by J. S. Morin
Accessing his internal computer, he opened a channel to Eve.
Even as he watched on the live video feed, Eve’s head lifted. She looked around to see if anyone was watching.
“Hey, kid,” Charlie7 opened, speaking aloud though he transmitted in text form. “Got a potential lead. You handle Tweedledee and Tweedledum. I’ll bring Olivia home safe. If you want there to be a Human Protection Agency when this is all over, you need to get those two in line.”
“What did you find?” Eve’s words appeared in Charlie7’s incoming messages.
“Too soon to say,” Charlie7 replied, keeping her expectations in check. “I’ll look into it and let you know.”
If there was a leak in the agency’s security, he doubted it was on Eve’s end. She could have been trusted to keep a secret, even from Plato. But the girl had enough worries of her own. The fewer specifics she knew, the less likely she was to join the investigation personally.
The last thing Charlie7 needed was to find out that one of those devious upload renegades had lured Olivia into a trap and have them catch Eve, too.
Chapter Seventeen
This was the life of a boomerang. Out Eve went. Back she came. Her house loomed above as she parked her skyroamer right by the front door, heedless of the landscaping. The drones had the planting schematic for the lawn, if she ever needed it repaired.
What Eve really needed, however, was a break. Charlie7 had promised that he was on the verge of discovering Olivia’s whereabouts. If he’d given her a hint as to where, Eve might have flown right off in pursuit. It was horrible of her, but Eve was secretly glad he had removed her from the search.
Olivia was out there all alone, lost and scared, with no one to turn to for help. All Eve could think of when she moped through the door was that she wanted it all to go away.
Eve had freed herself from the shackles of compulsory education on the timetable of the old Human Committee. Instead of frolicking in fields of wildflowers and designing cityscapes, she’d chained herself to a seat on the Human Welfare Committee.
Freedom had been Eve’s to spend as she chose. But having viewed her purchase up close, she regretted not being perhaps a bit thriftier with it.
“Fill tub. Thirty-eight Celsius. Lavender scent,” Eve said to the room at large. Upstairs, the plumbing would prepare her bath while Eve looked for something worth eating.
Phoebe’s cryogenically frozen half-quiche still sat on the counter. Eve wondered if it would even be worth the effort of thawing. Phoebe’s culinary adventures were hit or miss, and their tastes often ran contrary to one another’s. Just because her sister liked it didn’t mean Eve would enjoy the flavor.
“Olivia can have it when she gets back,” Eve promised, absolving herself from having to try it.
Eve raided the fridge for some celery stalks and peanut butter, taking them with her upstairs as she headed for the bath. Along the way, she scooped up a portable terminal from her bedroom.
Despite stripping off every shred of clothing she wore, Eve didn’t feel naked until she removed her computer equipment. With the data-display goggles off, the steamy bathroom felt like a different world than the one she’d left behind.
The Earthwide fell away into the void of reality.
The Social stopped its incessant commentary and attempts to engage her in conversation.
Her heads-up display ceased its continuous monitoring of her vital signs, the local area, and everything in her field of view.
No interface meant that Eve’s hands had nothing to do but dip celery sticks into peanut butter while she soaked away her troubles.
It had been Nora109 who had first suggested the concept of a bubble bath. The very notion had seemed ludicrous on the surface. Yet for all her servos and coolant lines, Nora109 had more memories of human life than Eve. Her trick had worked. The warm water made Eve float above her worries.
Arthur19 didn’t exist in the world of bubbles and floral aromas. Zeus and Charlie7 weren’t allowed anywhere near it. Plato visited, but only her imaginary version of him—the one who was all goofy heroism and sweetness and lacked the irrational temper and social rampaging of the real thing.
When the celery ran out, Eve finished her container of peanut butter with a finger. When both were gone, the boredom began to set in.
With nothing else to do, Eve’s hands swished back and forth in imitation of a swimming stroke. Though the tub held room to spare, it wasn’t deep or long enough for actual swimming. Eve had a pool for that.
