by Terry Persun
Peripherally, Fenny noticed that the chair had been thrown and lay on its side. Scattered equipment and banged-up boxes were spread about the room. A smear of blood from Dr. Klein’s body ran along the floor.
As shocked as Fenny felt about the sight of his beloved maker, he had to level his emotional data. He closed his visual inputs to keep the image from continually updating. Fennimore would sample the emotional data eventually and Fenny needed to be sure that only an even stream of data was available to get through.
The waiting took hours before Fennimore settled down. The first thing that happened was his eyes moving away from the scene.
Fenny sensed the movement and opened his video line again. The workroom wasn’t as badly damaged as he would have thought. And he was glad to see that his sensors had not been shut down—not yet. And even though Fennimore sampled Fenny’s emotional data less often, there was still the possibility that Fenny could affect Fennimore’s actions.
It appeared as though Fennimore sampled the data more often when he was engaged in a new activity. This meant that Fenny could supply pleasure or displeasure on a very slight scale, to cue Fennimore to either continue what he was doing or to stop it. Fenny tested his theory, and soon Fennimore was cleaning up the shop. This also included removing Dr. Klein’s body. Not knowing what else to do with it, Fennimore placed it in bed under the top sheet and blanket to look like an image of Dr. Klein sleeping that he had retrieved from digital memory.
Fenny had not been shut out of the sensor data, which meant that he could feel the slight overload, the pain, that was resident in his hand and wrist from the activity that occurred from the blind rage Fennimore had gone through. His body sensors were not regenerative, but he was able to change the zero points for some of the damaged ones, which allowed the pain to subside somewhat. The DNA-enhanced electronics did not block Fenny as he tried to heal the sensors.
As Fennimore got more used to his activities, he again began to monitor Fenny’s emotional data less often. This scared Fenny, but his earlier programming activity had lessened his concern and he was able to monitor his emotions and maintain them at reasonable levels: slight pleasure or slight displeasure. The even keel that he was on allowed Fenny to reach into memory to see if he could gather insight into what had happened once Fennimore had gone crazy.
The violence of Fennimore’s actions toward Dr. Klein upset Fenny too much and he rushed through those memories. He did catch what had happened to his hand. After the chair had fallen over Fennimore punched the bottom of it, which is why it looked as though it had been thrown. It was soon after that that Fennimore must have realized what he had done and leaned over Dr. Klein, yelling for him to get up.
In memory, Fenny felt his hands reach under Dr. Klein’s shoulders and begin to shake him. Fennimore, by this time, was only producing sounds from his speakers, not words. When Dr. Klein opened his eyes, Fennimore stopped shaking him and leaned closer, the steady moan subsiding.
Dr. Klein opened his mouth. “Oh, Jesus,” he said before his head fell back.
As much as he tried to maintain an even emotional response, Fenny felt pleasure in hearing Dr. Klein’s voice. He placed the words into memory and every time he played them back, he felt pleasure. Natural stimulus rather than fabricated stimulus, he thought, that’s what should drive activity and reaction.
Fennimore continued to hold the doctor’s head and shoulders off the floor. Dr. Klein’s eyes remained open. Fennimore closed his video lines then opened them again only to see Dr. Klein’s eyes still staring at him. After laying Dr. Klein back onto the floor, Fennimore picked up the doctor’s arm and placed it over his eyes. That’s when he sat back on his haunches and stared.
Fenny felt forced to remain calm, but with Fennimore in charge on a physical level, and able to take over completely at any moment, he had no choice in the matter. Nonetheless, he continued to monitor Fennimore for as long as he could.
As Fennimore straightened up, he repeated the last words from Dr. Klein’s mouth over and over: “Oh, Jesus.” And each time he said them, Fenny felt a tinge of pleasure. It was only a matter of time before the emotional sampling would correspond to the words and to the feelings of pleasure.
CHAPTER 31
THE SUV HUMMED ALONG smoothly, setting the pace for Neil to think. Both sides of his brain covered the situation using separate theories. One side evaluated the possibility that the robots had gained control of the future already, while the other tested the idea that they were outcasts and had traveled to the past so that it would be easier to gain control. Neither mattered except that Neil found it necessary to attach a motivation to their activities. If they had already been in control, then the time travel was a result of a more important purpose, and that the early takeover was seen as a bonus. That meant that this little side trip they were taking held priority. If they were outcasts in the future, the trip to the past was a desperate move to take control, which would make the robots in the warehouse more desperate, and consequently, more violent. That would mean that the trip Jesus was taking them on was secondary, not so important to anyone but Jesus. Neil liked that idea. It gave him leverage.
Mavra had fallen asleep next to him, and Leonardo stared out the side window. As seen from the back seat, Gatsby could have been driving, he appeared to be so intent on the road ahead.
“Where are we going?” Neil asked.
“That’s not important,” Jesus said. “But now that you seem to be well enough to talk, answer me one question?”
“Anything,” Neil said sarcastically.
“Ah, you have not lost your sense of humor,” Jesus said. “It took me a long time to figure out how to maintain humor in the midst of frustration and angst.”
