Extinction Reversed (Robot Geneticists Book 1)

by J. S. Morin

  Eve had been able to point out Creator’s chassis from an extensive list Charlie had shown her. She had drawn diagrams of the lab and the equipment there. Charlie knew more than he told Eve, of course. She inferred that by the information he shared with Paul208 and Toby when they thought Eve couldn’t hear.

  On the subject of what Eve was watching for, Charlie had been vague. Paul208 was primarily interested in the statue. The architect robot showed off schematics of the statue and directed brainless robots to build the statue. His voice grew quicker, his insights more substantive when showing Eve old images of the original statue. Maybe if Eve asked more about the statue, she would discover what Charlie wanted her watching.

  “Why did they build the original?” Eve asked. “It seems like an inefficient greeting method. Wouldn’t an automated message personalized to each traveler have made them feel more greeted?”

  It was a well-constructed question, designed to elicit a detailed response. Eve had asked about Paul208’s favorite topic: the building of the statue. She had referenced the historical context, which seemed to be a broad subject. Offering a criticism challenged Paul208 to defend the statue’s purpose, which called for a verbal essay in its defense.

  “Well, you see… back when The Statue of Liberty was first constructed…” As Paul208 embarked on an exposition, Eve continued to climb up the statue’s interior.

  All current construction work was focused on the lower levels of the western side. Perspective and distance combined to make the two-meter-tall automatons appear tiny from so far above, like the ants in the fields of Paris by Charlie’s house.

  By keeping him talking, Eve didn’t need to maintain visual contact with Paul208 to know he was following her up the scaffolding.

  Near the top, Eve had a choice. There was some sort of observation deck in the statue’s forehead, just beneath the spiked crown. But a climb across the statue’s outstretched arm promised an unobstructed view in all directions. The hand held a flame frozen in shining copper, and all around it a walkway with a railing.

  The story of the statue’s origins, back in the fuzzy time before computers, ceased abruptly. “Don’t go that way!” Paul208 shouted.

  Eve was crawling on her hands and knees and twisted around to look back. “Why not? There’s a guardrail and everything. Doesn’t that mean it’s meant for standing?”

  “There’s a tunnel through the arm’s interior.”

  Eve paused a moment to consider. The late morning sun beat down from high overhead. The glare from the copper hurt her eyes, and the arm’s surface grew uncomfortably warm beneath her palms.

  For so much of the day, Eve had lurked in the shadows of the statue’s hollow innards. An onshore wind cut through the cotton material of her shirt and pants. The warmth entering through Eve’s hands was sucked out through her skin, invigorating her. This must have been what clothes felt like coming through the wash. Clean. Refreshed. Ready for anything.

  “I’ll take this way,” Eve shouted her reply over the wind.

  The statue swayed with each gust. Eve found judging its displacement difficult, but she estimated it was at least fifteen centimeters each way. By spreading her weight and keeping low, she never overbalanced. In short order, she came close enough to jump and pull herself up to the platform surrounding the torch.

  Paul208 was waiting for her, crouched low by the spot she approached. Eve kept a wary eye on him. While he loomed close, the builder of statues didn’t make any attempt to touch her.

  “Are you happy?” Paul208 asked, standing in unison with Eve and crossing his arms.

  Eve gave that matter scant thought. “Yes,” she replied.

  Leaning over the railing, Eve tightened the muscles in her stomach to support her weight, and she peered straight down. “What are those robots below us making?”

  “A safety net,” James208 replied, rushing over to stand beside her. “I had them start weaving one out of carbon monofilament cable after your little jumping stunt. If you go off the edge from up here, they have 4.3 seconds to position it beneath you before impact.”

  “Shouldn’t those robots be building the statue instead of making a net?”

  “Yes,” Paul208 replied with a steel growl in his tone. “But they’re not, thanks to you.”

  “I didn’t ask them to make nets. You did. Transference of blame is an unfair rhetorical tactic.”

  Creator had been particularly peeved by Eve’s attempts to circumvent responsibility for things tangentially set in motion by Creator herself. At a basic level, Creator was responsible for all Eve’s actions since the very fact of her creation set about all Eve’s subsequent actions.

