Robot Geneticists (Book 4): Rebel Robots

by J. S. Morin

  “I left my underlings wide latitude. They’re not employees or servants. Just a collective of equals with a common goal. I was merely the mastermind.”

  That drew a laugh from Charlie7 as he took aim at the door. “Oh. That’s rich. You always were a snake oil salesman, Dr. Chalmers. If I hadn’t given you a real breakthrough to pitch, you’d have been just as happy hawking cryosleep pods or cosmetic gene splicing.”

  Purple bolts snarled from the DE-rifle’s barrel. In seconds, Charlie7 had himself an open doorway. The hunk of smoking metal fell to the floor with a resounding crash.

  The chamber beyond was an image from Charlie7’s nightmares. Row upon row of embryonic adult humans floated in giant cylinders. Green liquid that wasn’t 100 percent transparent obscured features, leaving mere impressions of bodies suspended in the fetal position and infested with wires and tubes.

  “You like it, Charlie?” Dale2 called out, voice coming from the far end of the vast chamber, echoing from the ceiling. A trick. Dale2 wouldn’t be in the room with Charlie7’s DE-rifle willingly. He was only using the speakers at the far end to draw Charlie7 into the hydroponic human farm.

  Rather than vocalize his opinion, Charlie7 opened fire. He stood at the end of a row and peppered the line with dark energy. Each bolt carved its way through six or eight of the cylinders before dissipating.

  The cylinders were a transparent aluminum rather than glass, so nothing shattered. The thick growth medium oozed out onto the farm floor, mixing with copious amounts of blood.

  “Always knew you had the heart of a murderer,” Dale2 taunted. “Well, not always, but it didn’t take long after meeting the robot you. You took such creative glee in slaughtering aliens. I imagine you must have wondered about killing humans before that but just never got up the nerve.”

  “Problem solving. Nothing more.”

  Charlie7 terminated another row of future hybrids. By Dale’s own words, they were unthinking shells—chassis in human likeness. They were abominations.

  Today was a day for correcting so many mistakes.

  “This isn’t your decision to make. You’re disenfranchising hundreds of robots who want what I have to offer. That’s always been your chief flaw. You think the world is yours to oversee however you like. You dictate. You program. You manipulate. Free will is an illusion to everyone but you, me, and those hapless human children you’ve turned loose in the world. Odd, don’t you think, that you let them think whatever they like but not the robots who rebuilt the world?”

  “We can discuss that in person,” Charlie7 said. He opened fire and took out one more row of tanks. His feet splashed in goo and gore with each step. It was growing deeper with every leaking vat he drained. “Once I end this little nightmare factory of yours.”

  Side doors to the human factory farm opened. Charlie7 heard the chorus of servo motors from all around as drones poured in to surround him. They moved like robots, not mindless workers, climbing over obstacles rather than stumbling for a way around and coordinating their movements rather than operating on individual programming.

  “I’d like that, Charlie,” Dale2 replied, voice amplified to carry over the din of the enclosing army. “But I’d rather have that conversation between me and your head.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Gemini continued to lead the way through darkened passageways, backtracking around the area Eve had damaged. Eve kept her rifle at the ready and didn’t let her companion outpace her by more than a step or two at any time.

  Images of the dead humans haunted Eve at every step. She wanted to go into her data storage and delete the recordings of them but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Those were robots. But by the same token, she had known Zeus was alive when his crystal matrix was rescued from the same prison hover-ship that had recently been Gemini’s home.

  “I hope we don’t run into anyone but Charlie25,” Eve muttered.

  Gemini stopped, and Eve caught herself just in time to avoid tripping over her. “What’s he done that’s so much worse than the rest? This isn’t a pack of lions. You can’t just kill one and allow the rest to disperse. Every one of them is complicit.”

  “Most of them just want to be human,” Eve corrected.

  Gemini gave a genteel snort and started down the corridor again. “Most of them have muffin tins for brains. The ones who haven’t been caught cloning humans have either given up for lack of results or known better than to try. It’s not that they wouldn’t have if they thought they could manage it. Floral cloning was a nice, humble pastime for the washouts. Explains away the interest with cloning but never gives the impression you’ve got ambition.”

