by Tom Andry
He shrugged, "Like I said, it's a side project. It wasn't like I was devoting serious time to it. I'm sure I could have gotten them to work like this, or even better, if I had allotted the time."
"But how did they get loose?"
Again he shrugged, "Who can say? There are so many powers out there. Someone is bound to be born with something that this lab hasn't been shielded from." Suddenly he stopped, "Ah, it's really too bad about Sue and the baby. She had such potential. Plus, who knows what abilities that baby might have developed."
"What about Ed?"
"Eh?"
I controlled my voice, "Ed, her husband. You know, the tippy?"
"Oh yes, him too. Loss of life is always regrettable. I was speaking scientifically. In fact, I was just saying how I wish I could incorporate that healing ability into some of my projects. I've never seen anyone heal that fast. Quite fascinating, really."
I turned away. Science, that's all he cared about. I didn't believe for a moment that he regretted the loss of life. He was just another in a long line of scientists willing to do anything to...
"Wait," I turned back to him, leaning forward, "you were just talking about Sue's power to whom?"
"Eh?"
Just then Butler entered with a large binder. There were color-coded tabs, maybe five of them. Behind each of the color-coded tabs was a number of smaller tabs with handwritten labels. The doctor flicked the binder open on the table and grabbed the silver tab, turning to the first page. It said, "Robots." He looked through a few of the smaller, handwritten tabs before he settled on one. He opened it and there was a diagram that looked like one of the molecules I had to study in high school chemistry but ten times more complex.
He exclaimed, "Ah HA!" His face was alight, "I knew it. Oh, I'll have this solved in no time."
"Medico."
He turned from me, back to a small refrigerator at the back of the room. He pulled a number of vials from it and moved over to the machine he had poured the green goo into.
"Ignaro."
He started measuring out small amounts of the different liquids and pouring them into the machine. The machine whirred and hissed and, after a moment, a door opened with steam pouring out.
"Doc Arts!"
That stopped him. He turned, hand still half way into the machine, and looked at me.
"You said you were talking about the family. About Sue's power. To whom? Who were you talking to?"
He looked confused, "Eh... no one really. I mean, I was just working and thinking. I wasn't talking to anyone."
I glanced around the lab. We were alone. Butler had disappeared after bringing the folder.
My stomach was in knots, "Medico, where's Assistant?"
"Oh, in the back, recharging I guess. It's programmed to do that when its battery power lowers past a certain point." He pulled his hand out of the machine with a small aerosol can. He moved to another machine and opened a small window. He sprayed a short burst into the window and waited while the machine flashed and chimed and started spitting out paper.
I turned, heading in the direction he motioned. I opened a door half hidden behind one of his machines. I'd never been past the main lab, but I wasn't surprised that it looked much like a kid's room. The only difference was that the toys probably represented enough money to buy a small country. There were shelves and tables everywhere. Abandoned projects were omnipresent. There were half built robots, the stereotypical backlit glass shelves stuffed full of jars filled with creatures and body parts in liquid, and discarded electronics. The little light that was available came from the main lab, the display shelf full of jars and the water cooler in the corner. The floor was littered with boxes, both cardboard and plastic, and filled with additional equipment. There were a disconcerting number that were marked hazardous both with official labels and by the doctor's own hand. I wasn't sure which I was more afraid of.
I searched around the wall near the door for a light switch but couldn't find one. "Medico, where are the lights in here?" I called out.
"Eh?" he replied. "What are you doing back there?"
"Lights?"
"Oh, here, I need to get them."
Behind me, the doctor entered the room. Immediately the room was flooded with fluorescent light.
"You see," he continued, "they are keyed to my bio-prints. It's a very handy system that a friend of mine came up with. Not exactly bio-molecular engineering, you see, but it impresses guests."
While the doctor spoke, I glanced around the room again. The light didn't reveal much more than the shadows had before. While I could see everything more clearly, I still didn't know what any of it was.
"What is all this stuff?"
