by J. S. Morin
“And don’t forget, she’s Eve14. Even if this ‘Creator’ of hers stuck to the conventions, that means there were twelve attempts before her.”
With the Twenty-Seven, numbering started at 2. The original human was the Prime. Charlie7 could have seen ‘Creator’ going either way. After all, Eve was the first human.
Nora109 put a hand on Charlie7’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We can take care of her here. She’ll be a joy to have around, I’m sure. It’ll be such a novelty to have a human who can carry on a conversation.”
Charlie7 held perfectly still. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind.
Or had it?
Though he had promised Toby he’d look after Eve14, wasn’t the Sanctuary for Scientific Sins the best thing he could do for her? They had contacts across the globe, supplying them with every potential human need from fresh produce to undergarments. They were the quality test lab for every nascent industry that saw humanity’s resurgence as just over the next horizon. Five new Ashleys had been activated because, for the first time, robot society needed their surgical expertise instead of merely leveraging them for their flexibility in the veterinary sciences.
Charlie7 hadn’t said he’d personally oversee Eve14 for the rest of her life. He’d promised no such thing at all.
“I’ll stick around for a little while. You know, let the girl get settled. Then I’ll say my goodbyes.”
Chapter Ten
Eve left her oversized boots by the door as she crept along a corridor lined with wooden doors. Their scraping with each footstep might have drawn unwelcome attention.
The rough stone chilled the soles of her bare feet. Caution and the need for quiet warred with an insatiable desire to run her skin across the textured surface. There had been nothing like it in the lab. She had learned about stone as part of her geology curriculum. Granite was an igneous rock composed of quartz and alkali feldspar. It was hard and brittle. But nothing in her studies had prepared her to feel it.
As Eve slunk down the hallway, she let the fingers of one hand trail along the wall. What was it made of? She had no idea. It wasn’t quite stone but definitely wasn’t metal, wood, or plastic. The texture was much rougher than the granite floor and wasn’t pleasant so much as it was fascinating.
A doorway interrupted her fingers’ exploration. A wooden door with a wrought iron handle tempted her curiosity. She placed an ear against the wood and eavesdropped on the muffled sounds from beyond.
“All right, Brian. Sleep tight.” A clattering approached, and Eve pressed herself against the wall to hide, knowing she had no better option.
The door swung open, and a steel cart rolled out. A robot was pushing it. It looked in Eve’s direction and smiled. “Oh. Hello there. You must be the new girl. My name is Ashley390. What’s yours?”
“Eve14.”
Eve held her ground, muscles tensed and ready to run if Ashley390 made any threatening motion. The new robot was quiet, her drive mechanisms and joints in better repair than Creator’s. She wore seafoam green from head to toe, including the knit cap on her head. Ashley390’s smile appeared fixed in place, though Eve saw where the actuators connected that could change her expression.
Ashley390 closed the door behind her. “Brian is going to be taking a nap, so I can’t introduce you right now. But if you like, you can come with me on the rest of my rounds. Would you like that?”
Eve considered.
Thus far, this new robot hadn’t said or done anything menacing. Then again, Creator had warned her never to talk to other robots unless she was present. Of course, that rule was far past broken. Any punishment for that offense seemed unlikely to scale linearly with further transgressions. Plus, this Ashley390 promised information about her surroundings, which sounded valuable.
“Yes.”
Ashley390’s voice softened. “You don’t talk much, do you? Can you understand everything I’m saying?”
Eve nodded.
By the subtle broadening of her smile, Eve deduced that Ashley390 approved of her agreement. “A breath of fresh air. Most of the residents don’t communicate much. Please don’t be offended if they ignore or seem afraid of you.”
Eve blinked. “Afraid? Of me?”
The very notion seemed preposterous. Fear was an instinctive reaction to danger or perceived danger. Since Eve harbored no ill intentions, she saw no reason why anyone should be afraid of her.
“Just keep quiet until I introduce you, and we’ll see how they respond.”
