Engineered Tyrant

by J. S. Morin

  “He’s not going to complain,” Dad pointed out.

  Abby seethed through her nose. It came with a sting thanks to the alcohol on her breath. “That’s not the point. I’m trying to be this generation’s Voltaire, and I turn out to be its P.T. Barnum.”

  “Guy put on a good show,” Dad said calmly, fishing in the fridge for a beer. “Might even say it was great.”

  “Everyone’s right about me.”

  There. She’d said it. Worthless Abby had finally been exposed and could now be systemically chastised by everyone in her life. There would be no fresh start until she’d made amends to all the people she’d deceived, whose coattails she’d ridden, and whose trust she had misplaced.

  Dad popped the top on a can of beer. It made the same sound as in the movies. She wondered offhandedly whether some robot had puttered around with the acoustics to get the sound just right. Abby had no idea which robot had designed the brewery in Köln, but she wouldn’t have put it past a Jason or a Brent to get a nostalgic kick out of mimicking the noise a beer once made.

  “Most people aren’t right about anyone,” Dad said in a statement right out of the devil’s advocate handbook. The least he could have done was disguise the technique with a glimmer of artifice. His ham-fisted approach was insulting. “Your mom surprises me almost daily.”

  Let him try this one. “Dad, I’m a genetically bred cow designed to give entertainment for the mechanized proletariat. I’m the non-productive class by design. Top and bottom of the societal structure at the same time. I’m held aloft as some crowning achievement of genetic science, then shuffled off to my writing den to pen shabby masterpieces that bear the scant praise of being better than what the robots can write themselves.”

  “You remember when you used to fight dragons?” Dad asked mildly.

  Cheeks already warming, Abby pressed a hand over her eyes. “Not the dragon-slaying committee story, Dad…”

  “You were the cutest little knight ever,” Dad said, ignoring her request. “And I was your trusty steed. Didn’t matter that the dragons were gardening drones and tarps thrown over sections of fence. You read them their committee violations and charged in, broomstick lance leading the way.”

  “I was five,” Abby protested. “My cognitive development was incomplete. I bear no responsibility for the action of a—”

  “Never took prisoners. You either chased them off or killed them. When did you stop being a fighter?”

  “When I grew up.”

  Dad’s gaze veered to the floor.

  “Oh, don’t give me that!” Abby snapped. “I grew up. Deal with it. I’m not a little girl anymore.” She poured another glass of wine despite not really wanting one and drank deeply.

  “I know. You haven’t been a little girl since… well, since before you were a little girl,” Dad said. “From the time you could talk, you were a tiny grown-up. It was all I could do to get you to chase those dragons while you were still naive enough to believe in them. But when you did believe, you were willing to stand up to fight them.”

  “I always knew.”

  “Maybe. Doesn’t change much. You still had it in you to fight back.”

  “What do you want me to do? Challenge Alex to single combat?” Even as the words left her mouth, the spark of adrenaline shot through her veins. But violence was only a temporary catharsis. In the long term, it was worse than inaction. Besides… “It’s not like it’s his fault I’m Mom’s daughter, that my genome opens doors and his closes them. He made a valid point. Humans are second-class citizens, and it’s not a level playing field.”

  “If you don’t like it, change it.”

  “What? Change society? I’m a lousy playwright, not a sociologist.”

  “Who said anything about sociology?” Dad asked innocently, a sure sign he was up to something. Abby cringed in anticipation. “Go into politics.”

  Abby scoffed. “Politics? No such thing anymore. Best case, I could found the Musical Plagiarists Committee.”

  “Knock it off with that talk before you start believing it,” Dad scolded. “So your new song sounds Bachish. Big deal. Tweak it until it doesn’t. But there are real politics on the horizon. You can hear it in Alex Truman’s speeches. I got a transcript from someone who went. Right out of the First Human Era playbook. He’s starting a political movement.”

  “Good. Maybe he can get something done.”

