by H. L. Burke
“Not authorized!”
“I thought you said this thing was just a maid?” Nyssa darted behind the wingback chair.
“It is. It must be malfunctioning. I’m trying to communicate with it. If I can send the right code, it should shut down.”
“Well, hurry!”
The broom battered the cushions of the chair. The strikes tore the upholstery, and stuffing flew about her like snow. The maid tried to maneuver around it, but Nyssa kept the heavy piece of furniture between herself and the robot like a shield. Unfortunately in turn the robot kept itself between Nyssa and the door. It pushed her towards the wall.
“It’s not listening. Nyssa, get out of there.” Hart’s voice barely carried over the crashing of the robot destroying the furniture and the pounding of Nyssa’s own pulse.
“Not authorized!”
Nyssa’s back ground into the bricks of the fireplace. The robot pressed against the chair.
“Not authorized! Not authorized!”
Sandwiched between the chair and the wall, Nyssa had to force out her next breath. Her hand flailed for something, anything, and caught the cold iron of the fireplace poker. God, if ever You listen to my prayers, now’s the time.
Grasping the poker, Nyssa kicked against the chair with all her might. The robot rolled back a few feet but then rushed forward. Nyssa swung. The poker shattered the robot’s left eye socket. Sparks and glass shards flew across the room.
The robot’s head swiveled from left to right, like a disorientated owl. Nyssa bolted for the door. The broom smacked against her legs, pushing her into the table. Chess pieces scattered. She sprang to her feet and aimed another powerful swipe. Its head crunched like a tin can.
The robot’s hands jolted up and down. The broom handle came at Nyssa again and again, but she parried each strike with her poker, retreating steadily towards the door. Her feet touched the hardwood of the hallway.
“Aim for its chest!” Hart said. “That’s where the circuitry should be.”
Nyssa jabbed, skewering the rusty metal plating of the robot’s body. The mechanical monster quivered. Nyssa yanked back. A large section of plating broke away, revealing turning gears and sparking wires. She stabbed again, ripping into the wires. Her nostrils flared and her jaw clenched as she swung until the robot collapsed in a heap.
Nyssa sank to the floor. Her breath escaped in ragged gasps. In the ruined maid's chest, amongst a nest of wires, pierced by metallic tubes, pulsed a pinkish-red mass, fleshy and veined. Nyssa’s stomach heaved, for inside the chest of the maid beat a human heart.
Chapter Six
“Nyssa? Nyss! Are you hurt?” Hart’s voice pushed through her terror.
Nyssa’s whole body shook.
The robot's heart throbbed, quickly at first, then slower. Finally it stopped. She kicked the cylinder away. Leaping to her feet, she brandished the poker at Hart’s mirror. “What is this place? What kind of monster …you knew! You had to know. You’re in charge of the household staff. Did you lead me up here to die? Is this whole thing some sick trap?”
“No. I swear I didn’t know.”
“Did you see it? Did you see what’s inside that … that … how does that machine have a heart?” The poker vibrated like a tuning fork in spite of her best efforts to hold it steady. If Hart really was a part of this evil place, how could she fight him? He was everywhere. She’d seen to that herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“I don’t know.” The mirror’s lights flickered then brightened. “Please, put the poker down and listen.”
“How could you not know? You’re the house computer!”
“I told you, a lot of my memories are missing, but even knowing that, I don’t understand. The Creator was working on the ability to integrate mechanical and organic components, but … Iknow him. He’s benevolent. His inventions are for the betterment of humanity. He wouldn’t do anything evil.”
“Evil like cut out a human heart and put it in a machine?”
“There has to be another explanation. I need you to trust me. Please, you’re the only hope I have for any answers. Something has turned my home into a house of horrors. I need to know what happened.”
Nyssa drew her poker back, preparing for a strike. If a computer could be programmed with emotions, it could be programmed to lie, couldn't it? She could shatter the mirror and run. Cut the wires, replace the restrictors, avoid the traps and robots.
