Love in the Robot Dawn

by C. W. Crowe

  *.*.*

  The sight of the tram caused an involuntary reaction. I felt the sweat start to pop out on my forehead even before we climbed up to our seats. Once again, Lucy sat ahead of me.

  Time for the insanity to kick in. Welcome aboard!

  I had a vision of Lucy holding me in her arms while I drooled and bayed at the moon like some sort of primitive creature. The sounds coming from my mouth were in Nick Presser's voice.

  I forced myself to stop that line of thinking because it scared me. Maybe I was going insane or maybe not. I wondered what would have happened if I'd told Parker about the globe shaped object with the crack in the top. Would his face have lit up in recognition confirming that I knew what it looked like? If so, then what Nick had told me in my dream was factual information. How could an insane dream provide facts I could not have known?

  It was at least possible that I'd known it all along - that Nick had mentioned it in passing one day and I'd just forgotten. And now, as my mind decayed to a thick grey soup, it happened to bubble to the surface.

  Before I could come to any conclusion as to just how insane I was, the tram started with a lurch. I rode the six minutes in silence, studying Lucy's short hair and wondering how long it would be when our baby arrived.

  Chapter Forty-Five: The Unfolding

  By mid-morning, Cory was bouncing off the walls and Karen came by to ask if we'd like to go with her for a walk. "He really wants to see that airplane that's parked out there beside the runway. I asked Riley and he said it would be all right."

  It was actually a beautiful and almost cool day out, but I really didn't want to take a walk. I'd lived outside for months - being in a civilized house seemed great to me.

  Lucy saw it in my face and started to decline when Cory ran over to her, "Please, Mama Lucy! Please!"

  Her noises changed into something different from normal - it took me a minute to figure it out. It was her "mother" noises. The trip to the doctor and hearing our baby's heartbeat and now being called "Mama Lucy" must have triggered it. I filed away that sound, hoping to hear it a lot in the future.

  "Well, if my favorite boy asks me, I guess I will." Lucy held out her hand and Cory took it as he squealed in delight.

  Lucy turned to me. "Coming?" She knew I didn't want to. I started to say something but she cut me off. "No, you stay here, Leo. I think it would be good for you to have some time alone. Men need that sometimes, don't they? Barking Dog told us that." She leaned over and gave me a kiss.

  They left before I could think of an answer.

  *.*.*

  The door had barely clicked before Nick started to talk. I shut him up immediately.

  Not now! I was just getting ready to relax, to enjoy the almost total silence.

  But I realized that I had to let it happen. There were just too many unanswered questions - about Nick Presser and also about me.

  I sighed and gave up. Go ahead.

  He started instantly. "Once it became clear we couldn't do research on the robots in the lab under Area 51, I set up one in Vegas and got down to the business of learning about them. They were fast learners so we were communicating with them very quickly.

  "And while we studied them, they also studied us. One day, they asked if we would participate in a project to make a fully human looking robot. They had been studying human anatomy, so their idea was seemingly simple. They planned to build a perfect replica of a human skeleton - not out of bone, but from materials that were far stronger, but weighed the same.

  "Next, they made 'muscles' out of some type of electro-elastic material - again they were the exact same shape as human muscles, all 650 of them, less ones like the heart that they didn't need. These looked like human muscles, but they could contract with much more force. Over a period of a few weeks, they attached these to the 'bones" and then covered it with an organic material that looked and felt like skin. Inside the chest cavity were no lungs, heart, or any other organs. Instead, there was a control unit that took its power from tapping into their worldwide communications network which is run from their mother ship, but distributed through a network of overhead satellites.

  "I think they were surprised to find that their first human looking robots were easily identifiable - their movements and mannerisms were just not right. It took a while, but they eventually got the programming right with my help; I let them connect me to a maze of sensors so that they could map my muscle control inputs. This let them see just which muscles needed to be used and in what way so they could adjust their programming. For the first time, it was possible for a robot to make a believable smile because they knew which muscles to activate, how much they should contract, and in what order. Eventually it all worked and the human robots were ready to go - though they still acted like robots, repeating just about everything they did."

  I wasn't asleep or even sleepy during all this. Apparently it could start whenever I sat down to relax. I wondered for a moment if my insanity might become permanent so that I heard Nick all the time. I started to shudder, but he continued, so I just listened.

  "All this took many months of work and soon we were well into our second year with the robots on earth. I think Parker sensed something was up with them because he told me to be on the lookout for any weaknesses that they might have.

  "I, on the other hand, was focused on what good the robots could do for us. I was naive - I know that now - but it seemed like such an opportunity and there were only a few thousand of them while there were billions of us.

  "About that time, one of my research assistants had a massive heart attack. He was put on a transplant list, but no one knew if he'd get one in time. I talked to my robot colleagues about it and was surprised when they said it would be relatively easy to replace a human heart with a robotic one. 'It is quite simple,' they said, 'It only has to pump liquid and maintain an appropriate blood pressure.'

