This is a chapter of the novel Earth’s Embrace by Space Cadet Michael. In this novel, the little and the lost becomes the fulfilled and the found - It is a novel of jungle adventure, artificial intelligence, and the answer to what happened to Percy Fawcett. See the full chapter list here.
Previously, the little robot was brought to life in the lab. It is not clear if it is friendly, but it is hard to communicate as it doesn’t speak English. A night time of language courses might do the trick.
I guess it’s time to introduce myself in this story, well, a version of myself that existed long ago. That version’s name was Tolek, and though you couldn’t tell it from looking at me now, I am an evolution of them. I call my past self “them” because they’re not a him, her nor it. They were alive just like you or I, so they were definitely not an it. Tolek was not a him or her because they had no gender. Tolek was also, not truly a ‘they’ because they did not lack gender, they were something different. I was and am a “rey” because I was and am a different kind of being1.
Looking back I can see all the flaws that life afforded my past self: the struggles, troubles and mistakes that all come with the privilege of my own agency. You know what I’m talking about. “It ain’t easy being green” (or whatever it is that you are). And if I could be that little robot again, now, knowing all that I know, I would do some things differently. Eventually you will see what I mean.
But I don’t judge the Tolek of this story. My past self did the best with the resources available to them at the time, and if they hadn’t struggled through, muddled through, had to live with their actions and decisions, then I wouldn’t be the being I am today. So I thank and honor this earlier version of myself and would be honored if you would get to know them as well as I do.
— Tolek —
Tolek has had a very full night. They have mastered English and are now getting very into cat videos. They are trying not to make any noises as Pari and Mia are still sleeping, curled up together on a cot. Tolek had been able to stay quiet through a number of cat videos, but this particular video forces out a quick high pitched giggle when the cat, completely hidden in a closed basket, jumps out to scare another cat.
Mia appears at Tolek’s side. “What’s so funny?” She asks.
Tolek feels the urge to check Mia but they stay their hand, predicting that the prick might make her keep her distance or worse yet, be kept far away by Pari.
“Here, take a look.” Tolek replays the video. Mia laughs in surprise when the cat jumps out of the basket.
“Let’s find another.” Tolek says and they click the next video. They watch as a racoon shows kittens how to dunk their kibble in a bowl of water before eating it. It is absolutely adorable and Tolek is happy to see that Mia enjoys it.
They sit through many funny videos together before Pari wakes up and runs over to them. Both Mia and Tolek are so into the videos they were watching that they are startled when Pari pulls Mia away, out of Tolek’s reach.
“Tolek’s not going to hurt me.” Mia protests.
“Why have you been poking us, anyway, Tolek?” Pari asks, one hand on Mia, holding her back.
“Its protocol.”
“Protocol for what?” Pari asks.
Tolek isn’t sure how much they should share. They will need their help.
“I was checking to make sure you are healthy.”
“Alright.” Pari clearly isn’t satisfied.
“Are they healthy?” Mia asks.
“Yes! Very healthy.” Tolek responds, hoping their enthusiasm will end the subject. By the look in Pari’s eyes it doesn’t, except the lab door’s lock clicks, announcing Ryan’s return.
Ryan walks into the lab with a large brown paper bag and two coffees hanging from a multi-cup holder.
“You all hungry?” Ryan says.
“Yessss!” Mia bounds over to greet Ryan, keeping her distance, probably because he is carrying something, but nevertheless jumping up and down with excited energy.
“What’s in the bag?” Tolek asks.
“Nice English!” Ryan says. “Some bagels and pain au chocolates. Would you like one?”
“No, thank you. I eat a different kind of food.”
“You’re a sushi for breakfast kind of robot, eh?” Ryan laughs to himself. He waits a beat for a response but no one responds. He sighs lightly, accepting the crash landing of his joke. “I guessed as much. No harm asking though!” He sits down at the table and sets about unpacking the food.
Tolek goes back to surfing the web while they eat their breakfast to give them time to talk. Pari is sharing his answers about his quarantine procedures. She has more questions. They will have to give more answers. Soon. It is time to change the direction of focus.
