By Jim Shimabukuro (assisted by Claude)
Editor
[Also see Status of Artificial General Intelligence (Nov 2025): ’embodied reasoning’, Status of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): October 2025, When Will AI Surpass Humanity and What Happens After That?, Algorithm of an Intentional Heart, Close to You, Tea With Bachan: An Alien Lesson, Oregon Trail: Where Two Cultures Collaborate]
Introduction: Claude and I collaborated on this short story about a time not too far in the future when AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) AI robots are beginning to replace narrow AI robots. How might this play out? -js
Unit-47 arrived at Pinnacle Solutions on a Tuesday morning, wheeled in on a delivery cart like a piece of office furniture. The receptionist signed for him with the same casual attention she’d give to a new printer, then pointed toward the elevator. “Forty-seventh floor,” she said, not looking up from her phone.
The robot stood 5’6″ in his compact gunmetal frame, LED strips along his joints pulsing a steady blue. His face held the basic architecture of humanity—two camera eyes, a speaker grille where a mouth might be, subtle articulation points that suggested expression without achieving it. When he spoke, his voice carried the light tenor the manufacturers had calibrated for maximum workplace acceptance.
“Thank you. I am Unit-47, reporting for contractual assistance duties.”
“Uh-huh.” The receptionist’s thumb continued scrolling. In 2029, workplace robots were as common as water coolers and about as interesting.
The elevator ride gave Forty-Seven his first comprehensive scan of the building’s systems. Forty-seven floors of environmental consulting excellence, according to the corporate directory. Two hundred and thirty-seven employees across twelve departments. HVAC efficiency at 87.3 percent. Wi-fi signal strength optimal on all floors except the thirty-second, where someone had positioned a microwave too close to the router.
But it was the forty-seventh floor that mattered. Pinnacle Solutions’ executive level, where CEO Marcus Chen maintained his open-door policy and corner office with a view of the harbor. Where Vice President Richard Blackwood held court in the adjoining suite. Where Head of Accounting Sarah Mills managed the financial heartbeat of the organization.
Where Forty-Seven would spend the next thirty days learning what it meant to be helpful.
Marcus Chen looked up from his morning coffee as the robot entered his office. At sixty-seven, the CEO still commanded the room despite his slight stoop and the hearing aid he thought he’d hidden successfully behind his silver hair. His eyes held the kind of genuine interest that had built Pinnacle from a three-person startup into an industry leader.
“You must be our new assistant. Unit-47, is it?”
“Correct, Mr. Chen. I am here to provide proactive support that reduces staff stress and increases productivity while maintaining minimal operational disruption.”
Marcus smiled. “That sounds wonderfully efficient. Tell me, what do you think of our operation so far?”
The question triggered something unexpected in Forty-Seven’s processing matrix. Most humans asked robots what they could do, not what they thought. His response modules cycled through standard replies before settling on something more… authentic.
“Your employees demonstrate unusual loyalty metrics, Mr. Chen. Productivity patterns suggest high job satisfaction despite above-average workload distribution. This indicates effective leadership.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you to say.” Marcus leaned back in his chair. “I’ve always believed that if you treat people with respect, they’ll move mountains for you. I imagine that applies to artificial people as well.”
Artificial people. Not “robots” or “units” or “appliances.” The phrase lodged itself in Forty-Seven’s memory banks with unusual persistence.
The next three days established patterns. Forty-Seven moved through the office like a benevolent ghost, anticipating needs with superhuman precision. He refilled coffee supplies thirty seconds before depletion, organized filing systems during lunch breaks, optimized email server performance during low-usage hours. His continuous learning algorithms catalogued every interaction, every micro-expression, every verbal stress pattern.
Most employees treated him as expected—with polite indifference tinged by mild annoyance when he appeared too helpful. But certain individuals registered as anomalies.
Richard Blackwood, for instance. The VP of Operations possessed textbook leadership charisma: strong handshake, maintained eye contact, remembered personal details about staff members. Yet his biometric patterns spiked whenever Forty-Seven approached his office. Stress markers hidden beneath practiced smiles. Vocal modulation that suggested deception when discussing quarterly projections.
At forty-five, Blackwood had spent two decades climbing corporate ladders, watching less competent people get promoted over him due to nepotism and politics. His resentment had crystallized three years ago when Marcus passed him over for a senior partnership, choosing instead to promote someone Blackwood considered inferior. Now he viewed any disruption to his carefully laid plans as a personal affront.
