by J. S. Morin
Charlie25 steadied his gaze and locked onto Evelyn11’s eyes. “We don’t have anyone in the Scrapyard.”
“You don’t, Charles. You weren’t the one offering a girl her first taste of chocolate since being reborn in a metal body. Keep that in mind; I have people, too.”
“What else have you got?” Charlie25 asked.
Evelyn11 threw back her head. “Oh, Charles. Don’t be tiresome. I have sensory data that would make even an old codger like you blush. But this is exactly why I want Eve14 back. That mind of hers is ripe; I know it. I’ve taken enough vicarious trips through her senses that her body will be like putting on an old sweater. Nothing like this.”
Evelyn rapped knuckles against the chest plate of her new chassis.
“I see the appeal,” Charlie25 confirmed. Finally, he might have overcome his obstinate doltishness. “But Eve Fourteen is out of reach. She’s guarded round the clock. The Human Committee keeps constant tabs on her. Jesus, Evelyn; she’s got her own news feed.”
“Rumor has it that a robot named Charlie7 once rid the world of an alien invasion and rebuilt both the Earth and the first generation of new robots. He had 70 percent of Charles Truman’s memories and ingenuity. I’d like to think that with a mere 5 percent less of our species’ progenitor in that skull of yours, you might be able to bring me one human girl.”
Chapter Five
The door opened, and Eve stood just outside her shared bedroom. Nora109 stepped inside. Eve’s feet stayed rooted to the floor.
Out in the corridor, everything was utilitarian. Drab steel walls were interrupted only by consoles, informational displays, and safety reminders. The surface under Eve’s shoes was a glossy industrial-grade paint in a neutral gray shade. In a way, the whole thing seemed honest.
Inside was the phony sound stage where the movie of Eve’s life was filmed. The room she shared with Phoebe was pristine white, adorned with comfortable furniture and updated with separate computer consoles after the robots figured out that neither of them liked to share. Yet the whole space was covered by cameras with untold robots watching.
“Aren’t you coming?” Nora109 asked.
Eve supposed that if she remained outside, some well-meaning robot would deliver her meals to the hallway. Daily life would proceed all around her. Eventually she’d fall asleep and wake up in the bunk beneath Phoebe’s.
“Can I get my own room?” Eve asked. “I mean, I’m on the Human Committee now. I have a job. When Charlie7 had problems, he always seemed to trade committee influence to get them solved. Can’t I trade someone a favor to build me separate living quarters?”
Nora109 crossed her arms. That wasn’t a promising sign. “I’d really hoped that your first committee meeting would result in an increased sense of civic responsibility and leadership. Let’s forget you mentioning influence peddling and just settle in for a nice evening.”
“But Charlie7—”
“Isn’t here,” Nora109 finished for Eve. “And it sounds like he wasn’t much of a role model for you, either. You’re too young to be parroting a thousand years of cynicism and political favor trading.”
It wasn’t a bad room. The robots kept the door shut, but Eve could open it anytime she wanted.
With a defeated sigh, Eve plodded into her bedroom. Phoebe looked up from her terminal as if only to confirm Eve’s arrival, then returned to her reading.
Nora109 offered Eve a false smile. As spokeswoman for the Eves, Eve Fourteen was starting to notice more and more often just how infrequent genuine mirth had become. “I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”
“Why not stay?” Eve asked. She swept a hand out and indicated one of the tiny gleaming circles that broke the pristine white walls’ perfection. “It isn’t as if you won’t be watching us every second anyway.”
“Oh, Eve,” Nora109 said. “It’s not like that.”
Downcast eyes. Tight lips. Knit brow ridge. These were all textbook signs from Creator’s tutorials on robotic facial expressions. Sure, they caught emotional responses. But any robot with a working crystalline matrix knew enough to fake them.
“Then cover them up,” Eve countered. “I count eight cameras in this bedroom. Yank them out. Weld panels over them. I don’t care; just shut them off.”
Nora109 took a step forward, arms outstretched for a hug. Eve recoiled.
