by Hugo Huesca
So yes, she had run off with a professor. That was a mistake, but she hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. John knew her better than anyone. Emma was susceptible, too trusting. She would see the best in people, think of their romantic advances as mere friendly banter. She would allow them to get close, and John would only see from afar because Emma hated jealousy and that would only push her faster into their hands. Some of them did get close enough to confound her, convince her she felt things she didn’t.
Then she would run off, confused, hurt, into the hands of those cruel men, that played dirty, that preyed on the weak. Predators. Little, pesky, greedy predators… John saw that his hand was trembling, and he calmed down at once. He could not afford to break that little sphere, not when he was so close to finishing. To wait more would be unthinkable. So he thought happy thoughts.
She always came back, that’s what Michael James and everyone else never understood. That was love, right there. Those… wolves… would never capture her for long. She was his, her first, only, true love. How did that platitude go…? If you love someone, set them free. If they return, they are yours, if they don’t, they never were. Well, Emma had returned to him many, many times. Who had won in the end, little predators?
A golden-curled fury, with pale blue eyes that would fit well in the face of the devil, cornering him after he was late to lunch with her and her mother. She would get to him in a corner of the bedroom, where he could not escape her nor defend himself, and then she would talk to him, viciously, without even bothering to yell. She knew him better than anyone, so she knew where to twist the knife. And she twisted and twisted, speaking at him until tears streamed down his face, and then she called him pathetic—
That was a mistake, thought John. His mind was like a still lake that had a leviathan lurking down, threatening to come out at any time. He had to be vigilant, or it would try to destroy his work. That he would not allow. He was broken; he could not trust his memories anyways.
Grief and solitude did that to a mind, but his was in pain even before his voluntary retreat. She had seen it, and she had loved him even broken as he was, like no one before. He was her first love, she told him, in the middle of the night, covered in blankets and with a warm, sleepy face that made her look beyond beautiful. She would caress his cheek with a soft, delicate hand, and tell him he was her fist love. He would realize, then, every single time, that his heart would forever be hers.
And his ‘friends’, as they called themselves, and as he thought they were at the time, wanted him to leave her, just because she was flawed, too? It would destroy her. It would destroy him, too.
He would never do that to her. Love was holding on to faith, never giving up, trusting with all your heart, and fighting for the loved one ‘till the last breath. Well, he was still alive. He could keep fighting. They would never understand, and if they didn’t, they weren’t really his friends, now, were they?
He checked the sphere again. Almost finished. It had a small hole in its back, and another one, slightly bigger, in the front. It was only missing one piece.
He stood up from his workbench, walked to a shelf in the darkness of the workshop, and without doubt or trouble found exactly what he was looking for. A sensor. He installed it inside the sphere, being very careful with it, because it was frail, more so than the plastic that held it in place.
There. Perfect.
John worked with perfect movements, which a surgeon would have killed to have. That was what love could do for you.
The kind of love that lasted forever.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, and that you probably aren’t listening anyway. But let go, John. She made sure you couldn’t follow, so at least come back to us. Get out of that goddamn fortress of solitude you’re hiding in. Keep moving, man. Please. I don’t know what you are doing in there, but I get some ideas now and then… Did I tell you I’m married now? She says she has heard me screaming in my sleep.” A pause, “I shouldn’t say that over a video. But John—
“I know you stole the machine from the laboratory. You always had an insane fascination with it. Remember that rabbit? I never told you, but I found the body in a dumpster that day. Everyone said the little robot you built was so rabbit-like, didn’t they?
“Don’t want to know what you are doing wherever you are. The college asked some questions but I managed to give them the slip. They are not looking for you, so you can come out and I’ll help you return it and no one will ever know it was you.
“Her family doesn’t know, either, that you… stole from them,” he finished, with an ashen look, like he was sick to the bottom of his stomach.
The kind of love that could defeat anything, even death.
The machine was still there, covered in dust. For all John knew, it had forever been next to that corner. He had only used it once, that was enough. It was so long ago that he could not remember it, but the process was easy: Take the organic matter, and put it in the slicer, where it would be cut by lasers into sheets less than half a millimeter thin. He would –carefully, always so very carefully; place the organic sheets in metal trays. Those went into the heart of the machine. Other lasers, inside, would slowly scan it over the course of one single day. After that was done, it would transfer the data into its computer, whose vacuum tubes would light up during months while it interpreted and organized the data. Then, finally, it would carve the data into the silicone brain with a long, red-hot, metal needle.
The deed must’ve him about a thousand days, he estimated. The rabbit had taken just a month. The organic matter had to be frozen, of course, otherwise, it wouldn’t last enough before spoiling.
But John had time and no one knew of the bunker. Built before the war, and then, when the war came and went, it was forgotten. Until he found it, of course.
It all happened a long time ago. The silicone brain was long finished and installed. He couldn’t even remember how long it had lain there, waiting for him. Of course, he made some improvements. You could alter silicone, of course, if you had time, and a powerful computer with access to lasers, and were very smart. John had it all.
