by J. S. Morin
Evelyn44 hadn’t turned away. Eve had decided against saying anything.
Let the geneticist “gawk like a puffer fish” at her. So long as she wasn’t looking for Plato, Eve could live with the unwanted attention.
Weak in the knees, Eve climbed onto the table and lay back.
“There will be four belts to hold you still,” Evelyn44 explained, though Eve had seen them there during the inspection. “Chest, waist, thighs, and ankles. In an emergency, the wrist straps have a release force of 150 Newtons. The rest are a two-sided pressure release that will be easy to undo yourself.”
Eve tried to steady her breath as the belt locked her ankles snugly to the table. With the footrest pulled up to match Eve’s height, she couldn’t move her heels. I’m not trapped, she told herself. I can get up anytime I need to.
When the belt buckled across her thighs, Eve’s whole lower half was held rigid. She gave an experimental attempt at squirming, and Evelyn44 gave the belt a quick ratchet to tighten it. Her legs weren’t going anywhere.
Eve focused on her breathing. She closed her eyes and tried to meditate.
Evelyn44 moved Eve’s hands aside to wrap the belt around her waist. Eve remained limp and pliable. She focused on Plato’s face, reminding herself that this was all harmless, and by facing her fears, she might be saving Plato’s life—or at least his freedom.
When the strap tightened across her chest, Eve noticed that her breathing was restricted. She tried to take shallower breaths. She was in no danger.
She tugged back when Evelyn44 pulled her right hand into place and tightened a cuff around her wrist. Eve flexed and twisted, but her hand couldn’t go anywhere. She wondered idly what 150 Newtons would feel like. It was only 15.3 kilograms in Earth’s standard gravity. That wasn’t much different from her standard workout weight for bicep strength.
As Eve was musing on how hard she’d have to pull to break the safety lock, Evelyn44 cuffed her other wrist as well.
Cold, robotic fingers slipped under Eve’s shirt by way of the neckline. Eve’s eyes shot open. Something flat and sticky grabbed onto her skin, followed by another. Thin cables snaked out from under her clothes.
“Oh, my,” Evelyn44 said. “I ought to have taken a baseline reading before you got into the scanner, but your heart rate appears to be highly elevated.”
“I’m fine,” Eve insisted.
“If your stress levels get too high, let me know,” Evelyn44 said reassuringly. “I can apply a nitrous oxide feed to calm you.”
“No sedatives,” Eve ordered. Though from her current position, both physically and politically, she wasn’t sure how much weight her orders carried. Likely much less than 150 Newtons.
“If you change your mind, we can always hook you up,” Evelyn44 said soothingly. “This test won’t be trying to read your brainwaves, just map your synaptic pathways. Increased brain activity makes it quicker and more accurate, but we could have you asleep for the whole thing if you prefer.”
“Awake,” Eve snapped. She didn’t want to carry on this argument. She wanted Evelyn44 to get on with the scan. Even knowing that her every delay might buy Plato time, she didn’t want to spend longer strapped to the table than she had to.
The headrest tilted away with a motorized hum, leaving Eve’s head unsupported. Evelyn44 combed Eve’s hair, murmuring to herself. “So much different with hair. No matter. Scanner won’t mind.”
A helmet-shaped mesh of blunt probes and rubber-stopper pads slipped over Eve’s skull. Though she couldn’t see what was going on, the probes seemed to align well with the tiny, puckered scars where Eve’s stainless steel studs had once been.
Probe by probe, the helmet tightened against Eve’s skull. It didn’t hurt, but there was a sense that Evelyn44 was carefully calibrating the probes to come as close as possible to that threshold of pain.
“Turn your head,” Evelyn44 ordered.
Eve tried and found that she could move at the neck just fine. The weight of the scanner helmet was awkward, and she could hear a forest of cables slither as she shifted. Evelyn44 tightened three of the probes and had Eve repeat the exercise until she was satisfied it was secure.
“So valuable,” Evelyn44 muttered. “So much easier refining the immobilizing process with a cogent subject.”
