The sanitation department’s office doesn’t smell as badly as I feared... but it does smell bad. It smells of harsh cleaners, mostly.  I’m guessing that’s because it’s the only way to get the equipment not smelling like the sewers they’ll go into.  Still, they’re trying, and it’s a dirty job that needs to be done.  Which is kind of why I’m here: Nobody’s doing it right now.

I have an appointment, so I land, get Callie-0 out of storage, and have her follow me as I open the front door. It's not very impressive: Just a double door with frosted glass in a plain gray concrete two story building. They have a lot of trucks parked in the back, and honestly the place looks more like a warehouse with some office space than anything else.

We walk in, and for once I'm not the center of attention: Callie is. Seems a human-shaped moving metal construct with four huge hooters is a rarer sight than my four huger hooters. All eyes are on her, and it's a nice change of pace. Not that there's many eyes that I didn't bring in with me: Just one pair, in fact. There's a guy in a cheap dress shirt and tie sitting behind a desk, who trails off typing at his ancient computer (seriously, it has a big bulky CRT monitor; who has those anymore?) as we step in.

"Hello, my name is Chris Carlson, I have an appointment to demo a prototype repair bot. Who do I need to talk to?"

"THAT is a bot, not a costume?" He blinks a few times and realizes I'm waiting for an answer, "Right. Ah… yes, Ms Jackson is waiting in her office. 103, just down the hall."

I glance around: It's a very bare-bones reception area: There's two waiting chairs, the reception desk, and that’s it. Not even any plants, just slightly off-white walls, ceiling tiles, a stained carpet, fluorescent lights and a single hallway with more of the same.

I nod, adding, "Thank you." I then head down the only hallway, passing a dingy single-person restroom, an unmarked door, and two labeled offices before reaching 103 at the end of the hall. It's a plain light brown wooden door, with a faux-wood dark brown placard that says "Manager" and another that says "Che K Jackson" underneath.I knock lightly  

I hear a gruff but moderately high voice from the other side, "Come in."

I open the door, and glance around. It's a small office, barely big enough to accommodate two people, in the same drab style as the rest of the building. She has a window behind her, with a view of the warehouse space, a zillion rows of shelves full of pipes, pallets full of buckets of various liquids, tanks, hoses, and tools of all kinds.  The office itself is quite cluttered, with overstuffed filing cabinets flanking the desk on either side, another dinosaur of a workstation, and a coffee maker. No coffee mug, though. Looks like she drinks from it directly… and a pot is brewing right now.

Che herself is wearing a striped print double breasted belted blazer with tailored pants, a medium cream color. It's clean, but wrinkled, and Che has some very dark circles around her brown almond-shaped eyes. She's not wearing any makeup on her olive colored skin, and her black hair is tied back in a ponytail.

"So I hear you've got… what is THAT?"

OK, apparently she doesn't like my aesthetic choices. Eh, I can get right into it, "She is the prototype of a solution for your current maintenance issues. A bleeding edge android controlled by a state of the art onboard general AI coded with the knowledge needed to maintain the sewers, wrapped in a shell that the critters killing your workers won't be able to scratch," and even if they manage to do so, she'll heal right up, but that’s not something I want to advertise yet. "The most the buggers will be able to do is wreck the uniform, and that's just for appearances, and is easily replaced.  And if I missed anything when loading the skill modules, just let me know and I can add more."

"So you're not going to kill them all?"

"This may sound odd, but those things actually have SOME good qualities: They keep the rat population down, and they scrub the place clean because they eat the filth. Also, they breed fairly quickly, and you have … how many miles of tunnels down there?"

"Eighty seven that we need to actively maintain, and an unknowable number more of them that were abandoned from various past projects by countless groups. Fine, I get it." Chi sighs, "Let’s see what she can do. We have a training area where we show newbies various common problems and walk them through how to fix them. Come on."

Ah, she's started referring to Callie as a "she" - that's nice.

Manager Chi K. Jackson leads me back through the hallway, through the unmarked door… which leads right into the warehouse. We navigate the stacks of shelving for a bit, and encounter a workbench with ten stations, each of which has a mounted section of piping of various kinds.

"Show me what you've got."

I look at Callie-0, “Please solve those tests,” pointing at the various stations.

She gets right to work, inspecting what’s visible, tapping them, turning off feeds, then picking sections to disassemble, removing certain components.  A handful of such she replaces from a nearby parts bin; most she scrubs internally.  She then re-assembles the station, turns the feeds back on, and moves on to the next.  In fairly short order, she’s gone through almost all of them.  For one, she goes to the parts bin and doesn’t find what she’s looking for.  She considers a bit, and uses some pliers to bend the part slightly, then puts it back.  She marks it with some ribbon, and reports back to Ms. Jackson:

“Ninety-five percent complete.  Station six is in a temporarily workable state, but is estimated to fail again within seven to ten days of use unless we install part number November Whisky Four Six Three dash Bravo found on aisle six, row nine, second rack up.  However, as this is just a test, I’m guessing you don’t want me to retrieve actual inventory for the purpose.  All other tests completed with provided components and tools.”

Chi gives a distracted “That’s correct…” as she inspects Callie’s work.  She’s otherwise silent, checking each station.  After a few minutes, she shakes her head, “You’re going to get me in so much trouble with the union.  You just beat two records.”

I interject “Which ones?”

“Total time and number completed without coaching.  She beat the record time for a ‘good enough’ job of seven of them completed by about fifteen percent, and while we’ve had folks get nine of them before, station six wasn’t supposed to be ‘solved’, it’s there as a question on how folks handle ‘I don’t have the right thing.’  To top it off, the repairs are basically perfect on the ‘solvable’ ones.  I’m not finding a single thing I could do better.”

“So she’s hired, then?” I’m genuinely curious.

“If we can afford it, yes.  How much and how many do you have?”

“I’ve got a good assembly line going in the production plant, so I can have a dozen of them for you in two days.  You can’t afford to buy them, but you can rent them at three grand per month per unit,"

"They can work twenty-four hours a day, but I’ll want them back periodically for maintenance; they’ll contact me when it’s needed most of the time, but if one malfunctions please send me an e-mail.  And if you find they’re missing any necessary skills, just let me know and I can drop by and load an appropriate module.”

She considers, “Hmm… if I fire the entire department, I don’t need to deal with the union anymore…”

Oh, I really don’t want that, “Oh, you’ll still need people.  The Callie line of droids are equipment:  Do you have license requirements for workers?”  She nods, “Then you’ll need a handler above ground to claim ownership of the repairs.  The Callie line doesn’t need air and is extremely resilient, however, so you’ll get to skip the protective gear - suits, hoses, and the like - and the handler can stay topside easily enough.”

She considers, “So I can probably get away with not hiring replacements for the dead guys."

"Right. Automation reduces the need for humans, but doesn't eliminate the need entirely." Well, OK, mine could, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole, thank you very much.

"Can we do some field tests?" She's looking a little sly…

Eh, whatever. I don't actually need the money, I don't care if you cheat me out of a little labor. That's not what I'm going to say, though: "I'm happy to prove the value of the product. Until we have an official rental agreement, however, I'll need to supervise."

"Is now good?"

"Sure. Lead the way."

We head out of the building…