Behind the mirror, I pointed to the frosty glass, offering us a dim and murky view back into the room.
“See?” I asked, demonstrating the levers on the wall.
“So, these operate the robots?”
“They’re not robots, they’re machines made to look like robots, but operated by people. I suspect the machines in the last room were the same.”
“But, why?” he asked.
“Someone wanted other people to think this place was run by robots, I guess,” I replied, pulling shut the door behind us as we re-entered the barber shop.
Michael slapped his palm against a machine, spinning it on its pedestal as a look of bemusement spread across his face.
“Come on,” I declared with some enthusiasm. “I’m starting to actually enjoy myself now.”
“Well, I think it’s stupid.”
“Don’t forget your shoes,” I responded with a snicker, collecting Henri from the chair. “I can’t wait to see what shapes you’ll pull in the next room.”
“You’re not funny,” he griped.
“Yes, I am,” I retorted.
Chapter 15
Welcome to the A.M.I.
With the nail of my index finger, I flicked the glass chamber of the injection gun attached to the robots of the next room, and ran my finger along the narrow tube connecting the back of the gun to a cylinder in the robot’s body.
At the far end of the room, a series of painted lines led out and under the door. It occurred to me, at this point, each room had been losing its grandeur and color. As we’d made our way through, the hues had faded to a sterile off-white, and the walls had become bland and uninteresting. This door was metal and featureless, bar the handle, and I doubted I would have noticed it if it wasn’t for the sudden reintroduction of color with these mysterious lines on the floor.
“Ow!” Michael yelped, snatching my attention, as my little brother gripped his hand with the other, his index finger extended.
“What did you do?” I demanded.
“Nothing,” he objected.
I knew he was lying. “Did you touch the machine?”
“No.”
“Why is your finger hurting then?”
“It’s not.”
“Why are you holding it then?”
He paused, and I was sure I could see him trying to think of something to say in retaliation.
“Luckily for you, I don’t think there’s anything left in these machines, but to be on the safe side, please stop touching everything you see!”
Jabbing his finger into his mouth, Michael scowled at me.
“Let’s just hope they were cleaned at some point,” I declared, beckoning my little brother to proceed toward the painted lines. “Probably catch some awful old disease no-one’s heard of for decades,” I mumbled, winding him up. “Pick a color,” I instructed with a jovial tone.
“I dunno,” he replied, pulling his finger from his mouth. “Er? Pink.”
“OK.”
“No, yellow,” he declared, with the enthusiasm of someone deciding on a matter of life and death.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. No, orange.”
“Orange?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Orange.”
“Orange it is then,” I replied, opening the door. “Lead the way, Maestro.”
The door led to a T-shaped corridor and the painted lines parted in the middle with four going left while pink, yellow, and black led right. Michael, as instructed, followed the orange line.
The white line made a turn first, disappearing under another bland door. I stepped up to the window while Michael paused on the orange line, as though he was glued to it. Inside the room, I saw bunk beds made of a grey metal, and the next two painted lines led to identical rooms.
The orange line took us to a larger room where tables were lined up like a school cafeteria and posters on the wall gave clear instructions to leave the walkways clear for the robots to operate. On the wall, a large painting looked down upon the tables. A man, with hands crossed at the wrist, sat on a desk, looking sideward to the observer, with a forced smile pressed into his lips. His eyes were hidden by glasses with large, black frames, and his suit was styled in a brown checkered fabric. ‘J. Sulloman - Founder and Leader of your A.M.I.’ the caption on the plaque read.
Another door displayed the sign forbidding access to subjects, and again, with a little persuasion from Henri, it opened.
A door sat ajar off the corridor revealing another unlit space with a small slit on the far wall, looking into the room with the white line and the grey metal bunk beds. I wondered if the people who slept here were aware they were being spied on?
Reaching the next door, I expected more of the same, but instead I was greeted with what looked like a small and cozy library. A single high-backed leather chair took up the majority of the room surrounded by piles of film reel, with a projector sitting to the side and behind on a small table.
“Does it work?” Michael asked, pointing to the projector.
“How should I know?”
“Let’s try it.”
Failing to see any logical reason why we shouldn’t, I agreed to try and with nothing to lose, I flicked the switch down to the ‘start’, position. The reels whirred into action, and the room filled with the sound of the motor spinning the film up to speed. An image appeared on the screen as the bulb inside the projector warmed up.
“It’s that room!” my little brother exclaimed, pointing to the screen.
Men wearing long coats and larger smiles shook hands with one another in the long room, the first we encountered of this A.M.I. facility, as women in pressed uniforms and tight skirts handed out small glasses from the wooden trays.
“Where’s the sound?” Michael asked, tearing his eyes away from the screen for a moment.
“I don’t think there is any,” I replied, checking the controls.
“Oh,” my little brother responded disheartened, climbing onto the chair.
The film skipped the room of faux glass bells and copper wires, though I saw a brief glimpse of the unaltered posters I found in the makeshift gallery behind the black curtain. The men, their smiles diminishing, filed into the theatre room as another read aloud to them, each signing a piece of paper.
