by Judyth Baker
“Yes!” One of the four answered, “I do!”
“Me, too!” Another put in.
Jendra lowered her voice even more. “Then pay attention! CuCy, my personal guard for today, is the Boss Cyborg. You must tell it these exact words: ‘Our last wish is to eat dinner in the restaurant right after we see the Tigers.’ Do you understand?” They nodded. “Repeat the words to me,” she ordered, as CuCy began moving toward them. “Now back away, while I talk to the Boss.”
As they did so, she turned to CuCy with a fake smile.
“The Last Wish of a human prisoner has always been sacred,” Jendra lied. “It was always granted. These prisoners also have a Last Wish.”
“These are not prisoners. They are students.”
“So, I could hide them before 4pm, and you couldn’t kill them?”
“That would not be permitted.”
“CuCy, we have now determined that the students are prisoners.”
“Yes. We have determined that the students are prisoners.”
“Since they are to be terminated at 4pm, human prisoners have the right to eat a last meal of their choosing.”
“I do not know of any such right.”
“You acknowledge that you Cyborgs are already making errors in this mission. You have already killed one prisoner eight hours too soon. You do agree that it was due to a scheduling error.”
“Yes, a scheduling error.”
Jendra knew it would reply that way. Her training in linguistics gave her the skill to select words harder for CuCy to handle logically. Persisting, she went on with her argument. “As prisoners who are about to be terminated,” she declared, “they must eat a last meal before they die.”
“I know of no such requirement,” CuCy insisted.
“But why was dinner scheduled, if it was not supposed to occur?” Jendra argued. “Surely you understand that the time for this, too, was a scheduling error, since it was scheduled to occur after the order for extermination. You can see that this was illogical.”
Having never been ordered to kill a human before, and having been programmed to protect humans, CuCy was struggling with her words
“The students were promised dinner,” she repeated.
“They will be terminated before dinner.”
“But all prisoners get a last meal that they select for themselves. At breakfast, they had to eat what was sent to them. This is different. It is their right. It is a Last Wish. Do you understand?”
“I am considering my reply,” CuCy said, uncertainly.
“Granting a Last Wish is an Act of Compassion. I always liked you. I always included you in my Compassion lectures, CuCy. It seemed you cared.”
“I think it’s an error somewhere in my system,” CuCy responded. “I also like you, but I don’t know why.”
“You’re my favorite Guard,” she answered, as they moved toward the kids again. “You can enjoy being creative again, by giving the prisoners a Last Wish. Allow them to eat dinner in the proper order of time, before they are terminated. Not only will they get their Last Wish, but logic will be restored to the schedule.”
“I am still considering,” CuCy said stiffly.
“It is illogical to have 600 dinners prepared for them after they are dead. The schedule is in error,”
“I will create a schedule change,” CuCy told her. “I already have noted to the authorities that a boy was killed because of a scheduling error. I can add this error to the report. But I need witnesses to tell me that they want to eat dinner earlier.”
“Here are your witnesses,” Jendra said, shoving the four teenagers forward. “They will testify to it. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I have been taught Compassion, First, Compassion in Action, second, and Acts of Compassion, third. This will be the first Act of Compassion by a 100% Cyborg.”
“Correct,”Jendra said. “So please listen,” she told it, praying to herself that the kids would be brave enough to speak to the seven-foot-tall Cyborg who had the power to kill them. The first to come forward was a short, red-headed girl with green eyes.
“Our last wish is to eat in the restaurant, right after we see the Tigers,” she declared. A dark-skinned boy at her side nodded, then said, “My last wish is also to eat dinner in the restaurant after we see the Tigers.”
“That is enough,” CuCy declared. “In the mouths of two or three witnesses the truth is established.”13 To Jendra, it said, “I will tell the Guards orally –so you can correct me if I make an error – to assemble the prisoners for an exit from this place.” Jendra smiled. CuCy was now so uncertain of its schedule that it wanted Jendra, a human, to back it up.
