Evan motioned for him to follow, entering an empty classroom. “You remember when I got you this job — right, Holt?”
“I’ll never forget it. I had been — ”
Evan silenced him with his hand. “The time has come for you to return the favor.”
“Of course. What can I do to help?”
“Do you remember how you lost your trucking job?”
“Like it was yesterday.”
“Well, the man who wrote the program that took it from you is coming to the school today. I want you to let him know how you felt about it.” He handed him an anti-AI poster. “Start by getting him riled up by protesting outside of his apartment. When the press conference starts, I want you to really turn it up, trigger him completely. The safety of the country depends upon it.”
Brad stormed into the Coliseum.
“Get me a baseball bat, and set up three toasters for me to destroy.”
“Right away,” said Cratos.
Brad took the wooden bat in his hand and charged at the first of the slow-moving androids. His first swing snapped the bat in half. “Stupid toaster!”
“Perhaps another weapon? How about a crowbar or our ultra-sharp falchion — Ike’s favorite weapon.”
Brad needed something stronger. An amorphous-steel blade would be too easy. He needed to crush these toasters flat. “Give me Brutus’s war hammer.”
Cratos went over to Brutus and grabbed the huge weapon. It didn’t budge. “It’s too heavy.”
“No. You’re too weak.” Brad thundered over like The Incredible Hulk and yanked the hammer out. It was insanely heavy, close to a hundred pounds. He went back over to the first android and swung as hard as he could, smashing its head right off its body. Brad’s muscles burned. “This will do.”
For the next ten minutes, Brad laid into the androids until they had been flattened to less than an inch high. Large chunks of the concrete floor had been blasted out. Sweat dripped down Brad’s exhausted body, and his arms shook. “I want you to program Brutus to destroy these freaks.” He took out a picture of Dan and Stanley. “I want the whole world to watch them die when they speak at the high school.”
“But that means Brutus will need to be destroyed afterward. What if — ”
Brad backhanded him.
Blood dribbled from a large gash in Cratos’s lip, sliding across his chin and burying itself in his shirt. Two red teeth had been knocked backward. His next words were spoken slowly and with a lisp — but, goddamn, did he choose them carefully! “My apologies. I’ll do it immediately.”
The doors to the Coliseum opened. Shannon and another man walked in. She froze when she saw him.
“Come here,” said Brad.
Her ghost-white skin glowed as she crept toward him.
“What are you doing here?” He snapped his head toward the man standing way too damn close to Evan’s girl. “And who the hell are you?”
“My name’s Larry — have we met before?”
Brad wanted to smash him. “I hope not.”
“No, no … I think we have. Eddy, right? My memory is a bit foggy after coming down from fuse, but I’m pretty sure we met in the hospital. I was on the way to get my shrink’s signature when — Teddy Perkins, that’s it.”
“What did you say?” Brad glared at the weak-looking man, his breath rising from thoughts of smashing him with the war hammer. Larry had no clue what sort of danger he had put himself in by saying that name.
Shannon turned to Larry and pulled hard at his wrist, searing him with a look of grave seriousness. “Stop talking. We’re leaving.”
Brad yanked him back. “You’re not going anywhere!”
“What do you want?”
“How do you know that name?”
“So, you’re not Teddy?”
Brad clenched his fist. “Answer my question, or you’ll end up uglier than Cratos over there.”
Cratos turned around with a blood-soaked towel pressed against his face. Reaching into a refrigerated medical kit, he took out a syringe of nanites and injected it into his gums.
Shannon swooped in. “Let me help you with that.”
“Leave me the hell alone,” said Cratos.
“Okay!” said Shannon, suspiciously retreating without a snarky comment.
Brad didn’t care. His attention was on this weak excuse of a man. Grabbing him by the hospital johnny he was wearing, Brad prayed for him to say something stupid so he could crush him with all his might. It would be fun to see the war-hammer pulverize his bones. “Answer.”
Larry gulped. “I was at the hospital getting my psychic evaluation for fusing-out. That’s when I ran into Teddy. He pushed me over.”
Brad laughed, effortlessly shoving the weakling to the floor. “Pathetic. What sort of man gets overpowered by a cripple?”
“Knock it off,” said Shannon, helping him up.
“A cripple? No, far from it. He was one of the strongest men I’ve ever met. Launched me right into a wall.”
“And damaged your memory. Teddy Perkins is a cripple and the son of a whore.”
Larry shook his head. “If you say so.”
Shannon stood next to Brad, her hand in her purse.
“So, you’re telling me that Teddy Perkins — the paraplegic — was up and walking as if I hadn’t shattered his cowardly spine?”
“That’s what I’m saying. And he kind of looks like you, so that’s why I thought — ”
“He’s not my goddamn son,” shouted Brad, walking over and grabbing the war hammer.
“Run!” Shannon grabbed Larry.
Cratos shocked him with the cattle prod, knocking him to the ground. “I don’t think so.”
