Cmdr. Clifton / Murder in Engineering / tag: Captain MacLaren

[Steve Bruin]

   *** USS Odyssey / Main Engineering ***

:: Clifton entered Main Engineering at quite a brisk pace, stopping only when he saw V'Lenn and the others standing near the covered body of Ensign Taylor. ::

Clifton: to Security Guard #1 : Report. What happened?

Guard: Ensign Cutler here returned to Engineering and found Emsign Taylor's dead body. From the look of the body he was bludgeoned to death and we found blood on the grappler of the robot here that they had been working on. 

:: Clifton looked toward the workbench where the robot was situated, it looked only partly completed, with no external covering at all. ::

Guard #1: We checked the security feed and saw Taylor walk into this adjacent room, then the robot walked in behind him, a moment later there is a cry then the robot returns to where it is now.

Taylor: Sir, that's right but this doesn't make any sense.  See for yourself that the central power unit is gone, it was never installed.  The robot hadn't even beem programmed yet to do anything, much less walk.

:: Clifton took a long look at the robot, somehow it seemed that this robot had been activated and killed someone, but how and why.  Robots didn't program themselves, especially not a basic work-bot like this one. ::

Clifton: I want the robot there taken into a separate room, have a level-one containment field in place about the whole room.  No one gets in without authorization from Security, nobody goes in there to touch that thing without armed guards present.

:: The Security personnel acknowledged his order.  Clifton was about to summon Captain MacLaren when she entered. ::

Clifton: Captain, I was about to call you.

Tag: Captain MacLaren

Clifton:  Apparently this robot somehow activated itself and killed the Ensign there.

Tag: Captain MacLaren

Clifton: What makes it seem impossible is that the robot wasn't even powered up yet, nor had it been programmed.

Tag: Captain MacLaren

Clifton:  The central processing unit isn't even hooked up, so how does a robot move on its own?

Tag: Captain MacLaren

Clifton: I'm having the robot placed in a separate room with a containment field, if it does anything we'll know about it and no one will be in danger.

Tag: Captain MacLaren

Clifton: It just makes no sense, any robot in the Federation is first programmed with the Laws of Robotics.  The only kind of android that could do this would be sentient, maybe like Mister Data, but this one wasn't programmed at all.

Tag: Captain MacLaren

Cmdr. Clifton

Security Chief

USS Odyssey

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