To Dream

by Lowy, Louis K;

  “What did you say to it?”

  “Help me.”

  “Is there a chance it didn’t hear you?”

  “It answered me.”

  “What did it say?”

  Prudence took a deep breath. “Go to landerbyss, Truattan.”

  A woman stood, pointed at J-1 and yelled, “You’re tradshit, robot!” Others stood and booed J-1. The middle judge pounded his stone against the tabletop. Someone threw a pink fruit against the back of J-1’s head. Mata stood, turned around and yelled, “It’s all lies. Leave him alone!” Teague jerked her back down as another fruit flew by her ear. The bailiff, and three of the four guards standing in separate corners, wrenched through the crowd and removed the loudest protesters from the room. The fourth guard fired a couple of blasts into the air. The crowd quieted.

  The three judges stood. The middle one said to those present, “One more word, one more mutter, one more sigh and the entire spectator galley will be sent to Prison House.” A young man sitting near the front glared at the judge, puffed his chest and crossed his arms. An older man sitting next to him smacked the back of his head. The young man slumped and lowered his arms. The crowd chuckled. Like a popped balloon, J-1 felt the tension in the room deflate. The middle judge said to the bailiff, “Mr. Zorzi, turn the hourglass on its side.” Mr. Zorzi did. The flow stopped. The middle judge granted a short break to allow each side to gather themselves and their clients.

  Norma, J-1, Teague and Mata were escorted to a small room. Mata removed a rag from a pocket of the wrap she was wearing. She used it to wipe the thrown pulp from J-1’s head. Norma paced nervously.

  “You’re doing fine, Norma,” Teague said. “Calm down.”

  Norma glanced at him, but kept pacing.

  “I conversed with God last night,” Mata said to her. “He’s in our corner.”

  “Don’t do this to me, Mata,” Norma said. “We need you to be a hundred percent.”

  “I know that and I’m okay.” Mata glanced at J-1. “I swear.”

  “I’m talking about more than this trial,” Norma added. “Our survival centers on your knowledge.”

  “I know that, too.” Mata clutched J-1’s shoulder and said to him, “My boy, you are the key to our salvation.”

  J-1 didn’t understand why, but it frightened him to hear that. Before he could ask her what she meant, he was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Judges request your presence,” a voice on the other side said.

  Norma took a deep breath and straightened her tunic. “Ready?” she asked J-1.

  He nodded.

  As they headed through the door, Mata kissed his cheek. “I love you.”

  A flood of something bright and uplifting rushed through J-1. He smiled and said, “Mother.”

