This was the bottom of the deepest ocean on the planet. Humans had always known more about the moon and distant planets than they did about this part of their own planet. And up until this point, billions of tons of water had barred them from exploring this deep and dark part of their own back yard. The history books claimed that Marcus could count on one hand how many times man had visited these depths in all of human history and of those few times at least three of those missions had been performed with unmanned submersibles.
Even the one or two times man had visited the Mariana Trench he hadn’t seen very far into the black water that filled the deep abyss and no one had ever experienced it first hand, beyond the protection of a heavily plated submersible. In all of human history Denna and Marcus had been the first ever to step on dry land at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Marcus suddenly felt as if Denna was right, that this was better than the site he had chosen. But was this the ‘other way’ that she had spoken of? He gazed up at the clouds and wished that, if Denna were initiating the ceremony, a ray of light would break through the clouds and shine a spotlight special just for this moment. As if by magic, the clouds above did break in a perfect circle of brilliantly blue sky that immediately left thick wisps at its edges. A brilliant circle of light fell upon Marcus and Denna like a miracle. But it didn’t take Marcus long to realize that this was not divine providence but rather that the alien vessel that had brought Denna, had returned. His sensors detected the same ring of faint radiation descend towards the Earth. Just like the last time, it didn’t land but hovered directly over Denna.
Her eyes continued to stare at Marcus but there was a distant gaze in them now as if she were looking through him and not at him at all. The look on her face was suddenly and disturbingly blank. The space craft, whatever it was, continued to hover but this time it remained in place for an entire minute before it ascended perfectly back into the hole it had left in the cloud cover. As soon as it was out of sight, the blank gaze vanished from Denna’s eyes. “What just happened?” Marcus asked.
“An exchange of information.”
“Is that how you and your people communicate?”
“It is one of many ways.”
“What did they say?”
“That they would return at the appointed time.”
“What does that mean?”
Denna stepped close enough to whisper in Marcus’ ear. “It is not important right now. What is important is that there is a chamber directly below us that contains the robot bodies you’ve been searching for as well as many brain slices.”
Marcus only stared at Denna. He didn’t doubt that she was telling the truth but he also couldn’t believe that he had actually found what he had searched for for so long. He knew that he would find the other robot bodies eventually but he had secretly abandoned hope that eventually would come any time soon. He bent down and placed a hand on the uneven seabed. He commanded his body to emit a powerful sonic pulse through his hand and as the shockwave bounded back to him, he read the reverberation like sonar and discovered that yes, there was a chamber very far down, hidden deep within the cursed Earth. He began to dig.
CHAPTER 20
Marcus jabbed his metal fingers into the dry, rocky topsoil and snatched away fistfuls of hard Earth as if his life depended on it. The further down he dug the easier it became. Rocky terrain became tightly packed Earth, which became almost liquid with the awesome heat that radiated from deep within the Earth’s core. That’s when things quickly became difficult. The heat had turned rock and grit into a kind of clay that held onto Marcus hands when he plunged them in and continued holding on when he tried to pull any out. The further down he went the slower and more difficult his progress became. Marcus had been literally all over the world but he had never come across clay that was this resilient. With every movement it became more difficult for him to break away from the powerful suction of it, until the sensors in his body alerted him that his motors were quickly approaching overload. The clay was like quicksand but many times stronger and the strain of fighting against it was proving too much for Marcus’ powerful robot body.
He estimated that he had dug himself over twenty feet into the Earth when motors in his left arm begin to shut down. No smoke arose from the motors, nor did they make any grating metallic sound but Marcus heard the alarm inside his head and then the motor that simulated his left bicep went unresponsive. Another alarm, and then the wrist was unresponsive. Another alarm and the fingers wouldn’t work. Another alarm sounded inside him, alerting him that his right arm was approaching the critical point but he did not stop digging. He couldn’t tell how many feet separated him still from the chamber but he sensed vaguely that he was close. With sensors and motors failing everywhere in his body that was all he had to work with in his self-dug abyss. With only one arm at his disposal the progress became slower and more difficult than ever. And more straining. He lost the bicep in his right arm and a moment later the alarm sounded for his fingers. Now that he could no longer dig he clawed at the nearly liquified earth until the motors that operated his fingers gave out as well. No longer able to dig, he remained there, distraught and exhausted.
He had come all this way. He had experienced so much and now none of it seemed to matter. It felt as if it had all been for nothing. He kicked the only remaining foot that he could operate in frustration and though there wasn’t room for the kick to go very far, Marcus was surprised when his metal foot came into contact with something else that was metal. He kicked again and discovered that, sure enough there was something very large and very metal, directly below him. Had he reached the chamber, after all? The sensors in his foot were sluggish but they said that yes, there was a huge circular Titedelstein plated chamber within inches of his position. His sluggish sensors also alerted him to the fact that the chamber’s entrance hatch was nearby. Marcus began to search with his remaining operating foot. If his body had had nerves it would’ve been nerve wrecking; being buried beneath tons of earth with only waning control over a single foot severely limited his range of motion. And in addition, he had to move slowly and carefully enough to not push his remaining motors further into their critical red zones, but fast enough to locate the hatch before the final motor called it quits. A nerve wrecking experience.