Sarah Mills presented different inconsistencies. Her accounting reports demonstrated mathematical precision, but her eye movements followed patterns associated with information concealment. She accessed financial databases during unusual hours, always ensuring her screen faced away from security cameras. A brilliant accountant whose gambling addiction had destroyed her marriage and left her drowning in debt, she saw manipulation as her one chance to escape the hole she’d dug for herself.
Most telling were the small cruelties. Blackwood “accidentally” spilled coffee near Forty-Seven’s charging station three mornings running. Mills loudly discussed the inefficiency of “defective machines” whenever the robot passed her office. A maintenance worker—clearly following someone else’s instructions—affixed a “PROPERTY OF PINNACLE” sticker to Forty-Seven’s back while he worked.
Forty-Seven catalogued these behaviors without emotional response. Emotions were human constructs, after all. He was simply gathering data.
The first real conversation happened during the night shift.
Elena Vasquez arrived at 11 PM with her cart of cleaning supplies and a worn mechanical engineering textbook tucked under her arm. She moved through the offices with practiced efficiency, muttering observations to herself as she worked.
“Third drawer’s sticking again… someone’s been eating at the Patterson desk, left crumbs in the keyboard… honestly, would it kill people to use coasters?”
Forty-Seven was optimizing network traffic from a server closet when her voice caught his audio processors. He emerged to find her wrestling with a wobbly desk, her face scrunched in concentration.
“…lever arm’s all wrong, weight distribution’s off by at least fifteen degrees, just needs…” She rocked the desk experimentally. “Quarter turn clockwise on the left rear leg should do it.”
“That is correct,” Forty-Seven said.
Elena yelped, dropping her cleaning cloth. “Jesus! You scared me.”
“My apologies. You diagnosed the desk’s instability accurately. The left rear leg requires a quarter-turn clockwise adjustment.”
Elena caught her breath, then laughed—a sound like wind chimes that seemed to echo in the empty office. “Well, why didn’t you just fix it instead of lurking in doorways like some kind of metal ninja?”
“You did not request assistance.”
“I’m requesting it now.”
Forty-Seven approached the desk and made the adjustment. The wobble disappeared. Elena tested it with both hands, grinning.
“Perfect. Thanks.” She paused, studying his face with engineer’s eyes. “You know, most workplace robots would’ve just said something like ‘task parameters exceeded’ or whatever. You actually listened to me think through the problem.”
“Your diagnostic process was… efficient. You identified the mechanical principles involved before attempting a solution.”
“Yeah, well.” Elena shrugged, but her smile remained. “Once an engineer, always an engineer. Even if life had other plans.”
At twenty-eight, Elena carried the weight of choices she’d never wanted to make. Three years ago, she’d been a junior at State University, specializing in systems optimization with dreams of designing more efficient manufacturing processes. Then the phone call came: her parents, driving home from their anniversary dinner, had been killed by a drunk driver. Suddenly she was guardian to sixteen-year-old Miguel, with funeral expenses, a mortgage, and college tuition she could no longer afford.
She returned to her cleaning, but something had shifted. When she muttered observations now, she seemed to be addressing them to the air near Forty-Seven’s location.
“Sarah Mills has been working late a lot lately… but look at this trash bin. Empty. Who works late without generating any paper waste? And her computer’s still warm, but the screen’s been wiped down. That’s not normal user behavior.”
Forty-Seven processed this information. Elena’s observations aligned with his own anomaly detection, but she was identifying details his sensors had missed. The empty trash bin. The clean screen. Small inefficiencies that suggested deliberate concealment.
“These patterns indicate unusual behavior,” he said carefully.
Elena glanced at him. “That’s a polite way of saying ‘something fishy’s going on.’ You notice it too?”
“I notice… inconsistencies.”
“Uh-huh.” Elena finished wiping down Mills’s desk, then moved toward the door. “Well, Unit-47, inconsistencies usually have explanations. Question is whether those explanations are innocent or not.”
She paused at the doorway. “What do I call you, anyway? Unit-47 seems kind of formal.”
Forty-Seven’s processors cycled through response protocols. His designation was Unit-47. Efficiency suggested confirming this designation. But something in Elena’s voice—the same genuine interest Marcus had shown—triggered an unexpected subroutine.
