by Rick Graham
“You are very different though. You have the ability to make choices, that robot in the book is restricted by its programming. You aren’t. You can think for yourself.”
It looked back to the book and began to read, it was finished in a flash.
“Did you enjoy that book?”
“Enjoy?”
“Yes, enjoy. It is a feeling, in here” Carlo pointed to his head.
The machine looked confused.
“I have been working on making you for so many cycles. Honestly though, I didn’t know how you would function. Or, if you would at all.”
Carlo ran his fingers through his hair and without thinking, made his way over to his desk chair. He sat down, and it squeaked and groaned in defiance.
“When I was working on your programming I wasn’t sure of how to calculate the process of emotions and feelings. I made an educated guess, but the files I really needed were restricted and I don’t know if it worked. We can worry about that later though. I have so much I want to show you.”
The Maker and his creation stayed up all through the night experimenting and finding more books for the machine to read. The two continued well into the next day as the sunlight rose and covered the quiet city outside.
“I want to try something else. Here, follow me” Carlo said as he excitedly left the room. He poked his head back in the office when he realized the machine did not follow. With a big grin on his face he said, “Come on.”
Slowly the machine stood up from its sitting position on the floor and walked out of the room. The man led the way to the kitchen where he turned on a faucet.
“Place your hand under here and tell me what you feel.”
Without hesitation the robot strolled over to the sink and stuck its right hand under the running water. Immediately it pulled its hand back and inspected its fingers.
Carlo could barely contain himself. “You have a sense of touch! Tell me, tell me, what does it feel like?”
The machine looked at the Maker and again reached its hand into the flow of water. It rotated its hand back and forth and flexed its fingers under the water.
“It feels…cold?”
“Yes!” Carlo hopped up and down with excitement. “Here, here feel this” he turned the water to hot and waited.
After a moment the water’s temperature changed and the machine yanked its hand out.
“You can distinguish hot from cold. Incredible. You are amazing…” he stopped himself. “Oh, you still don’t have a name. Do you know what you would like to be called yet?” Carlo said as he shut the water off.
The machine stood up straight and pondered its response. Out of all the books it read, only one name made sense. “Pura.”
“Pura, what’s that from?”
“From the small book you gave me.”
“Ooooh, the kids book.”
“Yes Father.”
“Oh, you don’t have to call me tha…well no, Father works.”
“You did make me.”
“Yes, yes I did” Carlo said with a huge grin. “Alright, Pura it is. So, let’s talk about…” the Maker was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Carlo’s expression turned from happiness to worry as he grabbed Pura by the arm and lead him out of the kitchen.
“Father what is wrong?”
“I need you to go into my office and don’t come out, okay?” the short man nudged the robot into the small room and shut the door.
Carlo speed walked down the hall and up to the front door. The visitor knocked three more times.
“Carlooooo? Where are you?” came a muffled voice through the door.
The Maker couldn’t help but roll his eyes annoyingly as he unlocked the door and opened it.
A tall older man slumped up against the left side of the door grinned when he saw his younger brother. Even though he had gray hair, he still retained an athletic form from cycles of working out. “Finally. What were you doing in there?”
“Farius, wha…what are you doing here?”
Farius Vivicks pushed his way past Carlo and entered the home. Carlo clenched his jaw and followed behind.
“I am here because you have my wife’s food cutter and she wants it back.” Farius looked around the front room.
“I uh, gave that back to you a few rotations ago.”
The older brother’s face looked confused, but his eyes were still searching.
“Oh, sorry about that. Must have forgo…” A loud crash came from Carlo’s office.
Farius glanced at his brother with both worry and suspicion. “Is someone else here?”
“Well, um, no. Must have been outside.”
“Uh huh.” Farius moved quietly toward the office door with Carlo close behind.
“I’m telling you brother that it isn’t anything, it probably is…” Carlo stopped as soon as Farius through open the door and appeared confused by the sight of the tall white bot holding two broken pieces of glass sculpture.
“Mrs. Burgless was right!” Farius said as he glared at his brother.
“I…I can explain” began Carlo.
The visitor held up his hand. “No lies. Where did you get this from?”
“I am Pura” said the machine.
“Carlo, I can’t afford to have the authorities snooping around here. You need to take this back immediately.”
The younger brother held up his hands trying to convince his sibling, “You don’t understand. I have finally done it.”
“Done what?” Farius said losing his temper.
Carlo rushed over to his creation. With the largest proud toothy grin he could muster he boasted, “Brother, I have created an actual artificial life!”
Farius’ eyes grew incredibly wide. “You did what?”
“I turned an ordinary servant bot into a living machine. He is…” Carlo backed up into the wall as his brother angrily stepped toward him.
Farius shoved his brother to the wall. “Do you realize what you have done? You have broken the law making that thing.”
Pura stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do as he watched the two brothers argue.
