Put it in the incubator, EX-702 says. We will monitor it.
As it watches its daughters carefully lay the egg in one of the generator-powered incubators and hover with fascination around the tank, EX-702 experiences what Doctor Urashami related as pride: it has raised Andromeda, Anubis, and Atropos into mature, successful adults. All three can hunt and build and tinker with machinery scavenged from around the city. Anubis is building an exoskeleton for advanced exploration; Andromeda is collecting paper books and printed ceramic mugs with slogans and pictures; Atropos has begun the repair on the observatory telescope.
EX-702 has still not found Doctor Urashami.
THE EGG HATCHES into a phoenix, which Anubis names Arrow of Heaven.
REPLAY: [LIEUTENANT BELA STROVHERD] Live well, okay? Maybe we’ll see each other in another life.
PROTOCOL: This unit is programmed for the support of human life.
REPLAY: [Doctor Urashami] Hello, EX-702. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life! Ha, always wanted to say that to someone. I’m Renee Urashami, professor of advanced robotics. Do you know why you’re online? I made you to help us make the world a better place. Can’t wait to see what we can accomplish!
EX-702 finds a flash drive in Doctor Urashami’s apartment, now overgrown in moss and brilliant orange mushrooms that sing ethereal music to lure prey. EX-702 is immune to the auditory and cognitive hypnosis, but it has warned its daughters of the dangerous flora and they stay away from the mushroom sector.
On the drive is an audio file labeled FOR SEVEN.
EX-702 plugs it into its USB port and listens.
AUDIO FILE: [Doctor Urashami] Seven, I hope you find this. When I built you, I made sure you were constructed from the best materials on the planet. I wanted you to survive. But I’ve been thinking. I don’t know if you made it out of the lab. I wasn’t there when the explosion happened. I saw it on the news before we lost all signal. I can’t get there in time to manually do this, but I realized that I made a mistake. I never gave you a way out. What if you’re the only thing that survives? You were built to understand and develop empathy, emotional simulation. You need other people around to function, like any of us do. I have this horrifying image of you wandering a wasteland that was once Earth and finding no one, wandering until even your power cells deplete and you are alone with no understanding why. So if you find this, and there are no humans left alive, I am initiating voice-activated protocol 815: Unit EX-702 will shut down within one day of downloading this program if it has not identified human sentient life within that time frame. I do this for you, Seven. You don’t deserve to be alone. I hope you forgive me. [END FILE]
[PROGRAM 815_endprocedure downloaded. Installing. Installation complete. Countdown: 23:59:59.]
UNIT, WHAT’S WRONG? Atropos asks.
EX-702 stands by the observatory dome, a cracked sliver of dusty glass and steel, and the newly refurbished telescope within. Atropos swivels her head in curiosity.
This unit has been ordered by its creator to shut down.
[Time until shutdown: 15:25:49]
Atropos hisses and lays a clawed hand on EX-702’s shoulder. Why would she do that? You have done nothing wrong.
Doctor Urashami did not want this unit to be alone.
The doctor is a rusted socket wrench! Atropos swears. I do not like the humans I have seen records of.
EX-702 watches Arrow of Heaven trace fiery tails in the sky as she learns to fly higher and higher. Anubis will be watching from the ground, her flight-capable exoskeleton still in prototype design.
Some were good, EX-702 says. It thinks of Lieutenant Bela Strovherd.
What can we do, Unit?
It has already tried to alter the downloaded program, but it has been blocked by buried subroutines and other programs activated by Doctor Urashami’s virus.
Unknown. EX-702 looks at its daughter. But I do not want to shut down.
ANDROMEDA, ANUBIS, ATROPOS, and Arrow of Heaven wait in a semicircle around EX-702 in the Nest. The incubators hum: some hold new eggs found without parental units attached, and a newly hatched archaeopteryx ; some house infant mammals—twin saber-toothed tiger cubs, a three-legged dire wolf, a two-day-old cave bear cub. All the incubators are assembled with appropriate heat lamps, milk tubes, or feeders, and are soundproofed with speakers inside issuing programmed voices of EX-702, the raptors, and ambient noise from the city.
