by Terry Persun
“It’s headless,” Leonardo said in a loud, surprised voice. “You’re headless.”
Jesus pointed the gun at him. “Shut up.”
The robot approached. “You’re Fenny. You came to kill me. Well go ahead. I can’t live like this.” He reached behind him and swung the blankets off the bed. Dr. Klein lay facing the ceiling, his battered face turned blue.
Jesus shook his head. “Why did you do it?” He asked the question even though he was there and had witnessed the whole event. At that time in the past, his circuits had been overloaded and he, Fenny, didn’t register a reason. All emotion had blurred.
The robot Fennimore dropped to his knees and brought his hands together. “I don’t know,” he moaned.
Jesus wondered what his past self was doing at that moment to keep Fennimore in the sad state that he was in. But he couldn’t think about that. He had to stay on task. He had a mission to complete. Remove the DNA material and destroy it, just as he’d had all the other tubes destroyed years ago.
Jesus leaned forward as though he was about to approach Fennimore when a knock came to the door.
Everyone in the room turned to the door.
“Who the hell could that be?” Gatsby said.
Jesus wasn’t sure what to do. He looked at the others, then back at Fennimore. He didn’t know how long Fenny would be able to maintain control of the robot facing him. He didn’t know if and when Fennimore might strike out. Yet he recalled how he had stayed in that room for days before he finally got up and began to search through the records to acquire other robot forms. It was at that time that he had decided to create two like himself, human looking, who would become like brothers. Three was a balanced number, he had thought at the time. But he had become the leader, so there had never been a balance of any sort. Thinking about it now, it wasn’t him who had become the leader. It was Fennimore, the robot kneeling before him now, asking to be shut down, begging him.
The knock came again, but this time, right after the knock, the doorknob turned. In came a short, wiry-haired man of near seventy. Jesus recognized Dr. Steffenbraun as the man who had invented the dark energy balancer. “You’ve come for your machine,” he said.
“No,” Dr. Steffenbraun said. “Yes,” he corrected himself. “Plus whatever you want I can help. Really. I made changes to the balancer that I didn’t document. Once I get them down, we can make more of them. We can all travel through time. We can build an alliance. Robots and humans.”
“We don’t need more balancers. We only need the one we have so that we can go home.” He cocked his head and stared at Steffenbraun for a moment. “I’m going to destroy it when we return. I don’t need anyone following us. Ever.”
Steffenbraun stepped forward, his hands still up. “Please, I beg you. Don’t do that. This is the most important discovery in the world. I finally did it. Don’t you see? It finally worked.”
“It didn’t work,” Neil said.
Jesus let him talk.
“The DNA material may have come through, but not the live bacteria, not the connections. The machine still only transfers inanimate objects. Nothing has changed. Whatever you did didn’t work,” Neil looked directly at Jesus. “All you have to do it take that robot in there with you and the live material will stay behind.”
Dr. Steffenbraun’s face slackened. “Oh god, no. No. All this and it didn’t work.” He raised his eyes to Jesus. “Is this true? You’re here. There must be something in there, some little part.”
Jesus said, “No. There’s nothing left of the material. Neil is right. I can’t find the slightest trace of Fennimore inside my circuits. I only know that I don’t want to go through those years of pain again. I’m here to change that.”
“What about your big takeover? The other robots?” Neil said.
“Oh, they’re already programmed. We’re going through with that. Removing the DNA material now won’t change the fact that we’re still the next level of evolution. In fact, what happened with the DNA proves it even further. There is nothing of humankind that can travel through time. Whereas I can. We can.” He motioned to the other robots.
Gatsby turned slowly and smiled a very wide, non-human smile. “You are like bugs, and soon we will be your exterminators.”
Jesus listened to Gatsby. He knew that he had programmed him originally, but neurogrid circuits make their own paths. He had learned through his own efforts, had taken his experiences and let them lead him in mental directions that were personal. Gatsby’s influence had come from Jesus, and look where that had led.
