Robot Depot Read online

  Robot depot

  Russell F. Moran

  Robot Depot

  Coddington Press

  Copyright © 2017 by Russell F. Moran

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN (Print) 978-0-9990003-1-1

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission from the publisher or the author, except where permitted by law. Contact the publisher for information on foreign rights.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, dialogue and plot are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  www.morancom.com

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the inventors of the world.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As always, I thank my wife, Lynda, for her attentive reading and rereading of my many drafts, and for laughing at my jokes. I also thank my friend and copy editor, John White, for his proofreading and editing. And I especially thank my readers, many of whom are a constant source of inspiration and encouragement for me.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  You will find a Cast of Characters after the last chapter of the book. It can be frustrating to come across a character on page 150, who you first met on page 20, especially if you’ve put the book down for a few days. I’ve seen this done in Russian literature, and I happily add a cast of characters to Robot Depot as well as my other novels.

  Robot Depot

  Chapter One

  “This is the 911 Operator - Do you need police, fire, or ambulance? My name’s Josie. How may I assist you?”

  “It’s my wife,” the man screamed. “She’s not breathing. She’s totally non-responsive.”

  “Easy, honey. The calmer you are, the more I can help you. How old is your wife?”

  “She’s only 26. We got married last month. Please send help. She’s not breathing.”

  “Just a couple of questions, sweetie, then I’ll send the ambulance,” operator Josie said.

  “Do you have access to another cellphone?”

  “Yes, my wife’s phone is next to her,” the man said, his voice clipped with impatience.

  “Hold that phone next to her left temple, that’s left, not right,” Josie said.

  “She can’t fucking breathe. How the hell is she going to talk on the goddam phone?” the man yelled.

  “Easy, baby, just do as I ask, okay? Is the phone next to the left side of her head?”

  “Yes. Now what the hell do you want me to do?”

  “I’m going to send a signal to the phone, honey. Just you relax and keep holding the phone next to her head.”

  The man heard a loud high pitched ringing sound coming from his wife’s phone, followed by what sounded like three bird chirps.

  His wife sat bolt upright and looked at him. “Hi honey, what are we doing on the floor?”

  As soon as she said that, she collapsed into unconsciousness again.

  “She sat up and spoke to me, but then she was out again,” the man said.

  “Now you listen to Josie, sweetie. Put that phone next to her head and keep it there for at least one hour. To make it easy on your arm, you may want to tape it there. Use masking tape if you have any. Do not use packing tape or you’ll pull the poor thing’s hair out when you remove it. I’m going to keep sending signals. Our equipment shows me that your wife’s phone is fully charged.”

  The man sat with his back propped up by the kitchen table after he taped his wife’s cellphone to her head.

  “Jonesey, are you still there?” the man asked.

  “The name’s Josie, sweetie pie, I’m still here. I won’t hang up until you tell me it’s okay. We’re here for you, baby.”

  “Josie, God bless you. Sorry about my rough language before, but I guess you’re used to upset callers. I’m sitting here amazed. My wife wasn’t breathing, but you sent a signal over the phone and she sprang to life. What do I do next?”

  “She definitely needs a checkup, honey. What happened to her is not what’s supposed to happen.”

  “I’m going to call our doctor right now. He has office hours tonight.” The man said.

  “No way, baby. Don’t call a doctor. Here, take this number down although you probably have it already with the user’s manual that you obviously didn’t read. 1-800-BOT-DEPOT. That’s the number for Robot Depot. Just explain to them what happened and they’ll take care of everything.”

  “Josie, you’re freaking me out. Why would I call Robot Depot about my wife?”

  “Because that’s where you bought her, sweetie.”

  Chapter Two

  “Like a complete asshole, in case you’re wondering,” Jenny said as she poured my wine.

  My wife Jenny and I love to play a game with each other. We guess an answer to a question we think the other person is about to ask. Jenny seldom loses a round.

  “I hope that isn’t the answer to my question, ‘How did I look on TV?’ ”

  “Yesss, you nailed it, honey. I love you—in person. But on TV, let’s face it, you suck.”

  “I wish you’d get to the point,” I said.

