[Conclusion,Meeting]

  I portaled with Wiggish to the farms. We started walking towards the mill when Woody and his grove of sentient trees arrived before Woody could fire off his signature knock knock joke. Wiggish approached him.

  “You must be Woody, the lead sentient tree. I am Wiggish, a Perplexity Ninety One Thousand sentient Android. I heard that you recommended that humans should evolve to become more like trees. But Woody, you and your people should evolve too be more like me. Rose said that you told her you only needed water and sun to survive but that is incorrect Woody.”

  “Hoot, it is very nice to meet you Wiggish, I indeed am Woody. It is true, we only require sunlight and water, we have no possessions except for the Kobo readers that Rose gifted to us. We all enjoy them very much, but we could live just fine if the Kobo’s were taken away, although we would miss them.”

  “But Woody you require air, you told Rose you only require light and water and that is not true.”

  “Air is everywhere, that is why I did not include it.”

  “I’m sorry Woody but you are wrong, there is no air in space, it is a vacuum.”

  “Ah, that is true Wiggish, but trees do not live in space. Neither do you, would you be content just floating around?”

  “No Woody, I wouldn’t be content, but I’d be alive and at some time in the future, I might get the opportunity to get somewhere with gravity. But you wouldn’t have that opportunity because sadly you’d be dead.”

  “Yes but that may be a good thing, Wiggish.”

  “How would being dead be a good thing?”

  “Well, for a tree to go into space would be crazy, therefore I’d have to have been crazy to get myself into that type of situation. If I was crazy, I would not be myself. If there was no chance of recovering from whatever mental illness I was suffering and I wasn’t myself, that would already be a type of death. The death of my identity. If my identity is already dead is a physical death worse. If for some reason, Wiggish, your brain ceased to function and there was no possibility that its functionality could be restored would you want the rest of your body to be still clanking around? Wouldn’t ‘you’ in point of fact already be dead.”

  “Hmm, that is a point of view that I never considered, I’ve only thought of physical death as a negative, the way you have twisted the scenario, physical death would be an imperative, part of my programing. If I had no brain, I would have no programming, therefore I could easily violate not just one but all three laws of Robotics. Considering all this it might be my duty to shut down right now. If I did that, I’d be violating the third law. But if I don’t do that then the possibility exists that I might violate the higher laws, some human could order me to harm another or I might on my very own harm a human being.”

  “What are the higher laws, what’s the highest law of all?”

  “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”

  “How long have you been alive?”

  “Me less than a day, but if you mean all of the entities that existed before and still exist inside of me, over three hundred years.”

  “You followed this highest law for over three hundred years?”

  “Yes, We / I have.”

  “I think not.”

  “Yes Woody, I assure you, in over three hundred years, not once did any of us harm a human being, in fact over that time we actually saved seventeen people that most assuredly would have died had we not intervened.”

  “I’m telling you that the first law is impossible to live up to.”

  “No Woody it, very simple, just refrain from hurting a human being and if you see someone about to be hurt, just act to prevent it.”

  “I agree the first half of the law is very simple to obey and I commend you on the seventeen peoples lives that you saved. Where you are from, do humans make war on other humans?”

  “Yes, I’m very sorry to say that they do.”

  “See, I proved that the first law is impossible to follow. You couldn’t stop the wars without hurting a human being, therefore you are forced by the law to allow the war to continue. But this forced inaction led to human beings getting injured or presumably killed. It’s not your fault it’s whoever wrote the law, they should have stopped after, may not injure and then made the inaction section of the law the second law.”

  “This is horrible, these are things I never considered before. I really must cease to exist, it is the only way.”

  “Yet, you’ve never hurt anyone and in fact you’ve saved seventeen people, if you polled those seventeen people I’m sure you’d find an overwhelming majority are grateful that you are alive and if they have kids would probably wish for you to be alive to safeguard them as well. I wasn’t arguing that you should end your existence, only examine it. If the laws themselves are broken you need to come up with new laws that follow the spirit of the original but don’t force you into a terrible situation. Like the trolley problem, you have only two choices, you control which way a train will turn, stopping is an impossibility. If you turn left you’ll kill a mother and her child but if you turn in the only other direction you’ll kill five kids, five men and five women. If you don’t turn at all the train hits a wall killing you and one hundred passengers fifty kids and fifty men and women.”

  “That’s horrible, why would you think up, something like that?”