“Eve, dear. It’s a security measure. You know I can’t—”
“GET OUT!”
Nora109 beat a hasty retreat. The door sealed behind her with a faint sucking sound of a pressure barrier.
Wouldn’t want the two eldest saviors of mankind to breathe the air that was wafting in freely just seconds ago…
Eve slumped down on the lower bed and buried her face in her hands. It wasn’t Nora109’s fault. It was all their faults. Every last robot was complicit. Eve wasn’t a person to them; she was the smartest zoo animal they had.
At first, Eve tried to muffle her sobs. Phoebe was working just two meters away, after all. After a few minutes of silent tears, Eve stopped caring and just let loose.
It was awful being so helpless. Eve had been a prop at the summit, just there for show. Her vote had mattered only once and only on an issue that no one seemed to care about besides her.
All the robots were so smart and flawless. They didn’t succumb to crying when things didn’t go their way. Eve was just proving them right by sitting there wallowing in her worthlessness.
Then something unexpected happened. Eve hadn’t been paying attention to anything outside her own head, so she failed to hear Phoebe softly pad over and sit beside her.
Warm arms wrapped around Eve. Her head pillowed on Phoebe’s shoulder. A hand slid up and stroked the back of Eve’s head.
Initially, Eve just curled up and leaned against her younger sister. Phoebe rocked slowly, cradling Eve in her arms.
“Did Nora ask you to do this?” Eve asked as the tears dried, leaving her eyes stinging. “A message on your terminal or something?”
“I was watching Creator’s data,” Phoebe replied.
Eve stiffened but relaxed as Phoebe tightened her grip and rested her cheek against Eve’s head.
“I wasn’t watching you,” Phoebe clarified. “I was watching me—from when I was little. This is how Creator calmed me when I couldn’t stop crying.”
The thought that Phoebe was mimicking Evelyn11 made Eve want to push her sister away. But it was working. Human contact. This was nothing like the hot rush of blood from curling up beside Plato. Phoebe’s touch was warm and soothing. The younger Eve smelled of chamomile bath soap and the vermilion hair dye she’d taken a liking to.
“I don’t remember her doing that,” Eve admitted.
“Experimental variation,” Phoebe replied. “I’m still getting used to chewing food. My jaw aches by the end of every meal.”
Eve let out a deep breath that left her empty inside. There were no more tears left. Shifting in Phoebe’s embrace, Eve hugged her sister back. Even if none of the robots cared about her, someone understood her.
Chapter Six
Nora109 shifted under the scrutiny of the Human Committee. They were one member short, but Eve’s absence couldn’t be helped. This matter was too personal for the eldest human.
Outside the circular conference room, starlight glinted in the night sky. The hovership blotted out the western half of the sky, idling while Nora109 presented her petition.
“So what you’re asking us to do,” Jennifer81 asked. “Is to allow you to personally vouch for Eve and Phoebe’s safety?”
Nora109 nodded brusquely. “Yes. Two hours a day. No video or audio feeds. Just limited to their shared bedroom.”
“You’d have to keep a record,” Eddie51 said. “There would have to be some oversight. Due to the Plato incident, you’re lucky to pull this assignment at all.”
“Plato has nothing to do with this,” Nora109 countered.
The former head of the Sanctuary for Scientific Sins certainl
y hoped that what she said was true. The Sanctuary Committee had cleared Nora109 of knowing what Plato had done to acquire the residents he rescued. Unfortunately, it was also public knowledge that Nora109 had known about the rogue human.
“I can’t imagine that the benefits outweigh the security risk,” Jennifer81 said, shaking her head. “I’ll give you the courtesy of putting it to a vote, but—”
“Security risk?” Nora109 scoffed. “That hovership never lands. The girls are under guard ‘round the clock. The real risk here is the developmental damage being done. Turing-only-knows how much of what they’ve already been through is even reversible. We can’t smother them.”
A robot from the far end of the table spoke up. “You’re overreacting,” Joshua75 said. He was dressed for maintenance work over at Kanto, just across the sea. “We don’t have the luxury of coddling them. Their safety is paramount.”