"Oh, you know, odds and ends. Projects I'll get back to one day." He laughed lightly, "You'd be surprised how many times I come back here and find just what I'm looking for."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, just the other day I was working on a new battery type. I needed something that was light weight, highly reactive and wouldn't burst into flames." He motioned to a box, "So, I started rummaging around back here and found just what I needed."
"Just like that you say?" I noticed Assistant over by the water cooler, motionless as always.
"Yes." The doctor held up the can, "So you see, we spray this on the robots and they'll shut down. Guaranteed."
"Medico?"
"Yes," he looked up from his can.
"What is Assistant doing?"
"Why," he reached up to adjust glasses that weren't there, "I don't know."
He walked over to Assistant. I followed a few paces behind.
"Assistant, what are you doing back..." his voice started to trail off. The can dropped to the ground, "here..."
From over Doc Arts' shoulder I could see Assistant. It was facing the water cooler. But it wasn't a water cooler. It was a device about three feet tall and rectangular with a large inverted glass bowl on top. Of course I mistook it for a water cooler; it looked just like one except for the lack of spouts, the lack of water and all the tiny, sparkly robots floating around inside of the tank. The robots swirled around of their own volition, a vortex of internal and reflected light. In the dark, it was slight and ghostly. In full light, it was like those pictures you see of the center of the galaxy: just light. In the center, the robots were so concentrated that it looked like a ball of light. They rotated around this central mass lazily. Slowly, the concentrated section started to shift from the center to the outside, dancing within its glass cage. If I hadn't seen what these things had done to Ed, I'd have thought it was beautiful. Way better than a lava lamp.
In front of me, the doctor dropped to his knees.
My brow furrowed, "Medico, you okay..."
It was then that I saw what had caught the doctor's attention. Assistant wasn't just standing next to the water cooler, it was touching it. And where Assistant touched it, the tiny, sparkly robots swirled around its hands. Where before it had two skin covered and two robotic arms, it now had four flesh covered arms. The skin on its chassis was growing, visibly, and covering every part it could. It was imperfect. The two robot arms were terminated in cylinders meant to provide different tools and the skin was growing into every nook and cranny. Assistant was rotating the cylinders and exposing each of the tools in an attempt to keep them free of skin but it was a losing battle. The skin on the human arms had grown hair and actually looked like real arms, but now it was growing up the shoulder and onto the torso. It was covering the exposed servos and actuators, even covering the treads by which Assistant rolled across the ground. Blood was splattering all over the water cooler, the floor and everything nearby as every move Assistant made caused the new skin to rip and tear.
Assistant turned toward us, slowly, spraying blood all over the doctor's white lab coat. A bell chimed. Slowly, Doc Arts stood, reached into his pocket and withdrew the device he had called a Handheld.
He looked at the screen, "Assistant is asking for our help. It's
confused."
"What the hell is going on, Medico?" I took a step back. I was way out of my depth here. I needed an exit plan before things got dangerous. Wait, who was I kidding? Things were long past dangerous.
"I'm not sure," he stood, absently, staring at the tiny screen on the device in his hand. "I've got access to all of its data and..." he spun and looked at me, a frenzied look in his expression. "My God!" he exclaimed.
I took another step back, "Listen, don't you think we should call someone?"
"Bob, listen to me. Do you see what this means? I programmed Assistant to be a simple helper. Nothing more. But somehow, it's changed, evolved. I say, 'Hand me a scalpel,' and it hands me a scalpel. I say, 'I wish we could get a sample of Sue's DNA and integrate it into your skin,' and it does it!"
"Yeah, I got that."
"No, you don't. This shouldn't happen! That," he motioned to Assistant who now had skin dripping off of it like bloody, fibrous ice cream on a hot sunny day, "shouldn't happen."
I shook my head in horror, "I agree with you there."
"Fascinating! I can't wait to study this!" he exclaimed, turning back to Assistant. He addressed it, officiously, like he was giving a valedictory speech, "Assistant, you should have Sue's DNA removed from your own for now."