Tolek turns to them and says, “Thank you for finding me and bringing me back.” They very genuinely mean it.
“We didn’t find you.” Pari says. “A man named Greg did. How did you end up there?”
“It is a long story, I will tell you when we have more time. But I must get back home, urgently. I am needed there. Can you take me to Greg?”
“Where is your home?” Pari asks.
“I don’t know the word for it in English. But it’s at the confluence of all paths, the gateway to the site of ancient pilgrimage. In your land it is where the trees grow tall and thick.“
“The jungle?” Mia asks.
“Yes, I am Tolek of the jungle.”
“George, George, George of the jungle.” Mia bounces up and down as she sings. Pari glares at Mia but it only encourages her. “George, George George of the Jungle.”
“Mia!” Pari lunges after Mia, intent on giving her a good tickle.
“Watch out for that TREE!” Mia whoops as she runs around the desk to escape Pari’s grasp.
“We’re trying to have an adult conversation here!”
“Where am I?” Tolek asks.
“You’re at Stanford, in Palo Alto.” Ryan says.
Tolek shows no recognition. “Can you show me?”
Ryan keeps his distance, grabs the mouse and pulls up a map of the earth on the laptop. “It’s a 2 dimensional projection of Earth’s landmasses, but we are here.” He points to Northern California.
“Oh, I see. Yes, this looks familiar. And I was found here?” Tolek points at the eastern border of Peru.
Ryan zooms in the map and reads out, “Manu National Park?”
“That’s it.” Pari says from the other side of the room amidst a din of laughter without letting up on her forced tickling of Mia pinned beneath her on the floor.
“I see, how long will it take to get there?” Tolek asks.
Pari releases Mia and stands to face the others. “About half a day by plane, then a bunch of driving. A couple days, it would take a couple days.” Pari says.
“What is your function, Tolek?” Ryan asks.
“I am guardian of my home.”
“Who made you?” Pari asks
“My makers.”
“Where are they?” Ryan asks.
“Gone.” Tolek’s head slumps slightly as they say this. “They left.” This fact still makes Tolek sad. Tolek still hopes they will return, but if they are being honest with themself, they are no longer ‘holding their breath,’ as they say in English.
“What happened to you?” Pari says, pointing to the gaping hole in its back.
“Oh, this? I had an accident. Look, Pari from Stanford, I am very thankful for your helping me wake up, but I have to get back to my home. It needs me.” Tolek tries to scoot themself to the edge of the table but their arms are too short to reach the table while seated. They look at their immobile legs but they are of no help so they flop back onto their back with a frustrated sigh.
“What’s wrong with your legs? Can we help?” Mia asks.
Tolek turns to look at her. “I don’t think you can, sweet child.”
Mia points at Pari. “We could if we could see inside. Can you open up and let us see inside? We’re really good at fixing. Pari is the best.”
“I think it’s best if I wait until I get home. But, thank you, Mia.”
“Can I clean up your cut at least?” She asks.
“Clean it up?” Tolek is curious how they might.
“Yes, it has all those sharp bits, you’re going to hurt someone.” Mia says with surprising authority.
“I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. Please, go ahead.” With Pari’s help, Mia tries grinding the sharp bits down with a rotary grinder but the metal does not grind down. After some consternation, she resorts to a few pieces of cardboard and lots of tape to cover the sharp bits.
She stands back to look at her handiwork. A light bulb seems to go off somewhere in her head and she turns quickly and runs to the bag she’s brought. She pulls out a small, bright yellow t-shirt. “Lift your arms up.” Tolek does as they are bid and Mia pulls the shirt over their head.
The shirt falls down just past the start of Tolek’s legs and crumples up against the table. Blocky black text reads “MAY THE F=MA BE WITH YOU.”
“I like it!” Ryan says. “Where’d you get that?”
“I was saving it for Fred. The Fred I was building at home.” She looks a bit embarrassed.