Leonardo received similar inputs from the start. Yet he had turned out more compassionate toward the humans. Fenny couldn’t understand how he could have built two robots using the exact same circuit boards and end up with such opposite personalities.
They were no different than the two personalities Dr. Klein had created, only he had done it using neurogrid circuits and DNA-enhanced circuits. Jesus couldn’t see Gatsby and Leonardo’s circuitry occupying the same physical body. That wouldn’t work either. The real question for him was which identity did he want in the end?
Fennimore had edged forward as though trying not to be noticed. Jesus lifted the gun and pointed it at his main circuit board.
The robot stopped.
“You can have it,” the robot said.
“I don’t want it. And I don’t want you to have it now,” Jesus said.
“If you take me back, it’ll die,” the robot said.
“You’re not so special now,” Neil said. He stepped from the group that stood near Leonardo. “Stalemate.”
The situation had become complex and, although Fennimore might never have let it happen, Fenny shoved the data from the situation into digital only circuits, hoping for a solution. What should he choose?
“What are you doing?” Neil said.
Gatsby snatched the gun from Jesus’s hand.
Neil retreated with his hands in the air.
“That’s more like it,” Gatsby said.
Jesus read his answer. Digitally the DNA circuitry added functionality, emotional depth that Fenny admittedly missed. But he had been behind the scenes for years now and had learned how to control and drive Fennimore. He was stronger. He could control it, he thought, and if he couldn’t control it completely, he would still be better off for having the Revision 7 material. It had been the long weeks of being alone that had driven Fennimore’s feelings about life. That would not be the case now. He would not be alone. He had an army of companions. “Come with me, my friend,” he said to the robot. He looked at Gatsby and then Leonardo. “I’m taking the DNA material. I have all those years of data. I can control it now.”
“But you can’t go back home if you do that,” Leonardo said.
Gatsby smiled. “I can.”
“You both can,” Jesus said. “You will run the new world yourselves until I get there. I’ll be there in twenty years to take over.”
Fennimore followed Jesus into the living room that had been used as a lab all the years he’d lived there. Jesus knew that the robot was at a weak point. His overloaded circuits allowed him to be persuaded into action. He could be manipulated as long as he didn’t turn violent. He had to trust that his former self, Fenny, was in control of that.
“I don’t like this,” Dr. Steffenbraun said.
“You don’t get to make that decision,” Jesus said.
A loud voice from a bullhorn came from the outside. “You are surrounded. Come out peacefully.”
Jesus shook his head. “This won’t end peacefully.”
CHAPTER 34
NEIL JERKED HIS HEAD toward the door where the sound from the bullhorn had originated.
Steffenbraun lowered his eyes. “General Harkins. He’ll ruin everything.”
“Let’s go,” Jesus said to the robot. “Give it up.”
The robot walked over and kneeled near Jesus and reached up to open its access panel.
“Wait,” Steffenbraun said. He loo
ked to Neil. “Remember the parallel universes I told you about?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Steffenbraun moved his attention back to Jesus. “Does this room look exactly as it did when you were him?” He pointed at the robot kneeling at Jesus’s feet.
Jesus hesitated. He looked around the room.
“It doesn’t matter,” Gatsby said. “Nothing’s the same. Remember we’ve started to change things the moment we arrived.”
“This shouldn’t have changed,” Neil said. “You had no contact with it until now.
“I’ve had enough of you,” Gatsby said. He raised the gun, but Jesus knocked it out of his hand.
“You are not in charge.” Jesus moved away from Fennimore and Gatsby into the center of the room. Looking from item to item, he finally said, “Not exactly. Small things appear to be out of place.”
“It’s not perfect?” Neil said.
“What are you saying?” Jesus asked again, more forcefully.
Neil saw it clearly now. And somehow it seemed funny to him. He laughed.