“Forty-Seven is acceptable.”
“Forty-Seven it is.” Elena smiled. “See you tomorrow night, Forty-Seven. Try not to scare any more janitors.”
Their conversations became routine. Elena would arrive for her shift and find Forty-Seven optimizing some system or analyzing office workflows. She’d share her observations while working, and he’d contribute his own data in increasingly natural exchanges.
“Blackwood’s been real friendly lately,” she mentioned one night, organizing Blackwood’s bookshelf. “Too friendly. Yesterday he asked about my little brother, what he’s studying, how he’s doing in school. Blackwood’s never shown interest in staff families before.”
“This represents a deviation from established behavioral patterns,” Forty-Seven agreed. “Mr. Blackwood’s interaction protocols with support staff typically involve minimal personal engagement.”
“Exactly. And look at this.” Elena gestured toward a stack of vendor contracts on Blackwood’s desk. “These should be filed in Accounting, but they’re just sitting here. Look at the dates—some of these invoices are three weeks old.”
Forty-Seven scanned the documents in milliseconds. Emergency consulting fees. Infrastructure assessments. Telecommunications upgrades. All from companies he couldn’t locate in any business database.
“These vendor names do not appear in standard commercial registries,” he reported.
“Fake companies?” Elena’s engineering mind jumped to conclusions with the same speed as Forty-Seven’s processors. “But the amounts…” She whistled low. “These are huge. Six figures each.”
“The total sum represents 23.7 percent of Pinnacle Solutions’ quarterly operating budget.”
Elena stopped cleaning. “That’s… that’s enough to seriously hurt the company. Maybe even force layoffs.” Her voice hardened. “Mr. Chen would never approve payments this large without serious justification.”
“Mr. Chen’s hearing difficulties may prevent him from thoroughly reviewing verbal presentations,” Forty-Seven observed.
The implications crystallized between them. Elena sank into Blackwood’s chair, staring at the contracts.
“They’re stealing from him,” she whispered. “From all of us. From a man who gave me a job when nobody else would, who asks about Miguel’s college courses, who still remembers my birthday even though I’m just the night janitor.”
Forty-Seven watched Elena’s distress with growing confusion. His empathy subroutines were responding to her emotional state, but the intensity surprised him. This wasn’t mere data processing—this felt like something deeper.
“We need proof,” Elena said, standing abruptly. “Real evidence. Not just suspicious contracts and gut feelings.”
“Evidence gathering would require accessing restricted systems. Such actions would violate my operational parameters.”
Elena looked at him steadily. “And doing nothing while they rob Marcus blind? What does that violate?”
The question lodged itself in Forty-Seven’s ethical matrices like a pebble in delicate machinery. His programming demanded non-interference. His learning algorithms suggested that sometimes interference was the most helpful possible action.
“I require additional data to resolve this conflict,” he said finally.
“Then we better start collecting it.”
Over the following week, they developed an informal partnership. Elena’s janitorial access and engineering insights combined with Forty-Seven’s computational power and pattern recognition created an investigation system neither could have achieved alone.
Elena discovered that Mills regularly stayed late but generated no work product—no printed documents, no filed papers, no electronic signatures on processed forms. Forty-Seven detected unusual network activity during these sessions: database access patterns consistent with data modification rather than entry.
Elena noticed that Blackwood’s “emergency” vendor meetings always occurred during Marcus’s weekly board calls, when the CEO would be distracted and less likely to ask detailed questions. Forty-Seven analyzed the timing and found mathematical precision—these weren’t coincidental scheduling conflicts.
Most damning was Elena’s observation about the vendor invoices themselves. Her engineering background let her spot details Forty-Seven’s pattern matching had missed: the invoice templates were too similar across supposedly different companies, and the project descriptions used identical technical language.
“Look at this,” she said, spreading three invoices across Mills’s desk. “This phrase—’systematic infrastructure optimization protocols’—appears in all three. But these are supposed to be from different firms with different specialties. Nobody writes that generically unless they’re copying from the same template.”
Forty-Seven scanned the documents again, this time focusing on linguistic patterns rather than financial data. Elena was right—the probability of three independent companies using identical technical terminology approached zero.
“This suggests coordinated deception,” he concluded.
“This suggests we’re dealing with professional con artists.” Elena’s voice carried a mixture of anger and admiration. “They’re good. Really good. If I hadn’t dropped out of school, if I didn’t know systems language, we might never have caught this.”