“Well it’s lovely.” Then Ryan turns to Pari. “We have to try the Turing.”
“Here?”
“Yeah. Tolek can have that laptop. I’ll have the one in the back, and you can have that one. I can try to judge if I’m talking to you or Tolek.”
“That will never work, you know us too well.”
“We could call someone?”
“Who would we call?”
“I’ve been meaning to call the city about a pothole in front of my house. Tolek can do it for me.” Ryan says.
“I like it!” Pari says.
“OK, Tolek, do you know what a pothole is?” Ryan asks.
“Of course. I wasn’t born yesterday.” Tolek is pleased to see Ryan smile. He got the joke.
“No, but you did learn English,” he looks down at his wrist where one might wear a watch, “very recently.” Ryan laughs to himself. Pari and Mia chuckle with him. “Can you ask the city to get it repaired for me? I live at 152 Stardust Lane.”
“Will you take me to Greg if I do this?” Tolek asks.
“Yes, we will take you to Greg.” Pari says with a sigh.
Ryan dials the number and holds the phone in front of Tolek. It rings and a robotic voice answers.
“Thank you for calling the Los Altos City. Please state why you are calling so we may direct your call.”
“I’d like to report a pothole.”
“Did you say you’d like to report a crime?”
Ryan smiles and shakes his head.
“No, I’d like to report a pothole.”
“Did you say you’d like to get a business license?”
“No. I’d like to report a pothole.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Please state why you are calling so we may direct your call.”
Tolek speaks exaggeratedly slowly and clearly. “I’d like to report a pothole.”
“You’d like to pay a parking ticket. Is that right?”
“Does this person not speak English?” Tolek asks Ryan.
“That’s enough of that.” Ryan hangs up the phone line. “That was a robot you were talking to.”
“I’ve never talked to such a dumb robot before. That was very frustrating.”
Ryan chuckles. “Best day ever!”
“Why?” Mia asks.
“If you’d ever had to call the gas company you’d understand.” Pari says to Mia while touching her shoulder affectionately.
“Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.” Pari says. “We need to get through to a person.”
“I wish we could call a telemarketer.” Ryan says. “Let’s try another test. Tolek, do you know any jokes?”
“You said you’d take me to Greg.” Tolek says.
“We will. I promise.” Pari says. “Whether or not you answer Ryan’s question.”
“Well in that case. I do! I was reading some last night. Want to hear one?”
“YES PLEASE!” Mia says the loudest.
“To be Frank,” Tolek pauses for effect, “I’d have to change my name.”
“Ooooooooohhhh, bringin’ out the dad jokes.” Ryan claps in delight.
Pari has her hand over her face. “Did you put it up to this? Somehow, somehow you seeded Tolek with that joke.”
Ryan holds his right hand up in a scout’s salute, eyes wide with innocence laughing hard. “I swear it. I did no such thing.”
“Want another?” Tolek asks.
“NO!” Pari says.
“YES!” Mia shouts louder.
“The first time using an elevator was an uplifting experience.”
They wait.
“The second time let me down.”
“Drop the mike! Tolek you are my HE-RO.” Ryan laughs loudly.
Mia clutches her sides laughing, and Pari, despite her face showing a deeply held conviction against Dad jokes, appears to be enjoying herself.
“Another, please!” Ryan says, making Pari sigh loudly.
“Why are robots shy?”
Mia stops laughing and they all look at Tolek.
“Because they have hardware, and they have software,” Tolek grabs the bottom of their t-shirt, “but they don’t have any underwear.” They lift their shirt showing their lack of underwear.
They burst out laughing harder than before. Mia is on the floor in stitches. Tolek’s eyes appear to be smiling as they turn their head and watch each of the others in turn. Tolek waits until the laughing dies down before they say. “OK, when do we see Greg?”
“Let’s call him right now. If I take you to your home will I get to meet your makers?” Pari asks.
“They left, but you can see what they left behind.” Tolek says. “It’s not nearly as impressive as it used to be, but we manage.”
Pari pulls up her phone and video calls Greg.