Of course, Eve knew that the distractions of a bath and a snack wouldn’t last, and the choice would be either work or tedium. Everyone told her she needed hobbies. This was the sort of time when she agreed with them.
But Eve didn’t have any hobbies. Games reminded her too much of Evelyn11’s puzzles. Crafts only drew her interest when they resulted in something practical. Art was for those with less regimented minds, whose abstract thinking could run riot. The robots were all either hobbyists or obsessive workers.
Eve was enough like her robotic colleagues that she fell into their traps as well. She was a worker first and last.
Turning over in the tub, Eve’s wet back cooled even in the humid air. The portable computer was within easy reach, and it was waterproof. Eve dragged it over to the side of the tub and decided what her message needed to say.
If there had been one lesson to take away from the Privacy Committee meeting, it was that the Human Protection Agency was working without a backup file. Any more slip-ups and they could find themselves permanently deleted.
“Who can tell me how to fix this?” Eve wondered aloud.
She turned and sank back into the water up to her nose. Each breath blew wakes in the water.
With a breathing-assist device, Eve could go completely underwater. If a bath was relaxing, maybe she just needed to go the extra few centimeters to erase the last of her worries.
All those troubles, from angry committee chairmen to unruly agents as well as the missing sister caught in between, was all waiting for her the instant she climbed out of the water.
Eve sighed bubbles.
This wasn’t solving anything. This was hiding from an unpleasant reality. By doing nothing, she risked letting Arthur19 and the Privacy Committee shut down all investigations that might slightly infringe on the personal affairs of the scientists of Earth. Zeus and Plato would need to find other employment, though it wasn’t like the worst days of the Human Era; they wouldn’t starve. Charlie7 would be fine. He could take care of himself with or without Eve’s assistance.
But Olivia…
Without Eve pushing to keep the investigation alive, she might not survive.
Dripping wet, Eve stepped out of the bath, trailing threadlike waterfalls and covered in spots of bubbly soap. She picked up her portable computer and sent a communication request before she lost her nerve.
Chapter Eighteen
Plato was back in the jungle, but this time it was the Yucatan, not Brazil. The trees here were babies, many not even three times Plato’s height. He felt like a giant around his brothers and the little Eves, but these dwarf saplings made him feel positively King Kong-like.
Monkeys.
If there was one impression of the jungles surrounding the ancient human ruins of the Mayan Empire, it was the monkeys scrambling around the miniature trees, watching him. Plato had always liked monkeys, at least in theory. They were hilarious in two dimensions, trapped on a screen. They were human enough to be relatable and not metallic enough to be smug. The real life versions were a little eerie, staring at him as if trying to decide whether he was a threat, food, or maybe both.
“Never let a primate think you’re a meal,” Plato muttered. He wanted to come up with little idioms for the new human era. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
His namesake was a good one for pithy sayings, but he could think of none so day-to-day useful as the one he’d just come up with. Humans had wiped out entire species of delicious creatu
res before discovering scientific methods of maintaining populations—namely: not killing all the bloody things before they could breed more. Monkeys were clever little pre-human cousins along the evolutionary trail. And they weren’t shy about eating meat.
“What are you doing out here, you young hooligan?” A robot in a furry suit crashed through the brush, shouting at him and sending the curious monkeys scattering for cover. Aside from the robotic face, she looked like a giant monkey herself.
“You Janet9?” Plato demanded. Even without his EMP rifle, this one didn’t have a reputation that made him nervous. Janet9… crazy old monkey-loving robot. Even the other robots found her odd.
“Indeed I am, and I know who you are,” Janet9 replied in acid tones. If she wasn’t careful, those words of hers could poison the local plant life. “Now run along. I won’t be a party to your witch-hunt. I haven’t seen that dear little girl in six weeks, and I wouldn’t have kept it to myself if I had. The monkeys liked her, and they took an instant dislike to you. Excellent judges of character, monkeys.”
