Revision 7: DNA

by Terry Persun

  The robot at the electrical box rotated around enough to see Mavra hugging Neil. He said, “This is nothing like our original plan. We should be on our way by now.”

  “We began changing the past the moment we arrived,” the other robot said. He remained focused on the operation at hand. “Let’s finish this up.”

  “I’m finished here.” The robot grabbed his gun from the top of the electrical box and walked toward the machine.

  “Good, here too.” When the robot finished hooking up the balancer he turned and Neil saw that he was the robot who had come through the time machine first. The one from the video. He stood up, leaving the gun on the warehouse floor.

  “Neil,” he said, “come closer.”

  Mavra walked with Neil as they advanced. The robot Mavra had been standing near a moment before strolled behind them, bringing up the rear. “They all have guns,” Neil whispered to her.

  The robot in front of the time machine stood rather tall. “You can stop there.” He raised a hand. His mannerisms were those of any other human, yet the face gave him away. So did his torso. Even with the shoulders in place, Neil saw, through the sweatshirt, that his chest was flat, more like a drum than a body. All three of them were similar, but wearing different clothing.

  “All I want is for you to let Mavra go free,” Neil said. And to hand over the dark energy balancer, he thought to himself. But first, she had to be safe.

  “Don’t think so,” the robot said.

  “I’m just as good a hostage as she is,” Neil said.

  As the robot from the electrical box approached, the leader said, “Put the gun down, Gatsby.”

  Gatsby lowered his weapon and asked, “Everything’s put together?”

  “We should have taken more time to disconnect the balancer instead of ripping it out of the old machine, but I got it hooked up,” the robot said. Addressing Neil again, he said, “You’re a bit late to be making demands.”

  From behind them, Neil heard a scuffle. The robots didn’t appear to have heard the noise. He hoped that Rogers had the sense to hold back for now, although if he knew the FBI, they’d be premature in their advance. He glanced behind him while still keeping one eye on the robot, glanced behind him.

  “You!” the robot pointed at Neil and yelled.

  Neil swung back around and locked both eyes on the robot.

  “What is it, Jesus?” Gatsby said.

  Jesus hastened toward Neil, who stepped in front of Mavra to protect her. The robot stopped, cocked his head, and leaned closer to peer into Neil’s face. “I can’t believe this. It isn’t possible. You are one of us, aren’t you?”

  Neil kept silent and Mavra took over. “More than you know,” she said.

  “But how? I thought I was the first. I was…” Jesus stopped talking. “You are going with us. Both of you. If you’re one of us they won’t care if you’re dead. And I want to know where you came from.” Jesus shook his head. It appeared to be a bit loose on his shoulders. “She stays as protection.”

  “It won’t work that way,” Neil said.

  “It has so far.” Jesus looked at Mavra suspiciously. “You called him your husband?”

  “I love him,” Mavra said.

  Jesus looked at the ground. “That I understand.”

  “They won’t listen to me anymore. They’ll follow you,” Neil said.

  Jesus moved a bit more slowly, as though he had become preoccupied with his own thoughts. “We need to talk. You’ll see that we’re doing the right thing. They’ve programmed you differently, that’s all. I can change that. But first I have business to complete.” He turned around. “Send through the marker.”

  Gatsby reached into his pants pocket and removed a small mandala, gold in color, intricate in design. He placed it on the floor of the time machine and pushed several buttons. The trinket disappeared.

  Jesus walked over and squeezed Neil’s shoulder. “You feel very real.”

  Neil couldn’t decide how to react. He wasn’t sure what Jesus proposed or why. “Of course I feel real.”

  “Don’t,” Mavra said. “He knows now. Your eyes gave it away.” She stepped around Neil and faced Jesus squarely. “No one knows about him, and—” she paused dramatically, “he doesn’t understand either.”

  Neil wanted to know what it was that he didn’t understand, but it was slowly sinking in. He got the point when Jesus kept one eye on him and let the other one peer behind and to the left of him.

  Rogers and his men were not very quiet as they came around the corner. Neil heard them stop where they were. “What the fuck?” Rogers said.

  Neil turned. Should he act like he’s surprised or like he knew they’d be there? Neither, he decided. He waited to see where the situation was going to take them.

  “You’re with them?” Rogers said, nodding toward Jesus’s hand on Neil’s shoulder.

  Neil started to say no, but Mavra jammed a finger into his side to shut him up.

  The FBI agents were decked out with shotguns, probably hoping that if they blew a big enough hole into one of the robots, they’d drop them. After stopping for only a moment, Rogers’ men began to spread out.

  “Leonardo, the woman,” Jesus said.

  Leonardo pointed his pistol at Mavra.

  “Don’t you dare,” Rogers said.

  “Back away,” Neil said. “Let us handle this.”

  Jesus laughed loudly. “You can’t handle this.” He pointed at the time machine. Lights were blinking on several pieces of the equipment. The dark energy balancer was lit up as well. After a moment, a military robot appeared, Army gray. The robot didn’t look human as Neil had expected it might. The treads of its tracks were set in a triangular format designed for going through the desert or into a collapsed building. Its body was squat and compact, no more than three feet tall. But it was armed. Heavily armed. The combat robot was a newer model than the ones Neil had read about, but it was similar enough for him to recognize it for what it was — dangerous.

  The robot climbed down from the helicopter shell and sidled next to Jesus. The time machine lights continued to blink. Another combat robot appeared.

  Too late, Neil thought, as a third robot soon appeared and rolled out of the time machine.

  Jesus told the first three robots that came through the machine to assemble the agents together. One robot said, “Will do,” and snapped to attention. The other two followed.

  Rogers yelled for them to halt.

  Neil glanced back. The FBI agents, about thirty of them, spread out. Some ran for cover behind one of the rows of crates. Rogers stood his ground and yelled for the robots to halt a second time.

  Neil had one eye on Rogers and his other eye on the time machine as robot after robot appeared inside the helicopter hull only to roll out and have another one pop into view. The situation quickly became tense. The men who had chosen to stand in the open with Rogers looked young and inexperienced.

  The three combat robots got into position, stopped, lowered, and pointed their weapons.

  One of the agents fidgeted, and Neil knew even before it happened to get out of the way. As the first bullets were fired, he shoved Mavra toward Leonardo, surprising him enough that he dropped his pistol. The BBs from the shotgun shells clanked against the outside of the combat robot’s frame. Out of instinct, Neil cleared the field by shoving Jesus out of the way next.

  Gatsby ducked behind the time machine crate, gun at the ready.

  It only took a few shotgun blasts before the combat robots reacted and blew away half of the visible part of Rogers’ team before stopping. Ten men had been dropped.

  Neil lay on his side between Mavra and the battle. If a bullet flew their way, he’d take it. But the agents didn’t have a chance to fire again. She took the moment to lean into Neil. “He won’t hurt us if we don’t try anything. There’s something wrong here. Jesus isn’t who he thinks he is. He’s confused.”

  Neil had no idea what she meant, but he did know enough to li
sten to her assessment.

  Rogers held his hands high over his head. He screamed and backed away. “Enough, enough!”

  Neil would have expected a combat robot to take them all out, but it didn’t happen. It was like the robots made a joint decision to stop shooting once the immediate danger was gone. They weren’t your ordinary robots operating off of a single mission program as he had read.

  Jesus had stayed low, but now that the bullets were no longer flying, he brought himself to a sitting position. “Drop your weapons. I believe you see that we have the upper hand.”

  Rogers nodded and his men leaned down and placed their weapons on the warehouse floor. “I can’t believe you’re with them,” Rogers said to Neil.

  Neil unlocked his eyes and watched Rogers and his men while observing one robot after another come out of the time machine. In that small space of time, there were already seven more. No sooner did one robot lower itself to the floor, than another one appeared. They weren’t all combat robots, though. There were different types, unique shapes and appearances, some that Neil recognized and others he was unfamiliar with. But there were none that looked human, none that looked like Leonardo, Gatsby, or Jesus. The ones that came closest had human-looking legs, but a robotic torso. A few that came through had a human arm and a mechanical one, or sometimes two human arms, but walked on mechanical legs. All formats of robot came through including cleaning robots. Individually they were not so frightening, but en masse there was a strangeness to them that brought nightmarish thoughts to mind.