“I can hear you,” Eve whispered.
“Sorry.”
With another whirr of the hidden motor, a headrest swung up and cradled Eve’s head, fitting close around the scanning helmet. Robotic fingers worked just outside Eve’s field of vision as she strained to watch what was going on.
A cupped plastic strap tugged Eve’s chin back as the headrest reclined, stretching her neck slightly and forcing her jaw closed.
“Try to wiggle your head,” Evelyn44 said.
Eve couldn’t, and that seemed to be the idea.
“If that’s uncomfortable, I had an alternate design that would slip between the teeth and apply pressure to the soft palette rather than the lower jaw. If you’d prefer, I can take a quick run to the protofab and—”
“This is fine,” Eve cut her off, speaking through teeth she was forced to grit.
Evelyn44 patted her on the shoulder. “I know this is a weird experience. I have a little surprise for you that will make it a little easier.”
It wasn’t a weird experience. If anything, it was all too familiar to Eve. Every gram of her being was telling her that this was a mistake, that Evelyn44 was just Evelyn11 in a new disguise, that she was about to be host to a new Gemini. But rationally, Eve knew that none of that was true.
But she was in no mood for surprises. “No. I’m fine.”
Evelyn44 pretended not to have heard Eve’s objection. A pair of goggles came into view above Eve. They weren’t like her pair, designed for a data-display overlay of the visible world. These contained blackness and were attached to a pair of earmuffs.
As the goggles slipped over Eve’s eyes and the muffs enveloped her ears, she debated tugging her wrists free and escaping the scanning table. Her fists balled up in anticipation of a strain akin to a single repetition of a dumbbell curl.
Music began playing. This wasn’t going to be sensory deprivation but some sort of stimulus. But it wasn’t music in the sense Eve knew. There were no lyrics, no melodies. The sounds were rhythmic but lacking in overriding patterns.
“What is this?” Eve asked, now genuinely curious.
“Delta wave stimulation. Gets the brain fired up without bothering the glands. By the way, we’ve already started scanning.”
Eve felt nothing but the stern firmness of the restraints holding her in place and the pressure of the scanner helmet. There was no unsettling tingle like there had been with Evelyn11’s deep probing.
“As for your surprise…” Evelyn44 said.
The goggles sprang to life, showing a documentary movie in vivid three-dimensional view.
As Eve relaxed to wait out the scan, the last thing she muttered through clenched teeth was, “Ooh, puppies.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Puppies frolicked and roughhoused in the goggles Eve wore. Occasional glimpses in the background and the stray robotic hand entering the view now and then led Eve to conclude this was recorded at the Labrador Canine Cloning and Training Center in Eastern Canada.
The little balls of golden fur and wagging tails had boundless energy and enthusiasm. They didn’t know they were clones, and if they were to understand the nature of their existence, they wouldn’t have cared. Life was all new, exciting, and urgent.
Though barely able to budge a muscle, Eve found she could still smile.
The scanning, whatever it was doing, was doing it passively. Aside from the mild discomfort of being held carefully in position, Eve didn’t mind it at all.
Fears and worries ebbed away. She even began entertaining thoughts of hanging around afterward to discuss the results with Evelyn44 and provide recommendations on making the scanning subject more comfortable.
A goo
d place to start would be an alternative to strapping them in place like loose cargo in the back of a suborbital transport.
Just when Eve believed that she had discovered the pinnacle of cute behavior, the puppies collapsed into an exhausted heap. One after another, the clones’ energy gave out. All being from the same genome and all very young, it wasn’t surprising how similarly they tuckered out. They slumbered frantically, as if by falling asleep in an instant, they could resume their playtime all the earlier. They preferred close quarters, despite the ample space provided. Limbs entwined. Some puppies ended up serving as pillows for others. One pair looked like they were hugging.
Eve’s heart melted.
Just as a robotic hand was reaching down to gently place a rubber ball in their midst—a surprise for them upon waking—the image flickered and winked out. There was no fade-to-black, wipe, or any of the other scene transitions Eve had seen in even the simplest of Robotic Era productions.