Dutifully, Assistant turned back to the water cooler. It placed its hands on it and the tiny robots began to glow even brighter. The rotational speed increased until they were a blinding light. A second or two later and the light dissipated. I dropped the hand I had used to shield my eyes just as the sparkles started to surround Assistant. I couldn't see how they were escaping their glass chamber, but they were. They seemed to just melt through it. The doctor was giddy. He was murmuring to himself as he held up his Handheld, much in the same way he had when scanning Khan.
Khan. I had let this psycho treat him. I glanced up at Assistant and watched as the sparkles ate the flesh off it much the same way it had consumed Ed. I swallowed hard to keep from throwing up. If there were any doubt about Sue and the baby, those were banished. Doc Arts made an offhand comment to his robotic assistant and people died. Good people. People who had just had a baby. People who had done nothing wrong other than have a problem that the doctor found interesting. The doctor kept looking back at me and talking, but I couldn't hear him. All I could hear was my pulse in my ears. Beating hard. Beating fast. What if he had said something about Khan's speed? About Gale's power over wind? He'd said that his patients had been going missing for months. How could he not have known?
"Now, of course, it'll have to be destroyed, that goes without saying. But first, there's so much we could learn!"
I shook my head. Was he still talking to me? This man, who had done so much good according to some - to most, really - was a hero. I had stopped getting the paper because I couldn't stand seeing his name in it all the time. His smiling face with those glasses covering mechanical eyes. Those people didn't know him. Didn't know the things he did. The lives he ended. The lives he ruined.
"You shouldn't have said it," I said.
His head jerked around, "What?"
"You said it like I wasn't there."
He looked genuinely confused. Behind him, the sparkles were returning to their tank.
"In the room, after..." I couldn't finish. My eyes burned with anger and tears.
"Bob, I'm not sure I know..." he stammered.
"You said it was my fault!" I yelled, five years of rage causing my voice to crack like a schoolboy's. "I heard you, you son of a bitch!"
"Bob, I really don't think this is the time..."
"Oh, it's the perfect time!" I took a step toward him, finger extended, accusing, "You came in there to 'comfort' Gale."
"Wendi?"
I ignored him, "You said it was me. My genes. That cross-births weren't possible because the tippy genes weren't strong enough. That she was a 'fantastic specimen.' That she should be congratulated on bringing the first cross-birth to term. But that my genes were weak. That it seemed that cross-births would always abort some way or another."
"But I didn't mean it that way. That's what we all thought. We were all wrong," he protested. "You saw that today. Your case helped save that child. Many children. In ways you don't even know!"
I waved his comments away, "Saved for how long? Saved until you came up with a different way to kill them?"
"But, but, your case was instrumental in developing a treatment... a protocol..."
"I'm not a case, God damn it!" I turned away from him, talking at the open door out of the back room. "Don't you see? Don't you see what you do? Sure you save lives, you build wonderful devices, but look at the destruction in your wake. Look at Sue and Ed. And why Ed? What did he do? He didn't have the genes of Sue or the baby?"
Ingaro looked back at his Handheld, "I'm not sure. Maybe it was covering its tracks? That'd be concrete proof that Assistant is more self-aware than..."
"You're doing it again!" I roared. "Look at their son. Look at my daughter. My marriage. So many others."
"It was an accident, Bob. How was I to know?" he pleaded.
"Oh, yes, ignorance." I turned back to face him.
Assistant, behind him, was motionless and restored. The excess skin and blood completely gone. The tiny robots back in their water cooler cage.
"You didn't know that cross-births could work so you destroyed my marriage. You didn't know your robot had gone serial killer and slain Sue and Ed and many others because of your words. You think that fire blasts and lasers are the only way to kill someone? Do you think that a part of me didn't die with my daughter? Didn't die with my marriage?"
"Bob, I'm sorry. I guess I didn't think..."
I scoffed, "No, I guess you didn't." I glanced up at Assistant. I closed my eyes and chose my words carefully, "I guess Assistant didn't either."
Again his head snapped back in confusion, "Pardon?"