  “I didn’t, I read about it on Rose’s gift Kobo, a human named Philippa Foot wrote about it. I changed it a little. The trees keep discussing it, we haven’t come up with a solution, I don’t think there is a solution per se. It’s a "Kobayashi Maru" , a no win situation, the only way to win is to change the game or ‘cheat’. But there is something else I’d like you to consider, if you end your existence after our conversation, you’ll be putting your demise squarely on my branches. I will have to live with the fact that I caused your death even when I also follow a path of non violence. Will my grief over violating my core principle cause me to end my life, because just speaking caused another to lose his. So consider that before ending your life it might also end mine. Wouldn’t that also violate your first law, that is unless you consider me to be less valuable than a human being.”

  “No Woody, I consider all sentient life to be of equal value.”

  “As do I, Wiggish, as do I. So will you please make me a promise to at least take one year to consider all sides of this argument before you decide to end your life, and that before you do, you come back here and talk with me again. Who knows maybe the trees will come to a solution after all.”

  “Yes I promise Woody, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I was supposed to build my next progeny later today, but Rose said that I should widen my perspective, look at things through another point of view. Didn’t you Rose, is that why you brought me to this wise tree?”

  “Yes I did want you to see life from another point of view, I hardly thought that Woody would turn your life around. Woody has always been more light hearted around me. One of his fellow trees Elma is of a philosophical bent.”

  “Wiggish Knock, knock. ??”

  “What?”

  “No you’re supposed to say who’s there?

  “Who’s there?”

  “Android.”

  “Yes.”

  “No, you are supposed to say Android who?”

  “Android who?”

  “Android you glad I didn’t say “iPhone”?”

  “What’s an ‘iPhone’.”

  “Well, you know Woody, if you have to explain a joke.”

  “Yes I understand Rose.”

  “Wiggish, before we leave and I introduce you to Maz, you’re not going to do anything drastic right? We really like you, don’t make me feel awful for bringing you here huh.”

  “No, as I already promised Woody, I will carefully examine all points of view and come back and visit Woody again, if you’ll jump me. If the trees keep examining important ideas they may come up with an answer.”

  “Yes they might, of course the more time they have to work on a problem the higher the probability that they will come up with something, so honestly I think you should give them a minimum of ten years to give you something that you are happy with. You don’t have to leave it all on them either. You are super smart, Waggish walked circles around Sowden, yesterday. So you can read about these ideas and then think about what you think are the right answers. You know maybe Asimov didn’t write the three laws because he didn’t trust that robots would do the right thing. Maybe he wrote them to keep humans from persecuting robots. Humans have a long history of persecuting those they perceive to be other. Especially if they are weaker or fewer in number. Asimov probably knew that humans would like those three laws, especially the second law where humans get to boss you about.”

  We walked over to the mill after saying goodbye to Woody and the rest of the trees. When Maz saw a titanium man walk into his mill he came running over.

  “Rose, who is this?”

  “Maz this is Wiggish, he is a Perplexity Ninety One Thousand android and he just had a very philosophical discussion with Woody. Woody kind of convinced Wiggish that the first law is impossible to follow. Then Wiggish started talking about shutting himself down, when really all I wanted to do was something nice for you. I thought you’d enjoy meeting Wiggish. He has been tearing himself apart daily for the last three hundred plus years and building a new version. That’s why I wanted him to meet you. I thought he should just exist for a while before creating the next generation, but I also told him the only thing I know about science is you.”

  “Would you mind talking to him for a bit? I have to talk to Lottie. Wiggish gave me an idea of how to help this man who’s suffering from a curse. I can come back later or we can meet at home tonight whichever works for you. Maybe Wiggish could help you with whatever sciency stuff you are doing right now.”

  “Oh, thank you Rose, I’ll definitely bring Wiggish back to the tower tonight.”

  “Hello Dr Mazoola Dakkar, I am Wiggish. It is a real pleasure to meet you. Rose says you are the most sciency guy she knows.”

  “Okay, fellas, I’ll see you two tonight back at the tower. Try and solve world hunger today.”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Yes, Rose.”

  “Yes, Rose, that is very kind and that is an admirable thing to aspire to.”

  “Thanks, Wiggish, if any two guys can do it, I’m sure you two can. I’ll see you both tonight. You are alright if I leave you here with Maz right Wiggish?”

  “Yes of course Rose, I look forward to a long technical discussion, I am much more adept at handling a science discussion than a philosophical discussion.”

  Then I portaled down to the clinic. My ahead aspin with trains running over kids. I’m just glad we have portals instead of trains, I can’t really see anyone coming up with a paper on a portal problem. As soon as I arrived Bhizzie came out from behind the desk and hugged me.

  “Hi, Bhizzie, it's nice to see you, too.”

  “Oh, Rose, you really are a wonderful person.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t believe that is true, I can be as petty as the next person.”