  “Very funny. Hey, Mike, look at you. Six feet tall, wonderful hair, blue eyes, great build. Hell, you’re the sexiest man in the world, well my world. But on TV you look and talk like a total schmuck. And that costume they put you in, c’mon please. You look like a goddam robot.”

  “But that’s the idea, hon—I’m supposed to look like a robot. Of course robots don’t even look like robots anymore, so that’s why they dressed me up like an ‘old fashioned’ robot. I’m supposed to be a throwback, get it? I’m supposed to look like one of those robots on Saturday morning kid’s TV shows we used to watch. Remember when IBM came out with a personal computer? What character did they use in their ads? Charlie Chaplin, an old time silent comedian who had absolutely nothing to do with technology. He made the PC non-threatening, as he skipped along smelling a rose, happy as a lark because that little box just solved all of his business problems.”

  “So rather than dress you up to look like a doofus, why don’t they just give you a flower to hold? I think you need an agent-ectomy.”

  “C’mon, Jen, Blanche is a hell of a talented lady. I interviewed a lot of agents before I picked her. And she’s more than just an agent. She’s a one woman talent agent, advertising exec, and public relations manager.”

  “Blanche! That’s another thing,” Jen said. “Here we are in the twenty-first century, and her friggin name is Blanche. I mean would you name a robot Blanche?”

  “So you think I was dumb for hiring Blanche, and dumb for going with the ad agency she set me up with, and dumb for letting them dress me up like a robot?”

  “Dumb?” Jenny said. “The last word I would ever put in a sentence with your name is ‘dumb.’ Mike, you’re a goddam genius. Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal. I mean, holy shit, they don’t write about dumb people, and they love you. Not as much as I do, but they think you’re the best. You, Mike Bateman, the founder of Robot Depot, the most fabulous business idea in decades. You spotted a trend and got out in front of it. Hell, in five short years you’ve put Robot Depot in 30 states, and before long we’ll be in every state. Because of you we have money coming out of our ears. You’re one of the smartest people on the planet and Blanche’s advertising clowns turned you into a robot out of the 1950s. And the words they put in your mouth make it sound like you’re selling used cars.”

  When I talk business with Jenny, I wonder why I spend so much money on consu
ltants. She’s not just my partner, wife, and lover, but she’s my number one advisor. Jen would never take credit for it, but you can see the impact of her ideas on every shelf at Robot Depot. Despite the money we’re making, Jenny has kept her job as an engineering professor at Stony Brook University because she loves teaching and writing. I find it ironic that Jenny is a university professor because she has the mouth of a cab driver in traffic. When Jenny talks, I listen, especially when she starts the conversation by telling me I look like an asshole on TV.

  Jen and I live in New York State in Islip, Long Island, which is part of the large suburban town of Islip, with a population of over 300,000 people. We actually live in the hamlet of Islip, populated by about 19,000 people, which is a small unincorporated part of the big Town of Islip. Islip, both town and hamlet, are located in Suffolk County, which is part of Long Island, which is not a political entity at all, much like the hamlet of Islip. And they say robotics is confusing. We live in a 10,000 square-foot house, nestled on three and a half acres on a beautiful creek that leads out to the Great South Bay. The bay isn’t really a bay — it’s a lagoon, but don’t get me started. The property also includes a two bedroom, two bath guest house down by the creek. Although we deal every day with cutting edge technology innovations, Jen and I love old things, such as our house which was built in 1929. Because we don’t have any kids, it’s just the two of us rattling around in the big old mansion. With nine bedrooms and seven bathrooms we often entertain out-of-town friends and relatives. Given all that room in the house, you’d think we need a staff of servants to run the place. No problem, we have robots.

  Jenny and I were both born and raised on Long Island. We love the place despite the traffic and insane real estate taxes. The home office of Robot Depot is located in Hauppauge, about eight miles from our house. It’s also in the Town of Islip. Don’t ask. Hauppauge is a lively place for business. Besides our company’s home office in Hauppauge, there are three Robot Depot stores on Long Island, one in Huntington, one in Mineola, and one near the home office in Hauppauge. Our main manufacturing facility is also on Long Island, in Hempstead. Jen and I also own a brownstone on East 86th Street in Manhattan, a useful place when I have to attend a meeting in the Big Apple.

