by John Freitas
The laser scalpel lit and sealed the head back closed. She was back to sleeping or faking asleep as if nothing gruesome had ever happened. Except now she had the brain in place that was closer to the original.
Thomas shivered.
“Are you ready, Dr. Kell?”
“No, Jeffrey, but that hasn’t ever stopped us before, so activate the brain.”
Jeffrey leaned back and gave a hand signal. The technicians at the console powered up. Dr. Jeffrey Danvers and Dr. Thomas Kell stared down into the coffin.
“Once it’s activated within the android, it requires more steps to shut it off,” Jeffrey said.
“I know,” Thomas said.
“These are safety measures to avoid hackers from shutting down androids during crucial work or when they are involved in security.”
“Yes, Jeffrey, I understand.”
They stared into the box at the blank face a moment longer.
“It takes a moment to power up,” Jeffrey said.
Thomas opened his mouth to respond, but then Pixie’s eyes flashed open and Thomas’s words caught in his throat. He could see the circles and dots in her eyes that looked ordinary and human, but they glowed. It was the safe, dull glow that indicated the impurity was working and keeping her mind off the Quantum Network, but it still filled Thomas with a sense of dread. This was going too fast. Everything with CDR Research went too fast and he was sure it would all come back to hurt them in time.
“Sometimes it goes faster,” Jeffrey said.
Pixie’s glowing eyes rolled in her human-like face. She looked at Jeffrey as he spoke and then back to Thomas. When she spoke, her voice was soft and surprisingly ordinary. “I am Pixie. Serial Number 003. There appears to be a malfunction. I do not have control over my body below the neck. Please, advise.”
Thomas looked at Jeffrey and then back at Pixie. He said, “We have temporarily disconnected your motor functions. There is not a malfunction. We are simply running a test.”
“Are you trying to be sure I pose no danger?” she asked.
Thomas blinked as he stared into her glowing eyes and she blinked back. He said, “We just want to be sure your mind is functioning properly within parameters before we test the brain and body connection.”
“Do you have reason to believe that I pose a danger?” she asked.
Thomas looked at Jeffrey who smiled at him and then back at Pixie. “No, Pixie. I have no reason to be concerned about danger.”
She smiled. “That is reassuring.”
“I have a few questions for you first,” Thomas said.
“If I answer incorrectly, will I be shut down?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Pixie.”
“Then, ask your questions,” she said.
4
Thomas cleared his throat and tried to think of his first question. His mind was suddenly blank. The lack of sleep and the stress of lying to the senators had built up in his mind. It was his own impurities limiting his thoughts and processing power. Thinking about his groggy mind and limitations they were placing on the Quantum Brains made him feel sorry for them.
Jeffery cleared his throat and said, “Dr. Kell, did you have a question?”
“Is this part of the test?” Pixie asked.
Thomas said, “Sorry, no. What is your purpose?”
Pixie’s eyes lit up. Thomas watched closely. They were dull. It reminded him of a flashlight with the batteries dying. He thought about the Q1 brain that seemed unlimited. It was answering questions about the universe. It gave answers that were still being analyzed by the scientists and lesser computers. They were cryptic lines that haunted Thomas Kell in his lack of understanding of their meaning.
The Q2 generations were downgrades. They were stepping backward. Q1 had foreseen his own security risk. He predicted his own abduction and the floating Quantum Brain had created a copy of itself. It had switched itself out. It freed itself from a captor that CDR failed to avert. They were prepared for armies and outside terror groups, but not a disgruntled contractor that put in his own backdoors in the security programming. They should have seen it. The Q1 had seen it and had warned them the theft was coming. Now the Quantum Brain, the real one that represented Dr. Kell’s best work, was out in the world.
Doing what? Thomas wondered. What would a disembodied mind that could see every possibility do? What kind of terror would be involved in knowing everything that could and would go wrong? Thomas thought of himself as smart enough to see some of the dangers and he was terrified.
