by J. S. Morin
“Paul, Charlie7 here. Just stopping by to see how things are going. Got time for a tour, or should I just show myself around?”
Eve frowned. “That’s not why you’re going there at all.”
“You’re going to have to learn polite conversation. It’s not meant to be literal truth. Think of it as a social ritual. You see, Paul208 knows me. He’s a new robot in relative terms, but he’s built a reputation—and rebuilt every damn thing he can think of—and he’s gotten to know mine. While I’m genuinely curious about this restoration of his, he’ll know that I’ve got something more important to talk about as well.”
“How would he know that?”
“Inference. Observation. Extrapolation from prior interaction.”
A spark snapped Eve’s eyes wide. “I know extrapolation! But wait; if you don’t know the correct polynomial approximation, extrapolation introduces the risk of propagating error.”
“Yeah. That about sums up interpersonal relationships. A writhing nest of mysterious equations whose exact nature is unknowable and whose behavior is influenced by unobservable factors.”
The girl sat back in her safety harness, no longer straining against the straps for a better view. “But how? How can you continue solving equations that keep shifting?”
“First, you stop thinking of them as equations and just act however feels natural to you. You’ll need practice, but don’t worry; I’m not easily offended.”
A reply came back from Paul208.
I TRIED TO IMAGINE WHAT YOU’RE DOING HERE BUT CAME UP DRY. PARK YOURSELF BY THE WEST SIDE OF THE PEDESTAL AND I’LL COME MEET YOU.
Charlie7 patched in the response through the skyroamer’s dashboard display so Eve could read it.
“So… he doesn’t know what you want,” Eve said as though the furrow of her brow weighed down the words as she spoke them. “But he knew it wasn’t just a tour?”
“About sums it up.”
“Despite you saying explicitly that it was…”
“Yup.”
Charlie7 needed to distract Eve before she blew a fuse in her brain. Pointing out the side window as they circled the island, he drew Eve’s attention to the construction in progress. While the east-facing portion was nearly complete, the western half was mostly exposed scaffolding.
“It’s hollow!” Eve exclaimed. She quickly unbuckled from her harness and knelt in the passenger seat, twisting around to view the structure as Charlie7’s skyroamer shot past.
Swinging the nose of their skyroamer around, Charlie7 brought them down onto the irregular star-shaped building that had survived the invasion mostly intact.
The engines were still winding down as Paul208 strode over to them with a spring in his step. Charlie7 met the builder before he came close enough to take note of Eve peeking out from the cockpit.
“Paul, you philistine,” Charlie7 said with a smile. “What are you doing on this barren patch of rock?”
“I’m an architect, not a gardener,” Paul208 replied, shaking Charlie7’s hand. “What really brings you out to my latest masterpiece? What’s wrong at Notre Dame?”
“I’ve got a Toby that owes me a million favors. I can get him out here to brighten this place up for you. Just a few strings to pull, some committees to charm, and—”
“C’mon, Charlie. Out with it. What’re you selling this time?”
Charlie7 took the lead, and Paul208 fell into step beside him as he headed for the statue. “How’s that old poem go? Lend me your tired and weary… something like that.”
“‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,’” Paul208 recited. He hooked a thumb toward the far side of the statue. “I’ve got the replica installed already. See that plaque a hundred times a day if I see it once.”
“You believe a word of it?” Charlie7 asked cautiously.
“What’s there to believe? It was the motto of a bygone age. I didn’t write the thing.”
“So, if it were up to you, you’d have turned your back on the migrants?” Charlie7 asked. Paul208 stopped, and Charlie7 turned to face him as he continued, backpedaling in the direction of the statue with arms spread.
“Where’s this going, Charlie? I’ve got support beams to install.”
“It’s your own schedule you’re keeping. Most of the committees think this whole business of yours is amusing, but they’re not buying it as valuable. They’d rather you were off on Mars building atmospheric converters. But you’re amusing, and John316 owes you a favor, so they let you keep rebuilding old monuments. Who knows, maybe someone will find a use for this one.”