  Dad raised an eyebrow. “Really? Alex? The kid with the eleventy-billion IQ who won’t let anyone forget he’s God’s chosen scientist?”

  “Never got the impression he was delusional.”

  Dad pulled out his portable computer and tapped away at it. When he tossed it to Abby, it contained a full transcript. “This has been making the rounds on the back channels of the Social. Toby22 ended up with a copy and forwarded it to me.”

  Abby read it in seconds.

  “He can’t mean all this,” she protested. “He just can’t. No one’s that blindly arrogant. No one with half a brain in his head.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he believes it,” Dad said, reaching a massive hand across the kitchen table to slide the portable back into his custody. “But I think the world could use someone willing to call him on his crap.”

  Abby aimed a finger at her own chest, incredulous. “Me?”

  “Why not? Change what you can’t accept, right? And you’re having a tougher time swallowing all this existential junk you dredge up than that wine you’re chugging. Politics is healthier than a liver cloning.”

  Abby rolled her eyes. “Truly the greatest compliment ever paid that esteemed profession. But I’m just not politically minded.”

  Dad snorted. “Like hell you’re not.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Comes right out in your plays.”

  “Nothing I’ve written is political,” Abby insisted.

  “Bring it on, kid,” Dad said sportingly, beckoning with a meaty hand. “I’ve seen everything you’ve put on stage.”

  “‘A Day Without Apples.’ What’s the politics there, huh?”

  Dad just grinned. “So, three friends want apples, but none have any in the house. They go to pick some, but the orchard automatons won’t let them. Apples all get loaded on an atmospheric hauler. They try the agrarian center, but they’re out of apples. When the hauler arrives, the apples get unloaded straight into processing. By now, everyone’s hungry. They give up and go home to settle for something besides apples. But when they get there—”

  “Their grocery delivery had already showed up including apples,” Abby finished for him. “It’s a farce. Cheap, slapstick comedy poking fun at humans who don’t understand how the world works.”

  “Or… it was a parable about dependence and the role of robots in society telling humans what’s best for them. It’s a send-up of the whole agrarian system, where three people who just wanted apples from a nearby orchard couldn’t just pick their own and eat them. It’s light Kafkaesque satire. You say you’re not a modern Voltaire, but that’s the stuff he’d be writing today… well, aside from he’d have written it in French.”

  Abby pursed her lips as she processed. Back in time, her mind replayed performances from across her brief career. Was “A Touch of Starlight” an ode to the dreams of space travel or a critique of the fact that none of the vacuum-travel robotic crafts had been made human-safe? Did “Committee Day” poke gentle fun at the absurdity of tangled bureaucracies or did it bemoan the time it stole from brief biological lives of people who might grow too old to have children before the paperwork was approved to raise one?

  Now that she analyzed her own plays in this new light, she could see the angles Dad hinted at. “But that was never my intention. I didn’t write them to be political.”

  “Can’t be helped. All politics is personal unless you’re trying to run the show. I love old documentaries, and you see it over and over again. Power plants and transportation systems blocked because Bob and Martha convince their neighbors it’ll
be too noisy. A hundred gang members get shot, but no one lifts a finger to change the laws until a kid gets killed in the crossfire. You don’t operate on the level Alex is suggesting, telling everyone the whole system is broken. You show them every broken little piece in loving detail and with some funny dialog to ease the sting.”

  “You… really think I can be a politician?”

  “Pumpkin, you can be anything you put your mind to.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Charlie7 hadn’t seen it all. He’d seen enough to know better. After a thousand years and more, he was inoculated against shock and surprise. Nevertheless, when his human son came to visit, he was once again reminded that there was even more out in the universe than his own mind could imagine.

  He looked over Alex in his imitation Italian suit, still warm from the Cloth-O-Matic. “Let me get this straight. You’re putting your scientific aspirations on hold because you need to engage in politics.”