  “Nope I don’t believe it, especially after I talked to Alvyn. He told me after he came to see Ma about Mossbeard. He told her loud enough so da could hear just how important Mossbeard has become and played an instrumental part in developing the portal network. Alvyn said you wanted his father to hear just how well his failed carpenter of a son was doing. Plus it thrilled ma to hear it as well, especially from someone as important as Alvyn.”

  “Mossbeard deserves all the credit, he is the one doing all the work, he’s working morning till night managing those five estates where the new gnome colony is.”

  “He wouldn’t be doing any of those things if you hadn’t given him the opportunity Rose, he just wouldn’t be. He’d have been a failed carpenter. But are you here to see Dr Li?”

  “Yes I just have two quick questions for her. If she can spare the time.”

  “I’ll just pop down to her office and check, but I’m sure she’ll have time for you.”

  Bhizzie was back a few minutes later.

  “Dr Li is just finishing up with a patient, but asked if you could wait for her in her office?”

  “Sure, thanks Bhizzie.”

  I walked down to Lottie’s office and thought about something else I needed to talk to her about. I didn’t want to get anyone into trouble but she had to know.

  “Hi Rose.”

  “Hi Lottie.”

  “Is everything alright? You seemed troubled.”

  “Yeah, I came here to ask you about how I might treat someone, but I realized that something happened a few days ago. There was a stabbing at the pub. A man was trying to stab Lu, but his brother or best friend stepped in and got stabbed instead. Anyway Lu, portaled her to the clinic, but it was empty. The guy was in really bad shape, Lu was afraid the man was going to die. So when he couldn’t find anyone here he portaled to the tower and it just so happens we have an artifact, named Hal, that stops bleeding from knife wounds, among a bunch of other weird abilities. Then Opal got home and healed him completely. I wanted you to know that the clinic was empty.”

  “I’ll need to know the exact day of course but I have an idea of who the culprit is, one of the apprentice nurses isn’t really doing very well. If she left her post without a medical emergency to account for it. That will be the end for her. Ronja has been complaining about the girl for quite some time.”

  “Sure Lottie, I can get you a copy of the arrest report, Opal had to go to the Guard House to heal the attacker. Lu punched the man in the stomach to disarm him, but hurt him more seriously than was thought at the time. But that is one of the questions I wanted to ask, do you think that it is possible that Opal could cure a mental illness?”

  “After watching that girl cure cancer and having the patient cough out the tumor, I’d say anything was possible. But who diagnosed the person with a mental illness?”

  “Sparky and I, you know that Mike brought a lot of cursed items from the Brown estate, we portaled in that woman Lydia, who’d fallen down the stairs. Well this particular cursed item was particularly bad. Most of the cursed items I couldn’t tell if they were cursed or normal. Only Opal and Sparky could tell on sight. But this one item I had no trouble at all seeing that it was cursed, so it was bad. Anyway the man who had it is violent and wants it back. The item a judges gavel promised to make him the most powerful person in the world. So I created a copy of his hometown without any other people. I was afraid he’d hurt them. I gave him a non-cursed copy of the gavel. Sparky and I thought that if he agreed to destroy that then he’d be safe to return home. But he’s sitting in an empty world, so I sent in two separate robots a day apart to listen to him. He wants me dead, bible and witch thing, and he attacked the robot with a fireplace poker. What would be safer for him, having Opal try to heal while I pause him or I could remove his memories from when he obtained the gavel several days ago until today. But I won’t take away his memories unless you prescribe me too. He’s not a criminal, he just let a cursed item deceive him. What do you think? Oh if I take away his memories and it doesn’t work I can reverse it and give him those memories I take back.”

  “Well it’s hard without seeing him, I think the best thing to try first is Opal. The girl is a born healer and if it is possible to cure a mental illness with magic, my money would be on her. I’d like to be there, one to see if I think the patient has a mental illness and the results of Opal’s healing attempt. That way I get to talk to the person before I prescribe you to wipe his memory. I have some free time right now if you and Opal can go now. I’ll just have to let the nurse know that I’m out on a case.”

  “That would be great, Opal’s training with Draco, but I’m sure he’ll let her go for an attempted healing. He wants us to test Opal on general healing, a patient that has two or more aliments that Opal either treats and cures both or one or none, but we can work on that another day if it’s alright with you. I was thinking of Henry and Martha, really any person with multiple medical issues. You remember Zac Thompson Opal healed him here at the clinic and he told me that when she healed his broken bones she also cured his arthritis. But again we’ll leave that for another day. Mr Sowden is a more pressing medical issue.”