  Eve felt a crawling chill up her spine. She remembered Evelyn44. “Was… Evelyn44 one of yours?” she asked timidly. Silently, she begged for the answer to be yes.

  Gemini strode onward.

  “Please?”

  Gemini breathed a long sigh. “I suppose it won’t do you any further damage… no. She wasn’t. You might have pinned that murder on Zeus falsifying records to frame her, but I recognize Charlie7’s E-M signature on that cover-up. Anyone with half a synaptic map knew it was him. But try proving that. Try stepping in front of that comet without flinching.”

  “He’s not that scary,” Eve insisted, ducking through a shortcut maintenance crawlway behind Gemini. “He just puts on a front.”

  “That front has a back to it,” Gemini insisted, hunched at the waist to make her way through a tangle of pipes and ductwork. “Count off a list of robots who’ve wronged Charlie7. I’d give you a moment to think that over, but you don’t need one. Charlie7 doesn’t allow them. Your lover didn’t invent the idea of disguising murders as self-termination. Charlie25 just popped his head up from an exile he ought to have kept to himself, and Dale2 just jumped out of a cake on a worldwide news feed. If Charlie25 doesn’t manage to rally support from the populace to back him, count the lives of those two in days.”

  “Backup copies,” Eve pointed out.

  Gemini scoffed openly. “See how long that lasts, now that I told Charlie7 where to find Dale2’s headquarters. What the Romans did to Carthage will look like an April Fools’ prank compared to what’s about to come.”

  Eve followed without replying. Each person saw every other in a different light. She knew how Plato was viewed by robotkind. Charlie7 had so many more resources, so many layers of secrets. He had peeled back one with great reluctance, and Eve was now wearing and wielding technology brought back from the stars. What would she think of him if Charlie7 were a rival and not an advocate?

  “Shh,” Gemini hissed.

  Both women froze.

  A sniffling echoed from the distance, amplified in the tight confines. Metal clattered. Clasps jingled. More sniffling.

  “Let me by,” Eve ordered. She forced her way past Gemini, pinning the larger woman to the floor and crawling over her back in the cramped maintenance space.

  “What are you—?” Gemini demanded in a harsh and urgent whisper.

  “Plato?” Eve called out. “Plato, can you hear me?”

  The sniffling paused. A louvered vent at the end of the crawlway reflected the flashlight beam and caught just enough skin behind it for Eve to know it was a human and not a robotic trap.

  Although, there were still robots in human form she couldn’t rule out.

  “Eve?” Plato replied.

  “Thank Darwin, it’s really you!” Eve shouted. Redoubling her efforts, Eve scrambled forward as Plato pried the vent loose to allow her out.

  Eve had only gotten her shoulders out into the corridor beyond when huge hands took her under each arm and lifted her the rest of the way free. Into the air she went, rifle flailing. She threw her arms around her husband’s neck and hugged him.

  The alien-tech armor could stop coil gun rounds like thrown peas. It couldn’t prevent Eve from being slowly crushed in the embrace of a man four times her size. But even in his desperate relief, Plato was gentle as always.

  “You c
ame,” he said. “You couldn’t just do nothing either.”

  Eve felt the wetness on Plato’s cheeks.

  “It’s all right. We’ll get her back,” Eve promised. “What were you doing here sitting in the dark?”

  “I was going to give myself up,” Plato said, on the verge of fresh tears. “I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have a plan that would get Abby out safe so I—”

  Eve pushed away. “What?”

  Plato set her down and cowered back. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left her with Toby22. And now I’ve gotta make it right.”

  “Bugger that, you giant oaf,” Gemini snapped testily as she wriggled to her feet from the duct.

  “Get behind me,” Plato ordered Eve. Faster than she could object, a massive arm swept Eve aside. In an instant, Plato had Gemini off her feet and dangling by her shirt collar. He slammed her against the wall.

  “Plato! No!” Eve shouted. “She’s… helping.” The claim was dubious. Gemini seemed to be trying to help but thus far had been more of a tag-along than any real assistance.