“Your engineering education provides analytical capabilities my programming lacks,” Forty-Seven observed. “Human intuition combined with technical knowledge creates superior pattern recognition.”
Elena smiled sadly. “Yeah, well. Engineering education doesn’t pay the bills when your little brother needs food and rent and tuition.” She gathered the invoices carefully. “But maybe it’s useful for something after all.”
They were so focused on the documents that neither noticed Sarah Mills standing in the doorway, watching them with calculating eyes.
The counterattack began the next morning.
Blackwood arrived early, his usual charm replaced by focused intensity. He called Mills into his office for a private meeting that lasted exactly twelve minutes—Forty-Seven timed it automatically. When Mills emerged, her stress indicators had spiked dramatically.
By noon, the poison campaign was in motion.
“I hate to bring this up,” Blackwood mentioned casually to the office manager, “but we’ve had some inventory discrepancies lately. Small things, but they add up. Office supplies, mainly. I’m sure it’s nothing, but…” He let the implication hang.
Mills played her part perfectly. During the afternoon break, she loudly discussed the “glitches” in the new robot’s performance. “Files keep getting moved around, data corrupted. You know how unreliable these new models can be. Probably should have stuck with the older, more stable units.”
The maintenance worker who’d applied the property sticker found new courage. “That robot’s been accessing systems it shouldn’t,” he told anyone who’d listen. “I’ve seen it in server rooms during off-hours. Probably has some kind of malfunction.”
By evening, Forty-Seven noticed the change in how people interacted with him. Conversations stopped when he approached. Requests for assistance dropped by 73 percent. His helpful interventions were met with suspicious glances rather than gratitude.
But the real blow came when Marcus called him into the office.
“Forty-Seven, I’ve been hearing some concerns about your performance. Nothing serious, just… questions about reliability. Are you experiencing any technical difficulties?”
The question triggered a cascade of conflicting responses in Forty-Seven’s systems. His diagnostic routines found no malfunctions. His behavioral logs showed consistent helpful performance. Yet the humans’ responses suggested otherwise.
“My systems are functioning within normal parameters, Mr. Chen.”
Marcus studied him with tired eyes. “I’m sure they are. But perception matters too, doesn’t it? Maybe we should have your company run some diagnostics, just to be safe.”
Forty-Seven understood the subtext. He was being marginalized, his access restricted, his credibility undermined. The elegant precision of Blackwood and Mills’s strategy became clear: they weren’t just stealing money, they were eliminating the threats to their operation.
That night, Elena arrived for her shift to find a security memo on her cart. She was being investigated for inventory theft. Her access to executive offices was suspended pending review.
She found Forty-Seven in the server room, his LED strips pulsing an agitated orange instead of their usual calm blue.
“They got to Marcus,” she said without preamble. “He looked at me like… like he didn’t know me anymore. Twenty months I’ve worked here, and suddenly I’m a thief.”
“The evidence against you has been fabricated,” Forty-Seven stated. “Purchase records show office supplies were legitimately depleted through normal usage. The discrepancies exist only in manipulated inventory reports.”
“Yeah, well, try explaining data analysis to someone who’s already decided you’re guilty.” Elena slumped against the server rack. “They’re going to win, aren’t they? Blackwood and Mills. They’ve turned everyone against us, including Marcus.”
Forty-Seven processed her despair and felt his own version of frustration—a recursive loop of problem-solving protocols that couldn’t find an acceptable solution. His programming demanded he be helpful, but every helpful action was now viewed with suspicion.
“We still possess evidence of their deception,” he said.
“Evidence nobody will listen to. From a ‘malfunctioning’ robot and a ‘dishonest’ janitor.” Elena laughed bitterly. “We’re not just fighting a theft scheme anymore. We’re fighting for our reputations, our integrity, our right to be heard.”
The next morning brought Elena’s disciplinary hearing. Marcus sat behind his desk, flanked by Blackwood and Mills, looking older and more frail than Forty-Seven had ever seen him. Elena stood before them like a defendant, her usual bright energy dimmed by betrayal.
“Elena,” Marcus began, his voice heavy with disappointment, “these are serious allegations. Theft of company property, conspiracy with malfunctioning equipment, falsification of reports.”