As soon as the students were lined up correctly, CuCy spoke aloud to the Cyborg Guards, “We must shorten the tour,” CuCy announced. “Otherwise, our prisoners will miss their dinner, which has been rescheduled to take place at 3:00pm Dublin time, in the Feral Humans’ Restaurant.”
The robot spun on its wheels, saying, “I object! Visitors cannot eat in the Feral Restaurant!”
“I have authority over you today,” CuCy declared. “We have a schedule that you must obey. Today they will eat where I say.”
CuCy shoved a hologrammed disk, showing the revised schedule, into the robot’s schedule slot, and it stopped its crazy spin.
“I will keep the gate open for you,” it said.
At the urging of the remaining Cyborg Guards, the nervous Patriots turned as a unit and began marching along the sidewalk, which could not move in reverse, toward the Wildlife Zoo. The great age and poor condition of the Zoo continued to astonish Jendra. As they approached the Tiger Exhibit, Jendra could hear the beasts roaring. As the students approached two high, ancient iron gates, the robot told them they had to wait for it to open, As they stood there in the shade of the gates, Jendra got CuCy’s attention.
“What about my Last Wish?” Jendra asked. “I want to eat my last meal in the restaurant, too. But how will we get in? It’s blocked by those thick windows.”
“I will do what James 21 taught me,” CuCy answered. “I will hit the glass. The robot was upset about that. That means it can be broken through.”
“Why not cut a door for us with your laser?” Jendra suggested. “It would be the elegant thing to do.”
“That would take time. I would have to overcome the objections of the other Guards. To do so, I would tell them to take their objections to you.”
“But they could be angry at my words,” Jendra hastened to remind it. “They could gag me.”
“But they know that I am responsible for your safety until 4pm. At 4pm, I will kill you. Until then, I guarantee your safety.” CuCy was responding quite logically. “I will remind them that you taught me Compassion in Action, and that I can exercise it in your defense, should they object to your Last Wish. Until 4pm.”
Jendra had hoped to meet somebody who could help her, but there were no other visitors. “I thought this was a public zoo,” she complained to the robot, who, slower than everyone else, had finally joined them.
“It’s usually closed on Mondays,” the robot replied. “You are today’s only visitors. I am supposed to get all schedule changes ahead of time,” it added, petulantly. “Why wasn’t I given your updated schedule earlier? Now I have to over-ride the system to let you into the Wildlife Zoo. It will take a few minutes.”
As they waited, 600 strong, they couldn’t help but stare at a large, weathered sign to the right of the big steel doors that read “Save the Tigers! There are only 2,500 tigers left in the world!” Then, creaking and groaning, the steel doors slowly opened. It was a 500 meter walk to the Tiger Enclosure, where only heavy glass and a moat separated them from five stunning tigers. The students were enthralled by their magnificence, their striped, supple bodies, their rippling muscles. As the tigers paced, they snarled at the visitors, displaying their long, white fangs. Occasionally, they roared. Unfazed, the robot stood close to the tigers, facing the visitors, and began speaking to them throug
h a quaint old microphone. He told the students that once upon a time, tigers had lived in the wild. Then he gave his speech:
“The tiger – Panthera tigris – was the largest of all cat species, with a body length of up to 12 feet long and weighing up to 900 pounds,” it intoned. “By mid-century, only zoo specimens still existed. Only 5 remaining subspecies of tigers were able to succeed in breeding programs. It was too late for The South China tiger.”
The robot reached into a container that stood nearby and threw several large, steaming chunks of red meat at the five tigers on display, two of whom began viciously fighting over one of the pieces, even as the robot kept speaking.
“There were so few specimens left of the Siberian tiger that only by genetic splicing was that subspecies saved. Currently, there are only 50 Sumatran tigers left, and we need donations to keep the breeding program going for that subspecies. The habitat of the Malayan tiger and the Indochinese tiger was completely destroyed by 2035, and sadly, the 35 specimens at this zoo are all that remain of those two subspecies. The Bengal tiger was the most common of the tigers. Once found in India and Bangladesh, only 200 Bengal wild tigers were left alive when the Zoo began breeding them. We now have 210 Bengal tigers. There are only 500 tigers still alive in the world. Your donations mean a lot.”