  Alex was smug in his reply. “Actually, the best part is that between meetings, I can work on my dark energy research at home.”

  “Moving into the dome was a misstep,” Charlie7 told him. “I’m sure your friends were all cheering you on, but it pissed off a lot of committees.”

  “I think some of them are still debating, but I’ve gotten eleven formal protests thus far, and I’m facing sanctions on all fronts,” Alex said matter-of-factly. “But forget all that. I need your advice on a more pressing matter.”

  “You. Need my advice? Since when?”

  The last time Alex had asked for his help was before his final Emancipation Board hearing. He’d followed Charlie7’s map of land mine questions and how to best avoid them. Barring the revelations Charlie7 had provided, Alex might have gone mad with rage being denied emancipation year after frustrating year.

  Humans grew up, even when committees didn’t want them to.

  “I’m going before the Human Welfare Committee in a few hours,” Alex said, tugging on his shirt beneath the cuffs of his suit coat. “I need to know how to handle Eve Fourteen.”

  “What are they after you about?” Charlie7 demanded. “Aside from possibly the two upload committees, it’s hard to imagine an organization you’ve done less to offend—aside from personal insults, which of course aren’t actionable.”

  “It’s time for new leadership,” Alex stated.

  Charlie7 laughed out load. “That’s rich. Sorry, son, but the committee’s not going to step aside and put you in Eve’s place. You’d be lucky to get a seat on the committee.”

  “Funny, but I don’t see why there are robots on it at all anymore.”

  This was no longer a laughing matter. “Alex, those robots have done more good for humanity than you can imagine. Upsetting them won’t win you any friends.”

  Closing his eyes, Alex shook his head. “You can’t understand. You’re too far removed from mortality. I have one life. Maybe a hundred more years barring genetics advances that nobody is working on. I don’t have time to cultivate intimate interpersonal relationships with every thinking being on the planet. If nothing else, the population is growing too fast.”

  “Go into genetics, then,” Charlie7 advised, stating what to him was the obvious solution. “Fix your own dilemma. Small price to pay, don’t you think? Then you can work on whatever you want. That I have plenty of experience with.”

  “And if I don’t solve biological mortality, what then?” Alex asked rhetorically. “Oh, right. I’m dead and failed in two fields of science. No. I’ll trample toes and force my way of thinking into mainstream discussion. I’m not asking for anything unreasonable. Wars used to be fought over representation and independence. All I’m looking for is a vote.”

  Charlie7 paused. The kid had a point. Humans historically scrubbed out their political differences with a liberal application of blood. The sentiment was there. Could he trust that Alex wasn’t telling him exactly what he wanted to hear?

  “You want my help? Fine,” Charlie7 said. “Go ahead and flout conventions. Set up your lab in a restricted zone. Dare them to evict you. I don’t imagine there’s the political will to… well, engage in politics. The committees will see what it’ll take to remove you by force, and they won’t have the stomach for it. Put a human government in charge, and they might.”

  Alex drew back. “Not if I’m leading it.”

  “You’re presuming too much that relies on emotion and whimsy. Revolutionaries often don’t ever end up running their own creations. For every Castro, there was a Robespierre. For every Mao, a Caesar.”

  “Caesar wasn’t a revolutionary,” Alex protested.

  Charlie7 snickered. “He usurped the Roman Republic. Close enough. I think we bear a stronger resemblance to Rome or France than to the Cuba or China of the post–world war era. I know you’ve dabbled in history, but you’re not going to out-argue me. You think I didn’t reforge this planet with certain blueprints in mind?”

  Alex paused, eyes twitching in their sockets. If he was going to be any sort of public figure, it was a mental tic he was going to have to work on eliminating. Machinations ought never appear to be such. Answers should be ready at hand. New questions should be treated with deliberation even if the answer springs instantly to mind.

  People didn’t like to be governed by masterminds.

  “So,” Charlie7 prompted after allowing Alex two minutes of uninterrupted thought. “You still planning to go through with meeting the Human Welfare Committee today?”