  “Neurogrid circuits,” Mavra whispered to Neil. “They all have emotions.”

  “That’s what it is,” he said. He had no idea how she knew what he was thinking, but she must have, because she answered his question. These robots weren’t mechanical tools as he’d expected, as he’d understood from their initial appearance.

  “What is it? Why does that make sense?” Mavra asked.

  Neil whispered, “Children learn from conducting experiments, analyzing the results, and forming theories based on those results.” He nodded to her. “That was the basis of my mom and dad’s theory when they operated on me. That high level of scientific approach to the world that children have. They felt that if the adjustment came early enough in life, I would learn how to deal with my unique situation.”

  “So these guys are like children,” Mavra said.

  “They form theories based on results. But we don’t know what experiments they’ve been doing.” Neil patted her hand. “And Jesus is their leader. Ironically, and judging from his name, it looks as though he is attempting to be their savior as well.”

  CHAPTER 25

  THE ONLY REASON Fenny knew that hours had passed was because his digital clock never stopped. At first he performed a self-test of all his sensors and faculties: audio and visual, pressure and temperature. All his senses appeared to be working. Then he went to wiggling his fingers and toes, rubbing his hands over his arms and legs. When he finally looked up, he saw Dr. Klein standing near him. The man looked old, tired, depleted. Fenny searched for the right words to explain the man before him, but could find few. A darkness of thought and feeling closed in around him. Dr. Klein’s appearance saddened Fenny more than he had ever felt before. He had been dropped into a deep cavern from which he could not escape. He felt tears in his mind, but there were no tears in his body. He felt love in his heart, but he had no heart to love with. The sadness he experienced about Dr. Klein’s mortality turned on him. Nothing was right. He wanted more. Loneliness crept into him and held tightly to his soul. His soul. He had a soul.

  “How do you feel?” Dr. Klein asked.

  “I am…not the same,” Fenny said. “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.”

  “Did you turn me off?” Fenny said coming out of the pit he had fallen into.

  “No, not at all. I can’t, remember? You hot-wired the All Stop switch. I wouldn’t do it anyway. Never again. I promise.” He took a step closer to Fenny. “Your circuits overloaded and you blacked out. It scared me at first, so I removed the DNA material. After a while, I plugged it back in, hoping that you’d eventually come out of your coma.”

  “Coma? I was in a coma?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just how I labeled it. I didn’t have any other way to look at it. This has never been done before. Well, not exactly like this.” He grinned forcefully. “You’re okay now, though. It all worked out.”

  “Am I?” Fenny said. “Was there a possibility that it wouldn’t work out?”

  “There’s always that possibility,” Dr. Klein said. “This has only been attempted using laboratory animals, their DNA from brain matter. Not through neurogrid circuits though, only through digital.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “There were violent reactions, but this,” he pointed a finger at Fenny. “Human DNA enhancements into the neurogrid portion of your makeup – I knew it would work out. It’s the juxtaposition of the digital and neurogrid that creates unresolved frustration.” He paced for a moment and tapped his fingertips together. “There are no ‘meeting of the minds,’ as they say, between purely digital and emotional. It doesn’t matter if it’s DNA or neurogrid versus digital. It doesn’t work.” He stopped quickly and stood straight. “That’s my theory on the subject. That’s why you became frustrated and a bit uncontrollable.”

  “Now I have neurogrid and DNA-enhanced circuitry versus digital. How is that to help?” Fenny said.

  “You feel like there’s more to you now? You recognize a profound difference, don’t you?” Dr. Klein said. “Profound,” he said again.

  “How am I to recognize what is profound?” Fenny said, but even as he said the words he let them sink in until they resonated within him.

  “You will know it,” Dr. Klein said.

