MAID

Maria's tears and screams had no effect on the Animal Control officers. Any adult onlooker would have realized the futility of her pleas, since the AI “brains” of her tormentors had no concept of empathy. Their singular goal was eliminating the problem in the most efficient way possible, before moving on to the next call stored in the Municipal Dispatching Database.

Unfortunately, Maria wasn't an adult. Mortified, horrified and terrified, the 7-year-old watched helplessly as one robotic officer held her squirming AI puppy firmly and the other removed its memory chip, placed it in the palm of its hand, and turned it to dust with the laser in its left eye. The task completed, the now-inert robodog was simply dropped on the lawn for the yardbot to deal with. Disposal was beneath their programming.

Julio noted the perverse gleam of satisfaction in the robot's eyes as it brushed its hands together in an all-too-human gesture and the pair activated their antigrav arrays, angling skyward toward their next call. Releasing his gentle hold on his daughter's shoulders, he pulled her into a soft embrace as she sobbed loudly against his chest.

He wished for the thousandth time that Maria's Mama had survived childbirth. Despite the "best efforts" of the medibots, he had suffered unimaginable grief along with the joy of holding his newborn baby girl.

As he comforted his child, Julio felt a wave of shame, realizing that this situation was, on some level, his fault. If not for his breakthroughs in AI programming, neither the “officers” nor Maria's “pet” would exist. In its earliest stages, Artificial Intelligence had been programmed to protect human life above all. Julio's upgrades had instilled protection for all organic life, with humans as the top priority. It made sense.

When the Council had decided to do their initial testing on the K-9 androids, they'd flatly rejected Julio's proposed designation, Mechanical, Intelligent Little Friend (MILF). No sense of humor among those pendejos. They had created their own acronym, MAID (Mechanical, Artificially Intelligent Dog). Obviously, they also lacked any sense of originality. Between Julio and Maria, it would always stand for Maria's Awesome, Intelligent Dog.

Julio had seen the event that had led up to his daughter's current emotional state. Her MAID had done exactly what it was supposed to do. A larger, biological dog had jumped the fence and growled at Maria. MAID had humanely eliminated the threat with a short, high-voltage pulse that snapped the dog's spine, resulting in its instant demise. She (Maria insisted that was MAID's pronoun) had then used her own laser to reduce the corpse to ashes that would fertilize the lawn. (Recycling was also important.)

MAID's mandatory connection to the database had reported the incident and Animal Control had been dispatched. Regardless of the circumstances, a biological death had occurred at the hands of an AI entity, and the course of action was clear.

“Don't cry, Mi Corazon, Papa will make everything OK,” Julio whispered as he scooped up his daughter and carried her into the house. The immobile shell of her companion dangled from his hand.

Locking and bolting the door, he carried them into his secure office, shielded with his personal brand of software. Placing Maria on his desk chair and her robodog on her lap, he donned his interface gloves and opened a secure connection to the Municipal database on a private port. (Working for the City had its privileges.)

Transfixed, Maria watched the pictures in the portal change as her father's hands worked their mid-air magic. In minutes, Julio had removed all records of the incident. Closing the portal, he opened a connection to the device on his desk, accessed a file and copied it to a memory card.

A few seconds later, MAID came quietly to life and yapped happily at Maria.

“Play inside for a while, Cara Mia,” said Julio. With a wide smile, the elated 7-year-old kissed her daddy's cheek and ran happily to her room with her puppy hot on her heels.

***

A/N: This story was inspired by R.M. Stockton's brilliant "April AI" Write Club prompt. I highly recommend checking it out here: