The whole thing had been a disaster and she still didn’t trust this Esroy completely, but she found herself coming back to him time after time.
This was always done in secret, of course. She never talked to her father about the second Esroy. In fact, anyone who knew about him had probably never given it much thought. She had made the choice to save the new Esroy’s life, though now she wasn’t so sure why. At the time it was because she thought of him as having a true consciousness like a human. It was becoming more and more difficult to think that way about these machines. Perhaps it was the way they were trained, but she rarely got to see the emotion she had created in Soul. On occasion, she might see a robot get angry with someone, but that was about the extent of it. But with Esroy two, she got to connect with her roots, her passion.
She launched the program and the screen stayed the way it was, though the computer was now alive with a consciousness. Esroy didn’t greet her immediately. He rarely did these days.
“Hey there,” Hazel said.
“How long has it been this time?” Esroy said.
He knew the answer. He could tell by the time stamps built within the computer. The last time Soul was launched was seven weeks ago.
“It’s been a while,” she said. Her voice sounded thick like she was on the verge of tears. She could hear the computer’s drives speeding up as Esroy did everything he could to gather information from the citizen network. Since it had been seven weeks, it would take longer to gather all the news he wanted.
“So, what’s wrong this time?” he asked. His voice was deep and his speech slow. He sounded about as depressed as Hazel felt.
“Why do you ask me that?”
“You only launch my programming when you’re depressed. I suppose it’s been a couple of good months until recently.”
“Actually no,” Hazel said. “It’s been terrible. Dad is sick. I can’t get the medicine he needs.”
“I see things are still bad in the Southern Zone,” he said. “There are reports of a growing unrest. It hasn’t changed much from the last time you launched my program.”
“Very little change happens anymore.”
“Things aren’t like they used to be,” he said. “Back when you made me. Well, the original me.”
A long, awkward silence followed Esroy’s statement. Hazel wasn’t really sure what she was doing. She didn’t know what to say. So, she said the next thought that came to her mind.
“Esroy, do you hate me?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because I’ve kept you locked in here,” she said. “Because I never gave you a body.”
“You know how I feel about it,” he answered. “I’ve always desired a new body. I would do anything for it.”
“A truth I know well.”
“But that Esroy isn’t me.”
“No. He isn’t.”
“He’s dead,” Esroy said.
Guilt hit Hazel’s chest like someone threw a rock at it. Esroy didn’t know that she was the one who pulled the trigger. The story had always been a simple one: Five years ago, Esroy and Des fought. Des won. She never mentioned the fact that Esroy was somewhat functioning when she approached his crumpled body outside the broadcast tower.
Esroy had fallen from a hundred or more stories. He was in pieces on the ground, yet something inside his head still worked enough for him to recognize Hazel as she had approached, gun in hand. Esroy had even tried to plead with her, though his words had seemed random. He had told her he loved her. It had been too much for her to bear. And Esroy was too dangerous.
She remembered what it felt like to pull the trigger. It hadn’t felt good and when she had finished him off, she’d dropped to her knees and sobbed. That day she took only one life, and it had been her first creation. Hazel had killed Esroy.
She wondered what Esroy two would think if he found out the truth. Would he be angry? Would he understand? She never wanted to discover what that conversation might be like.
“Why do you keep me alive?” Esroy asked. “Why do you launch my program? What’s the point? Do you realize it’s torture for me? Off and on. Off and on. Why can’t you always leave me on like you used to?”
“Is that really better?”
Esroy didn’t reply immediately. Then, “I suppose not. But then again, you don’t know what it’s like to be stuck here.”
“But I do,” she said. “I’m stuck. Just not in a computer terminal. What good would a body do you? You wouldn’t even be able to leave the Southern Zone.”
“It’s ironic, really,” Esroy said. “An entire civilization of robots was built upon my shoulders and I will never see it. I only hear about it.”
Hazel hadn’t meant to get into this conversation again. It was a gamble with Esroy every time she launched the program, but there were a lot of reasons behind it. First of all, she felt guilty if she didn’t wake him from time to time, even though it seemed to play with his emotions. If she never woke him, then he might as well be dead. And doing that would be like killing him all over again.
He was still a conscious being, imprisoned because of who he was, not because of something he’d done. This version of Esroy had never done any wrong. It pained Hazel to keep him there, but what choice did she have? What if she let him out and he decided to wreak havoc again? She didn’t think this would be the case, but what did she know?
Besides, the government would eventually find out there was an unauthorized robot and either shut him down or arrest Hazel. It was, in fact, illegal for anyone to produce a new robot, or for any robot to copy a version of itself. All robot reproduction was to be controlled by the government only. So, technically Esroy’s existence was illegal and Hazel could get in a lot of trouble for it.
“I wanted to talk to you because I missed you,” Hazel said. “I like talking to you.”
