The printer slowly spat out sheets of paper, which floated down gently one by one. Estelle took them from the HR representative; they were still warm.
The first page of her resignation documents contained her personal information. Estelle lowered her eyes to read a few lines.
Estelle, female, 34 years old, a national-level AI engineer. Currently the director of the Engineering and R&D Department at Stella Technology Company, and the team leader for Team Ⅰ of the THG project, with awards...
She flipped straight to the last page of the documents. "I just need to sign here, right?"
The HR representative exchanged a glance with Marry, who pursed her lips and nodded. The HR representative replied,
"Yes, Miss Grey. The resignation process will take about two working days. During this time, you'll need to hand over your projects to your colleagues and return the developer chip for the THG project. Once your resignation is confirmed, your iris and fingerprint information will be removed from the access list, so please make sure all handover tasks are completed within the next two days."
Marry received a message from Aiden. She quickly scanned it and approached Estelle in a low voice. "Miss Grey, Mr. Watson would like you to wait for a while."
Estelle gave a faint "Okay," and looked back up at the HR representative. "Thank you for handling these."
From the HR department to Aiden's office, Estelle remained silent along the way.
Not until the elevator stopped at the fifth floor R&D department and Estelle saw someone on the opposite freight lift transporting a charging pod did she pause and say, "Wait a moment."
The person was Marco Cambell, whom Estelle remembered as a former member of Team Ⅰ. After the successful market launch of the THG female robots, the Team Ⅰ development project had ended. Some of the team members stayed to handle post-sales maintenance for the THG, while the rest were assigned to Team Ⅱ to develop the next target product—the PWL male robots.
Marco chose the later.
When Marco turned around and saw Estelle, his eyes lit up, and he greeted her cheerfully. "Long time no see, Manager Grey!"
Estelle nodded slightly and asked, "How is your group progressing?"
"Not very well. The requirements for male robots are much higher than for female ones." Marco shook his head with a bitter smile. "Female robots only need to accommodate, but male robots must provide feedback and adjust their modes according to the user's physical condition, to satisfy female users. As you know, we're the first company to develop service-oriented robots, so there's no experience to draw upon. It's really tough."
Marry, who was not yet married, blushed deeply hearing this and couldn't help but cover half her face with the file folder.
Estelle was used to such talk and chuckled lightly. "Okay, you should discuss these matters internally when you get back. I'm not part of your group, and I wouldn't understand anyway. So, what are you doing now?"
Following her gaze, Marco turned around to look at the charging pod behind him.
"Oh, this is a prototype robot of the zeroth generation. After screening tests, it was classified as defective, and the team leader asked me to send it back to the factory for destruction."
"What's wrong with him?" Estelle asked.
"I'm not exactly sure. I'm not part of the quality control team, and I was pulled in to do some manual labor today. But I heard from the QC colleagues that there seems to be an issue with the bio-emotional module. They found instances of emotional instability during testing. So…"
"Emotional instability?" Estelle furrowed her brows. "Does he attack humans?"
"Oh, no, not that." Marco scratched his head. "My wording wasn't accurate—it's not instability, it's deviation. We need our robots to obey their users, but this PWL-000 always has spontaneous doubts and even refuses commands sometimes. They can't find the problematic section of the source code, so they have to consider him defective."
Estelle paused for a moment and repeated, "Refuses commands?"
"Yes. There might be a problem with the brain logic."
"The bio-simulation programs for the brain and nervous system of the THG were written by me. I heard that the PWL reused the THG program framework and made modifications to it. If there are issues with emotions, then I should also bear some responsibility."
Marco was taken aback and waved his hands repeatedly. "No, no, Manager Grey, that's not what I meant. From development to market release, we tested the THG countless times. How could something like this happen? Besides, we haven't received similar feedback from post-sales either, which means your program is fine. It must be that they made mistakes during their modifications. And they say they can't find the source code—well, in my opinion, it's simply a lack of technical expertise…"
Estelle smiled, seemingly thinking that there was no point in arguing about this topic. She didn't respond and instead asked, "Can I see him?"
"Of course, of course." Marco said, "Ah, but he doesn't seem to be wearing any clothes."
"It's okay, I only want to see his upper body."
Saying that she would only look at the upper body, Marry still turned away with a red face.
Marco entered the password on the surface of the charging pod, followed by iris and fingerprint authentication. After several prompts, the pod finally opened slowly, revealing a male robot lying quietly inside under a soft blue light.
He was beautiful, Estelle thought immediately.
It makes sense, after all, a male robot designed for sexual services should naturally have a handsome face and a strong muscular body—that's just the bare minimum.
Estelle gazed at him for a long while.
"His name is PWL-000?"
"Yes, this is the standard designation for the zeroth generation robots."
She looked at him for another moment.
And then she said, "Give him to me."
