one another for dominance.
And drilling through it all was the music, a relentless barrage of thumping noise that was probably considered cutting-edge. To him, it was just soulless EDM whose bass lines were generated by a machine without the inclusion of genuine rhythm.
He stood at the edge of a circular obsidian-colored dance floor. The robot's internal chronometer showed that it was time for his performance. Through the Maestro's haptic interface, Tarik felt an inherent sense of balance and the coolness beneath his feet. He flexed the robot's multi-jointed fingers. The movement was mirrored on his screen without latency.
"Showtime," he murmured to himself.
Tarik started with a series of slow, hypnotic motions to draw the crowd's attention without overwhelming them. He moved with liquid grace, its polished chrome reflecting the light show into tiny rainbows. Tarik focused on the precision of the motion, ensuring each turn was executed with flawless geometry. He could feel the subtle adjustments as the machine's gyroscope stabilized it as each motion became more dramatic.
There was a ripple of interest from nearby guests. Tarik could see them draped in shimmering fabrics and expensive jewels. One of them was a woman whose hair looked like a candle, with a flickering light somewhere inside for additional flair.
"Oh look at that robot," she exclaimed. "You move with such grace. AI is so amazing these days."
AI? Tarik suppressed an eye-roll. He made the robot nod in a gesture of polite acknowledgment.
"Your appreciation is registered, esteemed guest. This unit endeavors to satisfy."
"Well then fetch me another flute of the Jersey wine," she said, her voice slurring slightly.
Tarik knew better than to be annoyed. "Light interactive duties as requested" was part of the gig. He had the robot execute a bow.
"Certainly, it would be my pleasure."
As the robot turned to locate the requested beverage, leveraging the onboard neural network to scan the viewport and perform image recognition, Tarik walked forward efficiently to perform his tasks and keep the guests happy.
After fetching the wine for the already intoxicated woman, the real demands started. The initial polite interest from the partygoers devolved into a competitive sport of issuing ever more outlandish requests.
"Robot! Pirouette on a single finger while reciting prime numbers backwards from a thousand!" bellowed a man who had colorful tattoos on his face.
"There are kinematic limitations for micro-balance," Tarik apologized through the robot.
He could've done it, but the energy drain would've been immense. He had to make sure there was enough for the length of the party.
Then the candle woman from before swayed forward, more animated than earlier.
"Forget those silly tricks," she exclaimed. "Dance for us! Dance like the planets dancing around the sun!"
Tarik looked up sequences and loaded them into the Maestro, coaxing wave-like motions from the robot's articulated limbs. The robot's chrome surfaces seemed to ripple and flow, fracturing light like a disco ball. He pushed the gyroscopes to their limits in an attempt to simulate weightlessness, a trick he'd been studying for weeks on the forums.
Each movement was a delicate balance of power and grace in the ballroom. Meanwhile, his body sat in the cramped alcove of his apartment covered in sweat and dust. As the soulless EDM pounded on, his shuffled himself in sync with the machine.
He became immersed in this alternate world of riches and partying that he didn't see the outdoor lights flickering until it was too late. They exploded suddenly, letting out a sharp crack and thrusting him back into absolute darkness.
At first he thought he had died. It took several moments for him for the disorientation to fade. He blinked and looked up at the panoramic screen which had turned into a blizzard of static. The world was now silent aside from his loud breathing.
It was a brownout at the worst possible time. A surge of power from somewhere cascaded through the neighborhood's aging transformers.
He felt a panic surging as he realized that he had been disconnected. This meant he had been kicked out of the gig. This meant his pay was going to get docked. This meant the illusion of a truly autonomous robot would be broken.
Tarik growled as a way to let out his frustration. His hands slapped his computer helplessly. He knew there was nothing that could be done, but coincidentally the machine turned on at that moment and started its boot sequence.
He started typing furiously to restart the Maestro's system. Every lost second felt like an eternity, like the dollars were draining from his account. He could almost hear the derisive laughter of the elite partygoers.