The men, straight faced, were handed a set of clothes by the faux outfitter robots, and they filed into the barber shop. As one man glared with a nervous expression at the machine clipping away at his hair, the crew cuts of the others were shaven back to a buzz cut. Another man flinched as though the machine had nicked his skin and the camera cut away.
Their faces devoid of emotion, the men sat at the tables in the mess hall. A look of bemusement spread down the table as an enormous caterer bot approached. The film skipped forward as the camera faced the ground. Paper swirled around the floor and feet rushed past.
The frame froze. The paper was singed at the edges, but the text was visible, as was the signature at the bottom. It was a contract exchanging free will for the ‘betterment of man’, the signer renouncing feelings and wants, discarding individuality, and embracing the machines of Autonoma for the ‘good of all mankind’.
‘I THE UNDERSIGNED DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR TO UPHOLD THE TRUE VALUES OF J. SULLOMAN’S AUTONOMA MEDICAL INSTITUTE FOR THE BETTERMENT OF MAN. I SWEAR TO RENOUNCE MY FAITH, MY FAMILY, MY BELIEFS, AND ANY EDUCATION I MAY HAVE RECEIVED UP TO THIS POINT. I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS CONTRACT BINDS ME LEGALLY AND WHOLLY…’
The film zoomed closer on the final line, as the picture melted and tore. ‘THERE IS NO WAY OUT. Welcome to Autonoma’, faded from the screen.
Back in the corridor, another set of double doors took us into an enormous room. The ceiling was twice as high as any previous room, and the floor was made up of large, highly polished ceramic tiles. One wall was consumed by a projector screen, while chairs were laid out like a theatre facing it.
In the center of the room, tables, arranged in a circle, surrounded a metal p
odium, and behind, a running track had been painted onto the tiled floor. Against another wall, four high-back leather chairs sat alongside small circular tables, with more faux robots sitting on pedestals on the other side. Against the opposite wall, I could see what looked like desks but with large hoods extending above the seat. My curiosity was pricked again.
As Michael ran his hand across the top of the chairs of the theater, disturbing the dust, I made my own progress toward the curious hooded chairs. Placing Henri next to the machine, I tried to pull the seat back, but it was fixed in place on top of a series of smaller metal boxes. Reluctant to participate, and unsure of the machine’s true intentions, I chose to peer over the seat and under the hood. Inside, a robotic face glared back. With red eyes, and a large open grill for a mouth, I found the machine both fascinating and terrifying at the same time. I felt drawn to place my face against the visor to glance into the red lenses.
“What’s that?” my little brother asked.
I pulled back from the machine, almost striking my head against the hood. “I don’t know. Why would I know?”
Michael narrowed his eyes, turning his attention to the identical machine alongside this one, swiveling the seat around, plonking himself down and pressing his face against the machine’s visor.
“Well?” I asked, as my little brother re-emerged from the machine.
“Huh?”
“Well, what does it do?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh,” I replied, with a defeated tone. “Perhaps it’s broken.”
“Or not plugged in,” he responded.
“I guess you’re right,” I declared, placing my hands on the back of his seat.
Michael swiveled the chair around and my fingers struck the bottom of the hood, forced into the narrow gap. A curse slipped my lips.
“Sorry,” my little brother replied, with a noticeable lack of concern.
“It’s alright,” I mumbled, freeing my fingers and shaking out my hands, putting my red, sore thumb into my mouth.
“What is this place?” Michael asked, alighting the seat.
“How should I know?” I mumbled, trying to suck away the pain.
“Maybe it’s some super-villain’s hideout,” he declared with excitement peppering his words.
“I don’t think it’s that.”
“Well, if you’re so sure what it isn’t, why can’t you tell me what it is?”
“It’s a lab,” I barked back, the scowl spreading with haste across my face.
“What for?”
“Testing people,” I sneered, “especially little brothers!”
Giggling, Michael kicked off his loose shoes and leapt into a sprint back across the room. I gave chase, my frown replaced by a more mischievous smirk.
“Alex can’t catch me,” my little brother laughed. “Alex is slow,” he taunted.
“Come here, you!”
Michael charged into the theatre of chairs, dodging each and every attempt I made to grab him.
“I’ve got you now,” I declared, leaping over a chair, tipping it over as I landed.
The giggles and playful screams of my little brother reverberated around the room, as he made a break for the circle of tables, darting under. I tried to charge over, but instead my foot slid off the table’s surface. I winced, performing a perfect split on the floor, gaining no sympathy from Michael.
My little brother cleared the metal podium and charged across the running track. Even in socks, he was fast, and I was struggling to keep up.
“Slow up,” I pleaded, panting for breath.
Michael’s giggles intensified as he charged for a red door near the high-back leather chairs.
“Wait,” I demanded, reaching out, crippled by the lactic acid building in every muscle.
My little brother reached for the handle, pushed the door open enough to squeeze through, and disappeared into the unlit room. The door slammed shut behind him.