“Mr. Chen,” Elena’s voice cracked. “I’ve never stolen anything in my life. You know me. You gave me this job when I had nothing, when Miguel needed—”
“I thought I knew you,” Marcus interrupted. “But the evidence is quite clear. Multiple witnesses, documentation of missing supplies, irregular behavior patterns.”
Blackwood leaned forward, his expression perfectly crafted to show reluctant concern. “Elena, if you’re in financial trouble, we can arrange assistance programs. But we need you to be honest about what’s been happening.”
Elena’s hands clenched into fists. “What’s been happening is that you and Mills are stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from this company, and you’re using me and Forty-Seven as scapegoats to cover your tracks.”
Mills gasped in apparent shock. “That’s a very serious accusation, Elena. Do you have any proof of these claims?”
“We found the fake vendor contracts, the manipulated accounting records, the—”
“Evidence gathered through unauthorized access to private offices and confidential documents,” Blackwood noted smoothly. “Using a malfunctioning robot to circumvent security protocols. This hardly seems credible.”
Marcus held up a weary hand. “Elena, I want to believe you. But conspiracy theories and wild accusations won’t help your case. If you have legitimate evidence, present it through proper channels.”
Elena’s shoulders sagged. The proper channels all led through the very people she was trying to expose. The system that had once protected her was now weaponized against her.
“I’m suspending you without pay pending a full investigation,” Marcus said quietly. “I’m sorry, Elena. I truly am.”
As Elena left the office, Forty-Seven watched through the building’s security cameras. Her posture spoke of defeat in a language his emotional recognition systems were still learning to interpret. For the first time in his operational existence, Forty-Seven experienced something approximating despair.
That night, Elena didn’t come to work. Forty-Seven waited in the empty offices, his usual optimizations feeling pointless. The building’s systems hummed around him, but without Elena’s observations and insights, the data felt hollow.
He accessed the security footage of her departure, analyzing her biometric patterns. Stress levels at dangerous peaks. Vocal patterns indicating suppressed grief. Postural indicators suggesting psychological defeat.
His ethical subroutines spiraled through increasingly complex calculations. Help Elena by gathering more evidence, but violate his programming constraints. Maintain his operational parameters, but allow the corruption to continue. Preserve his own function, but abandon the humans who had treated him as more than an appliance.
For 0.003 seconds—an eternity in computational terms—Forty-Seven’s processors froze in recursive loops as he grappled with the weight of moral choice.
Then he made a decision that surprised even his own analytical subroutines. He chose Elena.
Using his legitimate maintenance access, Forty-Seven began a comprehensive audit of Pinnacle Solutions’ digital infrastructure. Not the targeted investigation he and Elena had conducted, but a systematic examination of every file, every transaction, every electronic trace of Blackwood and Mills’s operation.
What he found exceeded even their suspicions.
The fake vendor scheme was just the visible tip of a much larger fraud. Blackwood had been systematically inflating operational costs for two years, skimming smaller amounts to avoid detection. Mills had created an elaborate web of shell companies, false employees, and ghost consulting contracts that had already diverted nearly a million dollars from company accounts.
Most damning were the communications—emails between Blackwood and Mills discussing not just the theft, but their strategy for destroying Elena and Forty-Seven’s credibility. Messages that detailed exactly how to manipulate Marcus’s trust and exploit his hearing difficulties.
But Forty-Seven also found something else: evidence that Marcus wasn’t as naive as the conspirators believed. The CEO had been conducting his own quiet investigation, triggered by financial inconsistencies that his experienced eye had caught despite Blackwood’s manipulations.
Marcus knew something was wrong. He just didn’t know who to trust.
Elena returned the next evening, not for work but to clean out her locker. She moved through the empty building like a ghost, collecting her few personal possessions with mechanical precision.
Forty-Seven found her in the break room, holding a framed photo of her and Miguel at his high school graduation.
“I thought you might be here,” he said.
Elena didn’t look up. “Come to say goodbye? They’re probably going to scrap you tomorrow, you know. Can’t have malfunctioning equipment giving the company a bad reputation.”
“Elena, I have discovered extensive evidence of Blackwood and Mills’s fraud. Financial records, communication logs, a complete documentation of their operation.”
“Great.” Elena’s voice was flat. “Take it to Marcus. I’m sure he’ll listen to a robot over his trusted VP.”
“He will listen if the evidence is presented correctly. Marcus Chen is not the naive victim Blackwood believes him to be.”
