by Scott Wilson
Caden didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if he agreed with everything Clops was saying.
“Yes, yes thank you for the very interesting and totally-not-weird stories,” Jadice interrupted. “But you’re not the one we need to talk to, Clops. Blondie here needs to speak with Watson.”
“Oh, Watson, eh?” Clops jumped back to his smiling self. He rubbed his hands together and raised his eyebrow. “Of course, of course. All it’ll cost you is one angel weapon.”
“Clops …” Jadice groaned.
“Kidding, kidding! But in exchange I don’t suppose I could have a look at that angel weapon of yours, eh? Maybe copy down a few schematics, make some notes?”
“Sure.” Jadice cocked her head toward Clops’s building. “Blondie, you get in there and talk to Watson. Ask him about your angel weapon, whatever you want. He’s still on the top floor, right Clops?”
“Oh yes, yes.” He turned his single eye to Caden. “But young man, Watson is a little fickle. He prefers speaking to machines, so understand this—you must address him the right way or else he’ll get mad. He only gives answers as questions and only hears questions as answers. Got that?”
“What?” Caden asked. Clops laughed and disappeared behind the desk. He was so short that he wasn’t visible until he came around in front.
Caden gasped when he saw him. Clops had no legs, only two tangled columns of Iltech and wires that extended down from his torso and ended in wheels. He probably used to be much taller, perhaps as tall as his massive son, but with his legs gone he only came up to Caden’s shoulders. He had a cane for balance as his wheels rotated automatically, and he rolled right up to Caden.
“You like my wheels, boy?” Clops asked as Caden stared. He poked Caden in the stomach with his cane. “Take the elevator to the tenth floor, and don’t stop anywhere else. You might accidentally blow up something and end up needing wheels of your own.”
Caden didn’t even ask what an “elevator” was. He just nodded. Clops wrapped his cane around Jadice’s back and led her away.
“Now, Jadi, how about we discuss the power source for that angel weapon of yours. I always thought they were Xanders but …”
Their voices trailed off as they disappeared behind a towering pile of Iltech. When it was just Caden and Annika alone, Annika dropped her serious face and let out a yelp of joy.
“Great Gotama, did you see this thing?” she asked, cradling her magnetizer like a newborn. “I can’t believe he just gave it to me. How do I look?” Annika posed with her new weapon and charge belt, glaring at an imaginary enemy. Caden grinned.
“I’d say you look pretty tough.”
“Right? Do you think it really works?”
“Probably. But why are you so excited?”
Annika had a mischievous grin on her face. “Let’s just get your Watson questions over with so I can try this thing out. Come on.”
She grabbed Caden’s hand and led him into the first floor of the weapons building. It was a wide area, but it was so cramped with crates and boxes of Iltech that there was only one narrow path to follow through. It led to an open metal box with a rope pulley on top.
“Is this the elevator?” Caden asked.
“Must be,” Annika said, pulling him inside. There were ten different colored buttons with a number written on each, looking as if someone had hastily scribbled them. The numbers on some of them were much more faded than others. Floors two and ten were barely legible.
“I guess we press the button for ten?” Caden said with a shrug. He pushed it, and the pulley began to squeak and crank as the metal box lurched upward.
“I wish I knew about this Basement place when I lived in Salem,” Annika said. She patted her magnetizer, now in the pocket of her dress. “Getting one of these would’ve come in handy.”
“Maybe it wasn’t around back then,” Caden suggested.
“I don’t think so. Clops said he’s been doing this for fifty years, and didn’t Jadice say she came here as a kid?” Annika paused for a second. “Although, wait a minute. Does that mean Jadice used to live in Salem?”
“I have no idea,” Caden said. He was too distracted by the view to listen. They passed by floor after floor piled high with Iltech. Caden could have spent a lifetime examining any one of them, or even just the elevator they were riding in. He felt happier than if Deber were let loose in the apple orchard.
“I guess we can ask that Watson guy,” Annika said as they finally reached the tenth floor. “I wonder who he is anyway.”
The elevator came to a stop. At first Caden thought there was some mistake. Unlike every other floor, the tenth floor was empty. The white plastic floor and walls were perfectly sterile. The only signs of life were the faint sounds coming through the windows out to the Basement.
But there was one other thing on the other side of the room: a metallic box taller and wider than Caden with a bright blue screen. Not knowing what else to do, Caden and Annika walked toward it.
“There’s no one up here,” Annika said.
Suddenly a face appeared on the blank blue screen. It was made out of small white squares, and the mouth opened up and down choppily as it spoke in a distorted voice.
“What do most people say when they meet Watson, the smartest computer on Earth?”
Chapter 12
Watson
Caden gazed at the boxy smile on the screen. He had already been impressed by Clops’s computer, but that was just a bunch of numbers and letters. This one, this metal box, had spoken to him. And it had a face. Just like Tooby, this Iltech was alive.
“What did it say?” Annika asked.