“No,” Dr. Steffenbraun slumped to the floor.
Mavra looked confused, and Jesus shook his head.
“You can’t go back,” Neil said. “Not only that, they can’t go back.” He meant Gatsby and Leonardo. “You may never see them again if they go through that time machine.”
Leonardo ran forward. “Don’t send us. I can’t be with him. Not alone. I’m afraid.”
Gatsby bent down and retrieved the gun, dragging it from the floor and aiming it at Leonardo. He fired one bullet after another into Leonardo’s side.
“No!” Mavra ran forward, but it was too late. Leonardo toppled like a felled tree.
Gatsby stood with the pistol in hand.
Mavra lifted Leonardo’s head even though that wasn’t where his essence resided.
Gatsby appeared shocked at his actions. He stood completely transfixed, the hand holding the gun lowered until the pistol fell from his grip.
Neil recognized the movements. Gatsby had never killed one of his own before. Killing humans must have felt similar to a human killing an animal or insect, but killing one of your own was different.
“Oh no.” Gatsby dropped to the floor and crawled to Leonardo, placing a hand on his chest where the bullets had ripped through his shirt. “My brother.”
The shooting alerted the Army outside that something was wrong. There was no mistaking the noise of men rushing for the house. Their next move would be to rush in and save whoever was left.
The door crashed inward, and several soldiers with M-16s rushed into the room. There was no time to think of a plan, so Neil jumped in front of the door. “Don’t shoot!” His arms were held wide as though he could protect everyone in the room with his body. “We’re safe. We’re safe.”
One of the soldiers motioned toward Steffenbraun who sat slumped over on the floor.
“He’s fine,” Neil said, “just distraught.”
Several other soldiers slid into the room and lined the wall.
Neil looked over his shoulder. “Jesus, it’s up to you what you choose to do.”
“What will happen to me?” Jesus said.
Neil knew the answer now. It had been something that Mavra had told him about the thread of life. She never took the idea this far, but it was that connection that humans have to time, that won’t let them travel somewhere they already inhabit. He looked over his shoulder. There was something about Jesus’s facial expression that told him that Jesus understood too.
“You don’t have to do it,” Neil said, knowing what that might mean for him and the rest of humankind.
Mavra looked up from Leonardo’s dead body, Gatsby beside her. “But look what you’ve already allowed.”
Jesus looked at Leonardo and then at Gatsby. He shook his head. “What have I done?” He reached for the DNA material and removed it from the robot. As soon as he did, the robot leaped up in what appeared to Neil as pure happiness.
One of the soldiers turned and shot several rounds into the robot and it fell.
Jesus jumped back. “Why?” He looked to Neil for an answer, and kneeled next to the person he had been in the past.
“You don’t occupy the same time period,” Neil said in answer to his question. “That’s why you’re still here.”
“Fenny must have been reacting to Fennimore being removed, to being set free,” Jesus said. “It is making more sense now, how difficult it was, but how I got used to Fennimore’s control. That’s why I feel unfamiliar now.” Opening his shirt to expose his torso underneath, Jesus unlatched his access panel and removed the empty vial with the DNA material, minus the live bacteria. “We will never be able to go back to our world.”
He looked directly at Neil. “I give your world back to you.”
The room fell silent, lined with soldiers who began to part for their commanding officer. “I’m General Harkins.”
Neil let his eyes unlock so that he could see the entire room before him, his eyes in full-panoramic extension.
Smythe squeezed past the general and ran to Dr. Steffenbraun. Once again, Neil said, “Don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“It’s a failure,” Steffenbraun said when Smythe got to him. “It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it works.”
Smythe took the doctor into his arms and held him.
Jesus moved slowly, but accurately.
“What’s he doing?” General Harkins assaulted the room with his voice and presence.
“Let him go,” Neil said. “He knows what he’s about to do. He’s about to save us all.”