The delta wave sound patterns cut out at the same time.
“What happened?” Eve asked.
Through the muffling of the headphones over her ears, Eve heard a crash of metal. Rough hands tugged at the belts holding Eve in place.
“What’s going on?” she demanded. Was this one of those lab emergencies Evelyn44 had planned for? Was this possibly some sort of drill to prove to Eve that Evelyn44 had a disaster plan in place? If so, it was an effective simulation. Eve genuinely felt that something horrible had just taken place.
While those same hands unbuckled Eve’s feet, with her hands free, Eve removed the relaxation goggles. She was done relaxing, whether she liked it or not.
Even from her lower peripheral vision, Eve knew at once what had happened. Plato was there, frantic in his haste to get Eve free of the table. Her stomach knotted, and she knew that the EMP rifle slung over his shoulder had been responsible for the sudden end to her scanning-time entertainment.
“We’re getting you out of here,” Plato said curtly. He rushed to Eve’s head and detached the chin cup holding Eve’s head back.
Working her jaw loose, Eve had one question burning a hole in her conscience. “Plato, what did you do to Evelyn44?”
“No time to worry about her,” Plato said. There were repeated tugs at the helmet as Plato yanked data cords out by the root. It felt like he was pulling her hairs out, given how tightly the helmet fit in place.
“Ow,” Eve complained. “Quit it.” She batted his hands away and felt around for the screw mechanisms that adjusted each probe. After starting one in the wrong direction with a wince, she loosened them one by one as Plato backed off.
Eve sat up with a gasp, catching her breath and blinking against the sudden rush of blood to her head. “What did you—?” she began to ask.
Then, on the floor, Eve saw the source of the crash she’d heard. Evelyn44 lay there, inert, sprawled in an undignified pose on the floor.
“Got to her just in time, looks like,” Plato said, crouching to look into Eve’s eyes. It wasn’t the gaze of a lover or the shared glance of a friend, but the analytical squint of a medic checking for concussive trauma. He held a finger in front of Eve’s eyes and wagged it back and forth.
Eve’s eyes followed the motion by reflex before she batted the hand away from her face. “You killed her!”
“Yeah,” Plato said. “What a mess.”
Reaching for the strap over Plato’s shoulder, she snatched the weapon away from him. He lifted his arm to let the strap slide free and held up his hands.
“What gives?” he asked. Then his eyes narrowed. “No… she got you…”
Plato stalked forward with menace in his steps.
“Stop that,” Eve scolded. “I’m Eve. I was here to rescue you, except you didn’t take the hint and sneak out while I had Evelyn44 distracted.”
“She was going to upload herself to your brain,” Plato protested, apparently satisfied with Eve’s continued Eve-ness.
“No, she wasn’t,” Eve snapped. She swept a hand out and indicated the scanning rig. “This—this is harmless. I was watching puppies play and listening to a soothing, music-like sound feed. I checked the machine out from power supply to code base, and there was nothing nefarious about it.”
“But you were strapped down. Helpless.”
Eve reached for one of the dangling cuffs and gave it a solid tug. It popped free of the scanning table. “One hundred fifty Newton emergency release force. The restraints were to keep me still during precision scientific measurements. I wasn’t trapped at all. For Freud’s sake, Plato, I approved this diagnostic equipment for general use just this morning.”
Plato hung his head and scratched at the back of his neck. “I… um, I’m sorry. I was trying to rescue you.”
“Thank you,” Eve said caustically. “Thank you for murdering a robot who was planning to cure cognitive disabilities in Sanctuary residents. We all will be much safer now.”
“But I was just—”
“Stop it!” Eve shouted. “Stop trying to rescue me! You were the one who needed rescuing. I climbed into this rig even though it reminded me of the worst days of my life because you needed a way to get out of here. And don’t forget the fact that I ordered you to stand down and cease investigating in the first place!”
“But your coded message,” Plato protested weakly.