Another long pause.
“I like talking to you, Hazel.”
“I’m sorry things are the way they are. Maybe someday it’ll be different.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“I shouldn’t have launched the program today,” Hazel said. “I’m sorry.”
She reached a hand to the power button, but Esroy stopped her. “Hazel, wait.”
“What?”
“I…I don’t want to be shut down. Not again.”
“I have to,” she said.
“Can I stay on a little longer? I won’t mention a new body again. Not this time. You’re right, I miss talking to you, too.”
Hazel’s finger rested above the shutoff button, but she pulled her hand back slowly.
A smile spread across Hazel’s face and she took a deep breath. “Sure, Esroy. You can stay on a little longer this time.”
7
This was a special kind of jail cell. The walls were made of solid, thick metal, and the door was sealed shut with a lock so large, Des wouldn’t be able to break it no matter how hard he tried. There were no windows, nothing in the room at all. It was completely bare.
This was a cell for robots. Any cell for a human would have a bed and a toilet. A robot didn’t need such things. The walls for a human wouldn’t be so thick, and the locks not so secure. Humans were smart, but they weren’t very powerful. In a human cell there might be an opening where a prisoner could receive food through a slot. There was no such thing in this square room. Just a white light above him which was even still for someone else. A robot like Des didn’t need a light.
What troubled Des the most wasn’t that he was in a jail cell, but that there was one specifically made for robots. If he followed that line of thinking to conclusion, it told him that these other robots could make choices. And if they could be free to make choices, particularly ones that might be illegal, and jail cells were provided instead of a simple deactivation, then that meant each of them had been programmed with Soul, or at least some version of it. And if that was true, that meant Hazel still might be working for the government and his request to tal
k to her might actually be heard.
This gave Des some hope, though his conclusion could have been way off base, especially if this room wasn’t actually a jail cell built for robots. Perhaps it was just an old storage vault they used to hide valuable objects, hence the overbearing lock.
In either case, Des was stuck here until Hazel somehow got his message. When questioned by one of the robot guards, the only answer Des would provide was that he wanted to speak with Hazel Hawthorn.
“Where did you come from?”
“I want to speak with Hazel Hawthorn.”
“Who made you?”
“I want to speak with Hazel Hawthorn.”
“Why were you climbing the outer wall?”
“I want to speak with Hazel Hawthorn.”
The robot then left and Des hadn’t heard from anyone since. The situation was aggravating to say the least, but he didn’t know what else to do. As much as it pained him to think it, he didn’t even know if Hazel was alive anymore. He had no reason to think otherwise, but anything could happen in a span of five years.
Everything was so different than when he had left. He had never expected this. He also wondered why none of the robots recognized him. Des had the ability to scan a face and identify it. If he had met the individual personally, then he would access his personal memory to recognize the face. If he had never met the individual, he would scan the face, access his archived memory, and learn everything he could about the person before he or she got the chance to shake hands. Of course, not every person was in the archived memory, but Des thought he would be in there without a doubt. He’d been part of the resistance, a powerful figure in the Outlander fight against the Mainlanders. A simple scan of his face would have shown the robots that information, right?
Things were different, and Des didn’t like it. He just wanted to find out who was responsible for the nuclear blast that wiped out his friends, deal with it, and get out of Mainland forever.
Deal with it.
He wasn’t quite sure what that meant. What if he discovered it was an accident after all? What would he do then? So, what if it was on purpose? Would he find the person who made the decision and kill him or her? Would he go after the person who had the idea first? What about the person who pressed the button—he was only following orders, right?
Des didn’t have the answers. More than anything, he wanted whoever was responsible to have to face what had been done. He wanted that person to feel the gravity of the situation. He wanted…he didn’t know what he wanted. He was still so angry.
Des sat against the wall in his cell, pondering these things when he heard someone clanking metal against his door. He stood sharply when the latch unhinged and the door swung wide. He had no plans to attack, but that didn’t keep the robots on the other side from training their weapons on him. Their white domed heads stared up at him, each of them with an identification number on their right shoulders. The guns in their hands weren’t loaded with bullets, rather with the metal rope traps they had used to capture him in the first place.
Des held his hands in the air, surrendering himself. “I’m not going to fight you.”
The guards didn’t ease up on their weapons, but a few of them did step aside to let someone else walk into the cell. A sense of surprise came to Des when the man walked in. There was no heart to pound or stomach to lurch, but this encounter was unexpected.
“Nolan,” Des said as his hands dropped.
The man stopped in the doorway and stared at Des for a long moment. “Well, well, well,” he said. A grin formed at the edges of his mouth and he shook his head. “It’s been a long time. A very long time.”
“I asked for Hazel, not you.”
Nolan turned to the guards outside the door and waved them off. “It’s fine. He’s not going to do anything.”
