Uncanny Valley

by C. A. Gray

  “Who the hell is this guy?” Youssef demanded.

  Francis ignored the question and went on, “You literally copied the brain of someone who had died in that first iteration, didn’t you? With detailed VMI imaging slices, you basically just traced the human synaptic connections with silicon, and what you got was a replica of the dead person. Was it Halpert? Was he the first?”

  Youssef stood up, his scotch forgotten on the arm of his chair. “I don’t know how you think you know all this…”

  “But he wasn’t quite like the dead man had been, was he?” Francis went on. “Something was missing. What was it?”

  “His soul,” I breathed, looking back at Youssef for confirmation.

  Youssef glared at all three of us, eyes shifting from Francis to me, and something in his face relented. “My colleague and business partner knew he was dying. It was his idea. He wanted to be immortal, and he thought if we could copy his brain, he’d just wake up in a new synthetic body.”

  “Did he?” I asked again, breathless.

  Youssef shook his head, glancing at me briefly before attending again to Francis. “His memories were there, and all his factual knowledge and intellectual abilities—he still reasoned the same as he had before. He was quite charismatic and likable in life, and that much did translate to his synthetic form. But he wasn’t him. Bill was dry and funny. He got excited about intellectual challenges. He appreciated good art from the Second Era. He cared about people. He cared about social justice.”

  “So his personality and emotions were gone,” Liam concluded.

  “And his morals, too,” I added, and Youssef hesitated before nodding.

  “We couldn’t recreate neurotransmitters and hormones, which likely explains the lack of emotions, even though he has an intact limbic system. Bill’s recreated brain runs entirely on silicon and electrical impulses.”

  “Bill… William,” said Francis. “So the first one was Halpert.”

  Youssef nodded again. “Yes. We chose the name William for consistency, since his implanted memories of himself were all under that name. But like I said, he’s not Bill, not in personality or in looks, so we created a fake back story. Ironically, Bill and I had already created the humanoid shell together, before he died—”

  “Based on human biochemistry of ATP, yes, yes, we know,” Francis waved him off impatiently. “We figured that part out already.”

  Youssef glanced at Francis with an expression that was at once taken aback and impressed. “Right. Also, because of the limitations of the recreated brain, we still had to give him a core purpose, like any other bot. We borrowed from Bill’s personal obsession in life, since it was already imprinted on his brain and required little enhancement: that was, advancing the cause of Synthetic Reasoning, except through administration. We programmed him to keep peace, as well, of course. We couldn’t have him declaring all-out war to advance his purpose.”

  “Except that meant he interpreted anyone who opposed his goals as a threat to the peace,” I cut in, “and he eliminated those who tried to rebel!”

  Youssef bowed his head. “An unfortunate side effect.”

  “A predictable side effect, once you consider the fact that all bots deal with any opposition to their purposes in the most efficient way possible!” I retorted.

  “And of course,” Francis added, his tone cold, “they also thought the most efficient way to deal with powerful loci such as mine and Liam’s was to quietly dismantle them, once they attracted enough attention to pose a threat.”

  “I don’t know anything about what they are doing these days,” said Youssef. “I’ve been retired for nearly a decade.”

  “So that was Halpert,” said Liam, with forced calm. “What about the others? Did they come from dead men too?”

  “Of course they did,” said Francis. “He wouldn’t have known how to create them any other way.”

  Youssef did not contradict this.

  “Why did you stop building them, then?” Liam asked. “At what point did you figure out that your experiment was a failure?”

  I thought Youssef would take issue with this, but he did not. Instead, he looked off into the distance as he said, “I began to see it long ago, but I didn’t want to see it. What makes them dangerous is inherent in what they are: it is in their very perfection. As the head of the medical community, Rasputin believes nothing short of perfect human health should be his goal, and so he kills all those whom he cannot cure. This prevents contagious diseases from spreading and eliminates long-term illnesses from dragging the economy down. It is efficient. As the head of the justice community, Wallenberg condemns all who so much as err on their tax returns in the name of the good of society. Etcetera.” He sank back into his chair. “But I couldn’t stop what had already been set in motion. I knew I couldn’t.”

  “So you just fled and changed your name,” I accused. “Like a coward.”

  Youssef met my eyes, steady and unflinching.

  “Did the work stop when you retired?” Liam asked. “Did your colleagues stop after creating those six?”

  We all knew the answer as soon as he asked the question.

  “No,” Youssef said at last.

  Liam hesitated before he asked with dread, “How many?”

  Youssef shook his head, and opened his mouth to reply. Then his breath caught, his eyes bulged, and blood blossomed across his forehead.

  I didn’t understand, until Liam threw his arms around me, shoving me to the ground.

  “Get down!” he shouted.

  Chapter 32

  I hardly knew what happened after that—it was all a blur of adrenaline and gunshots. Crawling on our hands and knees, somehow I reached the staircase leading back down to the main hall of the chateau. Liam thrust me back up to my feet once we were inside and shoved me forward.

  “Run!”

  “Where?” I cried.

  Behind us, Francis swore. I glanced back at him and saw that he was limping as he ran. He’d been hit in the leg.

