The four people, including Matiew, who sat in his hospital room were all very quiet and sitting very still. At first, when Min and Rine had returned with Mr Jorgenson, there was a sense of excitement and anticipation. They could communicate with BaBS-Y. Ever since it had severed it’s hard-line connection to the Thesis, it had also blocked any and all unsolicited communications, most likely as a preventative measure to keep the Thesis authorities from continuing in their efforts to force it to shut down. Now, all they had to do was change what the emergency displays said. It was so simple. Why hadn’t they thought of it sooner? Then, they argued over what exactly they should say, and that discussion didn’t end until Rine spoke up, asking the question that had silenced the other three.

“Does it have a way to reply?”

It was an honest question. It was the right question. Matiew turned the problem over in his head.

“It’s used the small portable display from the salon in the past,” Matiew finally said. “Now that it’s got its wireless connection it should be able to use it. But,” he massaged his chest gently while he thought, “that display’s got to be low on power by now, if not completely dead.”

“And it’s still in the salon,” Min nodded. “We could have the last CaSS take it to BaBS-Y, but I’d be worried about BaBS-Y trying to cannibalize it. Without that CaSS, we can’t keep the MaCS charged.”

“What if the MaCS escorted CaSS?” Mr Jorgenson asked. “I’m sure BaBS-Y would be less inclined to go on the attack if they were there.”

“Still doesn’t help if the display’s dead,” Matiew replied.

“Just have CaSS charge it up like it does the MaCS,” Mr Jorgenson stated.

“The portable displays use wireless charging docks,” Min said with a sigh.

They all thought for a few moments longer. Only Rine moved or made any sound as she typed away at her computer. Matiew’s screen, which was a mirror of the one Rine was looking at, began to show the security camera feed from inside the Frank Nelis Salon.

“What’re you looking for?” Matiew asked her.

“Trying to see if the display is on its charging dock or not,” came the reply.

“There’s no power going to it,” Matiew thought to remind her but Rine shook her head.

“I know, but if it’s there, we could restore power and let it charge. In the mean time we could notify BaBS-Y that we’re going to be opening communications, maybe set up a specific time and place for it to go to get the display.”

“Could the robot do more harm if we restore power to that sector?” Mr Jorgenson asked warily.

“I don’t think so,” Min replied. “We only cut the power to shut BaBS-Y down. Now that it’s got those batteries there’s not really much reason to keep the sector dark. I mean, we’ve already restored power to the tether to recharge the MaCS.”

“Could you just send power to the charger? That way we wouldn’t need to power the whole sector.”

“No,” Min replied. “The robotic power tethers are all on their own circuits. It’s a security measure,” she added.

Mr Jorgenson rested his chin in his hand and thought. Meanwhile, Matiew had found where the portable display was, on the floor and not on the charger. However, Rine was already sending the instructions for CaSS to pick it up and put it back in its proper place.

“Alright,” Mr Jorgenson grunted slowly, his chin still resting on his hand, “What do we say without freaking it out any further?”

Rine was the first to speak up.

“Thesis seeks reconciliation with BaBS-Y unit,” she said slowly, thinking her way through it while she spoke. “Power will be restored to all sectors shortly. Portable display will be delivered to facilitate further communications.”

It wasn’t bad. Better, at least, than the few suggestions Matiew and the others had come up with at the start of their discussion.

“Could we also just let it have the salon back?” Min asked. “It’s not like that’s any more important now than the power.”

“I’d like to keep some things for us to use to negotiate with,” Mr Jorgenson shook his head. “If we just give it everything it wants to begin with, we might not be able to get anything back in return.”

“And what are we going to ask for?” Matiew asked. “Please leave the Thesis’ systems alone?”

“More or less, though not in those words,” Mr Jorgenson gave Matiew a brief frown for his sarcasm. “It’s taken some damage, lost an arm, certainly the salon is a wreck after the MaCS tore through it. I imagine we might be able to convince the robot to a factory reset in exchange for repairing everything.”

“You think it’ll trust us?” Matiew asked, doubtful.

“What do you mean?” Mr Jorgenson scoffed. “Robots aren’t programmed to distrust.”

“Actually, sir,” Rine cut in, “most service robots that have high amounts of human interaction are programmed to judge whether human statements are trustworthy or not. Otherwise it’s just a matter of time before someone convinces the robot to start doing things contrary to its programming.”

Mr Jorgenson stared blankly at Rine for a moment and then looked to Min and Matiew for confirmation. They both nodded their heads.

“People lie all the time,” Min shrugged, “or we say things that aren’t true but with subtext to indicate what we really mean. Without a way to gauge what a person is saying, most robots would go off the rails pretty quickly.”

“As opposed to this one, who’s just doing what its programming told it to do?” Mr Jorgenson shifted to another of the arguments he tended to fall back onto whenever the discussion swung too far into an area he wasn’t familiar with.

“BaBS-Y is doing what it was programmed to do,” Matiew insisted, and then pressed forward to cut off the reply he knew Mr Jorgenson was about to make. “It’s programmed to maintain a salon. It needed clients. It’s allowed to provide its services to the deceased so, without a human manager and being the only other worker in the place, it was promoted. That gave it the authority to authorize itself to work on the deceased.”

“What about the wigs, then?” Mr Jorgenson put in, showing more and more of his emotions. “It was never programmed to make those!”

“If I had to guess, I’d say it was because the clients were going bald and it needed something it could still offer them. Otherwise the salon wouldn’t have any more services it could provide.”

“It was sticking them on the trash cans!”

“I’ll admit I’m just as confused as you are on that one,” Matiew replied, “but when I checked the last appointment log for the salon, there were some time slots filled by the trash cans. Probably some weird interaction between different bits of code.”

“Maybe it would just be better to send a security detail down there and finish the robot off,” Mr Jorgenson grumbled.

“It’s your call,” Min said in the voice Matiew recognized as the one she used when trying to deal with someone who had just made a terrible suggestion, “but I would worry about what might happen if BaBS-Y realized what we were doing before it could be deactivated.”

“Yeah,” Matiew agreed. “We could wind up locked out of critical systems.”

A faint chime sounded and Mr Jorgenson looked down to his comm.

“I have another meting I need to get to,” he said, standing up and rubbing his face as a look of exhaustion briefly took over his expression. “Send the robot the message, the one Rine came up with. It’s enough to get things started. We can discuss more specifics later.”

With that he strode out of the room. The three who remained behind stayed quiet for some time, each one working on a version of what Rine had suggested until they had a form they all liked. Rine sent the updated message to the emergency displays and then they waited, watching their monitors to see if and when BaBS-Y would show that it had noticed.

As with each new step they had taken to try and regain control of the situation on sector twelve, Matiew found himself holding his breath and hoping that, this time, things would go according to plan.