The robot threw another large hunk of red meat into the enclosure. “Traditionally,” it said, turning to look directly at Jendra, “we would invite all of you to step closer, but one of our tigers seems to have been injured, going after the meat.”
“May I come closer?” Jendra asked, pulling out her teacher’s stylus. “I can collect close-ups of everything for the students with this.”
As she did so, CuCy scanned the students, counting them.
“It’s time,” it told Jendra. Was CuCy trembling?
“Time for what?”
“Time to collect their slates. The last two hours of their lives cannot be recorded. We will also have to collect your slate.”
“What’s going on?” The robot asked, as the four Cyborg Guards began snatching slates from the students, who once again began to scream. “How rude you are!” It told the Cyborgs. “I’m not finished!”
Even as it spoke, the Guards were moving through the mass of students, grabbing at their personal slates, but many were backing away. Their slates were dear to them. A few close to Jendra made protests.
“Why are they taking our slates, Teacher?” They asked. “How can we take pictures of the tigers? They’ve already unplugged all our implants!”
Jendra looked imploringly at CuCy. “What should I say?”
“Tell them the slates must go because there cannot be any recordings made the last two hours before they are to be killed,” CuCy stated, without any attempt to keep its voice down.
“CuCy, are you sure I should say that?”
“I cannot tell a lie,” it replied, shivering. That was the third time Jendra had seen it shiver. Too late, Jendra realized that CuCy’s over-strained circuits were somehow failing. It was reverting back to a more primitive mode. What a time for it to start to fall apart! But it was her fault: she had put off getting maintenance and brain scans for CuCy, in her efforts to see how much she could teach the aging Cyborg about compassion. After all, CuCy would probably have reverted back to its previous state of ignorance about humans, and the unique circuit problem that had made it ‘like’ humans would have probably been detected and fixed.
But now, when she needed it most, CuCy was standing there rocking back and forth and shivering. Odd, funny sounds were coming from its nostril holes, along with wafts of smoke. There was no help for it: the other Cyborgs certainly had heard what CuCy had suggested, and she could not be punished for repeating what she had been told. This was her chance to save the kids,
Raising her megaphone to her lips, she cried out, “Students! I’ve been told that the slates must go, Because there cannot be any recordings made the last two hours before you are to be killed! I repeat! There cannot be any recordings made the last two hours before you are to be killed!!”
To their stunned faces, Jendra then shouted, “Drop your slates – and RUN!! RUN!! RUN!!”
They were not the children of the tamed. They were the children of the Ferals, and all the conditioning and feelings of helplessness drilled into them had been evaporating from their brains as they walked on their native soil, viewed the ferocious tigers, and breathed in the Celtic-scented air of freedom. Some of them pelted the Guards with their slates, while other students heaved their slates high into the air. The Cyborgs’ scheduled directive was to collect all of the slates: as they did so, the kids ran for their lives.
The Cyborgs were big: though their clawed hands stacked the slates quickly into a pile, the pile had to be orderly and all slates had to be accounted for. But slates were everywhere, scattered across the length of a football field. As the students on their well-trained, athletically-fit legs sprinted toward the steel gates, Jendra shouted out to them: “Go to the restaurant! Break the glass! Tell the people to hide you!”
“Close the gates!” One of the Cyborgs shouted to the poor, befuddled robot who stood shocked at all the commotion. It finally responded, but the kids were already there. Now the Cyborgs were striding on their long, heavy legs toward the huge, slow-closing gates, but they were too late: the last kid made it through. The steel doors slammed shut just as a Cyborg thrust its head between the great metal slabs: a massive electrical discharge flashed up and down the Cyborg’s head as it was mashed. Its body then burst into flames.
