by V. J. Deanes
DAWN OF AFFINITY
V. J. DEANES
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-7752101-0-8
Chapter 1
Kalan Mars remained composed. A few of the seniors surrounded him as he walked alone behind the high school in Hadley’s Crossing over the lunch hour. The older boys ignored Kalan’s remark about wanting to be left alone. They had sought him out to establish territory, as a rite of passage to determine his place in their small world.
When Gerald Huff’s demand for Kalan to stop and talk to him for a few moments met with defiance he pushed Kalan to the ground. Kalan stood up and dusted himself off.
“Do you always pick on freshman to look tough in front of your girlfriends?” Kalan asked as he pointed to the other boys in Huff’s gang.
Huff was annoyed. “Watch your tongue lad,” he remarked. “Or, I’ll have to rip it out.” He started to walk in a circle around Kalan.
Kalan pointed to his crotch. “My fly is up. If I want any tongue wagging from you it will be down.”
The small crowd that had gathered to watch the commotion became silent.
Huff lunged at Kalan, as if to throw a punch. Kalan didn’t flinch.
“Tough guy,” Kalan remarked. “Take your phone out of your pocket. Dial 911. Call yourself an ambulance. Then throw a real punch.”
Huff took the bait and went into a rage. Moments later he lay beaten and bloodied on the ground. Kalan landed a couple of extra blows for good measure. When Kalan stood up to walk away Huff reached for one of his legs. Kalan turned and kicked him hard in the ribs. Huff rolled over moaning in pain. Kalan had sent the message: I’m not afraid of anyone and I’ll prove it to you.
Rick Sawyer and Doug Wilson returned from one of the lunch places down the road, closer into town. They caught up with Kalan a few moments after he handed Huff a dose of small town school yard justice.
“Word has it that Huff is in hospital on life support,” Rick said, as he pointed to a text message on his phone.
“That’s what he deserves,” Doug added. “No one has ever thrashed Gerald Huff like that before.”
“Good job Kalan,” Rick remarked. “Now all of your friends will be targets for life.”
Kalan took exception to Rick’s assessment of the situation. “I guess you would prefer to be Huff’s slave.”
Rick was silent.
“I had to put Huff in his place. Otherwise I would just be another beaten down dweeb in this place.”
“He’ll come back for retribution,” Rick replied.
“So let him,” said Kalan. “What are you afraid of?”
“Are you crazy?” Rick asked.
“Wake up Rick,” Kalan remarked. “Hadley’s Crossing is one big pecking order. Everyone in this town fits into their own little slot, in case you hadn’t noticed. Doesn’t matter how old they are, or how long they have lived here. This place is my ticket out,” Kalan said as he pointed to the school. “No one is getting in my way.”
“You’re turning into an angry young man,” Doug remarked. “Full of angst. Driven to rid the world of whatever you think is wrong with it. Amen to that.”
“You see Rick, “Kalan remarked. “Doug sees the situation for what it is.”
“Yes I do see the situation for what it is,” Doug noted. “Picking fights in a place where everyone knows each other won’t get you too far. Word spreads fast. Pretty soon we’ll all get dragged into this mess. Before you know it, you will be an outcast.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Rick. “Maybe there’s something to be said for fitting into the fabric of small town life after all.”
“That comment certainly wins the prize for lamest remark of the hour,” said Devon Granger who had walked up behind Rick and Doug as they gave Kalan a hard time.
“Who are you?” Rick asked as he turned around.
“The alien from the big city,” Devon replied. “Too bad I missed the excitement. I would have landed a few on Huff, if you needed me to.”
Kalan took a few moments to introduce Devon to his life-long friends from the neighborhood.
“Devon is new here. Met him in English class. What has it been almost three weeks since you moved to Hadley’s Crossing?”
“Feels more like three months.”
“He has come to search for excitement in our town.”
“Stranded here by my parents’ desire for a slower pace is more like it,” Devon said.
Rick and Doug were not sure what to make of the newcomer. The untucked blue and white striped shirt red pants and red running shoes gave him an appearance that was far from the small town standard issue blue denim look. Added to his self confident swagger was an aura of impatience, as if Devon needed life to move at a faster pace than it ever could in Hadley’s Crossing.
Rick’s and Doug’s fears about Gerald Huff seemed to matter even less to Devon than to Kalan. Where Kalan’s tenacity was motivated by fairness and holding his ground, Devon’s apparent willingness to take out a thug like Huff was driven purely by the sport of it. That attitude was like fresh air for Kalan. It drove him to know more about Devon.
“Well boys that was an amusing lunch break,” said Rick. “I can’t wait to see what fun we have after school today.”
“Are you still nervous?” Kalan asked. “Nothing is going to happen.”
The school day ended with Huff staring down Kalan and his friends as they left for home. Kalan’s confident prediction held up. Huff muttered something before walking away in the opposite direction.
“What did I tell you lads?” Kalan remarked. “The beast has been tamed.”
The four boys walked a few blocks to the corner store.
“See you tomorrow,” Rick and Doug said as they turned onto the street that led to their homes. Kalan and Devon had further to walk.
“Why did your parents come to Hadley’s Crossing?” Kalan asked Devon. “They could have gone to any small town.”
“I still haven’t figured it out. Maybe they chose this part of town because of the peace and quiet. Closer to the outdoors,” he remarked, pointing to the hills off in the distance. “They seem happy. What about your folks?”
“Lived here forever,” Kalan answered. “High school sweethearts who never left.”
The boys walked down 6th Street, happily chatting about the things that interest fourteen year olds.
A light breeze gently rustled the leaves of the old trees that towered above the sidewalk that led through the oldest neighborhood in the town. Devon’s appearance garnered looks of curiosity from people relaxing on the magnificent porches of the historic old brick homes.
“Getting used to everyone knowing everyone else’s business?” Kalan asked.
“I’m too new around here to know much about that,” Devon said. “I have heard something of the stories about how some families banded together to force other people to leave.”
“Two kinds of people live in Hadley’s Crossing, far as I can tell.” Kalan remarked. “One kind has this unspoken bond. One kind never gets it. I can’t explain.”
“Which kind are you?” Devon asked.
“Don’t really know,” Kalan replied as he shrugged his shoulders.
“What about your parents?”
“I think my folks are the kind with the bond,” Kalan answered.
“Ever think about what you’re going to do when you’re finished school here?” Devon asked.
“No firm plans yet. Guess I’ll have to start thinking about that soon,” Kalan answered. “I know that I can’t stay here my whole life. I will need to get away, to find some real action.”
Chapter 2
9 years later in 2029
“Step forward,” the mechanized voice requested. Th
e nerdy looking man did as he was told. He knew the drill. Stand straight. No expression. Look forward. Relax.
“Technician. First class. Norman Bustafo you are cleared for entry. Proceed to assembly room fifteen.”
“Bustafo. I should have guessed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, MacGregor?”
“This job needs a real pro. Good to see that you decided to take it. I thought you packed this kind of work in a few years ago.”
“I did,” Bustafo replied. “The pay check for this gig convinced me to spend a day or two away from my place by the ocean.”
“We haven’t worked a job together for, what, at least ten years.”
“Let’s go for a beer and catch up before getting started on this. It’s good to see you again.”
“Time pressure is too tight,” MacGregor confirmed. “Beer will have to wait until we’re done. Trust me, we’ll need an entire case. Come with me.”
Bustafo followed MacGregor with interest. MacGregor pulled back a screen. “This is the one we need you to program.” A human-form robot lay on an operating table. Its eyes stared lifelessly towards the ceiling.
“Is she ever hot,” said Bustafo.
“It, not she,” MacGregor corrected sternly.
“We haven’t even started and you’re already freaked out,” Bustafo quipped.
“This one is dangerous,” MacGregor said. “Even by my standards.”
Bustafo was more inclined to take the situation seriously. “Why is that?”
“You might not have been given all of the facts about this one. It has self destruct capabilities. When we begin the actuation sequence...”
“Slow down,” Bustafo requested. “This is a suicide machine. Is that what you are saying? ‘Cause if it is, I’m out. I don’t do this kind of...”
“Calm down,” MacGregor insisted. “It’s not what you think.”
“Only espionage class robots can have that capability,” Bustafo replied.
“This robot is espionage class,” MacGregor replied.
“Self destruct capabilities and assassin programming? So how come I was told this gig was to program a robot to act as if it was a medical doctor?”
“You should buff up on the regulations,” MacGregor replied “After the fiasco with the thousand imposters autonomous robots can have assassination and self destruct capabilities, but only with primary classifications as either spies or spy hunters. They can also have secondary classifications as first responders to high risk situations, or as medical doctors engaged in certain types of research.”
“You’re saying this machine is an autonomous spy first and a doctor second?” Bustafo questioned.
“Something like that,” MacGregor replied. “It has preset personality and thought process programs required for espionage. It needs additional programming, specifically pertaining to human enhancement. It must behave as a medical professional while concealing that it is a spy hunter.”
“If this thing goes haywire I just need to know that it’s not coming back on my head,” Bustafo said.
“You’re covered in that regard,” MacGregor confirmed.
“All risks have been assumed by the buyer. That’s the only way the permit was granted.”
“Someone seems to have insisted that I get onto this project,” Bustafo mentioned. “Know much about that?”
“You worked on the system architecture that was used to program the behavior characteristics of the thousand imposters,” MacGregor remarked. “That set the baseline for adaptive machine learning in autonomous humanoids to live with humans and to learn from them. We need you to make this robot behave like a scientist.
