by Kevin Bragg
I grabbed a taxi from Metro HQ back to my place. Once there, I changed into a smart, heather-grey, wool-blend three-piece because appearances mattered. After that, I drove the LTI to Theo’s for a trade in. The Griffon had been fixed a week ago, and I missed my baby. En route, I stopped for a couple of bacon and egg sandwiches and two cups of coffee from a nearby deli. This routine of bringing food was starting to feel like a ritual to some ancient pagan god. A sacrifice of foodstuffs required before he would agree to entreaty with me.
For Theo’s part, he was delighted to see the sandwich and hot beverage. He assured me he had forgotten to eat before he came into work. We both laughed at the obvious lie and enjoyed the quick meal. On my way out, I settled my bill with him, which was far lower than it should have been for the repairs.
At that time of the morning, cars, buses and taxis reduced traffic flow to a crawl. It took me nearly three quarters of an hour to reach the main entrance of MARA Corp. A security guard stopped me at the gate and asked my business. I told him I was there to see Mara Kitterman and no, I didn’t have an appointment. He stepped into his little booth, called it in, and then waved me through. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure I’d be allowed to set foot inside the building but there you go. I found an available parking space reserved for guests and brought the Griffon to a stop between the white lines.
A very large reception desk, placed exactly in the middle of the very impressive foyer of MARA Corporation, represented my next hurdle. I gave the receptionist my name. She made another phone call and I waited patiently. After she hung up, she gave me instructions on how to find Mara Kitterman’s office. As if I didn’t already know.
All of the activity on the floor made me feel a tad bit unsettled. It was so peaceful and quiet the last time. I looked around nervously and then set out for Kitterman’s office. At a desk planted right outside Kitterman’s door sat Charlotte Rennick. I stopped dead in my tracks and gaped at her like an idiot. Of all the things I didn’t expect, Rennick at a desk working away like nothing had happened took the number one spot.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked. The girlish tone that she once possessed had vanished. Now she sounded more like her creator minus the accent.
‘Um, yeah. I’m here to see Mara Kitterman.’
‘Is she expecting you?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Your name?’
‘Daniel Helmqvist.’
When she heard my name, I detected a noticeable change in her expression. I began to wonder if somewhere deep in the recesses of her memory the mention of my name sparked a hint of recognition. She picked up a phone and made a call to her boss. She never took her eyes off of me.
‘You may go in,’ she stated after she had hung up the phone.
I walked into Kitterman’s office. Mara sat at the very desk I had used as a hiding spot from the not-quite-diligent security guard a lifetime ago. She stood as I entered.
‘Please, take a seat, Mr Helmqvist,’ she said, and pointed to one of the armchairs facing her desk. ‘Would you like anything to drink?’
I sat in the proffered seat. ‘No thanks. I’m not planning on staying for too long.’
‘Very well, Mr Helmqvist. What brings you here, then?’
‘I just wanted you to know that I know it was you.’
‘Me? What do you mean?’
‘New York City. Giant explosion. Most of the lower east side reduced to rubble. Any of that ring a bell?’
‘Naturally, Mr Helmqvist. It was a horrible day.’
‘Beyond words, Ms Kitterman, and I know you were responsible for it. I know you planned it and were instrumental in the execution of the bombing, which killed tens of thousands.’
She sat back down in her high-backed executive leather chair, arms crossed primly on her lap, and regarded me with her impassive, scientific eyes. Time passed into that uncomfortable area where it’s just two people looking at each other. I have to admit, it made me uneasy. Her eyes narrowed, and then after a couple of seconds, her face lit up with the sudden realisation that I had nothing on her.
A Cheshire grin pulled at the corner of her lips.
‘Even if I did do something as horrible as you suggest, Mr Helmqvist, you have no proof, do you? Because if you did, you would have been accompanied by a police escort.’
‘Short of you volunteering a confession, you got me there, Mara. The proof, which I am certain does exist, flew off into the night. Secreted away into our vast galaxy by a ghost.’
‘A ghost, you say?’
Her smile was impossibly wide and I could not help but notice how beautiful she looked – in a wild, dangerous sort of way.
‘Can you set your Cargo Drop to Everyone?’
She did so.
I produced my MIX12 from a satchel and went through the same motions as I did with Lieutenant Stone. She hit play and a smart-glass display on her desk lit up. It replayed everything I had shown the police. Her smile faded as she watched.
‘I could have you arrested for trespassing,’ she said after tapping the stop button.
‘Yeah, Metro hinted at the same thing.’
‘You have shown this to the police?’
‘Earlier today. I was summoned by a lieutenant to give an account of a run-in a detective and I had with your father last night.’
Her laughter was spontaneous and resonated throughout her office.
‘My father? He has been dead for nearly twenty years. Science has not advanced that far. My father… You certainly have an active imagination, Mr Helmqvist.’
‘Cut the theatrics, Mara. We both know it’s Nolan Kitterman, or a copy of him. He told me as much last night.’ Getting laughed at again started to rub me the wrong way. ‘The only thing preventing you from spending the rest of your life in the joint is that he managed to escape. You got lucky, Kitterman, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Say what you will, Mr Helmqvist, but what matters most is what you can prove and what you cannot prove. And, from the looks of it, you cannot prove very much at all. If you will excuse me, there are more important matters that require my attention.’