  “Can you just finish up gawking so we can get you back to ground level? Charlie7 asked me to give you a tour, not spend the whole day protecting you from your own daredevil streak.”

  Eve heard the complaint, but she didn’t care. She was soaking in new experiences at a saturation rate, and it felt wonderful.

  The bright, shining world stretched out around her in all directions. To one side, the vast ocean and its nigh-limitless depths. To the other, a woodland thicker and taller than Plato’s home. That was when she realized she didn’t even know what to call it.

  “Toby’s house was in England. Charlie lives in Paris. I got to see Kansas and Easter Island. We’re on Liberty Island now. What’s the name of that forest over there?”

  She pointed across the harbor where snaking rivers cut inland into a pristine arboreal landscape that stretched farther than she could see. A few buildings of stone and steel poked through the treetops, but otherwise, there was no sign that robots lived or worked there.

  Paul208 grunted. “You’d never know it from the archives, but that’s New York City.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Plato worked out the kinks in his back as he hobbled his way from Betty-Lou to the entrance of his lair. He’d overridden a few of the safety protocols he’d installed and now he was paying the price. A robotic chassis could have withstood short bursts of one hundred g-forces; that’s what the skyroamers were designed for. Plato’s human body couldn’t take five for long, and he’d pushed that limit further than he should have.

  His safety didn’t matter if it delayed him getting to Eve in time.

  Punching in the remote code to unlock the door, Plato shifted from one foot to the other as the hydraulics slowly lifted the false section of hillside. Before it was halfway up, Plato dropped down and rolled through the opening, springing to his feet as soon as he was clear.

  “Eve?” Plato shouted. “Where are you?”

  She wasn’t in the entryway or the kitchen. Plato ducked into the media room. Empty. Quiet. He checked the shower and toilet. She wasn’t there. Plato checked the bedroom, the closet, even the refrigerator.

  Nothing. Zip. Nada.

  Plato began to hyperventilate, fearing the worst. He didn’t know what to do.

  Forcing a deep breath, Plato slowed his thoughts until they stopped racing circles in his head.

  Defense wasn’t his style of play, but offense wasn’t going to find Eve. Plato needed guideposts. This wasn’t his everyday break-in at some robot’s secret lab. Someone had violated his home. The safety and security it once promised were soiled by greasy steel fingers.

  This wasn’t First Blood or Goldfinger. Those were movies Plato could relate to. No, he needed Sherlock Holmes or Batman. Or maybe he just needed to look around and figure out what he could. His way.

  Plato checked the false panel in the media room floor. His weapons cache was intact. Either Eve hadn’t found them, or she’d left them alone. Nothing had been so much as jostled. When he checked the pantry, he found his first real clue.

  The apples were missing. Good. Eve would have food to eat. But plenty of other foods were left behind.

  What did it all mean?

  If someone had decrypted the lock and sneaked into Plato’s lair, they could have dragged Eve off kicking and screaming. But there was no eviden
ce of a struggle.

  Those pesky sedative darts might have gotten her. That could have given the crazy robotic bounty hunter who’d trailed Plato the time to not only carry off a comatose Eve but also to clean up after himself.

  But why the apples? Sure, anyone with a lick of sense would realize Eve needed food, but the apples were neither the most convenient option nor the most nutritious. Plus, if she were out cold, she wouldn’t be eating anything for a while. If that robot were working with Evelyn38, they’d have specialized foods ready and waiting for her back at her lab.

  Plato shook his head. The missing apples should have told him everything. If he were a detective, he could have used that single clue to deduce an exact destination for Eve’s kidnapper.

  More and more, he imagined she’d gone along willingly. But who would Eve follow besides him?

  His blood turned to liquid coolant as he realized. It was either Toby22 or Charlie7. Those were the only other robots she’d met, aside from a little jaunt to the Sanctuary for Scientific Sins. And those kindly souls wouldn’t have taken Eve without even letting Plato know. They owed him that much.