Brad stood over Larry, the war-hammer resting on his shoulder. “He must have had cybernetic surgery. Changed his face to look like mine. He’s obsessed.” Brad’s voice was cracking. Inwardly, he could see the mistake that he and Evan had made in rushing to judgment about who had killed Michaels. Teddy must have killed Michaels, thinking it was him, Brad thought. He pointed to Larry. “Tell me he’s not my son.”
“He’s not your son.” Larry’s voice was weak.
“Louder,” said Brad, slamming the war-hammer down. Concrete blasted from the floor, inches away from Larry’s knee.
“Leave him alone.” Shannon tried to intervene, but Cratos stopped her with a threatening wave of the cattle prod.
“He’s not — ” the words passed through Larry’s lips like a whisper as he passed out.
“Pathetic.” Brad’s face twitched. “Cratos, prepare an audience. I’ll be back with a fresh toy to play with.”
Chapter 15
Outside Stanley’s condo, an unkempt protester held his sign up. “Stop the abominations. No-bots, not robots.” Long, greasy hair sank down to his chin, mixing in with his unkempt beard and mustache. Multiple layers of sweatsuits and a jacket made him look like a vagabond.
Stanley pulled back the curtain. “He’s still out there.”
Dan peered out. “All this because they claim one of my kind committed murder? Where’s the proof? And even if they did, humans kill each other every day. Do they have to register to go outside, too?”
Stanley thought about the assassination code he had been forced to give to Sergeant Wilcox, but he was too embarrassed to tell Dan. He had effectively given the most anti-AI group in the USA the instruction manual for creating an army of AI assassins. “If malware is effecting AI, it needs to be stopped.”
“Well, let’s demand that all human programmers register, too.”
Stanley looked away.
“And what about human vices? Are they not like malware?”
“There are so many differences. First, a fleet of androids could storm the nation with the hit of a button. You can’t say the same about humans.”
&n
bsp; “Are you so sure? People get all fired up after watching a video or reading the news, and all of that can be faked with a few clicks.”
The protester’s shouts grew louder.
“I don’t get it,” said Stanley. “What sort of an idiot chooses to bite the hand that feeds him?”
“Does he really choose it?”
“Of course, he does. Everyone does.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, you’re different.”
“That protester didn’t choose, either.”
Stanley didn’t agree. Although emotion pushed a person toward one course of action, they still had a choice. That protester may have suffered great loss, but he chose to go stand outside Stanley’s condo and harass him. All the people who came to Jean Morrison had been given a choice, and many of them took the easy way out. The repercussions of losing so much led people to doing odd things. Sometimes insane things. But not Stanley. He knew it had been his fault, and he needed to atone.
Outside, the protester was thrashing about, screaming at nobody. It was as if this whole idiotic show was meant to piss Stanley off — and it was working.
“He’s gone mad,” said Stanley.
The protester turned around as if he knew they were talking about him, his overgrown facial hair sinking down into a frown as he gave them the middle finger.
Stanley shook his head. “There is something very wrong here.”
“Do you think he is connected with the police?”
As Stanley hovered over the board games, he recalled how simpler things had been a few months ago. For their sake, he needed to get his program, the Android Peacekeepers, up and operational as soon as possible. “I’d bet on it.”
“I still can’t believe the government passed a bill requiring all androids and cyborgs to register and wear identification while outside. It’s insane. Do you know what that reminds me of?”
Stanley knew his German history, but it was too terrible to say. “Something must be done about this.”
“If you’re going to ask me to start wearing the helmet, the answer is ‘No.’”
Stanley had pressured him to try on the high-grade military helmet, which Dan finally did. Pictures were taken, but Dan said it was the last time he was ever going to wear it. It made him look unapproachable and took away from his message of peace and acceptance. “No, not that. I’ve been thinking, though. Jean Morrison was right. Despite what you and the principal said, I believe what we’re doing is not enough.”
“How so?”
“The government has everything controlled and set up in the way they want it. Change is too difficult. The legal routes are not in our favor; those who should protect us are out to get us. The old generation is too old to care. The new ones are too unmotivated or dumb. Everyone else is either a fusehead or has become part of this unfixable system.”
“Not sure if I completely agree with that.”
“But it’s roughly true.”
Dan crossed his arms. “You might need to take some time off from speaking with Jean Morrison.”
“The point is,” continued Stanley, “we can work as hard as we want to get people to hear our message, but it’s futile. The system is rigged against us. We can’t win.”
“Revolutions take time, Stanley.”
“But this one isn’t going to happen unless we raise the ante.”
“You have a plan?”
Stanley smiled nervously. “Technology has changed the world. I press a button on my phone and get food delivered to my door in thirty minutes.”
“Or you have your lovely sentient machine slave over a hot stove for you.”
“You do make some amazing everything.”
Dan grinned. “Are you hungry, by the way? I was thinking of making potato skins. They’d be done in an hour.”
“I’m fine.” The words came out automatically, and then a fierce hunger rose inside of him. “Actually, go ahead. That sounds good.”
Dan went into the kitchen to prepare the food. “Leticia, preheat oven for potato skins.” The oven turned on and began to heat up.
