Weaponized Human (Robot Geneticists Book 3)

by J. S. Morin

  Phoebe shuddered, hoping it would look like the warm breeze might have tickled her skin. Just thinking that Zeus was one of those super-old robots was enough to make her alter her plans for procreating with him one day. He wasn’t talking about subjects he’d happened to research, but memories of those extinct humans from the First Human Era.

  Still, for the day, she was going to forget all that and pretend she still intended to create DNA-hybrid offspring with half his genome and half hers. With a little creative solipsism, it might even be fun.

  When they reached the sand, things went from heavy to heavy-and-awkward. Sand worked its way between Phoebe’s sandal and her foot, abrasive against the soles of her feet. The footing sank beneath her every step.

  Zeus simply slipped off his wingtips and socks and left them at the last step of the path before the sand began.

  “We going anywhere in particular?” Zeus asked, filling his lungs with a breath of sea air.

  “Somewhere just above the high tide line,” Phoebe reasoned. That way they wouldn’t have far to the water and could remain with a single campsite the entirety of their stay.

  When they reached an appropriate location, Phoebe set their supplies down with a grunt. It thudded into the sand with a rattle of protofabbed silverware and a clatter of wine bottles.

  “That sounded heavy,” Zeus observed.

  “It was,” Phoebe confirmed. “But I’ve been keeping up with my strength training even though I’m not obligated.”

  Popping the lid, Phoebe unpacked the first of their supplies. Though little of what she’d brought needed to be kept cold, it was easier to just pack it all together rather than build compartments inside the cooler. Thus, the beach towel was chilled when Phoebe unfurled it to lay across the warm sand, counting on solar radiation to bring it to equilibrium.

  Three square meters of pink-and-blue striped terrycloth became their base of operations. As Phoebe began unpacking the rest, Zeus came to look over her shoulder.

  “What have you got in there?” he asked incredulously.

  “Six types of handheld fruit, cheese, crackers, two bottles of local wine, the aforementioned UV-reflective skin lotion, a portable music device, a tiny plastic shovel and molds for making castle-reminiscent shapes out of sand, a manually inflatable ball, a Bernoulli-effect disk, two kites, and—in case we decide to stay until dark—a little firewood and an igniter.”

  “It’s called a Frisbee,” Zeus said, picking up the Bernoulli-effect disk and twirling it atop one finger.

  “OK,” Phoebe said, brightening at the prospect. “Let’s start with that! Oh, wait. Anti-carcinoma protection should probably take priority.”

  “You think they wouldn’t cure cancer the instant one of you girls showed signs of aberrant cell division?”

  Phoebe rolled her eyes and thrust a tube of lotion into Zeus’s hands. “Can you quit trying to find reasons not to and just rub this on my back?”

  Between the two of them, they slathered Phoebe head to toe, reducing her risk of developing epidermal cancer by a factor of nearly one hundred. Then she turned to Zeus and looked him up and down.

  “That’s no way to have fun at the beach,” she told him bluntly.

  “I didn’t bring a change of clothes,” Zeus said with a shrug. “I’ll be fine.”

  With a sly smile, Eve dug to the bottom of the cooler and produced a pair of black-and-red striped swim shorts.

  “Those… look a little tight,” Zeus observed.

  Phoebe was already behind him, helping Zeus remove the jacket to his suit. “They’re exactly your size. Part of the fun of this endeavor is seeing a little more of each other. I’m already dressed the part. It’s only fair for you to play along.”

  Zeus didn’t argue. He changed into the shorts while Phoebe turned away—and peeked. He even dutifully submitted to having UV-reflective lotion applied to the parts of his skin he couldn’t reach.

  “Do you have to leave the computer on?” Phoebe asked, smearing white cream right up to the belt that held the processor against his lower back. “This is a day to get away from all the committee stuff and just be human.”

  Zeus shook his head. “I should keep connected. Just in case. Besides, it won’t interfere with us having a—”

  Phoebe cut off his next words with a kiss. She hadn’t known what to expect, but his lips were soft and warm, wet and yielding. As she continued to caress his lips with hers, she ran a hand along the back of Zeus’s head, pulling him close until his body was pressed against hers.

