by J. S. Morin
Zeus forced an uneasy chuckle. He couldn’t have scripted this any better. “I’ve got the easy part. I just have to be a little quieter than usual. You have to distract Eve from the fact that her sister is missing and possibly being experimented on in preparation for upload. Probably already had those creepy spikes implanted in her skull again... data-display lenses stapled to her corneas… Good luck, buddy.”
“Wait a minute,” Plato said. “Now that I think of it, Eve’s probably not going to want to sit on a beach sipping cherry soda, eating barbecue shrimp, and listening to steel drum music from the archives. She’ll want someone out looking for Olivia. That’s the only thing that’s going to make her feel better.”
“Aside from the fact that she just ordered us to stand down,” Zeus pointed out. Playing devil’s advocate was child’s play. Plato’s mind was putty in the hands of anyone with a basic understanding of psychology.
“Negative,” Plato said, mimicking Eve’s favorite word when it came to quashing his ideas. “Order to stand down is hereby overruled based on operational necessity. We’ve got boots on the ground. We know the situation better than Eve.”
“We’re both flying,” Zeus pointed out. While it wasn’t any part of his master plan, he simply couldn’t overlook Plato’s flippancy toward verifiable facts.
“From here on out, it’s radio silence,” Plato plowed on, uncaring of fact or fallacy, orders or oversight. “Either of us gets pinched, we fall on our sword. Nobody lets Eve get ousted over this. We’re getting Olivia back, no matter what. If Charlie7 beats us to it, great. If he’s off target, it’ll be up to us to rescue her.”
“We should still check in with one another to keep track of the search,” Zeus insisted. “The search is more important than the cover-up. Let’s meet up, split up the suspects, then go radio silent.”
“Roger wilco. Over and out.”
Zeus received a data blast seconds later with coordinates for a rendezvous.
Double-checking that he was no longer transmitting, Zeus shook his head. “What an idiot.”
Chapter Twenty
Eve had been dreading this assignment, but since it was her committee and her species, primary responsibility for these inspections fell to her. Olivia might be missing, but the work of the Human Welfare Committee wouldn’t stop. The Earth still spun and so did the march of progress.
Sitting in her skyroamer, Eve pondered whether she should get out or fly away. Sicily was beautiful, with old Human Era ruins overlooking a sheltered cove and rolling hills wending off to the horizon inland. Permit applications had come from across the globe, but the order had been voted on by a majority of the Human Welfare Committee.
Up next was Evelyn44.
Every time Eve saw that robotic designation, her eyes played tricks on her and reported that they saw Evelyn11 instead. She had tried slipping in a quick conversion algorithm to display it as EvelynFortyFour, but that just became cumbersome. In addition, every time she saw the designation written out in letters, it reminded her why she’d done so.
This was silly. Evelyn11 was dead. The fact that she’d cheated death once already made that scant comfort, but every robot she mentioned it to seemed to share the opinion that even backing one’s self up a single time was unusual. Getting away with that trick a second time sounded preposterous.
That left Gemini. So long as Gemini lived, so would Evelyn11’s memories of all that had been done to Eve and her sisters, as well as all the plans for what would happen to them if they ever fell into the clutches of her co-conspirators.
Pulling up a channel on the Social, Eve checked the live camera on Gemini’s prison cell.
A stew of oil and water boiled in Eve’s stomach. On the one hand, she saw the monster who’d vaporized a human mind to inhabit her body, who’d bred Eve in ignorance of her own species and the fate that awaited her. On the other, there was her friend Gemini, who’d slept curled up beside her and fought side by side with her to reawaken Charlie7. She was also just sitting there, playing with clay.
“Can’t be afraid of ghosts,” Eve told herself. Gemini was under guard, and that was the closest Evelyn11 would be to her today.
Popping the canopy of her skyroamer, Eve got out and strode to the door of Evelyn44’s villa. Along the way, Eve filled her lungs with warm air scented with the brine of the Mediterranean Sea. The invigorating winds and gentle sunshine made her question the decision to found Paris as humanity’s capital city.