“I’m in charge now,” General Harkins yelled. “Soldier, stop that robot.”
Faster than Neil would have expected, Gatsby leaped into the air and took the round that was aimed for Jesus. He dropped to the floor.
An instant later, Neil stood in front of the soldier. “Enough killing,” he said. “Let the man do what he’s chosen to do.”
General Harkins raised a hand to stop the soldiers. “You’d better be right.”
Neil brought his eyes together and faced Jesus.
“You called me a man,” Jesus said.
“Your compassion is what makes you one of us,” Neil said.
Jesus’s face twisted into a bizarre smile as he removed the old DNA tube and pushed Fennimore’s DNA tube into place, connecting his two bodies through a living organism that cannot occupy two times at once. With that, he disappeared, along with Leonardo, Gatsby, and Fennimore.
Everyone in the room appeared to be surprised except Steffenbraun.
“What just happened?” General Harkins said.
“You can think of it as a short circuit. He blew out the connection,” Neil said.
“I don’t understand,” the general said.
“You wouldn’t,” Steffenbraun spoke up. “You never have.”
Neil went over to Mavra and took her hand to help her up. He kissed the top of her head and wrapped his arms around her, then breathed in the scent of her hair. He felt her relax and soften in his embarce. “He was a domestic robot. That’s what he was designed to be.” She laid her head on his shoulder and Neil stroked her hair.
“How did you know that would happen?” Steffenbraun said.
“Learned it from my partner,” Neil said.
Mavra kissed him.
“We can go?” Neil said to the general.
Harkins shook his head. “Everyone gets debriefed. There are reports to turn in.”
“You’ll have to take care of Dr. Klein too.” Neil indicated the open bedroom door.
General Harkins dispatched a few soldiers to that duty, before the rest of them followed Neil and the others out the front door.
The woods were crawling with soldiers. The sun fell over the house, blessing it and those who had occupied it. Before they had walked more than a few feet, Neil’s cell phone rang. “Rogers, you okay?”
“What the hell happened? They all just disappeared…”
“Can
’t talk at the moment, but I suggest you wait for the military to show up. I’ll brief General Harkins here.”
“He’s with you?” Rogers asked.
“It’s a long story,” Neil said before hanging up. “One more thing.” As they passed the car that they had driven up in, Neil opened the rear door and removed the dark energy balancer. “In their rush and excitement, they forgot this. Of all things.”
Steffenbraun looked over and shook his head. “It’s worthless. All my work, my theories were wrong.”
“Then it will be destroyed,” Neil said. “It’s the least we can do for Jesus.”
“You mean Fenny,” Mavra said. “That’s who he was in the end.”
“For Fenny,” Neil said.
***
The general took good care of the four of them. Debriefing took two days, with each of them interviewed separately. They were well fed and put up in a nice barracks with guards everywhere. Before they were dismissed they sat around a large table reminiscing, filling in the details for each other.
“How was it they could come back to the same time, yet it was a parallel time?” Smythe asked.
Steffenbraun had had time to adjust to his failures and begin considering what project he might work on next. “The time machine.” He looked around the table. “I’m not sure that’s what we should even call it anymore.” It wasn’t much of an answer.
“For now we can,” Neil said.
“Well, it appears as though it could be set for a place to go and repeat that over and over again, but the place isn’t in the same universe at all. It’s just close to the same one. It can never be exactly the same. There’re probably universes out there where the robots never showed up, and other ones where they won their battle and the humans were all killed. All we have is this one. Even if we tried to use the machine, none of the information we retrieved would be accurate. If we tried to use it as a transporter, we’d get farther and farther from the universe in which we started. We’d go somewhere else every time.” Steffenbraun took a deep breath. “I say we, but we can’t do any of it.” He looked over at Mavra.
“Neil thinks of it as an electric wire. That thread of life that keeps us in our particular universe. If we try to occupy the same space, zap.” Mavra snapped her fingers.