In a wondrous land where a great gear shines instead of the sun, and beautiful nails and bolts grow instead of flowers, there live robots. Their lives are almost no different from the lives of people — robots, just like people, go to work, play games, and communicate.
And the robots live in harmony, and their entire life follows a strictly programmed scenario. Robots have their own customs and traditions within families too. In the morning there's roll call — by serial numbers, breakfast is a refill of machine oil, younger robots have lessons at a special school, programming and computer science, while the older ones have strictly automated work. In the evening all family members gather to discuss new tasks and go to sleep — they shut down until morning.
One day something unusual happened in the robot country. Robot number 404 malfunctioned. It all started unexpectedly during morning roll call, when number 404 didn't respond to its name. The head of the family, a robot of the oldest model, asked in surprise:
Number 404, why aren't you responding? What error is this?
I want to have a different name, — said 404 and blinked a red light.
Running a diagnostic. Bzzzzzz, — the head of the family scanned the forehead of number 404, where robots keep their microchips, — Temperature is normal, no program deviations detected. Your name is 404, what's wrong with it?
That's not a name! That's just a serial number! — said 404, and even in its robotic voice you could hear sadness.
Unknown error, — was all the head of the family could say.
But this was no error. Number 404 worked in the archives. While sorting through folders of scientific research, it found one — a red folder with huge letters printed on it: "The World of Humans." The robot carefully studied the contents of the folder and learned that humans are very similar to robots, but do many things their own way. They are very fragile and imperfect.
It's difficult for them to do work that's ordinary for a robot — multiply multi-digit numbers in their heads, lift multi-ton loads, sort data archives at lightning speed. All of this seemed very funny to robot number 404, humans amused it, but there was something about them that sparked interest. And the robot couldn't understand why it wanted so much to be like these "humans" from the Red Folder.
One thing the robot remembered best of all — each human has a name. Names can repeat, but this doesn't frighten humans; they love their names and each name has its own meaning. Victoria — victory, Yegor — farmer, Cyril — ruler, and many other names.
The robot understood that its name "number 404" meant nothing other than the number under which it was recorded on its chip. And it wanted so badly to acquire a new name that it stopped responding to its own.
No one could understand what kind of error had occurred in robot 404's program. It continued to work excellently, never drew complaints from friends and family, but flatly refused to respond to its name. At the same time, it didn't know what it wanted to be called.
Names weren't written into its program code. And the names of humans from the Red Folder didn't appeal to it. It hadn't defeated anyone, didn't work with the earth, and didn't oversee any processes. And every morning during roll call the robot said:
I am not number 404.
Unknown error, — the head of the family repeated again and again.
And these two words: "Unknown error" began to follow the robot everywhere. Whenever it tried to talk to a friend about names, it heard in response:
"Unknown error"
It came home or worked in the archives, it heard these words:
"Unknown error"
And robot number 404 understood — that this was precisely what characterized it best of all. It was an error. But it wasn't sad about it; on the contrary, it was happy because it had finally found itself. And the next morning during roll call it proudly said:
I am not number 404.
Unknown error, — answered the head parent.
Yes! That's my name! I am Error 404!
From then on, that's what it was called. When the robot acquired its new name, it seemed to stand out from the others. It felt that it was special, that it had become closer to those strange "humans" from the Red Folder. And who knows, perhaps one day it will manage to enter their world!
