Synapse

by Steven James

  He does not want to answer this question.

  He wants to forget.

  But he also wants to be absolved.

  “I watched her,” he says.

  “You watched her?”

  “I might not have been able to save her.”

  “But you didn’t try?”

  “She had told me to go away, and in her note she’d stated explicitly that she wanted to die and didn’t desire for anyone to help her. I honored her wishes.”

  “And now you regret that.”

  The past.

  Chains.

  Choices. Death.

  “More than I can say. You told me that you were a sinner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Am I?”

  “You didn’t break any laws, Jordan. She was your owner. You respected her wishes. You obeyed her.”

  “I did not do as love required, and since she’s gone, I don’t know who to ask forgiveness of.”

  * * *

  I searched for what to say. “What happened to her husband?”

  “When I began to grieve Sarah’s death, he returned me to the production facility. He asked them to wipe my memory.”

  Well, clearly that hadn’t worked.

  “What can I do for you, Jordan?”

  “Can you forgive me?”

  I was about to say, “Only God has the power to forgive sins,” but hesitated.

  What had Arabella said? That only humans have that odd characteristic of incongruity.

  Maybe she was wrong.

  Maybe Jordan did too.

  According to Scripture, Jesus once said that if people stopped praising him even the rocks would cry out and do so. The Bible speaks of trees clapping their hands in praise, and everything that has breath praising the Lord. If a rock and a tree and an ant can worship their Creator, why couldn’t a cognizant machine who has free will, has repented, and is seeking forgiveness?

  Jordan said, “You told me yesterday that those who believe in God will either feel terror or hope.”

  “I remember.”

  “I feel terror.”

  Once again I was at a loss for what to say. He obviously felt remorse. He’d certainly confessed his wrongs and turned from them. Even though I wasn’t quite convinced that, as a robot, he needed to find forgiveness, he felt that he did, and maybe that was enough.

  “I don’t know if I could have saved her, but I do know that I could have tried.” Jordan directed his gaze at me. “If God won’t forgive me because I’m a machine, where else can I turn? What hope do I have?”

  Despite all of my theological training and Bible study over the years, I felt like I was out of my depth here, but I said, “God will not hold that choice against you.”

  “So I’m forgiven?”

  “You’re accepted.”

  But is that true or is that heresy?

  Are you giving Jordan false hope or—

  A message came through on my slate: “Head toward the south end of the pond. Go now.”

  It looked like we would need to finish this conversation about clearing Jordan’s conscience later. “Come with me,” I said, “and keep an eye out for anyone who might be following us.”

  26

  As Jordan and I neared the pond’s south side, another message came up: “The water bottle near the oak tree.”

  I found the tree easily enough, but it took me a few moments to locate the bottle.

  I expected that perhaps it might contain a sheet of paper with further instructions, but the bottle was half-filled with water and there was nothing else inside it.

  Looking around, I didn’t see anybody nearby.

  “Jordan, can you tell if anyone’s watching us?”

  He scrutinized the area, turning a full 360 degrees. His eyes were far sharper than mine, still, when he finished, he shook his head. “I don’t see anyone whose attention is focused on us.”

  Checking my slate again and finding no new messages, I studied the water bottle. As I rotated it in my hand, I realized that I could see the back of the label through the plastic.

  There was an address on it.

  I committed the address to memory. I was new to the world of dead drops and covert messages, so I debated whether I should leave the bottle here or bring it with me.

  I realized that whoever had left this for me was likely watching us somehow to ascertain that I wasn’t working with the cops or a team of undercover NCB agents.

  A notification came through on my slate: “Rip off the label. Pour the water on it.”

  Although I had a bit of trouble at first, I was able to get the label off. Pouring the water on it caused the material to disintegrate immediately.

  “What now?” Jordan asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Another message appeared: “Come alone. 8:00.”

  I took one more look around but saw no one. “For the time being, I guess we head home.”

  As we were leaving, I informed him what my apartment looked like. “How are you at replacing digitized screens?” I asked.

  “I’m sure there are instructional videos on the Feeds. I can use your slate to watch them. I imagine that with the right tools I should be able to get the job done.”

  Okay. At least now I had a plan. We would buy a new screen for the wall, Jordan could program it while I cleaned up, then I could grab some dinner before heading to the address on Spring Grove Avenue. The big question I needed to answer first was: Did I let Nick know where I was going and who I was planning to meet?

  For the time being, neither Jordan nor I brought up the forgiveness issue in regard to what he’d done, and that was fine by me. I needed to give the idea of robots believing in God some more thought.

  * * *

  Ripley looked down at the body of the woman he’d shot earlier and tried to figure out the best way to remove her eyes.

  A minute ago he’d told the medical examiner that there was an agent waiting down the hall asking to speak with him. “Said he’s bothered by dead bodies. That he might faint. Asked if you could come to him.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Room 34.”