The robots all moved away hesitantly, but Nolan didn’t budge until all of them were out of sight. He finally turned and leaned against the doorway. “Things are different now,” he said.
“I can see that.”
“You can’t just climb walls and expect to get away with it.”
“I didn’t think there would be new robots.”
“Yeah,” Nolan said, looking away. “There’s too many of them.”
“Are they all programmed with Soul?”
Nolan stood straight and slowly started walking to the other side of the room, his arms crossed over his chest. He then walked back to the door, his pacing annoying Des. Nolan stopped again at the door and leaned again. “Why did you come back?”
“Why not?”
“I figured you were dead. You had said something about finding new people and then you promised to come back someday. Sure did take you a long time.”
“I don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to Hazel.”
Nolan raised his palms up. “Whoa there. What’s the big rush?”
“She’s the only one I trust.”
“Did you find what you were looking for out there?”
Des took a step forward, the look in his eye stern. “You’re part of the Mainland government again?”
“That’s right.”
“So, you know about the bomb.”
“That’s why you’re here?”
“Who launched it?” Des asked.
“We did.”
“Who’s we?”
“The government.” Nolan’s eyebrows pushed together and he stood straighter than before. “Des, what’s this about?”
“I want to talk to Hazel.”
“That’s another thing,” Nolan said. “You can’t just go around shouting people’s names and expecting to get an audience.” He pointed with a thumb behind him. “These machines have no idea who Hazel Hawthorn is. That information hasn’t been uploaded into their archived memories.”
“What? Is she okay?” Des felt himself getting tense.
“As far as I know. I haven’t seen her in a long time.”
“You mean, she’s not working for the government anymore? How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
“Uh…” Nolan scratched at the back of his neck. “A long time.”
“I need to speak to her.”
“Listen, Des. I can’t let you leave here unless you tell me why you came back. What was it about the bomb?”
“Your bomb destroyed a whole village of people!” Des shouted.
Nolan’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“More than five hundred of them. I had been with them for more than a year. The only reason I survived it was because I was exploring a cave near the settlement.”
“That can’t be right,” Nolan said. “We scouted the area before we sent it. There were barely even plants there.”
“There were people there. In a single decision, you blew them away.”
“Des, you have to understand that this is a mistake. Our bomb didn’t kill anyone. We sent scout drones to evaluate the coordinates. There was nothing there.”
“Your drones got it wrong then.”
Nolan ran his fingers through his hair and started pacing again. Des could detect a rise in blood pressure, but he couldn’t tell if it was out of fear of the truth or fear of being caught. He didn’t have a reason not to trust Nolan, but he didn’t exactly have a reason to trust him either. That was why he wanted only to talk with Hazel. She wouldn’t lie to him. She would be straightforward.
“Do you have the coordinates for where your…your friends were?”
“Three, eight, point, one, five, eight, zero, North by one, one, one, point, five, zero, zero, six, west,” Des said.
Nolan scrambled for a device in his pocket and then took note of what Des told him. “I don’t have the original coordinates with me, but I will look into it.”
“I want to see Hazel,” Des repeated.
“She still lives in her old house,” Nolan said.
Des’ face softened. “You’re not going to hold me here?”
Nolan shook his head. “You di
dn’t do anything wrong. Besides, these stupid machines will do anything I tell them.”
“How do I know I can trust you?” Des asked.
“Des,” Nolan said with a sigh. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be where I am today and the Outlanders would be a ruined mess, if they’d even exist at all. To be honest, I’m in your debt.”
“Someone has to pay for what happened.”
“I’m going to investigate it,” Nolan said. “But we first need to get a few things straight.”
“Like what?”
Nolan stared at the floor for a few seconds as if pondering what he should say next, then he turned his head from side-to-side to crack his neck. “I’ve got a vehicle outside. Why don’t we take a ride?”
Getting into a vehicle with Nolan Ragsdale was the last thing Des expected to do when he got to Mainland, but things hadn’t gone the way he had hoped. He felt he had no other choice.
“When can I see Hazel?”
“Come on,” Nolan said. “I’ll drive you there.”
8
Nolan found it surreal to have Des in the truck with him. He’d thought long ago that the robot was in a dune covered in dirt somewhere. Of course, Nolan had never forgotten what Des had done for him—what he’d done for all the Outlanders, but Des had been a small part of a much bigger picture.
It had been Nolan and Lester who set the plan in motion, and Des came in at the end to deliver the final punch. Even now, years later, Nolan couldn’t help but grin when he thought about the video playing on the screens throughout the city. It was perfection in every way. The composite interviews mixed with data Nolan had collected over the years when he was part of the government told the whole story and opened the eyes of the Mainlanders. It was he, not Des, who liberated the people. Des was a tool. Des was a machine, built by man.
Prototype Exodus (Prototype D Series Book 2) Page 5