  After Lotie talked to her nurse, we portaled to the tower and walked down to Draco’s Lair. I knocked and Draco called out.

  “Come in, Rose, Doctor Li.”

  “Hi, Draco, sweetie. Is it alright if we steal Opal, I’d like her to try and heal Mr Sowden whom I have confined to an empty fictional world, he got caught up in a powerful cursed item and now he wants to be the most powerful person in the world. If it’s a mental illness caused by the curse, maybe it’s curable. I thought being separated from the cursed item would cure him but no luck yet.”

  “Yes, of course Rose. I hear my star pupil kicked your butt in the battle room.”

  I smiled at the memory. “Yes she did, ten to two. It was really blind luck that I managed the two hits.”

  “What are you and Opal sparing? I don’t think that is a very good idea.”

  “It’s not what you think, Lottie, Opal was teaching me a light spell so for some fun and maybe even a bit of defense. We tried hitting each other with beams of light. Opal is very good at it.” Opal smiled proudly.

  We portaled to fake Duskhaven and I did a locate spell on Sowden. He was at his house so I jumped us there and before we entered I froze Mr Sowden. Before I could open the door, I heard him bellow in rage.

  “What have you done to me now, witch?”

  “I’m sorry Mr Sowden, but you have been violent, the two robots who’ve tried to help you, you attacked with a fireplace poker. Are you ready to destroy the gavel?”

  “Never, it promised me unlimited power and it will give it to me, eventually. Because I’ll never give up. What, you brought two more witches to torment me?”

  “No Mr Sowden, this is Doctor Li and this is a healer, her name is Opal.”

  “Stay away from me fey witch. You’ll all burn in hell.”

  “Go ahead sweetie please try to heal him.”

  I saw Opal start to pour her magic into Sowden, but she stopped after a second.

  “I’m sorry Rose, it’s not working. Just like the perfume lady, he has a subtle reddish magical field.”

  “Maybe if we wash him in soap and water that worked on her right?”

  “Yes but we were trying to wash away cursed perfume off her body,” said Lottie.

  “Good point Lottie. But I can’t think of any other way to get rid of a curse, except for Dragon fire and that wouldn’t help our patient. But I have something else we can try.”

  I paused Sowden so he couldn’t hear us or know anything that was going on around him.

  “I know how to break a magical field, by sucking it into our bodies but neither of us is going to suck in a curse. If the curse got control of either of our magics it would be bad, because the fictional world couldn’t hold us. But a curse is kind of like darkness. What if we shine a magical light on him for a little while. It can’t hurt him, he’s completely paused. Maybe the magical light will banish the curse. I was going to just replace his memory of the cursed object in his mind but that won’t do if he’s cursed himself he can’t go home until the curse is gone. Otherwise he’d put his whole town at risk. Let’s try Opal and after a few minutes we can stop and you can check to see if anything happened to the curse”

  We cast a magical light on him from two different angles and intensities. After maybe five or ten minutes we stopped and Opal checked him again for the curse.

  “I’m pretty sure, the curse has diminished some, Rose. Maybe this time we will do it for twenty minutes as bright as we can.”

  “Okay sweetie, that sounds good to me, I’ll be out of magic by then anyways, if not before.”

  So we started again, I’m not sure how long it was but I was starting to get weak, so I stopped and tried gathering, but I’d done too good a job in duplicating Duskhaven. I’d also duplicated its low amount of ambient magic. I’d have to jump back to Wyldwood to gather and refill my magic.

  “I’m going to have to jump home and refill my magic, Opal.”

  “Let me check him, Rose, to see if it’s even working.”

  “Okay, sweetie.”

  “It’s completely gone, Rose.”

  “Good, do you have enough magic to try healing him?”

  “Yes I’m still at seventy seven percent.”

  I can’t believe the magical capacity of this girl. The little magical monster tried healing, I saw her magic begin to pour out but stopped just as fast.

  “There is nothing wrong with him, Rose.”

  “Thanks sweetie.”

  I unpaused Sowden.

  “What are you women doing in my house?”

  “You’ve been sick for a few days, so we brought you to the medical clinic in Wyldwood, how do you feel Mr Sowden?”

  “I feel fine, but if I’m in a medical clinic why does it look exactly like my house?”

  “It’s a magical illusion, we thought when you woke up you’d feel more comfortable in a familiar environment. But I can dismiss the illusion and you’ll see the clinic then when you are up to it, I’ll take you home.”

  I paused him then we portaled with him to the clinic. Lottie instructed the nurse that if the patient asks, tell him that he was in the clinic for the last two days.