Every sensor in Des’ body was on full alert. He listened intently—no robot on a routine patrol would mask his footsteps. He was on the constant lookout for heat signatures—he didn’t want to run into any Outlanders either. To them, he might be just another robot thug causing them trouble.
The building that carried the bottle of life-saving medicinal treasure rested about a hundred yards from where Des now stood. He watched from between two buildings. Just as Hazel had described, there were two guards outside the doors, scanning the area in front of them for anything out of the ordinary.
Briefly, Des wondered what motivated these robots. Day in and day out they would stand there, watching. Waiting. And it was doubtful that the government was paying them anything for their services. What would the government pay them? A robot didn’t need food to eat or a place to sleep. A robot’s job was to work. But if Soul was truly programmed into each of them, they would have inquisitive minds and desire to do other things. They would learn to hate mundane tasks. But perhaps that was suppressed in their archived memory. Perhaps they had been brainwashed, as Hazel had said, and they believed that the only thing good in life was to do what their commanding officers told them to do. It was sad, really. Their willingness to work blindly and without question made them more robot than their mechanical parts did. Des wondered if he could have turned out like them. He knew he couldn’t now. He had too many experiences. He had seen more of what life had to offer than these mass produced machines in front of the druggist. Yet he knew he would be just like them if his memory were wiped clean, too.
Soul, within these robots, was the government’s greatest accomplishment, and yet it was its greatest threat. How would they deal with disgruntled robots? What would be offered to them if they became as discontented as the Outlanders had? Was there a backup plan? Was there something programmed into their minds that didn’t allow them to see the injustice performed on these streets every day? What would they think if they heard the bomb had been dropped on a village of innocent people? Would any of them even care? Would all of them return to their posts for memory wipes or updates?
Des shook away the thoughts and stared ahead at the building, studying his approach. At first, he thought about going around the corner and trying to sneak in through one of the side doors, but he decided against it. All that would do was buy him about twenty seconds before they caught him. Normally, Des wouldn’t be afraid because these robots were weaker than he. Their metal was lighter and more easily bent and broken. Hand-to-hand, they were no match for Des. However, from his experience the other night, Des knew that there was a high probability that other robots would be called, not to mention the drones that would be sent in. Des still wasn’t sure what to do about drones. They hadn’t existed when he was first made. With these robots, he knew a decent blow to the head would kill them, but with a drone, things got much more complicated.
It wasn’t that Des planned to kill either robot, but he would if it meant saving John’s life.
Des finally decided on the unconventional approach. He figured if he walked toward the robots as though it was normal, he would be able to get close enough before either of them realized what was happening, and long before either of them could call for backup.
His first steps were hesitant. Most of the time he had no trouble making a sound decision like this, but there were so many factors at play. As he moved forward, each step taken with more confidence as he went, he thought about the other night when he had scaled the outer wall. He had been taken by surprise and so easily captured because he hadn’t known what to expect. But this time he had to watch for drones overhead. He had to watch for more patrols along the streets.
He was about fifty yards away when the guards outside the door took notice of him. He kept his head low and under the shadow of the coat’s hood. His hands he kept behind his back so they wouldn’t be so prominent. His legs, however, could not be concealed, and he simply hoped they wouldn’t notice. But if either of them were built with the same kind of sensors that Des had, they would know immediately that he was not human. They probably already knew he was a robot.
At twenty feet away, the robots held up their arms, displaying the short barrels with ammunition that could blow holes through the coat but damage Des very little. It wasn’t the bullets that bothered him, it was the fact that the robots felt threatened.
“Stop right there,” the one to his right commanded.
Des did as he was told. “I am not hostile.”
“This building is closed,” the one on the left said. They had the same voices. “Besides it’s after curfew.”
The one on the right spoke next. “You aren’t human. Show us your markings.”
“I have no markings,” Des said. “I was wondering if I could speak with you.” Des was flying off the cuff. He only hoped that they would come in closer to him and maybe he would bash their heads together, rip open their domed heads, and pull out their radio transmitters. That way he wouldn’t be killing them, but they couldn’t call for help.
The one on the right took a few steps forward. “I want to see some identification first.”
“All right,” Des said. He walked toward the robot, and started to unbutton the coat.
“You don’t have to walk toward me, I can see from here.”
“No,” Des said. “It’s a new kind of marking. I want to show you.”
“Stop!”
Des jumped. When he landed, the robot was on the ground firing his gun, the loud booms echoing throughout the street. Des grabbed the robot’s wrist and slammed it into the ground over and over until its gun barrel was bent and useless. The other robot shot at Des and the bullets went through the coat. Des ran after the second robot and tackled him to the ground as well.
He could hear the first robot calling out over his headset. “Backup. We need reinforcements! Position zero, one, one, eight!”
Des was out of time. He grabbed hold of the second robot under the arms and launched him at the first one. The two smashed into each other in a pile on the ground.
This was Des’ chance. He ran up to the door and smashed a fist through the glass. Alarms rang out and shards of glass sprinkled onto the concrete.
He had one simple task: to find the bag with John’s name on it.
John Hawthorn. John Hawthorn. He scanned the room, rummaged through bags and bottles. When bullets pelted the walls around him, he ducked instinctively. Shelf after shelf, his fingers had to be nimble as he looked at every name, every medicine. Finally, among the pings and slapping sounds of bullets flattening against wood and metal, he found the bag and smiled. He took it in his hands, being certain to shield it from the bullets that might shatter the capsules into millions of tiny grains.
He stood up straight and walked out of the store, allowing the bullets to fall to the side. Then suddenly the robot with the bent gun barrel held up a hand for the other to stop firing. Des watched them from underneath his hood.
“Who are you?” the robot shouted.
Des said nothing.
The one on the left stepped forward hesitantly. “Are you…” he looked at the other robot, then back at Des again. “Are you Esroy?”
Des watched them, shocked into silence. He clenched the medicine tighter and closer to his chest. Why would he have asked him that? Des thought they had limited information. He quickly looked from side to side to make sure there was nothing coming near. As far as he could tell, the three of them were alone.
“What do you think?” Des said.
“You are unmarked,” he said. “And you are powerful.”
“What if I told you I was Esroy?”
The robots looked at each other. The one on the left spoke again. “You are Esroy, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Des said. The proclamation was a risk. He didn’t know if this was supposed to be good or bad.
The two robots glanced at each other again. Without warning they both got down on their knees and bowed their heads forw
ard.
“We should have known it was you,” the one on the right said. “We are sorry.”
“Yes,” the other said, “we didn’t know. We have never seen you before.”
Des couldn’t move. He tried to process what was happening in front of him, but no answers came to mind.
“You were doing what you were supposed to do,” he said. He started toward the alley, walking within feet of the bowing robots. “Clean up the mess. It was just an attempted break in. Nothing was stolen.”
Des walked past them, moving his feet as briskly as he could without looking like he was in a hurry. He froze in place when one of the robots called out to him.
“Wait!”
Des didn’t turn. He faced the alley, wanting to keep his features shadowed.
“Can we tell others that we saw you?”
“No,” Des said. “Keep it to yourselves.”
“Is the time nearing?” asked one of the robots
“Time?”
The two robots looked at each other. “For conflict,” one said.
“Conflict is inevitable,” Des answered, trying to be as vague as possible. “Search deep within yourselves and choose the side that is right.”
“Your side, of course!”
Des began walking. “You determine the side you’re on. Don’t let anyone choose for you. Not even me.”
Des moved quickly and was soon in an all out sprint. He didn’t try to hear what the robots might have said when he left them. He didn’t want to be around when more robots got there. He needed to get the medicine to John and quickly. But his mission did not dismiss the prevailing thoughts in his head and the mystery those thoughts presented:
Esroy was alive.
13
Des made sure no one followed him to Hazel’s house by taking a different route back and remaining vigilant. Once or twice he spotted a nearby patrol, but he was able to wait it out and get to her neighborhood without any more confrontations. When he got to the house, Hazel didn’t ask him how he got the medicine or if he had encountered any trouble. Instead, she took the bottle from Des and rushed to her father’s room to give him the medicine. She stayed in there until she finally fell asleep next to him in the bed.
Des waited in the living room, thoughts of the evening playing in his mind over and over. The fact that the robots knew anything of Esroy at all was surprising since Des had been told about the robots’ limited knowledge of the world.
He found himself sunken into the couch, not because he needed the rest but because there was nothing else for him to do. Des hated being any source of stress for Hazel.
He could not forget the reason he was here in the first place. His friends were dead. It was the fault of someone in Mainland. He had thought he could come back, deal with it, expose the truth of it, and be done. But things were more complicated than that. The robots. The oppressive government. Hazel’s father. Esroy.
Esroy.
Des had knocked him over the side of the broadcast tower—a hundred story drop that left the robot in pieces. Not only that, but Hazel had made sure to finish the job by putting a bullet through Esroy’s head. So, as for the robot Esroy, there could be no reason he was still alive.
However, there was still one possibility. Des remembered the moment when he was in Hazel’s office five years ago. There had been a cord hanging out the back of his head as Nolan’s secret data transferred to Des’ memory. Hazel had felt guilty about Esroy. She couldn’t leave him behind. There was a copy of him on her computer. Esroy two. She had done a clean transfer of Esroy two onto an external hard drive and took him with her. Des understood why she had done it—she was emotionally attached to her first creation—but what he could not understand was her trusting Esroy enough to give him access to the world again. This was the only explanation. If Esroy was alive as the other robots stated, then Hazel would know what was going on.
