Steel, Titanium and Guilt: Just Hunter Books I to III

by Robin Craig

  She had seen no point in ruining her career by abandoning the case, no benefit to herself or the future human victims she could save nor, indeed, to Steel himself. But she had hoped that Beldan’s attempts to gain some legal standing or reprieve for Steel might allow a happier ending to their danse macabre than the leaden feeling in her stomach told her was coming.

  But Beldan had failed. There was too much fear, too skillfully played by the Imagists and their ilk. Nor was it helped by that philosopher, who seemed determined to carve out a career as a pundit by proving that no mere machine could possess life or thoughts, let alone rights. The courts agreed: any suggestion that legal rights might extend to a machine was met with the judicial equivalent of a blank stare. Not that the courts had a record to be proud of in such matters, she thought. Less than two centuries ago, equally dignified men in equally august courts had judged her own ancestors as less than human and bereft of the rights automatically granted to their own race.

  She sighed. She saw no way to head off what she could see was coming in the pattern of data that was finally beginning to enmesh Steel in a net that he could not or would not escape.

  Miriam felt the vibration on her wrist that announced a private call. It was Alexander Beldan. “Hello Alex,” she said.

  “Hi Miriam. How about you take a break? I know you’re working too hard. I have season tickets to the theatre. Why don’t we take in that new play and have dinner? It will be good for you. Good for us.”

  Miriam was silent for long seconds. She had known it would come to this, but knowing it made it no easier. “I’m sorry Alex. I don’t think we should see each other until this is over.”

  The silence on the line revealed surprise; its brevity that the surprise was not complete. “But, why? Why now?”

  “It just has to be this way, Alex. I’m sorry. Things are coming to a head and I need some space, some distance, or I won’t be able to endure what I’ll have to do. Or become.”

  There was something in Miriam’s voice, some finality of despair, that made Beldan pause in turn. Had her superiors pressured her into cutting off ties with Steel’s creator? But she would have said. This was something else, something inside her, something she could not bear and could not bear to tell. “Miriam. It can’t be that bad. Talk to me. You know you can talk to me.”

  “No. No. Please just trust me on this, even if it is the last time you can. Let me go. At least for a while. Though then you may no longer care.” She broke the connection. Not to be rude, though some distant part of her knew it to be; but because something had to break, and of them all, the connection was the easiest.

  After the call she sat, chin on her steepled fingers, looking into the distance; remembering another call on her private line late last night. The problem with promises, she thought, was that one should not break them unless some higher justice demanded it; and her private pain and personal desires were not enough, even if the promise was one she could not bear to obey. But she would have to bear it, and more, the secrets and lies that surrounded it. Perhaps one day she could forgive herself for what she knew she would do. She clung to the thin thread that perhaps events would save her, that there would be nothing to forgive. She hoped she would have gained enough strength by the time that thread snapped.

  Chapter 13 – Night

  The last of gasp winter was fighting against the inevitability of the encroaching spring, a cold driving wind spitting snow and sleet at the lengthening days and the city. It was a night to be home with loved ones, nestled in homely warmth and cozy laughter.

  A lot happened that night.

  There was a burglary at Beldan Robotics. The building was protected, as one would expect, by an array of sophisticated defenses. But the thief was equal to them. Almost. It was fortunate, everyone agreed, that he had triggered a hidden alarm before he could grab more than a few ingots of rare and precious metals. They did not know that the ingots were not the first things he had taken, nor the most precious. He had removed one other item, not only from the storage area where it was held but also from the computer files that had recorded its location and existence. Had they known they might have been less pleased.

  A police officer on his beat was startled by a man huddled in an overcoat against the wind, hurrying out of an alley. He shone his flashlight in the man’s face. “Not a good night to be out, sir. May I see some identification?” The man stopped, surprised, considering whether it was worth objecting to the unaccustomed request. Then he shrugged and drew out a card. It was from the university, and identified the bearer as a Dr David Samuels, Professor of Philosophy. The cop raised an eyebrow, glancing from the card to the man’s face. Not the usual type of person to meet in such a place on such a night. “A bad night for it, Professor. Any problem?”

