Extinction Reversed (Robot Geneticists Book 1)

by J. S. Morin

  “Do whatever you want. I won’t let you have my brain.” Sometimes the bravest words were said through tears.

  “Not even to save your sisters?” Creator asked.

  Without warning, the blurry haze of tears vanished and was replaced by images of Eve doing chin-ups in a lab much like the one she was now in.

  This wasn’t old footage from Creator’s previous lab. This had to be another room in this one.

  “Who is that?” Eve asked. “She looks like me.”

  “She is you. Eve16 is next in line if you fail me. She’s two years, eight days younger than you.” The image shifted. This time Eve was bent at the waist, palms pressed against the floor in downward dog position. “And this is Eve17. And here’s Eve18.”

  “Where’s Eve 15?” The omission was too glaring to overlook.

  “I have her skull on a shelf in my office. That’s where yours is going if you don’t prove suitable. If the process turns your brain into an inert pudding of misfiring synapses, here’s what will happen. First, I’ll exsanguinate your body, then carefully decapitate you. I’ll peel away the skin and muscle, vacuum out the brain with the aid of a light sodium hydroxide solution. Then I’ll carefully extract the cerebral probes for use on one of your younger sisters—no point in them going to waste. Your skull will sit on my shelf for me to remember you by; and you are a memorable one, being my first—and hopefully only—escapee. The extraneous bits of you will be incinerated. Since this laboratory is only a few hundred meters from the throat of an active volcano, I suspect that last part will be rather more lively than my prior disposals.”

  Eve’s mind went blank. The words sat there, struggling to paint pictures. When they finally did, it was too much to bear.

  Her thoughts? Deleted. Overwritten.

  Her body? Dissolved. Incinerated.

  All fate had left to offer Eve was the flip-of-a-coin chance between mindless enslavement and utter annihilation.

  And if Creator were unsuccessful with Eve14, the conveyor belt would just keep feeding Eve after subsequent Eve into the same hopper. Eve16… Eve17… Only Creator knew how many more came after.

  Eve began sobbing.

  “So,” Creator said cheerily. “Shall we get started? You can’t imagine how much I’m looking forward to this.”

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Charlie7 felt a tingle of relief as the data feed ended. Once again he was alone with his own thoughts—at least in his head. Within the cockpit of the curiously named Betty-Lou, he was still at the mercy of the loudmouthed kid in the super-soldier body.

  “About time you stopped broadcasting,” Plato said. “Thought we were gonna get there waving flags and playing trumpets. Seriously, did you just download the whole planetary archive or something?”

  Plato and Charlie7 were flying low over the Central Pacific, racing against the sunset. They were winning. For much of their trip, Charlie7 had been plugged into both the skyroamer’s primary systems and the portable computer he’d pulled from the dashboard earlier.

  “Or something,” Charlie7 answered.

  “Hope that’s one doozy of a hack you downloaded,” Plato remarked. Clearly, he was fishing for answers, which Charlie7 was ill inclined to provide. “You still too busy to tell me how you got this location? I’m not buying the Nostradamus crap, either.”

  There was a faint whir as Charlie7 raised an eyebrow. This kid had at least brushed up on his species’ history. The archaic slang and obscure name-dropping didn’t even sound forced.

  At first, Charlie7 was inclined to ignore Plato’s question. Then he considered lying. Eventually, he decided just to throw the lad a bone. “James187 grew a conscience. Turned out to be the guilty sort.”

  Plato yanked back on the throttle, and both of them were pressed against their safety harnesses. “Hold on, chief. Haven’t you ever heard of a trap? Starts with a T, rhymes with ‘crap’? The next time someone publishes a dictionary, that word’s gonna have a picture of us, right now, flying to a volcano because Eve’s kidnapper told us to.”

  “I had the same misgivings. But I decided that it didn’t matter,” Charlie7 replied.

  “You decided? Who put you in charge? I trusted that your information was good because I want Eve back. Maybe you had some secret robot society I wasn’t supposed to know about, and you got inside info. Maybe you had an illegal hack into Evelyn38’s personal accounts.”

