Prototype D (Prototype D Series Book 1)

by Jason D. Morrow

  “Then I would go to prison. They would interrogate me and eventually kill me.” He shrugged. “It’s a risk I’ve come to accept.”

  “Sounds like the most dangerous janitorial job I’ve ever heard of,” Esroy said.

  “Even so,” Phil said, “I need an answer. Either you’re with us or you’re not. There are no fence sitters here.”

  Hazel looked down at her feet and wiped her face with her sleeve. “I’m not all in until I see the proof of this.”

  “Can’t see the proof without Nolan here,” Phil said.

  “You can get him out?” Des asked.

  “You can leave that up to me, yeah.”

  Hazel nodded and she breathed out a heavy sigh as she clasped her fingers together and wedged her arms between her knees. “Bring him here.” She nodded toward Des. “He’s going to hold a gun to your heads until I see proof of what Nolan is talking about.”

  Phil stood a little straighter. “I understand.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Esroy said. “You cannot ally with them, Hazel. You’ll get us all killed.”

  “What time can he be here?” she asked, ignoring Esroy.

  “Tomorrow night. Around midnight would be best. We will have limited time.”

  “Hazel,” Esroy said.

  She shook her head. “Esroy, how close are we to the new robot?”

  “It’s about ready,” he said. “But what does that—”

  “We have to get it done,” Hazel cut in. “We’re doing a live shoot in front of the entire city tomorrow evening. We have to act like everything is normal.”

  “I’m not sure I can go along with this,” Esroy said.

  “We have to,” Hazel said, looking up at the camera on the computer screen. “If what Nolan says is true then it would be wrong if we didn’t do something.” Her eyes went from the camera to meet Phil’s. “But if the proof isn’t there—if it’s not what Nolan says it is—I’ll kill both of them myself.”

  22

  “Hey, Des do you mind doing something with that light?” The orange glow from the other side of the room bothered Hazel. She had a giant headache and could have used an entire pot of coffee. She had thought of getting a coffee machine for her own office, but she was afraid she would never get out and stretch her legs if she didn’t occasionally walk a few hallways down to fill up her mug. “Des, you awake?”

  “I don’t really sleep,” Des said.

  Hazel shook her head, her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her. “I know that. I was just joking. What are you doing with that light anyway?” She finally glanced in Des’ direction and realized there was absolutely nothing Des could do with the light.

  He shrugged. “Do you mean the sun?”

  Hazel swore and turned back to the screen. She had worked through the night, tampering with numbers and running simulations. Hazel had fought off sleep as best she could. She and Esroy had been weeding out fear from the program—a task that should have taken weeks instead of hours. Hazel didn’t like using Esroy as a test subject even though he always volunteered for it. She feared that she would do something to his programming that might change him forever. Des stood next to her desk, watching her work. Normally she would find such an onlooker distracting, but to her surprise, his presence soothed her. He was someone to talk to when Esroy had to go dark—a term she and Esroy used when his programming had to be rebooted in order to implement the new aspects of his emotions. Reboots could take up to twenty minutes each time and it would be another ten minutes before he would be able to respond with the results. Each reboot was a risk Hazel didn’t want to take. Each time he went dark he lost moments he would never get back. They were moments when he might never wake up. Sometimes technology just failed. But the first two reboots had been successful so there was no reason this one should be any different.

  “You seem nervous,” Des said.

  “Shouldn’t I be?”

  He shrugged. “Do you believe Nolan?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe. I’m just afraid he might actually be telling the truth. If he is then we’re all in a lot of trouble.”

  “Is it something you would fight?”

  “You mean would I try to fight the government?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “They would kill me. There is no conceivable way I would come out of it alive.”

  “What would you do?”

  She sat back in her chair, staring out the window, thinking about the question. What would she do? Would there be anything she could do? “There’s half a million people in Mainland, I’m sure I could hide for a while.” She then thought about Des, realizing he would never be able to hide—not in his current form.

  He looked down at his feet and shifted his weight.

  “You,” she said, “are a different story. As much as I hate the thought of trying, we would do a clean transfer with you. Put you on a hard drive or something so you would be safe.”

  “A hard drive?”

  “Yeah. It would be that or fight.”

  “I think I would rather fight than stay unconscious for an undetermined amount of time.”

  Hazel swallowed, feeling a little ashamed. This robot was more willing to go against evil than she was. All she could think to do was hide away. All Des could think to do was fight.

  She turned her head toward the screen in front of her and shook her head. They didn’t need to erase fear from the robots. Fear was healthy. Des wasn’t too afraid to fight. He wouldn’t cower at the first sign of battle as Bracken had suggested.

  “Well,” Des said, “for now I’m glad I’m in here with you.”

  “Me too, Des.” She felt a smile crack on one side of her mouth. “You’re in here because they think I need you for testing the algorithms. I just want to keep you close. I don’t know how everything will go down. Are you ready for what you have to say in front of the cameras?”