The door opened as Eve reached for the panel beside it. A smiling female robot in a pink blouse and black slacks stood just inside waiting for her. “Come in. Welcome. So good of you to take my license application under advisement.”
Despite her trepidations, Eve found herself smiling back out of reflex. It was a relief that Evelyn44 inhabited a Version 49.30 chassis, a classic model that looked sufficiently different from Evelyn11’s Version 26.9 to forestall confusion.
“Glad to have geneticists working with the Human Welfare Committee. Shall we get right to it? Where are your facilities?” Eve asked. Different-looking or not, this was still an Evelyn, and Eve didn’t intend to turn this into a social engagement.
Evelyn44 swept a hand to usher Eve into the villa and proceeded to show her around. The abode was open and airy, with belowground levels visible from above via a central atrium, which gave it the look of a multi-story donut.
“I’m afraid ‘facilities’ may oversell what I’m planning here,” Eveyln44 apologized as she led Eve into a tiny lab the size of her own kitchen.
Eve puzzled over the limited array of equipment available. There were gene sequencers and embryonic aquarium tanks but only a single incubator. “I thought you were planning on starting cloning operations.”
“Cloning, yes,” Evelyn44 stated, hands folded nervously in front of her. “Mass production, no. My main goal in human cloning is to better understand the human mind, especially in the area of developmental disabilities. My goal is to discover the mistakes of the past and learn from them. The Sanctuary for Scientific Sins is filled with humans whose lives were stolen from them by poor science. Given identical genomic starting points, I intend to see if I can circumvent the problems that led to their inability to function in adulthood.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to start from fresh genetic stock?” Eve asked. Part of the charter of the Human Welfare Committee was to avert experimentation that would lead to more residents at the sanctuary.
“Easier, yes,” Evelyn44 stated. She tapped a few times at a nearby computer terminal and brought up an image of a double helix. From just a visual display, Eve gathered no useful information. “But I suspect plenty of geneticists will be starting from fresh snow. What good does that do Emily or Mark, hmm? Fat lot of nothing, that’s what. So, while Cindy14 spits out humans like tins of biscuits, I’ll be working with tape and glue to put the poor dears that got made wrong back together the right way. Gene therapy was just hitting its stride when the invasion cut it short. Time someone revived it.”
Eve stared into the nutrient gel of the embryonic aquarium but saw no signs of anything alive inside. The magnification built into her data-display goggles didn’t make any difference. “Why not include that in your permit request?”
Evelyn44 snorted. “You, I expected to understand. Nora109 says you felt badly for the humans you met at the Sanctuary. Despite being members of the committee, I don’t think most of your colleagues relish the idea of dragging those victims of hubris and recklessness into the spotlight.”
Something just wasn’t adding up here. Eve ran her hands along the gene sequencer. It felt factory-new; not a scratch of scuff anywhere on it. “Can I ask you something personal, Evelyn44?”
“Of course, Madame Chairman,” Evelyn44 replied with a deferential nod.
“How are you so different from Evelyn11?”
Evelyn44 seemed taken aback. “Excuse me?”
“Archetypal personalities are strongly influenced by the primary scientist. But you see
m nothing like Evelyn11.”
“I should think not!” Evelyn44 protested. “We’re nothing alike.”
“Maybe we should just stick to the tour,” Eve said hurriedly, not wanting to provoke what seemed to be one of the most reasonable robots she’d dealt with professionally.
The next room had Eve reevaluating that assessment.
A cold sweat broke out over Eve’s skin as they entered a room that resembled Evelyn11’s laboratory, albeit with a homey, Sicilian-villa decor instead of a subterranean lair.
The equipment around the room was set up for scanning a human brain. The table and console looked so much like Evelyn11’s that Eve swore to have Kanto searched after she ended the inspection.
“What do you think?” Evelyn44 asked, chin held high. “It’s a hybrid of Evelyn11’s modified rig and the original Charles Truman model.”