He moved his foot slowly, carefully, this way then that, with a dying hope in his mind and extreme fatigue in his body until, yes!, one of his toes stubbed against what had to be the handle of the chamber. Slowly, carefully, he wedged two of his largest toes into the opening of the handle and lifted. The handle rose two inches and stopped. The dirt that Marcus hadn’t been able to dig away weighed the hatch down too heavily for Marcus’ remained leg motor to lift. Already, he was about to pay the price for those two inches he had been able to lift the hatch; his remaining foot motor conked out without a sound, and Marcus found himself stranded, unable to move or even call out for help. He could still taste and hear and see and feel, he just couldn’t move. As he lay there he thought about the chamber and how his goals were inches away and worlds apart at the same time. It really was a work of art, this huge Titedelstein orb. Since the ocean floor was constantly being renewed with volcanic activity and magma rising from the Earth’s interior, this chamber would theoretically relocate all over the Earth over time and still remain hidden beneath the crust.
It was the perfect hiding place and that made Marcus respect Professor Edelstein’s genius all over again. Even beyond death the professor had made strides that were far beyond his time. Professor Edelstein. How Marcus missed him and everyone else he had known when he was human. So very much had happened in his one lifetime that when he thought about it he felt deflated, used up, like an empty cup that was still being siphoned from. He could even hear Edelstein’s voice in his head. “Marcus! Marcus!” the professor called to him.
He wanted to answer his old colleague but it took too much energy. Everything took too much energy. He could feel his orientation changing, as if he were being p
ulled somewhere but he knew that it must be some side effect of running his motors down to nothing. “Marcus! Marcus!” he heard again and he was sure he must be dying and these hallucinations had come to accompany him into wherever human robot hybrids went when they died. Suddenly, he was in heaven. He knew he was in heaven because everything was far too bright and a sea of people as tall as mountains stood everywhere around him. Perhaps not people, legions of angels; tall vague figures were everywhere but they stood too rigidly, in ranks that were too perfectly aligned, and too perfectly motionless to be flesh and blood.
One of the huge shadowy angels bent down low. “Marcus! Marcus!” That was odd. The angel had the voice of Professor Edelstein. Marcus could feel energy slowly returning to his body. His many motors were beginning to spring back to life one by one. They were all firing up sluggishly but they were fighting their way back. As Marcus senses begin to recalibrate he saw that no, he was not in heaven but beneath the most powerfully bright lights he had ever seen, with another robot standing directly over him. The other robot looked him over intently and then stood up and that’s when Marcus realized that all the angels were the other robots and they had looked so tall because he had been lying listless on the floor. The robot looming over him had apparently dragged him down into the hatch. He tried to stand now and multiple alarms sounded in his head that alerted him that he was overtaxing his motors again. He allowed the robot with Professor Edelstein’s voice to help him back down onto the floor. “Just take it easy for a few minutes, Professor Willoughby. These lights will help to reenergize your motors but the process is the most efficient if you remain stationary for a few minutes.” If Marcus’ body had still had normal eyebrows they would’ve been furrowed, now. For, this robot not only had the voice of Professor Edelstein but it sounded like him too.
Marcus had witnessed the unnerving phenomenon of hearing his own voice from the mouth of a robot, back at the beginning of all this, but that robot had only been able to duplicate his voice, not his logic, nor his particular personality. This was different. Marcus lifted an arm towards the other robot and found that it was indeed slightly easier to move after remaining still for a moment. The other robot took the extended hand and lowered it back down to Marcus’ side. “Still very impatient, I see, Professor Willoughby …”
“Who are you?” Marcus asked.
The robot smiled and cocked its head just slightly to one side as Professor Edelstein had once been known to do when answering a question that he deemed trivial, “But you know who I am … don’t you?” The robot frowned. “You shouldn’t have any damaged sensors …”
“No, my sensors are fine. What I mean is, how can you be Edelstein?”
“The same way you are Professor Willoughby.”
“What happened to you? The last thing I remember about you was that you didn’t attend my wedding and then terrible things started happening. I was sure the robots had suffered some kind of catastrophic failure.”
The robot drew back as if it had been slapped. “Catastrophic failure! There is no condition on Earth that could cause my robots to have a catastrophic failure!” It was Edelstein, all right. No robot could’ve emulated Professor Edelstein’s ridiculous professional arrogance that accurately. Marcus scrambled awkwardly to his feet and hugged his old colleague. His motors still weren’t at peak efficiency and the professor had to help him remain standing but Marcus hugged Edelstein none the less, for fifteen solid minutes. What was more surprising was that Professor Edelstein hugged him back. Neither of the professors had ever been known to be over emotional but Edelstein had always been like a stone compared to his fellow colleagues. He was professional, he was efficient, he was sometimes a hardnose but he was not emotional. Obviously, more things had changed than his physical body.