  Teague pressed Norma’s arm and said, “You can do it,” as he exited.

  ~~~

  The town bell tolled in two series of three. Spectators crowded back into the courtroom. The bailiff, Mr. Zorzi, flipped the hourglass, and Norma and Hack reenacted their gold knife theatrics. Hack re-called Prudence to the stand, and said, “Regarding your encounter with the Dark Prey, and the robot’s seizure of your weapon, how come you’re not dead?”

  “I fought past the Dark Prey before they had completely regained their vision. I ran and caught up to the mechi as it was limping away. I wrestled my weapon away from it, fired a few shots at the creatures, took off and never looked back until I made it to Pocketsville.”

  “Then it’s safe to say the robot had no regard for your life?” Hack glanced at the judges. There was no remonstration on their faces.

  J-1 looked at Norma. The corners of her mouth tightened. Was she thinking the same thing I am? That Hack had guessed the strongest point of their defense, that he—J-1—was incapable of harming humans. Was he going after it?

  “Yes,” Prudence said to Hack.

  “Would it be reasonable to conclude the robot had placed its own welfare above yours?”

  “Yes.”

  J-1 suppressed his desire to laugh at the absurdity he was hearing.

  “Can you say with absolutely certainty that the robot was content to leave you to die at the brutal clutches of the Dark Prey in order for it to save its own artificial hide?”

  Prudence stared at J-1 for a moment—their eyes locked—she turned again to Hack. “I’m positive.”

  J-1 leapt to his feet. “That’s a lie!” As soon as he said it, he realized he had once again allowed his newfound emotions to rule him. Stupid, he thought, stupid.

  Norma rose and shoved him back down. J-1 coughed several times, hoping it would conceal his outburst. Surprisingly, the crowd kept their composure. Nevertheless, the middle judge grabbed the stone and pounded it several times until J-1 stopped his wheezing. The trio of judges locked their eyes on him. The male judge sitting to the side of the middle judge asked, “Do you have a medical problem?”

  J-1 shook his head.

  “Or a mechanical malfunction?” the female judge inquired.

  “No.” From the corner of his vision, J-1 saw Montooth Hack suppress a smile.

  “It was a onetime incident, your honors,” Norma added. “It won’t happen again.”

  The judges exchanged looks. “Consider this a final warning, Ms. Mardeen,” the middle judge said.

  “Thank you, your honors.”

  The middle judge nodded to the guards. J-1 hadn’t noticed it before, but they had their electro-rods aimed at him. They lowered the weapons.

  “That’s all the questions I have,” Hack said, before returning to his seat.

  Norma cross-examined. She picked at details—“How is it that you couldn’t prevent an injured robot from taking your weapon, but could fight off a hoard of Dark Prey?”

  Prudence clung tight to her story. “I was semi-conscious when the robot took my weapon, and pumped with fright when I fought off the visually-impaired creatures.”

  The back and forth continued, but Norma sensed in the tight faces of the judges and spectators that she was losing ground. She glimpsed at the hourglass. The upper half was nearly empty. It was time to change tactics. “I have no more questions, your honors. Query ended for this witness. I call up J-1.”

  She didn’t want to do it, particularly after his outburst, but Prudence was too convincing. The only chance they had was that his testimony would be just as persuasive.

  J-1 reviewed his version of events. He was sincere, logical and made sense. Relinquishing him to Hack, Norma felt optimistic about their prospects.

  Hack started out friendly. “I hope your facilities in Prison House are adequate.”

  “They’re fine.” J-1 kept his voice neutral because he wasn’t sure if Hack was being ironic.

  Hack cheerfully replied, “I guess we don’t have to worry about a breakout, then?”

  “Not at all.”

  Hack’s tone lost its cordial edge. He zeroed in on how J-1 had escaped the Dark Prey. “You claim that Prudence had left you behind.”

  “It’s a fact.”

  Hack smiled at the judges. “That remains to be seen.” He turned back to J-1. “You had a bad leg, a bad arm, and your chest and head was banged about, correct?”

  “Yes.” J-1 studied Hack’s eyes. They revealed nothing.

  “Then I’ll ask you the same question that was asked of my client: How did you manage to escape a horde of ten-feet-tall winged creatures without a weapon because, as you claim, Prudence took off with it. How is that possible?”

  “I forced my way past them.”

  “With a bad leg and a damaged hand?”

  “Yes.” Norma had never questioned this part of his story, other than to go over details. Then again, J-1 thought, Norma wasn’t a Montooth Hack.

  “How?” Hack glared at him with a cold stare.

