The Invention of Protean Pete

Dan's ambition to build a flexible household servant develops into a wider engineering vocation that crosses decades and becomes part of his own recovery.

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The Household Problem

The Household Problem Repetitive labor Dan sees domestic work as repetitive drudgery rather than a fixed human necessity. He imagines a machine capable of cleaning, cooking, tending babies, and performing other household tasks, with the goal of freeing people from routine labor. A practical scope Rather than attempt a humanlike mind, he plans an obedient machine assembled from existing technologies. Its limitations are deliberate: it can perform learned tasks but must call for help when it encounters something outside its instructions.

Frank Takes Shape

Frank Takes Shape Memory and control Dan builds Flexible Frank around a powered wheelchair, using Thorsen memory tubes and judgment-like search circuits to guide repeated tasks. The first prototype can serve drinks, tidy a room, and interact carefully enough to stroke Pete. A long development horizon Dan wants years to refine the machine, reduce its size, and make its parts replaceable. Miles sees a product that should be accelerated into production; Dan sees an unfinished work of engineering art.

The Stolen Design

The Stolen Design Work removed When Dan is barred from the factory, his notes and the working model are missing. He believes Miles and Belle have taken the foundation of his most ambitious project, leaving him with no access to the design he created. A hidden continuation Years later, Belle claims the machine was stolen, while patent records show Dan's name on the first Eager Beaver design. The conflicting accounts leave the precise transfer uncertain, but Dan confirms that his engineering work became part of the later industry.

A Future Descendant

A Future Descendant Recognition in a machine A hospital Eager Beaver serves Dan breakfast, and he recognizes the ancestry of his own prototype in its design. The machine is far more polished than his early model, but its underlying engineering choices feel familiar. Renewed ambition The encounter shows Dan that his work has survived even when he has not. He begins studying the state of the art and prepares to invent again, now with access to better components and a more developed technical world.

The New Design Cycle

The New Design Cycle Rebuilding the work After returning to 1970, Dan reconstructs and improves the ideas behind Flexible Frank, creating Protean Pete as a broadly programmable automaton. He also develops Drafting Dan, using the modern product line he remembers from the future as a guide. Invention becomes a vocation These machines give Dan a way to secure his future without repeating his earlier dependence on Miles. In 2001 he continues as an independent designer, licensing completed inventions rather than making his life answer to a single corporation.

During Hired Girl, Inc.'s early success

Several years before November 1970

November and December 1970

December 2000, at the sanctuary

1970 to the early 2000s