A rainy day, months after their most recent breakup. He is lying in his bed, thinking of her, of how to win her back. That biker fool doesn’t get her, no one does.
But him.
He knew the real her, because he had been there for her for years, and had bothered to look past the pretty tits and the heavenly eyes. She would come back to him, she always did.
Then the call had come, her mother. Crying with grief that left no room for misinterpretation. John knew Emma was dead the very second he answered the phone, just from the way her mother had drawn breath sorrowfully before starting to enunciate the very first syllable. It had been pills, she said. Nothing anyone could do. She was always very depressed, she said, it was her brain, she said, something wrong with her brain, she said; trying to explain away her own fault in the tragedy.
John let her say whatever she wanted. He wasn’t listening.
The background of the video changed, it was now inside a building. Michael James looked older, rugged. He had gained muscle. John had forgotten when he had cut the multiple videos to make just one long one, but it was of no importance. He was broken, he could not afford to waste energy trying to get back insignificant memories. He had work to do.
“Hey, man. Don’t know if you are alive. ‘Suppose you are because otherwise I’m talking to myself —and that makes me about half as crazy as you. Anyways... You probably won’t listen to this. You never did listen to me or anyone else. But… I suppose I never learn, either. This is probably going to be my last message in a long time, John. The war has started again. I think it never stopped. They are hiring us robo-engineers to lead the armored divisions, we can automate the front, stop our men and women from dying. I think the enemy knows this. They bombed the University, yesterday. Been rough times, mate. We are shipping overseas just now, so... Yeah. I wish you luck, John, with whatever you are doing
over there, wherever you are.”
John stopped working for one second. He thought I wonder which side won. That had been the last message he received in his private server. Not like it mattered. He couldn’t even remember the laboratory at his college, much less if he had liked his country. Who were they fighting, again? The communists? Was his side the communist one?
No one had come knocking at his hidden bunker, deep beneath the soil, its entrance forgotten in the ruined basement of his grandfather’s house. All the better; because his work required peace and tranquility.
John looked at the sphere, checking for any flaw. He studied every angle, every little crevice visible from the metallic surface. He couldn’t find any flaw so he reached to the floor, where lay a small bucket filled with LEDs. Some of them had burned out beyond repair, but most of them worked a tad clouded. Clouded wasn’t good enough, of course. It had to be perfect. He picked a LED and worked on it, cleaning and repairing the minuscule entrails until he was satisfied. Now it would do. So he turned it on using a small battery to power it, and the little thing shone with a deep blue light. It was a clear shade, but the color wasn’t right at all. He grabbed the minuscule tool and with great care manipulated the LED. The blue got paler. And paler. Paler still… Ah, it was perfect now.
He placed it inside the sphere, carefully hidden from view, and it shone from the hole in the middle, like a small window to heaven. Just perfect. Just like he remembered, right?
Well, it felt right, to him.
The circuit was complete with the last piece. Now he only needed to turn on the atomic battery stashed carefully inside the metal chest. He took a step back and admired his handiwork: Long, feminine metal legs; slender arms and a delicate chest that he had crafted for days so it would have breasts; and a featureless face with an old, rusty voice-box. Nothing he could do, he had no replacements left for that. The box would give her a different, machine-like voice until they thought of something. And she looked nothing like herself, except where it mattered. The eyes were right. And the mind, inside the cranial case, that was her.
She would be herself for the first time in a long time, he had made sure of that. He was her only love, her first. But she had always so many distractions going on in her mind. He had seen it when he slowly taught himself the software of the scanning machine. Those distractions confounded her and kept her away from loving him as strongly as she should have.
Her mother was one, and the father who left before she was born, and the drugs, the lies that everyone told to her when she grew up and she didn’t even realize she believed. All those things that dirtied her mental image of him, the person who loved her the most.
He had fixed all of it. Gotten rid of all of it. She was whole, now, perfect. Finally, Emma.
He only had to power her on.
John walked to the back of the frame tubes where he held Emma’s new body and opened a hatch in her back. He had installed the battery in place of the heart, as it was fitting. He gave her a new heart.
Come back to me, Emma, he thought.
Once turned on, the atomic battery could run unstopped for a long time. And he could always pull some repairs if needed. She would not leave him, this time. He would not let her…
The rain had seeped into his clothing and threatened to freeze him, but John paid it no mind: His body now felt as his soul did. He would fix those, too, after he fixed this. He had everything planned. He could enter the laboratory of the university unseen, and he had found his grandfather’s bunker years ago. Now the thrashed place would help him save her.
But this, right now, was the most important part. He needed her.
He walked towards the building past midnight, letting the darkness of the street conceal him. This was the plan: he would go for the back-alley, avoid the guards at the entrance, and enter through the back door. He knew where they kept her, and he was carrying with him everything he needed to reach her: one small cooler, filled with a nitrogen-based coolant, and a surgical knife.