“Please.” Hart's voice cracked. “You said you were hired to find out what happened. This is part of that. I trusted you in my home. Let me help you solve the mystery.”
“Why didn't you stop the maid? You control the household staff, don't you?” She managed to keep her voice calm.
“That maid should’ve been hooked into my systems, but I couldn’t control it. There must be a restrictor preventing me from accessing it. Look under the wires.”
Nyssa lowered the poker.I need to complete this mission … and he's helped me get this far. I may still need him.
“There might be a programming box with memory wheels,” Hart continued. “If you can remove those and put them in my system, I should be able to read them, browse the history of its time online. Maybe that will give us some insight into exactly what’s going on here.”
Nyssa shuddered but knelt beside the robotic maid. She pushed aside the wires, trying to avoid the still warm heart, and uncovered a metal box wired with the same flashing blue and silver cords as Hart’s circuits. A black disk, like a Victrola record, rested on a nest of wires. It fell into her hand at a touch.
Clutching the disk, she turned to the mirror. “So, now what?”
With a click, a control panel slid from beneath the mirror.
“Upload the memory wheel, and I’ll see what information I can glean from it. If I can analyze the sensory input, perhaps we’ll get some idea of where everybody got to.” Something had changed in Hart’s tone. He was more subdued, sometimes wavering between syllables, and in spite of her suspicions, Nyssa felt a pang of pity.
He really does believe in his benevolent Creator. What happens if the contents of this wheel shatter that image forever?
A rounded indentation marked where the memory wheel belonged. Nyssa snapped it into place then stepped back.
The panel receded and lines of blue snaked across the mirror.
“There’s an older memory file buried in here, looks like from when the robot went online. I think I can play it as audio.” The mechanisms within the mirror buzzed like wheels spinning in snow. “Here it is … 'Please, God, no.'” Hart’s voice rose in pitch, and Nyssa flinched.
“'No' what?”
“It’s … it’s not me. It’s the file.” Hart’s original tone returned. “It … 'Help me, someone!'” The high pitch came back, gaining in volume. “'Where are the others? Am I the only one left? I don’t want to be converted. I’m human. Please don’t, please, please don’t.'”
The hair on Nyssa’s arms rose. She backed against the wall, trying not to look at the heap of mechanical elements that had been the maid.
“'He’s mad. Thinks this is for my own good, but I’ve seen the others. There’s no good in what they’ve become. Please, someone … no, professor, no. It’s not what I want. It’s not right. No!'”
The words gave way to a shriek. It pierced through Nyssa’s heart. Her breath quickened, and it was all she could do not to scream along with it. Then silence. Just the hum of Hart’s inner workings.
“That’s all that’s left of her.” Hart’s deeper tone returned, lower than before. If he’d been human, she would’ve said he’d mumbled it.
“What … what happened?”
“The Creator had technology to turn human memories into computer data. Somehow when he … converted this woman, he captured the last of her human thoughts on the memory wheel. Just the last bit, though. There’s nothing about who she was before this or what she felt after, if anything. Small mercies.”
“Mercy?” Nyssa’s fists tightened.
Maybe he’d kill her, turn the whole house against her, but this wasn’t right. She lurched towards him, her fingers about the poker’s handle. “There’s no mercy in anything we just heard. Is this the work of your benevolent creator?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant … it doesn’t look like her consciousness continued long enough for her to suffer. Shatter me if you want. It won’t unmake me.” His voice took on a sullen tone. “I don’t understand any of this. None of this fits with my programming or memory. Why would the Creator make me aware of right and wrong if he were deluded enough to do this to another human being?”
“Maybe he wasn’t when he made you.” Nyssa inhaled through her nostrils, calming herself, but not releasing the poker. “Nothing I’ve heard about Professor Dalhart suggests he was either cruel or mad. The most I’ve heard said about him was that he was eccentric.”