Mavra stirred next to Neil, but her eyes remained closed. He suspected that she feigned sleep.
“What are you? Are you truly human as the bullet suggests? And if so, are you an anomaly? Or are you robotic, but somehow have a human-like body?” Jesus looked into his rear-view mirror using his right eye. The left one continued to watch the road.
“I’m human,” Neil said, even after taking an elbow poke from Mavra.
“Then your eyes…”
“The truth,” Neil said, hoping to set the standard for the conversation. “My parents severed the two hemispheres of my brain after I was born.” He seldom discussed his life, but somehow talking with a robot wasn’t the same as discussing it with humans who created opinions while they talked with you. He delivered facts and Jesus accepted them as such.
“An interesting thing to do. Did it lead to schizophrenia? How was it growing up like that?” Jesus said.
Gatsby turned his head in a way that made Neil think that he was disinterested. Good, then the conversation would make him feel ignored. Neil responded right away. “Not at all. Perhaps it was because they did it at such a young age, that I always knew that I was a dual person, if you will.” Neil laughed. “You might say that I grew up with myself.”
Jesus’s face created a simulated smile. “Like twins?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“But one side didn’t block the other? Didn’t stop it from functioning?” Jesus said.
“Why would it?” Neil said.
“If both sides grew up together, I suppose they wouldn’t. But if the new circuits were introduced well after the older ones had been established, which were used to being alone and in total control, then the new part might want to take over. What do you think?” Jesus said.
Neil recognized the personal attachment and began to pull things together. “If it were introduced later, I can see how that might cause problems. Confusion would be the least of it. I wonder how the older portion would take it?”
“Not well,” Jesus said. “Being cut off from the world and only being able to monitor what was going on is not a good place to be. It shouldn’t happen.” Jesus turned his head toward Neil. “You might think that doing such a thing was an upgrade, but it wasn’t. It only created
conflict.” He turned back to the road. “I’m not going to let that happen to other robots.”
Neil noticed how Jesus put the situation into the past, as though it had already happened. He asked, “Why would anyone install a second circuit if the main circuit was operating fine?” He switched his conversation from objective to subjective now, too. “I suspect that you have a neurogrid-based system. What would a second one be? What could it do for you?”
“Nothing. That was never the idea,” Jesus said.
Neil had him talking and went for the throat. “Then what type of addition or upgrade was used?” He made it personal. He wanted to know what happened to Jesus.
“Living material,” Jesus said. He went silent and Neil heard whimpering sounds. “I’m not going to let that happen to me.”
“Are you organic?” Neil kept the question short and direct, expecting a quick answer. He had read theories about the use of organic materials of all kinds, from viruses to bacteria. The material, according to what he’d read, would begin to create connections and links. How that type of connection differed from a neurogrid circuit he didn’t know. He only knew that the material was expected to act similar to neurogrid electronics circuits, but take less power. As far as he knew, little had been done with the theories.
“I was organic. But it’s gone. I wanted it gone, but now I also miss it. We were together for so long.” Jesus’s shoulders shuddered as though he was crying.
“You’re going back to get it, aren’t you? That’s where we’re going.” Neil found that he couldn’t stop. Now that he was so close to learning why the robots had returned to their past, he wanted the whole story.
“I’m going to remove it from my earlier self so that it doesn’t take over. I wanted to save my maker, but it is probably too late for that.” His shoulders shook again. “And now I don’t know what I’m going to do with the upgrade.”
“Destroy it,” Gatsby said. He turned to face Jesus. “You are going to do what you’ve come back to do, what I knew you were going to do once you changed our plans at the beginning. You are going to remove it from your prior self.”
“That is what I must do,” Jesus said. “But once it’s out of there what should I do?”
Neil listened to their conversation with interest.
“I agree. Destroy it. You’ll be free then, completely free. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Gatsby questioned.
“I’m free now,” Jesus said.
“But not then, not in the past.” Gatsby got annoyed. “You’ll still get lonely. You’ll still build us.”
“That is true,” Jesus said. “Perhaps this is for the best… that we’re late.”
Neil sat forward in his seat. The bullet scratch on his side stung and he moaned, interrupting the conversation between Gatsby and Jesus.
Gatsby didn’t like the interruption, and although it had already been established, he said, “I was right about him all along. He’s human.” He spat it out with disdain. “We don’t need him anymore.”
“He didn’t do anything to harm us. As long as he’s quiet and cooperative, two hostages are better than one,” Jesus said.
“You’ve gotten soft.” Gatsby said. “I should have known something was wrong once I noticed that you were different.”
Gatsby was asserting himself more, and Neil didn’t like where the conversation headed all of a sudden.
“I’m in charge,” Jesus said. He turned toward Gatsby. “Remember who made you. Be loyal to your maker.”
“You weren’t,” Gatsby said. “You killed your maker. In fact, he’s dead by now. You said it yourself. All this playing around with these two and the others caused you to run out of time. The way I see it, if your DNA material has died and your maker has died, we don’t have to finish this trip. We can return to the time machine.”
“First of all, that wasn’t the real me who killed the doctor,” Jesus said.
“It’s the only you I’ve known,” Gatsby said. “I don’t know you anymore.”