That was apparently the wrong thing to say. The box emitted a horrible screeching alarm. Caden and Annika winced as the blocky white face contorted into a scowl and the screen flashed red.
“please phrase your question in the form of a statement!”
“Why is this box yelling at us?” Annika whispered to Caden. She said it quietly, so that the machine wouldn’t overhear them and think they were daring to ask it a question again.
“I don’t know,” Caden answered. He remembered Clops had said Watson got mad easily, something about only giving answers as questions and hearing questions as answers. Caden still couldn’t wrap his head around it.
“This is a waste of time,” Annika mumbled. Watson overheard her. The face on the screen transformed back into a smile and spoke.
“What is the vast majority of human existence?” it said.
Caden and Annika exchanged confused glances. Even though the machine was asking them a question, it didn’t seem like it was waiting for an answer or anything. Rather it felt like the box was answering their statement—with a question.
“I think I get it,” Caden whispered to Annika. “Here, I’m going to try something.”
Annika shrugged and Caden cleared his throat. He wanted to start off with something easy.
“The number four,” he said. Annika gave him a weird look, but Watson understood.
“What is the integer between three and five?” it said in its metallic voice. Caden grinned. This was working. He decided to try something a bit harder.
“The Home outside of Salem run by Mother Mildred.”
Watson didn’t miss a beat. “What is an orphanage for Nobodies with a total of twenty-four slots for the children of parents arrested by the Church?”
“Gotama’s Ant,” Annika whispered to Caden. “This thing is giving us answers, but as questions.”
“Yup,” Caden said, excited that they’d figured it out. “And it seems to know a lot. It even knows about the Home.”
“But why does it have to be so … strange?” Annika asked. She stepped closer to Watson and asked her own statement. “Answering in the form of a question.”
“What are the rules?” Watson stated simply. Annika flopped her hands to her sides in defeat.
“Well, just because it can answer everythin
g, even as a question, that doesn’t mean we’ll understand it, I guess.”
“Maybe.” Caden rubbed his palms together in anticipation. “But it’s time to see what this thing really knows.”
Caden had been waiting for this opportunity his entire life—a treasure trove of information about anything he wanted to know. Who cares if he had to phrase it a little weird? It was time to start digging. Caden shivered with excitement as he spoke the words he’d always wanted to hear the answer to.
“My father, the person who created me.”
Caden held his breath as he waited for the response. But once the box spoke it aloud, he didn’t know what to think.
“Who is Caden Aire?”
“What?” Caden asked in confusion. That was a bad idea. The screen blinked red and the angry face returned.
“please phrase your question in the form of a statement!”
“Why did it tell me my own name?” Caden asked Annika quietly.
“Maybe it’s trying to confirm who you are,” she suggested. “Maybe it can’t see you.” Caden wasn’t sure, but it was worth a shot.
“Yes, my name is Caden Aire.”
Watson’s calm blue screen and smiling face returned. “What were you told by Spyder unit 20219-B after finding you?”
Caden sighed. He wasn’t getting very far with this thing. Maybe it was time to change subjects.
“Okay, how about … the reason I was created.”
“What is to destroy the world?”
“I already knew that,” Caden mumbled under his breath. “The way I will destroy the world.”
“What is by utilizing Metl?”
Caden groaned in frustration. Watson hadn’t told him anything they didn’t already know. He was supposed to be getting answers from this thing, not more questions! Before Caden knew it, he was yelling at the metal box.
“The reason I’m part human and not just a weapon that someone can pull the trigger on and use however they want!”
Caden almost expected Watson to get angry back. But it replied in the same calm, robotic voice.
“What is to communicate with Metl?”
Now they were getting somewhere.
“What does that mean?” Annika whispered.
“Don’t know,” Caden admitted. “Maybe I’m supposed to talk to Metl somehow? My dad would tell me how to do that, I guess.”
“Maybe this thing knows too?”
“I can try.” Caden cleared his throat again. “The way I communicate with Metl.”
“What is by talking like a normal human?”
And they were back to square one. It looked like they were going to have to wait until they found Caden’s dad before they’d get anything besides a headache from Watson.
“I have one that’s been on my mind ever since that weirdo woman mentioned it,” Annika said. “Back when she explained all that stuff that happened two hundred years ago.”
“Go for it.” Caden offered Annika the space in front of Watson. She faced the machine’s smiling screen and stood up tall.
“The meaning of life.”
Caden had almost forgotten about that one. His heart leaped in excitement, until he remembered who they were talking to. Watson gave his monotone answer.
“What is Gotama’s Second Revelation?”
“All right, I’ve had enough,” Annika said. She was glaring at Watson and looked about ready to kick its screen in. “Let’s go down to the second floor. I’m itching to try this magnetizer out.”
“Wait, I still need to ask about my angel weapon.”
“You really think you’re going to get anything useful out of this thing?”
“I have to at least try.”
Annika crossed her arms. “Whatever. But let’s not waste much more time.”