  The touch of so much skin was electrifying—better than ice cream. But as Phoebe’s hands wandered, they bumped into a fiber data cable and the belt for the processor.

  She broke away with a gasp. It had taken an act of willpower to escape him, but she’d made her point. “Still think they aren’t in the way?”

  Zeus didn’t take his eyes from her, fixing Phoebe with a look that toed the line between suspicion and wondering what sort of alien creature had just attacked him. Phoebe admitted that she hadn’t been sure how much physiological response she could expect, not knowing the functionality of his crystalline brain’s interface to his biological systems. Thanks to the tight swim shorts, she knew that there was enough.

  Once Zeus was removed from his external computer, the two of them played a clumsy game of catch with the Bernoulli-effect disk, waded in the Mediterranean Sea until they were waist deep, and headed back to their beach blanket for a snack.

  The blanket had warmed, and they lay down side by side with a bottle of wine each, munching on cheese and apples as the sun lazed past overhead.

  “Be right back,” Zeus said, heading for the water.

  Given the amount of wine he’d consumed, Phoebe knew just what he meant. Due to diffusion, urinating in the sea barely constituted an incidence of water pollution.

  While Zeus was preoccupied, Phoebe burst into action.

  Digging to the bottom of the cooler, she opened the secret compartment in the bottom. Tucked inside was a multi-tool for opening a computer processor, and a tiny chip that would capture and transmit data on a secure frequency.

  Phoebe was engrossed in the circuitry of Zeus’s portable computer. She’d looked up the schematics just this morning, so it was all fresh in her mind. This was no different from one of Evelyn11’s puzzles. All she needed to do was micro-solder the leads to the—

  A hand clamped down on Phoebe’s shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” Zeus demanded.

  Phoebe shrieked and dropped the computer into the cooler. Diving to the ground and rolling away, she popped up to her feet in a crouch. “Get away!”

  “I asked you a question,” Zeus growled, stalking forward with an air of menace. “What were you doing to my computer?”

  “You tricked them,” Phoebe said, running with the first lie that came to mind. “You stole Eve’s job. That was all she wanted to do, and you took it away from her.”

  Zeus picked up the computer and examined the work Phoebe had been performing. “What’s this? A sniffer? You were bugging my computer?”

  “I figured you must have something in there that would show everyone that Eve was the right one to be committee chairman,” Phoebe said, not taking her eyes from Zeus.

  “So this—all of it—was just a ruse to get my guard down?”

  Phoebe considered this one carefully before answering. “Well, there is still the limited gene pool issue, and I think it’s probably an important part of the human experience to become a mother someday. But I was really trying to have my cake and get Eve’s back, too.”

  “We’re done here,” Zeus said. “And this is getting reported to every ethics committee I can contact.” He hefted the computer. It was evidence of Phoebe’s tampering.

  This was bad. This was really bad. Eve and Charlie7 had been counting on her, and now Phoebe was going to go into a cell, just like Plato.

  “No!” she shouted.

  Zeus was larger and heavier than her, but
he hadn’t grown up training every day. He hadn’t discovered that his daily fitness routine had included ancient combat lessons disguised as balance and breath-control exercises.

  When Zeus headed for the skyroamers, computer in hand, Phoebe stepped in front to block him.

  “Get out of my way,” he snarled. But instead of trying to force his way past, he attempted to dodge around Phoebe.

  Being lighter on her feet, Phoebe had no trouble keeping in front of Zeus. She had no plan. This was all instinct and reflex. She needed to think.

  “If you report me, I’ll tell them you admitted your guilt to me in an unguarded moment. You’ll have to submit your computer for scanning to prove you didn’t.”

  “No one would take that as evidence,” Zeus said. “The word of a jealous woman’s sister? Inadmissible without evidence to back it up. The burden of proof would be on you.”

  Zeus was flushed. The muscles in his face were contorted; tendons in his neck strained.

  “You’ll be bad at the job anyway,” Phoebe taunted. “Eve’s ten times smarter than you.” She danced in front of another of Zeus’s attempts to get past her.