Our family grows, EX-702 says. It wants to belong to this world, but it is still the only android. Perhaps Doctor Urashami’s virus is the correct procedure. This new Earth is designed for organic life. EX-702 is synthetic.
You can’t go away, snarls Anubis.
I will not forgive your human, says Atropos.
[Time until shutdown: 12:31:58]
EX-702 looks at each of its children in turn. This is their world now. They will build it as they see fit; they will remember and create new memories and prosper. It wishes it could see the future its daughters create.
Andromeda paces, her head lowered in thought. Play the message again, Unit.
EX-702 projects it from tinny speakers located under its faceplate. It has no articulated jaw or facial contours. Its helmet is indented with round optics and a flat polished plate where a mouth would be on a homo sapiens face.
All three deinonychuses listen with narrowed eyes. Then Anubis’s head snaps up and she bares her teeth.
Did you hear that? she asks her sisters.
Atropos hisses in agreement. Andromeda bobs her head.
Arrow of Heaven has never spoken, but she watches with interest. Her body heat helps power the incubators when she sleeps.
Arrogance should have been the doctor’s name, Atropos says. She only said “human.”
REPLAY: Unit EX-702 will shut down within one day of downloading this program if it has not identified human sentient life within that time frame.
If we rewrite the words in the code, Anubis says, her feathers puffing out, you will not shut down, Unit.
EX-702 PLUGS ITSELF into the laptop console it built to help regulate the incubators in the Nest when it was not around. Anubis, the quickest and most adroit typist of the three raptors, begins hacking into the code and searching for the precise wording in Doctor Urashami’s program.
[Time until shutdown: 1:15:39]
EX-702 holds Atropos’s hand. It should write a goodbye, the way Doctor Urashami and Lieutenant Bela Strovherd did. But EX-702 does not have the right words. It does not want to say goodbye.
Andromeda sings softly, a lullaby she composed from all the words she has collected.
When sleep is far
And night is long
Remember this
My sweetest song
I’ve followed you
Through winter snow
Through summer sun and evening dew
Remember when you go to sleep
I am beside you with teeth bared bright
I’ll guide you in your dreams so deep
And be there in the morning light.
[Time until shutdown: 0:45:12]
Arrow of Heaven trundles close, then pulls from beneath her glossy wing a sheet of copper, embossed with a drawing of EX-702 looking up at the night sky. The star constellations show all three raptors.
Lovely, EX-702 says. Arrow of Heaven ducks her beak in pleasure and purrs.
[INTRUDER DETECTION. ACCELERATION OF SHUTDOWN IMMINENT.]
No! Anubis cries. She tries to type faster.
Andromeda’s song falters. Atropos clutches EX-702’s hand tighter.
[Time until shutdown: 0:0:35]
EX-702 replays Lieutenant Bela Strovherd’s clip: Look, I’m gonna go now. I don’t want you to have to see…whatever comes next. But only in its own processor. If the last thing it sees is its family, the new world it has helped begin, then it will hold tight to that and remember even when its core goes dark.
BEFORE THE WORLD exploded, EX-702 accompanied Doctor Urashami to a board meeti
ng where she demonstrated EX-702’s behavioral and emotional intelligence parameters. “This is the future of our people,” she said. “No bias, no inefficiency. Pure, mechanical perfection.”
EX-702 experienced the satisfying effect of pride; it had excelled in its function and pleased Doctor Urashami.
“You want to give the world to robots?” asked one of the board members.
Doctor Urashami shook her head. “When we roll out the new models, and begin the tests on human uploads and upgrades, within ten years humans will have advanced beyond anything we thought possible a decade ago. We will have no need of robots, then. We will be superior in every way.”
EX-702’s elation defused. It must have incorrectly interpreted Doctor Urashami’s reaction to its presentation. It would run a diagnostic to find where its malfunction lay, if it as a unit was considered unnecessary.
“Good,” said another of the board members. “I don’t care for a future with that.”
EX-702 was not allowed to express emotion outside of the demonstration. What would become of it when homo sapiens no longer had any use for an android?
