Less Than Human Read Online Free

Even the most experienced technicians can make mistakes, become too familiar with their charges.
     An industrial robot could be unpredictable. Signals from surrounding machinery and its own sensors could get scrambled; it
     might get confused by electronic noise from other robots, peripherals, neons, trains, and phones. All the new factories were
     noise-proofed, but you couldn’t expect that in a place this old.
    The problem was probably a glitch in the display. She unscrewed the casing and checked its wiring. Perfect. Not a glitch in
     the display, then.
    Nothing wrong with the physical safeties. All on a different power source to the robot, as specified. All active, as specified.
    She’d give herself one hour to find the answer. If she couldn’t find it, she’d get a train back to the office and forget about
     the whole thing.

ISHIHARA              
    A ssistant Inspector Ishihara of Osaka Municipal Police slammed the car door. The automatic closing mechanism
booped
in outrage and he grinned. He preferred to shut his own doors, thank you.
    Saturday of the Bon weekend, and he had to go out in the heat. Why did he have to be on call during Bon? When he was a young
     constable, he’d been the one on call all holidays because the older men thought they’d earned the rest. Now they let the young
     ones with a family have the time off because otherwise they might quit the police force for a better civilian job. A niggling
     internal voice pointed out that if he’d had more time with his family when he was younger, he might still have a family, but
     he ignored it.
    Anyway, in three months it wouldn’t be his problem. Retirement loomed, an endless vista of formless days, and he was finding
     an obscure pleasure in the discomforts of duty that he would undoubtedly miss once he’d left.
    Dock loading zones and small factories covered most of the old harbor town. One skylink ran from the center of the city to
     the nearby harbor complex where big companies kept showrooms; around it clustered high-rise blocks of casual labor apartments,
     cheap diners and tiny bars, family factories-cum-homes, trodden dirt parks with dusty trees and outdated concrete play equipment.
     Not enough money around to attract big investors in entertainment like the gangster clans. A sense of community still clung
     here, unlike in the wretched Bettas.
    Damn, but it was hot.
    This factory was like those he remembered from his childhood in an industrial area of Fukuoka City. A big iron barn. Piles
     of scrap towered over a side fence. In a flower bed below a side window sunflowers grew tall against a neatly tied lattice
     of bamboo.
    Someone had been found dead in there, hit by an industrial robot. The medical report said dead between one to four hours.
     Security scans showed that nobody went in or came out. The man must have thought he’d turned the robot off but didn’t do it
     properly. At least someone else had been working over Bon. Ishihara just had to check the local police report and stamp it.
    The constable at the door of the factory stiffened to attention at the sight of Ishihara’s ID. He swiped it carefully in his
     phone to confirm and gave it back to Ishihara with a bow. His face was shiny with sweat, and an empty water bottle stood against
     the wall.
    Ishihara nodded by way of greeting. “Hot job out here.”
    The constable relaxed at Ishihara’s informal tone. “It’s the humidity that gets you. The manager’s gone to arrange the funeral,”
     he added. “There’s one technician overseeing the floor. One of the maker’s engineers is still looking at the robot. She’s
     been in there over an hour.”
    “She?” Ishihara paused in straightening a cigarette from the half-crushed packet in his shirt pocket.
    The constable started to say something, changed his mind. “Yessir.”
    The engineer would want to make sure the manufacturer doesn’t get blamed, thought Ishihara. He’d check the scene. Never met
     a female