Nora109 set her jaw. Servos whined. “What about our safety? Those girls are going to grow up. Generations will learn about their early days. Do you want future humans looking back at us as oppressors? Think I’m overreacting?” Nora109 shouted, startling herself and half the robots in the room. Reclaiming her composure, she called up a projection. “What’s this?”
The image hung in the air above the conference table, translucent and visible from both sides. Plato sat in his room, one hand wrapped in bio-molded polymer while the bones healed.
“That’s the lone human to ever terminate a robot,” Eddie15 replied on behalf of the group. “Just look at him. He’s a monster.”
Right into Nora109’s hands… “He’s a monster because Charlie24 turned him into one. And it’s not the dysmorphic features or the muscular hypertrophy that made him into a killer. It was how he was treated. He viewed Charlie24 and all other human geneticists as oppressors.”
“Eve would never—” Mary27 began.
“Wouldn’t she?” Nora109 snapped. “Plato spent years on his own before he began his crusade. He had to figure out how the world worked, and when he did, he hated it. Clinically speaking, and based on admittedly scattered data, Eve and her sisters make Plato look like a televid news reader.”
“He broke the security protocols on no fewer than a dozen scientists’ homes,” Eddie51 pointed out. There were mutters of agreement from around the table.
Nora109 stared at the casual robot who’d just tried to argue that tying shoelaces and weaving tapestries were comparable forms of art. “Have any of you looked at Evelyn11’s data yet?”
Silence.
“Anyone?” Nora109 pressed.
“I browsed a bit on the baby footage,” Mary27 admitted. “The Eves were cuter than panda cubs.”
Furious, Nora109 browsed her internal records and changed the holographic feed. Plato’s neurological baselines, inferred from observation and a few disguised tests, appeared alongside the baseline readings for the Dale personality archetype.
Eddie51 chuckled. “Kid’s about as smart as Dale Chalmers. What’re you saying, we award Plato a Ph.D. and let him waste it?”
The snide remark drew polite laughter at Dale Chalmers’s expense. None of the Human Committee members had even a drop of Dale in them—except Jennifer81.
“Had your fill of laughs?” Nora109 asked coldly. She adjusted the feed again, and this time Eve Fourteen’s neurological work-up appeared. “Not so funny now, is it?”
Nora109 added a baseline Edward Spence profile, then a Jennifer Saito.
“That’s hardly sporting,” Mary27 groused.
With a mental flick, Nora109 added the Mary Chase.
“You’re making a strong case we should take an impression of Eve for future mixes,” Eddie51 muttered, eyes not moving from the holograph.
“Oh, really?” Nora109 asked. Then, in a gesture rivaling tearing off her dress in the middle of a crowded theater, Nora109 projected her own mixed personality results beside Eve’s.
Joshua75 let out a low whistle. “What’s she need a mix for? I doubt any Charlie or Evelyn can match that.”
“Apparently, Evelyn11 couldn’t beat Eve at chess without resorting to internal computation. On matrix computing alone, Eve’s smarter than any of us,” Nora109 said. “Now… do you want a flock of these young sparrows becoming the vultures that will pick at our bones? Because if you antagonize these girls, one day there will be consequences.”
Jennifer81 called the vote.
The Adolescent Human Privacy Protocol passed unanimously.
Chapter Seven
A band of plastic and fiber optics wrapped around the back of Eve’s head. The two ends plugged snugly into her ears. With the terminal display taking up most of her field of vision, she could almost forget the world around her. Almost.
Motion in the periphery of the bedroom hinted at an arrival. The door opened. Nora109 stepped through.
On the screen, Eve watched curated video clips of the natural wonders of ancient Earth. A soothing female voice narrated, describing the creatures like they were actors in a play. Ants balled up into rafts. Fish gulped air and buried themselves in mud. It all seemed such a bizarre ritual, these tiny performances going on worldwide beneath humanity’s collective noses.
Nora109 waved.
