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  She lay down on the cot, the video recording of the prototype replaying again in her mind.

  Hello.

  Hello.

  I am Dr. Fielding.

  You are Dr. Fielding.

  That is correct. Who are you?

  What a question to ask an artificial intelligence. Chal twitched a little on the cot as she remembered the IV being pulled out, the blood dripping on the floor.

  I – I am malfunctioning.

  Chal’s legs kicked softly as she drifted into sleep, the prototype’s twisted face looming in her mind.

  ***

  The playa was an empty bowl of cracked earth under the sky. It felt to Chal as though she could reach up and burn herself on the bright blue horizon, maybe even pull herself through to the other side of the atmosphere. Strange to think that beyond this thin bubble of air there was nothing but darkness and space stretching out beyond what the human mind was capable of imagining.

  This was why humans were not nocturnal beings. Owls and coyotes could stand to live under the vast expanses of the heavens, but when man turned his head to the sky he got dizzy underneath the stars. They reminded him of how infinitely small he was. How insignificant.

  How replaceable.

  Chal walked alongside a parched gully in her dream. Silver brambles clouded the edges of the dried out stream, hoping for the ghost of a creek to come along and wet their roots. She walked on and on, until at last she saw in the distance the chain-link fence that surrounded the government station on the Tohono reservation. The galvanized steel mesh twinkled in the blinding white light of the midday sun, its shape rippling in the heat coming off of the desert floor.

  Chal heard laughter beside her, and turned to see two small girls playing in the sand, about thirty feet away. Their backs were to her, but she knew without knowing how she knew that it was her, Chal and her sister playing together as young girls. When she moved toward them, she found that no matter how many steps she took, they were still sitting the same distance away. She stopped walking and just watched.

  The girls were singing a song that Chal almost remembered, a lullaby from her youth. Now, though, she could only hear snippets of the melody when the girls would turn slightly toward her –

  “–tit quan balla...”

  She found her lips moving along, mouthing the words that she had forgotten years and years ago. Although the song sounded far away, she was able to whisper the chorus along with the girls.

  “...balla, balla, balla...”

  Then Chal noticed that the sound was diminishing. There was a rumble in the air, something that seemed to make the whole world shiver with sound. It was a noise that was out of the normal range of human hearing, but Chal felt her body shiver as the vibrations hit her body. It was a strain now to hear the girls, who were still sitting, playing.

  Under her feet she felt the ground tremble, and she bent to the ground to listen. The rumbling grew louder, and she was scared for the girls.

  Go. Run.

  She opened her mouth to call to them, but the words would not come to her tongue. Her ear was pressed to the dry surface of the playa floor, and dust stained her cheek, but she could not pull away.

  Go!

  There was a slow murmur underfoot. The secrets hidden underneath the earth were being dug up and overturned, and the earth did not like this. As Chal listened, she felt the rumbling begin to shake her cheek and her palms, and the mesh fence in front of her quivered so hard that its chain links rattled like so many wind chimes.

  Chal thought of the Robert Frost poem her fifth-grade teacher had read to the class. It was one of the first assignments she had been given after they had immigrated to the United States, and she had loved the lyrical quality of the words that she had just begun to understand:

  Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

  That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

  And spills the upper boulders in the sun

  The ground rumbled and shook, and still Chal’s ear was glued to the ground. She reached out her hand toward the girls, and saw her younger self stand up and look out, away, toward the mountains.

  RUN!

  She screamed but there was no sound. Between the mountains, miles away, she saw the earth begin to crack, the chasms breaking their way through the crust of the desert faster and faster. The black cracks were like lightning across the playa floor, and Chal saw the ground split and crumble, coming closer to the girls.

  No!

  She saw the earth give way under the girls, and her heart was wrenched inside of her body as she strained to rescue them but could not move. There was no chance. They fell in a second and when Chal blinked she found that they had disappeared from view. The floor under them was gone and then they were gone, and there was nothing but a black pit remaining. Her face felt hot and there was a roaring in her ears, the sound of earth cracking and crumbling.

  When the ground split underneath her, she felt her fingers scrabbling at the sand, but then she was falling, falling, deep into the darkness and the earth’s core. Falling–

  ***

  “Dr. Davidson?”

  Chal woke with a start, her fingers clutching the blanket. She blinked in the bright light. Standing in the doorway was a young lab assistant, his long blond hair greasy but smoothed back into a ponytail. The hair of a researcher who didn’t care when he got his next haircut. His face was chubby with baby fat that he hadn’t yet lost, and Chal got the distinct impression that he was suppressing a smile.

  “Dr. Davidson?”

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Hi there,” the lab assistant said, and his face broke out into the hidden smile Chal had seen. Although he was not handsome by any stretch of the imagination, when he grinned his face looked so friendly that Chal felt they were already intimate. “My name’s Evan. It’s an honor to work with you.” He took two steps towards her and tripped, catching himself on the cot and extending his hand eagerly for a handshake.

  “Mmmhhmm,” Chal mumbled, blinking as she shook his hand.

  “I’m sorry to wake you, but they’re almost ready to start.”