Intrigued, Eve fell into step behind Ashley390 as she resumed pushing her cart. Watching the robot’s feet, Eve mimicked Ashley390’s gait and timed her footsteps to touch the floor simultaneously. Listening for the faint whir of her servomotors, Eve caught herself just as Ashley390 stopped at the next door.
Eve’s mimicry had not gone unnoticed. “You are a clever little one, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Eve saw no reason to deny the subjective assessment. Creator had often made judgments to the same effect. It wasn’t merely her own opinion that Eve offered up, but Creator’s as well.
“Now, this is Emily’s room. She’s a bit of a shock to look at, but don’t make her self-conscious by staring.”
With that warning, Eve found herself more intrigued than concerned about what she would see inside. She leaned to peer through the door as Ashley390 first knocked, then slowly pushed it open.
“Ah-Shee,” Emily called out as Ashley390 wheeled the cart into the cozy little room beyond.
Inside there was an empty bed and a wall with a curtained window overlooking the ocean. Under the light streaming in from outdoors, there was a circular table approximately a meter in diameter flanked by a pair of thin, metal-framed chairs. One of those chairs held what Eve presumed was a human, but this one was nothing like her.
Emily’s head was disproportionately large for her body, and her arms were of different lengths. She held her smaller arm cradled against her body. The other was occupied with arranging and stacking small plastic blocks on the table, struggling due to an apparent inability to use her thumb as an opposable digit. Her smile was slack-jawed, but her ebullient tone suggested genuine happiness at the sight of Ashley390.
“Good afternoon, Emily,” Ashley390 said in a cheery voice. She slid a tray from within the recesses of her cart and placed it on the table beside Emily’s stack of blocks. “How are you doing?”
Eve noticed that the meal was the same as the one she had just consumed. As Emily wrapped a hand around her spoon and dug into her lunch, Ashley stooped to pick up a pink ribbon from the floor.
“Did you want this out or was it an accident?” Ashley390 asked, dangling the ribbon in Emily’s view.
Emily looked at the strip of fabric, and her eyes and mouth both went wide. She made noises that may or may not have been words. But while Eve couldn’t parse them into informative speech, Ashley390 seemed to know the cipher.
“It’s all right. Don’t worry. I’ll put it back.”
As Emily resumed eating, Ashley retrieved a small, bristled hand tool from a drawer set into the wall. With deft strokes, she used the tool to disentangle Emily’s long blonde hair. Eve mimicked the motion, but her scalp was studded with probes. Creator always used a laser device keep Eve’s hair trimmed to the skin. Just thinking about it as she ran her fingertips along the stubble between probes was enough to evoke the keratin scent of singed hair.
At the end of a weaving process that Eve’s eyes had difficulty tracking, Ashley390 used the ribbon to tie the loose end. “There. How’s that?”
Emily pushed her chair back from the table and ambled over to a reflective panel on the wall. She turned her head to bring the braid into view and smiled once more. “Fank oo, Ah-Shee.”
Eve understood.
Ashley390 had performed an action with which Emily had difficulty. It was an act of kindness.
While Emily was preoccupied, Eve stepped over to the table and examined the blocks. From their present ar
rangement, Eve could only guess at the intended result, but some form of two-dimensional pyramid stacking or possibly an arch seemed to be the likely candidates. The plastic blocks had a plug-and-socket interlock system that seemed straightforward enough. With the available building materials, Eve quickly and quietly constructed a miniature replica of the Arc de Triomphe where Charlie7 lived.
As Emily finished admiring her reflection, Eve returned to her spot near the door. Emily spotted her and flapped one hand in her direction. Unsure what else to do, Eve copied the gesture.
“Emily, this is Eve,” Ashley390 said. “She’s new here. I hope you two can be friends.”
“Hi, Eef,” Emily said. She returned to her chair and noticed the Arc de Triomphe waiting for her.
Eve smiled in anticipation of her reaction. But instead of a repeat of the happiness from Ashley390’s favor, Emily uttered an inarticulate moan that forced Eve to cover her ears.
