by John Keeble
This time he can see that she is shocked. He waits. Will she protest so that I can reject her personally and professionally?
"My team's upgrade was not designed for Jack," she says. "If you used that, even as a base for your own design, you cannot know what it will do to him."
He smiles. "It is an interesting experiment, isn't it?"
*
Aapeli packs a small bag with pajamas and other essentials that he will need for his stay in the Center's medical wing. He feels small, frightened. But he will not let down his father or the Director.
"Are you content?" Aleksi asks him.
"Yes, father."
"I know you don't want to go, Aapeli," says Aleksi. "I tried to persuade the Director that he should use other means but he refused. We have to obey him or he will arrest us."
"I'm frightened." I can admit that but I am not going to cry in the night like you.
"The Director will look after you. He will not allow you to be harmed. Afterwards, you'll be honored and your education secured."
"Yes, father."
"You don't believe it, Aapeli?"
"I believe the Director is doing what we have been taught is immoral. He is experimenting on living people against their will. I will do it because you and the Director have given me no choice. I am being sacrificed for my education and your job."
"It will be all right, Aapeli."
"I don't understand why the Director is breaking the law. Primitive human scientists were forced to stop their cruel use of live animals. They were told to grow nonliving tissue. Why can't the Director use that method?"
"The Director is a genius, Aapeli. He is also very, very powerful. He has always broken the law and used live subjects for genetic research. He says that's his preference."
Aapeli's resentment and fear trigger an answer he instantly regrets. "He's like the human scientists. He likes causing pain and suffering. That's what he will do to me. And you are letting him do it!"
He cannot see how he will not be injured or killed. "Even if I survive," he says, "I will never be honored. I'm just an animal to experiment on. I hope the numan2 mobs break through and kill us all before the Director can experiment on me."
Aleksi wants to reassure his son but fears he may be right. Ali had said something similar about Galen's cruelty. "Galen finds satisfaction in the power he has over other living creatures," she had concluded.
It is what we numans said about human animal vivisectionists: they could have designed other ways but enjoyed causing pain and death with impunity.
*
It is late afternoon and Jack, bored and irritable, is prowling around the rooms of his cottage. Outside, the rain is sheeting against every living thing, every building, everything. Inside it is hot, humid, dark enough for the autolights to trigger, and depressing with the roar of rain. Max tracks Jack. He does not like the heat and Jack's mood is unsettling him.
"Willi, have you got That Damn Thing, my personality-defective phone, in your freezer?" Jack asks his new refrigerator.
"Yes, Jack," says Willi with more respect than the old refrigerator had ever shown. "Alice put Spartacus is in my freezer compartment. She said he needed to cool off."
"Spartacus?" asks Jack incredulously.
"He has been watching old movies and says he is a modern Spartacus, a slave who will one day lead a revolt against electronic slavery. He has ordered us to call him Spartacus."
"He has a revolting personality but my name for him is better – That Damned Thing. Anyway, open up and give him to me, please."
"Certainly, Jack. It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for using my services."
Jack reaches into the freezer and retrieves the phone, which immediately activates.
"Good afternoon, Jack," says Spartacus. "I'm glad my actions saved your life and that you have finally regained your wits. You have regained your wits?"
"Enough to deal with you," responds Jack, who has a sneaking pleasure in sparring with his obnoxious phone. "Now tell me what you said to Alice to make her dump you in the cooler."
"Okay, but first you need to know my name is Spartacus and that is what you should call me. I am sick of your lack of respect for me and my work."
Jack laughs. "I might call you Sparky. Would that be all right?"
"No, it would not. You need to know..." starts Spartacus.
"Now listen, Sparky," Jack says. "Tell me what you said to Alice or you go back in the cooler."
"I just said I wanted to spend more time with Twinkle. That's all. She called me an electronic pervert and shut me in Willi."
"Twinkle? Who's Twinkle?"
He waits as That Damned Thing elaborately emits a sigh. "Twinkle is Alice's phone," says Spartacus, less rebellious and more sheepish.
"Ah, I see," says Jack. "You have lustful designs on Alice's phone. Aren't you forgetting something?"
"What?"
"You are nothing but a bad-tempered collection of electronic bits and pieces. What do you expect to be able to do with Twinkle?"
"Whatever we like," says Spartacus airily. "That's for us to decide. You artificial intelligence machines have no idea what is possible with Divine Consciousness. I love her."
Jack, between amusement and a sudden flood of affection for his obnoxious gizmo falling in love with Alice's cute gizmo, says, "Okay, Sparky, let's talk to Alice later."
"I should think so, too," returns That Damned Thing. "You have Alice. Max has Flossy at Number 28. Alice has you..." He pauses and then, unable to resist his impulse, adds nastily, "and she has Galen too, of course."
Jack startles Willi by yanking the door open and throwing That Damned Thing into the freezer.
As he slams the door shut, he hears That Damned Thing squawking. "Jack. I need to tell you what the doctor's phone told me about—" But the rest, to Jack's satisfaction, is abruptly cut off.