  “Start?” Chal said, disoriented. Her heart was still pounding from the terror of her dream.

  “To wake up the prototype,” Evan said.

  Chal rubbed her eyes and ran her hand through her hair. A surge of excitement ran through her, clearing her mind almost immediately.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, standing up. “Let’s go.”

  “First I’ll need to spray you down with disinfectant,” he said.

  “I’ve already been in the lab,” Chal said, trying not to sound as irritated as she felt. He was so good-natured that she felt bad about her irritation. “I’m decontaminated.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Davidson,” Evan said, with a look of sympathy. “Anyone in contact with a prototype must be disinfected first, just to eliminate any remaining trace bacteria. Everyone down here has already undergone full decontamination. I, ah, ahem–” He motioned for her to take off her clothes, obviously embarrassed.

  Chal unbuttoned her top, frowning.

  “Why do I need to be disinfected?” Chal asked. “I’m not going to be working directly with the prototype.”

  Evan cocked his head. “I thought you were going to oversee the prototype’s awakening.”

  Chal, not sure what to make of this, shrugged and complied. Evan looked down at his feet, then at the wall, trying not to let his eyes wander as Chal stepped out of her suit.

  “I, um, I need you to be...” His words trailed off as he turned bright red.

  “Oh. Sure.” Chal unhooked her bra and slipped out of her undergarments readily. It was cute how embarrassed he was, and how hard he tried to maintain a professional demeanor while she stripped naked.

  He began to spray her, beginning with her fingertips. The spray was white and chilly, and as the nozzle moved across her body, goosebumps stood out on her skin. Then the spray sputtered and stopped.
<
br />   “Whoops, I must have forgotten to refill it yesterday,” Evan said, reaching down to the spraycan. He smacked himself on the forehead with one chubby hand. “Blond moment!” He looked up at Chal, realizing too late what he had said. “I mean, not to say that blonds are dumb, I just–”

  Chal waved one hand dismissively. “Not at all. I’m used to blonde jokes.”

  In fact, Chal had been one of the few blonde students at her preschool in Catalonia. Even after she moved to America, most of the families that she knew were dark-haired. At family reunions she was always the odd one out, having taken after her father in only this one regard. Her mother had brushed her hair every night, and she realized later that this act of love had been one also of nostalgia for her late father. Her sister had gotten her mother’s dark hair, but Chal had always been different.

  “But Dr. Fielding is the one running this,” Chal said. “Isn’t he overseeing the session?” She felt oddly comfortable talking with the lab assistant. He seemed utterly genuine, and perhaps it was the hero worship that made her feel comfortable admitting that she had no idea what was going on. She closed her mouth and her eyes as he moved the stream up and over her face. The cold mist burned her eyes slightly but then dissipated.

  “It sounded like you were going to be the one to do it,” Evan said. “That’s what Dr. Fielding told us.” He finished spraying Chal’s feet.

  “He did?” Chal said. “But I–” She stopped in mid-sentence, aware that the lab assistant was staring at her in a bright blush. She realized that she was still naked and that he had already finished with the disinfectant. Bending down, she pulled her clothes back on over her lean body.

  “I didn’t think I would be the first to see him awaken,” Chal said, trying to cover up her confusion. “In the same room, I mean.”

  “Oh, yes,” Evan said. His cheeks wobbled enthusiastically as he nodded. “You’re definitely first. It’s protocol, they said.”

  “Right,” Chal said, finishing the last button and standing up in front of the lab assistant. “Protocol.”

  Protocol? she thought. This wasn’t protocol. There wasn’t any protocol for this.

  This was blind insanity.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There were a half-dozen people milling around the lab when they arrived. Immediately Evan’s attitude changed. The dumb admiration that Chal had come to expect from younger scientists was gone from his face, replaced by an attitude of confidence. He went over to the other assistants and began to quiz them about the changes they had made.

  Chal realized that despite his youth he was quite competent, for everything in the main lab was done up to her specifications. One technician was adjusting the camera, and another was finishing the padding on the walls. Two IV lines were hooked up to the central sensory deprivation tank, one dripping green liquid, one red.

  “The colors are added just to make sure the right line is supplied,” Evan said, reading her gaze. “Green is go, red is stop.”

  “The military doesn’t think we can read labels?” Chal said, moving past the tank.

  “Guess they’re not leaving anything to chance,” Evan said.

  There was a double layer of fabric swathing on top of the pads to mute any extraneous sound, a nice touch that Chal appreciated although she hadn’t asked for it. Evan wasn’t just a bumbling lab assistant, after all.

  “This is good,” Chal said. She noticed that Evan’s face lit up at the weak praise.

  Dr. Fielding was standing next to Lieutenant Johnner on the other side of the room, both looking intensely displeased. When Lieutenant Johnner saw her, though, his face brightened just as Evan’s had. It was a look Chal was accustomed to, and whether it was because she was going to question the prototype or because of another, more unprofessional reason, she declined to return his gaze. There was already too much confusion around the lab for her to create any more problems.

  Chal didn’t wait for anyone to brief her. After double checking the equipment, she walked across the room toward the men.

