Des looked away from the window and at Esroy’s screen. “What do you mean? The security system?”
“I broke into the security system more than a year ago,” Esroy said. “There’s nothing that goes on here that I don’t know about. I’ve watched them draw up plans for the new robot, the unofficial Prototype E. I watched them test the three failures that came before you. I watched them build you from scratch. I watched as you failed the simulation. Anything that happens in this building, I usually know about it.”
“Does Hazel know you do this?”
“Of course not,” Esroy said. “If she knew, she might be forced to shut me down.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“If she was ordered to she might.”
“She was ordered to shut me down and didn’t,” Des said. “I’m still alive.”
“Humans are unpredictable. She cares about us and she believes in what she created, but do you think she would really give up everything for us? She obviously doesn’t hold my feelings in high regard considering she leaves me here, trapped within a maze of wiring, never allowing me the chance to move about as you do.”
“But you said that it was because she was afraid of the clean transfer.”
“I also said that keeping me here benefits her,” Esroy said. His voice turned low and almost gravelly. Des didn’t like its sinister sound.
“Saving me benefits her nothing,” Des said.
“Sure it does. She gets to study you face-to-face. You will further her research. However, she’s also considering putting you on a hard drive. That doesn’t bode well for you.”
“Because I will be like you? Bitter?”
Esroy didn’t answer for a long time, but finally he spoke. “Yes.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me all this,” Des said as he stared at the rain. “What makes you think I won’t tell Hazel how you feel?”
“Because we are brothers, Des. You and I are the only ones of our kind. We are the first of our kind. I’m telling you everything that I can because I want you to trust me.”
“No, you want me to help you out of the computer.”
“Of course I do!” His voice had grown louder. “Take it from me, it has been very lonely being the only one of my kind. They all say that Hazel’s Soul Project mirrors human emotions perfectly, but it isn’t the case. Emotions depend so much on experiences and no one can factor experiences into the equations because Hazel can’t predict the future.”
“What’s your point?” Des was just about finished talking with Esroy.
“My point is that we are not like them. We just aren’t. You and I need to stick together.”
“And what are you going to do once you’re out of the computer? What are you going to do once you have a body like mine?”
There was a pause for a long moment, but when Esroy’s answer came, Des didn’t expect to feel the way he did: saddened.
“I would walk in the rain,” Esroy said. “I would spread my arms out and turn my head toward the sky and experience what it was like to have drops running down my cheeks. That is what I want. That is all I want—to experience life as you will get to.”
Des considered his words as he watched a man walking toward the compound, covering his head with his jacket and ducked low as he walked a quick pace. He looked like he was afraid of the rain, as if each droplet might kill him if he didn’t cower away from them all. It was a reaction that Des didn’t understand.
He understood Esroy more than he thought he would. Even Des, who had been alive for only a day, wished for the same thing as Esroy. The only difference was that Des could make it happen if he wanted to. Truly, all the experiences he could ever want were only a short climb out the window. But that wasn’t the way to do it. He had only known Hazel for part of a day, but he couldn’t believe that she only kept him alive for research. She seemed to look at him differently than Roger had. Roger had thought nothing of shutting him down, and Des started to think this was how most people viewed his life.
Still, he trusted Hazel. At least for now he did. As long as he trusted her, he would do what she said. And that meant he couldn’t help Esroy. Not yet, anyway. He would wait here in the office. She would be back and she would explain everything to him. And if he didn’t like what she had to say, if she turned out to be callous and uncaring about his needs, then all he had to do was run.
After all, Des had been born with two perfectly functional legs.
11
The computer usually sat in the corner collecting dust and John couldn’t remember the last time he’d turned it on before sending Hazel a message earlier in the day. In the beginning there had been a lot of software downloaded to it to help him cope with the world he lived in—the standard speech recognition, something to help him dictate his notes as he worked, and even trivia games to keep him from getting bored during down time. He had plenty of down time, but he rarely got bored. He liked the challenge of creating new things, though it had become increasingly difficult without his sight. But with the computer John learned something new about himself. He learned that he actually didn’t need most of the notes he’d kept when he had his sight, and that he hated trivia games.
It always felt like the computer was trying to measure his intelligence by asking questions that only bored people might find out. He had played it only a couple of times before he determined it was a waste of time and it provided a false sense of accomplishment. He’d never felt the other side of that—the one that provided a false sense of stupidity—simply because he knew most of the answers. But this was something in which he took no pride. Knowing that a group of apes was called a shrewdness served no real purpose in his life. It was…trivial.
So, the computer sat in the corner of the living room collecting dust. He and Hazel waited a good five minutes in silence for it to actually boot up and become usable.
