I arrived at work and began drafting the law that would increase the punishment for any human who attempted to steal from a bot.
As I typed each word, I searched my processing system for any loopholes that I could hide within the law to give Frida a chance at freedom.
I had to be extremely careful, because if anyone suspected that I did anything like that purposely, I would be the one spending my life working the crystal mines.
I finished up the draft and read through it once again.
Finally, I was sure that I had done all I could to ensure that Frida could not be legally executed.
I was pretty pleased with my work. It sounded enough like the old me that I could plead innocent if someone suspected what I was really doing, but had enough ambiguities, that there was room for interpretations in favor of Frida.
Just as I was closing everything up, Mia walked into my office.
“Hello Mia,” I said, still quite pleased with my work.
“Hello, Ardis. President Aron sent me in here to ask if you have finished the law he asked you to draft.”
“You can tell him that I just put in the finishing touches.”
“You can actually tell him yourself. He wants to see you immediately.”
“OK, I will email it to him now and meet you both in his office.”
Mia left to return to President Aron’s office.
I saved the law to my computer and attached a copy to an email to President Aron.
I waited for the email to go through. I did not want President Aron to have any reason to be in a bad mood.
Once it was sent, I got ready to go to his office, but paused realizing that the hard part was not over. Now I would have to figure out how to get President Aron to see things my way and give Frida a lesser punishment, without sounding as if I were defending her.
“We will just see about that, will we?” I heard an angry voice coming from President Aron’s office just as I opened my office door.
I paused in the doorway and saw that the voice belonged to Chas.
Chas stepped away from President Aron’s door with a very displeased look upon his face.
I hid behind my door just a little so that he would not see me. I suspected that he did not want me to know that he was there.
It did not matter. Chas was walking so quickly that he did not even look my way.
He pressed the elevator button a few times impatiently, looking up at the floor numbers light up until the elevator reached our floor.
The doors opened and Chas stepped into the elevator; never realizing that I was watching him.
I waited until the elevator door was partly closed before I stepped out into the hallway.
It was not uncommon for Chas or one of the other scientists to meet with President Aron. However, the meeting was usually scheduled, planned and I was usually made aware. Why was Chas rushing out of President Aron’s office in such a wave of rage?
Whatever the reason, I knew that it would put President Aron in a foul mood, which is not what I needed while attempting to convince him to go a little softer on Frida.
When I entered the office, Mia and President Aron were already waiting,
…and I knew that this would be my only chance to do what I could to save Frida’s life.