  "In a couple of days, they showed me the unit they'd built. The heart is a muscle, so they'd used the same procedures they'd used to create other robot muscles. 'But how will we implant it?' I asked. It looked just like a regular heart with all the normal arteries and veins, but how would it connect to the brain? The nerves had to be connected somehow too. Surgeons would need to be trained for months before they could try it on a human and, by then, it would be too late for my friend.

  "This was when I should have called Parker and told him all about it, but I didn't. They suggested that they implant a tiny device on my neck that would allow us to work together in a much more efficient way. They said that I would be able to communicate with them at the level of thought and that, together, we'd be able to implant the robot heart right away and save my friend. Get this - they said that their heart would be much better than a normal human heart; it would last for centuries."

  His voice betrayed his emotions at this point, so that Nick paused for a second.

  "You see, Leo, it wasn't just my colleague. If we could replace hearts like this, then how many people could we help - thousands? Millions? And what if we could do kidneys, lungs, the pancreas? It would mean that there would be no more diabetes. All those troublesome organs might one day be swapped for guaranteed, never-fail models. What would that be worth to humanity? I admit I let down my guard because the potential was so great. I'm sure I deserve what I got, but I truthfully don't know if anyone else would have done anything differently - maybe Parker would have, I don't know.

  "But you know what? After we did the heart transplant, we didn't work on those livers and lungs and pancreases - the robots wanted to work on brains. They were fascinated with them, how they worked, and the function of each part.

  "I got excited talking to them about it too. What if we could save everything that makes a person a unique individual like it was some type of computer file - a backup copy? It might be possible then to load that backup into a brain - we might be able to live forever!"

  Nick was getting excited as he talked. I understood how he had been overcome wit
h the vision of this miracle.

  "We couldn't do this type of thing in my lab because experimenting on humans was forbidden. Yet, I was so enamored with the possibilities that I agreed to go with the robots to theirs. It was a secret facility that was even more advanced than my lab was. I went with them, Leo, but I never called Parker or told him anything about it. I guess he thought I'd skipped out on them.

  "Since it all happened, I've had time to think about it. Leaving like that wasn't like me at all. I'm sure now that that implant they put on my neck somehow made me more malleable. Maybe I'm just excusing myself, but I didn't resist at all.

  "We started on kids, always kids. All of them had some type of brain damage - I don't think that, even in my present state, I would have experimented with perfectly normal people, but these seem okay since they were already damaged."

  He stopped and I thought the session was over, but I was wrong.

  "I don't know. Maybe I was too far gone. Maybe I'd have done anything they told me to do. I hope not, but I can't be sure."

  Just then our door opened slowly and Lucy looked inside. "You awake?" she said, smiling.

  I felt my heart skip at the sight of her. "Sure, just waiting for you."

  *.*.*

  That night, Lucy and I went on our first date. We had dinner down below in the large but almost empty cafeteria; and then were the only couple in the small movie theater. It only had eight seats, but that was fine because it was a small room with the screen being a largish computer monitor. The movie was "ET".

  Lucy had changed into another dress for the evening. If anything, I liked this one even better than the one she'd worn today. Also, she'd found some makeup somewhere. At first I couldn't take my eyes off her beautiful red lips, but then I realized how big her eyes looked. I didn't notice her nose at all.

  I put my hand on her knee during the movie, but she slapped it away saying, "Fresh!"

  Later, as we walked hand-in-hand back to our quarters, we met Riley. I was curious about something, "How many people are here? The place was kind of deserted just now."

  He nodded. "The day the power went out was a holiday, don't you remember? It was Thanksgiving Day. There weren't many scientists here at that point - only single ones; the others were home with their families. The soldiers were the same way - basically a skeleton crew of volunteers who had no place else to be.

  "In a way that was lucky because the place had been designed and stocked for a couple thousand. Having only a hundred here meant that our supplies have lasted a long time."

  Lucy nodded and smiled at him. "Where have you been?"

  "Ah . . . I was just checking on Karen, making sure she was okay. Just kind of making my rounds, you know."

  She nodded, "Yeah, I know. Well, you have a good night Lieutenant."

  "Same to you," he said as he walked off.

  *.*.*

  Lucy was strangely silent until we went to bed. Her noises sounded normal, but I could tell she wanted to talk.

  "Tell me about it," I said. She knew what I meant.

  "Don't tell me you didn't notice."

  Uh oh. That was not a good way to get started. I wracked my brain for anything I should have noticed. I'd complimented her on her dress and told her how great her hair was looking. What could it be?

  I kept quiet. Guessing wrong would likely be worse than not guessing at all.

  She didn't wait long. "So, Mister Eagle Eyes, the man who saw me start to swell up before anyone else - are you trying to tell me you didn't notice how my ankles have swollen up like the legs of an elephant? Maybe you didn't notice because you were too busy looking at Karen's. From now on just call me Cankles. Everyone will know who you're talking about."