  “Get. Out. Of. My. WAY!” Zeus shouted and took a backhanded swing to knock Phoebe aside.

  What was he thinking?

  Zeus’s weight wasn’t balanced. He had no leverage on the strike. The move was telegraphed—which Phoebe took to mean ‘sent via an ancient and inefficient delivery method.’

  As Phoebe took control of the wrist attached to the hand Zeus tried to slap her with, she twisted and pulled. Zeus over balanced and fell to the sand face first.

  Straddling him from above, Phoebe deftly plucked the computer from Zeus’s grasp as he fought to breathe through a mouthful of sand. Darting away before the robot in human guise could get to his feet, Phoebe raced toward the sea and, with both hands, flung the computer as far as it would go.

  The noise of plaintive distress Zeus emitted upon seeing half his brain go flying into salt water almost made Phoebe feel sorry for him. “What did you do?” he pleaded, not even looking at Phoebe but charging into the water to retrieve it.

  Phoebe took the opportunity to bolt for her skyroamer, leaving the cooler and its contents behind.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  With Zeus distracted, Eve took the opportunity to fly out and intercept the hovership. It was drifting over the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest land. As her skyroamer drew near, Eve marveled at the expenditure of resources.

  “It used to be a roving school to teach us about the world.”

  While it had also held Plato captive, that had been a secondary function. Now it was a prison and nothing more—at least as best Eve knew.

  It was growing harder and harder to trust the view of Earth from news feeds and Social postings. Too much went on in secret. Lies stacked upon lies until they took on a truth their own through weight of repetition. Where Arthur19 and his cohorts saw a bastion of freedom defending the privacy of robots worldwide and beyond, Eve increasingly saw a cesspit of deception, betrayal, and hidden agendas.

  One of the greatest traitors and liars was Eve’s target. Her skyroamer was welcomed into the hangar, and Brent184 was there to meet her.

  “You can’t see him,” Brent184 told her, his mild rebuke incongruous with the massive and powerful Version 70.2 chassis he sported. “Only members of the Investigative Ethics Committee are allowed to see him, or those who have received authorization from either Arthur19 or Joshua10.”

  Eve nodded to acknowledge the restriction. But she wasn’t here to see Plato. “Take me to Gemini.”

  Brent184 cocked his head but said nothing about her apparent disinterest in seeing Plato. “Right this way.”

  Eve could have found the way blindfolded. But this wasn’t about her getting lost. Brent184 was there to make sure she didn’t get “lost” and end up in Plato’s cell instead.

  There was a cautionary tale in that perception. Eve had played too loose with rules since her escape from Evelyn11’s lab. Charlie7’s influence was partly to blame, learning from him that rules could be circumvented, ignored, or bent depending on need and circumstance. Had Jennifer81 rescued Eve, her worldview might have looked starkly different.

  But Jennifer81 wasn’t the sort who rescued anyone.

  Plato and Charlie7 were heroes because they accepted the risks of their actions and did what needed to be done. Plato was just suffering the consequences of his latest action. There would be time to help him later.

  Brent184 was silent during the walk to Gemini’s cell. What must have been going on in the robot’s mind? Despite being a simple jailer at present, his component personalities held four doctorates. Surely, he had a theory. Did he expect Eve to gather help to storm Plato’s cell? Was Gemini her assault team?

  Eve shook her head slightly at the notion.

  At the door to Gemini’s cell, Eve forced her hands to unclasp. She took deep breaths to steady her heartbeat. “I have a favor to ask,” Eve stated.

  Brent184 shrugged. “Sure. You can ask. Can’t promise anything.”

  “Per Privacy and Surveillance Oversight Committee regulation 23.6.12.1, I would exercise my right to an unrecorded, unobserved meeting with prisoner Gemini.”

  Brent184 scowled. “What have you got cooked up?”

  Eve fixed him with an insouciant grin. “None of your concern.”

  “You’ll have to—”

  But Eve was already removing her data-display goggles, unplugging the fiber cables, and handing them to Brent184 for safekeeping. She did likewise with the computer processor. Her harness of wire management straps and the interface gloves she kept on; there was no capacity for recording or transmitting anywhere on her person.