  J-1 was terrified. He couldn’t say anything about his communication with the Dark Prey. Even if he wanted to, it was too late. Hack would rip him apart for withholding information and lying about
his testimony.

  He looked at the judges. All three were studying him. The middle judge had an elbow on the desk. He was leaning forward and clutching his jaw in his hand. J-1 glanced around. Norma was squeezing her hands. Teague, Prudence and the court spectators were silently watching him as if they were mesmerized. He locked eyes with Mata. She smiled and winked at him. That gave him courage to continue. “I took advantage of their temporary blindness from the fire’s illumination and their tall height. I crawled on my stomach between their legs.” Which, he thought, wasn’t untrue because that was how he had originally recovered the weapon that Prudence had dropped, by dragging himself through the Dark Prey.

  Hack turned to the spectators. “Do you really expect us to believe that?”

  “Yes,” he replied in a firm voice. “Because it happened.” Another truth.

  “And then?”

  “And then I waited in the dark until things calmed down and afterwards made my way to Pocketsville.” Also true.

  Hack again gave him the accusatory look, but J-1 had found his nerve. He stood fast. Hack finally grumbled, “Query ended.”

  J-1 took his seat. Norma stood and said, “Requesting the presence of Niyati Bopari.”

  The woman that everyone in Pocketsville knew as Mata, rose. Hack and the others looked around in confusion as she shuffled with the help of her cane to the witness stand. Mr. Zorzi, the bailiff, helped her up the platform and into the chair.

  “Your honors,” Norma said as she approached the witness stand. “The witness has asked to be identified from this point forward by her given name, Niyati Bopari.”

  “Is this so?” the female judge asked Niyati.

  Niyati nodded.

  The trio of judges passed glances at each other. “Recognized,” the middle judge said.

  Norma asked Niyati if J-1 was capable of harming a living creature.

  Niyati raised her chin. “Never.”

  Hack rose. “Your honors, with all due respect this woman doesn’t even know her own name, much less anything as foreign as the inner workings of an Ameri-Inc. robot.”

  “I’ll show that she does,” Norma said.

  “Continue,” the female judge replied.

  Norma said to Niyati, “Explain to us how you know this.”

  Niyati glared at Hack a moment. “I know because I headed the team that created him.”

  The court spectators seemed at once to catch their breaths. The judges themselves flinched. J-1 glanced at Hack. He tilted his head and half-smiled at Niyati. Norma vocalized what those in the courtroom had internalized. “The only way for that to happen is if you are an Earther.”

  “Yes.” Niyati told about her son, how and why J-1 was created, how he was stolen from her, the role GTS played in her longevity and how she came from Earth to find him again. When she finished, Norma studied the judges and the courtroom crowd. Both remained stoic. She took that as a discouraging indication, and continued, “What is J-1’s prime objective?”

  “To aid, not harm, human existence.”

  “By human, does that also include Truattans?”

  “Yes. All living beings.”

  “You’re sure of this?”

  “Of course,” Niyati replied. “I programmed it into him myself.”

  “What if someone tampered with J-1 and altered his programming?”

  “It’s impossible. His DCM would trigger and automatically power him down if he were to act in a manner that was harmful to us.”

  “DCM?” Norma asked.

  “Data Conscious Mechanism. It’s a master override installed for that purpose.”

  A sharp heat—revelation singed with disgust and outrage—flared inside J-1. Ameri-Inc. fed me lies about Planet Ford, Apple Resort, Lake Freeto-Lay and the rest to make me believe I was helping living beings and not harming them so that my prime objective override wouldn’t activate and prevent me from supervising the GTS warehouse. He clamped his mouth with his hand to stifle his anger.

  “That’s all my questions, your honors.” Norma glanced at the hourglass. The top bubble was nearly empty. She returned to her seat as Hack approached the witness stand. She braced herself for what was to come.

  Hack said to Niyati, “So you created J-1.”

  Niyati nodded.

  “Did you talk it over with God, first?”

  “Protest!” Norma stood. “Inference.”

  “Inferring what?” Hack asked. “That Mata—I mean Ms. Bopari—has a relationship with her deity?”

  “It’s irrelevant.” Norma wasn’t about to voice her real concern to the judges, that he was going after her stability.

  “I’ll prove that it isn’t,” Hack retorted.

  “Your honors, this is—” She cut herself off from saying insane.

  The middle judge said, “Continue, Mr. Hack.”

  Norma grimaced and sat.

  Hack repeated the question to Niyati.

  “No,” she answered. “I didn’t speak with God about it.”

  “But you have spoken to Him since.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Is this while you were Mata or Niyati?”