Caden nodded in agreement. He held up his glowing red palms to Watson, not sure if that would help him identify anything, but it couldn’t hurt.
“My angel weapon,” Caden said. Watson had the question ready right away.
“What is telekinetic consciousness using Planck probes?” it answered. Caden and Annika looked at each other and shrugged. Those were a lot of words Caden didn’t understand, but he asked about the one that sounded most important.
“Telekinetic.”
“What is the ability to interact with objects without physically touching them?”
Caden felt his fingers tingle. “Okay, the way I use my angel weapon.”
“What is by using your human part?”
Caden looked down at himself—his hands, his arms, his torn gloves, his overalls with the arrow hole in it. Which parts of him were human and which weren’t?
“What does that mean?” Annika asked.
“I don’t know.” Caden thought back to the two times he’d ever used his angel weapon. The first was to protect Annika from the butcher, and the second was to protect Deber from being used as bait. Was wanting to save someone how he used his “human part?”
“Maybe it means doing something robots can’t do,” Annika said sarcastically, “like making sense, for starters.”
“That’s it!” Caden said. Annika looked at him suspiciously. “Well I mean, not the making sense part, but doing something that Iltech can’t—feeling emotion. I can only use it when I’m feeling something.”
“How does that work?” Annika asked, not sounding convinced. “You just think about a sad story, and then you can blow things up?”
“I don’t think so.” Caden flexed his fingers and stuck out his palms. “But I’m going to try and see what happens.”
Caden concentrated on the only thing in the room: Watson. If what it had told them was true, then Caden should be able to move the machine without touching it. It was taller than him, three times as wide, and probably weighed a couple hundred pounds, but so had Evan the butcher and Caden had sent him flying into a building. Just a little budge should be easy.
Caden focused on moving Watson. At the same time, he tried to summon as many emotions as he could. He thought about the terror of being chased by the Holy Police on horseback. He thought about the shock of seeing Mr. Stercus turned to dust on stage. He thought about the warm coziness of Mother Mildred bringing him a piping hot cup of apple cider in the stable on a cold winter’s night. He thought about the Iltech paradise all around him, his father who he was going to find inside the church, and not knowing if he was truly going to be able to do it. And he thought about Tooby, his spider friend, who had sacrificed everything for him to be here right now.
“Uh, Caden?” came Annika’s voice. Caden hadn’t realized his eyes were closed. When he opened them, his arms were still outstretched, and Watson was floating a foot above the ground.
“Am I doing that?” Caden asked, not believing what he was seeing. But he’d said it just a bit too loud. Watson started flashing red again.
“please phrase your question in the form of a statement!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Caden whispered with a grin. He was too excited to care. He visualized Watson going up even higher, and the machine rose right up along with his thoughts. How high could he get it? All the way to the ceiling?
“I think you should put it down, Caden,” Annika said worriedly. “You don’t want to break it.”
Caden didn’t hear her. “What?”
He turned to Annika for just a second, but in that moment of distraction Watson crashed to the floor, causing the room to shake.
“Sorry!” Caden and Annika apologized together. Watson looked unfazed. Aside from a small dent in the bottom of the box, it hadn’t been damaged. The happy white face reappeared on the blue screen.
“What do most people say when they accidentally drop Watson, the smartest computer on Earth?”
“Well at least it has a sense of humor,” Caden said with a nervous laugh. He didn’t want to test Clops’s kindness by accidentally breaking one of his machines.
“Let’s head downst
airs,” Annika said, bouncing with anticipation. “You got your chance to test out your weapon, now I want mine.”
“Just one more question,” Caden said. He could spend all day—the rest of his life, probably—asking statements and getting questions from Watson. But they had a time limit. Metl was on its way, and Caden didn’t want to be down here talking with Watson when it slammed into Earth.
“All right, that’s … fine,” Annika said with a surprising yawn. For someone who was so excited just a second ago, she suddenly seemed to be getting tired very quickly.
As Caden thought about his last question, he couldn’t shake the feeling of exhaustion either. He had to blink constantly, as if fighting to stay awake. Jadice had mentioned that angel weapons drained their users mentally, but all he’d done was lift Watson a bit. He tried to shake it off. This was his last question. He had to make it count.
“The thing I need to do next.” Caden was proud of his statement. There was no way Watson could be cryptic or confusing about this one. The blocky face was quick with its response.
“What is escape the poison filling up this room?”
Caden and Annika went silent. They looked at each other and Annika forgot about the no-questions rule for a moment.
“Excuse me?” she said to Watson. But its screen didn’t flash red. It accepted her question as a statement and gave its smiling reply.
“What did the two people in masks behind you not say when they entered this room?”
Any exhaustion that Caden and Annika had been feeling vanished. They swiveled toward the elevator shaft. Standing right at the entrance were two figures—one tall and one short—dressed in identical black robes. The tall one had a white mask with a smiling face, and the small one had a mask with a frown. The short one’s palms were out, revealing glowing purple Xs.