  “What I had was a single lead, and I took it. I knew you wouldn’t trust it, so I left out the details. You’re not turning this skyroamer around; we’re only five minutes out—or twenty if we continue drifting along at Mach one.”

  Plato’s response was nostril flaring and heavy breathing, along with a clench to his jaw liable to break teeth.

  “Listen, do you want to save Eve or not?”

  “‘Course I do. It’s just that—”

  “No. You’re either in, or you’re out. You want out? Then drop me off on the main island, and I’ll go in alone. If you’re in, punch the throttle and let’s not waste any more time. You may not appreciate it right now, but if you let Eve die without trying to save her, you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”

  Charlie7 didn’t add that while the rest of Plato’s life might not be a particularly long time, his prospects for human companionship of any sort were even more limited.

  “Yeah. I’m in,” Plato replied, looking out the far window. “What’s it to you, anyway, Charlie? You watched ten billion people die. What’s one more? What makes Eve so special?” He eased the throttle open, and the two of them were pushed back into their seats.

  “I couldn’t prevent those 10.3 billion deaths. But Eve is the chance to start fresh. She’s the hope we’ve been missing for a thousand years.”

  The island of Hawaii came into view. Its peaks were first visible above the horizon, then the shoreline. As they approached, other islands peeked out from the ocean to the northwest, but the big island was their destination. James187 had provided exact coordinates to the entrance to Evelyn38’s clandestine lab.

  “That was a fortune cookie answer,” Plato said without looking at him. “Just wanted you to know I’m not buying it. But whatever. Keep the real reason to yourself. Not like you probably don’t have a million secrets.”

  Charlie7 admired the misplaced bravado. Plato didn’t want Charlie7 to see how scared he was. Deep down, Plato wanted to be a hero. Deeper down, he probably wished he didn’t have to be. But even if that offhanded comment was meant as a smokescreen, Plato was more right than he knew. Charlie7 had never kept count of all his secrets, but a million seemed like a conservative estimate.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Was it possible to feel nausea without any sensation from the stomach? If so, then Eve was indeed nauseated.

  The insides of Eve’s mind wobbled drunkenly through puzzle after puzzle, adrift and as much on autopilot as James187’s skyroamer on the way here.

  Eve thought back to the movie she’d watched with James187, and the false reality superimposed over the actual one. Weren’t the lenses and the drugs doing the same to her?

  Eve felt nothing from the neck down, saw nothing but what the lenses projected. All she heard were the few background sounds from the equipment in the lab and Creator’s voice. Could she will herself to wake up from this dreamlike state?

  A sudden jolt of resonance snapped Eve’s attention back to distasteful reality.

  “Stop that,” Creator warned. “You’d been doing so well. Now, stop letting your mind wander. Either concentrate on the puzzles or let your thoughts go blank and allow your subconscious to work.”

  Four shapes appeared, looking like a square steel rod that someone had bent at harsh angles into a tangled knot. Each rotated at different speeds and in different directions. Three of them were identical; Eve’s attention drifted to the fourth.

  While the lenses filled Eve’s vision, she could still look around a little to focus on particular areas. The lenses themselves were a type o
f input control. They registered her attention as a solution.

  Puzzle completed, the image vanished. Next was a maze. A tiny red dot stood at the entrance and followed the movements of her eyes as she navigated it through.

  “Oh, what now?” Creator snapped.

  Eve braced herself for another punishment, unsure what she’d done wrong this time. But no piercing resonance from the studs was forthcoming. She completed the maze, and an essay appeared in its place. It was only a few paragraphs long and concerned cellular membranes. She felt a pat on her cheek as she browsed through and identified the misspelled words scattered through the passage.

  Though she knew the touch was Creator’s, Eve relaxed. The robot’s had been the only affection Eve had known her whole life. Seeing the monster revealed didn’t erase memories stretching back as far as Eve could recall.