‘Perhaps you’ll indulge me one more question before I go?’
‘Is it as ridiculous as the rest?’
‘You’ll probably think so.’
‘Alright, ask your question.’
‘It might have a follow-up question or two.’
‘Now you are trying my patience!’
‘Does MARA Corp own a private hangar and dock in the Spaceport?’
‘Naturally. As do many other businesses in this city.’
‘That explains a lot then.’
‘Explains what, exactly?’
‘How Nolan came and went unnoticed. I’m guessing the ship out in the Water Field was an emergency-only kind of thing.’
She affected another sigh. ‘Yes, it was as ridiculous as the others. I think we are done here, Mr Helmqvist.’
She turned her attention to her computer monitor. I stood up and fired one last parting shot.
‘What you said earlier: you’re right, Mara. I can’t prove a whole hell of a lot, but, like I said, I know. I know what you did and what kind of person you are. You’re a killer and a sociopath and you stink of evil.’
With that, I turned and started to walk out before she had a chance at a response. I heard her call for security and told her not to bother. My work here was done. She did bother, though. A couple of hard boys roughly the same cut as the ones I shared a ride with in Kitterman’s limo met me at the elevators and unceremoniously escorted me to the main entrance.
On the way out, I passed Rennick once again. She wore that look we all do when we’re trying to connect a face to a memory.
*
Later that day, something must have clicked because she showed up at my office. I was busy typing up some notes on the case, you know for posterity and all that crap, when I saw none other than Charlotte Rennick standing in my doorway. I briefly wondered why P
am hadn’t announced her presence. Pam probably had her reasons.
I motioned to one of the two tired armchairs across from my desk. ‘Ms Rennick, please take a seat.’
She sat down in that same prim and proper manner as her creator and we locked gazes for a moment. Those viridian pools were still something I could fall into and drown. I cleared my throat and blinked a few times to ward off her emerald spell.
‘What can I do for you today?’
‘Your assistant confirmed that I had hired you to locate something,’ she asked without the inflection.
I decided to roll the dice and proceeded to tell her the entire story of how we met and that she had hired me to find a storage device. Unlike at the police station, I told it to her straight. She asked questions along the way and eventually we arrived at today. I had a few questions of my own and she answered them to the best of her ability. It seemed as if I was partially right about the extent of her memory wipe. However, when she saw me today, it sparked a host of recollections.‘What I can’t fathom, Charlotte, is how you didn’t know you were an android?’ I asked in the silence that had settled in the room.
She sat in contemplation. ‘Are you familiar with Emergent Behaviour and its applications in artificial intelligence?’
I glanced past Rennick to where Pam was sitting. ‘Machines that learn. They adapt their reasoning for problem solving. The goal is to make them more intuitive. That still doesn’t answer my question about why you thought you were a human.’
Her gaze dropped down to her lap where her hands rested. ‘What does it mean to be human? To be a biological organism? Flesh and bone as it were?’
She certainly looked flesh and bone. ‘That’s part of it. Maybe not all of it. Love. Hate. Emotions. Experiences. Free thought. Self-awareness on an abstract level, I guess.’
Charlotte looked back up at me. ‘What if an organism possessed all of those things but was not biological? What if advances in Emergent Behaviour could revolutionise the way a machine viewed the world around them? That they could transcend problem-solving and actually reason. Would they be considered human?’
‘For the most part, sure,’ I answered. ‘But I doubt a human would ever accept them on equal terms. We see the world, and judge it, according to the experiences that made us who we are. Skin colour. Language. Political beliefs. Religious beliefs. Sexual orientation. Climate. Height. Weight. You name it and we use it to define ourselves, and to marginalise the Other. We take great delight in finding differences. A lot of human life has been wasted in this pursuit.’
‘I see.’ She paused again before continuing. ‘Mara Kitterman has confessed to me that Transilience began as an attempt to bring her father back from the dead. Between her work in Emergent Behaviour and advances in synthesising the neural transmission network of the human brain, she devised a means in which to transfer consciousness. Nolan Kitterman was created from a combination of Mara’s own recollections, and a holographic programme he had left her.’
My showdown with Nolan flashed through my memory. ‘Yeah, he mentioned the programme the other night right before he escaped out an airlock.’
‘He became her proof of concept.’
‘No kidding. He seems to possess the best of both worlds. He obviously cares a great deal for Mara – as a father should – but he takes full advantage of the fact that he is an android.’
‘With the success of Nolan Kitterman,’ Charlotte continued as if I hadn’t said anything, ‘Mara created three more units. One was sent to Earth. The other two are here on Mars.’
‘Nolan told me the fourth unit was the one that destroyed the UN,’ I interrupted.
‘Based on what Mara has inferred since my report, that makes sense. Another was James. And then there was me. Who James is modelled after, or why he behaved the way that he did, is unknown to me. Mara has not repaired him and she will not tell me anything about him.’