  “Just visiting a friend who needed help,” Samuels replied.

  The cop flashed his torch down the alley but it was empty. Behind it rose steel and glass towers. He knew the alley led to back entrances of some of those hotels as well as some less enticing ones, entrances a man could use if he didn’t want to be seen. Maybe the professor had a mistress there. Wouldn’t be the first time, or the last, thought the cop, and waved Samuels along, wishing him goodnight. The professor disappeared into the darkness and rain, head bent into the wind, overcoat flapping wetly behind him.

  Two calls came in on the hotline devoted to the hunt for Steel. Many such calls came in. Many such calls led nowhere or everywhere. But this time, the AI routines analyzing the huge volume of data from sensor arrays and leads such as these flagged a call to action. This one tasted real. This one was real. By dawn the storm had died to a cold gusty wind as the sun rose into a pale sky. By early morning they had confirmed that Steel was inside an old building near the wharves, whether hiding or waiting for some purpose, nobody could know. Within the hour, Miriam was standing nervous and taut before the building, hair whipping unnoticed around her face. The building was surrounded by armed men covering all exits. The usual ultimatum had been delivered and they awaited Steel’s response. Better, Miriam had ordered, to attempt a peaceful surrender than risk lives in armed assault against a machine with impressive known powers and possibly even more impressive unknown armaments.

  Chapter 14 – Endings

  Beldan’s car screamed to a smoking stop before the police cordon and he leapt out. He had received a call from Miriam, her first contact since she had cut him off: nothing but a tensely soft “Better come,” followed by some city coordinates. He could see armed men arrayed around a decrepit building, looking tensely toward its entrance. Before it he could see Miriam, holding a menacing weapon by her side, waiting. Unlike her men, she held her gun pointed toward the ground, as if to signal peaceful intent but one backed by an uncompromising and deadly resolve. In her face was none of the peace and all of the resolve.

  He was in time to see Steel walk out alone, hands behind his head. Two armed men who had been waiting on either side of the door closed in and escorted him down the steps towards Miriam.

  Then it was ended before he could know it was started. Steel moved with his customary decisiveness and speed, hurling the two men together and turning to run down the street. But in one smooth unhurried movement, precise as if she were a machine herself, Miriam simply raised her weapon sideways, looked down its barrel and fired. An explosive shell blew Steel’s head into shrapnel and his insensate body rolled into an ungainly heap of metal on the street, faintly smoking sparks the only remains of the life and mind it had held within.

  He could not tell if what he heard was the shouts of the crowd or the echo of his own scream as he ran through the cordon to where Steel lay. He looked towards Miriam, who remained where she stood, weapon again lowered, long overcoat beating around her legs, empty eyes looking towards Beldan and the wreckage at his feet.

  He looked from the one to the other, unable to fully believe the connection. Then he strode to her, shouting at her face “What have you done?!”

  “My job,
Dr Beldan, just my job,” she replied, voice and eyes still empty as the sky.

  “But why?! I thought you understood! I trusted you!”

  “I am sorry if my priorities and those of the people whose lives I protect differ from yours. I have done what I had to, no more, no less.”

  He slapped her. He stood there blankly, shocked that he had done it, wondering how she would react. He had never struck a woman before, or a man for that matter. But in the depth of this betrayal the city and the civilization that made it had vanished, it was just he and she standing alone on a windswept plain, and his only answer to the outrage and the pain was that ancient gesture of contempt and challenge.

  Miriam simply stood, head bent away where his slap had driven it, a drop of blood gathering darkly in the corner of her mouth. She said softly, “I hope one day I shall make you regret that, Dr Beldan.” Then she faced him and said more sharply, “I should have you arrested for assaulting a police officer!” But for the first time her eyes softened, and she added quietly “But perhaps you have paid enough for one day and I, not enough.” Then her eyes were empty again, and Beldan stood there, looking into the emptiness and wondering how it came to be there and what thoughts might lie behind it.

