Mike looked steadily at J.U.D.Y. because he knew she already had her “eyes” focused on him. The light in the middle of her face where the eyes would have been stayed a steady red and hadn't changed over to green yet. That made him feel better but he still nervously reached up and pulled the brim of the hat down a little more where it was actually resting on the sunglasses.
Bill stood behind him, waiting for him to take another step toward the doors of the school. “Go on, dude. We can’t stay out here forever.”
“Stop pushing. I know it’s a little late now but I’m still trying to make sure that the facial recognition software isn’t going to kick in.”
“The longer we stand here the more time it spends scanning and giving it a better chance.” Bill started leaning back. “Maybe this was a bad idea after all.”
“I’ve never done this before but the instructions that I grabbed through Google sure made this sound like it would work.” Mike still hadn’t moved. He just stayed staring at J.U.D.Y.’s face, dreading the inevitable confrontation. “But we’ve already come this far. I’m sure it already has a digital video stored. We need to go ahead and wipe the hard drive anyway ”˜cause while that thing may not recognize us, some person reviewing it later probably will.”
Bill pulled his hat down as well. “Then let’s go.” He started to walk around Mike but his new found bravado spurred Mike into action and they strolled forward together. Both instinctively cringed when they were 10 feet away and the voice came to life.
“Good morning, boys,” J.U.D.Y. said. Mike hated its voice. The earlier T.I.M. models were much truer to their long name of “Truancy Inspection Mechanism” and were essentially just a computer that monotonously droned on with a computer synthesized voice saying “You may pass” or the one that Mike heard so often: “School has begun. You must proceed to the principal’s office.”
These new uints still had the mechanical shell so as not to appear too human but did have the rough form and features to install a sense of humanity. It also had a more humanly synthesized voice with female tones to help with the “nurturing” and some very skillful artificial intelligence software that actually interacted with the kids in a much friendlier way. It still did the exact same job of catching the students that came to school late and actually scanned them for things which they should not have been in possession of.
Mike hated it. In striking that delicate balance between keeping it mechanical and yet giving it some sign of human likeness they actually managed to have it truly borrow into the psyche of the kids that it was trying to catch.
It made Mike nervous that it recognized them as being males and it knew there were at least 2 of them but at the 10-foot mark where it is supposed to address them by name it still used a generic greeting instead. It appeared Google had been right about hiding their faces.
“You need to remove the hats and glasses and let me see those faces before moving ahead.” Mike wasn’t sure but he swore he detected a trace of authoritarian frustration in its voice and not just the plain reading of a script, another of the coder’s added humanisms.
In one move Mike pulled the speaker magnet from his pocket and slapped it right on the spot where the hard drive was closest to the surface according to the instructions.
Nothing happened.
And that was a good thing. J.U.D.Y. should have been sounding alarms and alerting someone that one of the students had “attacked”. Instead there was a slight drop in the volume of the hum and a quiet pop but the animatronics of the torso ceased. The light still glowed a steady, bright red.
Mike looked back at Bill and smiled. “Let’s go”. They started to proceed around J.U.D.Y. and had managed to get 10 feet on the other side of her when that soft voice spoke again. “Thank you, Mike, for handing over these items without being prompted. Your compliance is appreciated. And I assume that since you didn’t hand me anything, Bill, that you don’t have anything in your possession that I should have?”
Mike turned and saw a mechanical arm pulling the magnet off and dropping it into drawer full of other magnets.
J.U.D.Y. continued. “Of course, I still need those hats and sunglasses… and you still need to go see the principal.”
While looking at J.U.D.Y.’s back, Mike had time to read the small display screen that was located there below a glowing green light.
“Judicious Unit for Deliquent Youth version 2.0
Model 1337-B
Wireless communication
Student identified: Michael Powers
Student identified: William Stancowitz
Charges: Tardiness, attempt to hide identify, attempt to deactivate authority
Sentence: Talk with principal, 3 sessions of detention, 2 weeks probation for school activities.
File contents emailed to principal and parents.”
“By the way, my hard drive has been relocated to my posterior if you should decide to try something like this again but be prepared for additional charges.”