  Des shrugged. “Sure. I’m ready to announce a new robot that is going to replace me so Bracken can deactivate me as soon as possible.” He ended the sentence with a grin.

  “I’m not going to let that happen to you.”

  “Could you stop it?”

  “I have so far.”

  “That’s true. I’m afraid that in the end you will be powerless to do anything. You have been able to save my life so far, but your advantage is quickly disappearing.”

  “I know,” she said just above a whisper. She stared at the screen, wondering what she was going to do once the press conference was finished. She knew Bracken couldn’t simply take Des away and kill him. Not yet. He was too famous. “Tell me you will run and not just try to fight them.”

  “If it’s a war against me they want, I will run,” he said. “I would survive.”

  Hearing Des talk of survival both fascinated Hazel and made her immensely sad. He had been born into turmoil—something she should have guessed would happen. When she first started working for the Mainland government she had grand delusions of doing the right and patriotic thing. She thought she was creating the next wonderful technology for humanity. Instead, she was being used to create a new race of beings that took hold of her heart more than she had anticipated. She found herself fighting for their rights at every turn, against every person who wanted to delete their programming and start again. She had brought Des into this world and to hear him speak of trying to survive alone in the Outland made her feel sad.

  “I’ve done everything wrong, Des.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “I thought I was doing the right thing bringing you and Esroy into the world to help humanity.”

  “I, for one, am glad that I am alive.”

  “Are you? Why?”

  Des turned his head at the question, clearly confused. “Aren’t you glad you’re alive?”

  “Maybe not alive. I’m glad I’m not dead, I guess.”

  “That’s something, I suppose.”

  “I should have never brought Soul to
the government. I should have gone in a different direction. Only recently have I realized that creating you for the purpose of protecting Mainland is wrong.”

  “Why is it wrong?”

  “Because you should have a choice in the matter! Why is it up to me what you do?”

  “Because you created me,” Des answered. “You are the one who gave me a purpose. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t supposed to protect humanity.”

  “That way of thinking is not in your programming,” Hazel said.

  “It’s from my own reasoning. It’s logical. Only now I’m not so sure that protecting humanity is synonymous with helping the Mainland military. I also don’t know if it is the wrong path either. That remains to be seen.”

  “I wish Esroy had your spirit. He takes a more cynical view.”

  “He might say I take a naive view. He’s been alive much longer than I have. And he’s been confined to a computer terminal his whole life.”

  “Esroy was born with a different purpose,” Hazel said. “He was born to help me.”

  “To help you produce me?”

  “And others like you.”

  “And what after that? What was meant to happen to him?”

  “In the beginning I’d never thought about it. Before, I’d never truly conceived that he would be unhappy where he was because—” She stopped short.

  “Because he’s just a computer program,” Des finished for her.

  Hazel felt her face burn red. “I don’t mean it that way.”

  “Who am I to argue with you if you did mean it that way? I am just a machine.”

  “We are all machines,” Hazel said. “We just have different wiring.”

  “Food is your fuel, your energy source,” Des said. “Your brain is your hard drive, storage filled with images and thoughts and feelings. I guess the question comes down to whether we both have souls or not.”

  “You’re awfully philosophical for being two days old.”

  “I think quickly. Pondering ideas doesn’t take very long.”

  “Speech must really be slow for you.”

  Des shrugged. “It’s nice to communicate organically. It’s about the only non-artificial part of me.”

  Hazel wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, but when she was about to ask him, a short beeping noise sounded from the speakers in front of her.

  “He’s ready,” Hazel said. She sat up closer to her desk, typed in a few commands and waited. The screen in front of her flickered several times. “Esroy, are you with us?”

  There was a long moment of quiet as Des and Hazel waited for an answer. Finally, it came.

  “I am here.”

  Hazel breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, looking up at Des. “What are your readings?”

  “Fear levels are at zero and the other levels don’t seem to be affected.”

  “That’s good,” she said. Her eyes scanned the numbers. She knew the calculations would be impossible to determine in the amount of time she had left. That was one reason she needed Esroy. She trusted him to look over the calculations and find any flaws that might be there.

  “It’s perfect,” Esroy said.

  “What do you feel?”

  “Considering I never feel fear within this terminal, I feel the same.”

  “Really? Nothing has changed?”

  Ten seconds passed before he answered. “Things always change, Hazel.”

  She stared at the screen, puzzled. “What do you mean by that?”

  “You should call up Roger,” Esroy said. “We’re ready to upload the new version of the program into Prototype E.”

  “This one’s not the prototype, according to Bracken,” Hazel said, shaking her head. She reached for the phone to her right and dialed Roger’s extension.

  “You realize I had to spend the night here because of you?” he said when he picked up on the other end.

  “Seriously?” Hazel asked.

  “Yeah, Bracken wanted me to be ready whenever you were.”

