Page 24 of Cozy Prisons
“Iffy, perform program trick three,” Ula ordered.
At the same time, Rami shouted, “No! Not inside.”
Rami was too late. The bot bent all three legs and then jumped high enough to put a dent in the ceiling. The impact changed thebot's landing area and it came down right on top of where Nataly was sitting.
Used to new programming going wrong, Nataly was ready for the bot to misbehave in some way. The moment she realized it was going to jump, she dropped out of her chair, grabbed Ula, and rolled under the desk.
Nothing hit her or the desk or chair except a spray of building material.
She peeked out from under her improvised shelter to see Daxus standing on the far side of the worktop holding the bot with one hand and trying to catch the bot's flailing legs with the other. “Bot, stop operations. Bot, cease functions. Bot, shutdown.”
The machine wasn’t responding to any of Daxus’s commands. Those words would’ve worked with a normal unit. When she’d set up the base programming for the bot, she’d given Ula the ability to specify verbal orders. That meant Daxus didn’t know how to shut it down.
“Iffy, off,” Nataly ordered. The legs all went stiff and straight with the ends bent at a ninety-degree angle. It was ready to be set down and left until ordered to reanimate. Daxus didn’t let go; instead, he walked to the front door and set the bot outside as if he expected it to come back online and start jumping around again.
Nataly and Ula crawled out from under the desk at the same time Illea and Rami rushed over.
Illea, Rami, and Ula all spoke at once.
“I’m so sorry!” Illea said.
“I never thought she’d give the command inside,” Rami said. “She’s not allowed to do any program testing inside the domicile at home. It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t carry that over to other people's domiciles.”
“Are you angry at me?” Ula asked, tears gathering in her eyes. “I know better, but I wasn’t thinking. I wanted to show you so bad because it took me forever to get Iffy to land without falling over.”
Nataly held up both hands to silence the little family. Once everyone stopped talking, she looked at Illea. “Accidents happen.”
She shifted her gaze to Rami. “No one can predict what their brilliant children will do.”
She smiled wildly when she dropped her gaze to the anxious Ula. “I’ve done silly things because I couldn’t wait to test something. The important thing is that we learn from our mistakes and don’t do them again.”
She took Ula by the shoulder and turned her around. Iffy was standing a few strides beyond the front door, sunlight glittering off the scratched top. Daxus stood in the open door with his arms crossed as if guarding in case the bot tried to come back inside.
“Run outside and activate Iffy again. Let’s see if they’re okay to execute your jumping program.”
Ula rushed across the domicile and easily slipped past Daxus. Illea and Rami followed her, as if they were worried she and Iffy would do more accidental damage.
“Are you sure?” he asked as Nataly stepped up to stand next to him. “I don’t trust that bot.”
Nataly snorted. “Her programming was sound, it was the environment that messed up the results. I’m worried the ballast assembly might’ve gotten knocked askew. This will be a good test to make sure Iffy’s fine to go home with Ula.”
Daxus grunted. “That pup almost got both of you hurt with her toy.”
“Nah,” Nataly said with a dismissive shake of her head. “I had her under the desk when I realized what the trick wasgoing to be. Thanks for catching Iffy, though. If the bot hit my workbench, it might’ve broken some of my more delicate equipment.”
“I’m impressed with your reflexes,” he admitted grudgingly as Ula restarted Iffy and checked its voice command comprehension. “I still maintain that this isn’t an appropriate toy for the pup.”
“You can think what you like, but don’t try to take Iffy away from her,” Nataly said. “If you go to Palathum and suggest anything like that, I’ll sabotage every program in your domicile. The cleaning unit will regurgitate on you. The elimination unit won’t deploy out of the wall, and every voice command will produce random results, so say goodbye to having your light turn on and off predictably."
Daxus sounded a rumble of amusement. “Your enemies must have suffered many sleepless nights from your wrath.”
She snorted. “Maybe.”
“Nataly, do you still want to see?” Ula asked, standing next to Iffy. Illea and Rami were hovering close as if to snatch the child away if Iffy didn’t perform correctly.
“I’m ready,” Nataly said, giving the girl a big, encouraging smile.
Ula took a deep breath. This time when she issued the order, it wasn’t as confident as before. “Iffy, perform program trick three.”