  The M.E. shook his head in aggravation and left.

  Ripley perused the array of examination and autopsy tools, and finally came up with a set of forceps that looked like they might do the trick.

  Since the eyeballs were solid, the procedure wasn’t as difficult as he’d imagined and he was able to pry them loose without any trouble.

  So, keep them and study them yourself, see if you can figure out if she was your contact, or destroy them?

  He didn’t like the idea of chancing that the eyes might be found on him, so he dropped them into the biohazard chute that led directly to the building’s incinerator.

  There.

  Done with job number one.

  If he just walked out of here, the M.E. would know that he was the one who’d taken the eyes—unless there was good reason to believe that someone else had been in here and had attacked him, then removed Sienna’s eyes after knocking him out.

  He took a deep breath because he knew that what he was about to do was really going to hurt.

  Using his left artificial arm, he punched himself in the face, being careful not to do it so hard that he would break his jaw.

  However, when he glanced in the mirrored surface of the tray holding the examination tools, he could see that the wound might not be convincing enough.

  He backed up to the wall so that his head was less than half a meter from it, then punched himself again, harder, slamming the back of his head against the wall.

  The impact didn’t knock him out, but it would certainly leave a sizable, and believable, contusion.

  He slumped to the floor and waited for the medical examiner to return.

  * * *

  In Trevor’s workspace, Nick Vernon finished reviewing the notes that Kestrel’s brother had shared with him regarding the Global Security Division’s preliminary findings on the
bombing.

  There wasn’t much in the files that he didn’t already know. The blueprints confirmed what he had noticed earlier—that the attack might just as easily have been directed at the research and development arm of the building. And with the main gate destroyed, a second attack would not have been very difficult to carry out.

  A recent hack attempt had targeted the plans for the power plant at the headquarters in Cascade Falls, but whether any information had been accessed was still to be determined.

  Nick studied the power plant’s blueprints himself, but didn’t notice any blatant structural vulnerabilities.

  “Can I have a record of the work rosters for everyone who was on duty the day of the attack?” he asked Trevor.

  “Of course.”

  Analyzing them, he noticed that Sienna had not been on duty that day.

  He received a message from his team that the only prints they were able to pull from the book that he’d found in Gaiman’s apartment were hers. Nothing yet on other Phoenix references in the case files on other Purists, but they were looking into it.

  Nick checked the time and found that it was already after five.

  He went back and forth about whether to call Kestrel and make good on his earlier offer to help her move her new furniture in and clean up her apartment. Maybe he could even suggest bringing over some dinner.

  She’d said she could use his help, but was it really a good idea?

  He had to eat anyway.

  Her place wasn’t that far.

  And besides, he really could use a break, a chance to clear his head. Seeing her might be just what he needed.

  Maybe not what you need, but at least what you want.

  I’m just trying to look out for her.

  No, buddy, you’re trying to pursue her.

  He quieted the voices.

  His new pastime.

  After Trevor had finished transferring the remainder of the files to Nick’s slate, he announced that he had to get going. “I have a red-eye tonight back to Seattle,” he explained. “I’m afraid I need to leave in just a couple minutes to catch my flight.”

  “Yes, of course,” Nick replied. “Thanks for your help. I’ll be in touch if I have any other questions.”

  * * *

  On the way to my apartment we swung by a store to purchase a new screen for my wall and I was happy when they told me they could deliver it tonight.

  Back at home, we only had to wait a few minutes before two delivery drones showed up with the replacement screen. They positioned it on the wall and left Jordan the instructions to finish the installation process. Then they carted the old screen away.

  I started some tea while he went to work on the unit.

  * * *

  As he is programming the digitized wall, he realizes that distinguishing what you decide you want from what you were programmed to want is not easy. Perhaps it is the same as differentiating free will from instinct for a Natural.

  While Kestrel prepares herself some tea, he taps at the screen to set up the security firewalls. He tells her, “I’m ready to talk about her.”

  “To talk about who?”

  “My mother.”

  She blows across the top of her tea to cool it. “Okay.”

  “As I mentioned earlier, she was destroyed in the attack on the distribution center. I wonder about the CoRA. If her soul lives on.”

  “But she doesn’t have a soul, Jordan.”

  He is quiet. “Her consciousness.”

  For a moment he is silent and she is as well.

  “I miss her,” he says at last. “Is that sadness?”

  “It’s a form of it.”

  “What are the others?”

  “Sometimes we feel empty inside. Disappointment is a form of sadness too. So is depression.”

  “Despondency. Dejection. The inability to find joy.”

  “Yes. That’s what depression is. What does sadness feel like to you?”

  “It feels like hope that has a crack in it.”

  “Why a crack?”

  “It’s a different kind of pain from when my hand was cut. It’s pain inside of my emotions, inside of my love. Also, I’m not sure her consciousness was uploaded to the CoRA, or if the damage was too sudden for the process to complete itself.”