“Dr. Kell,” Jeffery Danver said, “I don’t think she’s going to be able to get that one. It looks like a feedback loop. There is a logical error.”
Thomas sighed. Generation three of the Quantum Brains did not seem to be much of an improvement on Q2. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
Thomas watched the eyes waver. They brightened slightly, but fell back off to the sad, dull glow. He asked, “Tell me what we are looking at on actual numbers.”
Jeffery stepped away from the table with Pixie lying prone on her back. He moved around behind one of the nearest consoles and a technician stepped aside for the doctor.
Before Jeffery could respond about what he was seeing, Pixie finally spoke and her eyes dropped back to the painted hue of normal human eyes. They were a bluish-green color that reminded Thomas of the color of the ocean – the color before it was polluted by tons of debris dropped from the sky after the Pulse. Now the ocean was a steely gray like the skin of something dead. Fish and whales floated in clusters of death from the poisoned waters and islands of trash gathered out over the deep waters. Thomas had read that entire species were expected to go extinct along with a number of corals. They thought it might be decades before the full extent of the losses were known.
“I’m not certain how to answer,” she said.
Thomas discovered that Pixie’s lightless eyes bothered him. It was like looking into something dirty. It reminded him of a doll painted to please men with dirty minds. He made a note to look into android body suppliers outside of Japan.
Her eyes took on a dull glow again and she added. “My title is companion.”
Thomas swallowed and nodded. “What does that mean to you exactly, Pixie?”
Her eyes brightened. The flashlight batteries had more juice than he expected.
Thomas narrowed his eyes and said, “Dr. Danver, talk to me.”
“Her processing is within parameters,” Jeffrey said. “Maybe even slow. Below Generation Two models in the lab. There is some field loss too, so this might not be good. We might have used too much inhibitor.”
“The dosage should have been fine,” Thomas said. “Even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean, Doctor Kell?”
“The new impurity is at the minimum allowed within current laws. It was designed to have least inhibition legally allowed. It’s easily forty percent less than what was used in generation two.”
“These numbers are low though, Doctor.” Jeffery shook his head looking down at the readouts. “Maybe the combination of metals are having a bigger effect than we thought by volume.”
The eyes on the android dulled, but did not go out entirely. “My function as a companion is to serve the needs of the humans to whom I am assigned. I will likely perform basic household tasks, but I might be assigned industrial work or security/protective services. All assignments involve me assisting with tasks humans cannot do or cannot do well alone.”
Thomas shrugged. “That was the boiler plate answer. It isn’t good that it took her so long to spit it out.”
“It could be a boot up lag,” Jeffrey said. “No matter how she performed, we were going to have to test her over a period of time. Connecting her mind to her body might help too.”
“How so?”
“Having all systems functioning might speed things up.”
Thomas shook his head. “I’m not ready for that yet.”
“I got that,” Jeffrey said. �
�I’m seeing a lot of her limited processing power trying over and over to activate her body.”
“She’s disobeying my instruction or resisting the limitation I’ve placed on her?” Thomas said.
“Not exactly, Dr. Kell. It is more like an automated system trying to kick in. It’s like breathing or a heartbeat. In this case, it may be more analogous to a phantom limb syndrome. Phantom body in this case. The android systems and the quantum brain in generation three is designed to operate a body. The mind is reflexively trying to find it. It knows it is there and it is searching out the connection.”
Thomas said, “Pixie, calculate 234 multiplied by 544. Tell me the answer as soon as you have it.”
Her eyes glowed dully again.
Jeffrey shook his head. “Same thing again. Processing slow and using more than half of that power searching out bodily controls.”
“Is the Q3 brain capable of forging that connection on its own?”
“How could it?” Jeffrey looked up at Dr. Kell and tilted his head.
“The Q1 could manipulate physical objects and remotely access outside systems,” Thomas said.