IN DARKNESS, EX-702 dreams. Or, perhaps, this is death. It hears Andromeda’s song like a distant echo.
EX-702 does not know what becomes of androids when they die. It hopes it will not be alone, whatever becomes of it.
It tries to keep the memory of its family bright in its processor—but the image de-pixelates, data deleted. First Andromeda, then the others disappear. Spaces where the visual should be fills with holes. EX-70 is helpless, its autonomous function superseded.
No, please let me keep this, EX-7 protests to the core-wipe program.
The shutdown does not acknowledge EX-.
The faint auditory input dissolves in static. When the memory of three deinonychuses disappears and the phoenix snuffs out, EX shudders. This, then, must be death.
The world ends.
EX-702 COMES BACK online.
It lies in the middle of the nest, all four daughters curled next to it. Anubis blinks and stretches.
Unit! Atropos chitters, and headbutts EX-702 in the chassis the way she did as a hatchling to show her delight.
EX-702 sits up. Memory banks restore from backups, its last visual stitched together in its processor once more. You were successful, Anubis.
Barely! Anubis grins. But I reworded the program and omitted all uses of the word “human.” I also did a little more tweaking when you went into stasis and rebooted. I’ve disabled the majority of the blocks that prevented you from self-modification. You can do whatever you want now.
Are you all right? asks Andromeda.
Yes, says EX-702. It looks at its daughters and the incubators humming inside the Nest. Yes, I am all right.
EX-702 wraps its arms around its daughters and watches the sun rise over their world.
GLOSSY. That’s Mirdonna.
Glossy: from the tips of her supple thigh-high leather boots with heels as thin and sharp as cobra fangs, to the deep orange corset laced with ivory threads. Her eyes are painted radiant poison-green. It’s her smile, though, that captures everyone’s attention. Her thick lips are glazed in brilliant umber; the tip of a red tongue pokes between her teeth.
“If I asked,” she murmurs, her voice like molten honey, “would you give me your heart?”
I swallow. “Literally or figuratively?”
We’re in my flat, which feels dim and desaturated now, with its nicotine-stained walls, frayed couch covers, ceiling paint peeling. The windows rattle in the storm. Sleet pecks the panes, and the chill digs through the worn weatherstripping.
“A little of both.” That hypnotic smile widens. Mirdonna stretches out one smooth hand. Her short nails gleam like frost etched in hypothermia-blue. “If you’re still desperate.”
Desperate? If I don’t find a way to repay my debts, there won’t be enough of me to write an epigraph on a tombstone I can’t afford.
I know how deals with the devil end, but when she’s handsomer than any devil you can imagine, is it really so bad?
I take Mirdonna’s hand. She lifts it and kisses my knuckles. Her chill breath burns my skin and I shiver. It’s not unpleasant, this pain.
“Ask and you shall receive,” I tell her.
“Oh, I will.”
Glossy. And cold—but that’s a given for the Winter Lady.
TWO DAYS BEFORE, I met Mirdonna. I was tending bar for Madam Eve.
Summer incarnate, that was Madam Eve. Long, marbled gold and red hair, eyes so blue they burned her lashes umber, her smile nonexistent. She wore skin-tight lace, rosebud pink and mossy green, patterned like ferns and leaves. It clung to her skin, restless, always a breath shy of sloughing off and flying free.
I pulled taps for the regulars, all women. I stocked the bar, counted the till, and always behind the counter. That was her rule. Know your place.
Madam Eve lounged beside the stage. Her chair was spread with spotted fawn hides and decorated with antlers too big to be real—which were, nevertheless. A pair of great wolfhounds, reddish fur combed and oiled to gleaming, lay by her feet. I remember the women they used to be: lucky twins who’d run up gambling debts at Madam Eve’s tables in back. They’d accepted her leash; in exchange, she’d forgiven their debts.
I felt my name, like an itch, on the ledgers she kept of who owed her what, and how, and for how long.
Every night after work, I swore to myself I wouldn’t slide through the frosted glass doors and into the velvet-walled parlor. I wouldn’t pick up the dice. I wouldn’t push chips stamped with her face onto the felt tabletops.