“What coded message?” Eve demanded, spreading her hands. “I was telling you about my day. I was sharing an irrational fear that I was working to overcome. Maybe you should look into working on some of your own issues, rather than trying to play hero in a world that doesn’t need one anywhere near as often as you imagine.”
Eve was breathing hard, having barely paused for breath throughout her tirade.
“Sorry,” Plato offered. Eve didn’t care whether he meant it or not. Plato always meant well. There wasn’t a selfish or spiteful bone in his body. But he had a skeleton-load of paranoia, self-aggrandizing delusions, and temper. Lifting his head, he looked Eve in the eye with a sheepish, forced grin. “We should get this cleaned up.”
“Cleaned up?” Eve scoffed. “There’s no cleaning this up. Evelyn44 was having the best day of her past hundred years, I’m guessing. No one’s going to buy your standard ‘she self-terminated’ ruse this time.”
Plato ran a hand over his mouth and paced the floor, stepping over Evelyn44 in both directions. “You’re right. Too high profile. She can’t disappear, either. We’re going to have to prove she’s guilty.”
“What?” Eve exclaimed. “She’s not guilty of anything. She was as ethical as Gandhi. Cindy14 only got bumped ahead of her in the licensing queue because she’s a genius in the field. I had more reason than anyone to question her, common archetype to Evelyn11 and all, and I still trusted her to put me in this machine.”
“She’s got a secret database downstairs that might change your mind,” Plato said with a shrug. “Let’s not get too hasty. We might be heroes after all if behind the rose petals and puppy videos, she was up to something nefarious.”
“Do you think Zeus is off somewhere digging in robots’ basements and breaching their computers?” Eve countered. “Why couldn’t you just step back and let Charlie7 handle this?”
Plato drew himself up, towering over Eve from a pace away. His often goofy demeanor could make Eve forget how huge Plato really was. “Zeus is working this case, too. When I told him I’d look in on you, he said I was taking one for the team. He was planning on searching for Olivia no matter what.”
“Zeus too?” Eve asked. Charlie was supposed to be the competent rule-breaker. Zeus had always been her reliable, by-the-book agent.
Eve’s reputation crumbled before her eyes. Lost in thought, she could hear the Privacy Committee and Arthur19’s gavel calling the meeting to a close with an official recommendation that Eve and Plato be confined to the hovership in cells right alongside Gemini. She’d be wrapped right up in the mess, too. After all, she’d gone in to rescue Plato and hide him from discovery. She was an
accessory to murder, if she’d understood the old movies correctly.
This was the future in store for Eve if she quit now. She was already in too deep. While there was still a chance Plato had been right, Eve had to see him through this.
“Hey,” Plato said, snapping his fingers in front of Eve’s nose. She blinked back to the present. “Let’s get a move on. If someone catches us before we’ve gathered up enough evidence, we’re cooked gooses.”
“Geese,” Eve corrected absently. She looked down at her scattered computer gear, now piled neatly by the wall. Evelyn44 must have gathered it at some point during the scan. Power indicator lights blinked. Her gear hadn’t been caught in any EMPs Plato had fired off. “You go on ahead. I’ve got to get dressed.”
As soon as Plato was out of peeping range, Eve slipped out of her shirt and into the welcoming technology of robotkind.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Charlie7 had rigged an electronic lamp to light the way through the dark Yukon landscape, but Olivia still struggled beneath a cloudy night and a waxing crescent moon. The footing was treacherous even by daylight. After her third fall, Charlie7 offered her a ride. The last thing he needed was to get Olivia seriously injured after she’d spent nearly a week on her own without incident.
And so Olivia sat atop Charlie7’s shoulders, riding the Version 70.2 chassis like a toddler attending the state fair with her father. Neither of them had done this before. Olivia had never known a father, and Charlie Truman had never been one. Yet, while the weight of a teenager would have daunted most human men on an overland trek, Charlie7 hardly noticed the added mass.
“This is an interesting interaction,” Olivia commented a short ways into their ride. “I wonder, are humans designed to interlock this way for transportation purposes?”