  So that was it. I smiled because I knew she wasn't mad - just feeling a little sorry for herself.

  I pulled her to me. "For one thing, my wife, Riley is the one looking at Karen, not me. And as to your lovely ankles, I didn't notice because you always look wonderful to me."

  I wanted to kiss her, but instead, I held her until I heard her fall asleep. Her noises sounded satisfied. During our date, I'd managed to push aside my worries. If I tried, I could almost imagine the robots had never come - that Lucy and I somehow worked down here with scientists all around, that we ate out and went on dates and lived the normal lives of normal people.

  But my imagination wasn't that vivid and now, lying here listening to her snore quietly, my worries came crashing back. Why was I hearing Nick Presser? What did it mean?

  So far, it was interesting and maybe even informative, but why tell me this stuff?

  Those questions were important, but I sensed Nick was getting near the end of his story. After all, he was up to the point almost when the robots attacked and I knew what had happened after that.

  I smelled Lucy's hair and said in my mind, "Go ahead, Nick. Tell me the rest."

  Chapter Forty-Six: Revelation

  "The first two young people we worked on were just for practice. They'd suffered massive traumas that had destroyed large portions of their brains. You'd think I would have asked the robots where the specimens came from, but I didn't. It never occurred to me and I guess that showed how far gone I was.

  "Next they brought in a young girl - couldn't have been more than sixteen. She was in an irreversible coma with a lot of frontal lobe damage due to some type of accident, but was otherwise in good physical condition. This was the first time we installed a robot module into a brain. This took a lot of close cooperation between me and the robot surgeon - so much, that I could actually feel a bit of what he was doing through my own implant. Somehow, I knew that this module we were implanting would be used to control the girl's motor functions. I was also shocked when I realized they were using the same programming they'd developed to make the movement of human-looking robots appear to be normal.

  "When we were done and the girl had recovered for a few days, I examined her. She was sitting in a chair with several of my robot colleagues in the room with her. I could tell they were pleased.

  "The girl could stand and walk, raise her arms and even smile. They were controlling her, of course, but only at a high level. They told her to sit and cross her legs, and the programming took it from there. She looked alive, but her eyes were dead.

  "I asked and they told me her name was Sophia."

  Nick said that last part with a large degree of sadness in his voice. I could see why - what he'd done to that girl was horrible.

  "But God help me, Leo, we weren't done with her . . . with Sophia. We operated again so that the robot implant could take over another part of her brain, the part with her personality and even her memories.

  "When we were done, Sophia could talk and sing. She remembered me and called me by name, even though I'd never met her. But she did the same things, again and again, just like any other robot. As far as I could tell, she had no ability to be creative, to come up with a unique or even novel idea. I don't think she had any thoughts at all. She just responded to the robot programming in her head. At the time I remembered being anguished, but then it occurred to me that all of us - all humans - follow our own programming. It just wasn't put there by robots."

  I wanted to stop Nick and ask a question, but this narrative was obviously one way only. If I could, I'd have asked what happened to Sophia.

  *.*.*

  "Then they brought in another patient - our last. It was a male, maybe sixteen or so. He’d been found one morning ten years ago in a coma and they never knew what had happened. When he went to bed, he seemed normal, but he wouldn't wake up the next morning.

  "We had his medical records from a long term care facility in Phoenix. They showed initial hope that he would come out of it and the doctors tried a variety of treatments - none of which worked. For the first few years, he'd had a lot of visitors from his family, but as time passed with no change, they had just about stopped. The doctor’s treatments had stopped too - now they were just aimed at keeping him alive.

&
nbsp; "It was an interesting case. We used every diagnostic tool available and could not find any problem with his brain - he just simply would not wake up.

  "Unlike with Sophia, I was almost excited about this case. Here was our chance to actually help this boy, to let him regain consciousness and begin to live his life. My theory was that the robot implant would provide just enough stimulation for him to wake up. We'd now had enough experience working on our earlier patients to think this might be the result, so I was eager to try.

  "The surgery started out normal enough. We implanted the robot module while I was in close connection to the robots - my own implant communicating with them in some way I didn't understand. I realized they were loading the programming to allow them to control the motor functions of this boy. Why? Once he was awake, he could do that himself.

  "I started to object, when I experienced almost a blinding light of realization. Information came flooding out of them and into me. I can only describe it as 'leakage', but I learned a lot in a very few seconds - and they weren’t aware of it.

  *.*.*

  "It was the globe Leo, the globe with the crack in it. I'd told them about it when they asked; it never occurred to me that it would have the effect on them that it did. After all, they could visit the entire earth except for one tiny spot in the desert outside Las Vegas. Why would they care so much about that?

  "But they did care and it actually made sense. They had traveled and survived for millions of years to get here. Survival was their prime directive and the emanation from the globe had the potential to destroy them since the robots got all their power and their marching orders from the mother ship. If that ship was somehow hit with whatever was coming out of that globe, it would power down and so would every robot on earth. They saw it as an existential threat and were determined to do something about it.