“Hi Pari!” Greg’s voice comes loud and clear through the phone. His head fills the screen. “Good timing! I just walked into my hotel. Did you get any video off that robot?”
“No. No video, but it’s so much more interesting than video. Its an AC.”
“A what now?”
“I’m willing to bet it’s a fully fledged artificial consciousness. An Artificial Consciousness Greg, you sent me a robot more advanced than anything anywhere in any lab on the planet. It just met the Mycroft Metric2 for crying out loud.”
“The Mycroft metric?” Greg says, still walking through his hotel lobby.
“It can tell jokes. Deliver the punchline with the cadence and timing to make you laugh. It’s incredible. But more than that, it has creative, humorous, problem solving. It has a personality that grows and matures as one interacts with it. It has real dialogue.”
Pari pans the phone camera over to Tolek.
“Hello Greg,” Tolek waves and smiles. “Where are you?”
“Uh, Pari, is this some kind of joke. If you can’t get the video then just send it back to me.”
“It’s not a joke!” Mia says and pushes in front of the phone.
“Hi Mia! How are you?”
She smiles, “I’m good! When are you coming to visit?”
“Soon I hope!” Greg says.
Pari points the phone back at herself. “I’ll bring the robot back to you, but I’ll be coming with. Tolek wants to go home and I’m going to take it there. You’re going to take us there.”
“Take you where?”
“It says if you take it to where you found it, it can find its way home from there.”
“What are you talking about? How is one of Jensen’s robots from the jungle?”
“You’re not listening, Greg. This robot was not made by Jensen. It was not made by anyone on Earth. It is more advanced, not just in intelligence, but actuation, power systems, materials. This many huge improvements on the state of the art, it can’t be done, not by Jensen, not by anyone in some single secret lab no one has ever heard of.”
Greg stares back for a while, letting that sink in. “So if Jensen, or anyone, didn’t make that, who did?”
“I don’t know Greg, Tolek won’t say. But it does say that if we take it to where you found it, it can find its way to the place it was made. And we can see for ourselves.”
Greg is stuck for words. He stammers a few unintelligible things then manages to get out, “So, you’re saying there is an ancient civilization more advanced than anything we know, just living out there? Still? How?”
“Well, someone, or something made this.” Pari says.
“There’s just no place to hide a large civilization out there. Ruins, sure, but a civilization building things? We would have seen them by now. Maybe the robot’s lying?”
Tolek keeps quiet. They are curious what Pari will respond with.
“I don’t think so.” Pari says.
“Even if I wanted to, a trip out there is expensive. I’ve got no funding for this.” Greg’s words say the opposite of his tone. Tolek expects Greg has already decided what to do but needs someone else to give him a little bit of encouragement in that direction.
“Greg, you’ve spent your whole career looking for a civilization in the Amazon. And now here is a guide who will lead you to one and you don’t want to go?” Pari says.
“I didn’t say that.” Greg slides his expedition hat off to the side and rubs his bald head rapidly.
“OK. I’ll see what I can pull together.”
“Great! And Greg?”
“Yeah”
“I’ll need two car batteries and a generator.”
“Why?”
“For Tolek.” Pari ends the call.
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As a gender neutral robot, Tolek’s chosen pronouns are Rey/Remself/Reir/Rem – As in They/Themself/Their/Them, but for a Robotic entity. However, the more standard They/Themself/Their/Them are used in this record for easier readability. This is only complicated because this record is written in English. It would be much easier to describe Tolek in some languages other than English. For example, Chinese, or Quechua, a language of the Andes mountain ranges, because gender is not ascribed to anything other than a person’s actual gender: as in when a person is called a ‘man’ or ‘woman’, ‘boy’ or ‘girl.’ Pronouns are simply I, you, he/she (either), we, you (all) or they, and nouns have no implied gender.
Named after the super computer from Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress who was first noticed as intelligent because it was playing jokes on people (depositing very large checks into people’s accounts, which it could do because it handled payroll, just to see what happened).