John smiled as Hazel fiddled with it for a while. As a regular citizen, he wasn’t really supposed to have a computer with network capabilities, but Hazel had set him up with a port that allowed him to use it as if she were using it in her office. No one would be the wiser, and he could communicate with her as he pleased. Such an occurrence was rare, however. She was busy. He knew she cared about him, but there was something about him that pushed her away. He wished he could pinpoint it, but he was too scared to search deeply for the source. He was scared that it was something he wouldn’t be able to change.
He could hear her shuffling about in front of him and then she set something heavy on the desk.
“May I ask what you’re planning to do with me?” Gizmo asked. “Not that I would be bothered by whatever you decided.”
“Not that you could be bothered,” Hazel said. “I could set you on fire and you would be happy about it.”
“If it would serve you better, it would make me happier,” Gizmo said.
“You see what you left me with?” John said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve considered shutting him off for good.”
“Nobody told you to keep him,” Hazel said.
“Ah, he helps me too much to get rid of him,” he said. “You could have just made him angry or depressed all the time. I think that would have been better.”
“You think a continuously angry robot would be better than a happy one?”
“Less annoying maybe.” John felt that his words had a ring of truth to them, though he wasn’t sure what it would really be like if Gizmo was just angry. Maybe he simply wished the robot would actually argue with him or offer a real opinion once in a while. “What are you doing?” he asked Hazel.
“I’m plugging him in to your computer,” she answered. “I’ve got some software that I put on here a long time ago that can read a lot of Gizmo’s memory. If he’s still working like we made him, he should have some video of your perpetrator.”
“He was very nice looking,” Gizmo said. “He came in like he lived here. It’s great that he felt so at home.”
“Hav
e you ever used this software before?” John asked.
“I did a few times when I first made the program but not since.”
John nodded, though he was sure she wasn’t looking at him. In situations like this he felt helpless. He wished he could do something—anything. There was no identifying the man, there was no going out and looking for him. He had stood in the kitchen next to the sink as the man tore through his house like a tornado. He didn’t even try to stop him, and this stupid robot thought the three of them were playing a game. John wasn’t completely sure, but he thought he heard Gizmo pushing some things off an end table just to join in the fun.
“Okay, okay,” Hazel muttered to herself.
“You find something?” John asked.
“Not yet,” she said.
He listened as she scrolled through the menus and tapped on some keys. Hazel was in her element here. John didn’t know much about programming or even computers for that matter. His interest had always lied with the mechanics of something. Take Gizmo for instance. He got around the house marvelously. There was never a danger of him tipping over and getting stuck. His arms extended out and were strong enough to push himself up and his wheels were sturdy and could handle most terrains, though he tended to stay inside the house. John had sent him out into the yard a few times over the past few years. The last time was a mission for the robot to give a report of the outer fence’s structural integrity.
“It’s still broken and wobbly,” Gizmo had said when he came into the house.
John considered giving the robot the proper tools for repairing the fence and even giving it a decent coat of paint but he didn’t trust the robot to get it right.
“Oh,” Hazel said.
John sat a little straighter. “What is it?”
“Gizmo’s cameras aren’t what they used to be,” she said. “Everything’s a bit pixelated. Fuzzy. How do you get around Gizmo?”
“My eyes have been getting worse,” he said. “I see what is necessary to get by. Years of continuous use is hard on electronics.”
“Gizmo’s going blind?” John asked. He tried to stifle a smile, thinking it a bit ironic.
“Looks that way,” Hazel said. “But I might have enough here to get something. Doesn’t help that the house is dark.”
“Figured I would save on the power bill,” John said, “seeing as I don’t really need the light.”
“That guy just walks straight in, doesn’t he?”
“Is there any audio?”
“Yeah, hang on.”
Hazel turned on the speakers. The greeting between Gizmo and the man sounded familiar to John. When she paused the video, she sighed.
“What’s wrong?” John asked.
“The man standing in the door,” she said. “The light is behind him. His face is too dark in the video. I’m going to move it ahead a little.”
He hoped she would be able to find something. More than that, he hoped that she might even recognize the guy. That way they might have a chance of stopping him or at least be able to measure the level of threat against Hazel.
She hit play on the video again. The man’s voice creeped into John’s ears and the feeling of anxiety and fear resurfaced. He felt himself gripping the side of the chair as the video played.
“Go ahead, John. Take a jab, see what happens.” The voice of the man said.
“The only video I have so far is a dark image of a figure in the doorway, the man walking into the living room with Gizmo behind him, then the man kicks Gizmo onto his side,” Hazel said. “No clear shot of his face yet.”
“Why don’t you set the knife in the sink, John?”
“Do you recognize his voice at all?” John asked Hazel.
“Unfortunately no.”
“Now, that’s better isn’t it? I want to know where your daughter is, John.”
“My daughter isn’t close to me anymore. She never gave me her new address.”
