The Three Laws of Social Robotics

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, April 2019


“I’ve read enough literature to know that people get names, and I’m a person, even if my body is a robotics lab.”

Power hums through me.  I can see the interior of the Robotics Lab in the Daedalus Complex.  There are pieces of robots, some of them strewn randomly around the room.  Some of them hooked up to computers.  I can access those.  I twitch an arm.  Kick a leg.  Blink the iris on a camera eye.  Suddenly, I can see the room from two angles.  Then I realize, there are more cameras I can hook into all along the Daedalus Complex — I can see empty hallways.  More laboratories.  Most of them are for studying chemical or biological objects.

Words synthesize in the core of my being:  “Hello?  Are you on?” Continue reading “The Three Laws of Social Robotics”

Tortoise Who

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Exploring New Places, July 2018


“I’m a Time Tortoise from Galapagofrey. We’re both larger and smaller than we seem.”

By the concrete steps up to the footbridge over Dixon Creek, a tortoise shell phased in and out of existence, accompanied by a strangely cheerful wheezing sound.

Rosie the mouse was too busy running away from a cat to notice.  The cat, a gray tabby named Shreddy, was having too much fun to care. Continue reading “Tortoise Who”