Slowing to a walk, I approached the door, my hand hovering over the handle. ‘DANGER - NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY’, the sign on the red door read. I willed myself to go in, but I felt the reluctancy taking over all other thought, commanding my fingers to resist. Perhaps it was the not knowing holding me back, or perhaps it was something else. The lack of giggles from the other side of the door did little to bolster my confidence. I collected Henri and with a firm unwillingness, faltered by my curiosity, I opened the door.
Floor to ceiling, the room was jam-packed with panels filled with monitors, dials, buttons, and lights. This tech was much older than the instruments we found in the power plant. Everything was painted a sort of pea green, and the switches were protected by little metal bars. Reels of magnetic tape were stacked in a corner and further along were lines of desks.
“There you are,” I remarked, watching Michael prod at the keys of a large machine, though it remained silent and unstirred. Huffing, he climbed down from the seat and slumped past a line of machines with blank cards on their drums.
A machine in the corner, reminiscent of the projector in the small office but in a much larger cabinet, had been threaded with magnetic tape from a reel. Michael prodded the green switch on the front of the machine, and the film whizzed through the rollers. The end of the tape slapped against the stops and disappeared inside.
“Stop touching everything,” I barked, pushing the red button to silence the machine once more.
My little brother rolled his eyes.
“What’s in there?” he asked, pointing to a plain door.
“Hang on, I’ll put on my x-ray specs and look through,” I replied.
“Whatever,” Michael muttered, approaching the door.
“And stop running off!”
“Yeah, yeah,” he dismissed, opening the door and peering inside.
“Well?” I asked.
“It’s an office.”
“Oh,” I replied, disappointed.
“Whoever worked here sure enjoyed watching films,” I jested, approaching the large dark-wood desk, next to a high-backed green-leather chair, bookcases, another projector, and a screen with stacks of reel cases collecting dust on the floor.
“I wonder what this film is,” my little brother declared, reaching for the buttons on the projector. “I hope it’s something good like a cartoon or something.”
“Yeah, sure, why wouldn’t an abandoned institute filled with fraudulent robots, lies and secrets, have offices for watching cartoons,” I sneered, rolling my eyes, scanning a bookshelf.
Placing Henri on the floor, I grabbed at the spine of a book at random, but it wouldn’t come free. I pulled with more effort, falling back a pace, as I pulled the entire row away. “Even the books are fake,” I remarked, inspecting the other side of the hollow-wooden display piece shaped and painted to look like a shelf of books.
“A series of high-speed electronic computers offer a new scope into the minds of men,” a voice declared from the innards of the more elaborate projector.
“I thought I told you to stop touching everything,” I barked to Michael, as the image burned onto the projector screen.
“Magnetic tape, holding millions of bits of data in analogue form, allow this state-of-the-art facility to produce men of the highest caliber for space flight,” the commentator explained, as the machines we saw in the room outside filled the screen.
“Mathematicians and engineers work together to create mathematical novels which are translated to the computer.”
The camera focused on a woman at a large machine, tapping away at the keyboard. The machine punched holes into the card as another worker collected a stack from the receptacle on the side.
“Cathode ray tubes allow engineers to see solutions presented by the computer,” the voice went on, as white wire-framed cubes and graphs filled the black screens.
“And this is all thanks to the brilliant J. Sulloman and his dedication to the betterment of man through his pursuit of science. Remember, enhancement can be yours with A.M.I.” t
he voice signed off with a cheerful tone, as men in white suits paced around the machines.
The man in the large painting displayed with pride in the cafeteria room glared back, sitting sidesaddle on the desk standing beside us.
“And so you see,” Mr. Sulloman explained, as the film crackled, sending white lines across the image. “With your continued investment we can continue to produce men of excellent caliber ready for space travel to the farthest reaches. Perhaps, even one day, to Mars.”
Michael looked to me; his brow furrowed as though he was confused. I shrugged my shoulders in response.
“My Autonoma machines will change humanity as we know it. Today we sit at the dawn of a new age of an automated machinery revolution. With my machines, and your investment, Quincunx Incorporated can change the world and those that walk upon it; forever. The future will prevail, gentlemen, and we will be at the forefront of it. Quincunx Incorporated is the future of mankind.”
Chapter 16
The Individual
Placing Henri into the duffle bag, I approached the hole in the wall behind the screen. Climbing onto the pile of fake book spines littering the floor and using Henri to clear some of the splintered bookcase from our path, I poked my head through to the clinical, grey and pale green corridor standing in silence on the other side.
“What is it?” my little brother asked, pulling on the hem of my A.M.I. sweatshirt.
“A corridor.”
“Where does it go?”
“Only one way to find out, I suppose,” I declared, clearing more debris and squeezing through the hole.
Footsteps on the white-tiled floor echoed about the barren corridor as Michael followed me out. Pictures of the faux robots, this time holding surgical equipment, hung on the walls and a photo of Mr. J Sulloman glared at me from the far end.
Plaster and rubble littered the edges of the corridor, and a series of wide cracks had spread across the ceiling like an enormous spider’s web. A large opening revealed more rubble, concrete, and twisted metal framework sitting above us. I guessed part of the power plant must have landed on top of this section of this ‘A.M.I.’.
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