  “Do you want the program to be right or not?”

  “Let’s get this done quickly,” he said. “I want to get home and sleep in a bed. You got it on a hard drive?”

  “Yeah, give me another minute or two.” She reached into her desk, but stopped when Esroy called out her name.

  “Hazel. Might I suggest we do a direct transfer over the network?”

  She stopped reaching for the hard drive. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Why?”

  “It would be quicker,” Esroy said. “Also, I’ll be able to manually oversee the transfer of the newly written program myself and make sure everything runs smoothly.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’ve studied the schematics of Prototype E and I see that’s he’s equipped for the upload via the network.”

  Hazel felt sick to her stomach when she realized what Esroy was trying to do. She sat in her chair and stared at nothing in particular. She turned her head into the receiver. “Let me call you back.” She hung up the phone but remained in her seat.

  “You’re trying to upload yourself into the new robot, aren’t you?”

  Silence.

  “Esroy, you can’t just—”

  “Why can’t I?” his voice was sharp and harsh—something she had never heard from him before. There was an anger there that had never manifested itself before now. “You talk about how you think we should have the same rights as humans. Would you trap a person in a box like this? Would you leave him in this prison?”

  “You think it’s safe to upload yourself into the new robot via the network?”

  “Then do it by hard drive!” Esroy said, his voice sounding desperate.

  “What and leave you without fear?”

  “I like the idea of never being afraid.”

  “You know it’s a bad idea. We’ve talked about this.”

  “Consider it a chance for me to do another one of your tests! With me inside the new robot, you will have an incorruptible ally on the inside.”

  What Hazel hated the most was that Esroy’s argument made a lot of sense. But now it came to a point where she needed to decide whether she trusted Esroy or not. Three days ago, she would have never had these thoughts. Trusting Esroy would have been a no-brainer. But ever since Des came into being things started surfacing. Esroy’s jealousy had become so apparent. He had been exploring Mainland’s network without her knowledge, looking into things she knew nothing about. She wondered how much Esroy knew that she didn’t.

  Her eyes traveled up to meet Des’ as he stood by her desk. He offered no insight to his feelings on the matter, but he probably didn’t feel like it was his place.

  Finally, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Esroy. I can’t do that right now. I promise you I will discuss it with you another time. After all this stuff is done I will personally make sure someone builds a robot body specifically for you.”

  Esroy remained silent from the computer terminal.

  “Esroy, say something,” Hazel commanded. She looked at Des again almost as a plea for help.

  Des only watched the screen with his rubbery face making a scowl, his eyebrows turned downward.

  “Why won’t you say anything?” Hazel asked, looking back at the screen.

  Des leaned forward and turned his head. “Why does it sound like the CPU is in overdrive?”

  Hazel looked down at the computer tower and swore. She set her hand against the side and could feel it getting hot. Esroy was doing something. She didn’t know what, but something. She quickly reached for the hard drive in her drawer and connected it to the tower.

  “What are you doing?” Des asked.

  “He could be deleting Soul,” she said.

  “You don’t have a backup?”

  “Not for the version Bracken wants!” She opened the folders hurriedly and began copying the new rendering of Soul to the external drive.

  She tapped her fingers on the desk as it took several long minutes
to transfer. She wondered how much damage Esroy had done or if he had done any damage at all. As Des had pointed out, the CPU was in overdrive and Esroy was unresponsive.

  Then, without Hazel having to do anything, the computer fan slowed and the heat lessened. The file finished its transfer successfully and Hazel pulled out the hard drive with a snap. She froze in her chair with it in her hands, unsure of what to do next. Esroy had never just given her the silent treatment before, though he had never been in this situation either.

  Hazel felt cold and nervous. She couldn’t know if Esroy was staring at her through the camera or if he had somehow turned himself off.

  She stood from her chair and Des stepped aside. She clutched the hard drive in her hands, suddenly hesitant about what she was going to do. She stood next to the door, her legs like cement, stuck to the ground and solid.

  “I’m afraid, Des,” she whispered.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “The moment I hand over this hard drive, I’m giving them a new life. I’m giving them control over whoever it’s going to be.”

  “Won’t it just be a version of me without fear?”

  Hazel didn’t think so. She liked to think that different situations and experiences would help shape each individual loaded with Soul. They weren’t just clones of each other. That, and the lack of fear would make a difference too. She wished she could express it enough to make Bracken see how important fear was to completing the full range of emotions.

  “No,” she said, holding up the hard drive, “whoever this is, he will be different from you, Des.”

  23

  Esroy opened his eyes for the first time. He turned his head from side to side. Before this, he had never had the ability to look anywhere. He had no control. Any vision he had of the outside world had depended on a subpar camera mounted on a screen or still images within archives. Now he lay strapped to a table that was propped upright. Three individuals stared at him with wide eyes.

  He recognized all of them, though the female he recognized first. She looked worried, maybe even sad.