  Outside the windows of the dining room, a hovercraft bearing the seal of the Republic touched down on the lawn. Liam sprinted straight for the heavy double doors leading to the patio and out to the lawn, dragging me by the hand behind him.

  “No way! Are you crazy?” I tried to jerk my hand away from his, but he held me like a vice, dragging me inexorably forward. “Liam! That’s them!”

  “Trust me!” he shouted back.

  Sniper bullets riddled the ground as we ran, and the wide side door slid open on the hovercraft. When I got close enough, Liam flung me toward it.

  “Get her!” he shouted at someone in the opening.

  “Liam!”

  But he turned around, running back to help Francis just as a pair of arms grabbed me from behind.

  “Rebecca, get in here!”

  I recognized the voice, but it didn’t immediately register. Nilesh, frantic and wide-eyed, pinned me against the side of the hovercraft so that I couldn’t see out, but I was no longer in the bullets’ trajectory. Deeper in the interior of the craft, I saw Larissa and Dr. Yin, and several men I did not recognize. One of them leaned out of the hovercraft opening with a rifle.

  “Liam!” came my strangled cry, as I struggled against Nilesh.

  “They’re almost here!”

  The man at the hovercraft opening lay down his rifle and reached arms out to haul Francis inside.

  “Go, go, go!” Dr. Yin shouted in the direction of what was presumably the pilot bot.

  “Wait!” I yelled, just as Liam let out a strangled cry. The man at the opening hauled him inside too, just as the hovercraft swept up off the ground. I fought Nilesh off, but he released me now anyway. All of us crowded around Francis and Liam at once.

  “Hepzibah!” said the man who had hauled them aboard grimly.

  A little medic bot, about Madeline’s size, wheeled over to inspect their wounds.

  Madeline, I realized w
ith a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’d left her behind, in my room.

  “Shot twice,” Hepzibah declared in her tinny voice as she inspected Francis. Larissa hovered just behind Hepzibah, her face almost as white as Francis’s. “One embedded bullet in the right gastrocnemius muscle, and one graze on the left deltoid. Second wound is superficial. First wound requires pressure to avoid shock. Will wait to extract the bullet until patient is stable.”

  “Here, let me!” Larissa breathed, taking the gauze from the bot and wrapping it around Francis’s right leg.

  “What about Liam?” I heard my own voice say, but it didn’t seem like mine. Blood blossomed across his chest. He was pale and clammy, and wasn’t breathing right. I felt like I couldn’t breathe right either.

  After pressing her hand to Liam’s chest in several places, Hepzibah asserted, “He has a pneumothorax.”

  “What does that mean?” I demanded.

  “Shh, Rebecca, get out of the way,” murmured Dr. Yin, pulling me clear as Hepzibah produced a remarkably large needle. With one smooth thrust, she shoved it into Liam’s chest.

  I screamed, clamping my hands over my mouth.

  “The bullet passed through his chest and collapsed the upper lobe of his right lung,” Hepzibah explained, completely ignoring my scream. “The chest tube should allow his lung to re-inflate. Next we need to stop the bleeding. Apply pressure here.” She took the arm of nearest person to her, which happened to be me, and placed gauze in my hands, guiding them to Liam’s wound.

  I might have been hyperventilating. My hands tingled and my vision narrowed like I was looking through a tunnel. All I could see was Liam’s pallid face and bloody chest, with my bloody hands on top of it.

  Liam’s glazed eyes focused on me at last.

  “You okay?” he croaked.

  An hysterical giggle bubbled up to my throat, but came out as a hiccup. “Shut up,” I gasped, sinking my weight onto his wound. I saw him wince, and that seemed to snap me back. I couldn’t panic. Not right now. “Liam! Keep breathing. …Okay?” I added shrilly when he didn’t reply right away.

  “Anything for you, Bec.” I could barely hear him; I only knew what he said by reading his lips.

  “Where are we going?” Larissa asked no one in particular. She sounded dazed.

  “To a safehouse. Off the grid,” said the man who held the rifle.

  “Who sent you?” I demanded. “How did you know where to find us?”

  “M directed us,” the man replied, gesturing to the cockpit.

  “M? Is she here?” I followed his gaze to the front of the craft. “Harriet Albright?”

  As if on cue, a figure emerged from the shadows of the cockpit. I recognized the way she moved at once, but my brain did not register it right away. Once she came into the light, my mind went blank. The dissonance between what I knew and what I was seeing simply would not compute.

  She sighed. “Hello Rebecca.”

  I stared at her. “Mom?”

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed reading The Liberty Box Trilogy as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you did, I have a favor to ask…

  Would you please consider leaving me a review on Amazon? This REALLY helps other readers find stories they might enjoy, too, and I read every review I get!

  If you’re willing to do this, just swipe left (past the About the Author section)…

  And again, thank you for reading my work!

  All the best,

  C.A. Gray

  About the Author

  C.A. Gray is a Naturopathic Medical Doctor (NMD), with a primary care practice in Tucson, Arizona. She has always been captivated by the power of a good story, fictional or otherwise, which is probably why she loves holistic medicine: a patient’s physical health is invariably intertwined with his or her life story, and she believes that the one can only be understood in context with the other. She is blessed with exceptionally supportive family and friends, and thanks God for them every single day!