  Except for her mind.

  Human memories would be inadmissible in committee proceedings, but Eve was only concerned with the truth. Proof would be forthcoming at a later date. For now, Gemini had answers that Eve wanted.

  “Oh, it’s you again,” Gemini said as soon as the door opened. “Gone native, have you?”

  Eve stepped into the cell, and the door closed behind her. She glanced up at the various cameras that ought to all have been turned off the instant the door opened.

  “This is a private meeting per Privacy and Surveillance Oversight Committee regulation 23.6.12.1,” Eve told her.

  Gemini snorted a chuckle. “I haven’t got a computer in my head any longer. What’s that gibberish mean?”

  “It means I’m entitled to unsupervised visitation of a prisoner for personal reasons, so long as no external recording is made.”

  “Daft regulation,” Gemini commented. “Who’d submit to having their internal computer confiscated?”

  “Me,” Eve stated simply, turning and raising the back of her shirt to show the imprint of the belt she habitually wore there.

  “So, come to chat about the weather, or maybe have a go at chess?” Gemini asked. The board hadn’t moved since her last visit. “I suppose you wouldn’t mind telling me precisely how there is checkmate in seven moves.”

  “There isn’t,” Eve replied with a hollow feeling in her gut. “I was being mean.”

  Gemini laughed aloud. “I knew it! I argued with myself for days. ‘Oh, not Eve. She doesn’t have it in her.’ But you did!”

  “Then you’ll help me?” Eve asked with a kindling spark of hope in her heart.

  “Bugger off,” Gemini thundered. “I spent days staring at that board trying to work out the moves. You’re as bad as any of them—of us. You’re not some charity case in need of help. Figure it out with that overripe cauliflower between your ears. You’re smarter than I am, now. Pavlov only knows what’s become of my mind, thanks to this inferior gray matter it’s stuffed within.”

  “It’s not a matter of who’s smarter,” Eve said cautiously. Gemini was growing increasingly unstable in isolation. She wondered, not for the first time, if that was the intent of this punishment. Madness seemed a crueler fate than any ph
ysical injury.

  Gemini stood and spun away, waving a dismissive arm. “Out with it, then. What’s brought you here to the pitiful robot exiled from her own mind?”

  “Zeus.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Don’t they show you news feeds in here?” Eve asked. Plato had reported that the robots had done little else but encourage him to express himself artistically and watch the news feeds.

  “I haven’t seen a thing in here except the unattainable view of the countryside. If I didn’t know for a fact that I lacked the ability to break this glass, I’d have jumped out long ago.”

  Eve didn’t know what to say to that. Contemplating suicide seemed so… final. It wasn’t a solution so much as losing hope that there would ever be an improvement over an intolerable situation.

  She chose to try to ignore Gemini’s self-destructive confession.

  “Zeus was one of the human test subjects found beneath Kanto,” Eve explained. “Like Gemini was before you became her.”

  Gemini ran the backs of her hands down her side and flicked them away with a flourish. “Oh and how lucky a day that was for me.”

  “He’s also a robot.”

  Gemini gave a disdainful sniff. “Oh, that one. The boy with the brain made by Tiffany’s.”

  Eve twitched her gloved fingers to look up the obscure reference before remembering the data cables dangled loose down her back.

  “He’s not a human with a robotic brain. He’s a robot hiding in a human with a robotic brain.”

  “Oh?” Gemini asked. Her eyes narrowed with the first sign of interest since Eve had arrived. “Do tell.”

  Eve narrowed her eyes in their best threatening scowl, peering from beneath knitted brows. “You didn’t know anything about that, did you?”

  “Charlie25 kept me a virtual prisoner,” Gemini replied. “What went on down there was outside my purview.”

  “Do you think it’s possible that Plato didn’t kill Charlie24?” Eve pressed. “Do you think it might have been Charlie24 in that body all along?”

  “You do prefer the harder puzzles, don’t you?” Gemini responded. “My little Eve, never shying from a challenge. How would you ever go about proving it if he was?”