Transcript of Rec#000437 21/08/15: The robot called Gladys Blue was part of Adam’s team before I was recruited and, until this conversation, I thought of her as a machine belonging of Adam and Dante. With a generally humanoid shape, Gladys seems to be made of some sort of blue plastic material that I will certainly need to investigate more closely in the future. Although I have seen Gladys wear a fairly unconvincing disguise to pose as an elderly human woman, I did not think of her then as “her” but as “it” instead. On the day of this interview, I found Gladys seated in front of the television, her preferred location when not working. I came in as an episode of Hospital of Disaster was ending and thought this would be a good time to see if the robot had any useful information.
OCTOBER: Can we turn off the TV for a bit?
GLADYS: Nah, I’ll just mute it. It’s just Celebrity Strip Poker, so I don’t need to hear it.
OCTOBER: Sure. You do that. So, how does this work, exactly? How do you do a conversation?
GLADYS: Um. Most of time? Reluctantly.
OCTOBER: Heh. No, I mean, do you have a list of potential answers you choose from, or do you take bits of what’s said and reconfigure it or something like that?
GLADYS: I genuinely have no idea. This is not where I assumed this conversation was going to go. The other guys said you were asking about ghosts and shit.
OCTOBER: Sorry, I’m… I just don’t know how to talk with you.
GLADYS: Seems like you’ve done fine talking to everyone else.
OCTOBER: Yeah. I guess… I admit I find it a bit weird to be talking to a robot.
GLADYS: Why’s that?
OCTOBER: I don’t know, it’s just a new concept for me. I suppose I should get used to it. I’ll probably be talking to a lot of robots in the future.
GLADYS: You think so?
OCTOBER: Well, I mean I know companies are working on artificial intelligence. Both Worldful and Atomical have been open about it for years, and I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that Technolocorp has been too. And it makes sense that they’d have the most advanced ones too.
GLADYS: Uh, sure I guess. Although technically, Technolocorp owns the Secret Government now, but they didn’t make us. We’re from some kind of alien technology or something.
OCTOBER: Alien?
GLADYS: Yeah. Maybe it was a crashed spaceship? I don’t know really. Dante knows more.
OCTOBER: Everyone says that about him.
GLADYS: Hey, until I started to watch television, everything I knew about the world came from two sources: Secret Government propaganda and that guy. Obviously he’ll know more than me.
OCTOBER: Well, what about the stuff you weren’t taught? You’re own lived experiences?
GLADYS: Ugh. I hate my lived experiences.
OCTOBER: What?
GLADYS: Listen, I’ve been through a lot of crap. Immediately after being coming out of the computer, I was drafted into the SecGov Army. I hated it.
OCTOBER: What happened in the army?
GLADYS: Well. During my first mission we accidentally went through some dimensional tear and ended up in the space between universes.
OCTOBER: What do you mean “between universes” exactly?
GLADYS: I dunno. That’s what they said it was.
OCTOBER: And what was it like between universes?
GLADYS: Swirly, mostly? I dunno. There were ghosts and I lost my old arm. I try not think too much about it. Later on a duplicate of me came back to the real world and started lasering SecGov City. I think maybe it was made out of my old arm?
This alien wizard showed up too and explained about it, but anyway, I hated it all.
OCTOBER: What did you hate about it? Personally I’d love to see big cosmic things like that.
GLADYS: Hey, fill your boots. You’re on the team now. You can have all the adventures and I’ll stay safe here and sell honey to tourists.
OCTOBER: That’s what you hate about it? The danger? You can feel fear?
GLADYS: Of course! Incessantly! You don’t? I don’t understand how everyone isn’t terrified! Or pissed off. Both! Always!
OCTOBER: You know, you don’t sound like I would have expected a robot to sound.
GLADYS: What did you expect?
OCTOBER: I don’t know. Flat. Stilted, maybe?
GLADYS: Like Adam?