“This goes a lot deeper than eccentricity. Nyss, I understand if you don’t trust me after this.”
“Stop it with the Nyss. We aren’t bosom buddies with clever nicknames for each other.” She scowled at him.
“Says the woman who calls me Hart.” A laugh quavered within his tone. “I didn’t have to play that recording. I could’ve hidden it. If I wanted to entrap you, would I have shared something like that?”
She shifted the poker from one hand to the other. “Maybe not. Look, I do believe you’re as shaken up as I am about this. There’s a piece missing, something that changed Dalhart from someone who could make something like you, to someone who butchered his household staff.” A thought choked Nyssa’s words. “She said others. How many others?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t seen any other robots.”
“I’ve seen two. There was a broken one on the stairs and one trimming the hedges in the garden.” Were both of them once human? The maid’s heart was still beating. Did she know what she once was? Did her soul remain trapped in that metal cage?
“Three is only a small portion of the staff. I remember supervising twenty-three people. I knew their faces and their names. How could he have done this to twenty-three people?”
The cold fingers of a draft brushed the back of Nyssa’s neck. She turned up the collar of her peacoat. “You have memories of the staff? Of their names and faces, but not what happened to them?”
“Computer memories aren’t like human ones. They can be removed, saved on memory wheels or isolated systems. When I was in the library, where you found me, I knew the number of the staff but not their names. I got a few back when we expanded from the library, and when I reached the second story computers there were backup files about my day to day activities, when this household functioned normally, with human staff and a few robots, but nothing like … they were really robots, not former humans.”
Nyssa rubbed her temples. What if the information Albriet had sent her to recover was the blueprint for creating human/robot atrocities? That sort of knowledge was best forgotten. “What do we do now?”
“If you’re with me, take the RAM. There’s a port on the right side of my frame you can plug it into. I’ll activate it, and then even if there are more restrictors on other systems, you’ll still be able to carry me with you. If we can get to the main computer in the lab, I can examine the files, try to put things together. The Creator was first and foremost a scientist, always taking notes so he could easily replicate his work.”
Nyssa plucked the RAM from her belt. I should throw this device away, shatter it and run for my life … but if I don’t go through with this, where am I going to go? A memory of the man with his strange eye-hat made her hair stand on end. She stepped forward and brushed away the heavy coat of dust from the frame. A circular port, about the size of her thumb print, lay just where Hart had described it. Lining up the handle of the RAM to the port, she snapped it into place, and the dials and lights on the RAM spun and flashed.
“All right, it’s done.” Hart’s voice now rose from the RAM. The lights in the larger mirror faded.
Nyssa slipped the RAM from its port and held it in front of her face. Her own reflection stared back at her, as if it were a normal hand mirror. “Whoever designed this interface system had vanity issues.”
Hart laughed. “It has a purpose. Look. I can pull up images.”
A schematic of the mansion flashed onto the RAM’s screen, obscuring Nyssa’s face.
“We need to go up a flight of stairs to the third floor, then across the Grand Hall. There’s a long spiral staircase that connects to the laboratory in the attic. I should be able to guide you around any security systems. Are you ready?”
Nyssa shrugged. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Your skirt’s seen better days.”
Nyssa glanced down. A long jagged rip rent it from the hem to just above her knee, causing it to drag like a train behind her. She clicked her tongue, took a knife from her satchel, and sliced her way through the fabric. She cast aside the removed section and stepped back to view herself in the larger mirror. Her skirt now ended mid-thigh. Easier to move in, if scandalous. It wasn’t like anyone could see her, anyway. “All right, now I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Chapter Seven
A dusty curtain shrouded the entrance to the Grand Hall. Nyssa held her hand over her nose to avoid sneezing and pushed through. The odor of mildew lingered in the thick fabric, which might have been a rich burgundy, but was now faded to match the dust.
