Extinction Reversed (Robot Geneticists Book 1)

by J. S. Morin

  “Tell me more about Creator, Eve,” Charlie said casually. “What’s a robot like who creates a human girl, wants to see her with long hair but keeps it short, feeds her primate nutrient VII when the whole world is preparing to feed a human population they expect to blossom in the next few decades, teaches her about everything in the world except what might hint that she’s not the first of her kind?”

  Charlie7 knew he’d let himself get carried away. His voice had risen steadily throughout the tirade. In any pre-extinction courtroom, they’d have thrown that question out for leading the witness.

  Or badgering her.

  “Until today, Creator was all I knew. She’s not bad.” With that, Eve ran from the room, crying.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Wolves. That malfunctioning simpleton had the temerity to hunt wolves while Eve14 was missing.

  Evelyn38 stalked in her office, knowing there was nothing practical she could do until James187 came to his senses. The hunter was useful in his own fashion but in need of a good reboot. Or reprogramming. Evelyn38 could have been satisfied with either, so long as it sorted out his priorities.

  Her stone-walled underground facility had become a dungeon. Venturing out to find Eve14 herself would have been tantamount to admitting her guilt if anyone were to notice her. Between corroded joints and servo encoders that slipped, she had no business out in the wilderness.

  “What are you doing out here, Evelyn?” they’d ask.

  “Do you need any help?” they’d pester.

  If Evelyn38 were lucky, the first Samaritan that stumbled across her would refer her to James187 for tracking help. But more likely she’d get a friendly referral to Charlie25 for a chassis upgrade and brain transfer.

  Evelyn38 shuddered. She liked her crystalline matrix right where it was. A new one was last on her wish list.

  Pausing her pacing, Evelyn38 sought to calm her looping worry subroutines at a shelf lined with human skulls.

  Her babies.

  Evelyn38 picked up the skull of Eve2 and pictured the face of the sweet, sickly girl who had died shortly after her ninth birthday. Setting the child-sized skull back in place, she brushed her fingers across the next few until she picked up the skull of Eve9, who had been as close as Evelyn38 could remember to having a friend.

  She and Eve9 had laughed and debated. They had shared their dreams for a future humanity that had grown beyond the mistakes of pre-extinction society. But Eve9 had wanted things that weren’t possible to have, things Evelyn38 couldn’t provide. One morning Evelyn38 had arrived in the lab to find Eve9 dead; she had broken into the medical cabinet and injected herself with a lethal overdose of phenobarbital.

  That discovery had nearly convinced Evelyn38 to abandon the project. Instead, she decided that she could no longer afford to develop affections for the test subjects. Less interaction, better data, and a firm and unyielding control were what human test specimens required.

  After Eve9, the rest of the skulls bore a telltale pattern of holes. Evelyn38 had removed the deep cranial probes each of Eve10 through Eve13 had carried in life. They just didn’t look right, sitting there on the shelf, gleaming and taunting Evelyn38 with the data they failed to provide.

  Eve10 had neither spoken nor heard a word in any language. The girl’s brain had been little better than fungus.

  Eve11 had self-terminated after learning about cannibalism, of all things.

  Eve12 had failed one too many tests and would never have been suitable.

  Eve13 had been the first one to undergo full mapping but had proved unable to sustain upload. Her skull wasn’t even entirely desiccated.

  Though he had kept Evelyn38 waiting for an encrypted broadcast response, James187 arrived in person without any further contact. He set off a perimeter alarm that had failed to go off during Eve14’s escape, and Evelyn38 unlocked the surface door to allow him inside the facility.

  As she waited for him to make his way down to her office, Evelyn38 resumed her pacing. Every time she reached the end of her measured steps and turned, her eyes settled briefly on the row of skulls. The shelf was plenty long enough, but she couldn’t let herself think about the empty spot there would be if Eve14 never returned.

  James187 strode through the door as if it were his office and not Evelyn38’s.

  “What is it this time? You lose a gorilla you’re not supposed to be—?” James187 stopped short. Indeed, Evelyn38 had been sanctioned for experimental work on great apes without committee authorization. But he hadn’t been in her office for decades. She had moved well past lower primates.

  “As you can see, I have a real problem,” Evelyn38 said. “Not some silly wolf that got into someone’s hen house.”

  “Evelyn… what have you done?”

  James187 walked the periphery of the office. He stared into jars at the fetal specimens, suspended in formaldehyde. Looping displays showed healthy human brain scans. The line of skulls drew the newcomer’s attention to her trophy shelf.

  Evelyn38 noted that he ignored the dolly she’d made for Eve5 and the misshapen clay teacup that Eve9 had given her as a present. Those weren’t as glamorous, but the teacup in particular was a far greater achievement than any brain scan.

  “I’ve succeeded, James. Or at least I’m coming so close I can remember taste again. At least, it was within my reach yesterday. Today, it seems someone’s broken in and stolen my most promising specimen.”

  “Wait… you had a human… and you lost it?”

  James187 towered over her. His was a chassis meant for outdoor work. It wasn’t a trendy model, cumbersome for the delicate scientific work most robots preferred. But without conscious effort, Evelyn38 ran simulations showing just how quickly James187 could overpower her own feeble chassis. James187 could snap her in two and stomp her brain to shards.