Eve skirted the walls as she attempted to cross the room without nearing the machine. “Not my idea of stylish. I have bad memories of that machine.”
“Nonsense,” Evelyn44 scolded. “This model is completely non-invasive. I mainly copied stylistic and interface elements from the one you grew up around. It’s far easier to use than the clunky layout Dr. Truman conceived. He was a brilliant engineer and scientist but lousy with ergonomics. The core functionality, though, is 96 percent Human Era.”
Eve was impressed. She hadn’t relished the idea of studying Charles Truman’s work. Too much of it brushed areas of her childhood she’d preferred to leave behind her. But for a technology to be so little changed in a thousand years spoke to a seriously robust design—right up there with candles and shoelaces.
“Have you tested it out?” Eve asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” Evelyn44 admitted. “I was hoping that after this facility was certified, I could prevail on Ashley390 to allow me to scan one of the residents of the Sanctuary for Scientific Sins. Nora109 already sorted my request to the rubbish bin to scan any of the Eves or Platos.”
“I never heard about any such request,” Eve stated.
She didn’t relish the idea of queries of that nature getting flushed out of the system without her knowing.
“You would have if Nora109 had said yes,” Evelyn44 replied. She booted up the scanning bed, and a number of reassuring, gentle hums ensued. Power electronics always hummed, but the frequency didn’t conjure memories of being on Evelyn11’s scanning table. “Without her approval, however, committee sanction was moot. I hoped that I might advertise for volunteers after my license comes through.”
Evelyn44 paused and tapped a finger to her lips. “Unless… you could try it out right now. The process only takes a little while and is completely harmless. If you were willing to sign off on it, I’d have no trouble convincing the rest of the human advocates.”
Eve backed away until she bumped into a countertop that surrounded the room. A glass specimen jar rattled at the impact. “No. I’ll pass. I’ve been scanned enough. All my brain data is public record.”
“Oh, I know that,” Evelyn44 said. “It’s as much to validate the equipment as anything, and known baseline scans will make it easier to show the scanner is calibrated properly. Everyone’s making them now, but I wanted to be the first to get Human Welfare Committee approval.”
“Everyone?” Eve echoed. That wasn’t a word she wanted associated with brain-scanning machinery.
“Well, everyone interested in the cognitive development of new humans,” Evelyn44 clarified. “Jason65 and Brent220 made the schematics public a few weeks ago.”
“I… I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Eve said diplomatically. She was reminded of her lessons on the Atomic Age. The inventors had never wrapped their vast intellects around the world they were creating when they made the power of the atom into a weapon. Only afterward did they see what had been unleashed in the world, and there was no way for humanity to unlearn it.
Eve hoped that brain scanning wouldn’t be the atom bomb of the Second Human Age.
Evelyn44 hemmed and hawed over the necessity of scanning a brain to diagnose and treat developmental disorders. Eventually Eve changed the subject and got the inspection tour back underway.
There wasn’t much more to be seen.
The kindly robot with the ominous name was every bit the geneticist her evil counterpart had been. Evelyn44’s records were immaculate. Her equipment was brand new, never used to clone anything (or anyone) before. The credentials she presented showed a breadth of expertise from algae to dolphins, with hundreds of species to her credit.
Strange as it felt leaving the facility, Eve could think of no one better suited to carry a Human Welfare Committee seal of approval than Evelyn44.
But Eve wondered why she felt so dirty as her skyroamer lifted off from Evelyn44’s dwelling.
Chapter Twenty-One
Drifting low over the Mediterranean Sea, Eve decided to shift subjects and cleanse the feeling of wrongness that pervaded her soul in Evelyn44’s lair.
Not lair… lab, Eve reminded herself.
Everything was above-board. Evelyn44 had complied with every single requirement on the extensive list for the Human Welfare Committee to sanction her work, from disposal methodology of mutated specimens to parental assignment for soon-to-be-born fetuses. Even though Evelyn44 didn’t plan on mass production, she even complied with the mandates for ensuring repetitive processes didn’t deviate over time.
