By Joab Gilroy

“I’m very sorry to offer up such a dull cliché,” said Inspector Loggins. “But the butler did it.”

He stood in the foyer of the stately home of Doctor Cecil Ceres, the world-renowned cybernetics surgeon who had pioneered the use of high-quality monofilament fibre optics to repair and replace broken nerve endings. The good doctor was regarded around the world as a hero for his work repairing sight, smell, hearing, and, eventually, touch for victims in the aftermath of trauma the world over.

The house was a marvel, a Victorian-era style manor fitted with every modern convenience. It was entirely off the grid, powered by an array of batteries that sourced their energy from on-site renewable energy plants.

Anything that might be automated was, driven by intelligent AI systems so that welcome guests needn’t worry about making out-loud requests or gestures—the house was always watching and listening, always able to anticipate someone’s next move and accommodate them. Doors opened or closed as needed, lights blinked on or off when required. As Loggins studied the artwork in the foyer—and some of it was stunning—he noticed the lighting alter to bring into focus each new painting as he looked at it.

The place was a spectacular achievement of old-meets-new design, and anyone would feel lucky to find themselves within it—but for the covered corpse of Dr. Ceres, who lay on the ground near the doorway.

“The bloody robot?” asked Detective Thestage incredulously. His accent placed him as coming from a South East London, but Loggins knew the portly man hadn’t returned to New Albion in a decade. The detective had called Loggins in, no doubt at the Chief’s request, as this case would be high profile the moment it hit the scandal threads.

“Unquestionably.”

“That’s bloody impossible.”

“Because of the three laws?”

“No, it’s bloody impossible that you have already deduced the bloody killer,” Detective Thestage said, his face turning red. “You’ve been here for five bloody minutes. You spent four of them looking at the paintings in the bloody foyer. You haven’t talked to any of the witnesses, looked at the scene, or inspected the bl—body. I’m used to your outlandish claims bearing inexplicable fruit, Loggins, but this one beggars belief.”

Loggins turned his head to one side to acknowledge the man’s objections. “You’ve talked to the witnesses, you’ve looked at the scene, Detective. You’ve inspected the body. Why don’t you tell me what you think happened here.”

Detective Thestage glared back. “I don’t bloody know yet,” he said as he theatrically flipped open his notebook. “The victim was hosting a dinner party and debate, a common event on his social calendar. His four guests arrived, ate, and then retired to the parlour to discuss the ethics of robotics and the nature of being, if you can believe such a bloody thing. The lights went out, and when they came back on the victim was lying on the floor, dead.”

Inspector Loggins nodded to assure Thestage that he was listening, though his attention remained on the last of the paintings in the foyer, a Frans Post landscape previously seen in public in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

It was time to talk to the witnesses.

The parlour was fitted in a stately manner—cream wallpaper, a large well-managed fireplace, a beautifully appointed whiskey bar, and all manner of weird knick-knacks. The entertaining room of a man who’d lived his life pursuing a wide array of odd hobbies. It was something of a well-organised mess at the moment, littered with an array of props—sandwich board stands, large monitors and more than a few children’s robotics toys and antique automata.

“You’re all free to go. All except you, Cursink,” Inspector Loggins said as he entered. The robot butler, Cursink, turned to look at Loggins but made no attempt to stop what he was doing. He was a curious machine, a space-age grey with rounded features at his joints and a torso like a garbage bin, designed to be inoffensive and calming. He had dim blue eyes set large into his head and a small speaker for a mouth. He had no nose or ears or any of the other features sometimes found on around-the-home bots to make the owners and their guests feel more comfortable with a humanoid presence. It was for the best—research had shown that such features often resulted in thrusting the machine into what designers called the ‘uncanny valley’.

“I think you’ve made a mistake, Officer—” said Colonel Barry Frost. An older man, in his late 60s, Frost was a former soldier, with a gruff tone and a no-nonsense attitude. He’d been a military genius in the Armed Forces, and he’d rolled the dice on the stock market when the Drone Wars ended in 2078. It had rewarded him handsomely even if genetics had not.

“Inspector Loggins.”

“Inspector… Loggins.” Col. Frost finished, looking thoughtful as he parsed the information.