Plato retreated as Janet9 plowed through the underbrush toward him. Old or not, crazy or not, unarmed against a wary opponent, Plato was no match for the robot if she was angry enough to attack him.
Movies had given Plato some misconceptions about old ladies. They were slow-moving, frail creatures whose words were their only real weapon. And most were pleasant enough. Unfortunately, seven or eight hundred years of living just meant that Janet9 had gone through a few chassis upgrades. The Version 59.11 might not be the latest and greatest, but it was still a machine.
“Whoa, lady,” Plato said, holding up his hands. “I’m just here to ask questions. Can’t blame a guy trying to save 6 percent of his population from dying.”
“Then I suggest you move along and get to looking,” Janet9 snapped. Plato noticed one of the little monkeys crawling around her shoulders like she was a climbing gym. “Earth is a big place. Lots of places to lose a girl. But I assure you, if she were here, you could follow the sound of cackling monkeys straight to her.”
A thought dawned on Plato. “Could I borrow a few, maybe? If they can track Olivia, then maybe—”
“No,” Janet9 snarled in her genteel accent that sounded like it belonged in a posh sitting room in some nineteenth-century period flick. “I want you gone and that skyroamer with you. And I’m going to check it before you leave, lest you find yourself mid-flight beset by an angry passenger who wants to be let out.”
Plato’s mind spun through the possibilities. Janet9 hadn’t said the monkeys wouldn’t get the job done. If they had good noses or had psychically imprinted on Olivia, they might be exactly what he needed. Plus, if he kept it a secret, he might wind up with a pet monkey at the end of the day.
Win, win.
A chime from Plato’s wrist spoiled his train of thought and the retort he’d planned for Janet9. “Sorry. Gotta take this.”
Turning and shielding the wrist-mounted computer from view, Plato accepted the chat request from Eve over the Social.
“Hey, how’s it—whoa, are you not wearing clothes?” Plato’s train of thought, already halted in its tracks, was instantly thrown off the rails and into a nearby ravine. She was only visible from the collarbone up, but Plato’s imagination was fertile and well seeded.
“I need you to stand down,” Eve said firmly.
Plato crossed his legs, embarrassed, before realizing that there was no way Eve saw any more of him than he did of her. He cleared his throat. “What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“Privacy Committee grievance,” Eve stated, all business. When he mentioned wanting to see her eyes when he talked to her, Plato hadn’t expected her to take his complaint to the next step. “We’re in danger of getting dissolved if we continue receiving complaints regarding this investigation.”
Plato shook his head. “No can do. I’m not giving up on Olivia over some committee bull—crap.” He caught himself before he cussed at Eve. She hated the vulgarities he used to salt his vanilla language at times. “I don’t care if they lock me up again; I’ll bring her home safe.”
“Negative,” Eve insisted. She began walking, and the camera view shook with each step. Plato chivalrously averted his eyes. “Charlie says he’s got a lead he’s working on. Once Olivia is back, I need you and Zeus to reboot your search for secret cloning facilities. To do that, I need you both on good terms with the various committees, agencies, and boards that might get in our way.”
Charlie says? Why was it always Charlie7 who got the free pass? Plato got the impression at times that he and Zeus were clip-on accessories to Charlie7, to be discarded or re-attached as needed.
It wouldn’t do to let Eve hear that frustration in Plato’s voice. He took a deep breath and tried to play the game Eve’s way.
“What about this lead of Charlie’s?” Plato asked, hoping for a bone to gnaw on. He was willing to be Eve’s hunting dog, but she had to give him something to do.
“He kept the details in a hidden folder,” Eve replied with a sigh that blew a foamy bit of soap from her hair. “I suspect it means he’s treading on pressure-activated plates himself. But he’s—”
“He’s Charlie7,” Plato finished for her in a singsong voice. “I know. I know. I just wanna know how long it is before I get to do whatever I want.”
“Based on extrapolation of your current skill at covert operations, you’re going to need to upload to a robotic body to live long enough.”
