Understanding if Amy lost today he could defeat Delaney and his thugs in the next instant, but if she won there would be no way to stop him, he too laid in wait. What Morse could not foresee was the extent at which this clash would determine his, his comrade’s, and the androids’ futures.
As the girls continued their onslaught, Samurai swords clanking, Steph disarmed Amy, her weapon arching through the air. However, before Steph readied for a counterattack, Amy lunged at her face. Utilizing again the weaponized gloves, Amy gashed her cheeks, peeling some skin off, and circulatory fluid resembling blood oozed out. Amy’s momentum slammed Steph backward, but she recovered before she could land. Therefore, Amy kicked her, which prevailed to disarm Steph altogether, and hand-to-hand combat ensued.
Punching, kicking, and throwing each other with their hair whipping around their heads, Amy got a hold of Steph and hurled her against a brick wall.
Delaney cheered Amy, “Yeah, go get her, girl,” and all the other thugs whooped.
Morse told Steph through the communication channel, “Throw Amy over toward me NOW!”
Amy ran at Steph. Steph ran toward the front door of the warehouse with Amy following. Halting with lightening abruptness, she twisted around and waited for the next attack.
Amy swiped at her face again, but this time Steph grabbed Amy’s hand and falling backward, pulled Amy down on her while thrusting her feet into Amy’s stomach, she pitched Amy toward the front door.
Amy landed in a crouch with her sword not far from her. She snatched it from the floor and before she went after Steph again, she heard a voice.
“Hey, Amy,” he called to her, and then spoke into the device to Steph, “Attack the Delaney crew now. Kill everyone except, the young Caucasian male in the dark hoodie at the desk, the Italian that cheered Amy, and the hacker in zip ties in the back office. Use their weapons.”
Steph initiated her attack on the crew now; they were still cheering. She sprinted into a long jump on the closest gunman, slaying him with one punch. Stealing his weapon in a seamless fashion before he fell, Steph fired with expertise on the other gunmen.
The gunmen seemed so stunned from the rapidity of the turn in the conflict that they had no time to counteract her barrage, and pandemonium ensued.
Phillips appeared, and with his shotgun to Delaney’s backside he announced, “Party’s over, pal.”
Delaney put up his hands but yelled to Amy, “AMY! Where are you?”
Amy remained by the front door of the warehouse seeking to glimpse Morse. She reacted with a leap at him with her sword up high.
“It’s me,” he cried, “your father, Doctor Robert Morse!”
Amy lashed out at him in close range, and he closed his eyes. As the onslaught by Stephanie persisted, there was a formidable silence where Morse and Amy stood in their face-off.
Morse thought, I guess I am dead, but he opened his eyes to see the sword an inch from his neck.
Amy froze as though she were a manikin, and for too long he felt, as it seemed to him at that moment all time decelerated to a slug’s pace.
Stepping aback, she dropped her weapon with her eyes darting back and forth incessantly.
He assessed she was in a feedback loop, he advanced on her, but she remained steadfast in her position. With his left hand to the right side back of her waist, he found her power switch, and powered her down.
Amy collapsed with her eyes still open, and Morse received her in his arms.
He laid her down and dashed into the ending skirmish between Steph and Delaney’s men.
Steph slaughtered the gang except for Evans, Delaney, and Spectra that remained unconscious in the back room.
Delaney noticed Morse demanding, “Where’s Amy, you son-of-a-bitch!”
Lurching at Delaney and punching hard in the jaw, he roared, “Shut up!”
“You’re a dead man, Morse, you hear me? You don’t know who you’re dealing with!”
Morse ignored him even though he never told Delaney his name because he now had his intent set on Evans.
Phillips zip-tied Delaney saying to him, “If you struggle, I will kill you.”
Morse froze before Evans recalling the last morning he backed out of his driveway years ago as he left for work, and he was positive now that this was his perpetrator.
A wounded gunman came to and began aiming his Glock .45 caliber pistol gradually at Morse, and Steph saw this but Morse was blocking her shot. In what seemed like a nanosecond, she jumped above him, and while she was still in the air, she fired a pistol she was holding once. The gunman returned to limp with a bullet between his eyes, dead before she landed.
Morse had tunnel vision on Evens, so he never noticed Steph saved his life. He pointed his pistol at his live target’s forehead.
“Did you kill my wife?”
Evans appeared petrified as Steph held her pistol on him; he shook his head no with a facial expression of, no, not me.
Phillips spoke up, “Hey, we got Amy; let’s call the police now.”
Punching Evans and knocking him to the ground, “Bullshit,” he growled. “You were there,” he hissed, shooting the liar in the shoulder.
An anguished cry and the gunshot reverberated throughout the building.
“Okay, man, I was there,” the cowering man whimpered.
Morse stuffed his firearm in his pocket, heaved Evans up by the collar, and slammed him against the wall.
“I didn’t think anyone was home,” babbled the fool, “I needed money; she surprised me. I’m sorry.”
“She never did anything to anybody! She did not deserve that! You piece of shit!”
Bludgeoning Evans with his bare fists first, and then kicking him several times, he forced him up again saying, “I loved her more than I ever loved anyone in this whole rotten world.