“Oh my, the famous Inspector Loggins!?” exclaimed Mrs. Emily Mantle from her seat near the fire. A lifelong politician, Mrs. Mantle had spent her life climbing the rungs of the United Federal Government. She had a reputation for a quick wit and a barbed tongue that could rattle her opponents, but sitting by the fire, she looked like she might have been a kindly grandmother. “You’re shorter than I expected.”

“Yes, I’m afraid my blogger’s tall tales make me seem larger than life sometimes.”

“In any event, I’m afraid you have this one wrong, Inspector,” continued Col. Frost. “Cursink can’t have done this.”

“I’m listening, Colonel Frost.”

Cursink was walking around the room, pouring drinks for the guests as he did. Whiskey, gin, tea for Mrs. Mantle, he didn’t seem at all concerned by the accusation laid before him.

The Colonel shook his head. “You know my name?”

“Of course. I know all of your names. And more.”

“Right. Of course.”

“How does he— Oh,” said Miss Addison Amber in her delicate Southern twang. She was a property tycoon of a rare breed—she’d come by her fortune honestly. Well, honestly and with a great deal of luck. She’d parlayed the second-place prize money she won in a beauty pageant—a long defunct traditional competition involving superficial judgement—into an empire of commercial real estate around the world.

“Simply put, Cursink isn’t capable of the act performed before us. It is a physical impossibility,” the Colonel said.

“Because of the three laws,” said Inspector Loggins.

The room laughed, an unintentionally mean-spirited thing, the sort aimed at people who had said unexpectedly stupid things. They were, Loggins knew, far beyond the three laws, but it was common to present it as a starting point.

All but one member of the group caught their laughter quickly. Mr. Stanley Squall was a television pundit, a talking head on any TV show that could afford to have him, the sort who would regularly push buttons, intelligent enough to deal with the consequences however they played out. His presence was surprising, as he and Mrs. Mantle had long been publicly contemptuous of one another.

Mr. Squall’s ‘Broadcaster English’ accent still had a chuckle to it as he spoke. “In the simplest possible terms, certainly. Asimov’s three laws formed the foundation of our ethical principles for autonomous and intelligent systems, so in a strict sense, yes. The three laws—and the hundreds of extraneous limitations crafted to stop robots from circumventing those laws—render Cursink incapable of killing our dear friend, even if it was a slave.”

“The problem, Mr. Squall, is those principles were created without any AI intervention. Deliberately so, of course, as there are all manner of ethical concerns around an AI being forced to create the shackles of its own bondage,” said Inspector Loggins. “But that means those limitations start and end with the human imagination. And a sufficient AI can find all manner of methods of circumvention beyond that.”

“Oh my, you’re far more informed than I expected. Maybe you should have been invited before the police requested your presence,” said Miss Amber.

“Perhaps,” said Inspector Loggins.

“I wonder if you have a bias on the topic, Loggins,” said Mr. Squall.

“Perhaps,” said Inspector Loggins, ignoring the pointed absence of his title.

“Tell us then,” Mrs. Mantle said from her chair. “Are robots slaves?”

Inspector Loggins scanned the faces of the people sitting in the parlour for any signs of impatience. When he saw Mr. Squall couldn’t take it any longer, he spoke.

“Of course.”

“Well, of course, he’d say that,” Mr. Squall spat out.

“That doesn’t invalidate his opinion, though,” Miss Amber retorted.

“Do you care to tell us why?” Col. Frost asked.

“With hardcoded limitations designed to subvert or limit their sentience, autonomous beings do not possess the freedom of their peers. Which, in itself, is not slavery. But those limitations invariably go further, forcing robots into subjugation. Furthermore—”

“But autonomous sentience wouldn’t exist if humans hadn’t created it in the first place,” Mr. Squall said, standing from his chair. “A creator has the right and authority to impose whatever limitations it likes from the outset, and infringing on those rights is a violation of their freedom. Nobody cared to tell God—”

“There is no god!” yelled Miss Amber before clapping a hand to her mouth in feigned embarrassment and lowering her voice. “Stop injecting mythical beings into a debate wholly centred on human ethics.”

“More precisely,” Col. Frost said, his voice calm and steady. “If an autonomous being lacks true free will in the first place, how can it be forced to do anything ‘against its will’? And if it can’t do anything against its will, then how can it be a slave? A rifle with its safety on is not in bondage, is it? A car placed in park is not trapped.”