“This robot is different,” Bustafo countered. “The imposters, as they have become known, were entirely biological. Identical to humans in almost every way. Their brains were connected to memory and microprocessor implants that required intermittent updates, to provide situational context of being an adult. The imposters, as you call them, were designed with programming for basic human functions, including a full lifespan. The learning program layer that I worked on let them adapt to their social surroundings on an open ended basis.”
“You must know what really happened to the imposters,” MacGregor remarked. “It is still top secret.”
“The truth is that a thousand autonomous manufactured human replicas were introduced into society for the purpose of observing how well they fit in with humans. Think about it. Once they were switched on they instantly became adults, between twenty and thirty years old. They were a success. You couldn’t tell them apart from humans. They had jobs. Some were parents. Two of them became criminals. Panic ensued when the public learned that two androids broke the law. Anti-robot, anti-android, anti-clone rhetoric sparked fear. Most of the imposters were tracked down, then switched off.”
“You think that it was improper to hunt them down?”
“It was unnecessary,” Bustafo replied. “They were no more of a danger to society than you or me. Unlike this one,” he said while pointing to the robot on the operating table.
“I see your point,” MacGregor noted.
“Tell me more about this beauty,” Bustafo requested.
“This one is fully autonomous. It will be perceived as a normal human being by the people it encounters. In reality it will only interact with a small number of humans in settings that are highly controlled. That was also a condition in the permit.”
“This robot is a killer. It needs to have a termination date,” Bustafo said. “Lifespan length of this robot needs to be factored into the programming.”
“This robot, like the imposters, has no fixed lifespan,” MacGregor replied.
“You should know going in that there is a high probability of personality disruption,” Bustafo stated.
“Go on,” MacGregor encouraged.
“An autonomous robot with a human lifespan that also has a near term death objective will be conflicted. It will become accustomed to a consciousness similar to humans. Knowledge that it may need to terminate itself will confuse it. On the one hand it will mimic human instincts for survival and longevity. On the other hand it will be programmed to terminate itself under certain conditions. It could exhibit behaviors that are antisocial. It will be aggressive and confrontational with humans, perhaps it will even exhibit symptoms of depression and psychosis, during times when it must reconcile whether or not to terminate.”
“We can live with that risk,” MacGregor confirmed.
“Are you sure? You said something about preset spy programming. I question whether it understands basic human values and the choices that we make based on those values.”
“What are you saying?
“A killing machine that has no sense of right and wrong.” Bustafo replied. “This must be one hell of a mission.”
MacGregor didn’t respond.
“Where are you sending it?
“You aren’t supposed to know that.”
“It’s probably better that way,” Bustafo remarked.
“What I can tell you,” MacGregor continued, “is that this robot will watch over scientists who are on the leading edge of genetic research. To make sure that secrets are not stolen.”
“Where do we start?”
“We need you to upload the reference points on which the robot will build its scientific knowledge,” MacGregor replied.
“What’s up with the port? File transfer and wireless together?”
“I admit it is somewhat dated,” MacGregor conceded. He touched a mole on one side of the robot’s head and pulled it back to reveal a tiny FTP port. “We want all of the reference files loaded directly into memory through this port.”
“Then what happens?”
“This robot has the learning layer from one of the imposters.”
“Where did you get that from?” Bustafo asked.
“From one of the imposters that was decommissioned,” MacGregor answered.
“Do you have the number?”
“Unit one hundred and fifty one.”
Bustafo thought for a moment. “She’s the one that became a nurse, if memory serves me correctly.”
“Precisely. She had the closest behavior patterns required by this robot. Her learning algorithms may be dated, but we know they work.” MacGregor remarked.
“Yes, we do,” Bustafo reaffirmed.
“Before we start,” MacGregor noted, “what happened to those who let the imposters loose? I understood that the original plan was for the robots to be contained in a small town somewhere, not in a city.”
“Beats me,” Bustafo replied. “Don’t forget that the riots and demonstrations protesting discontinued use of historical references for major cities happened at the same time,” Bustafo noted. “Fracturing society into Red Zones and Blue Zones. The emergence of Haven Cities. The onset of bombings and terror attacks in Red Zones. People had bigger things to deal with than those officials who, with permission and encouragement, let the imposters free into the general population.”
MacGregor walked around the robot to a set of computers.
“We’ll start by loading some archival information that documents important events in the science of human enhancement. This will establish a simple baseline of knowledge. I will upload modern databases where relevant information on human enhancement is stored today. Once it becomes active, assuming the start sequence doesn’t initiate the self destruct routines, you and I will observe how it builds on the baseline knowledge. Then we will observe it in the virtual reality simulator, to see how it responds to test scenarios.” Bustafo opened his tablet computer and began transferring knowledge to the robot.
“Reports of cloning human embryos first appeared back in 2001,” said Bustafo.
“Those reports were never proven,” MacGregor replied.
“Without confirmation that replicating humans has ever been common practice, the subject will always be presented as speculation by those who control the practice of creating humans in a lab,” Bustafo noted.
“Let the machine figure out if that is fact or fiction,” MacGregor requested.