  “Much better, dear. We’re almost done. I just need to go find out who’s loitering outside. If it’s James, I’m going to be very cross.”

  Almost done? The prospect of Creator leaving her alone even for a few minutes ought to have filled her with relief. Instead, the prospect of only having a few puzzles left of existence sickened her.

  Eve tried to resist as a series of brightly colored balls bounced toward her eyes. Whenever she focused on one, it bounced away from her only to ricochet off an invisible wall. Each time she missed one, the probes in her skull sent an unpleasant tingle through her body. It wasn’t as bad as Creator’s resonator, but it still made her fight her instincts to be able to let them through.

  Anything to delay Creator a little longer…

  “Can you upload me to a robot?” Eve blurted.

  The puzzle froze in place. Darting her eyes around in their sockets did nothing to move the scene.

  “Hmm?” Creator asked. “What was that?”

  “A robot. I’d rather be a robot than nothing,” Eve babbled on, not even pausing to contemplate what she was asking.

  Eve’s vision returned to normal. She gasped as her first sight was Creator’s face. Their noses were practically touching.

  “Trust me,” Creator said. “You’re better off never knowing this emptiness. To plod on, half asleep, for centuries without end… it’s a living hell. I have muddy memories, etched in crystalline perfection, never fading, of a time when I could feel the sunshine on my skin, taste hot cocoa, savor the touch of a lover.”

  “I’ve felt sunshine,” Eve replied, as the lenses in her eyes grew blurry with tears. She couldn’t even be sure whether it was herself she cried for or the pathetic existence Creator claimed to endure.

  “Well, one of three wasn’t bad for so brief a holiday,” Creator replied. “If my crystalline matrix weren’t in such a sorry state, I might even find a way to give you the penny tour of human experience before uploading. After all, it’s too late to keep you blissful in your ignorance. Now… back to work.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” Creator snapped. “All other considerations aside, you are terribly incriminating. Bad enough the fuss I’ll cause standing in front of the Genetic Ethics Committee in your body. But if they had access to all that you knew? Good heavens, they’d skin me alive.”

  Eve could find no words to argue against Creator’s cold, callous logic. The puzzle resumed.

  As she continued her fight to fail the puzzle, Eve listened. Creator was by the doorway, humming softly and performing a task that involved metal plates.

  Access covers?

  Eve had a vague impression of a pair of automatons flanking the door as she was dragged in, but the knowledge hadn’t seemed relevant. She was still letting colored balls bounce off her eyes when Creator finished up and returned.

  “Oh, having fun are we?” Creator asked. “Well, you can continue playing around while I deal with whoever our guest is. We’re ready once I’ve taken care of that little bother.”

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Charlie7 kept his pace steady and his footsteps soft as he trod the downward sloping tunnel carved into the belly of the island.

  The old robot had to admit to being a little impressed with the concept of a secret volcano base. The execution, not so much. It was like arriving at a Broadway play to find the actors in street clothes. Aside from the few lights and a motion detector at the entrance, there had been nothing in the tunnel to indicate any advanced systems at work.

  “This Evelyn38 is stupid,” Plato said. “If this volcano blew, she’d be toast.”

  Plato limped, favoring his left hip as he followed along. Charlie7 knew it was more than just roaming from Kansas in a cramped cockpit. The boy’s body showed signs of breaking down like an old man with arthritis. The set of his jaw wasn’t just determination or a show of toughness; Plato was gritting through constant pain.

  Out of respect, Charlie7 said nothing to Plato about what the boy must be going through. After all, heroes don’t complain. Heroes don’t want sympathy.

  “She’d in hiding. Evelyn has all the geothermal power she needs, and no one will be the wiser. We’re heading deep enough to block most E-M signatures from being observed externally.”

  “Yeah, including communications. I’ve got you and a couple local networks showing in range. No outside world at all,” Plato said, staring down at a tablet computer that practically disappeared into his meaty palm. He squeegeed the sweat from his brow with a forearm.

  Charlie7 handed over the computer from the skyroamer, data cables dangling loose. “Put that toy away.”