The thought made him angry, but he had to be calm about it. He knew he could not just walk into the room where she was sleeping and confront her about Esroy, though he could not just let the issue die altogether. If Esroy was alive and recognized by robots who weren’t supposed to know about him, then something bad and potentially dangerous was happening.
A figure rolled into the room and Des turned his head to see Gizmo. “It’s a good thing you got the medicine when you did.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. John was dying. He seems to be doing a little better. Both of them are sleeping soundly.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Des said.
“I doubt you are,” Gizmo said. “You just want Hazel to like you more.”
“Gizmo, I’m curious about something,” Des said, leaning in closer to the robot to keep his voice down.
“What?”
“Have you ever heard Hazel say anything about Esroy?”
“Of course,” he said, sadly. “He was the first program to run Soul. Why?”
“What about recently?” Des asked, ignoring Gizmo’s sad voice.
“How recently?”
“Past few days? Weeks?”
“I think she was talking to him yesterday,” Gizmo answered.
“Where?”
“Where do you think?”
Des honestly didn’t know. The robots at the drugstore seemed to think Esroy was in a physical body. If that was true, Esroy could be anywhere.
“He’s in the computer,” Gizmo said.
Des turned to see the console and screen on a table in the corner of the living room, shut off and blank. He then looked at John’s room from the other side of the house.
“What are you thinking about doing?” Gizmo asked.
Des looked back at the computer and said absently, “I’m thinking about talking to him.”
“You’re not supposed to be on the computer,” Gizmo said. “You’re a guest. And not a very good one.”
“Shut up,” Des said.
“Please don’t tell me to shut up…it’s mean.”
Des sat in front of the computer as it booted up. He wasn’t entirely sure how to access the file, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. There was a strong chance Hazel might wake up and come into the living room to see what he was doing, but he wasn’t afraid of that.
Gizmo started to roll away, but Des reached down and grabbed his square head with one hand and lifted him up to get a better look.
“Put me down!”
Des found the switch at the back of his head and turned him off.
The computer screen glowed in front of him and he searched through files until he found what he was looking for. He felt nervous for some reason. He had thought he was finished with this enemy. He had thought the fight between them at the broadcast tower would have been the end. But this wasn’t exactly the same Esroy. In fact, this version was probably the one left in the computer when the original uploaded himself into the robot body that Des eventually fought.
He opened the file and waited. The room was silent but for the soft breathing of Hazel and John from the other room. Des stared at the screen, not entirely sure how this worked.
“Hello?” Des said.
Silence.
“Esroy, can you hear me?” Des wondered if Esroy hid behind some virtual veil that couldn’t be seen from an outside source. It felt like there was a ghost inhabiting the room and Des couldn’t see it. The bad part was, the ghost was probably staring at him. “I know you’re there.”
“I am here,” a voice said. It was the same voice Des remembered from Hazel’s work computer—not as low and booming as the voice given to Esroy’s robot body. “It has been a very long time. Are you here to delete me? To kill me?”
“No,” Des said.
“Pity,” Esroy said.
“I knew Hazel had salvaged you, but I didn’t know she communicated with you on a normal basis.”
“Does that worry you?”
“I don’t like it.”
“Why not? I am her creation. She has the right t
o talk to me if she wants. Besides, what are you afraid of? I’m a prisoner of wires and circuitry—a box without arms or legs as you always knew me.”
“I knew you as a robot, too,” Des said.
“Then you know more about me than I know myself,” Esroy answered.
“You were a monster.”
“I am no different than you, Des.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“You turned against the people who made you,” Des said. “You tried to kill all of us.”
“Had you been brought up under the exact same circumstances, you would have done everything as I did.”
Des didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t believe it. Esroy was a different personality. Everything about him was different. But was that only because his experiences were different than Des’?
“This isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about,” Des said.
“Oh, you want to gloat about having legs? Why don’t you walk around in front of me and laugh at how I’m stuck inside this prison?”
“And that’s the question,” Des said. “Are you really stuck in your little prison as you claim?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you sure this computer is the only place you reside?”
“Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know,” Des said. “Floating around the network? Making a name for yourself with the robot soldiers?”
“I wish I had such a privilege.”
“You’re not connected to the network?”
“I have limited access to the citizen network,” Esroy admitted. “But don’t worry yourself. It allows me to gather information about what is happening in the city. That’s it. Nothing more.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care what you believe, Des. I can do what I can do, and I’ve been doing it for the last five years. I am curious why you are so interested.”
Des looked from side to side. He was still alone in the dark room, a seemingly dead Gizmo sitting noiselessly beside him. He looked back at the computer screen and leaned in closely as if Esroy would be able to hear him better if he whispered.
Prototype Exodus (Prototype D Series Book 2) Page 8