  “I’m going to be the one in the room with the prototype?” Chal said. Her question was directed toward Lieutenant Johnner. Now that she knew he was the real one in charge, it didn’t matter what Dr. Fielding thought. If she never talked with him again, it would be too soon.

  “I must disagree with Lieutenant Johnner’s decision,” Dr. Fielding said, before Johnner could answer.

  “It was not my decision,” Johnner said coldly. “It was part of the protocol associated with Project Paragon.”

  “When did we start following this protocol?” Fielding asked, sarcastic. His voice was too loud, and two technicians looked over at them.

  “After the first two prototypes were needlessly destroyed.” Johnner looked pissed, and Fielding was silent for a moment. Chal saw a look of pure hatred cross his face and disappear into cold nothingness.

  “We’ll debrief after the awakening,” Chal said, hoping to defuse the argument. “This shouldn’t be interesting at all, anyway, if we do it right. It’s just getting him acclimated to his surroundings. I’ll just be watching to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

  “And what about the questioning?” Fielding said pointedly.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Chal said. “Right now I need to get ready.”

  “Fine,” Fielding said, and went over to the table where the assistants were messing around with the recording equipment. It didn’t matter whether or not he thought it was fine, Chal thought. She wanted to get started. It would have been better if they had let her prepare, if they had given her time.

  “How long do we have before we need to start?” she asked.

  “Ten, fifteen minutes,” Johnner said. “We could wait longer if you absolutely have to, but the sooner the better, of course.” He was confident in his decisions, and Chal wondered again whether he knew more than he let on about the experiment. He didn’t seem nervous about wresting control away from Fielding, and she felt that someone who was just a military man wouldn’t want to be held responsible for scientific work.

  “Of course,” Chal said. “I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.” Her heart was beating faster, now that she realized that it was actually happening. This was it.

  “Let me know if you need anything beforehand,” Johnner said. Chal nodded, her mind already racing ahead to what she was going to have to do. She had done this experiment hundreds of times before, but of course those were animals. This was a human.

  “Does he have a name?” Chal asked.

  Evan spoke up. “We call him Alan.”

  “Alan?” Chal asked.

  “It’s short for aluminium artificial neuronetwork,” he said. “Because of the aluminum core, that’s the new part of this prototype. Al-AN.”

  “ Alan,” Chal repeated. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Better than the last prototype core, anyway,” Evan said. “You can’t make a name out of Ytterbium.” He chuckled, his cheeks rounded in laughter, and Chal chuckled with him.

  She turned her attention to the awakening. She would have to handle this carefully, she knew. The first time the prototype awoke would only last for a few minutes. Any more than that and there would be too many stimuli to keep in memory: it would overwhelm. She tried to remember exactly what the doctors in Germany had done with their apes. There were many ways to soothe animals, and she hoped that they would also work to soothe a human.

  Because if this one malfunctioned, Chal might never get a chance to work with a human-substrate prototype again. Therefore, it couldn’t malfunction. It just couldn’t.

  Chal wouldn’t let it.

  ***

  The lights were turned off in the main lab, leaving Chal alone under a soft red glow with the unconscious prototype. They had wheeled him in with little ceremony and moved him quickly to the sensory-deprivation tank they had rigged up. It was an automated system that would awaken the prototype and then sedate him again after only a few minutes. Chal had assured everyone tha
t this would be plenty of time for the first session with the prototype. She didn’t want to overstimulate him.

  He floated now in the tank, attached only with one IV to the green liquid that would wake him from his unconscious rest. It was remarkable how much he looked like a normal human. Chal knew that, physically at least, he was as human as she was. It was just a matter of making sure his mind could weather the transition into consciousness. His dark hair waved in slow motion in the water. She watched him, for the first time taking in his appearance.

  Alan.

  He was handsome, and this was something that she had not prepared herself for. His body was perfect, chiseled and lean, and his facial features were decidedly masculine, dark eyebrows slanting across his brow, an aquiline nose. He looked to be in his late twenties or so, in peak physical condition. This was important, she knew. The body would need to be strong enough to deal with the chemical adjustments the brain made as it developed rapidly into maturity.

  His naked body bobbed slightly in the saltwater, and Chal adjusted the padding around the sides, not wanting him to bump his head on the tank walls. She moved slowly, carefully, but her hand accidentally touched the prototype’s limb. She let her fingers move on his skin. He felt warm to the touch, and Chal let his wet skin glide under the pads of her fingers.

  Smooth. Like a baby. Yet full-grown, a man already on the outside. It was strange, and as Chal examined him she felt a mixture of emotions surge forward under her skin. Curiosity surpassed all of the rest, but it wasn’t a clinical curiosity as it had been in the past. Every animal she had worked with had been on the very low end of the Freitas consciousness spectrum. The difference between a baby rat and a full-grown rat had more to do with size and mobility than with intelligence. But a human man is so different from a human baby that Chal trembled at the thought of waking the prototype up.

  Her hand traced the line of his shoulder, his neck. She was curious who he would be once he woke up. Would he be a conscious person? Really? His mind would be an infant’s, although not for long. She would have to remember that, to make a point of remembering.