In the not-so-far-off future there was a factory, or rather, there will be, because this story takes place in the not-so-far-off future. But for the sake of storytelling and to prevent confusion we’ll say “was.”
So, in the not-so-far-off future there was a factory. What this factory produced, who knows? Widgets? Maybe gizmos? Let’s just say it produced widgets and gizmos. But that’s not really important because this story is not about the factory, but rather a worker in the factory.
Image of man eating a sandwich…or something.
Not that worker. This one.
Image of T4C0
Meet T4C0, a maintenance robot in this factory.
What was that?
You’ve never heard of a maintenance robot? You must be from the past. Remember this is the future. Things are different here. We don’t have flying cars yet, but we do have cars that drive themselves, hovering just a few inches off the ground. Hey, it’s a start.
In this non-descript factory T4C0 worked hard ensuring the factory was always in tip-top working condition.
He would change lightbulbs.
Clean air filters
Mop floors
And unclog the occasional toilet.
T4C0 was your basic run-of-the-mill whatever-needs-fixed-or-tidied-he’s-the-bot-for-the-job robot.
And he loved his job. He loved his coworkers. Both the human and mechanical kind.
He loved his boss, B055, the latest breakthrough in bot management technology.
He even loved the different things he got to do on the job. Strangely even unclogging toilets. Of course, he was programmed to love these things. After all he is merely a jumble of wires and circuitry.
One day as he was cleaning the microwave in the breakroom, after an unfortunate microwave chili dog explosion, T4C0 noticed something quite unusual and awe-inspiring.
Someone brought several trays of strange food into the breakroom and placed a sign next to them that read:
HAPPY TACO TUESDAY. TAKE ONE TACO AND ENJOY YOUR DAY! -The Management.
T4C0 had never seen a taco before. This was something entirely new and foreign to him!
T4C0 scanned the trays and counted 490 tacos, which happened to be the exact number of humans who worked in the factory. That means each factory worker could eat exactly one taco, just as the friendly sign said.
T4C0 held one of the tacos up to the light. What a beautiful array of colors. Green, Red, Brown, Yellow, White, Tan, Light Tan!
T4C0 activated his smell module (which was originally installed to detect nasty odors, like mold, mildew, clogged toilets, or exploded chili dogs in the microwave). His sensors informed him that the taco smelled wonderful. The bouquet of aromas nearly overloaded his smell sensors.
While T4C0 was inspecting this new food, a few of the human workers came in and helped themselves to a taco. T4C0 watched their faces to see how they would react to this fascinating new treat.
As the humans shoved their tacos into their mouths, taco-teethed smiles spread across their faces. They even made audible approval sounds like…
Ohhh. Yum. So Good! And “I LOVE TACOS!”
According to all calculations tacos were something wonderful and tasty, and T4C0 just knew he needed to try one, right away!
But there was one small problem. Actually, it was a rather big problem. T4C0 didn’t have a mouth. There was no way he would be able to enjoy tacos the way that humans did. T4C0 wished he could taste one to experience it the way humans did, to be able to smile like the humans, to say “I LOVE TACOS TOO!” through his voice modulation speaker. But sadly, he couldn’t do those things, and this broke T4C0’s titanium alloy heart.
So T4C0 strolled slowly out of the breakroom to continue the day’s tasks. The rest of the day seemed to creep slowly by and even though T4C0 completed his tasks on time and exactly as programmed, he didn’t do his job with the joy he had before his taco experience in the breakroom.
That night as T4C0 laid down in his charging station in sleep mode, his dream circuits continuously looped the memories of the sight, smell, and lack of taste he experienced that day.
But by the time T4C0’s charging cycle was over the next morning, he had nearly forgotten about the taco experience. Not because he wanted to, but because while he slept his diagnostics and maintenance programming wiped any unnecessary data from his hard drive. All he was left with was…
- Taco – human food – not fit for bots. 01010100 01000001 01000011 01001111
T4C0 left his charging station fully charged, ready to tackle the day’s tasks. His first task was to prepare the break room for the humans to arrive.
First, he would tidy the break room removing any leftover mess from the day before.
Next, he would make the energy fuel the humans loved so much. (coffee)
Finally, he would arrange the fat cell generators in a likeable fashion on large trays (donuts).