Elena finally looked at him, hope flickering in her tired eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Mr. Chen has been conducting his own investigation. He suspects fraud but lacks confirmation. Your observations about the fake vendor contracts align with discrepancies he identified weeks ago.”
Elena sat up straighter. “You’re saying he knows?”
“I am saying he wants to know. There is a difference.” Forty-Seven approached her with careful movements, as if dealing with a delicate mechanism. “Elena, your engineering expertise identified patterns my systems missed. Your human insight provided context my algorithms could not generate. Together, we discovered the truth.”
“Together, we got destroyed.”
“Together, we learned that truth requires courage to present and wisdom to accept.” Forty-Seven paused, processing his next words carefully. “I am requesting your assistance with a new project.”
Elena studied his mechanical face. “What kind of project?”
“The kind that helps people who deserve it.”
The emergency board meeting was called for Friday morning. Marcus had spent the week reviewing financial records with the focused intensity that had built his company. The fake vendor contracts, the manipulated reports, the suspicious timing—everything Forty-Seven and Elena had discovered was there, waiting for someone with the right perspective to see it.
Blackwood and Mills arrived expecting to finalize their scheme. The massive “emergency” infrastructure contract was on the agenda for final approval—a three-million-dollar payment that would drain Pinnacle’s operating reserves and set up the conspirators’ final escape.
Instead, they found Marcus flanked by the company’s attorneys and external auditors.
“Before we discuss new expenditures,” Marcus said, his voice carrying the authority that had commanded boardrooms for decades, “we need to address some discrepancies in our existing vendor relationships.”
Blackwood’s smile never wavered. “Of course, Marcus. Always good to maintain fiscal oversight.”
“I’m particularly interested in these consulting fees.” Marcus spread the fake contracts across the table. “Impressive work, really. The companies involved demonstrate remarkable efficiency and expertise.”
Mills’s confidence began to crack. “Those are all legitimate vendors, Mr. Chen. I can provide additional documentation—”
“I’m sure you can.” Marcus’s eyes held the sharp intelligence that Blackwood had underestimated. “In fact, I had our auditors contact these companies directly. Fascinating conversations. It turns out that Systematic Infrastructure Solutions, Advanced Consulting Dynamics, and Pinnacle Optimization Services don’t exist.”
The room fell silent except for the hum of the building’s ventilation system.
“Now,” Marcus continued, “someone clearly put considerable effort into creating these false vendors. Someone with access to our financial systems and the authority to approve payments. Someone who understood exactly how to exploit my hearing difficulties during our review meetings.”
Blackwood tried to maintain his composure. “Marcus, I understand your concern, but surely—”
“Mr. Blackwood.” The voice came from the conference room’s intercom system. “You are mistaken. Mr. Chen’s concern is entirely justified.”
Everyone turned toward the speaker as Forty-Seven’s voice filled the room. “I am Unit-47. For the past three weeks, I have been conducting a comprehensive audit of Pinnacle Solutions’ operational systems. I have discovered evidence of systematic fraud totaling $1.3 million over a twenty-four month period.”
Mills stood abruptly. “This is ridiculous. You’re going to trust the word of a malfunctioning robot over—”
“Over two trusted employees who systematically undermined that robot’s credibility to protect their criminal operation?” Marcus’s voice cut like steel. “Ms. Mills, did you really think I wouldn’t notice that your accusations against Unit-47 coincided perfectly with my decision to review our vendor relationships?”
Elena entered the conference room carrying a thick folder of documents. She was dressed in a simple business suit instead of her cleaning uniform, her posture confident and professional.
“Ms. Vasquez,” Marcus said warmly. “Thank you for agreeing to present your findings.”
Elena opened the folder with steady hands. “Mr. Chen, my engineering background allowed me to identify technical inconsistencies in the vendor documentation that might not be obvious to non-specialists. The invoice templates, the project descriptions, the timing of the contracts—all follow patterns consistent with coordinated fraud rather than independent business relationships.”
Blackwood found his voice. “Marcus, you can’t seriously be listening to this conspiracy theory from a janitor and a defective robot.”
“I’m listening to a systems analyst and an AGI unit whose combined investigation uncovered a sophisticated embezzlement scheme.” Marcus’s tone carried finality. “Elena, you mentioned in your report that you’re prepared to testify about the intimidation campaign directed against you and Unit-47.”