  “I do,” Fenny told him. But he wanted to cry as he said the words. He couldn’t. He had no tears. He felt them but didn’t have them. He was incomplete.

  Dr. Klein nodded. “Good. What I’ve done is force your digital, purely logical mind, into the background even further than it was. It can only come through if you let it. Mission programming. Goal-oriented functioning. Memory. Do you understand?”

  “I love you,” Fenny said, even though he had no logical reference for the emotion except that it came from that newfound depth somewhere inside him. No logical reference, he thought. That must be what the doctor was talking about. It was like crawling to the top of a long incline and then sliding back down. The work exhausted him. He thought in metaphor as much as logic. He spent more time thinking, considering, philosophizing, than ever before.

  Dr. Klein became animated. He jerked quickly toward Fenny, thrust out a hand, and patted him lightly on the arm. “I have something for you,” he said, then shuffled off to his room.

  Fenny’s feelings shifted into excitement, following Dr. Klein’s feelings, like playing follow the leader, only with emotions. His heart jumped. What could this surprise be? He had no more room for surprises if they were as big as the one he had just received. Fenny considered how he felt, wondered about who he was and why he had been created in Dr. Klein’s home instead of a laboratory at some government facility. Luck was something that humans ascribed to, something he had never concerned himself with. But this was lucky. He had opportunities here that other robots might never have. That thought had him considering how he might help other robots find opportunity.

  Dr. Klein came back into the room with folded clothes lying across his arms.

  “But I have clothes. You don’t like them?”

  “Yes, I do, very much, my boy. They are very nice clothes. But these are for going outside. Things you can get dirty in.” He laid the stack on the workbench next to Fenny. Out of the pile he lifted a sweatshirt by the shoulders and let it fall loose. “For now you can use the hood to hide your eyes. We’ll mount a helmet to you so that it looks as though you have a head.”

  “A head?”

  “Yes. The s
hape of a head, anyway. We can order something later, something that will work even better,” he said.

  “I have an idea,” Fenny said. “We can create a 3D model of your head.”

  “No, no. I’ve already got a 3D scan of Fennimore’s head. We’ll use that. You’ll soon have his warm and tender spirit. It’s already started. Love. He was such a loving young man, so sensitive to the needs of others. I know exactly how he would look at this age, your age. Part me and part his mother. I know her cheekbones would have come out on him by now. I should have ordered the replica, but I waited. I had to know how this would turn out.”

  Fenny watched as Dr. Klein talked to himself, half mumbling as though Fenny wasn’t even in the room with him. “I had to be sure. I know, I know,” he said, as though someone else was in the room with them. “He is not Fennimore in the same way. The material is just DNA from my little boy’s brain. It’s not his real brain. They’re not the same. But he’ll have all the human compassion that Fennimore had. He won’t be mean or threaten me anymore. I’m just too old for it. This had to be done. My little boy Fenny.”

  A pang of hurt pushed against Fenny when he heard Dr. Klein use his name in reference to Fennimore. “We are not the same person,” Fenny said.

  Dr. Klein came out of his wandering thoughts like exiting a dark wood, and looked directly at Fenny, as though Fenny had just appeared. He still held the sweatshirt. “Of course. That’s what I was saying. Exactly.” He shook his head. “The stress.” He bent at the waist and took the step or two necessary to lean on his chair’s armrest. He plopped down and let the sweatshirt fall over his lap.

  “Are you all right?” Fenny said.

  Dr. Klein’s tired face lifted. “On my dresser. In the bedroom. Could you get my pills?”

  “Pills? But the pills are in the kitchen.”

  “Now is not the time,” he said in an angry voice. “I forgot to take them this morning. Just get them, and water, a glass of water.”

  Dr. Klein waved a weak arm in the direction of the kitchen. What was happening? Fenny jogged into Dr. Klein’s room and saw the pill bottle on the dresser. He snatched it up and ran into the kitchen where he filled a glass halfway with water before rushing back into the living room. He handed Dr. Klein the pill bottle, but he waved it away.