“It’s all right,” Ashley390 said hurriedly, rushing to Emily’s side. “It’s all right. Eve didn’t mean anything. She was just trying to be nice.”
Ashley390 lowered her voice and turned to Eve. “You should wait outside.”
Eve did as instructed, closing the door behind her to help block out the disconcerting noises from inside. Though Emily was incoherent, she listened as Ashley390 consoled and eventually calmed her. Eve didn’t think to mark the passing time, but it felt as if perhaps ten minutes had passed before Ashley390 emerged, pushing the cart once again.
As soon as the door closed behind her, Ashley390 looked down at Eve where she crouched against the wall. “It’s not your fault. I should have warned you how particular Emily can be about her things.”
“But you fixed her hair, and that made her happy.” Eve spread her hands, challenging Ashley390. Creator had often put that gesture to use against Eve, and it felt liberating to appropriate it for her own purposes.
“Humans aren’t always rational. She had an idea how she likes her hair, and I helped her put it that way. She had an idea how she wanted those toy blocks, but you did something different.”
Eve deflated. “She didn’t leave schematics, so I had to guess at her intended result.”
Ashley390 stepped back. “Oh, my. You do really understand English. Sorry. A few of the residents are more verbal than Emily, but… well… not what anyone would call a conversationalist.”
“Why is Emily so broken?”
“She’s not broken, dear. She’s just Emily. She is as she was made. Not everyone’s been as fortunate as you. Come along. It’s a welcome change dealing with a self-sufficient girl. But if you can’t avoid upsetting our residents, you’ll have to stay behind.”
“What if I say or do the wrong thing again?” Eve14 asked with eyes downcast. She kept her hands clasped behind her back.
Ashley tapped her chest. “I’ve been on text comm. Nora109 and Charlie7 think you’ve got quite a little processor in that noggin of yours. So process this: while we visit the residents, watch them. Mind the mannerisms I use, the words, the body language. See how they respond. Each one is a simple cognitive machine. Inputs generate outputs. Be pleasant, helpful, and unthreatening, and you’ll see the best outcomes.”
The next room held a human that Ashley390 identified as Mark.
Mark had a square face with hair growing out from the lower half, and was far larger than Emily. Mark’s physiology seemed more in keeping with Creator’s lessons as well, though the baggy pajamas made it hard to discern much detail. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Mark wore headphones and was fixated on a video screen on the wall.
Eve studied the screen to see what was so fascinating. Flat-rendered animated animals wearing clothes chased one another around. As Eve watched, she couldn’t get past the implausibility of the physics involved, though she granted that when reduced to two dimensions, mass became a null quantity that might allow for many exceptions to Newtonian mechanics. However, there was no excusing the retina-searing color palette.
Ashley took out a tray for Mark and set it on the bedside table. She pulled the headphones away, and Mark immediately blinked, turned, and smiled up at Ashley. “Enjoying your cartoons, Mark? We have porridge for you today.”
Mark showed no difficulty in either locating or eating lunch. As one hand shoveled porridge, the other cradled a single headphone to Mark’s ear.
Ashley390 didn’t let them linger, and they left Mark to her amusements.
“What’s wrong with her face?” Eve asked once the door was shut.
“Mark is a him. That’s just stubble. We make sure he shaves every few days or the itch starts to bother him. But other than that, it doesn’t hurt anything.”
Eve frowned. “I can’t imagine it would be pleasant having hair growing out of my face.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that. You’re a girl.” Ashley390 leaned close. Eve knew that the shifting she saw in the robot’s eyes was a function of a refocused optical length. “Huh. You don’t even grow facial hair.”
“You just said—”
“It’s different. All mammals are naturally covered in tiny hairs, smaller than you usually see.” Ashley390 lifted Eve’s arm and stared up the sleeve of her borrowed shirt. “But you don’t even have the normal follicular development of post-pubescent sexual characteristics. You should at least have hair growing under your arms.”
Eve jerked her arm away. “I should not. That’s… distasteful.”