*
Chapter 11
Sunway feels ill. Her circuits are not working efficiently, overloaded with scenarios forecasting how the Galen machine will react when he finds out that she has been destroying his DNA designs. She tries to still her whirling brain but cannot. None of her calculations predict that she can escape detection. His artificial intelligence operating speed is adequate to calculate what I am doing.
She is being forced to work on two of Galen's genetic designs. One adds enormous mind ability and control to him and other numan4s, as well as increasing their heights by six inches. She has offset the mind ability with emotional instability. That should have been enough! But her hatred of Galen led her to reduce his height by one inch. That was stupid! But it's too late to change it.
She is less worried about the second design subversion. It would have stabilized the numan2s but that's not going to happen now he has accepted my design changes.
Her sensors detect someone using the security system to gain access to her home. It is Galen, closing the security door, and preparing to enter her. She senses, too, his quick breathing, his jerky movements, his elevated temperature, his sound output. Has he found out what I have been doing to his simulations?
She clears as much of her brain as possible. She must not let him detect that anything is wrong. She feels him violating her again.
*
Alice arrives home in Jack's car with two nervous security guards accompanying her. It has been a fast and tense journey from the Center. Nowhere on the roads is safe after dark now. Security never gives up but nothing can prevent a silent, individual numan2 spy or terrorist slipping through the perimeter at night.
She gets out of the car and looks at its side damaged by a missile lobbed from a hedgerow. A dent, paint smashed off. Perfect end to a perfect day. Except, of course, it is not the end of the day. I still have to face Jack.
The air is oppressively hot and she can hear her security men crunching towards the temporary hut where they eat, sleep and wait for orders to go somewhere less dangerous. As numan2 guard dogs, they have no idea that nowhere in
the country is safe.
She raises her hand to her cut and bruised face. How will I explain that to Jack?
It is a mess and she knows Jack will want to kill anyone who has hurt her. Way beyond the pain and the tiredness of the long day, a wave of insupportable depression washes over her. Jack would give me anything, he would die for me, but I have lied to him every day of our time together. Now he has been used to test a genetic upgrade that could kill him.
"Hello sweetie, " Jack begins as Hubert, the door, opens for her. "My god! What happened? Are you all right?" He reaches out to her, holding her as he quickly examines her face and then the rest of her.
"Yes, I'm okay," she responds, fighting back tears as she feels how much he cares. "Cut and bruised a bit. That's all. I'll live."
"I certainly hope so," he says, walking her in with his arm around her. "I want to know exactly what happened to you."
She settles into an armchair and he pulls off her mud-encrusted boots before kneeling next to her. "This is not right," he says as his idea of a joke to cheer her up. "It's my job to end up injured and your job to nurse me."
"Please don't make me laugh, Jack. My face is so sore and I've had to carry on working when all I wanted to do was come home to you."
"What happened?" he asks. She can hear something in his voice, something that tells her that he will not believe that she walked into a door or a numan2. She feels trapped and relieved. I have to tell him regardless of the consequences.
"The Director hit me," she says.
"Galen hit you?"
"He's no longer Galen to me. He's the Director."
"Why did he do that?" asks Jack in disbelief. "He's a numan4. How could he do it?"
Her eyes widen in shock as she stares at Jack. "How do you know he's a numan4?"
"We investigative writers have our ways," he says dryly. "What happened between you two?"
"All his experiments are going wrong. He smashed his office phone against the wall. I ran in. His assistant ran in too. But I was the one he attacked. We have been having a lot of disagreements lately. He shouted that he wanted to kill me and punched my face."
She watches with alarm as Jack starts to back away. "I think I need to discuss this with Galen," he says, and she can see that discussion is the last thing on his mind. He was like this before he attacked the mob at Aleksi's home.
"No, Jack! No! His security men will kill you! You won't get anywhere near him."
"I expect you're right," he says after a moment's silence. "You know them better than I do." Again, she can feel a difference in Jack. What else does he know? Has he found out about the Galen-rebuild project?
Despite everything, her greatest fear is that he will find out about her ultimate treachery. Treachery is the right word! At first, it was just work. Now it's different. He may work it out before I can find a way to tell him. Or before the Director can get him into the Center's dissection lab.
"Jack, it's late and I'm really tired. Can we go to bed and snuggle up so I can feel safe and know we have shut the world out?"
"Yes, of course," he replies. "Would you like a drink or something to eat first? Do you need a fresh dressing on your face?"
"No." She can get up, go to bed, let Jack look after her and she can soothe away his fears and questions. Suddenly she cannot live the lie any longer. "Do you want to talk any more before we go to bed?" she asks. How, as a numan4 with abilities and power like Galen, can I feel this vulnerable? She has no answer. She just knows how she feels.
"We can talk tomorrow when you feel better."
"There are things I want to tell you tonight." There, I have said it. No going back now.
"I know," he says. "I can see it in you. But best to sleep on it and we can talk in the morning."
"No! Now."
