Black Market Hands

Black Market Hands

By: Michael K Norris

Officer Wells rapped his knuckles on the garage’s side door as a robot walked by on the nearby sidewalk - holding a dog leash in its eight fingered hand.

Wells was glancing at it as the door swung wide open.

A.J. Carter stood there wearing a filthy apron with hundreds of tiny burn holes. He stared at Wells with surprise.

“Show me your hands,” Wells said.

“Excuse me?”

“Show me your hands,” Wells said again.

Carter slumped his shoulders in dismay and sighed. “Fine.”

He stepped back from the door and headed further into the garage. As Wells followed, Carter grabbed the handle of the closed overhead door.

“Mind if I open this?”

Before Wells could answer, the noisy door slid up toward the ceiling and rolled to a stop on the galvanized tracks. A robot on the sidewalk carrying a bundle of packages in its arms did not look up at the sound

“Here you go,” Carter said, gesturing to his workbench. “I assume this is what you were talking about?”

Wells glanced at Carter suspiciously before looking at the crude two-by-four workbench at the far end of the cluttered garage. Boxes and boxes of scrap metal and electronics were scattered around. A dust covered Cobot Trintelligence android that had clearly been scrounged for parts leaned against a corner. Cobwebs fluttered over its grimy eyes like lashes.

“I don’t know which one of my neighbors ratted me out…again,” Carter said. “But please remind them that using power tools in one's own home isn’t illegal. And neither is artwork.”

Wells headed over to the workbench and looked down. A pair of mechanical hands reached up from a carved wooden base as though they were reaching for the sky. Tiny wires and small hydraulic pistons were visible in the spaces between the polished metal knuckles.

“These seem awfully well detailed,” Wells said. “Some might think they are too detailed.”

They both heard footsteps. On the sidewalk another Cobot walked past holding a dog leash. The animal thought the open garage was more interesting than the robot did and was nearly pulled off its feet by the machine as it insisted on walking.

“Two hands, maximum of eight fingers each, maximum of a forty-five degree angle from each other, no opposable thumbs,” Wells said, pointing toward the robot as it and the dog walked further down the sidewalk. “That is how robots are allowed to be built in this country. Level Three and higher personal assistance robots are not permitted to hold firearms and have to be built with hands that can’t fire them.”

“The idiots who made that law clearly watched too many movies,” Carter said, gesturing to the broken-down robot in the corner. “These things can hold knives and other weapons and they aren’t much better at driving than us. Even if I was making black market hands, which I’m not, I don’t see how it would matter.”

“A few rich owners of Cobots enjoy buying hands and other accessories that robots shouldn’t have,” Wells said. “It’s mostly a status thing.”

“Have any electeds asked Co-Trin to redesign these things so people can’t do that? Oh, right, they won’t, because everyone in public office got there thanks to their money.”

Wells hid a smirk and instead gave Carter a kind nod. “You and I aren’t alone when it comes to opinions about power or the abuse of right-to-repair laws.”

They paused at the sound of a car passing by. Carter looked at it and noticed a Co-Trin robot was behind the wheel. In the backseat, looking sullenly out the window, was a boy who looked as though he was coming home from a bad day at school.

“But you can’t be involved in selling black market hands,” Wells said as the car headed out of sight.

“As you can see, that’s not what I’m doing here,” Carter said. “I sell art with Cura in Morgan Hill and on my own website. Here, this one actually sold. Take a look.”

Carter pulled his phone off the top of a bandsaw and showed Wells the screen. The officer could see the word ‘sold’ in red letters by the image of the sculpture.

He stared at Carter. “Somebody actually bought that thing?”

“People want art made by people,” Carter said, putting the phone back down. “You saw the AI art crash, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Wells said, reaching into his pocket. “But demand for illegal robot modifications and your skills being what they are, I’d like you to keep an eye out for people who ask you to violate the AI & Robotics Safety Act of 2029.”

Wells held out a business card with the San Jose Police Department logo on the front. Carter’s thumb left a greasy smudge as he took it.

Wells took another glance at the detailed hands reaching up from the wooden base on Carter’s workbench. “Good luck with your art,” he said.

Carter watched as Wells walked out the front door of his garage to a police-issued electric bicycle. He looked at Carter a long time before putting up the kickstand and pedaling silently down the street and out of sight.