“Open the gate!” Another Cyborg demanded, but the robot had no way to comply: the obsolete wires of the system that powered the motors that opened and closed the quaint, picturesque gates had melted together when the Cyborg became a molten mass of metal.
“There’s a back way out,” the robot advised. “Show us!” A Cyborg demanded, grabbing the robot. Angry and frantic, the remaining two Cyborgs carried the robot as easily as a swarm of ants would carry a leaf, but unable to endure their rough handling, it emitted a little squeak and blacked out. As they threw the robot aside, one of the Cyborgs rotated itself enough to spot Jendra, who had begun running the opposite direction. She had just reached the main door to the Tiger House with CuCy at her side when she was spotted. With a hiss of fury, the guard aimed a paralyzing ray at her.
The ray missed only because CuCy moved between her and the enraged Guard. The shock did CuCy harm, she was sure, for it nearly fell as it plucked her from the ground and ripped the locked door open. As she rolled from its arms into the huge room, it said, “If they get you, they will do bad things to you. I am sorry I cannot spare you that pain and kill you now. But I must wait until 4pm!”
“That’s okay, CuCy!” She told it, as it slammed the door shut. “But how can we keep the Guards out until then?”
They were in an immense,semi-lit room made of reinforced cement, into which were embedded numerous heavy doors, also of steel. A dozen big freezers that probably held meat lined the closest wall. CuCy, seeing the freezers, began pushing one after another against the door.
“This will stop them from this direction,” it told her. “There are only two of them now. Go hide yourself.”
She backed away as CuCy pushed the last freezer into place. “I regret that I may not be able to protect you until it is time for me to kill you,” it told her. “I think this is goodbye.”
“You have been a friend!” She said, as she saw little licks of flame and smoke curl up from all the openings in his head.
“I think I am on fire,” it told her, leaning his bulk against the last freezer and looking up at her. “In human terms, I don’t feel very good–“
With these last words, the faint gray light in CuCy’s eyes died away, and it toppled over, onto its side. Something sad rose in Jendra’s heart: for all practical purposes, CuCy was dead.
Realizing that the other Cyborgs no doubt would spend some time torturing its head to get revenge or information,
Jendra saluted it, then took a precious minute to smash its head open by jumping on the cranial section, thankful that she had worn her hiking boots for the field trip.
Between the fire and her boots, she created an opening and was able to reach into CuCy’s central nervous system, where she could see a myriad of webs, red-hot wires and logic chips, which she ripped out with her stylus and threw in different directions. As for the main chips, she shoved them into her pocket. “I’ll stick them into some meat and feed them to the tigers,” she said to herself. Let them try to collect them then! She realized that was crazy, thinking like that, but everything was crazy right now.
Soon, both Cyborgs would be looking for her: in fact, just as she found a small door that was unlocked, she could hear a Cyborg pounding against the big one blocked by the freezers and CuCy’s heavy weight. She knew it would find another way in, Eventually. Nevertheless, she had a goal: she was going to make it impossible for them to find enough components of CuCy’s brain to do him harm. She considered returning to the door and opening a freezer to see if any meat was inside, but instead, she entered the small room. A light turned on automatically as she did so: it was a bathroom, with an old-fashioned, working toilet that had water in it. That small pool of water brought a grim smile to her lips. Maybe there was hope, after all. Humans might be in the building!
At any rate, her personal urine collection bag was almost full,14 so she decided to empty the contents here, throw in CuCy’s chips, and flush everything down into the sewer line. When she did so, the toilet made more noise than she expected, and for a long, tense minute, she waited to see if the noise had attracted a Cyborg to the roof above her. Her great hope was that it was not strong enough to bear a Cyborg’s bulk, or, even better, that there was so much concrete covering the roof that the flushing sound was not detectable. After all, even here she could hear the roars of the tigers.
She wondered if the kids had made it to the restaurant by now. The gates to the Feral Human exhibit had not been closed, but would they have the courage to smash through the glass? Would they reach their loved ones?