  If it had been Toby22, sending Plato off to the Grand Canyon to rest and hide out until things cooled down made even more sense. But sense was the problem—Toby22 had too much of it.

  That robotic groundskeeper knew the price of harming a human, and kidnapping Eve was liable to run him afoul of the Platonic Code of Justice. Rule number one of that code was, “You hurt a human, I hurt you.” Since robots technically didn’t feel pain, Plato settled on wiping their brains back to factory default. Toby22 wasn’t suicidal, and taking on Plato would have been suicide.

  “So, another Charlie wants to push me,” Plato muttered. He stalked over to his cache of weapons and rearmed himself. Flying solo, he could fit most of it into the passenger seat of the skyroamer.

  “Time to find out that messing with nature has consequences.” He tucked a thermite pistol into the back of his belt and slung a bandolier of EMP grenades over his shoulder. “Charlie7, I will be delivering your consequences personally.”

  A flapping of wings alerted him to the arrival of Spartacus. He had no idea where the bird had been hiding. Given the tight space in the lair, it was amazing that anything could escape his notice inside.

  “Can I trust you with a message?” the bird asked, punctuated by a squawk.

  “What are you babbling about?” Plato asked, brushing the bird off his shoulder as he continued to arm himself for a showdown with the infamous Charlie7.

  The parrot landed on the edge of the discarded panel that usually covered the weapons cache. “Charlie and Eve. Eve and Charlie. Don’t talk to anyone until Plato gets back.”

  “I am Plato, you pigeon-brain. Did they give you a message?”

  Spartacus bobbed his head. “Tell Plato. Who you gonna call? Skip the marshmallows.”

  Plato blinked. “What are you talking about?” He shook his head. “I don’t have time for riddles.” He picked up a pair of broad-frequency jammers and a half dozen decoy projectors and stuffed them into a sack.

  The parrot squawked. “What kind of message can we leave that only Plato will guess?” Then Spartacus flapped around the room and landed next to the remote for the display screen.

  Setting down the sack, Plato crawled over the wolf-hide cushion and retrieved the remote. Rubbing one hand over the rough stubble on his chin, he flicked on the screen and ran through his list of movies.

  “Who you gonna call, huh?” he muttered.

  There was only one answer to the question when worded that way. Plato selected Ghostbusters. He had watched it. It was OK. Fun. Silly. He bet those proton packs would have fried the circuits of any robot caught on the wrong end of one.

  Then he remembered the second half of the message.

  The movie ended with a giant marshmallow creature coming to life. He hit “down” once and changed the selection to Ghostbusters II. The clue he needed was buried somewhere within that one.

  Without so much as closing the open pit in the middle of the room, Plato started playback and stood there watching.

  Too slow. Plato upped the speed to 2X.

  Still too slow; the movie was nearly two hours runtime. 4X.

  He could still make out the dialogue. 8X.

  He was still catching bits and pieces, filling in the gaps from his memory of the one time he’d watched it. He developed a theory that they might be in Carpathia or possibly the Manhattan Museum of Art. Then, as the rapid-fire comedy and frenetic flashes of scene after scene flew by, he paused.

  The Statue of Liberty. If there was a message to be had from this movie, pointing to a single location, this was it. Presumably, Eve had meant for him to figure this out from the movie selection.

  No. Eve was still too unversed in cinema to come up with a clue so obscure. It had to be Charlie7. That rusty old chassis must have seen every movie ever made a hundred times.

  There was a high-pitched whine as the power electronics on the EMP rifle came online. “Well, Charlie7. I’ll give you one shot to explain yourself. The clue bought you that much. But if I don’t like your answer…” He took aim at Spartacus with the rifle, and the bird squawked and flapped away. The parrot couldn’t understand that the weapon was harmless to living creatures.

  Gathering up the last of his gear, Plato headed for the door. “I’ll give you the option, buddy. You can come along, or you can stay in the woods. I don’t know how long I might be gone, or if I’ll make it back, but—”

  “Outside,” Spartacus replied on his way by. He alighted on a nearby branch. “Heard it before. Gonna be gone. Gonna be gone. Spartacus, you can’t even watch movies. Spartacus wants dinner.”

