Evolution's End

by Steven Spellman

  The beds and tables with the patients upon them were in booths that were a fraction of the size of normal hospital rooms. The booths were only large enough for the Titedelstein operating arms to have full range of motion but not nearly large enough for a doctor and his staff to perform any procedures. The arms were the doctors and staff. There were arms that administered anesthesia, arms that functioned as scalpels, arms that functioned as rib spreaders. There were mechanized arms for anything that might be necessary for any surgical procedure possible. The beds themselves were robotized. They could reverse the bolts that anchored them firmly to the floor in their narrow booths and move the patient anywhere he or she needed to be moved. So much automation was incredibly efficient—an injured person could be loaded directly onto a bed or table on site and then carried back to the operating theatre, sometimes without any human intervention—and as far as Marcus was concerned, incredibly unnerving. For, these robots could repair and modify human bodies in the same way that men had once produced cars, on a kind of assembly line process.

  The theatre was lined with dozens of these booths each with its own mechanized bed and robotic arms, in a huge circle on two floors with a huge open atrium in the middle for visibility. There were also multiple cameras in every brightly lit booth but by now the robots were so advanced that they no longer needed monitoring. When Marcus stepped into the room Professor Edelstein noticed him and began to walk in his direction. Marcus forced himself to unclench his jaw. It had been a full day since Professor Edelstein had warned him that Denna was using him and it was still difficult to look at the man and remain professional. But he needed to remain professional, especially in light of what was going on around him. The place was clearly cleaner and more well organized than any hospital building that had ever existed before it but it still reminded Marcus of some kind of repair facility where humans and not broken cars were the damaged commodity.

  Of course Marcus had frequented the operating facility in the old Willoughby Building many times before but this operating theatre was vastly larger and though there were many booths Marcus had never seen more than ten people in them and now a horizon of them was filled with so many unconscious patients surrounded by so many robot arms cutting and slicing and plunging into every opening. It pressed the sobering reality home yet again that mankind was changing and must change or have the wheels of change ground it into radioactive powder. Marcus squared his shoulders and took the hand that Professor Edelstein extended to him. After the shock of seeing so many human beings laid out like battered Tupperware it wasn’t as difficult as he would’ve thought. There was very little room for offense in the face of this mechanized revolution.

  “Hello, professor. It’s good to see you.” Professor Edelstein said.

  Marcus only smiled and nodded his head. He couldn’t make himself return the greeting; perhaps there was a little room for offense.

  Professor Edelstein gestured around the room. “Soon every booth will be filled, professor.” Marcus grimaced. “Mankind will be made over in his own image and the cursed Earth will be ours again.” That at least was encouraging. It was the only way that mankind would ever be able to reclaim what the Earth had become. The professors walked the huge circle in the middle of the booths and inspected the operations that were in progress. It was amazing, really. There was very little blood and very little sound and no wasted motion, no nurses, no crash carts, no uniformed medical staff rushing here and there to retrieve fluids and surgical instruments at every doctor’s beckon. Besides the professors’ voice, their footsteps were the loudest sounds in the entire room. In one room a man was having a leg amputated. The leg was completely broken, bent at a nauseating angle, badly discolored and shrunken down nearly to the bone. Apparently, this patient had suffered some kind of awful accident. It was clear at first glance that amputation was this patient’s only option. One robotic arm moved slowly but steadily across the bulge of the upper thigh with a finely tuned laser. The laser cut instantly through bone and flesh like a hot knife through butter, another arm followed closely behind and tied off severed blood vessels. A third robotic arm followed the second and suctioned away blood from the severed leg before any could stain the operating table. The three arms moved in perfect synchronization around the leg until a fourth followed and carried the amputated leg quickly away.

  In the next booth a small saw whirled quietly at the tip of a robotic arm as the arm moved it quickly around the crest of a patient’s head. Once the saw had made a full circle from temple to temple, the arm retracted and returned with a second synchronized arm to lift away the top of the man’s skull like lifting the cap off a bottle. The arms retracted and then returned to rummage through the man’s exposed brain tissue as part of whatever surgery he needed. None of this was new to Marcus, but even now it felt a little weird watching machines laser and cut through living human beings, take them neatly apart, repair them and put them neatly back together as easily as if they were broken toys. Marcus thought the arms had moved much too quickly in removing the patient’s skull flap. The robotic arms moved with impressive efficiency but they lacked the care and caution a human doctor might’ve taken. Unfortunately, though, human doctors who cared also made mistakes.

  The patient in the next booth had both of her eyes removed. Two gaping black holes remained where her eyes had once been. Two arms hovered over the woman with brand new prosthetic eyes, eyes that would see further, define objects much more clearly at a greater distance, and wouldn’t wear out for thousands of years. The arms lowered the eyes, with their synthetic nerve bundles into the woman’s gaping holes, as other arms tied the synthetic nerves into the woman’s brain. The process happened in less than ten minutes and Marcus knew that when the woman woke up she would be able to see further and more clearly than any human ever had before without some kind of mechanical aid. In other booths, men and women were having Titedelstein arms and legs attached to nearly bloodless stumps. Marcus and Professor Edelstein eventually walked past a booth where a woman who had recently undergone a hemicorporectomy was having a new Titedelstein pelvis and everything that came with it along with a new pair of Titedelstein legs as well as everything that came along with them, attached to the stump where her old pelvis and legs had once been.