Maybe Eve just wasn’t in a frame of mind to be trusting. The world wasn’t the safe place it pretended to be. Before she could focus on her job, Eve needed to know that everything was right in her family.
Eve needed to check in on the Olivia search.
“Charlie? This is Eve. Come in,” she said into the skyroamer’s built-in microphone. The channel was open to her private link to Charlie7, the one only the two of them used.
There was no immediate response.
Eve waited.
Below, the shimmering blue of the Mediterranean swept by beneath the craft. Sunlight glinted off the canopy glass. The ion engine whined, muffled by protective baffling and layers of acoustic damping foam.
“Eve to Charlie7. If you are receiving this, please respond.”
Still nothing.
Eve pushed up her data-display goggles and pinched the bridge of her nose to stem an approaching headache. She was getting them more often now as the head of the Human Welfare Committee. Headaches, in fact, seemed to be her top priority job, despite never appearing in the list of duties for a committee chairman.
Switching channels, she sought reassurance of a different sort. “Plato, this is Eve. Come in.”
Plato didn’t jump immediately onto the screen as he normally did, but under a minute later, his voice came through Eve’s speakers. “Hey, didn’t expect to hear back from you so soon. Figured you’d be on that inspection tour all day.”
Eve frowned. Something sounded off. And Plato was in voice-only mode. “Why are you running a heavy audio filter?” she asked, realizing that was the source of the strangely dead background in Plato’s signal.
“Oh. Um. I’m just doing a little maintenance work. Figured I got the time. Why not? Right?”
Despite choosing to remain in his Sherwood Forest hideaway, Plato had begun renovations once he no longer had the luxury of anonymity.
“And why aren’t you on video? You usually tell me you want to see my eyes, but have you ever thought I might like seeing you when we talk?”
Plato cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, not in any fit condition for female viewing.”
Eve’s headache was growing worse as she attempted to piece together any sensible picture from Plato’s words. “So, you’re working on your house, but you’re naked?” Plato might enjoy his euphemisms, but Eve preferred blunt, accurate communication. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“It’s a guy thing,” Plato assured her. “You wouldn’t understand.”
There were a host of biological differences between the two h
uman sexes. Most were hormonal or related to secondary sexual characteristics. There were less pronounced discrepancies in the perception of color and spatial awareness, enough that population graphs overlapped heavily, despite a shift of the mean.
At best, if Eve were to credit Plato’s bizarre statement with even a nugget of logic, she might allow that Plato was doing drone work at his house, and drones didn’t wear clothing.
“You’re right,” Eve replied. “I don’t understand.”
“What’s up, anyway?” Plato asked. “Inspection do the volcano swan dive?”
After a second to work out his meaning, Eve shook her head. “No, that’s not it at all. Evelyn44 was polite as a kiosk, and her work sounds like it would really benefit the Sanctuary residents.”
“Great,” Plato exclaimed. Eve was still put off by the digitally muted background sound.
“It’s just the equipment. I guess there’s a popular trend among the aspiring human geneticists to have brain-scanning rigs around for diagnostic purposes. It all makes sense, but it sets off nerves all across my scalp just looking at it.”
“You checked her out, though, right? She’s clean?”
Eve rubbed at her eyes, then scolded herself and pulled her goggles back on. “It’s the name. It’s the stupid, stupid name. She’s an Evelyn, and she has a repeated-digit designation. Every time I see it in text, I have flashes of Evelyn11 instead of Evelyn44.”
“Hey, intuition is subconscious logic,” Plato said. “Maybe she snuck something past you.”
“Maybe…” Eve allowed. She didn’t find it likely in the least. Her inspection had been thorough. Her questions were so invasive that Arthur19 would have vomited all his coolant if the whole process wasn’t strictly voluntary. “New topic: have you heard from Charlie?”
“Nah,” Plato said. “Old Chuckie-boy went off looking for Olivia, and me and Zeus are grounded. Can’t exactly go dipping my toes in that water, getting it all muddy and hard to see through, just when Charlie’s doing some Grade A investigating.”