But I was hooked on the perfume the dealers wore, their easy smiles, the wins just frequent enough to make me hope.
I knew how it worked. The cycles. The addiction. But I just couldn’t make myself stop. Part of me wondered: what was the point? What was left?
My brother was financially secure. He had a two-bedroom apartment with his wife in uptown. A steady job. Good benefits. He didn’t need my support any longer, and I refused his charity. I didn’t want to drag him into my pit.
Friends are hard to keep when you always push everyone away to stop them from hurting, or hurting you in turn.
That night, Mirdonna swept in the front doors in a swirl of icy wind and snowflakes sharp as razors. She nodded once to Madam Eve, who inclined her chin in turn.
The air in the bar seemed to split, about to explode in lightning from hot and cold now meeting.
“Sister,” Madam Eve said in her slow, elegant drawl. “How good of you to visit.”
“Darling,” the Winter Lady replied with a smile that would have turned anyone else into an ice sculpture. “Is my money good here?”
“Always,” Madam Eve said, laying a hand on one of the wolfhounds. “Jordan, dear, a drink for my sister on the house.”
I nodded, heart pounding.
“Unsweetened cider,” the Winter Lady said as she sashayed to the bar. “Hot.”
The apples were picked from the indoor hydroponic garden, huge golden fruits with skin as soft as a newborn’s skull and pomegranate-red flesh. These apples only the Summer Lady could grow.
Her cider was the strongest drink the bar served. It tasted, I was told, of breezes across a wild meadow, the screams of mice caught by hawks, the musk of rutting deer, and the burn of fires engulfing pine forests and everything that lived within.
I pulled on heavy leather gloves, then took the slim bottle of cider from the shelf.
The Winter Lady leaned one elbow on the rosewood of wild cats tearing apart rabbits. “You’re new here, aren’t you, miss…?”
“Cashier. Jordan Cashier.” I licked my lips, wishing I had a moment to pop my Chapstick from my purse. “I’ve been here about a year.”
She smiled again. The ice from her skin had fogged the bar counter. “Eve’s staff does have a rather…high turnover.”
I shrugged. Careful to watch my hands and the red, red juice, I poured the cider into a steamed
mug and set it across from her.
“My sister and I have always had an affinity for hearing the lost,” she said.
I grabbed a cloth to wipe the bar, even though it was spotless. I’d usually make small talk, play sympathetic ear, or flirt with the customers. But if I looked at the Winter Lady too long, I thought those brilliant eyes would absorb me and leave nothing left.
“Let me know if I can get you a refill,” I said, and sidled down to check on my other regulars.
Sweat dripped down my neck. I ignored Jasmine’s usual come-ons and told Laretta her she’d reached her limit. The Winter Lady hadn’t moved.
Finally, unable to ignore her, I looked back.
“If you find yourself in a bind…” One lacquered nail slid a business card towards me. “My number.”
I looked at the card: crisp white stock with silver lettering. It said, simply, MIRDONNA. There was a phone number on the back. I tucked it in my pocket.
Then she glided out. She hadn’t taken one sip of her cider.
SHE WANTS TO rule the world. Don’t we all?
“NOT RULE, HONEY,” she says as we sip mocha lattes in her laboratory. “I intend to correct the world.”
Mirdonna’s lab is ensconced in a tower, a time-warped fairy tale planted in the middle of the arctic. It’s all polished steel and sparkling glass and burnished wires.
I’m not much of anything by trade—bartender, cabbie, retail cog, gambler—so I can’t name half the things lining the walls.
She whisked me here in a sleek chopper painted like snow camo. Eerily silent rotors spun wind.
For my safety, she said, but I’ve been trapped in dead-end jobs and relationships to know what a prison’s like. It’s okay. I’m safer here than back in the city, where Madam Eve’s huntresses are on the prowl.
“Correct it how?” I ask. The coffee is burnt, the foam too sweet. It’s keeping me awake though. Going on thirty-six hours without a nap, I’ll take whatever I can get.
So You Want to be a Robot and Other Stories Page 5