‘I can tell you what little I know. He seemed to know he was a synthetic. When my rifle shot put him in a junk pile, he shouldn’t have been able to get up. But he acted like nothing happened. I can also tell you he’s nuts and he should be scrapped for parts.’
Charlotte waited longer than it was comfortable before responding. I started to regret my comments. Even if they were true.
‘I served as her grand experiment. A means to build upon all her research and scientific discovery that went into creating Nolan, as well as a means to understand acceptance. Could an android ever be perceived as equal to a human? That is the question she set out to answer when she created me.’
‘It’s pretty ironic that she’s concerned with acceptance on any level given her prejudices against… ah, what was the phrase again… oh yeah… the lesser races, which have infected the great epicentres of civilisation.’
She nodded again. ‘It is illogical.’
I waited for more but nothing came.
Fortunately, Rennick rescued the conversation. ‘We were discussing my not knowing I was an android. Should we continue with that?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Mara allowed me to function autonomously. I had an apartment. A very good career. A bank account. An annual pass for the Underground. An ordinary life by Martian standards. She also instilled an intense work ethic with very little interest in social life outside MARA Corporation as an attempt to minimise the risk of my true nature being discovered. I had no idea I was anything but a living, breathing human female.’
‘If someone else found out you were an android, then you would know you’re an android and her experiment would be compromised, right?’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘And yet, a couple of weeks ago, you paid me a visit at the 3rd Street. I’m guessing you began to function a little too autonomously?’
‘Yes. I believe Mara underestimated the level of self-awareness capable within a machine. She did not count on the possibility that I might become independent in thought and action. I think she also underestimated the side effects of installing that datapad inside me. Although I did not have direct access to the information contained on it, echoes of the data drifted into my consciousness. It’s how I knew she was responsible for the New York bombing without actually knowing; if that makes any sense.’
‘Not really, but then again most of this is hard to believe.’
‘May I ask you something?’
‘Sure. Go for it.’
‘Did you know I was not a human?’
I shook my head. ‘Not a clue. Not until I found you at the abandoned bottling factory. Maybe if I had tried to get to know you… umm… intimately, I would have learned the truth.’
Her cheeks flushed a pale crimson. The level of detail. I couldn’t believe it. A machine that could blush. Maybe I wouldn’t have known even if we had gotten intimate.
‘What is your first memory?’ I asked.
‘Waking up one Monday morning and getting ready for work. I had a dream of a large estate with a fountain at the centre of a lovely garden. I sat on a stone bench reading a book.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I assume it was one of Mara’s memories, but I still find it pleasant to reflect on that day and that dream.’
‘And that was it? Just an average person from then on?’
‘I had no reason to suspect otherwise. I am in perfect health. Never been sick. Never been injured. No reason to visit anyone who might tell me I’m not an actual human being. I’ve never been close enough to someone who might have reason to suspect I was anything but a living, breathing person.’
I rubbed my forehead with my fingertips and dragged them down my face past my chin. My hands dropped onto my desk with a quiet thud.
‘I guess that answers the question.’
‘How I didn’t know I was an android?’
‘Yep. And we know why you are here: to answer some questions you had.’
She nodded.
‘Does Mara know you’re here?’
She paused before answering. An express
ion of concentration washed over her face, like she was trying to remember something. ‘Real time data indicates that she does not. She believes I am in Research District 2.’
‘What? How?’
‘Because I have manipulated her monitoring system into believing that that is my current location.’
‘Unbelievable. It’s only been a few days since you’ve come back online and you’re already sneaking out of the office.’
‘I had to know the rest of the story. I needed to know how this ended. Plus, she did not, or could not, fundamentally change who I am. I am her and she is me. We have our differences but we are essentially the same person.’
‘But she killed thousands of people. You don’t strike me as someone capable of murder.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment. As I said, we have our differences. Perhaps I represent an aspect of her that is more innocent. A Mara Kitterman that has not been infected by the vitriol of a father who tried to assign meaning to a random act of violence.’
I drummed my fingers on the desk, trying to make sense of all this.
‘Also, I have a debt to settle for services rendered. If I recall correctly, we agreed to five hundred a day plus expenses. Is eight thousand credits acceptable?’
‘I didn’t get the evidence that you asked me to get. I failed. Eight grand is eight thousand more than I deserve on a job I thoroughly botched up.’
‘Well, it is too late. I asked you out of social politeness,’ she answered with a slight shrug of her shoulders. ‘I have already paid your assistant, Pam, based on how long she said you have been working on my behalf.’
‘Still, I am sorry that I wasn’t able to retrieve the evidence, but thanks for the credits.’
Charlotte stood to turn and leave.
‘So what’s next?’ I asked.
‘I go back to work. Because I now know my true nature, Mara’s experiment is effectively over. Nevertheless, it is where I belong.’
‘So that’s it? You’re done with trying to expose her for the killer that she is?’
She glanced back at me through the doorway into my office as she crossed the space between Pam’s desk and the exit. ‘It is my sincere hope that someday justice will be served. Perhaps someone will find the means to do so,’ she said as she backed out of my office and out of my life with a slight wave.