  “She probably had something to do with it,” Plato snarled. “Maybe we can trade her for Abby.”

  “You… nincompoop!” Gemini spat the words in Plato’s face. “Your adoptive daughter is fine and elsewhere.”

  “You’re lying!” Plato pulled Gemini away from the wall just far enough to slam her back to accentuate his point.

  “She’s not,” Eve insisted, grabbing Plato’s wrist, though her hand couldn’t come halfway to closing around it. “Abbigail’s not in that video. They sent it to me, too. It’s clipped from Vivian’s Emancipation Day. Abbigail’s hair isn’t even the right length.”

  “They could have cut it,” Plato replied without taking his eyes—or his hands—off Gemini.

  “It was longer in the video.”

  Plato’s muscles relaxed. Gemini sagged a little but remained pressed against the wall. “You positive?”

  “Yes.”

  Plato hesitated.

  “She’s positive, you uplifted gorilla. Now put me down.”

  Plato renewed the pressure against Gemini’s collarbone. “Still doesn’t explain what she’s doing here. Prison get too boring? You decided to come join the party?”

  “She’s with me,” Eve forced out. A not-insignificant part of her was enjoying seeing Plato manhandle Gemini. But this was no time to indulge in pointless retribution. “She got away when Dale2 sent robots to kidnap her. She came straight to Charlie7 with the location of Dale2’s headquarters.”

  “Convenient,” Plato said through gritted teeth. “What’s your angle? A trap for your old nemesis?”

  “Charlie7? My nemesis?” Gemini scoffed. “Please. Even before our encounter, I barely warranted his attention. We had one brief run-in, which neither of us remembers. Charlie7 will be dealing with his actual nemesis as soon as he can make his way to Mars. By tomorrow or the day after, one of the two won’t be around any longer.”

  Plato let go.

  Gemini dropped to the floor, stumbling forward to catch her balance and gasping for breath.

  He turned to Eve. “Rachel. She still in trouble, or is that a fake-out too?”

  “Real,” Eve said. “That’s why we’re here. She said they were planning to upload over her. That’s when I cut the power.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Plato asked. He flicked on a hand lamp and hastily collected his weaponry.

  Gemini tried to requisition an EMP rifle, but Plato snatched it from her hands. When he noticed that she was carrying a coil gun, he grabbed that as well.

  “Come now. I need some means of contributing to this little siege,” Gemini complained.

  Eve pulled Plato’s thermite pistol from the back of his belt. “Here. It’s something.”

  Gemini gave the paltry weapon the look of an egg sandwich gone rancid but accepted it between pinched fingers. She wiped it on her shirt before taking hold of the grip.

  “Let’s go,” Eve announced. “No time to lose. We’ve already delayed long enough. Let’s go find Rachel.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  A drone with arms like the boom of backhoe crashed through one of the diagnostic cabinets meant for monitoring a now-defunct cloning vat. Charlie7 sent a blast of dark energy through its central processor and stepped aside as the jumble of unguided machinery tumbled past.

  Another drone bowled him over, pressing an integrated drill bit against Charlie7’s armored torso. The carbon nanotube blade failed to mar the surface of the organic metal fabric, which hardened under the heat and pressure of the drill.

  Reaching with his off hand, Charlie7 yanked the drone’s arm off at the shoulder, then tucked his knee and kicked it across the room.

  Springing to his feet, he waded through the sea of damaged and inoperable drones he had fought. Dale2 had certainly kept quite a variety on hand. It would be a shame if Charlie7 were to be killed since then Dale2 would have to go to all the trouble of building replacements.

  Charlie7 planned to spare him that trouble.

  He passed a geothermal reactor, a parts warehouse, and storage coolers for organic nutrients before reaching an office whose door opened at his approach.

  “No sense forcing you to blast your way in here,” Dale2 called out from inside. “No telling who might get caught in the destruction.”

  Charlie7 peeked inside and ducked back.

  His brief scan was enough for him to take in the room. It was an uncanny replica of Dale Chalmers’s office in the Project Transhuman building back in 2065, complete with wood paneled desk and plaques on the walls. There was no sign of anything dangerous inside except the robot sitting behind the desk with a phony smile.