  The two professors continued to walk past the booths with more unconscious patients being fitted with Titedelstein prosthesis and replacement internal organs until there wasn’t much flesh left on them at all. Then Professor Edelstein lead Marcus to the final booth on the first level and Marcus saw that there was no bed, no operating table, no patient sliced open, inside the booth. There was, however, a shiny full Titedelstein robot standing at rigid attention in the middle of the room. Except for its glistening metallic façade, the robot looked remarkably human, and a remarkably healthy and fit human at that, if at the moment comatose; the robot’s body remained rigidly frozen in place and its eyes remained motionlessly fixed in front of it. Marcus looked it over closely. He had seen a full Titedelstein robot before and at the time he was certain that that robot was the only functioning unit of its kind. Obviously, he was wrong. This robot looked more streamlined, more human like, than the other one. Professor Edelstein must’ve been working on this one in secret. Was the professor in the habit of keeping secrets of this magnitude at a time like this!

  Marcus turned and the question was clear upon his face as he stared on at Professor Edelstein. The professor didn’t seem concerned. “It’s truly magnificent, isn’t it?” he asked as he gazed on at the robot with real affection in his eyes. By the look on his face, one might’ve thought that Professor Edelstein was staring at his only begotten son. “Step forward.” He commanded, and the robot instantly took three large steps towards the edge of the booth until it stood directly in front of Professor Edelstein. The robot was noticeably taller than even the tall lanky professor but it did not look down to meet his eyes. It only stared directly forward blankly, nearly over the top of the professor’s head. “Now, gree
t Professor Marcus Willoughby.”

  The robot turned without a sound in one fluid motion towards Marcus. Its hand was already extended for a handshake. Marcus flinched back away from the extended metal hand. The last robot he’d seen had been designed only to decipher and obey the information it read from human brain tissue. This newly designed robot though, obviously took external commands. It was strange watching this humanoid machine move of its own accord. “This is impressive, Edelstein.” Marcus answered, though he still didn’t take the robot’s hand. It was impressive. Startling and unexpected but impressive. Marcus walked around the robot, scrutinizing it’s joints, closely, its metal skull where the dual central processing units had been on the last robot, the way the metal skin overlapped in places that a real human might have flesh folds. Everything looked upgraded from the last model. This one was flawless.

  Marcus finally took the robot’s hand. Its grip was firm but not crushing, almost life like. “It is truly a pleasure to meet you Professor Marcus Anton Willoughby.” The robot said as it shook Marcus’ hand and then quickly released it. Or rather, Marcus snatched it away. The voice he heard from the robot sounded familiar. Very familiar. It was his own voice he heard from the mouth of this metal man. Marcus turned to Professor Edelstein. The professor only gazed back stoically.

  “How … why … ?” Marcus asked unsteadily. He wasn’t sure if he should be offended or flattered. Right now he was just taken aback.

  Professor Edelstein stepped around to the front of the robot. “I think you know the how. We used a few of the audio clips from your research dictations …” the professor tapped the base of the robot’s neck “and the CPUs did the rest. As to why, I thought it’d be an honor. Thanks to this robot your voice will herald the dawning of a new age for all mankind.”

  It was an honor, considering what this robot represented but it was not like the professor to share his glory like this. Then, a thought crossed Marcus’ mind. “And what’s the robot’s name?”

  “Ed, of course.”

  “Of course.” Ed was short for Edelstein. So, it would be Marcus’ voice that would herald a new beginning for all mankind but it would be Edelstein’s name that was recorded in the history books. It all made sense now. The last robot had been functional but plagued with hardware and software glitches. With the explosion, the destruction of the old Willoughby Building, the fast tracking of Titedelstein project, Professor Edelstein must’ve realized that now was the time to leave his mark or never at all. This was that mark and it was an impressive one. But there was more, apparently. “We originally designed the first prototype just as a body for human consciousness. This iteration however can function completely on its own …” Professor Edelstein stared intently at Marcus “Don’t you get it? We’ve produced a fully autonomous surgical robot …” the professor turned to the robot “Ed, show Marcus some of your hardware.”

  The robot lifted both hands before it’s face and the metal tips of its fingers and thumbs slid back into themselves to reveal a laser piece hidden in the interior of its index fingers, a scalpel apiece in each of its middle fingers, suction nozzles in each of its ring fingers and various small curved surgical instruments in the remaining fingers. Marcus looked the robot over and noticed that everywhere else in its body hidden panels had retracted to reveal other storage compartments, some filled with special bags of fluid that might be needed for difficult surgeries and yet more surgical equipment. This machine was a hospital on wheels! Marcus realized the possibilities instantly. A fleet of robots like these could be dispatched to the outskirts of Science City to perform life-saving procedures that were ubiquitously needed upon patients whose numbers never dwindled. This robot could perform complicated amputations directly on site when a person had the best chance of survival. It could attach Titedelstein prostheses to many more people than the campuses’ hospital facilities. Perhaps Ed could even help build other robots like itself.