I spoke quietly, "Speaking scientifically, Ignaro, how could this have happened? How could Assistant learn to act on its own?"
He thought for a moment, looking down at his Handheld, "I suppose it must have something to do with incorporating my own DNA. Perhaps my genius is encoded within my genetic structure. Enough to allow Assistant to grow beyond its programming and form a sentient intelligence of its own - albeit, only an obviously primitive intelligence."
"Well just imagine then, Ignaro... Imagine what Assistant could achieve if it had more than just your skin cells... "
"Interesting, yes! If it had cells that are actually specialized for thought and intelligence. Not just the basic genetic structure from my skin cells, but specific cells: brain cells! I could take a..."
"So," I interrupted, "if Assistant wanted more skin, or perhaps the brain to think for itself without having to wait for your suggestions, you would be the perfect donor?"
"Well, yes, I suppose I would, but I don't see how that applies here. Assistant doesn't think."
As I spoke, I turned slowly, "No," I agreed, "it doesn't."
Behind the doctor, Assistant had turned to face the water cooler again. Once again, the sparkles increased in intensity. The doctor turned realizing that something was going on. He raised his Handheld and stared at its screen. Even as the tiny, shiny robots enveloped him, he stared. At the last moment, as they started to enter his nose and mouth, he turned and looked at me, confusion on his face. His mouth fell open in a noiseless scream. Under the skin around his eyes I could see the robots’ internal light shining through as they traveled into his brain. His mechanical eyes were emotionless as his body collapsed to the ground. I turned and slowly exited the back room, closing the door behind me. When I reached the lab table, I turned the folder with the off switches for all the robots toward me. I scanned the tabs until I found the one marked 'Assistant.' I opened it to the correct page, made sure I understood what I needed to do to shut Assistant down for good and sat down wishing I had a drink.
* * *
Epilogue
Officer Kent was j
ust about exactly how I'd expected him to be: smooth, trim, and attractive. For a tippy, of course. He kept himself in shape and wore his uniform and SB radio bracelet proudly. He was tall, chiseled, and confident. His adopted informal speaking style didn't match his physique and overall neatness but I don't think anyone else noticed.
"So, another science experiment gone wrong, huh?"
Kent was more than happy to wake up in the middle of the night when I called from the doctor's house, saying that I had cracked the case. He was decidedly less excited when he arrived at Doc Arts' home to find the doctor dead. Even less so when he saw the condition of the body. I had only waited a few minutes before entering the back lab, but the sparkly robots had already consumed two thirds of the doctor's body. All that was left was his belly and a bit around the elbow of one arm. I spoke the complex series of sounds that it took to shut down Assistant, which didn't, as I had hoped, send the tiny floating robots back to their tank. Instead, I ended up using the doctor's spray to kill them. Apparently, I was right and the glossy look of Ed's wound was because of the robots. Once I killed them on the doctor, gravity pretty much expelled all the blood and juices that were left in a hurry. Needless to say, I hoped Ted had some way of cleaning my shoes.
I was sitting upstairs in the living room of the doctor's home with Kent sitting across from me. He was happy that he'd gotten to call in The Bulwark, but knew that the death of the doctor wasn't going to score him many brownie points. They would remember his name, however, and that was worth something. Hopefully, later on, I could cash in on that one. Behind him, Gale leaned against the wall, glaring at me. I tried to ignore her. All night there had been mourners, lawyers, and random supers in and out of the place. Doc Arts was well known and well loved. Plus, if you were trying to make a name for yourself as a fledgling super, getting on TV seemed to be a good way to increase your exposure. Liz had stopped by and let me know that TOP would be there for the non-super victims. She put a hand on my shoulder and I squeezed it but I had a hard time meeting her eyes. She gave me a look that told me it was okay and that we'd talk later. I heard a lot of talk. Some were suggesting an international day of mourning; others wanted some sort of memorial. The more extreme suggestions involved a Rushmore-like carving on the moon. God. I hoped they wouldn't go through with that one. I didn't think I could go out at night if I had to see his face staring down at me.