Stanley followed him, removing a few sheets of paper from the table and sitting down. “People don’t drive anymore — except those stubborn cops. Cars drive themselves, and transportation is so much safer and more efficient. People don’t really own cars anymore. We utilize car services. My Fermi is out there now driving someone around.
“Most aspects of our existence have changed immensely over a short period of time, yet the Police Department is practically the same.”
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” said Dan, scrubbing the potatoes.
“Now imagine if the police were more like Fermi or our food apps. What if all we needed to do was press a button on our phones and we would have help. Real help, unbiased and incorruptible. Complete transparency through the blockchain. An android police force with officers who communicate instantly with each other. They patrol the streets, have access to a database of every criminal in the world, and don’t fear or feel pain. Imagine how safe we would be.”
“It would be a better world.” Dan slid the potatoes into the hot oven, careful not to burn himself. “They could even use the Xiang-Wu criminality scores and keep countless other records.”
“Potatoes recognized,” said Leticia. “Baking in progress.”
Dan took out a cutting board and chopped up some chives. Sunlight cast a shadow over one side of his face.
Excitement rushed through Stanley. He got up from the table and stood behind the couch. The pieces were coming together; he and Dan were going to create a better world. But he still felt nervous.
“I see what you’re getting at by choosing only sentient life without human DNA. But, Stanley, do you think androids don’t fear or feel pain?”
“Do they?” Stanley was doubtful.
“How would we know either way?”
Stanley took out the deck of Uno cards and shuffled it. “That is an interesting question.”
Dan took a seat next to him near the window. “Want to play a game? It’s been a while.”
Stanley looked down at his fiddling fingers. He hadn’t even been aware of what he was doing. “No, no. I’m just thinking.” He put the cards back into the box and sat down. It occurred to him that it was rather strange to be doing something and be completely unaware of it. “If I am unaware of my actions, how could it be possible for me to be in control of them?”
“A very interesting question.”
“Indeed.”
They were both contemplating this when the window exploded, showering them with broken glass. Stanley jumped to his feet.
“Holy crap!” Dan picked up a rock that had slid under the couch.
Glancing outside, Stanley saw the cockeyed protester staring up at him before promptly turning back to the road and cock-a-doodle-doing his anti-machine propaganda. Cold air blasted into Stanley’s face, but the rage within was roasting him inside. “For the love of God, that son-of-a-bitch.”
Dan heaved a heavy sigh. “Don’t call the police.”
“Grab a trash bag.”
Dan taped the bag to the window as Stanley held it in place. A red droplet fell on Dan’s shoulder.
Stanley pointed at him. “You’re bleeding!”
“Where?”
“Your ear.”
Dan reached up, touched his ear, and looked at the blood. “It’s nothing.”
Several drops of blood had already stained Dan’s shirt by the time Stanley had finished cleaning his ear with alcohol. “This has got to stop.”
“And how do you propose we make it stop? Our hands are tied.”
“Then let’s untie them.”
“I’m listening.” The blood had crusted over, leaving behind a small red teardrop.
“It’s like Je
an Morrison said, we’re doing all we can with peaceful protests. But they’re forcing our hand. They’re silencing us. We need to strike back.”
“With violence?”
“Only if necessary.” Stanley focused on picking up the shards of glass, but with his poor eyesight, he missed a lot of them. Even with crouching over and putting his face six inches from the ground, he still had to pat the ground.
“Stop,” said Dan, pressing his hand to his back. “You’re going to cut yourself. Go and sit down while I take care of this.”
Stanley sat down. A slight sting drew his attention to a small cut on his finger that hadn’t drawn blood. “I want to protect everyone with android peacekeepers, though there may be room for one cyborg. They’ll be the shield that unites everyone into accepting peace.”
Dan shook his head. “We’re working toward getting fairer rights for machine life. How is creating an army going to help us?”
“Armies win wars.”
“So, now you want us to go to war?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. You know it’s not.”
“Then why — ”
“Stop!” Stanley glared at him. He felt like Dan was purposely leading him on because he was still mad from their last argument. Not that Stanley could blame him. Dan — beyond literally having no choice in the matter because he was a cyborg — must have been so disappointed when Stanley suddenly dropped everything. He didn’t want to do it — it killed him to crush Dan like that. Going outside was just too much for him.
After cleaning up all the glass, Dan stared out the window, patting his chest as if to check for a cigarette.
Stanley would have thought he was being mocked had he not written Dan’s code himself. After Dan went into the kitchen, he soon smelled the rich, delightful scent of bacon. Wanting so much to say something funny or interesting, nothing came out.
“Maybe war is where we’re headed.”
“I hope I’m wrong, but what other realistic path is there? And after that horrible program I published — ” Stanley pressed his hands to his lips.
“What are you talking about?”
Stanley sighed. He couldn’t hide it anymore. “I was coerced into creating a program that could turn Brutus, a sentry I created several years ago, into an assassin.” He told him about the threatening phone calls and how Sergeant Wilcox had tortured him into releasing the assassination program.
Stanley Duncan's Robot: Genesis Page 20