  The more he thought about it though, the more certain he became that Professor Edelstein had something else in mind. “This is quite the accomplishment, Edelstein but what is the end game here?” he asked.

  “Your powers of deduction have never ceased to impress me, Marcus.” Professor Edelstein’s assistants were monitoring a surgical procedure in one of the booths that was much further down. The professor casually sauntered over to them and instructed them to leave. Then he causally sauntered back over to Marcus. “The end game, my esteemed colleague is to finally realize the fruit of all our labors. No more robotic arms and shielded consoles. This …” he gestured towards the robot “represents the perfection of The Auto Surgeon Program. We can still monitor everything the robot sees and hears but it possesses the skill and strength of a thousand human specialists …”

  “And?” Marcus asked. He could sense that the professor was leading up to something.

  “And, I’m surprised that you haven’t deduced it yet Professor Willoughby.” Professor Edelstein looked more excited than surprised, though. “With a fleet of robots like this one, we can secure the brain slices we need in a fraction.” Marcus took a shocked step backwards. Brain slices were the literal slices of human brain tissue that these robots would need to merge human cognition with their shiny indestructible metal shells. Instantly an image coalesced in Marcus’ mind of a plague of these impressive robots moving like locusts through the crowded, poverty stricken population, lasering into people’s skulls and removing thick folds of brain matter to feed into their own bodies. That was not the way it was supposed to be. There had always been a mountain of release forms and waivers to be signed, lengthy waiting lists even once all the documents were finalized, a complete vetting of any potential participants, before a person could have their brain matter immortalized in Titedelstein.

  Now, though, it seemed as if Professor Edelstein planned to build these robots and then just unleash them on the unsuspecting population at large to kill people and steal brain matter from their skulls until whatever quota he had in mind was met. It was a disgusting proposition.

  Out of the many thoughts that swarmed inside Marcus’ head only one came out of his mouth, “But we haven’t found a medium capable of storing the brain slices for the robot CPUs to read.” It was a relief to hear it from his own mouth, since it meant that the swarm of robot locusts could not be released upon the public just yet.

  Professor Edelstein lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes; he always thought it made him look more regale. “That’s the great news, Marcus. We believe we’ve finally found a proper medium to store the brain slices indefinitely without damaging them. We will know by the end of the week. Mankind can finally begin the next stage of his evolution Professor Willoughby and for the first time in history this stage of our evolution will be deliberate.” The professor stood taller and squared his narrow shoulders but the relief that Marcus had felt dissipated like a freshly extinguished candle. Whatever happened from this point on it was out of his control.

  CHAPTER 11

  Marcus sat at the table across from Denna in the restaurant and tried not to think about the last conversation he’d had with Professor Edelstein. That had been three days ago and he hadn’t returned to work since then. He planned to return to work this morning but he still wasn’t certain if that were the right thing to do. In just a few more days whatever medium Professor Edelstein had discovered would be ready to go according to him. It wouldn’t take much longer beyond that to prepare a fleet of robots like the one Marcus had seen, dispatch them into the outskirts of the city and wait until they returned with chaos and death in their wake and fresh brain slices ready for permanent storage in their metal grasps. Things seemed to be speeding up too quickly and Marcus feared that soon no one would be able to hold the wheel straight.

  It was exciting as well. The day that Marcus had anticipated, had known must happen, had helped to bring about, was here. All the impossible pieces were in place, the moves were being made and soon the game would be permanently decided. Years of harshl
y driven research, years more of planning and complicated schematics, and it all lead to this moment. Marcus decided that he was privileged to be alive to see it, especially as he watched Denna eat from across the table. She carefully tore a swath of meat from the fried chicken breast that sat amongst a medley of vegetables on her plate and neatly put it into her mouth. As Marcus watched her, he sighed that beauty like hers was one of the few things that Titedelstein couldn’t deliver. It was the frailty of flesh, especially the delicacy of a gorgeous woman’s flesh, that gave it its allure. It was the fact that mankind was so small and vulnerable against the backdrop of an infinite cosmos that made their salvation imperative. Like a lowly, fragile rose growing out of concrete the beauty of life was how close it constantly was to death. Meanwhile, Denna finished chewing her latest chunk of fried chicken. “You’ve been distracted for days, Marcus. What’s on your mind?” she asked.

  Marcus didn’t answer. He stared into her eyes but he didn’t seem to notice that she was even talking. “Marcus?” Denna called a little more loudly. “What’s going on?”

  “Denna, come live with me.” he said suddenly.

  Denna froze with a forkful of vegetables between her plate and her mouth. Finally, after a long moment she slowly lowered the fork back down. She still didn’t speak. She stared into Marcus’ eyes as if she were trying to see if he were joking. She opened her mouth, but Marcus rushed to speak over her, “You can move in right away! Today!”