Plato winced. It was nice being open and honest with a friend, but some part of friendship was knowing when to take a joke and when to cut a guy’s heart out with a butter knife. He could taste the bile at the back of his throat. “Forget I asked.”
“Unlikely,” Eve replied. “I generally have fond memories of our conversations. I’d be loath to forget one.”
The wan smile returned to Plato’s face. This wasn’t the bone he’d been hoping for, but it was something. “Really?”
“Yes, now can you please stop bothering Janet9, go home, and get some rest?” Eve asked.
“How did you—?” Plato began, but a surreptitious glance over his shoulder caused him to jump and cry out. “What are you doing behind me?”
No more than a meter behind him, Janet9 was just shaking her head. “Mating rituals. So much simpler in the lower primates. Cut the call, and do as the young lady says if you have a gram of sense in that massive cranium of yours.”
Plato gave Eve a solemn nod of compliance and shut off the connection.
The instant Eve could no longer see him, Plato shot a scowl at Janet9. Then he stormed back to his skyroamer. He even checked it for stowaway monkeys before takeoff.
It would have served Eve and Janet9 right, though, if he had decided to take one of the monkeys home with him.
Chapter Nineteen
Zeus ended the video conference and closed the connection. He was mid-flight across the North American Great Plains at high altitude, letting the autopilot handle his course and speed.
“So,” he mused aloud. “Privacy Committee isn’t happy with us. Can’t say that’s a surprise.”
Given Plato’s fiery temper and short fuse, it was a wonder the oaf hadn’t murdered anyone yet. He’d half hoped that Charlie13 would have put an end to Plato when he threatened the mixing specialist with an EMP rifle. Of course, that would have required a level of vitriol that the staid old stoic wouldn’t dare show, even to a pair of nobodies.
But with Eve ordering a halt to their investigation, he and Plato were going to have time on their hands.
That gave Zeus an idea.
The greatest threat to the society devoted to returning robotkind to the ranks of the living was Charlie7. His mere involvement with the Human Protection Agency put the whole endeavor on a countdown of unknown duration. The only certainty was that, given long enough, Charlie7 would unravel everything they’d worked for all these centuries.
Alien menace removed.
Earth cleansed of co
ntaminants both biological and radiological.
Plants and animals reintroduced.
All that remained was for the robotic workforce to reclaim the humanity they had been robbed of by Project Transhuman. It was time for human minds to return to their rightful homes in human bodies.
Second on the list of threats to the human upload conspiracy was Plato. Incongruous though the thought might be, that giant mutant was persistent and just cunning enough to be dangerous. He was responsible for twelve robots’ demise and even Charlie25 hadn’t been able to tell there was a rogue human at work until the Eve incident.
Time to see about checking one of those two threats off the list.
“Plato,” Zeus said as he opened their pre-set channel, skyroamer to skyroamer. “You get the news?”
“Direct from the boss lady herself,” Plato replied. “Bunch of clowns. How they expect anything to get done if you can’t talk to robots?”
Zeus ran a hand over his mouth. Could it be this easy? “Yeah. I know what you mean,” he replied, pulling snarl in his voice. “We’re out here looking to save a girl, they’re worried about us trampling their flower beds and disrupting their monotone existence.”
“What’re you planning on doing on our mandatory downtime?” Plato asked. He sighed heavily into the mic, creating an unpleasant distortion that the standard-issue robotic filters had never needed software to eliminate. “I was thinkin’ maybe take Eve somewhere nice, like a little getaway. Take her mind off this whole mess.”
“Good plan,” Zeus agreed. “She’s working too hard. You get her mind off Olivia and Arthur19. I’ll keep working in the background in case Charlie7’s lead doesn’t pan out. We are the Human Protection Agency, after all. What good are we if we slink away from the first real, tangible threat to a human we come up against?”
“You’d do that?” Plato asked. Zeus could picture the gaping jaw, the knit brow. “You’d risk getting kicked out, maybe locked up?”