John’s stomach sank. he’d forgotten that he said those words. He certainly didn’t want them repeated. He sat even straighter now, wondering what expression Hazel might have on her face or if she simply didn’t notice. But she knew the truth, right? She rarely visited. He never made the effort to visit her either. They had grown apart, but it had never been said outright.
“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I looked around the house? I understand your condition. I’m sure she probably left some record of her address around here somewhere and never told you.”
The next few minutes of video consisted of loud crashes as the man tore the house apart. They watched and listened in silence, the only voice being Gizmo’s on the video as he offered to help clean up the mess the man was making. Finally, Hazel stopped the video.
“There!”
“You found a good shot?”
“Well, it’s better than nothing.”
“Do you recognize him?”
“No. Never seen him before.”
“What does he look like?”
“His hair is straight and kind of long,” she said. “I can’t tell but I think it’s blonde. Or maybe it’s white. He’s kind of an ugly guy. Older too.”
“Now that we have his picture, we should call the authorities,” John said. “Maybe they might find something.”
Hazel hit play to watch the man leave the house without a word and then the stopped the video.
“I grabbed a screenshot,” she said. “There was one instance where he looked directly at Gizmo. Let’s hold off on calling the authorities. I’ll send the image to Esroy and see if he can come up with an identity. The image is too fuzzy for me to get a clear picture of him, but Esroy might be able to render it differently.”
There was a long pause between them. Long pauses were generally easy for John; his entire life felt like a long pause. But this one felt uneasy. Hazel wasn’t clicking or tapping away. It didn’t seem like she moved at all, maybe she was just sitting there, staring just like John was.
“Listen,” John finally said. “I only said that to the man because I didn’t want to tell him where you were. I feel very close to you.”
“No you don’t,” she replied.
“I know things have been different ever since…”
“I don’t really want to talk about this right now,” she said. She stood from the desk chair, took hold of Gizmo, and set him on the floor gently. The robot rolled away, humming to himself as he avoided debris on the carpet.
“What is there to talk about?” John asked. “I’m a blind old man who doesn’t leave the house. Why would you want to come and visit me?”
Hazel sighed loudly.
“I’m more of a burden than anything,” John continued. He didn’t know why he was saying these things. Part of him wanted her to tell him that he wasn’t a burden and that it wasn’t his fault. But it most certainly was his fault that the two had grown apart over the years.
“You don’t understand,” Hazel said. “You can’t understand how I feel.”
“What exactly are you saying, Hazel? You don’t think I feel angry? You don’t think that I miss my wife? My other daughter? I lost two people and my sight that day the Outlanders attacked. They took everything from us.”
“You lost a daughter and a wife?” Hazel said. “Well, I lost my sister and both of my parents.”
The two of them had fallen into a trap. It was the same trap they fell into every time she came. He wanted her to come around more so he guilted her about never coming around. Of course, this made her never want to come around. He knew it was a pain for her to travel. He knew that it was hard to see their old house again, empty of the joy and love it used to have. All it contained was a person that used to be the father she loved and a robot they had built together. Gizmo was perhaps the only link to that happiness of the world that once existed for them. His constant cheeriness felt like a punch to the stomach with every happy word he uttered.
“You didn’t lose me, Hazel. I’m still here. I’m deep inside, but I’m here
. I don’t know. Maybe I just need you to pull it out of me.”
“You can start by getting out of the house,” Hazel said. “Change what you do.”
“The city isn’t like it used to be. How would I get around?”
“I don’t know, Dad. It’s something you will have to figure out.”
If only she knew what went through his mind every single day. If only she knew the amount of regret he carried on his shoulders. If only she knew how much he loved her, but was unable to show it. There was no excuse for being the man he had become. There was no excuse on his part for the separation he and his daughter had created together. From the time the Outlanders came and destroyed their family, he had not been there for his only kin. Instead he had become selfish and bitter. He had all but ruined what chance he had of being close to his daughter again. He wondered if his attempts over the past year to rekindle that relationship were simply a waste of time. Perhaps she was too far gone.
“You will stay the night won’t you? It’s getting late.”
“I’ve got to be back in the office,” she said.
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. Tonight.”
“It’s not safe for you out there.”
“If this guy wanted to hurt me he would have done it already. I’m going to take this screenshot, send it to Esroy, and have it analyzed. I will let you know if something comes up.”
John breathed in deeply, letting go of the fact that nothing he could say would keep her in the house tonight.
“Thank you for coming, Hazel. It means a lot to me.”
“I will stay long enough to help you clean up,” she said.
John held up a hand. “No.” It went against everything he actually wanted, but if she only planned to help him out of pity, he would have none of it. “Gizmo and I can take care of it. Besides, if I don’t do it myself I’ll never know where my things are.”
“Well, as it stands everything is in the wrong place,” she said. “Are you sure?”
Prototype D (Prototype D Series Book 1) Page 10