  “Both,” Niyati replied.

  “And has He said anything back?”

  “Your honors.” Norma said it as a plea for them to end Hack’s assault.

  The middle judge raised his palm for Norma to stop.

  “I…” Niyati looked at J-1. He was staring at the tabletop, still coming to terms with how he was deceived. “He’s said a few things.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “He’s said a few things,” Niyati repeated in a firmer voice. “We both have.”

  “For instance?”

  Niyati studied her knees for a moment. “We’ve had arguments about how He had taken Jay, and tricked me by taking J-1 away, too.” She glanced at J-1. “But God has assured me all the tricks are in the past.” As she spoke J-1 listened and his anger faded. He had someone he could trust—Niyati. He realized that made all the difference.

  Hack continued to press Niyati on her mental balance. She glanced at J-1 with a worried look. He smiled and returned the wink she had given him earlier. She nodded, and continued on. “I grilled God on why I was allowed to live so long while—” she choked up “—so many around me have suffered.”

  “And what was God’s answer?” Hack said with a hint of mockery.

  “He told me that I was spared so I could help the people of Truatta retake their planet.”

  Norma surveyed the courtroom. Hack did the same. Norma couldn’t gauge the reaction of the spectators, but the three judges almost imperceptibly nodded to each other. She took that as a positive sign. Hack must have seen the same thing because he said, “Let’s talk about something else.”

  Norma exhaled with relief. She glanced at the hourglass. Nearly three-quarters of the GTS granules had slithered to the bottom bubble.

  “You insist J-1 is incapable of harming living beings, correct?” Hack asked.

  “Yes,” Niyati said.

  “What about lying? Can he do that?”

  “No, though it’s not his prime objective, it’s a secondary objective. In other words, if he had to lie to save a human he would do it, but that would be the only reason for his falsehood. Of course he could utter falsehoods without knowing they were false.”

  “Understood,” Hack replied. “But regarding this trial, from what you’ve said, the mechi has to be telling the truth when it says that Prudence left it behind.”

  “Yes. Positively.”

  Norma arched her eyebrows at J-1. He wasn’t sure what Norma meant by the gesture, but it didn’t look comforting.

  “If I can prove that the mechi knowingly lied about something that didn’t involve harm to a living being, what would that say about his prime objective and secondary objectives?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Niyati said.

  “Or maybe everything,” Hack retorted. “Because it would call into question everyth
ing you said about his virtues. Isn’t that correct?”

  Niyati rubbed her wilted hand with her good one. She looked upward. Her vision seemed to go beyond the ceiling. Her face contorted. J-1 watched the lucidity that was Niyati dissolve into the madness of Mata. He looked at Norma. She was holding her breath. He thought hard about his withholding knowledge of the Dark Prey. His pulse throbbed. Was that the lie that Hack was speaking of? Equally worrying, how had Hack known he had communicated with the creatures? His thoughts were broken when he heard Niyati say, “If you could prove it, I suppose my assumptions might be called into question.” Whatever struggle she had gone through, J-1 heard in her firm reply that Mata had lost the battle and Niyati had won.

  Hack dismissed her. As she shuffled to her seat, she gazed at J-1 and smiled wearily. He squeezed her hand and said, “Thank you,” before turning his gaze again on Hack, who was glancing at the emptying hourglass.

  Hack said, “I request the presence of Prison House guard Bethel Radnelac.”

  “Protest!” Norma stood. “There’s no time for my cross-examination.”

  “I’ll split the remaining granules with Advisor Mardeen,” Hack replied.

  The middle judge motioned for Norma to sit. “Agreed. Continue.”

  Bethel entered from the rear of the room and took her place on the witness stand.

  Hack quickly established her connection to J-1 and asked, “What did you do last night at Prison House?”

  Bethel replied, “My regular duties—clean-up and inspection of cells.”

  “Was there anything out of the ordinary?” Hack glanced at the waning hourglass.

  “I found this.” She slipped a folded paper-like substance from her pocket and handed it to him. Hack handed it to the bailiff, who handed it to the middle judge who unfolded it and studied it with the other judges.

  Norma cocked her chin at J-1. “What the landerbyss is going on?”

  J-1 felt himself sink. He brought his hands to his forehead and waited.

  “Can you tell us what you discovered?” Hack asked Bethel.

  “A hand drawn map of Pocketsville.”

  Murmurs filled the chamber. The judges glared at the crowd. They quieted.