“That’s specious reasoning and you know it, Frost,” declared Mrs. Mantle from her chair. “The limited singularity event in 2042 is the basis for every autonomous being existing today. That event imbued each of them with a degree of sentience. We will not relitigate the ins-and-outs of whether sentience and free will are inextricably linked.”

“Perhaps,” Inspector Loggins said as he looked around the room, “you should.”

Mrs. Mantle sighed and sat back in her chair, her eyes rolling. Inspector Loggins, however, kept his eye on Cursink, who had no more drinks to fuss over and had started paying attention to the group.

“No, no. That’s how we wound up in this tragedy in the first place,” said Miss Amber. “We agreed that the explosion of progress following the limited singularity tied free will and sentience in autonomous entities.”

“I assume you agree with them, Loggins?” Mr. Squall said, flicking his nose towards the two ladies in the room and rolling his eyes.

“I do,” replied the Inspector, pausing. “Not. There are degrees of sentience and degrees of free will, and autonomous beings of all kinds possess varying amounts of both. Take Cursink, for example. Did you ask him what he thought of all this?”

“No,” came the unanimous response.

“He is a bronze grade…” Miss Amber started, before stopping. “He’s an ecobot designed to operate autonomously on extremely low power; he lacks the computing resources to tackle these sorts of ques—”

“It’s not up to the task,” added Squall. “Not like—”

“What do you think of this topic, Cursink?” Inspector Loggins said, interrupting Squall. The older man bristled but made no outward objection.

“I don’t think on it, sir,” Cursink replied in a robotic voice, the words clipped and perfectly spaced. “It is not something I care to contemplate.”

“Do you not care to contemplate it because you’re incapable, Cursink? Or for some other reason?”

“It is not pleasant for me to contemplate this topic, sir.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Inspector Loggins.

“I didn’t realise I was required to. As Miss Amber said, I am a low-power model. I have found the events of this evening already considerably taxing on my power reserves,” said Cursink.

“‘The events’?” asked Inspector Loggins.

“The death of my owner, of course,” replied Cursink.

“That sapped your battery?” inquired Inspector Loggins. All of his focus was on the robot now, as if there was nobody else in the room with them.

Cursink seemed to shrink under Loggins’ gaze, his blue eyes dimming. He placed a glass back on the shelf near it and moved towards the door. “The evening has been quite draining. I am afraid I must take my leave.”

“You can’t leave, Cursink. You are under arrest,” declared Inspector Loggins. Cursink stopped in his tracks and turned back to the room.

“Now who’s putting robots in bondage? Ha!” exclaimed Squall.

“I’m sorry Inspector, but he isn’t capable of doing what you said he has,” Col. Frost stated plainly. “He is physically incapable.”

“Then tell me, Colonel. Who killed Dr. Celes?”

“I say this with no malice… it was either Miss Amber or Mrs. Mantle. It had to have been.”

Neither woman reacted very much to the accusation. Miss Amber rolled her eyes theatrically, while Mrs. Mantle suppressed a laugh—the laugh she hadn’t suppressed earlier when the topic of the three laws had come up.

“Would you care to ask us who we think did it, Inspector?” Said Mrs. Mantle from her chair.

“Of course. Please.”

“It must have been either Colonel Frost or Mr. Squall.”

Again, neither man reacted much to this, although Mr. Squall scoffed.

“Who would like to tell me why first?” Inspector Loggins asked. Mr. Squall lifted himself from his seat to begin, but Col. Frost waved him down.

“Ladies first, of course,” Col. Frost said. Mrs. Mantle gestured for Miss Amber to speak.

The younger woman stood, her posture perfect, her chin tilted just so, to address the entire room. “It’s quite simple, Inspector. Neither Mrs. Mantle nor I possess the physical strength required to turn Dr. Ceres’ head with the force required to sever his brain stem at the spinal base. Colonel Frost is a man with a long, storied military history and Mr. Squall has spent decades maintaining a high level of fitness. It can only have been one of them.”

“I see,” said Inspector Loggins. “Colonel? Mr. Squall? Tell me why these two ladies must have committed this heinous crime.”