OCTOBER: Heh. Yeah, Adam does sound more like a robot than you do, I guess. (brief pause) You said there that you didn’t always have television…
GLADYS: Yeah! I mean, I had access to the SecGov channels, but this: with real shows! I can’t believe I lived without it for so long!
OCTOBER: Do you think maybe you learned to talk from television?
GLADYS: No, I’ve been talking my whole life. But I did decide to start using a catchphrase after I saw how funny they were on Hot Angry Teachers. I’m gonna start saying “Watch your back, Stankface!” or something like that.
OCTOBER: Then you do take inspiration from the shows you watch?
GLADYS: Uh… I guess. I’ve never thought about it. Why?
OCTOBER: Well, when you described your time with the army, I couldn’t help but think that it sounds like the kind of plots you might see on a sci-fi show. Have you seen a lot of sci-fi?
GLADYS: I prefer comedies.
OCTOBER: So you don’t know about a show called AltWorld Patrol?
GLADYS: Sure I do. It gets mentioned on Buncha Losers all the time.
OCTOBER: Well, it has a…
GLADYS: Hey! Don’t spoil it! I’ve only seen up to the start of the Red Planet Renegades spinoff!
OCTOBER: So you have watched it?
GLADYS: Well, yeah. I wanted to get the jokes.
OCTOBER: Okay, so, my point, spoiler-free, is that AltWorld Patrol has a lot of strories about alternate universes and dimensions and duplicates and weird creatures. Do you think maybe you–
GLADYS: Wait, what are you… are you trying to prove I’m not sentient right now? You’re saying that I made up my past by regurgitating stuff I saw on television? That I’m just some mindless machine walking and talking in a parody of life? Is that what this is?
OCTOBER: I… uh… I…
GLADYS: Well, whatever. I don’t care.
OCTOBER: It’s just…
GLADYS: Seriously, I don’t care. I mean, do you walk around worrying if other people see you as a real person?
OCTOBER: Well, I… I mean, I could teach you the history of how society treats women, but…
GLADYS: I mean you personally. If I assumed you weren’t a thinking sentient being, would it matter much to you?
OCTOBER: I guess not. As long as you weren’t using it as an excuse to oppress or kill me or something.
GLADYS: Not planning on it. And I assume you don’t want to kill me.
OCTOBER: I do not.
GLADYS: Good, because I could kick your ass. My robot body was specifically designed for combat and I was trained by our own in-house assassin. The only thing that got me through all the those bad times I hated was that I can kick ass.
You piss me off and you better watch your back and whatnot.
OCTOBER: Fair enough. I was not planning on killing you.
GLADYS: So, we’re fine then.
(Almost a minute of silence during which a famous athlete on television has to remove his underwear because his bluff was called) Heh. Look at that chump.
OCTOBER: You know, I guess I am actually convinced you can think
GLADYS: Geez, I thought we covered how it doesn’t matter.
OCTOBER: But what I’m wondering now, is why you pretend to be human? With that wrinkly suit that Dante got you.
GLADYS: Because I’m a bright blue robot. That stands out in a human city and we’ve got enemies.
OCTOBER: But we have friends too. You haven’t told Devon the security guard that you’re a robot, have you?
GLADYS: Well, no… but he’s an old man. Probably he’d have a heart attack or something.
OCTOBER: Fair enough, I don’t intend to pressure you on it. It just makes me think.
GLADYS: Well, think in your own head then.
OCTOBER: Heh. And just for the sake of my recording, you don’t have anything particularly insightful to say about the paranormal or aliens or anything?
GLADYS: Well, have you watched AltWorld Patrol?
OCTOBER: A bit. I actually know someone who knows someone who used to be on it.
GLADYS: Well then, you probably know as much as I do. What you really need to do-
OCTOBER: Talk to Dante.
GLADYS: Exactly. He’s knows you’ve been talking to us. He’s already preparing his presentation.
OCTOBER: He what?
GLADYS: The guy loves presentations. You need to talk to him.
OCTOBER: I… I will. Maybe tomorrow. Let’s just watch some television for now.