“Secondly!” Jesus yelled over Gatsby’s interruption. “I have to go back, even if I can’t tell you why, even if I don’t know exactly why myself. It’s something I have to do. I can’t let myself go through that much pain again. This will change everything.”
Leonardo stirred long enough to ask a question. “Will you change your mind about creating us?”
“Yes,” Gatsby pushed. “What if you do that?”
Neil spoke up. “You’re already here. He can’t do that now. You occupy two different time sequences.” He pulled the explanation from his readings about parallel universes, but had a bit of trouble connecting the thoughts perfectly. He hoped that they did too. He had to admit that Steffenbraun may have been right; the two concepts did appear to revolve around one another in a strange way.
“Yes,” Jesus said immediately. “We’re closer to God than humans in many ways. And this is proof once again. We can occupy the same space at the same time. Even if my former self doesn’t make you a second time, you’ll still be here in the way that you are now.” Jesus’s body appeared to relax.
Neil found it interesting how they had taken on so many nuances of human movement. For a moment everyone in the car fell silent. Neil could tell that Gatsby was processing the conversation.
“Then even if you’re getting soft and your personality changes completely, we’re still going through with our plan?” Gatsby questioned tentatively, testing the new waters.
Leonardo spoke up again. “Even I know that the other robots are programmed for a takeover.”
Gatsby brought his gun around and pointed it at Leonardo’s right side just below the arm. “You can be eliminated, and I don’t care if you’re rebuilt or not.”
Neil registered where Gatsby pointed and deduced that a motherboard of some kind must be located there.
“No one is going to be eliminated. I’m still in charge, with or without the DNA-enhanced electronics,” Jesus said. “Now, put the gun down.”
Jesus became aggressive when he had to, Neil noticed.
Gatsby obeyed reluctantly and lowered the pistol.
“We’re almost there,” Jesus said as he turned off the main road.
Neil sat quietly for a short while, but could hardly contain himself. Finally, he asked the question that had been plaguing him. “Whose DNA was it?”
“Fennimore’s,” Jesus said. “Dr. Klein’s son.”
Mavra opened her eyes and Neil could see the surprise in them. “Smedley Klein?” she said.
“My maker,” Jesus said.
“Why didn’t he try to clone him if he wanted his son back?” she said.
Neil sat back into the seat and gave her a quick glance. Now she was in the conversation, too.
“What does it matter?” Gatsby said in an irritated manner.
“Curiosity,” Mavra said.
“Let them have their information,” Jesus said. “They won’t be alive forever.” He laughed and Gatsby laughed with him.
Neil saw how easily Jesus manipulated the situation when he wanted to. If he had made the other two, then he had also experienced more, learned more, and integrated more. And another thing he could extrapolate was that Jesus had learned a lot from living with Dr. Klein, nuances that the others couldn’t have learned, especially if they grew up with only Jesus as their role model.
Neither Neil nor Mavra addressed concern for their lives. Instead, Mavra probed for the answer to her question. “Well?” Neil was impressed with her calm.
Jesus shook his head. “Would you like to answer that question, Leonardo?”
“Because it wasn’t his field of expertise,” Leonardo said.
“Exactly.”
“And I suppose because cloning hasn’t gone that far,” Neil said, referring to cloning humans.
“That wouldn’t have stopped my maker,” Jesus said.
Hero worship? Neil wondered.
Jesus pulled off the road and stopped. “We walk from here. My past
self is very vulnerable at this time.” He opened his door and announced, “Everybody out.”
“We don’t need them,” Gatsby said.
“Not at this moment, perhaps, but we will for our trip back. Once we’re settled into our bigger strategy and General is in charge, he can decide what to do with them. We can go home. Things will be much different when we get back. The way we’ve programmed the others, they’ll be glad to see us again,” Jesus said.
“They won’t register the time change like you do. Not if you go back to the same time,” Mavra said.
Gatsby turned on her, always looking for a way to be the center of attention. “Idiot, we reenter years after we left, making our return a homecoming.”
All figured out, Neil thought.
Leonardo was given the task of holding onto Neil and Mavra’s arms while Jesus and Gatsby walked ahead. They hadn’t gotten far when they heard another car coming up the road.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Jesus said, picking up the pace. “No one should be here at this time.”
“We’ve had interruptions and changes since we’ve arrived,” Gatsby said. “We’ve changed all kinds of events. This is nothing like your real past. Maybe your maker is still alive, too.”
Gatsby’s comment seemed to encourage Jesus. “Hurry,” Jesus said as he started to jog down the lane.
Even as they jogged forward, Leonardo was extremely fluid in handling Neil and Mavra. He didn’t jostle them around at all. He paced evenly with Jesus and Gatsby so that as they slowed he slowed.
The house was small and compact. Peeling paint and overrun gutters indicated the lack of maintenance. Mavra glanced at Neil and he knew that she was thinking about how Dr. Klein had clearly let everything around him go to shit while he concentrated on his experiments. She often accused Neil of doing the same thing, even though he didn’t consider himself a true scientist. By the look of the house before them, Dr. Klein was the real deal.