As T4C0 entered the breakroom, a smell from yesterday lingered in the air. The smell was familiar to T4C0 but he couldn’t quite place it. He searched his hard drive to identify the aroma but could not find a match in his memory banks. But the smell gave T4C0 a strange feeling. A familiar feeling that he couldn’t shake, but also didn’t want to.
T4C0 captured some of the smell particles in an analysis pod and proceeded to clean up the break room, brewing the energy fuel and placing the fat cell generators in a likeable fashion on the large trays. Before long the smells of the energy fuel and fat cell generators replaced the mystery smell. T4C0 continued working on his duties throughout the day, still feeling like something was missing from his life. By life I mean of course his circuitry, because robots don’t technically have lives. They just turn on, work, then turn off.
That night before plugging into his charging station for another night of diagnostics and maintenance T4C0 connected his analysis pod to his diagnostics port and started a subroutine that would analyze the smell particles while he slept and inform him what that strange and marvelous smell was.
The next morning he emerged from his charging station and the smell analysis subroutine was complete. The report was as follows…
- Smell particles…
- Beef
- Spices – including but not limited to…
- Paprika
- Chili Powder
- Garlic Powder
- Black Pepper
- Onion Powder
- Cumin
- Oregano
- Marjoram
- Salt
- Cheese
- Sour Cream
- Tomatoes
- Corn Flour
- Conclusion: Taco Smell Fallout
T4C0 remembered his new data entry from yesterday morning…
- Taco – human food – not fit for bots. 01010100 01000001 01000011 01001111
So to this data he added the following…
- Smells really yummy. 01010100 01000001 01000011 01001111 01010011 00100000 01000001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01011001 01010101 01001101 01001101 01011001 00100001
T4C0 wasn’t even sure what the word “yummy” meant but he heard the humans use that term a lot when they were eating in the breakroom, so he thought it fit here.
As the days went by, T4C0 continued to work hard at the factory. He soon forgot about the taco data…until the next Tuesday, that is.
Once again in the breakroom were several trays with tacos and the sign that once again read:
HAPPY TACO TUESDAY. TAKE ONE TACO AND ENJOY YOUR DAY! -The Management.
Of course, T4C0 didn’t remember the trays of tacos or the sign. So just like last week he did a quick scan of the tacos. There were 480 tacos. That’s 10 less tacos than there were humans who worked at the factory. Interesting, thought T4C0. Maybe 10 people don’t want tacos. I wonder why?
T4C0 picked up a taco and examined it just as he did last week. He visually observed the taco and it was very pleasing to his optical sensors. He sniffed the tacos with his smell sensors and remembered the smell analysis from last week concluding that tacos smelled “yummy.” Still T4C0 had no way of tasing the tacos.
T4C0 had a strange sense of déjà vu as he analyzed the taco. He felt like he had experienced tacos before but his memory banks only turned up that tacos were not fit for bots to consume. But all this data he was coming up with now was revealing much more. Beautiful sights, wonderful smells…and taste? The humans were seeming to enjoy them. Except for 11 poor workers who showed up late to the breakroom and all the tacos were gone. One of the workers saw T4C0 holding a taco (still analyzing it) and quickly snatched the taco from his hands and said “Tacos aren’t bot food!” then quickly scarfed the taco down. The other 10 workers were angry at the 11th for having the brilliant idea that T4C0 wouldn’t be able to eat his taco. So they sadly walked over to the vending bot to get a candy bar instead.
As T4C0 worked throughout the day he couldn’t shake that feeling of déjà vu and realized that perhaps his memory of tacos was being erased while he charged. He didn’t want to lose this feeling he had about tacos again so he came up with a plan. He found a data chip in the bot maintenance room, inserted it into his data port and download everything he knew about tacos. He hid the chip in his mop bucket and went to his charging port for the night.
Once again when he woke up the next morning the only information about tacos in his data banks was:
- Taco – human food – not fit for bots. 01010100 01000001 01000011 01001111 01010011 00100000 01000001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01011001 01010101 01001101 01001101 01011001 00100001
T4C0 remembered nothing else, and didn’t even remember that he had downloaded the taco information to a data chip.
But when T4C0 grabbed his mop bucked he noticed the data chip in the empty mop bucket so he picked it up, popped it into his data port and instantly he remembered TACOS! The smells, the colors, and the reactions the humans had when they ate them. He also remembered how sad and angry the humans that couldn’t eat tacos felt.