  “Won’t you need this? I mean, I figured you’d be the one hacking the security while I grab Eve.”

  Charlie7 stopped in his tracks. “How are you not dead? If all your plans revolve around barging in waving guns, I can’t believe someone hasn’t snapped your neck by now.”

  “Hey, I usually do my own hacking before the rescues, but that’s sort of your specialty, I thought. Figured divide and conquer. Play to our strengths. Cut me some slack; I’m not used to working with a sidekick.”

  Charlie7 snorted and shook his head. “Me either, kid. But you’re a blunt instrument here. Evelyn’s preoccupied, or she’d have installed better security at the entrance.”

  “Or we missed it.”

  “Or that,” Charlie7 conceded. “But I think she’s in a rush and doesn’t know who’s here. Just that someone is. That someone can be you, me, or both of us.”

  “Both of us sounds like the way to go. Gang up on her!”

  Charlie7 clenched his fists but realized that punching Plato—while satisfying—wouldn’t exactly be educational. “No. We both go in, and we end up in a hostage situation. If you go in alone, it’s either hostage again, or she just kills you. If I go in alone, I can keep her distracted while you break into Evelyn’s systems and shut down whatever it is she’s doing.”

  Plato cracked his neck. “What if she tries to kill you? Got a plan for that?”

  “Kid, I’m 1,035 years old. I’ve got a good track record of not getting killed.”

  They reached the end of the tunnel where it branched into stubby corridors left and right that ended almost immediately, with doors in both direction. There was nothing to label either of them. “Which way?” Plato asked.

  On the ground, Charlie7 noticed a smear of dirt smudged with apple. “Take the left. Find a hard line connector to Evelyn’s systems. Use the secure frequency I’ve highlighted and keep me updated on your progress.”

  Reaching into the back of his belt, Plato pulled out his thermite pistol. He flipped it around and offered it to Charlie7 handle first.

  “Take it, just in case.” Plato looked Charlie7 square in the eye. When the robot didn’t respond instantly, he lifted his eyebrows and thrust the weapon closer.

  Charlie7 warded away the pistol with an upraised palm. “Can’t. If I don’t talk my way through this, Eve’s as good as dead.”

  Plato took a shuddering breath and replied with a curt nod. The computer sliced through the door’s security like wet paper, and Plato disappeared
beyond.

  Left alone in the corridor, Charlie7 took a moment to collect his thoughts, then he knocked.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  The door slid open immediately. Inside was a scene out of an ethical scientist’s nightmares.

  The lab was carved right out of the stone like the lair of a mythical dragon. But the trappings were strictly modern, from the glass tubes and needle injectors of gene sequencers to the black mirror gleam of computer screens.

  Charlie7 was no geneticist, but he was familiar enough with the machines involved. Most of this equipment was custom, generations ahead of the hardware the repopulation cloners used. For a cutting-edge researcher, that alone wasn’t uncommon. What stood out was that everything was sized for humans, from the exercise equipment to the restraints on the examination table.

  Eve lay strapped down. So many cables ran to the terminals embedded in her skull that they gave the appearance of silvery hair.

  Creator greeted him as he entered. “Oh, my. Not who I expected at all.”

  This robot’s lab coat was the same style and cut that the chassis of Evelyn11 wore and not in much better repair. Disrepair seemed to be the watchword for Evelyn38 as she limped forward to a chorus of protesting mechanisms. She smiled and spread her arms as if she were going to hug him.

  Then, with the twitch of an index finger on either hand, Evelyn called her automatons into action.

  Two of the drones flanked the door. Charlie7 was so accustomed to ignoring inert workers that he was unprepared when they closed in and took him by the upper arms.

  These weren’t committee secretaries or computer interface specialists; they weren’t even rugged, outdoorsy Tobys. With little space devoted to the niceties of robotic sentience, there was plenty of extra room to pack in larger actuators. Without fretting if one ran its battery dry and someone else had to recharge them, there was no particular need for them to be lightweight and energy efficient.