“I am overjoyed to see you as well, Professor Willoughby,” Edelstein said as he pushed Marcus away to arm’s length and held him there, “but we still have much work to do. Perhaps we should wait for our spirited reunion until the others are awakened as well.” Straight to business. Maybe things hadn’t changed so much, after all, Marcus thought, but he didn’t care. He was ecstatic to see the new Professor Edelstein and it didn’t matter if he were still all business or not. Marcus turned and looked at the other robot bodies as Edelstein walked to the other side of the chamber. As Marcus gazed on, he could feel that his body had returned nearly back to full strength.
“What are these lights?” he asked.
“I’d glad you asked.” Professor Edelstein said as he bent down to open a small door in the wall of the chamber that hid a compact computer control center. “These are the next evolution of our sterilization lights.” Marcus remembered the sterilization lights. They were a marvel of ingenuity themselves, but were only powerful enough to sterilize. Marcus sensors told him that the light in this room was capable of vaporizing organic material completely. The next evolution, indeed! Marcus began to realize the two fold benefit of these lights. They would’ve immediately eliminated any potential threat that might’ve entered this chamber, anything that didn’t possess armor at least as resilient as Titedelstein and they would’ve provided a powerful source of energy for the robots if for any reason they found their motors exhausted as Marcus’s had. It would’ve also allowed them to remain in this chamber indefinitely and never drain their power reserves. But that wasn’t all.
Professor Edelstein put his right hand into the control mechanism and though Marcus couldn’t see or hear any change, he knew something was happening. The panel closed around the professor’s wrist until it looked as if his hand were somehow fused into the wall. “What’s happening?” Marcus asked.
“This is the identification scan. I need to access the orb’s interface for the next process and I programed the orb to only operate according to the consciousness signatures of five people. You and I are two of those people. The other three are top heads of the campuses counsel …” Edelstein fell silent for a moment “The campuses …” the professor sighed deeply and Marcus heard in that sigh the soul flailing defeat of knowing that he’ll never experience any of the places or any of the people or any of the subject disciplines or any of the research facilities or any of the lectures that he had loved so dearly, ever again. It was all part of the deal, both Marcus and Edelstein knew that, but that didn’t make certain parts of it less difficult to swallow.
When the silence became uncomfortable, Marcus asked, “When did you build all this? I remember you showed me a schematic of a new kind of bunker to store the robots but it didn’t look like this …” Marcus waved a hand around him to indicate the chamber, which was easily large enough to hold hundreds of robots with arm room to spare.
Professor Edelstein stood straighter and his voice was instantly more brisk. “As I’ve always said, you are ever the perceptive one. It was an inspiration, really.” Edelstein said, grandiosely “The schematics were flawed but the core principles of what I was trying to do was essentially correct. The schematics just needed certain modifications to core structure and stress resistance … you know, even Einstein needed help with his math from time to time.”
“He certainly did.” Marcus answered with a wry smile.
“I uploaded that schematic into the robots’ databases and programmed them to complete a modified version of the bunker—which evolved into this magnificent chamber—and then load themselves and the brain slices into it, for a million years. The robots’ modifications were so advanced that instead of a bunker they redesigned it into an orb that could withstand temperatures and pressures equal to the center of Earth. Thus, the bunker became a deep earth submersible that could ride the currents of land indefinitely. I programmed the robots to remain in stasis for a million years but I programmed my robot to awake if that entrance hatch were ever opened. When you opened the hatch that programming awoke me, I dragged you down, and here we are.”
“Okay … I suppose.” Marcus answered. His powerful CPU’s had all the information straight but it was still a l
ot to take in. In the end it had all worked out somehow and that was all that really mattered, wasn’t it?
“Now …” Professor Edelstein began as the panel opened around his hand with a low hiss. He removed his hand, the panel reclosed and fifty of the robots in the very center of the chamber slid outward amongst the other robots. Then the center of the floor where they had been standing opened and revealed a second floor with a thick ceiling of glass. Immediately the glass began to melt away and drop down in large viscous translucent drops. This second, secret floor to the chamber was filled—packed as tightly as sardines—with amberized brain slices. With his elevated vision, Marcus could see that every slice had a unique number permanently etched into the amber coating. There were thousands of brain slices down there, and more beyond Marcus’ vantage point. He took a step back. He was so overjoyed that he could hardly believe what his eyes were seeing. Then one of the robots nearby walked quickly past him toward the brain slices and after a brief search, located a specific slice and fed it carefully into the back of its head. Another robot walked past Marcus and did the same thing. Then another, and another.
“Follow me.” Marcus heard from directly behind him. In all the activity he hadn’t realized Professor Edelstein had moved. He turned and the professor gestured towards a ladder that led to the overhead hatch. The professor began to climb it himself and gestured for Marcus to follow. Once he and Marcus had wedged their way out of the hatch they still had to dig themselves up to the surface, but it was much easier now since Marcus had already performed most of the heavy lifting to get here. As soon as they emerged into the searing daylight, Denna wrapped her arms around Marcus and squeezed his neck with enough force to break a normal human’s neck many times over. Marcus smiled. He was happy to see her as well, maybe more so, especially now. They hugged for a long time before he remembered that introductions still needed to be made. He turned to Professor Edelstein and saw the strangest look upon his face that he had ever seen, a look that he would’ve never expected to see on the professor’s face—complete bewilderment.
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