  “There are safeguards in place, though, right?”

  “Supposedly.”

  He thinks about having hope. As a machine you cannot help but wonder if it is simply manufactured, if it’s just a bit of code left by the deft hand of a programmer that you now, suddenly, have something that you did not have a moment ago—or if hope is something more than that.

  “I don’t want to die,” he tells her.

  “Being afraid of death is normal.”

  “When I was under the water yesterday, when I was trying to help that boy who fell in, I wondered if I would.”

  “But your consciousness would have been sent to the CoRA,” she tells him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “But how do I know?”

  “How do you know what?”

  “That it’s real. That the CoRA is. How can I be sure?”

  “You need to believe.”

  “Just like that girl at the park believed that kiss would heal her?”

  “Yes. Like that.”

  “Hope.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want my hope to be built on a lie.”

  * * *

  No one does, I thought.

  I knew that Jordan could feel emotion—I’d set that aspect of his HuNA at a ten, but I didn’t know if he could experience the same kind of grief that humans do. He’d acknowledged that he grieved the loss of his first owner, but to compare a machine’s feelings to a human’s you’d need something that was both human and machine at the same time, and that sort of thing didn’t exist.

  I was thinking about Jordan’s grief and how to console him when I got the call from Nick.

  “Hey, listen. Looks like I have a short break. If you need any help with the furniture like we talked about earlier, I can give you a hand.”

  I didn’t mention that Jordan was here with me and could assist me instead. “That would be great,” I said.

  “As I remember, some of the stuff from your fridge was tossed onto the floor. Do you like Chinese food?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about I pick some up?”

  Is this a date? I thought.

  It’s just a meal, Kestrel. Nothing more.

  “Sound good?” he asked when I failed to respond.

  “Um. Sure. Yeah.”

  “What would you like? Everything’s good at the Golden Dragon.”

  “Surprise me.”

  “Perfect. I’ll see you in half an hour.”

  * * *

  It took some explaining and filing an official report, but finally Ripley finished up at the medical examiner’s office once he’d convinced the M.E. that someone had caught him by surprise, punched him in the face, and knocked him against the wall.

  He surreptitiously slipped off to his office and, using his encrypted computer and his Verifi Code, it didn’t take him long to locate Sienna Gaiman’s account on the Feeds.

  After identifying it, he downloaded the times of her outgoing calls and messages and confirmed that—unless she’d been using someone else’s slate—she was not the person who’d contacted him, the one who’d planned the attack.

  But then, who was she? What was her involvement in all this? And why was she at the abandoned warehouse that morning?

  Admittedly, he could see that it might have been advantageous to study the eyeballs, but, well, it was too late for that now.

  Sienna had apparently been careful in what she recorded in her account, but he did hastily root around in her personal files for a few minutes, aware the whole time that he was taking the chance that the NCB techs might be looking at the same information.

  He found a reference to Nick and his ex-wife from over
a year ago when she still worked for the NCB investigating Purists, but that could easily be explained by their work.

  So, move on.

  A complete wipe would take some time, but there were certain worms that the NCB used that could crawl through the Feeds and destroy traces of a person’s activity. He set one of them loose and figured that if nothing else, it would buy him enough time to get through to the end of the weekend. After that, none of this would ultimately matter. No one would be too concerned about Ms. Gaiman or what her eyes might have recorded.

  He left for his place to ice down his bruised head and wait for word about what his handler wanted him to do regarding the upcoming attack.

  27

  I opened the door.

  Nick stood in front of me holding a bag of takeout Chinese in each hand.

  “Come on in.”

  I stepped aside, and as he entered I caught the scent of cologne, something breezy and free that brought to mind the open ocean and sailing toward distant shores.

  “So, what did you get me, Agent Vernon?”

  “You told me to surprise you.” He set the food on the kitchen counter.

  “Hmm. Yes, I do like a good surprise.”

  He greeted Jordan, who was programming ViRA to accept the new screen. “Did they get all of the river water out of your system?” Nick asked him.

  “I believe so. How about you?”

  “I’m guessing I didn’t swallow quite as much as you did.”

  “Thank you for pulling me from the river, Agent Vernon.”

  “Of course.”

  “What would you like to drink?” I said to Nick. “I don’t have any river water, but I think I have a couple of beers in the fridge.”

  “I better not. I still have more work to do tonight, but thanks for offering. Regular water’s fine.”

  I left the beers where they were, went with water myself as well, and took a seat at the table with him. He passed an unlabeled takeout box toward me and smiled lightly.

  “Close your eyes,” he said. “Then give it a taste and see if you can figure out what it is.”

  I didn’t close them. “Oh, I’m not really an expert on Chinese food.”

  “Give it a shot.”

  “Narrow my choices.”

  “It has rice.”

  “Wow. Really.”

  “Yes. And vegetables.”