“Someone… like Charlie7, everyone’s best friend.”
Charlie7 held up his hands in a helpless shrug. “What can I say? I speak a language the committees listen to. And I could use this place for a few days if you don’t mind. Just the pedestal would suffice; wouldn’t dream of slowing down your work.”
Paul208 looked up into the yawning hollow of the statue’s back half. “I don’t get you sometimes, Charlie.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
Charlie7 crooked a finger and beckoned toward the skyroamer. There was no response. He then waved his hand in broad, sweeping strokes, summoning Eve from her hiding spot. When that failed to produce a result, he patched himself remotely into the skyroamer’s internal speakers and projected his voice softly inside. “Come on out, Eve. It’ll be fine.”
That was enough to coax the wary human from the flimsy cover offered by Charlie7’s vehicle. Eve popped the cockpit canopy and stepped down, bundled in Toby22’s borrowed jacket with the sleeves rolled up. Beneath, the white garments from the Sanctuary for Scientific Sins stood out in stark contrast like an angel dressed up to work in the gardens.
“Jesus, Charlie. You starting your own Scrapyard now? Not sure I like being party to this.”
Charlie7 ignored the jab. “Eve, I want you to meet the man who rebuilt Notre Dame Cathedral, that big building where we first met. His name is Paul208.”
Eve crept up behind Charlie7 and peered out from around him. “Hello.”
“This one talks a little,” Paul208 remarked.
Reaching back, Charlie7 put a hand on Eve’s shoulder to reassure her. The girl trembled despite the light breeze and the 20°C temperature. “She’s just a little shy. She talks plenty. Actually, I’d wager she’s smarter than you are.”
Paul208 grunted and turned back toward his work site. “Don’t need you being a prick about it, Charlie. We’re not all project leads.”
Charlie7 winced.
The comment wasn’t meant as mean-spirited, but the Fred in him probably made him a bit hypersensitive about his intellect. Poor Frederick Zimmerman let it slip one day at the old lab in Cambridge that he only had a 110 IQ. Everything Fred had in life, he’d gotten by working twice as hard, but that one little tidbit he’d never lived down. After that, he couldn’t win an argument without someone poisoning the result by implying that there had to be a flaw that they just hadn’t found yet because no one was as stupid as Fred.
Charles Truman had never been a big believer in IQ, but he’d suffered the same bias as everyone else. He knew his own number, of course. It was hard not to get tested when you had an IQ of 190. And it was hard not to cast a narrow glance at complex scientific results from a mind so mired in the meaty middle of the intellectual bell curve.
He needed an act of goodwill. Charlie7 wasn’t disparaging Fred’s intellect; he was making the case that Eve wasn’t developmentally stunted. “Eve, what’s the cube root of 71,235?”
There was no delay. Charlie7 might as well have been hitting Enter on the command line of a terminal. “41.4538…”
“That’s good enough,” Charlie7 said. Her recitation had been long enough for Paul208 to run the calculation through his own internal computer.
Paul208 stopped and stared at the girl. Charlie7 could see the subtle actuation of his optic sensors, z
ooming in for a closer look without closing the distance physically. “What’s her deal? Those electrical terminals coming out of her head… those part of some cybernetic core buried inside or something? I can never tell with the gene freaks these days.”
“They’re only for monitoring her,” Charlie7 said. “She’s a live, healthy, intelligent young human.”
Paul crossed his arms in a drill sergeant’s stance, indicating this conversation wasn’t settled yet. “And what’s it got to do with me?”
“Well, Eve’s creator is still unknown. She kept her identity concealed from Eve—possibly in case of the very eventuality where she escaped. I need time to hunt her down and get a committee to close her lab. Until then, Eve isn’t safe. I needed someone who wasn’t desperate to be human again.”