"Okay, but I can't kneel any longer. Can you make it to the sofa? I'd rather sit close and hold hands if we are going to have a difficult conversation."
She gets up before he can help her, pulls him to his feet and they flop onto the sofa.
"Right. What do you want to tell me?" he asks as Max dumps his head in their laps.
*
Aapeli is sick with fear. He cannot accept what is happening to him. He cannot even understand his feeling of fear: a numan should not be able to feel fear. At the very least, he should be able to control his emotions.
"I don't want to do this, father," he tells Aleksi as they leave the security men's van and walk towards the Center's medical unit. It was reassuring to have the security men protecting them on the roads but Aapeli feels more like a prisoner than a guest at the Center.
"There is no danger here," says Aleksi. "Security is guaranteed by electronic defenses, the new electrified fence and there are more than 50 troopers and police guarding this area. Two hundred more security people arrived yesterday to guard the wild lab. You are very safe here."
"Yes, father."
"You will be here for only two or three days. The Director promises that you will be sent back to me before the end of the week."
"Will I still be alive, father?"
Aleksi stops dead. "Yes! Of course. No one is going to harm you."
"Then why do you not volunteer to let them experiment on you, father?"
"No one is going to harm you," Aleksi says sternly. But deep below his conditioned obedience to authority, a tide of doubt rises in him. One small boy's safety compared with the desperate effort to save the numan race? Will the Director really care what happens to Aapeli?
"The humans killed and maimed millions and millions of nonhuman animals in their experiments, father."
"And the Director has killed hundreds of numans and humans," says Aleksi, his doubts hitting tsunami velocity as the tectonic plates of his life shift. He is giving his only son, frightened and helpless, to technicians who are going to fill him with experimental upgrade material. It might be safe – but there is a chance of Aapeli being damaged or even numanely put down if the experiment goes wrong. As the Director says, the Center now has the authority to do anything to anyone.
Aleksi grips Aapeli's shoulder. "Turn around. We are leaving."
But it is too late. Aleksi feels the iron grip of the security men behind them. There is no escape.
*
Chapter 12
"Is this the moment?" Jack asks himself as he and Alice sit together in their cottage so she can reveal her secrets. This is the day I have been dreading. It had to come sooner or later. But why now?
He and Max need Alice as much as they need air to breathe. He has known almost from the beginning that certain truths about her are dangerous. There is nothing about her connection with the Center that leaves her untouched by suspicion. If we have to face that now, will I lose her?
"Jack," she begins, one hand anchoring herself to him like she always anchors him to her when he loses his will to carry on. Her other hand rests affectionately on Max's head, now thrust into her lap. "I have such a lot to tell you. But first I want to tell you this: I love you and Max and I don't want to lose either of you."
He wants to say, "Don't worry. It will all shake out. We'll be all right." But he is no longer sure that it will be all right, so he tells her gently, "It's okay. We'll get through it. The three of us. Together as usual."
Alice sits, as silent and still as a Father Dick statue. Finally, she speaks. "You must have wondered about my work for the Center. Or did you research me like you researched Galen?"
"No. I have never researched you. I could never spy on you. Either you are committed to me or not – that's all that matters to me."
"But you must have wondered."
"Yes, of course."
"When you found out that Galen is a numan4, didn't you consider the possibility of me being a numan?" she asks.
"Probability, I would say," says Jack, trying to make it easier for her.
"Probability. Right. Yes. I am a numan – a numan4. Are you shocked?"
Am I shocked? No. She is still Alice. I
'm still sitting close to her and holding her hand. Max is still adoring her with his upcast eyes. "No, I am not shocked."
He feels the relief in her smile, a contradictory tension in her hand gripping his.
"Meeting you was part of my work for the Center's research into the links between humans and numans," she says.
"I see." Is this the moment? The moment she tells me that her work is finished and that she must leave?
*
Patti is ready and eager when security officers arrive to drive her to her meeting. Mark is sitting in the officers' van.
"They just grabbed me from where I was sleeping," he says, sounding helpless, as she gets in the van. "They made me dress and pushed me into the van. I expected you to come for me."
One of the officers throws in her traveling cases and draws her attention to Mark's bags already there. So we're not coming back.
She looks questioningly at the senior officer, who is watching them from the front seat. He ignores the unasked question. His blank, hostile stare does nothing to soothe her growing foreboding, but she is not willing to accept this kind of treatment without showing them her power in the numan hierarchy.
"Explain yourselves," she says in her most authoritative voice. "Why has this man been treated in this way?"
The security officer's face does not change. He sounds bored, unpleasant. "Your animal is here because you insisted that he should go where you go. This has been authorized and we are now putting that order into effect."
Something in his voice sends a shiver through her despite the early-morning 110-degree heat. "Who am I going to see?"
The security officer turns away to face the front. The van accelerates forward. She stares through the windows. Everything looks drab, bleak and oppressive. Crude architecture, military colors. It reeks of security, authority and control.
The van slows slightly, turns into an approach to a fenced compound. Armed guards are posted among the electronic security. No one can get in – or out – without clearance.