Then T4C0 had a new revelation in his CPU! He wanted to EAT a taco! All data pointed to the fact that tacos were AMAZING, and that tasting them was the ultimate form of enjoyment!
But there was that one big problem that we discussed before. T4C0 didn’t have a mouth and therefore couldn’t eat them. So, once again, T4C0 sadly continue his daily chores, wishing he could eat a taco, but never being able to.
Weeks went by and each Tuesday T4C0 would inspect the tacos, really wish he had one, and would continue to download and re-upload the taco data, and all the data about tacos were the same. Tacos were amazing. He also noticed something strange about the number of tacos. Each Tuesday everyone showed up to get a taco, but each week the trays were 10 to 15 tacos short of everyone getting one.
T4C0 came to a startling conclusion! Someone was STEALING tacos! T4C0 couldn’t believe what his circuits were telling him, but he knew he needed to report this taco crime! So he scheduled an appointment with B055 his boss-bot.
In the meeting he told B055 how he had been keeping track of the number of tacos and each week there were 10 to 15 tacos missing. B055 was shocked to hear it! Immediately he called the boss of the humans and reported the findings.
B055 and Ross (the human boss) quickly arranged a meeting to get to the bottom of the taco theft. B055 thanked T4C0 for informing him and promised to resolve the matter very soon.
The next day B055 called T4C0 into his office and told him the great news that the taco thief, was captured. Apparently, the man in charge of picking up the tacos would become so overwhelmed by the yummy smells of the tacos that he would eat 10 to 15 tacos on the way back from the taco stand.
Ross explained to B055 that this kind of behavior is not surprising because tacos are really delicious (something T4C0 already knew…to a degree). Ross felt sorry for the deliveryman and rather than firing him, he decided that from now on, only a bot would be responsible for delivering the tacos to the breakroom. And since T4C0 was key in helping catch the taco-thief he got promoted to taco delivery-bot! From now on every Tuesday T4C0 would pick up the tacos from the taco stand and deliver them right to the breakroom.
T4C0 was so excited at his promotion and promised to make B055 proud! The next Tuesday T4C0 delivered all 490 tacos as promised. T4C0 became the best delivery-bot in the factory. And every Tuesday T4C0 looked forward to making the taco delivery, because, even though he couldn’t taste the tacos he loved the wonderful smell they would fill his delivery truck with and the smiles on everyone’s faces EVERY last one of the human workers got to eat a taco.
All the human factory workers celebrated T4C0 and his faithful taco delivery. Every one of them cheerfully enjoyed their taco and went back to work so much happier than before!
Soon B055 called T4C0 into his office once again. This time with more good news! Because he was such a faithful delivery-bot B055 was allowing him to pick one free upgrade!
T4C0 was so excited. It had been several years since he had an upgrade and couldn’t wait to see what kind of new options were available! What would he choose? T4C0 looked at the upgrade catalog trying to figure out what the best upgrade would be!
- Night vision
- Jet propulsion
- Arm extensions
- High speed wheel
- Solar Panel
- Mouth Module
MOUTH MODULE! T4C0 read the upgrade details. Mouth Module comes complete with tooth gears, jaw servos, smile protocols, and TASTE SENSORS!!! T4C0 knew that this was the upgrade for him. He ordered the upgrade and that night while he charged his new Mouth Module was installed.
The next morning T4C0 woke up and immediately looked in the mirror. His reflection revealed a beautiful metal smile. T4C0 opened his mouth to see the net taste sensors. It was pink and triangular, similar to a real human tongue. T4C0 spend a few minutes making faces with his new mouth module.
Then he realized that today was TUESDAY and he needed to pick up tacos for the human workers at the breakroom, and he had spent so much time making faces in the mirror that he was now running late! T4C0 rushed to the delivery truck, drove to the taco stand and loaded all 490 tacos into the back of the truck.
Thankfully T4C0 was back on schedule. Soon the smell of the tacos filled the delivery truck. T4C0 smiled for the first time at the taco smells. Then he thought to himself the same thing he thought every Tuesday as he delivered tacos. They smell so good…I wonder what they taste like.” Then T4C0 remembered…I HAVE TASTE SENSORS!!!
The next few moments were a blur for T4C0. All he remembers is taking one taco from the tray, nibbling just a little corner of the taco shell, then a little more, then a little more, and before he knew it the entire delivery truck was empty. Just a truck, several trays and a very satisfied robot. That is, until B055 showed up…
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