“What?” Paul208 asked. His optical sensors darkened from amber to a menacing crimson. “You think just because I keep busy I wouldn’t want to go back? Charlie, I remember what a cheeseburger tastes like. I remember the smell of the ocean. Just because I’m only eighty-three doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten sick to death of drifting along in sensory purgatory.”
It had occurred to Charlie7 that a new human age would demand specialists: pediatricians, dermatologists, psychiatrists. The latter had never struck him as particularly important to the robotic population. After all, the stunning majority of psychiatric cases involved chemical imbalances that crystal matrices simply didn’t suffer. But for those remaining maladies, perhaps there was some benefit after all. Paul208 had never exhibited mania before, but Charlie7 could see the frayed wires poking through that usually calm exterior.
“Paul, come off it. She’s a girl in trouble. I think her creator is trying to upload to human brains. She’s Eve14 for God’s sake. You think her creator started counting in the double digits? There’s probably a mass grave under some primate lab in Eastern Europe filled with identical bodies to hers.”
Eve shrank back behind Charlie7 at the mention of bodies.
Paul208 raised a pedantic finger. “They’d have probably incinerated the…” He hung his head. Charlie7 had gotten him to accept the premise of his argument.
Like Charlie7, Paul208 was likely now stuck with the image of a pile of glassy-eyed Eves staring up from some forsaken pit. Charlie7 knew he could be a bastard at times, but this wasn’t a time for handling a robot’s feelings with microfiber gloves.
“What is it you need?”
“A place to stay,” Charlie7 said quickly before Paul208 could change his mind. “Maybe for a few days, maybe a few weeks. I can’t say since it’ll depend on how well Eve’s creator has covered her tracks. While I go wading hip-deep in the planetary archives for clues, think you can show Eve around?”
Paul208 looked left and right. “Babysitting, Charlie? I’ve got a schedule to keep.”
“And you only keep it out of boredom. I can promise you; Eve is more interested in this statue than anyone you’ve ever spoken to about it. Plus, because of her, this thing might actually have a meaning of its own, rather than just borrowing on an old legacy.”
“Fine. Does the kid come when you call her?”
Eve had wandered off and was running her hands along the stone surface of the statue’s base and pressing her cheek against it. Charlie7 idly wondered what it must feel like.
“Eve,” Charlie7 called out, waving a hand. “Paul here is going to show you around and answer all your questions. OK?” He lowered his voice and addressed the robot. “I’d keep a close eye on her.”
“Why? She get into trouble?” Paul208 asked with a wary glance at Eve from his peripheral vision. The girl was studying the sweeping lines of the copper statue as she approached, not looking where she was going.
“No. She might decide she wants your job.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The waters of the Colorado River sent shockwaves of cold coursing through Plato’s veins. After the initial jolt, the leeching of his body’s excess heat was invigorating. The river swept away fatigue and grime alike. His mind snapped into focus as he dunked his head and came up gasping for air. A waterfall streamed from his hair.
It would have been a nice gesture for Toby22 to offer him a place to stay for a while, even just long enough to get cleaned up and rested. But Toby couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. It was as if coming out in the agri-hauler had been a momentary lapse that the robot regretted.
Plato had collapsed into exhausted slumber only to wake at the sound of the autopilot alarm. He hadn’t remembered the trip or even where Toby22 had decided to send him. But at least the ornery robot had packed him a lunch, even if it was food meant for English bears.
With a sigh, Plato shoved the last bite of a strip of jerky into his mouth.
It was a short walk from the water’s edge back to Betty-Lou. He began collecting his discarded clothes along the way. None of the garments were clean, and they had a gritty, dried sweat crinkle. He swished them in the river water to rinse off the worst of the gunk.
Red rock walls towered around Plato in all directions, providing privacy in every sense of the word. Terrestrial lookout scanners wouldn’t find him, and aerial observation was nowhere to be seen. The comm piece hooked over his ear would pick up any warnings transmitted from the skyroamer if she detected any signs of overhead activity. In a world of technophiles, it paid to be paranoid. Luckily for Plato, most of them were more concerned about being observed than doing any snooping of their own.
