Skip to main content

Short story about a man finding out his (ex?)wife is a rebel leader of a robotic society


I've been trying to google this for years. I'm pretty sure I read it in a short story collection, but don't remember the collection or the author or even the name of the story or any of the characters in it. It may have been from one of those 'years best scifi'/'worlds best scifi' compilations, but I'm not solid on that.



Things I do remember:



  • a man is being investigated because his wife (a genius roboticist) defected to another country, which is run by or just has a lot of robots in it that don't follow the three laws of robotics.

  • the fact that his society disallows strong AI and requires every robot to follow all three laws and the other society doesn't is propagandized to be a reason why his society is superior to the other one

  • there's something of a cold war going between the two of them

  • he himself is an investigator trying to sort out how its possible to be invisible from the omnipresent security of the society in which he lives, because rebel operatives seem to be able to graffiti things without getting caught by the cameras.

  • Spoilers:




    • He catches someone who tells him that its because they're using hoodies with IR LEDs in the rims to wash out their faces, and that the person is not really an operative so much as a disgruntled teen who built something using the equivalent of the Anarchist's Cookbook, which was disseminated by the man's wife, apparently.






    • he's about to be tortured or something and a robot and his wife bust into the containment facility he's in and helps him escape, and they start heading towards the border with this other society. His wife is graphically killed by a government robot that apparently doesn't follow the three laws in the escape attempt, but the rescuing robot seems unworried.







    • giant black robots that don't look like they follow the three laws pop up out of the tops of buildings as they fly(?) over them, and the man realizes his wife was right all along






  • Super Spoiler



    • they get to the other society and he has a moment where he encounters his wife. Again. and again. And realizes there are literally hundreds of clones of her. Nice.









Answer



@TheLethalCarrot's question prompted me to think harder about the source, and I realized that it was probably one of the 'years best scifi' compilations I had sitting on my bookshelf. I poked through the index on a few of them and figured it out.


The story is I, Robot by Cory Doctorow. It was published in Year's Best SF 11 (ISBN-13 98-0-06-087341-7), and is the very last story in the book. Looks like it was from 2005.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more

game of thrones - Is Syrio Forel dead?

In the episode 'The Pointy End' (Season 1 Episode 8) when Arya runs from the Lannister guards you hear the sound of a sword being dropped (around 4:56): [embedded content] After that neither Syrio or Ser Meryn Trant is never mentioned or seen in the show again, except when Arya mentions to the Hound that Ser Meryn Trant killed Syrio. Is there any mention in the books that Syrio actually dies?
Post a Comment
Read more

tolkiens legendarium - Difference between elves and dwarves blacksmithing in the Lord of the Rings

Both the elves and the dwarves were famous for their metal work in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but what is the difference between what they made, and which one had the better skill of making amours and swords? Answer James Christopher's answer sums up the second part of your question well, but as to the difference in what they made, a little more detail is needed. Once the Elves learned to forge with steel, the shape of the sword changed, now being able to take on the form of a great broadsword or a light and agile curved sword. Additionally, they took great pride in decorating their swords. As we see in the Lord of the Rings , some swords like Sting had magical properties such as glowing blue when orcs are near. As far as the use of Mithril, lotr.wikia has two contradictory passages: Thus, Elven blades became renowned as great weapons, capable of performing deeds beyond the skill of their handlers and were even more glorious when the use of Mithril was allowed to the Elves. ...
Post a Comment
Read more