“She was pregnant with my child, and you took that away from me! Have you ever have anything you loved taken from you, scum bag?”
Evans could not respond.
Morse pulled out his pistol and pointed it between the villain’s legs, which forced the murderous convict into squirming. It was pleasing to see, as wrong as it was, and it made him sneer much like a mad scientist unfurling his evil plot to rule the world.
“Oh, shit! Please, man! I was strung out when that happened, I feel awful about it! Please, man!”
“You don’t understand my pain, let me show you!”
Upon squeezing the trigger, Evans howled a blood-curdling scream, rolling his eyes back into his head. The trauma hurled him back down to the ground squeezing his crotch.
Phillips roared, “ROB, STOP!”
Morse paced back and forth in his wrath. The sinister thing inside of him had erupted and he could only hear its demand for ultimate vengeance. For years, he waited for this moment; he had seen it in his dreams. Moving toward Steph’s sword still on the ground, he swept it up with a graceful flourish. Returning with equal grace, one would assume this was something Morse did daily.
The simple Evans watched this, attempting in vain to crawl away.
“You raped my wife in her own bed; ever been raped, scum bag?”
Whimpering, the scoundrel continued attempting to crawl away.
Morse jabbed Evans between his buttocks and he screamed even louder than the first time.
Taking hold of a fistful of Evans’s hair with one hand, he plunged the sword in even deeper with the other one.
“She wasn’t even dead yet when you set the house on fire; let me show you how that must have felt to her.”
Removing the blade from Evan’s nearly dead body, he wiped it off on the shirt of the soon to be roasting man. Dropping the sword, he narrowed in on the desk—it happened to have a canister of lighter fluid on it. Once he held it and again standing over the hapless body, he flipped up the spout of the fluid. He squeezed its contents out in a stream, drenching the bloody clothes of the skewered man.
Evans began shrieking and blubbering without saying anything coherent.
Morse walked over to Delaney, “Got a light?”
The thug’s eyes were bulging out from their sockets, and with trembling hands, pulled out a flashy Zippo coated in gold with a delicate monogram from his sports jacket.
Morse snatched it from him.
As he returned to Evans, Delaney sputtered, “Hey, Morse, I think we can come to a deal. What do you say? We can forget about this whole thing.”
Morse sparked the lighter. Looking back at Delaney, he answered, “No. I’ve had enough of you.”
He tossed the Zippo on the body, resulting in a fireball. Evans shot up to his feet letting out a dreadful scream. Running around the warehouse until he ran into a wall, he fell down to his final resting place.
The warehouse ignited as well.
Evans continued screaming until he died.
Morse went to Delaney and shot him in the head.
The warehouse heated up, burning his eyes with the smoke.
Morse dropped his pistol and told Steph, “Drop the gun.”
She did.
“This whole place is going up,” said Phillips, “Let’s go!”
Phillips ran to Spectra.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not leaving this guy to burn to death, he never saw me.”
“Okay, drag him out; meet me at the car,” Morse said.
As Phillips dragged Spectra to safety, Morse picked up Amy, and walked with Steph to the Charger. He put her in the back seat and got in the driver’s seat. Steph got in the back seat too, and Phillips with the shotgun, got in the passenger seat. Reunited, they drove off in the night.
Chapter Eighteen
The Dodge rolled into the lab. Phillips and Morse got out, Steph followed, and Morse grasped Amy, hoisted her up as he had his wife the last time he saw her. He carried her over to and placed her in her chair, and then connected her to the computer.
Phillips told Steph to get on the table so he could repair the damage to her face and check for any other damage.
Morse examined Amy’s programming.
“Look at this mess,” he said, pointing, “Look at what this guy programmed her to do!”
Phillips left Steph on the table to see the computer screen.
“Pretty radical stuff, she knew every kind of fighting and killing technique imaginable; also there’s all kinds of programs augmenting the ones we created. They even tricked her into thinking Delaney was you right there.”
“Look how many miles she had on her, all she must have been doing was running back and forth.”
The two scientists worked in a furious pace to repair their androids. Phillips went on to repair Steph’s face muscles with care, and to mold a new synthetic skin face from the epidural mold.
Downloading Amy’s current software to study later on, once it completed, he uninstalled every program and application from her brain. Next, he installed and used scrubbing software to prevent ghosts within the hardware, a type of malfunction when program fragments interact with each other to create unwanted behavior or glitches.
After about an hour, Amy’s mind was clear and rebooted using her revised programs.
Morse stretched out and looked to Phillips, “How’s things over there?”
“This isn’t easy; maybe I should have you do this, you’re better at it.”
“It will take about a half an hour for all Amy’s updates to be installed, I’ll help you.”
Morse used his meticulous hands to install the new facial muscles for Stephanie, while Phillips checked her other systems to see if there was any further damage.
After a half an hour passed, the lab’s main computer made a dinging noise, and a female voice said, “Upload complete.”
Morse stopped what he was doing with Steph’s face and rushed over to the computer.
Phillips even stopped what he was doing and watched Amy.