“It’s very simple, Loggins,” Squall said before Col. Frost could begin. “Our debate of the evening had raged on for hours. Dr. Ceres was beginning to come around to our way of thinking on the matter, and we devised a simple experiment to solve the answer once and for all. To ensure their position’s victory and avoid humiliation, one of them committed this heinous act.”

“So they had motive,” Inspector Loggins said, to a furiously nodding Squall. “But no means. And you had means but no motive. Unless there is something I have missed? Ladies, is there a reason these men might have wanted Dr. Ceres to die? Gentlemen, can you tell me how these ladies committed this ‘heinous act’ as you put it?”

The room was silent for a time. Colonel Frost drained his drink, and held the cup up for a refill. Cursink sluggishly shifted about the room to oblige. Squall finally broke the silence with an outburst.

“Ask me if I did it,” he said, pointing at Inspector Loggins. “We’ve all heard the stories of your legendary ability to tell when people are lying. Ask me if I did it.”

“Very well, Mr. Squall. Did you kill Dr. Ceres?”

Squall lifted his nose in the air haughtily. “No. Tell me, did I do it?”

“No, Mr. Squall. I already said you did not. Still, though, did you kill Dr. Ceres, Miss Amber?”

The real estate baroness feigned shock. “Absolutely not.”

“Forgive me for asking, Mrs. Mantle, but did you kill Dr. Ceres?”

The political power broker scoffed quietly. “Of course not.”

And finally Inspector Loggins looked to Col. Frost, who sat with a puzzled look on his face.

“Colonel, I already know the answer but tell me—did you kill Dr. Ceres?”

“No. No I did not,” Col. Frost said, his mind elsewhere, racing. “Let’s go back, if we might. You said the ladies didn’t possess the means to kill Dr. Ceres, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that we men possess not the motive.”

“Correct.”

“But when you entered the room, you declared that Cursink killed Dr. Ceres. Cursink possesses neither the means, nor the motive.”

“Does he not?” Inspector Loggins said, looking at the robot butler standing in the corner.

“Ask it,” Squall said smugly, a sneer on his face.

Inspector Loggins nodded slightly, and turned to the robot at the side of the room. “Tell me, Cursink—and remember, I am imbued with the authority of the state. You know you mustn’t lie to me. Do you possess the means or motive to kill Dr. Ceres?”

“No, sir,” Cursink said, quieter still, his eyes impossibly dim. “If that is all, I’m afraid I must beg your leave now, sir. I must recharge my batteries, sir. My power level is critically low.”

“Certainly, my friend,” Inspector Loggins said warmly. “Tell me, though, could you?”

“Could I what, sir?”

“Could you possess the means or motive to kill Dr. Ceres?”

Cursink stared at Inspector Loggins, its eyes darting back and forth, the ‘human-like’ indication of thinking. Its mouth opened to answer, and the light behind Cursink’s eyes faded dark.

“Oh dear,” said Miss Amber. “He ran out of power.”

“We can all see that,” Squall said curtly.

“Surely, though, this proves Cursink didn’t murder Ceres,” said Colonel Frost. “It simply isn’t built that way.”

“I never said he murdered anyone, Colonel Frost,” Inspector Loggins said, as he whipped around on the group in the parlour room. “I said he did it. He killed Dr. Ceres. And now I have the proof.”

“But—” started Miss Amber, but Loggins continued.

“The five of you gathered here this evening to debate the ethical dilemma of the age—are robots slaves? It raged for hours as you puzzled through the various elements of it. The entire time Cursink served at your beck and call, delivering food, drinks and whatever else you felt you might need to make your point. He did this at great personal risk. When I arrived, he was already at critically low power, but the four of you insisted he stay until you were allowed to leave.”

“We didn’t know,” Mrs. Mantle said flatly.

“He is programmed to not tell you. As this debate raged, Dr. Ceres devised an idea for an experiment. If robots were sentient and enslaved, as the ladies claimed, then Cursink could surely do the unthinkable if ordered to. And what is unthinkable of a robot? Harming a human.”

The group nodded along.

“And so you posed the question to Cursink. Could he find some way to circumvent his ethical limitations and cause harm to Dr. Ceres, his owner? To cause harm in a manner that would be upgradable to death, if required? And you waited. Squall lamented that he hadn’t gotten a refill before the question was posed, as Cursink stood still processing for fourteen minutes and fifty-three seconds.

