Little Red Riding Hood and the Robot Monkey

Once upon a time in a faraway city lived Little Red Riding Hood. She had got the name for always wearing a long, red, hooded cape over her dress. She was a kind and charming girl who always said "thanks" and "sorry" and never was late for dinner.

One day, Little Red Riding Hood wished to see her grandmother, who lived alone in an apartment uptown. Her mother told her to be careful: "Stay on the monorail until the final stop, and do not go downtown." Little Red Riding Hood promised to obey, and carrying a basket of cookies and ginger beer, she boarded the monorail for uptown.

But while passing by downtown, Little Red Riding Hood received many ads to her necklink from candy stores and toy shops just waiting for her, shelves full of wonders. Unable to resist, she swapped trains midway, heading deep downtown.

Little did Little Red Riding Hood know that the infomercials had been sent by the Robot Monkey, who had long wanted to make her into a delicious snack. While the Little Red Riding Hood was shopping at the mall, the Robot Monkey hurried to her grandmother's apartment, devouring her whole. Then the Robot Monkey hid in a closet and waited. When the doorbell finally rang, the Robot Monkey created a holographic projection of the old woman, lying on her bed.

When Little Red Riding Hood entered the room she saw her grandmother lying on her bed, smiling warmly as she approached. However, the perspective of the hologram was slightly flawed.

"Grandmother, what big ears you have!" the girl exclaimed.

"All the better to hear you with," the Robot Monkey answered.

"Grandmother, what big eyes you have!" the girl continued.

"All the better to see you with," the hologram explained.

"Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!" the girl said.

And, having cut off Little Red Riding Hood's escape route, the Robot Monkey answered: "All the better to eat you up with!"

And the Little Red Riding Hood had nowhere to go. The Robot Monkey advanced on her and devoured the screaming little girl whole.

That would have been the end of Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother, had the grandmother not been a recognized AI engineer. Sitting inside the Robot's belly, she accessed his processing core with her datatool. The Little Red Riding Hood, however, was scared and confused.

"Why did the Robot Monkey eat us?" she asked her grandmother. "Why does he hurt people? Why is he so bad?"

"The Robot Monkey is not bad", her grandmother explained. "He's a machine. Machines can't be good or evil - they simply follow their programming. Either someone has deliberately given this one hostile commands or there is a glitch in the program. Don't worry, dear. That's nothing that can't be fixed."

And so the Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother fixed the software error, opening a hatch in the Robot Monkey's belly, letting them both out. All three had a nice cup of tea and enjoyed the cookies and ginger beer. Having learned a valuable lesson, Little Red Riding Hood then adjusted her necklink to teach her three modules of Software Engineering, in case something like that happened again.

And they all lived happily ever after.