  “I didn’t lose Eve14; someone stole her. Smart as that girl may be, she couldn’t have made it out of here on her own, not without leaving a trace. You set off alarms the moment you arrived. Her lab didn’t even have direct access to the facility’s primary systems.”

  James187 shook his head. “I can’t be a part of this. The gorilla was bad enough.”

  “And I got sanctioned for it. Set me back years, waiting for my ban to expire.”

  “Seems like you didn’t learn.”

  Size difference or no, Evelyn38 marched up and jammed a finger against James187’s chest. “I damn well did. I learned to cover my tracks. I learned better security. And I think I’ve learned how to put a digital brain back into a human body.”

  “Wait… what?”

  She had James187’s attention now.

  “I’m on the verge, James. Once I stand in front of the Ethics Committee general assembly in a human body, they won’t have any choice but to approve the procedure. I’ll be lauded as the mother of mankind’s second age. And you… well, you’ll be first in line for the body of your choice. Of course, if someone blackmails me, reverse engineers my research, or exposes me to the ethics busybodies, that’s all down the incinerator chute. Which is why I need you to FIND EVE14!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Eve had fallen asleep in Charlie7’s chair in the media room. For once, it felt as if it hadn’t been a pointless indulgence to pad the seat like the old den he remembered from his living days.

  Now a poor, overwrought human slumbered comatose, head pillowed on the armrest. Charlie7 had his cloth-o-matic whip her up a quick blanket. It was oddly satisfying when old junk he rarely used came in handy.

  But with Eve temporarily occupied and not in imminent need of his attention, he could finally start doing some research into who her creator might be.

  Cheap theatrics and phony self-aggrandizement both grated on him. Where did this “Creator” get off naming herself that? What had she done besides make Eve?

  Charlie7 could have named himself Caesar or Saint and would have only garnered a few grumbles over it. He had earned his accolades. The others had let him retire. No other
robot dared coast through eternal life because no other robot had the resumé to prove they’d already given a hundred lifetimes’ effort on civilization’s behalf.

  He’d be damned if some amoral geneticist staked a claim to equal stature.

  His first stop was the public news feed. This was the hub of respectable life on Earth. Anything worth mentioning over a cup of coffee at Cal Tech’s faculty lounge in 2060 was now broadcast worldwide.

  There were stories about asteroid retrievals, historical reenactments, archaeological finds, wild species introductions, and robotic activations. Last month there had even been a discovery of a deep-space historical archive, one long thought lost during the invasion. Charlie7 had still been meaning to look into what the retrieval team had brought back. Hopefully, there were at least copies of some new movies or television shows that none of the other archives had contained.

  Despite the temptation to lose himself reading the daily news at the pace his human replica brain preferred, he switched the feed directly into his internal computer. A quantum gate array, operated via molecular magnetics, sifted all the data through algorithms to look for any hint about what robot might have been secretly harboring an unsanctioned human.

  Charlie7 tried to avoid marveling at his own creation, but he had distinct memories of inventing the computing technology himself. That distraction and the reminder of how his innards functioned were the primary reasons he didn’t like to lean too heavily on his own computer.

  “God, you people are dull,” Charlie7 mumbled aloud as he picked through partial matches from his search.

  It didn’t help matters that primate genetics were considered the cutting edge of legitimate science these days. All the top geneticists seemed to be working on chimpanzees or bonobos.

  Charlie7’s cross-referenced the names of robots who took shipments of primate nutrients. It matched wonderfully with the list of primate researchers. That meant that Eve’s creator was either a primate geneticist or had a supply through backdoor channels. Considering the skill set that would be needed to even attempt the creation of a human clone, Charlie7’s money was on Creator having real credentials.

  A robotic fist slammed down on the screen of his terminal. Cracks spider-webbed the surface.

  “Stupid old films. They always made this part look so easy.”

  It was one thing watching a montage of investigators poring over a computer screen, then a cut-away to a scene with a solution. Charlie7 was just scratching at a mountainside with his bare fingers, trying to tunnel his way through.

  He couldn’t very well accuse every primatologist on Earth. Not only would he make a jackass of himself and ruin friendships along the way, but he would also be exposing his investigation, possibly allowing Creator to prepare means of diverting Charlie7’s attention.

  Tabling the idea of tracing Eve’s food supply, Charlie considered the studs. They had the microscopic structure that suggested they came out of a residential-grade protofab. That meant that Creator had crafted them herself, possibly in the very lab where Eve had lived.

  There was no way to trace the supply chain of homemade parts, and virtually every robot kept a protofab on hand. Most robot components needed real, dedicated manufacturing facilities, but the home-sized protofabs got the job done for small tools and temporary replacements.

  …and apparently the occasional brain probe.

  While tracking the studs’ origin was an impossible task, deducing their purpose was actually a task for which Charlie7 was eminently qualified.

  He had originated the brain-scanning protocols back when his own colleagues were the test subjects. Dr. Charles Truman’s probes had been non-invasive, a forest of probes applied externally to the skull.