The phone on Carter’s bandsaw began to vibrate, sending a metallic rattle throughout the shop. He picked it up and held it to his ear.

“Yes?”

“I’m coming to pick up my artwork,” a voice said. “I’ll be there in one minute.”

The screen flashed as the call ended. Carter nonchalantly rolled his garage door closed and reached into a drawer to pull out two gold-plated, articulated fingers. With a tiny power screwdriver, he removed the middle, steel fingers from the hands that rose out of his workbench and installed the gold ones. He set the screwdriver down and admired his handiwork with a bemused expression. It’s what the client wants, he thought as he heard the sound of a car pull up to the front of the garage door.

Carter straightened up his appearance slightly and quickly looked back at his phone. Mr. Jonathan Pike. The Mr. Jonathan Pike. He turned toward the side door of his garage as he heard a knock.

He opened the door with a smile, fully expecting to finally meet Mr. Pike. To his surprise, a Co-Trin robot stood there. Both eight-fingered hands were at its sides, and the body panels were standard, factory-issued plastic. A cheap backpack hung over one shoulder.

“Mr. Carter?” The robot said.

“Uh, yes,” Carter said. “I’m sorry. I was expecting Mr. Pike.”

“I am Mr. Pike’s proxy,” the robot said, gesturing to a QR code on the small screen on its left shoulder. “You may scan for verification if you like.”

Carter blinked. “Uh, I’m sorry…the scanner on my phone is broken.”

“This verification should be sufficient,” the robot said as it pulled the backpack off its shoulder and held it toward Carter.

Carter slowly took the bag, unzipped it, and looked inside. Four gold bricks were inside with ‘16oz’ stamped on the tops.

“No need to check the weight,” the robot said as it stepped into the workshop and walked around Carter. “But I’d like the bag back.”

“Uh, I’m sure this is the weight Mr. Pike and I agreed upon,” Carter said as the robot stopped in front of the workbench. The low buzz that sounded from the robot’s chest told him it was giving the now comical-looking hands a LIDAR scan.

The sound of the scan ceased, and after a moment of quiet Carter heard the robot rotate the wooden base and begin another. He nervously removed the gold bricks from the backpack and concealed them in the filthy water in the clogged shop sink.

“Well done,” the robot said, finishing the scan and turning toward Carter. “The bag.”

Carter stepped forward and held out the backpack. The robot took it and pulled the hands, one at a time, from the wooden base and put them back into the backpack.

“You don’t want to take the base?” Carter asked.

“No need,” the robot said.

“But, uh, Mr. Pike is going to pay and mark the sculpture I put online as sold, right?” Carter asked. “It’s the only way I can really…well, I don’t want to say launder, but…”

“It is already done,” the robot said as it zipped up the backpack. “And Mr. Pike has requested another three…sculptures from you. Same specifications. He’ll pay the same price but there will be no need for gold middle fingers for these three. Hardened steel is fine.”

“Uh, okay,” Carter said as the robot headed back toward the side door of the garage. “Thank you. Can I speak to Mr. Pike sometime? I’d really like to meet him. He is, you know, kind of a legend around here.”

“You will only communicate through your online auction site. For security reasons,” the robot said, holding out its right hand. “Mr. Pike thanks you for your quality work and your discretion.”

Carter glanced down at the robot’s eight-fingered hand and awkwardly put out his own. He could feel the servos of the articulated fingers closing around his hand and he began to wonder if this robot could crush his bones as he had seen happen online once.

“Good day,” the robot said.

Before Carter could respond, the robot stepped out the side door of his garage and turned right on the stone path that led to the driveway - just like thousands of delivery and other personal assistant robots were doing at that very moment in Silicon Valley. Carter stood still in his workshop for a moment before he left the workshop himself and started toward the driveway.

In the car that stood there he could see the robot sitting in the passenger seat. A similar-looking Co-Trin model sat beside it at the wheel. As Carter watched, the robot reached over its shoulder with the backpack. In the dim light, he could see what looked like a damaged eight-fingered hand pulling it into the rear seat. He couldn’t see any other details of the third robot.

The car then backed up into the street and drove off. Even though Carter was rooted to his spot on his front walk, none of the robots out walking dogs and running errands paid it any mind.

The End