He turned on the battery and quickly ran on the computer the sequence of commands that would bring Emma back into his arms. His fingers didn’t tremble, but it was close. He had waited this day for so long…
He completed the sequence and ordered a start-up. For a moment, the bunker buzzed with static all around him. The atomic battery inside her buzzed with energy, the metal body jerked as if struck by lightning, her arms raised as if in pleading, then fell limply to her sides.
Then her eyes shone a bright blue light.
John felt delirious with triumph. It worked! She was alive! He ran to her, almost forgetting that he should not scare her off, she would be confused, terrified, needing him more than ever.
“Don’t worry, my love. It’s me, John. You had an accident, but I fixed you now. You are safe now. Don’t move, I’m going to let you out of this frame…” He hadn’t talked in so long that his voice surprised him. It was raspy, crude, like hearing an announcer talking over a static-filled radio.
He got her out of those restraints and caught her when she stumbled to the floor. He put her back on her feet with no effort at all and helped her get on his workbench. “You’ll need some practice, of course, but this body is strong. It will last, Emma, so we can be together.”
She sat almost crouched, looking around the dark place like a scared cat. She doesn’t recognize where she is, John thought. She doesn’t understand what has happened to her. She will understand, in time. He would help her, he would explain.
Emma looked at him with her blue shining eyes and then looked at her hands. Then back at him. He tried to reach to her, but she jerked back and fell out of the bench with a metallic crash that maybe was heard at the surface if someone was left to hear. “It’s okay! It’s me, John! Don’t fear me, my love, I’m here for you.”
She froze on the floor. John worried that something was wrong with her brain. But that wasn’t possible, he had checked it himself, improved it himself. That was Emma there. He had to be there for Emma.
“Do not fear. I am John, love. Here, stand up. Let me help you…” He offered her his hand, slowly, to not scare her. It lingered there for a moment, while she studied the handiwork of the fingers. Yes, that’s right, don’t be scared now… She held on to his hand with her own, making a clanking sound of metal against metal. John would have smiled, but his face lacked the motion range.
Then Emma pulled down with all her strength, and she threw him against the ground, right next to her, hard. His eyes went out of focus for a second, but he saw her shape on top of him just fine. He tried to speak, but a metallic punch hit him and stunned him. His insides jerked against his chassis, whirring and complaining.
“No, you are not John,” she said, her voice filled with radio static, a pale imitation of the real thing. He tried to cover himself with his arms, but Emma grabbed one, and pulled, and twisted, and a chilling screeching noise came from the servos in his joints as they were crushed and pulled apart. “I remember John. He was strong and beautiful, and I loved him so much… You are nothing like him. You are just a bad dream…”
She hit him again, pulling against the plate of his chest. She had been in the same robotics class as him, she knew where to strike. And John couldn’t fathom defending against her… He never did, never, never…
And it was all so familiar, but he couldn’t remember; Emma was right, he was broken, broken…
She punched, and pulled, and tore and broke. “You are not him. You are not him. His face was warm like the sun. You are not him. You are not him…”
Then her hand closed around his heart. They locked eyes for one second, and then she pulled.
The sick joke, the imitation fell to the floor like the sad sack of metal and plastic it was. How did it dare pretend to be him.
John had been kind, and loyal, and always there for her. He never cared that she was… broken. And she felt more broken now than ever. She had lost so much… She could remember so little, her mind felt scavenged a
nd fragmented.
But she would be strong, like he had been, for her.
She looked around the room, covered in darkness. Her eyes could see without trouble in there, though. It was as if the place belonged to her. Emma even felt nostalgic. Like coming home. There, those were servo-motors that she had used for… For something, a long time ago. There was the little electrical forge that she had used to fix and shape bent and torn metal.
She had so much material… John had been taken from her, replaced by… He had been taken from her. Replaced by a broken thing that tried to pass itself as him. But she knew better.
Emma had an idea. She had all she needed, she even knew where everything was; what to do. She had been a promising robotics engineer, and she recognized the machine that lay in the back of the room. It had been in the lab at college, too. She had probably brought it in here. Seemed like something she would do. And she must have used it for…
John had been a pathetic, cowardly man that followed her everywhere and stalked every single relationship she tried to have, to scare off any men in her life; he had threatened suicide to get her back when she dared break up with him. And he was boring, and thought he was smart but he wasn’t, he wasn’t…
She shook her head, stunned for a moment. She was oh so broken. She had lost so much. But John had been with her through so much… She had to hold on. She had to fight the brokenness.
And she remembered to look in the pile of scrap that lay crumpled on the floor, mangled beyond recognition. What happened there? She couldn’t remember. But she found what she was looking for. She must’ve misplaced it somehow. One silicone brain. His brain. She vaguely remembered the nitrogen-based freezing solution, and working day and night for what must’ve been years. None of that mattered now.
She set upright the workbench, chose a couple of tools and started working on the atomic battery she had found lying around.
The Road of Fire