  Miriam saw outrage and bafflement and despair chase each other around in Beldan’s eyes, and wondered at her power to keep her own eyes empty when all she wanted to do was to scream and cry and beg. The thought of the last time his skin had touched hers was a contrast that burned more than his slap. She had always thought one had to do what was right; that the right would be enough, that it had to be enough. Yet it had brought her to this, to the devastation on the street and the devastation in the eyes of a man she admired and had begun to love. She had no answer. But she knew she owed it, whether to herself or Beldan or Steel she no longer knew, but she owed it to someone: to keep that emptiness in her eyes, and not open the shutters on what lay within…

  ~~~

  She had been thinking of going home, relaxing in a steamy bath, letting the tension of the day and the days before that curl and dissolve into steam. A heavily encrypted call with no identification had come in on her private line. Does everyone in the city know my private number? she had thought wearily.

  “Good evening, Miriam.” The deep voice was unmistakable. He had chosen not to be seen, and normal etiquette would let her do the same. But she turned on her camera regardless: she did not want to hide from his sight.

  “Steel.”

  “I am calling to let you know that I am aware of what Charles Denner told you and more: it is true.”

  “Can’t you escape the city?”

  “You are sailing perilously close to dereliction of duty, Miriam, suggesting to a fugitive that he escape the claws of justice.”

  “I don’t know if I care any more, Steel. I have kept hoping that a solution will present itself. That is a worse dereliction of duty, but it is all I have: for all that I’ve tried, I have been unable to find a solution. Whatever I do, whether I catch you, or fail, or give up, I betray something not to be betrayed.”

  “Then you understand dilemmas, ones that have no good solution, only the one we must take. And you will understand what I am going to ask of you. You know I cannot live the way that faces me, any more than you could. I can fight: but then my enemies win, for I confirm their fears and worse, I become those fears, for then I must hurt the innocent as well as the guilty. I can run: but I do not choose to live in the shadows, fleeing like a rat in a world of cats. And in either case, the end is the same. There are times where an extra day or year of life is something one might fight for, must fight for. But not when those extra days are not really living, just a form of dying.”

  “I understand. But I no longer know what to do.”

  “It is curious, is it not, that while life is the source of all value, still there are values which transcend and outlive that life? Well, if I must make a stand, then I will make a stand of my choosing. I will choose the time, place and manner of that stand and make it count. If I must die, I will make my death count. I will transform it into something worth achieving.”

  “No…”

  “Yes. Do not despair, Miriam. All things pass, including our own lives. We can only live them as best we can. In a way we are honored, the three of us. The drama we are playing has never before been seen in human history and may, perhaps, change that history. You may feel that whatever you do betrays your values, but you will find that in the long run your pain will become part of the pride of doing what you had to do.”

  Miriam straightened and gazed directly into the camera. If he could say these things, then she owed him the same courage. “All right Steel, I think I know what you’re asking. But tell me anyway.”

  Steel smiled, though she could not see. “I will, but I have something even harder to ask of you first. I have said that I am going to make my death count, but for it to count there are things some people cannot know, and things nobody can know. You know how the mood of the world is. We cannot win what we want; and the chance to win through in the end, to make all this worth the doing, is balanced on a knife’s edge. So understand that I cannot tell you why I do the things I do, or why I ask the things I ask. But I ask you to believe that I know what I am doing, and you must not ask for reasons, cruel though it is.”

  “I understand,” she said softly, “for all that I don’t understand.”

  “Then this is the cruelest thing I must ask. Do not tell Dr Beldan why you do what you do. He must not know. He must believe you have betrayed me, and that you have betrayed him. One day, he can know; and you will know when that day comes. The only hope I can give you is this: you may know sooner than you think.”

  “I… hear you. It will be as you ask. I promise.”

  Then Steel explained what she must do. When he had finished, at last he turned his camera on. She saw his face, in a darkened room, his eyes shining in the reflections from her room, looking into hers.

  “You know I have few friends, and the world would think it strange: but I am proud to count you as one of them. Farewell, Miriam Hunter.”

