Chapter 59: Meet Grace.
Hao Ren came to the thunder technologies office in the morning, today he had a meeting with the experts who were researching lithography machines. Although Hao Ren had the Xiao Mei, but even the AI could not think about everything from the scratch.
Hao Ren came to the office and found that most of the people have turned in for work. He asked Lynn Carter, "Miss Carter, where is the meeting scheduled? Also, what happened to the bigger office?"
Lynn Carter nodded and replied, "I bought a small seven floor tall building in the city center, the building is being renovated. The management discussed and thought that it was better for us to have an office under our own name, it is better than moving from place to place. Also, it adds to the financial credibility."
Hao Ren understood this and nodded. A few minutes later, Lynn Carter told him the address for the meeting and Hao Ren was about to leave when Klaus rushed up to him and said, "Come with me, we have something to show you."
Hao Ren frowned and then decided to follow him in the back room. Behind the bullpen, they had reserved a room for the technology team. Where they assembled the prototypes. Even Koro-koro the cleaning bot's prototype was assembled in this place.
Klaus and the rest were among the top scholars in the Jade City University, they were good with the hardware as much as they were with the software.
...
Inside the room, Klaus and Hao Ren stood up before a humanoid robot. Behind the two of them the entire team was present. Klaus said, "We all did not bring you a gift yesterday, because we decided to give you one today."
Hao Ren had an amusing smile on his face and shook his head. He said, "Be quick about it Klaus. I have to go and meet the professors from the Jade City University for another project."
Klaus smiled and said, "Grace, wake up."
The robot had a LED display on the head, it lit up with a white light pattern and formed a basic emote and replied in a mechanical voice, "Good morning, Master Klaus."
Klaus said, "Introduce yourself to Mister Hao."
He gestured toward Hao Ren who stood beside him. Grace turned around and replied, "Good morning, Mister Hao. I am Grace, the household assistant."
Hao Ren nodded, and replied, "Nice to meet you too, Grace. Can you tell me a bit about your key components?"
Grace nodded her shiny head and said, "As you know that I am a robotic household assistant. My body is built around a carbon fiber skeleton, all my components together weight around seventy eight kilograms. For eyes, I am using Krisp eight mega pixel camera sensors. My voice output is a Sheldon 60 mm speaker system.
The joints and limbs have been constructed with Sonic brush less motors. I can translate seven languages in real time, and converse properly. My main tasks are divided in three protocols, protection, coordination, and finally learning.
I will provide protection to the young and old of the houses I am assigned to, and also coordinate with them in tasks like serving the tea, cooking, cleaning, arranging various things they would need, and at the same time, learn different behavior patterns from them to enhance and conduct a cordial interaction with humans."
Hao Ren nodded, but he still did not show any emotion on his face. He turned to look at Klaus and asked, "Has she learned to walk?"
Klaus nodded, and said, "That was the first thing we taught her yesterday."
Hao Ren smiled as he said, "Klaus, grab an emergency repair kit, you and Grace are coming with me. Also, tell Lynn to hire a team of guards right away, we are going for a field test."
His words were like a bomb, the engineers were not sure if Grace would be able to sustain all the things that she could get exposed to outside, but Hao Ren left after delivering the decree, he did not care if anyone had any concerns, this robot just gave him the best chance to convince those old professors to help him in researching the lithography machine.
Even if they did not join him, they should still share some of the research results and theories with him so that he could use Xiao Mei to deduce and come up with a way.
Lithography machine was the necessary thing needed to create processing chips and that was why Hao Ren was so inclined to get one. Han Nation was severely lacking in technology because the manufacturing companies of these machines treated them as treasures and monopolized the chip set market.
They had strict rules to not sell their treasures to anyone, even the companies in their own countries. Hao Ren wanted to advance the level of tech for his company but if he tied up a contract with those companies he would have to give up significant amount of profit.
…
After an hour, seven tall guards came over, they were hired on a daily basis, and to make sure they do what they were told to, Heath was set over them to supervise. As a military veteran, Heath took control of the situation quickly and while he familiarized with the people, he also made sure they stay in line.
Klaus and Hao Ren carried Grace into the elevator, covered with a black cloth and then moved her to a car. Heath drove the luxury car, while Hao Ren and Klaus followed in a cab. The rest of the guards had their own vehicle.
…
Jade city university a few old men were gathered in the garden, and talking among themselves. One of them said, "This Mister Hao Ren sure is taking his time. I have a class to teach."
Another old man smiled at him and said, "Kraft, aren't you just trying to avoid the game of capitalism."
Professor Kraft was the youngest of this shaky bunch but he was very skilled. He shook his head and said, "Professor Ting, I swear, I just have a class."
The two of them bickered with each other, when they heard loud exclamations from the side of the ground.
The old people did not like too much noise, especially the university was a place where people came to shape their futures. This garden was right beside the library, why would these students scream so much.
Kraft stood up and looked in the direction from where the sound came, and after a few seconds he opened his eyes wide and mumbled, "In the name of Electron, what the fuck is that?"
Many other old people were surprised, Professor Ting asked, "Kraft, what could it be that made you lose your composure?"
Kraft raised his hand and said, "Look there and you will know, professor."
All five of them stood up and looked where Kraft pointed, and they found a robot dribbling a basketball on the ground as it steadily walked over to them. The movements of this robot were not stiff at all. Behind the robot, two youngsters were walking, while the rest of the crowd was blocked by a few burly men.