  Charles Truman never pretended to understand the mechanism of human consciousness. The technology relied on the premise that mimicry would be enough to transfer a human mind to a robotic surrogate.

  Dr. Truman had been right, of course, but Charlie7 couldn’t deny that a deeper, invasive probe would have given him a better set of data to analyze. In time, Dr. Truman might have mapped out particular skills, memories, and personality traits in excruciating detail. It wouldn’t have made a better copy—he could already clone minds just fine—but he might have been able to craft mixed personalities with far more control.

  There was merit to the research. That much was just an uncomfortable truth.

  It would be far too late to try to apply any of that to the existing population of scientist personalities. The Twenty-Seven had been a constant of society since the beginning.

  Randomizing algorithms produced results that could only be predicted in general terms. Mix a Paul with a John, and you’d likely get someone who wanted to restore religious buildings—just as had been the case with Paul208. Mix a Sandra with a Jennifer, and you’d get a hidebound bureaucrat with the moral fiber of a Knight Templar.

  But the specifics of the mixing process were often surprising and completely unpredictable. Paul208 loved Humphrey Bogart movies and the sound of rain on a metal roof. Sandra101 was vulnerable to flattery from any Toby who mentioned her looks. It was possible that Creator wanted to harness the exact mind of Eve to create a new personality archetype with predictable encoding.

  Charlie7 wished he could let himself believe that. The cynic in him said that Creator’s careful curation of Eve’s curriculum had a far more sinister motive.

  The girl’s education seemed extensive on any subject that wouldn’t lead to her realizing there were other humans before her. That was a means of control. That was the action of someone who wanted her test subject compliant, awestruck, and never hopeful of anything beyond the walls of her lab. No one developed claustrophobia if she’d never seen an open space in her life. Nobody got cabin fever when she believed the cabin was the whole of the universe.

  These were the problems Charlie7 mulled over until Eve stirred in the other room. She’d slept over ten hours. The poor thing must have been stretched to her breaking point.

  Charlie7 closed down his data connection and made breakfast before she fully woke.

  Eve came into Charlie7’s workshop kitchen bleary-eyed and working her tongue around the inside of her mouth. Charlie7 remembered that gummy feeling of just waking up from oversleeping. Strange how the most innocuous actions provoked such strong memories.

  “Sleep well?”

  Eve rubbed at her neck. “Poor cervical support. Insufficient dorsal support. Temperature was outside ideal range.”

  Charlie7 set a plate of scrambled eggs and a cup of water in front of her. Even to him, it looked paltry. “Sorry. We’ll get this situation worked out. Everyone’s new at this.”

  Eve eyed him. Both of them knew there was a small community who wasn’t new at caring for humans, but neither of them brought up the Scrapyard.

  “I don’t have the proper equipment for my exercise regimen.” Eve picked up a fork and started eating.

  At the first bite, Eve revisited the puzzled frown from her adventure with porridge. But without complaint, she resumed a regular trip from plate to mouth with the fork.

  “Consider today a recovery day. You had quite an adventure yesterday. I think you should spend today getting to know your surroundings and learning anything that strikes your fancy.”

  “How will I know when something strikes my fancy?” Eve asked between bites.

  “That’s a colloquial term for when you feel like it. If you get curious about anything, go ahead and look it up. I trust you’re a smart enough girl to be careful of things you don’t understand. I should only be gone about half the day.”

  The fork clattered to the workbench that served as Eve’s table. “Gone?”

  “Yes, I have matters to attend to that are best carried out in person. I’m something of a public figure—at least after a fashion. I can’t just disappear into my cavern or people will worry and come checking up on me. I’ve made you a reference sheet for the foods; most of them are edible as is without furthe
r preparation. If anyone does stop by unannounced, hide in the room with the generator. The ambient noise will mask your metabolic rumblings and bellowing.”

  Eve followed Charlie7 toward the elevator that led to the surface. “What are my assignments?”

  Charlie put a hand on her shoulder. “Your only assignment is to decide what you’d like to do today.”

  In all the mathematics and logical puzzles, the essence of human experience had been lost in that girl. When he had the spare time, he’d expose her to the cultural richness of her ancestors. As he left the perplexed young human on the far side of the elevator door, he promised to do just that once he got back.

  But while Charlie7’s crystalline synapses were still sizzling, he was going to find out who had held Eve prisoner since birth.

  Chapter Twenty

  Charlie’s domicile was quiet once the elevator’s hum receded.

  Eve imagined that she could hear her own heartbeat, even though she knew it was below the threshold of her auditory senses.

  For a while she simply wandered from room to room, touching, examining, opening, and activating things as she found them. When she discovered the protofab, she realized she wanted to go through her exercise regimen.

  While the majority of her daily workout routine didn’t require any specialized equipment, it wasn’t the sort of thing that was meant to be broken to bits and pieces. Creator had carefully crafted her regimen to optimize strength, cardiovascular, and joint health exercises into an ideal routine.

  Eve could have mimicked the treadmill’s function by going up to the surface and running through the fields of Paris. But Charlie had warned her about being found. The surface seemed far more likely a place to be discovered than cached away underground. For now, she set aside that one exercise and focused on the rest.