Morse looked at Phillips, “Okay, here goes,” he said with baited breath as he pressed a button.
A female voice from the computer announced, “Startup commencing.”
The computer monitor showed three main brain functions of Amy: lower cognitive, middle cognitive, and higher cognitive functions. The lower cognitive functions engaged and Amy’s head straightened, no longer dangling. The computer screen showed that her circulatory system had engaged and color came back to her face and body. Her middle cognitive functions engaged, along with her higher functions. Amy remained motionless with her eyes closed. Morse reached to her right, lower back and turned her manual main power switch on.
“Awake,” he said. He noticed a tingle in his fingers and his palms felt damp.
Amy’s eyes opened and they scanned the area in an instant and rested on his face.
“Hi.”
“Hello, Father.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“I’m in the lab.”
“What town are we in, what state, what country, what planet?”
Amy paused, “New York City, New York state, United States, Earth.”
Morse smiled, pointing to Phillips, “Who is that?”
“Uncle Mike.”
“What is his full name?”
“Doctor Mike Phillips.”
“Do a quick self-analysis, anything wrong?”
Amy paused for a few seconds, “All main and secondary systems are functioning normally. Would you like a detailed analysis, Father?”
“No, that’s quite alright. Smile for me.”
Amy smiled and seemed to react ordinarily to certain situations, mimicking what a typical human emotional response would be, but it was still noticeable.
Phillips said to Amy, “Welcome back, Hun.”
“Did I go somewhere?”
Morse said to Phillips, “She doesn’t notice that time has passed, which is normal considering I rebooted her using the program before she was taken.”
“I was taken? Where, Father?”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re just glad you’re back.”
Amy saw Morse and Phillips smiling at her, so she did the same.
“Come here, dear,” he said hugging her.
She mimicked hugging back with an awkward approach.
Morse stood and said to Amy, “Stand up.”
She pulled the cord out of her neck, standing up.
“Oh, I’m so happy I got you back! I love you as much as a man can love a little killing machine!”
Bear hugging her, lifting her from the ground, he twirled around with her. Setting her back down, he stepped back to take her in once more.
Amy smiled.
“Killing machine,” she asked.
Looking at her hands, she saw the specialized claw gloves Spectra made for her.
“What are these?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he answered, removing the weapons.
“I do like the black leather jump suit she’s wearing,” Phillips commented with a boyish whistle.
Amy looked at her clothes. Noticing Stephanie laying on the worktable asleep, she walked over to Steph.
“Is this Stephanie?”
“Yes, dear,” said Phillips, “We’re repairing her face.”
Amy looked at Phillips, “How was she damaged? How did you build her so quickly from a skeleton?”
“Wow,” Phillips chuckled, “she’s very inquisitive, isn’t she? I’m very good at my work.”
Morse laughed, “That is something! She is a very rudimentary artificial intelligence and they’re only going to get more advanced from here.
“Oh, Amy, come here, I have a present for you. Since you’re such a unique individual, your uncle and I decided to give you outfits. As you see your sister, Stephanie, has a blue jump suit with white stripes. Since you are not a bad girl, black doesn’t suite you.”
He showed her a red leather jump suit with white stripes.
“What do you think, dear?”
Amy stared at the red jump suit, “It’s nice.”
“Go put it o
n.”
Amy took the suit, walked to the storage room, and changed.
Morse grabbed some sneakers, “Oh, I forgot these. Take those damn ‘dominatrix’ boots off and put these on.”
Morse went to the storeroom, handing the shoes to Amy.
He moved to leave, then remembered, “Oh, your hair is a mess, so when you’re done, come out here and I’ll give you a brush.”
Amy walked out in her red jump suit, perfectly fitted.
“Do you like it?”
“You look great,” Morse said.
Phillips put on the television.
“Let’s see if what happened is on the news,” he suggested.
Just a commercial played.
Chapter Nineteen
Meanwhile at the warehouse, firefighters and police were on the scene. They attempted to save the nearby buildings and allowed the warehouse to burn. After hours, the fire subsided and investigators assessed the cause of the fire. Sifting through the rubble and locating the bodies and weapons, they brought the deceased to the coroners and had some of them identified.
After about two days, the reports were all in, and Detective Malloy was investigating the incident. He discovered there were no witnesses.
At Morse’s lab, he was finishing Steph’s repairs, and Phillips was reviewing Spectra’s programs.
There was a knock at the door and Morse answered it. Officer Patrick O’Connell walked in with a couple of officers, including an FBI agent by the name of, Harrison Gentry. Gentry handed him a search warrant.
“Are those the Androids,” the FBI agent inquired.
Gentry walked up to Amy and looked her over.
“Are you a machine?”
“What’s going on here,” Phillips demanded. “O’Connell, what’s happening?”
“Sorry, this has become a federal case,” the officer admitted.
Morse said to Gentry, “Yes, she is a machine.”
“You found Amy,” asked O’Connell.
“Where did you find her,” pressed the FBI agent, “When? I need a straight answer from you.”
“We had Steph find her,” Morse explained, “They had Amy running drugs or money or something from rooftop to rooftop, and she was able to bring her back.”
The Creation of Amy Page 13