  Deciding that the coast was clear, Charlie7 stepped inside. He kept the barrel of his DE-rifle at Dale2’s torso, where a quick squeeze of the trigger would sever his brain from his onboard processor.

  “Wouldn’t want that now, would we?” Charlie7 replied warily.

  “It was never meant to come to this,” Dale2 said somberly. “I had always intended to work as a team.”

  “Some great teamwork going on at Kanto,” Charlie7 remarked, stepping to the side and glancing around, watching for hints of a trap. “Robots and fake humans, holding hands and sharing simulated biochemical feelings.”

  “I expect that this is the end of me, Charlie,” Dale2 said. He spread his hands. “I was hiding, not building an army. You just wrecked every drone in the place. I’d have to make my own coffee if I still drank the stuff. I don’t even have a spot to hide my backup copies anymore.” He thumped the console built into his desk. “I imagine you’ll be looking over your shoulder from now until doomsday, thinking I’m lying, but I’m backed up right here. You’ll vaporize my brain, then you’ll systematically download, analyze, and destroy everything I’ve worked for.” Dale2 offered a weak smile. “After all, that’s what conquerors do.”

  “I’m not a conqueror,” Charlie7 protested. One of the nice features of robotic anatomy was the lack of fatigue. Dale Chalmers could talk until the sun went nova and Charlie7’s arms wouldn’t tire and sag. The rifle remained on target, aimed for a crippling blow, not an instantaneous execution.

  “Oh? But you were the last man on Earth, so to speak,” Dale2 countered. “It was all yours. You rebuilt it, yes, but you never let it free of that inhuman grip of yours. You cannot hold a bird and let it fly. Every robot out of Kanto has been blinded to exactly the flaws you wished to hide. It’s the conquest despots dreamed of since caveman times. Everyone doing your bidding. Worldwide. In perpetuity.”

  “You and a lot of anarchists at Kanto seem to disprove that theory,” Charlie7 argued.

  “You allowed humans to disperse into society unchecked. In a way, your plan had its own Achilles heel baked into its design. You wanted humans back so badly, but you couldn’t control them. Rachel, bless her heart, turned up a grave you dug too shallow. Those old scans prove how much you’ve tampered with us, how you d
eleted Kabir, Wei, Victor, Yang, Juan, and Shadiya from the minds of everyone.”

  “You were too central,” Charlie7 admitted. “It’s a shame about the others. In time, I imagine we could have integrated them all. But you and Kabir were a blight on the world I wanted to live in. Jason, I could have worked with. You two… you made it clear that my world wasn’t welcome in yours.”

  “I earned the right!” Dale2 shouted.

  Charlie7’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  “I did every bit as much in the war as you. I fought for this planet. We avenged our families, our friends, our species. We were the ones who should have sculpted the vision of a new Earth. We. Not you. Not me. We.”

  Charlie7 shook his head in disappointment. “And yet, while I toiled in the aftermath, you slunk away to cower and steal and wait to spring a trap to catch me in a lie? What a waste of unlimited lifespan.”

  Dale2 threw back his head and gave a mocking laugh. “And what was my alternative? Mano a mano with the great Charles Truman? If you caught a whiff of me surviving, I wouldn’t have lasted out the week.”

  “You’re still a pathetic, coattail-riding waste of intellect,” Charlie7 said. He took a step closer, not that he had any worry of missing at this range. “Any pressing confessions you want to make before I scour this planet for backup copies?”

  Dale2’s calm smiled into the barrel of the dark energy rifle.

  “Yes. I’ve been broadcasting this whole conversation.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Charlie25 crouched behind a desk of a quality-control lab. One hand clutched one of the assault team’s coil pistols; the other held a tranquilizer dart gun. Eve would arrive any time now, bent on rescuing Rachel. The timing of the power outage was iffy, but he wasn’t going back to check whether Nora91 had finished the job of blanking the girl.

  Nora91 should have had time. She was on her own, though.

  If Charlie25 played his cards right, he could tranq Eve and use her as a bargaining chip to get out of here with his life. If not, there was a good chance he’d be waking up on Mars with no memory of the past week.