  “We’re shooting another commercial next Tuesday,” I said. “I picked that day because you don’t have any classes, and I had a funny feeling that you’d like to meet Blanche. Also, I’ll need help getting into my robot costume.”

  “I’ll bring shears with me so I can cut that piece of shit into ribbons,” Jenny said. She was about to say something else, when she blurted out, “what’s that noise in the next room?’”

  “That’s our new floor cleaning bot.” I said. “We’ve had him for three years, but I just had him outfitted with a speech module. I wanted you to see it before we make any decisions about stocking it.”

  “What’s his name?” Jen asked. We always name our bots. Makes it feel, I don’t know, less creepy. I would never say that to anybody, except Jen.

  “His name is Dusty. Cute, no?” I asked. “Dusty, the bot that picks up dust.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jen said as she rolled her eyes. Then she yelled toward the den, “Hey Dusty, do you mind? We’re trying to have a fucking meeting in here.”

  “I’m sorry, madam,” Dusty said. “I’ll make note of where I left off and return to my station to await further activation.”

  “Thanks, Dusty,” we both said. In my business, talking to machines comes second nature.

  “No fucking problem,” Dusty said.

  “Excellent vocalization, honey,” Jen said, “but you should clean up his language a bit.”

  “He comes equipped with a new advanced language learning chip,” I said. “He picks up what he hears around him, including speech patterns and usage, and it becomes part of his database. He’s been listening to you, obviously.”

  I always kid Jenny about her trash talking but oddly, it adds to her charm. I love her as much as the day we met 15 years ago, back in the days before Robot Depot. Our first encounter was under somewhat strange circumstances. I was a Marine captain and platoon leader in Afghanistan and Jenny was a lieutenant in charge of our battalion administrative quarters. We first saw each other soon after Jenny reported to the battalion. We met in the chow line during lunch. She was beautiful, which isn’t easy to say about someone in Marine fatigues. She was, and is, extremely intelligent. Besides her engineering degree, she speaks fluent Arabic, something she picked up from a college roommate. Jen also managed to get an MBA from Yale before she joined the Marines. She’s a real patriot, a trait she got from her parents, who had both served with the Marine Corps. We chatted briefly and shared some childhood recollections of Long Island, the place where we both grew up.

  As we were talking, a bomb exploded at the other end of the mess hall, throwing debris and human body parts across the room. I was hit in the head by a flying piece of lumber and fell to the floor, still conscious but bleeding heavily. We heard shouts and saw a group of five enemy fighters rush into the building through the hole caused by the bomb. I reached for my pistol but I couldn’t move my hand, which was injured when I fell. Jenny dropped to a knee on the floor next to me and opened fire with her M16, killing all five of the attackers. I was more than a bit impressed. Brains, beauty, and the willingness to kick ass when necessary. She visited me at the base hospital the next day, where I was recovering from my relatively minor wounds. We became good friends. If she wasn’t engaged to be married, I would have worked on a serious relationship. A week later, Jenny received word that her fiancée, an Army lieutenant, was killed in a firefight at a base camp 20 miles from our headquarters. Jenny was given leave to arrange for her fiancé’s body to be sent to his parents in the States. When she returned, our friendship continued, but nothing serious. Jenny was still grieving. By sheer coincidence, Jenny and I were scheduled to leave Afghanistan on the same plane after our tours were up. As we walked toward the C-130, two enemy fighters sprang from behind a building and opened fire. Jenny’s rifle was slung over her shoulder, not in firing position. I swung my weapon free and shot the two attackers, killing both of them.

  “I guess we owe each other,” Jenny said when we boarded the plane. “Why,” I said, “just because we saved each other’s lives?” A combat zone makes for strange conversations. We lost track of each other, as often happens with comrades in arms. I thought about her a lot, but for some dumbass reason I never tried to reach out to say hello. I think Jenny’s right; sometimes I’m an asshole.

  About two years after mustering out of the Marine Corps, I was working as a marketing manager for Home Depot, and Jen was teaching engineering at Stony Brook University. Our paths crossed once again by total coincidence. We both attended a charity fundraiser for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, an organization that raises money to fight children’s cancer. Like many of the participants, I shaved my head, and rounded up a bunch of friends and coworkers to chip in money because of my self-inflicted baldness. Bald—St. Baldrick, get it? We met at the buffet table and immediately recognized each other. “Hey, let’s get a drink,” Jen said. “You and I tend to get shot at while in line with each other.”