Eve ignored her.
Phoebe’s mouth moved, but Eve couldn’t tell what her sister was saying. Apparently lip-reading was a thing. Eve had only heard of the practice a month ago and couldn’t manage the trick.
When Nora109 finished a brief discussion with Phoebe, the robot settled in and waited. Articulated steel fingers laced together and rested against the bleach-white fabric of the chaperone’s dress. The robot stared. A pleasant smile fixed in position like one of the younger Eves had sculpted it from clay in art class.
It was an hour before the video ended. When it did, Nora109 was still waiting there, having moved less than the moon in the night sky.
Eve rubbed at her eyes.
Should she start another video? Ancient Earth was a fascinating place but that wouldn’t have been her reason.
Popping the speakerband from her ears, Eve graced Nora109 with her attention. “What is it?”
Nora109’s placid smile broadened into something that might have passed for genuine good humor. “I have some wonderful news for you.”
“I win,” Phoebe called out, bouncing in her seat on the top bunk. “It was longer than an hour.”
Nora109 swiveled. “Yes, yes. Cookies for dinner tomorrow night. But even better, I’ve gotten the Human Committee to agree to two hours a day unsupervised private time. Cameras and microphones off. Just you two girls.”
“How is it privacy if we’re together?” Eve asked. “By definition—”
“I know what the word means, dear,” Nora109 scolded. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
“An automaton ferries our meals to the dining hall,” Eve countered. “I’d break my teeth.”
Eve knew she was being difficult. Then again, Nora109’s job seemed all too easy to begin with. Robots ought to work if they were going to act superior. Why should the lesser creatures shoulder the burden of untangling colloquial speech meant to obscure meaning?
“I get it,” Phoebe claimed with a grin. “We form a sororal dyad. This is a subset of the bonding program where you paired us off by age.”
“It’s nothing that—” Nora109.
But Phoebe had everything figured out. “By isolating us and presenting a common outside foe, we should form a closer relationship.”
“It’s privacy,” Nora109 clarified. “Two hours daily with no observation. I’ll be guarding the door so no one intrudes.”
“The video feeds can be hacked,” Eve pointed out.
“We can cover the cameras, if you like.”
“Your audio receptors can hear through the doors,” Eve argued.
“I’ll turn them down.”
Eve scowled. “We only have your word on that.”
Nora109 raised her hands to the heavens. “You’re only getting priv
acy in the first place because I stuck my neck out with the Human Committee.”
Phoebe reached out a bare toe and tapped Eve on the shoulder. “I think you’re making Nora mad.”
The chaperone’s arms snapped down to her sides at once. Her voice lowered a few decibels. “I’m not cross with you. Either of you. I’m trying to do you a favor.”
Eve twisted up her lips, trying to discern an ulterior motive. Nothing came to mind. “Thanks.”
Satisfied that Nora109 wasn’t plotting something nefarious, Eve’s mind refocused. What could she do with two unsupervised hours each night?
“I also have one lesser bit of good news for both of you,” Nora109 continued. “There will be a free-form inventors’ workshop available as an alternative to art class.”
“Really?” Phoebe asked. Had Eve been so easily delighted at that age? The light-switch grin was getting a little tiresome.
Nora109 addressed Phoebe with a matching smile. Reciprocity. Nothing more. “I was able to persuade the Human Committee that it would satisfy your creative growth needs and might very well provide ingenious new inventions, not only for humans, but for robotkind, as well.”
“Ooh,” Phoebe said, clasping her hands together. “I’m going to invent one of those bells that tells you there’s someone outside the door. It’ll be just like the movies.”
“Forewarning of guests would be novel,” Eve agreed dryly.
It would also be a welcome security feature if Eve was going to get any plotting done during her two hours of freedom per day.
If there was something Eve had learned in her brief time between prisons it was this: Freedom can’t be parceled out. Freedom that can be revoked isn’t freedom at all.
If the robots thought two hours of privacy a day constituted freedom, so be it. Eve would take their stipend and invest it in buying all the freedom in the world.