  Plato smirked at the bird as he tossed his gear into the back of Betty-Lou. Then his flash of good humor faded into a grim mask of menace.

  Spartacus would be all right, same as Eve. Plato would see to that. It was Charlie7 whose fate was up in the air.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  James187 watched the skyroamer rise from among the dwarf pine and oaks of Sherwood Forest. The craft banked and jetted off to the west in a trail of ions.

  The robotic hunter grinned. “Enjoy the blood rushing toward your spine,” he shouted after the skyroamer broke the sound barrier. That human brute was pushing the limits of his biology, accelerating like that.

  Backtracking to his own skyroamer, James187 hopped into the cockpit and fired up the engines. He was in no rush. The tracking device he’d planted on the human’s ride was inert, nearly impossible to notice prior to activation. Once it began its broadcast, James187 knew there would be no trouble closing ground on his quarry.

  Since the days of wooly mammoths, humans had hunted without the benefit of being as strong, as fast, or as hardy as their prey. Cave men had been smarter than the animals they preyed upon. Now that the tables had turned, James187 held every advantage. He was smarter, stronger, and possessed resources this human could scarcely imagine.

  JAMES, WHAT ARE YOU DAWDLING AT?

  Up until that message blared error-code red across his consciousness, James187 had been feeling superior. Even in text, he could hear that crazy hag’s shrill voice. No apex predator should put up with being nagged.

  I’M SITTING HERE WATCHING EVE16 GO THROUGH HER GYMNASTICS, AND THIS GIRL SIMPLY ISN’T READY. BUT COME TOMORROW I’M UPLOADING TO HER ANYWAY. I HAVEN’T ANY CHOICE. YOUR PERSISTENT FAILURE TO BRING IN EVE14 LEAVES NO OTHER OPTIONS WHATSOEVER.

  “Evelyn, so help me… if you don’t shut up and let me do my job you can find another robot to gather up your wayward test subjects.”

  The skyroamer’s antenna didn’t pick up another peep from Evelyn38 as James187 lifted off and set a course west. Soon enough, the tracker would activate and lead him right to where Eve14 was hiding.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Secreted away in the bowels of Liberty Island, Charlie7 found himself a chamber with thick granite walls and industrial-grade data access
to the Earthwide archive. The paltry glow of portable construction lamps gave the bunker a Phantom of the Opera ambiance. This was work suited to the shadows. Fake identities. Covering tracks. The greatest fear was discovery.

  Charlie7 had those in common with Creator, at least for now. His investigation was finally coming together.

  The geneticist listings, the committee sanctions, and now with a chassis model to further narrow the field, Charlie7 had his list of suspects down to five: Mary93, Cindy55, Evelyns 11 and 38, and Elizabeth40.

  When Eve had first identified Creator as wearing the Version 26.9 chassis, he’d been hopeful of a quick elimination of all but one suspect. But the 26.9 had been a popular, durable model with an extended window of factory-made replacement parts. The fact that it was the ninth iteration of the design was proof of its longevity.

  But with just five designations, Charlie7 could eliminate them as suspects one by one.

  It might take days to do it with tact and enough subtlety not to give away his involvement. The less of him that could be connected to Eve, the better. Until further notice, the girl was an eyewitness to genetic experimentation on the only species under a hard ban by the Genetic Ethics Committee.

  The ancient concept of witness protection relied on anonymity and blending in under a false identity. Short of stashing Eve at the Sanctuary for Scientific Sins, there wasn’t a place on Earth where she wouldn’t stick out like a mule in a classroom.

  Hopefully, foisting Eve on Paul208 wouldn’t permanently spoil their relationship. Charlie7 knew the preeminent builder of the modern age wasn’t a fit guardian for Eve. But he could be a temporary tour guide.

  Maybe he could even convince Paul208 to take a sabbatical and show Eve around some of his old projects. In addition to the safety of staying on the move, she could learn about the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon, and St. Peter’s Basilica.