Eve. This had all been for her sake as much as his own.
Toby22 had been a wet fizzle of an ally. Plato didn’t even ask him to look in on Eve’s well-being. She was smart, even if she was new at this whole “being free” thing. Better off alone than with that waffling gamekeeper.
Plato needed to get back to her. Eve was someone to talk to, someone with feelings and senses like his own. In time, she’d understand how the world worked, but for now, she needed him, too.
Ducking under the open cockpit canopy, he leaned in and fired off a message to his hideout.
“Hey, Eve. You there? Come in. This is Plato.”
The encryption was his own work, a masterpiece of simplicity in a world predicated on the outlandishly complicated. It encoded his message into the noise of a transmission while broadcasting a signal that consisted of mundane blather about current events pulled real-time from the Social. Anyone eavesdropping would get bored silly before thinking to look beyond the obvious.
“Eve, go to the terminal on the wall by the kitchen. You can open the transmitter from there.”
Part of him wished he had taught Spartacus how to operate the transmitter. Since Eve wasn’t answering, walking the bird through it was worth a try.
“Spartacus? Nice birdie. Hey, buddy. Think you can tap some buttons with your beak and tell me what’s going on?”
There was still no response.
“Eve? Spartacus? Is anyone there?”
Something had happened. Maybe the crazy robot had circled back. Maybe Toby22 had sold him out. Maybe Eve had tried to cook. Either way, something was wrong.
“Eve, are you all right? Please answer.”
Plato wrung the water from his hair and waved his shirt and pants like flags in the wind. There was no time to let them finish drying. He pulled them on and cringed at the wet clinginess. Tossing his shoes inside at the foot of the passenger seat, he climbed into the cockpit and blasted the air circulator. As the engines powered up, he dried his hands in front of the vents.
“Eve? I don’t know what’s going on there, or if you can hear me. But I promise you, I’ll come find you. No matter what. You hear me? No matter what.”
As Betty-Lou rose from the bottom of the Grand Canyon, Plato wiped a hand across his eyes and it came away wet.
Chapter Forty
Eve dangled by one hand over a forty-meter drop. One foot rested lightly against the scaffolding to steady her as she stared straight down the open interior of the copper colossus. The lattice of braces and struts spirale
d down into the building set beneath the statue. She followed the mathematical progression of shapes and angles, imagining the equations that governed their placement.
“What are you doing?” Paul208 shouted from behind her. “Get away from there!”
Eve caught a glimpse of a hand outstretched toward her. Robotic fingers spread wide. She knew the force that fingers like that could exert. Unyielding, unforgiving, and inescapable, Eve would be at their mercy if caught.
With a twitch of leg muscles, Eve let go and hopped across the open void. Paul208 let out an inarticulate cry as she flew.
Eve’s hands closed around a smooth round bar. Her outstretched toes cushioned her impact against the far catwalk, and she bent her knees to absorb the forward momentum. One quick duck and a dip of her shoulder and she was through the guardrails and on solid footing once more.
“Don’t do that, kid,” Paul208 said. “You’ll get yourself killed.” He took the long way around toward her newfound position, and Eve prepared herself to make the jump back across. One hand tightened against the railing in anticipation.
“Why would I get killed?” Eve asked. “The structure appears stable.”
“You could slip, or miss, or hell, just about anything could go wrong.”
Paul208 caught up to her but stopped short and didn’t reach to grab her. Eve relaxed but kept an eye on his shoulder actuators. If they tensed for another try at capturing her, Eve was ready to bolt.
Charlie trusted this robot, but Eve didn’t like him. He knew all manner of interesting things, but he didn’t seem to want to talk to her. He spoke to Charlie as if Eve wasn’t listening. The two of them had discussed her in some detail.
In the end, Charlie had asked Eve to keep an eye on Paul208 while he looked for more clues about Creator. Charlie already knew so much; Eve wondered how much more he needed.