Finally the panoramic view snapped back. It was clearer than before, perhaps catching a NetSat just overhead.
But the damage was done.
The robot had been frozen in mid-pose. One arm was held outwards and the other tucked in. The sound that flooded Tarik's ears was a tidal wave of anger. Boos and jeers, even the high-pitched shrieking of shattering crystal.
The robot bent its head down and Tarik could see the broken glass around its feet. And near the right foot was a jewel-encrusted hair comb, the one he'd seen earlier belonging to the candle-haired woman.
The insults punched through the layers of detachment that Tarik usually wore. They weren't booing a malfunctioning machine. In that moment, they were booing him.
He felt himself growing angry. He no longer cared about the loss of money or a black mark on his operator rating; there was a casual disdain he couldn't tolerate. They had seen their toy break and immediately thrown a tantrum.
With a sudden twitch, the robot unfroze. It didn't step away from the trash at its feet. Rather, he decided to incorporate it. With his foot, he launched a discarded muffin into the air and then caught it elegantly on the back of his hand. Then he tossed it swiftly into the garbage can on the other side of the room.
He tapped out a series of fast foot taps that shattered the larger pieces of the champagne flute into a fine dust which shined in the air.
He reached down to grab the hair comb with exaggerated delicacy. He felt a momentary urge to snap it in two. Instead, trying to be professional, he twirled it like a conductor's baton before arcing it precisely back towards the candle-haired woman. It landed with a soft clink right next to her finished glass of wine, causing her to stumble.
He channeled all of it, the sting of the insult and the grinding frustration of his cheap neighborhood, into the performance. The dance became sharp, almost aggressive, yet still possessed a beauty. He pushed the robot's motors and actuators to their thermal limits. He could feel the machine's feedback buzzing in his hands.
The booing stopped. The ballroom was now stunned into a profound silence. Then, a single clap. Then, another. Then, a swelling of cheers from the crowd. They didn't understand what they were seeing. They couldn't. But they recognized skill that went beyond their petty amusements.
The impromptu dance was the peak of the robot's performance. Tarik transitioned, guiding the robot through a slightly subdued cool-down routine. The aggression had turned into a drunken curiosity. As the robot took a final deep bow, a notification chimed in Tarik's ear. The performance timing had concluded followed by a financial transaction. There was a moderate deduction for the minute he had been offline. The staff droids moved silently through the thinning crowd.
Tarik initiated the log-off sequence. The panoramic view of the ballroom, with its fading holographic chimeras and opulence, faded away.
The return was always brutal.
One moment, he had superhuman sensory input in the middle of a high-class ballroom full of the world's rich and famous. Then, he was back in his cramped, dark alcove. The music had been replaced by a neighbor's muffled argument and the sound of a mysterious drip somewhere behind a wall.
His hands ached. They were still throbbing from his interaction with the Maestro. His eyes were watering from staring at the bright screen and his sweat had soaked through his shirt.
But he looked at his wallet. The transfer had been complete. It was a significant sum, enough to breathe for a while.
Slowly the tension left his shoulders. He stared at the glowing numbers, then to the single pane of grimy glass which served as his window. Outside, the neighborhood struggled to turn the lights back on.
The bitter irony of all of this wasn't lost on him. He had participated in a moment of art, of beauty, for those who had everything and appreciated none of it. He was a conduit to serve others even as the people around him struggled to afford a decent home.
He transferred a little bit of his award towards the community aquaponics co-op. It was a long-term community project, a dream of building a multi-level vertical farm that could provide them with fresh, real food. The process to build it was slow, funded by pooled resources and whatever could be scavenged. His struggles were a tiny act of suffering towards a better future.
Let the rich have their fleeting spectacle for one night. Here, they were building something that would last.
A lot of robots you see today are actually humans and it is likely that with improving communication systems we won’t have a real need for true robotics for some time.