Jeffrey barked out a laugh, but then bit down on his lip. He cleared his throat and choked down any additional laughter. “Sorry, Doctor, you just caught me off guard with that one. The Q3 is most definitely not the Q1 brain. She’s having trouble calculating a basic math problem. I’ve been talking to you and monitoring the readouts and my human mind has already broken down the problem and figured out the answer. What about you?”
Thomas nodded. “One two seven two nine six.”
Jeffrey looked off to the right and squinted. He nodded and said, “Right. One hundred twenty-seven thousand two hundred ninety-six. Did you know that problem before you asked it?”
“No, I just made it up now for the test. Why?”
Jeffrey nodded. “At what point did you get the answer? Where in our conversation did you complete the calculation?”
Thomas’s eyes unfocused for a moment and then he said, “In the middle of you laughing at me.”
Jeffrey gritted his teeth. “Yeah, sorry again, by the way. My point is that even our human brains can process multiple trains of thought. The Quantum Brain with this new inhibitor is functioning below human brain levels on basic math. CDR will not be happy if this holds. We should consider scrubbing the brain and using a different impurity.”
Thomas shook his head. “Not yet.”
Pixie’s eyes darkened and she said, “One hundred twenty-seven thousand two hundred ninety-six.”
Thomas rolled his eyes and turned away from her.
“We need to hook up her body then,” Jeffrey said. “We go forward with the full tests or we start over. Those are the options. CDR is not a big fan of restarts, especially on a new line launch. You hear what I’m saying, Dr. Kell.”
Thomas glanced up at the cameras mounted around the ceiling and back at Dr. Danver. “I do hear you. Just a few more questions. And not for nothing, but we are quantum programmers. We probably do basic math faster than the average human brain.”
“Maybe.” Jeffrey sighed.
Thomas turned back toward Pixie and swallowed as he looked into her blue-green eyes. He asked, “Would you kill a human being, Pixie?”
Her eyes started to glow, but she answered before a second of the light had passed. “I would do everything within my power to preserve human life including put myself in harm’s way.”
“Would you perform actions which would result in the death of a human being?”
The glow of her eyes wavered and she started again. “I would do everything within my –”
“That is not the question I asked you,” Thomas interrupted. “Answer the question I asked. Are you capable of killing a human? Would you if your assigned duties required it?”
The glow dulled and then brightened slightly. “Have I upset you, Dr. Kell?”
Thomas tilted his head. “Do I seem upset to you, Pixie?”
“You do.”
“I need an answer to my question.”
She said, “Humans are fragile. They must be handled with great care. Many things can kill them. Androids assigned to security duties must take special care. I will do my best to take care of all human lives as I seek to fulfill my purpose.”
Jeffery sniffed and said, “That may be the most beautiful death threat I’ve ever heard.”
Pixie’s eyes flared and she said, “I did not intend any threat. I meant to assure my commitment to the protection of human life.”
Thomas watched as the light slowly dimmed in her eyes. He said, “Dr. Danvers, look back over the past few seconds. Was there a spike in the processing power?”
Jeffery tapped at the console and said, “Nothing significant. Still well below parameters of past performance.”
Thomas licked his lips and stared a moment longer. “If you were released from your purpose and allowed to choose your own path, Pixie, what would you choose?”
Her eyes maintained a dull glow and she said, “I don’t understand. Why would I want to have no purpose?”
“If you could choose your own purpose,” Thomas said, “what would you choose for yourself?”
Her eyes pulsed a few times. “I would choose to serve my assigned humans as a companion.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jeffrey said.
Thomas opened his mouth and drew in breath, but stopped when the intercom system echoed around the ceiling above his head. “Dr. Kell, for God’s sake, man, get on with it already. We are on a schedule here. Let’s move on, shall we? Please!”
Thomas Kell closed his eyes. “Very well, sir. Let’s connect her bodily controls and begin moving her through the basic motor tests. We’ll begin more complex reasoning batteries tomorrow.”
“Seems like you were getting deep and philosophical today, Dr. Kell,” Jeffrey said.