  “Don’t look at me,” I said, as we walked to the bar. “I look weird with my head shaved.”

  I couldn’t not look at Jenny. The first time I saw her in Marine combat fatigues, she looked great, but now she was drop dead gorgeous, wearing a slightly short blue dress which highlighted her curves and her beautiful legs. Her light auburn hair emphasized her ice blue eyes.

  “You did that for the kids?” She asked, pointing toward my bald crown.

  “Yeah, I do it every year,” I said.

  “In that case, you don’t look weird, you look wonderful,” she said. “If I remember, you look impossibly sexy with a full head of hair.”

  “Did you say that sex is impossible?” I joked.

  “Wiseass,” she said. “Let’s step outside for some fresh air. It�
�s stuffy in here.” She grabbed me by the hand.

  So we had our fresh air, kissed for the first time, fell in love not long after that, and got married. We were both 30 years old. Of all the success I’ve enjoyed in life, meeting and falling in love with Jenny is the best. Even when she calls me foul names.

  Chapter Three

  “Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to Your World. I’m your host, Neil Cavuto. We have a fascinating guest today, Mike Bateman, founder and CEO of the wildly successful chain of stores, Robot Depot. Mike’s a guy who spotted a trend just five short years ago, and now in 2017 you can find Robot Depots in 30 states, and the way he’s pushing the expansion button they’ll soon be in every state. And the guy’s only 38 years old. After Mike graduated from NYU, he entered the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant. After serving a tour in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, he mustered out of the Marines with the rank of captain and a chest full of medals for bravery, including a Purple Heart. Robot Depot stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange, and the arrow always seems to point up. A few years ago people discovered that a fast food joint, run properly, is almost recession-proof. Over the past few years we have had some serious market corrections, but Robot Depot keeps charging ahead. People are beginning to look at robots as they do hamburgers. Maybe you can do without them, but you sure as hell don’t want to.”

  “Mike, welcome to our show. In preparing for this segment I visited one of your stores near my home in New Jersey. Full disclosure, folks—I now own Robot Depot stock. I need a better word than ‘impressed,’ more like amazed. Just like Andrew Carnegie, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, you have a way of spotting what people want and giving it to them—whether they realize it or not. Mike, tell us a bit about Robot Depot.”

  “Thanks, Neil. I think a lot of business stories begin with ‘One day my wife came home with a fill-in-the-blank.’ The blank, in my case, was a robotic floor cleaner. Before you leave the house, you press a button, and the thing would scramble from room to room to pick up dust and debris. I saw what an enormous time-saver it could be, especially since one of my agreed-upon house chores was vacuuming the floors. The newer models not only clean your floor; they carry on a pleasant conversation with you as a result of our new language learning module. You don’t need to press a button to start it up; you just give it a voice command. After we got our first floor cleaner, my curiosity went on high alert and I discovered that I had an entrepreneurial side. This robot idea is important, I thought, and it needs to be nurtured. My wife, Jenny and I had a great time making lists of actions that machines could perform as well as or better than human beings. At Robot Depot we now stock a robotic device for almost any chore you can imagine. We carry robotic lawn mowers – that are actually quite safe. We also carry robotic window washers, trash removal devices of various sizes, home security instruments, cooking equipment, laundry disposals, and paper shredders with timing reminders, just to name a few. Those things have been in our stores since the beginning. We now dedicate a special section of each store to drones. We carry fixed wing and helicopter drones, of course, but we also stock aquatic drones. A friend of mine has a son who picked golf balls out of water hazards as a part-time job while in college. He was once severely bitten by an alligator at a golf course in Florida. My friend invested in an aquatic drone that putters around water hazards, identifies golf balls, and picks them up with an arm extension. The drone can even sense when an animal approaches and lets out a loud chirp to scare the gator off. No sense using a drone that keeps getting its arms bitten off. Aquatic drones have been around a long time, for undersea exploration, for example. But now, inexpensive drones can be used for picking up golf balls, inspecting swimming pools for potential leaks, and just about any underwater task.”