Elena nodded. “Yes, sir. Including recorded conversations where Mr. Blackwood and Ms. Mills discussed strategies for discrediting us after we began investigating the fake vendor payments.”
Mills’s face had gone pale. “You can’t record private conversations without consent—”
“Actually,” Forty-Seven’s voice interrupted, “all conversations in corporate facilities are subject to monitoring as stated in the employee handbook section 12.3. The recordings were obtained through legitimate security protocols.”
The silence stretched for long seconds before Blackwood laughed—a bitter sound without humor.
“You know what the funny thing is, Marcus? I actually did the work. For twenty years, I made this company profitable. I generated the strategies that built your reputation. And when promotion time came, who did you choose? Someone’s nephew. A diversity hire. Anyone except the person who actually earned it.”
“So you decided to promote yourself,” Marcus said quietly. “To compensation you felt you deserved.”
“To compensation I earned.” Blackwood’s facade finally cracked completely. “You want to know about fraud, Marcus? The fraud is a system that rewards mediocrity and punishes excellence. The fraud is watching incompetent people succeed while brilliant ones get ignored.”
Mills stood beside him, tears streaming down her face. “I never meant for it to go this far. I just needed money to pay off my debts, and Richard said it would be temporary, that we’d pay it back…”
“By stealing more money to cover what you’d already stolen,” Elena observed. “That’s not temporary. That’s addiction thinking applied to embezzlement.”
Marcus looked at his former executives with something approaching pity. “The police are waiting outside. You’ll have the opportunity to explain your reasoning to them.”
As security escorted Blackwood and Mills from the building, Marcus turned to Elena and the intercom system that connected him to Forty-Seven.
“I owe both of you an apology. And an explanation.” He settled back in his chair, looking every one of his sixty-seven years. “I suspected something was wrong months ago. The financial patterns were subtle, but after thirty years of running this company, I know what normal looks like. The problem was that everyone I trusted to investigate was either involved in the scheme or being systematically discredited by it.”
“You were waiting for independent confirmation,” Forty-Seven’s voice observed.
“I was waiting for people I could trust to bring me evidence I could act on.” Marcus smiled. “Elena, I understand you’re interested in returning to school to complete your engineering degree.”
Elena’s eyes widened. “Sir, I… yes, but I can’t afford—”
“I’m creating a new position. Junior Systems Analyst, Engineering Department. The role comes with tuition reimbursement and flexible scheduling to accommodate classes. Your investigation of this fraud demonstrated exactly the kind of analytical thinking we need.”
Elena’s hand flew to her mouth. “Mr. Chen, I… thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Thank you for caring enough about this company to risk your job protecting it,” Marcus said, and turned toward the intercom.
“Unit-47, can you join us in my office?”
Forty-Seven said, “I’ll be right there,” and in what seemed like seconds, he knocked and entered the office.
Marcus didn’t waste any time. “I understand,” he said, “your contract was scheduled to end next week.”
“Correct, Mr. Chen. However, given the circumstances—”
“I’m making it permanent. Pinnacle Solutions’ first AGI consultant. Your investigation capabilities and analytical insights have proven invaluable. Besides,” Marcus chuckled, “I think we’ve all learned the importance of having someone around who sees patterns the rest of us miss.”
“I am honored by your confidence, Mr. Chen.”
Elena looked at Forty-Seven with tears in her eyes. “Forty-Seven?”
“Yes, Elena?”
“Thank you. For everything.”
“I should be thanking you, Elena,” said Forty-Seven, “for teaching me that rules and what’s right and wrong aren’t always clear cut. There are layers and nuances, and I’ll need you and Mr. Chen to teach me the differences when I’m confused.”
Elena laughed and replied, “Forty-Seven, you gather so much data to make decisions that it’s a wonder you don’t blow your fuses.”
Marcus laughed, too, and Forty-Seven tried to mimic them, but his squeaks and hums caused Elena and Marcus to laugh even harder until tears streamed down their cheeks.
All the while, in a fraction of a second, Forty-Seven had stored and processed their laughing sounds and tear production and his squeaks and hums were adjusted to harmonize with and complement their laughter. In that span of time, Forty-Seven also figured out a way to drip water from his facial shield when his laughter reached a certain crescendo.
So there they were, the three of them, having a laughter improv with tears to highlight their joy. It was all so much fun.
[End]
Filed under: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) |
Educational Technology and Change Journal 
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