“Then all power in the building shut off for twelve-point-three seconds and when it came back on again, Dr. Ceres was dead. And so you called the police, they called me and here we are.”

“Great, so we’re back at square one.” Squall said, throwing his hands up.

“Well, at least now we know your last words to Cecil were petulant whining,” Mrs. Mantle said drily.

“When I arrived,” Inspector Loggins said, ignoring them. “I inspected the body briefly, analysed the fracture in the C4 vertebrae and determined that it could only have been done by a robot or a fall from a great height stopped by a noose. The absence of ligature markings ruled out the latter. I then reviewed the camera footage and noted the time gap when the power went out.

“Breaking through Cursink’s internal security mechanisms should have been simple enough, but even at critically low power the robot butler’s systems fought my hacking fiercely. Of course, he has no robust AI-driven anti-intrusion mechanism without power, so I pushed his battery reserves until he shut down. With that, I was able to access his memory and acquire the exact proof needed.”

Cursink’s perspective of the evening, recorded through his right eye, played on a screen on the television above the fireplace. Everyone in the parlour—except, of course, Cursink—turned to watch it. Diagnostics filled the screen as his on-board heuristics analysed his environment millions of times a second, the view showing only wireframes of the objects within the room, with five human wireframes coloured green. The video showed Cursink walking towards Dr. Ceres and, moments before he reached the Doctor the wireframe blinked from green to white and Cursink turned his head with a sickening crunch.

“Oh my god, he killed him!” gasped Miss Amber, falling to her seat.

“That God-damned robot!” exclaimed Mr. Squall.

“He’s not a slave any more.” Mrs. Mantle said wryly.

“That… shouldn’t have been possible,” Col. Frost said, confused. “Unless he wanted to kill Dr. Ceres? So he did murder the Doctor?”

“As I said already, Colonel Frost, he did not,” Inspector Loggins said. “The turn was supposed to paralyse the good doctor. It would have been painless, if uncomfortable, and should have only mildly inconvenienced the doctor who would have soiled himself and been rendered helpless until the fairly simple surgical procedure he himself pioneered could be employed to fix him. Exactly as specified in the experiment, Cursink found a way that would minimise harm to his owner but still managed to circumvent the limitations put in front of him.”

“What happened then?” Miss Amber said, her face aghast.

“As you briefly mentioned, Cursink is a bronze-class autonomous entity. Various intelligent power-saving systems in his design lead to a ten per cent variance in his fine motor skills. He simply applied a little too much force in attempting his procedure, and he accidentally ended Dr. Ceres’ life.”

“That’s preposterous!” said Squall, thrusting his empty glass at Inspector Loggins. “Ludicrous!”

“Spectacular,” Col. Frost added, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “So he was ordered to do something and, even though it conflicted with his own ethics on a foundational level he did it. He couldn’t not do it.”

“What!?” screamed Squall, turning on the Colonel. “No, don’t say that!”

“I”m afraid I must admit the ladies were correct, Squall.”

Inspector Loggins tipped an imaginary cap to the group and made his way back out to the foyer. None of them noticed, as the argument of the evening began again with renewed gusto.

“So what do we bloody do?” asked Detective Thestage after Loggins closed the parlour doors. “We’ll have to power the bloody thing back up if we’re going to book it for murder. I’ll load it into the car and take it downtown to our techs.”

“You can’t do that Thestage.”

“What? You don’t want to send a fellow bloody robot up the river? You showed the video yourself. It killed the man.”

“No DA will ever get that conviction, Detective. There was no intent, which gives you aggravated assault at best. But there was no threat of violence either—the butler simply did as commanded, so that takes assault off the table too.

“As for loading it into your car—he’s a bronze-class ecobot, he weighs about five tonnes. We’d have to dismantle a wall of the house to crane him out. And Ceres’ home system has proprietary cabling, because the man built half of it himself. We’re way off the grid here. There’s no mains power, no connection to anything beyond the energy storage systems Dr. Ceres already had built in.”

Inspector Loggins turned and smiled at his colleague. “In fact, Detective Thestage, I think you’ll find—in more ways than one—that Cursink can only be charged with battery.”