“Well, whoever created you must have thought so, too. They also apparently failed to explain gender differentiation.”
Eve drew up tall and stuck her chin out. She most certainly knew the difference.
“Some robots are male, and some are female. It’s a difference in general disposition. Charlie7 and Toby22 are male.” Though Eve had met few of Creator’s colleagues, she at least knew which to address as ‘he’ and ‘she.’
“Same goes for humans, but it’s more pronounced than chassis preferences and a fondness for operating heavy equipment. Mark is male.”
“What are the differences?”
“That’s a good one to lose an afternoon on if you know how to work a computer terminal—and I’m guessing you do. But the short answer is: males tend to be larger, more aggressive, and hairier. Are you all right? You look like something just spooked you.”
Eve shook her head. She couldn’t tell anyone. But a piece of a puzzle fell into place about a certain someone she had met. The lack of hair on his face had not set off any triggers in Eve’s mind, but the rest fit.
“I’m fine.”
The other humans at the sanctuary seemed anything but fine. Henry couldn’t control his excretory functions. Jane had see-through skin, thanks to gene splicing. Peter couldn’t stand noises of any sort. Several others had parts that had been replaced by robotics due to deformities. Aside from Emily, only one other spoke to Eve. His name was Carl, and he liked balloons. He talked to Eve at length about balloons and even showed her how to turn twisted and entangled balloons into rough analogs for animals—in much the way that a circuit diagram resembled a robot.
At the end of the rounds, they came to an empty room.
Eve looked around. “Someone is missing.”
Ashley390 smiled. “No, Eve. This is going to be your room.”
Chapter Eleven
While Eve14 was off exploring the sanctuary, Charlie7 lounged on the wooden bench with his ankles crossed, reclining against the edge of the picnic-style dining table. Nora109 paced beside him, attending to official business while the two of them conversed.
“So I told Toby: ‘What do you expect me to do with her?’” Charlie7 said. It was a relief to talk to someone about Eve14.
Charlie7 hated the Social for its inane chatter and empty blathering. It was challenging to speak heart-to-heart when you were running decryption ciphers every step of the way.
Nora109 shook her head. “You know Tobys. Practically hard-coded to go running to the nearest Charlie whenever somethin
g goes wrong. You’d think with a number as low as 22, he’d have more independence.”
“It’s not just that. Toby22 is a game warden. Wouldn’t you think a human girl turning up in jolly old England would put her smack dab in his jurisdiction?” Charlie7 knew he shouldn’t be dumping all this at Nora109’s feet, but she was the first person he’d come across who would understand his annoyance. “It’s not like he couldn’t handle her. The girl practically begs to be told what to do.”
“You think she could tell us who cloned her?” Nora109 asked. “I mean she clearly has the mental capacity. It would be the first time a resident was able to lead us to a rogue geneticist. Imagine if Adam8 had been able to tell us who was responsible for his creation.”
Charlie7 held out a hand and guided Nora109 onto the bench beside him. Though it was scant comfort to either of them, he wrapped his arms around her. “It’s not your fault. Sometimes humans just die.”
There were times Charlie7 wished he were flesh and blood again to experience the shared warmth, the softness of another human’s touch, the scent of a woman’s hair as she nestled against his shoulder. Charlie7 remembered the fact of those sensations, but coded into his brain, they were subroutines pointing to corrupted data.
All those human sensory experiences were lost and never coming back. Charlie7 had accepted that.
Some other robots just couldn’t. Noras had never been a problem the way certain other archetypes could be by moping, ranting, and self-terminating out of frustration at the low-sensory state in which they might exist forever. But Adam8’s passing had struck Nora109 in a way that a robot’s self-termination never could.
Nora109 pushed herself free of Charlie7’s embrace. She resumed her pacing with clenched fists. “Why can’t they stick to chimps? One chimp in five is healthy enough to release into the wild, and the percentage keeps getting better. Eve14 is the first healthy human I’ve seen in fifty.”