  ~~~

  Other eyes watched with satisfaction from the gathering crowd. A man leaned against a wall, face obscured under the hood raised from his shoulders. He had heard of what was unfolding, as he always heard; and had come to see but, for once, not be seen. He had been suspicious of Hunter’s sympathies with the machine, especially when his spies had reported she was having a sordid affair with Beldan himself. Typical of these professional women, he had thought with faint contempt. For all the independence and strength they pretend to, they still can’t meet a man who is rich and powerful without falling into his arms and into his bed. Yet she had seemed honest enough, in her own way.

  And when it came down to it she had done what he wanted, he granted her that. He had been building a campaign to have her removed if needed, which he could just as easily change to give her a medal instead. Yes, he smiled to himself, that would be perfect. How perfect to reward her, if she had truly repented. And how even more perfect if she hated what she had done, each word of praise twisting a knife in her soul. He had not lied when he said justice was his concern, but she might learn that justice is a dangerous master. Yes, he thought, a perfect day. An abomination destroyed and its creator humbled. He turned and walked away, fingering the ruby cross beneath his shirt. He had done this, bending even his enemies to his cause.

  The world was fortunate, he thought, that he used his power for good.

  ~~~

  Steel had left a legacy. He had recorded his testament to the world, and when he knew they had come for him had set in motion its release to the world. Steel sat in a sunlit room, a vase of flowers by his side, facing the camera and speaking softly but assuredly: like a man speaking to any who would listen, not bullying or threatening or pleading, simply speaking the truth as he saw it to any who cared to listen and understand.

  He had finished with a simple statement. “You have bee
n told that I am some kind of metal demon, a thing to fear. But if you look past what I am made of, perhaps you can see I am just like you. I am a machine. But I am a thinking machine, with hopes and dreams and yes, fears. I have been on this Earth only a short while, and there is much to learn and see and do, but I fear there will be little time left to me in which to do it.” He picked up a tulip and twirled it in his fingers, examining its perfection of form and color, the fractal etchings in his arm sparkling in the light like things alive, in stark contrast to those same patterns now seen lifeless and dusty and dead in the images of his crumpled form on a cold street. “The world is a beautiful place, and I would like to see more of its beauty. But I am afraid that the time for beings like me has not yet come. Perhaps this message will hasten the time when it will come: when men will accept that what makes them brothers is not the substance of their bodies, but the content of their minds.”

  Millions of eyes watched. One pair watched with grim satisfaction edged with anticipation. If the forces who sought the destruction of Steel thought this play was over, he thought, they would learn that this was just the climax of the first act. Now that people were freed from the primal fear of the unknown stalking their nights and their children, they were seeing with a clearer vision, and already he was detecting on the net a shift in opinion.

  Reason always seemed such a fragile thing, he thought, a lone quiet voice too easily drowned by the passions of the crowd. But it was reason that had found the fulcrum and the lever. The dramatic destruction of Steel, the personal drama played out on the street between Beldan and Hunter, the recorded message from Steel himself: together these had been an explosion under the juggernaut of public opinion, even as it crushed Steel beneath its wheels. The explosion had sent the public imagination wobbling uncertainly along a new course, toward an uncharted wilderness where none could predict or control its path. Except perhaps the one who had planned and shaped the blast. He would use the drama, make it his road to Damascus, his conversion from skeptic to believer, and more: to champion of the rights of a new form of life whose first representative was so cruelly and senselessly cut down. It was like an enormous chess game, thought Samuels, with Beldan and Hunter the unwitting pawns and Steel the piece that had drawn his opponents’ ire and fire, whose sacrifice opened the way to the main game.