  Straightening his tie, Alex gave a curt nod. “Of course. They’re expecting me. It would be rude not to.”

  “Has your reasoning changed?”

  Alex’s eyes gave nothing away to hint at the emotion behind his smile. “I wouldn’t have come if I’d been satisfied with my initial plan. Thanks, Dad.”

  With that, Alex inclined his head and turned to leave.

  Chapter Thirty

  Separated by an ocean from Paris stood a modest brick courthouse of eighteenth-century design, home to Eve Fourteen’s Human Welfare Committee. Situated in a pastoral quadrangle of manicured lawns and cobblestone walking paths, it conjured feelings of a time when the rights of mankind had been foremost in political theory. From the exterior, it might have been mistaken for a relic dating back to the British colonies save for one stylistic change. The face of the tower clock had been replaced by a digital screen.

  Once past the foyer and its historically recreated decor, the meeting chamber of the Human Welfare Committee took on a more modern look. Member seating hugged the far wall, curling to follow the room’s oval shape. A half-height partition of new-growth wood rose to shield the spectators’ view of the members’ desks.

  At the center of the member seating, Eve presided over the accumulated affairs of the Human Welfare Committee since their last in-person meeting a week prior. At roughly the center of the room, a polished wooden table and chairs provided a spot for petitioners and witnesses alike to hold the entire committee’s attention.

  On occasions of controversy or historical weight, spectators would swell the rows of pew-like benches at the back of the room. These days, those seats stood empty more often than not, becoming little more than waiting areas for petitioners further down the day’s agenda. Today, the lone spectator was Alex Truman.

  Eve struggled to keep her attention on Kabir4, who was contesting the failed emancipation hearing of his daughter Sabi. The petition was more a gripe than a call for action. Its outcome would be no surprise. Sabi would go back to classes and try again next year.

  But what was Alex Truman up to?

  Eve had her guesses, of course. She’d read the transcripts from the news feeds and had gotten her hands on the private speeches he’d given to select humans.

  “I don’t feel it’s fair that Sabi be held back because of a shortcoming in Nora109’s curriculum,” Kabir4 said, standing behind the petitioner’s table as Kabir7 nodded along from the seat beside him. “Sabi’s lack of self-sufficiency is entirely due to t
he coddling of the Oxford faculty.”

  Eve didn’t have to say anything. Nora109 spoke up. “Kabir4, you need to understand that this isn’t a race. Sabi will be granted emancipation in due course. Once she’s ready. Not before.”

  A formal vote followed after a few pointless follow-up exchanges. Unanimously, the committee upheld the decision to deny Sabi Singh’s emancipation.

  As Kabir4 and Kabir7 left in matching huffs, Alex Truman stood to take their place at the petitioners’ table. He took Kabir4 by the arm on the way by and held a whispered conversation. At times like this, Eve wished that her ears were keen enough to listen in. Her bionically enhanced eyes zoomed to crystal clarity on the exchange, but Alex kept his lips carefully shielded from the committee.

  No lip-reading for Eve.

  “Next on today’s agenda: Alex Truman wishes to address the committee,” Eve spoke loudly enough that a room full of spectators could have heard. She was aware that all these proceedings were recorded for official records, and she kept her manner as consistent as humanly possible. “Mr. Truman, how can the committee be of service?”

  Her best guess was that he needed help untangling the knot of committee violations his habitation of the alien city had tied. While the Human Welfare Committee technically had no jurisdictional stake in what amounted to thumbing his nose at no fewer than eleven committees, it certainly fell within their purview to aid in his defense.

  “Thank you, Madame chairwoman,” Alex replied with an oily smile.

  Eve knew the face of Dr. Charles Truman from historical images. Year by year, Alex looked more like him. Knowing that the original version had turned into Charlie7, she wondered if the robot she knew would have been so plain-faced in his manipulation without robotic features to hide behind.