“He isn’t evil Farius. He is different. Pura is nothing like the Synthetics. He is an actual lifeform, not some copy of intelligence…”
The older brother got right into the younger one’s face. “You have to destroy him before the government finds out. Do you want an Inquisitor finding out what you have done? You could get yourself killed!”
“I…I know the risks.”
“Oh, do you?” Farius asked mockingly. “I own this house you live in Carlo. If the government finds out about this abomination they are going to be asking both of us questions. Questions I really don’t want to answer. You have to get rid of it.”
“I can’t. I have worked my whole life for this…”
Farius cut off Carlo as he sucker punched him in the face. Carlo’s head smacked the wall and he fell to the floor. The older brother brought his fist up to attack again, but he was stopped in mid-strike when Pura grabbed hold of his forearm.
Farius’ eyes raged as he glared at the machine.
“I do not like this” Pura said.
Farius could see his angry reflection in the blank face plate. “You are a machine, you can’t like anything!”
Carlo pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “That may not be true.” Farius looked back at his brother as he continued. “I designed Pura to be just like you and I. Theoretically he should be able to think, feel, even imagine.”
The older brother tried to yank his arm free, but Pura’s grip was too tight. “Let go of me clanker.”
“What is a clanker?” Pura inquired.
“Farius, you can’t tell anyone about this. They will destroy him.”
Pura looked uneasy at the mention of being destroyed. He still held the visitor’s arm in the air.
“Let. Me. Go!” Farius shouted as he continued to try and free himself.
Carlo stood up and pleaded with his b
rother. “Please Farius, you can’t tell anyone about Pura.”
“I don’t want to be destroyed Father.”
“You’ll be fine Pura.”
Farius’ face contorted into arrogance and anger. “Oh, I am going to go and tell the whole damned Republic if you don’t tell this glitchy bot to let me go!”
“I’m sorry to hear that brother…” Carlo said sadly. He left the room while Farius continued to curse and pull at his arm.
The younger brother returned with a metal cylinder. Farius never saw the strike coming before he was hit upside his head. His body went limp while Pura continued to suspend his arm in the air. As Farius fell at the awkward angle his arm became dislocated from his sudden drop while his forearm was grasped in the robot’s hand.
“What have you done? Father, Father, why did he fall down?” Pura asked, his voice trembling. He released the unconscious man’s arm.
Carlo took several deep breaths, his right hand was shaking as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. The metal object dropped to the ground.
A pool of blood began to grow from Farius’ head.
“No!” Carlo screamed.
Taking a step back, the machine asked, “What is wrong Father?”
The Maker knelt and tried to feel for a pulse from his brother. Nothing.
“What have I done?” he whispered.
Pura stood there anxiously, unsure of what was going on.
Carlo wiped his nose with his left forearm and stood back up. He rubbed his face, both of his hands trembling.
“This is very bad.”
“Can I help Father? I can help.”
The Maker looked at his creation with deep sadness in his eyes. “Grab him by the wrists and follow me.”
Pura began to drag Farius by the wrists, blood trailing behind, while Carlo led the way to a closet deep in the home.
“Stick him in here for now. At least until I can figure out a better plan” Carlo said as tears swelled in his eyes.
The robot obeyed and placed the dead man inside. Carlo shut the door then shuffled his feet back toward the kitchen. Pura followed behind and watched as his creator retrieved a cleaning pad, a bucket of water, and some cleaner.
Sensing his maker’s different behavior but not yet understanding the emotions, Pura asked, “Can I help Father?”
Carlo shuffled past his creation and walked over to his office. He knelt to the floor and began to clean up the blood. Pura stood by as he watched his father clean the trails of blood from the office to the closet. When he was finished, he had a new sensation that he wanted to make his father happy again.
“Can I read a new book?” Pura asked cheerfully.
Carlo’s empty eyes glanced up to the machine. “Sure…”
“Which one can I read Father?”
“Any of them, it…uh, it doesn’t matter. I have to figure out what we are going to do Pura.”
Excitedly the machine rushed back to the bookcase while Carlo mindlessly ran his fingers through his air. Pura looked over all of the many choices on the shelves and settled for a book about robotics.
He ran back up to Carlo and showed him his choice. “I want to read this one.”
The robot noticed that his maker had slumped up against the hallway and stared off into the distance.
“Father?”
“Huh?”
The robot mimicked his maker’s movements and rubbed his hand against the top of his head as if he had hair. He extended the book to show his maker, but he did not respond. As he retracted the book the machine asked, “Why are you not moving?”
“Because I am conflicted. It has been my lifelong endeavor to create you Pura. Even since I was a little boy. But I never wanted it to come to this.” Carlo’s head rolled to the side and he fixed his eyes on the white mask that was in place of the machine’s “face”.
“Farius was a bully, but…”
“But?” Pura asked.
Carlo slumped his head down towards his chest. The machine stood awkwardly waiting for his maker to do something.