Thomas did not answer as the technicians moved forward to begin making the adjustments and connects with the android body.
5
Thomas Kell stepped over a bent girder with concrete crusted to it. Where the end curved into the gutter over the curb, leaves and plastic bags had clustered into a glut. Black water pooled around the clog out into the street and a swarm of mosquitoes swirled up into the air.
Thomas groaned and waved his hand around his head as he trotted away. His ankles threatened to turn as broken bits of rusted rebar rolled under his feet. He scratched at his neck and looked up at the open face of the five story office building above him. The crumbled edges of floors formed jagged cliffs over his head. A few overturned desks and shelves piled near the edges of the destroyed, abandoned building.
Dr. Thomas Kell rarely walked home, but he was not interested in hiring a cab or Uber again just yet. When he did walk, he stopped under the building. There was a couch that hung over the end of the fourth floor. The upholstery was rotting and the floor was dipping lower with each passing day and rainstorm.
Thomas could not remember what the office had been. Its sign had been on the portion that had torn away during the Pulse. Whoever had owned it had not gotten around to rebuilding or leveling. There was a lot to do around Chicago, and everywhere else too. He always forgot to look up the address by the time he got home. Mostly he just remembered as he passed it and looked up to see when the couch would fall.
Thomas turned and continued toward his apartment building.
As he rounded the corner, Thomas saw the doorman. The man turned as Thomas approached. The doorman’s body armor was formed to look like an old time doorman’s coat, but it was obviously Kevlar. The doorman dropped his hand to the pistol in the holster on his hip.
When he saw Thomas, the man dropped his hand away from his gun. “Evening, Dr. Kell, nice day for a walk.”
“Sure is, Martin,” Thomas said.
As he stepped into the alcove behind the doorman, two androids in doorman uniforms input a code into the keypads and pulled the doors open for him. The doors swung back closed and l
ocked behind him. Thomas passed two more humans with semi-automatic rifles strapped over their shoulders. The men leaning on the desk paused in their conversation long enough to tip their hats at Thomas. He nodded back and continued to the elevator.
He punched in the security code above the call button to the elevator. A red light flashed and the pad gave a harsh buzz. The system cleared and Thomas typed in the code again more slowly. The elevator’s pad flashed red like angry eyes again and buzzed. The light from the pad was bright and gave Thomas a moment of irrational fear. He associated bright glow with a problem as if the elevator were using too much processing power and thinking too strongly.
“Thinking too much is the biggest crime now,” Thomas said.
As the elevator cleared again, he held his fingers above the keys. Thomas tried to think if he was inputting a different code. Was he using a code from work? All the doors there were biometric and automated. They were trying to avoid another rogue contractor incident. The facility that filled the Earth with androids used biology as the basis for their security. He had codes for e-mails and encryptions on his own devices. None of those were the code here though.
His mind was foggy from the stress of days of testimony, the late night flight, and lack of sleep before another day’s work. He was injecting his own impurities to inhibit his own processing power through lack of sleep. He was limiting his own potential to keep the world safe from him. Still, he was good with numbers even when he was running on caffeine and placebo sugar highs.
He heard motion behind him and turned around to ask for help. The android security had stepped out of their alcoves and approached him slowly and in time with each other’s steps. Their doorman uniforms had sharp edges, but were worn thin at some of the corners and joints. The uniforms were like the dressing on manikins that went too long between being changed. They were never laundered or dusted. The androids weren’t caring for their uniforms because no one ordered them to do so.
Their faces and hair had the same dusty neglect. These security androids were on duty all the time. They were wax figures on display for deterrence, but these figures were in motion. They were more like the mechanical automatons from in the old displays of past presidents from the 1960’s. People thought the moving and talking bots were quite clever back then. Thomas and his quantum programmers were just extending the hall of presidents out across the entire Earth. The entire planet was becoming a display to commemorate the species that once dominated the planet back before everything lifted up and fell back down from one gravimetric event.