The Grand Hall stretched before her. Gray light filtered through high windows, casting odd, dappled patterns through three great chandeliers, all frosted in layers of spider webs. A regiment of suits of armor lined both sides of the hall, tucked away in alcoves. As with the other rooms, mirrors lined the walls.
Hart’s mechanical voice rose from behind her. “As nice a view as your derriere is, I’d feel more useful if I could see what’s in front of us.”
Nyssa’s ears burned. If he were a man, I’d slap him. She reclaimed the RAM from her back belt loop and faced it forward.
“Uh-oh,” Hart said.
Nyssa’s brow tightened. “Uh-oh? What do you mean uh-oh?” She flipped the RAM to glare into it.
“Hush. Step back.”
Nyssa ducked behind the curtain. “Aren’t computers supposed to be all factual and precise? So tell me: what do you mean by uh-oh?”
“Those suits of armor? They’re all automated. They used to be programmed to apprehend and restrain intruders, but if you’re apprehended here, it might be a while until someone finds you.”
Nyssa’s stomach twisted at the thought of starving to death in the iron embrace of a robot.
“Is there a way around?” she whispered.
“There’s only one entrance to the stairway, and it’s through here. Maybe they aren’t activated.”
Nyssa glanced around the corridor. A small table sat a few feet away, several dust covered decorations on top of it. She snatched up a spherical, glass paperweight and tossed it through the curtain. It shattered against the wooden floor.
The nearest iron-knight lurched from his resting place. He clanked forward several steps, then stopped.
His head turned a full three-hundred and sixty degrees, and red light glowed through his visor. A grid projected from his helmet, flitting over the room, his fellow knights, and the fragments of paperweight. Even though the grid didn’t reach her, Nyssa cringed into the curtains.
“Threat not detected.” The knight’s voice was harder than Hart’s, like a rasping of rusty cogs. He took several jerking steps backwards to re-position himself in his niche.
Nyssa let out a long breath. “Definitely activated. How are they triggered? Sound? Image? Both?”
“You saw that scan he did? There’s a beam constantly sweeping the Grand Hall. When it detects anything, the knights are activated. If I can access the control panel, I can power the system down.”
“And where is the panel?” Nyssa squinted down at him. She had a bad feeling about what his answer might be.
“Fifth
mirror down on the right.”
Nyssa counted and ended at a mirror with a slightly more ornate pewter frame. Red and blue lights studded its top and bottom.
“Great, so we only have to pass four of them.” She tucked him in her belt, in the front loops, facing outwards this time.
“Do you know how laser scans work?”
Nyssa bit her bottom lip. “I got past one once before. I had equipment, though.”
“The beam here is moving quickly. Do your goggles have infrared vision?”
She fiddled with her glasses until she hit upon the right setting. A red beam, stretching from wall to wall, rolled across the floor at ankle height, a little faster than Nyssa thought she could run. It stopped a few feet from her hiding place, reversed, and continued to the other end of the hall. She counted seconds. Roughly forty for it to get from one end to the other. It looked about five feet wide, too broad to jump.
“How long will it take you to disable the beam once we’re at the panel?”
“Half a minute?” The questioning inflection made Nyssa grimace.
“Make it twenty seconds and maybe, if we time it right, we have a chance.” She watched the beam sweep back and forth.
“No, it’s too risky. I don’t know the status of that computer. What if the ports aren’t functional? You won’t be able to get away before they activate. Whatever is in the files isn’t worth your life.”
What would Mr. C say in times like this? Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the death? That sounds about right. Okay, God. If I stop now, Mr. C died for nothing. So far you’ve kept me alive through this. I’m asking for a little more patience with my stupidity because I’m going to try this.
The beam cycled back to her feet. The instant it turned again, she bolted.
“Nyss, no!” Hart yelped.
She made the panel in several great leaps. A spider had built a nest in the interface port, but she blew it out and plugged in the RAM, trying not to think about where the beam was on its rounds.