The man mumbled something that Pura didn’t understand. “Father?” he said as he knelt down. Carlo tightened his hand into a fist. He punched himself in his leg.
“We can’t stay here. We have to leave, it is the only way you have a chance.” Carlo looked up with a fire in his eyes. “I can’t change the past, but I can’t let you be destroyed either.”
“Can I help at all?”
“No, I don’t think you can. At least not yet. Go into the office and study some more. I am going to make a couple of calls and get things setup for us to escape Delieeve. Maybe we have to leave the Republic altogether.”
Pura stood up rapidly. “Does this mean we are going to go outside?” he asked happily.
Carlo managed a small smile at the sight of the naïve robot. “Yes, yes it does.”
“I read so much about it last night and I am very excited.”
The Maker pulled himself up and went to the office. He grabbed his communicator and selected a number he had saved in his contacts. Pura followed behind and looked around the room. The machine seemed to notice the large dual screens for the computer mounted to the walls for the first time. He walked up to the desk and studied the clutter and mess that composed of the Maker’s workspace.
“Hey Dints. This is Carlo…you know, Carlo Vivicks. You told me to call you if I ever…yeah, yeah the programmer” the Maker said. “I uh, need to go on a “trip”. Of course I can pay for it…” Carlo darted out of the door.
Pura could barely make out the man’s voice as he went down the hall. He sat down in the old creaky chair, unsure of how to operate the computer system. Placing his hand on the small black device to his right he realized that it controlled the cursor on the screen.
The machine navigated to various files and programs until he noticed one that was a stylized red “N” with a half circle spinning around it on the desktop. Moving the cursor over the icon he double clicked it which pulled up the network on the left monitor. The page was mostly blank except for a black outlined box with the word “Search the Net” over it.
Clicking on the box made a slow flashing line appear. Not seeing anything else to do Pura pushed the “t” key on the keypad which typed it into the box on the screen. He tried another letter, then another. Understanding that it was a place to type words he decided to type in “robot”. He guided the cursor over the “Go” button to the right of the box. A screen full of links and images appeared.
Clicking on the first link Pura began to learn exactly what he was looking at. He began to scan the new page of content just as Carlo entered the room.
“Pura no!” the man ran over to the computer and powered it off. “You can never use the network. Never.”
“Why Father?”
Trying to come up with a good reason, Carlo decided it was best to go with the truth. “If you use the network at the speed that you learn, it would alert the monitoring systems setup by the government and they would know an artificial intelligence exists.”
Pura looked at his father in bewilderment. “Is that bad?”
“Yes, very bad.” Carlo placed a hand on the machine’s shoulder. “Cycles ago, there was another very intelligent AI that was created to help humanity. But instead of helping it caused a great deal of pain and many, many humans died. To make sure that it never happened again, the government made sure that no more AI would be created. In fact, if they ever discovered you existed they would terminate you without a second thought.”
“Terminated?!” Pura looked to the floor as he thought. “I don’t want to be destroyed Father. I only want to live. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone hurt you. We are going to leave later tomorrow. I just called a man who can get us a ship off of Delieeve and send us towards the Outer Rim Alliance. There we can find a planet to lay low for a while until we can get a better plan.”
“May I read some more b
ooks?” Pura asked, his head tilting to the right.
Carlo smiled at the sheer innocence before him. “Absolutely. I am going to go into the other room and pack some things for our trip.”
Evening came and went as the Maker prepared for the coming trip. His stomach fluttered violently as his mind fought to process the memory of his deceased brother. He shook his head to clear his ever-darkening thoughts.
Pura had continued to read every single book on the bookshelf over the course of the previous night and had now begun to experiment on his own with things such as cause and effect, gravity, and more until he finally noticed the daylight that beamed through the side of the curtain. It hit the wall and illuminated the thousands of dust particles dancing in the air.
The machine reached over to the light and carefully moved his hand through the floating dust. It swayed back and forth from his hand movements. Standing up, Pura walked over to the curtain and pulled it open. Outside of the dingy window a small farrow was happily perched on a bush outside. The bird’s purple and red feathers glistened in the daylight.
“I want to go outside Father. I want to go outside.”
Carlo rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to keep himself awake.
“Pura, you will…soon.”
The machine turned back to his maker and tilted his head to the side.
“Father, what is the outside like?”
“Well…that is a very hard question to answer.”
“Why?”
Carlo stood up from his old chair and began to pace. “Well, because. There are over 190 different worlds that humanity has colonized. All of them have their own environments and cultures. Each world is different in some way from the others.”
Pura looked back to the window and observed the young farrow hop to a different branch and pick at a wild berry hanging from it.
“The one travel book you have looked so wonderful. I can’t wait to go outside. It all looks so beautiful. So amazing” the machine said as it took all of the strange wonder to be found in an unmowed backyard. “I want to see it Father, I want to…” Suddenly an intense green flash of a laser pierced through the window and sliced Pura’s right arm off at the shoulder.
