by H. L. Burke
Nyssa froze. The muscles in her arms and back felt like water, and the bruises from her roll down the stairs throbbed.
Do I have the strength to fight another robot?
The automaton turned around, pistons hissing, and rolled towards her. She flailed for the door latch, but before she could find it, the robot wheeled right by her. It pushed several buttons on a keypad, plugged one of its pincer-like hands into a socket, then froze. The lights on its headpiece flicked off.
Recharging, maybe? In sleep mode?
Nyssa hazarded a step into the room. A line of stenciled letters on the robot's metal skull read, “Dalhart's Automated Nursing System: PROTOTYPE.”
Maybe it lacks the home defense mechanism added into the maid.
Beyond the beakers lay an operating table draped with a white sheet. Tubes ran from the glass vessels to the table then disappeared under the sheet. Bundles of blue and silver wire, identical to the wires in Hart’s circuitry, sprouted from the other side of the table. These connected to a massive computer system with a screen the size of a wagon bed and a keyboard with at least a hundred extra buttons. Nyssa’s heart hitched.
There's someone beneath the sheet.
She hesitated. Could she pull the sheet away from this poor soul and gaze into his eyes? What would be left of him?
Steeling herself against imagined horrors, she stepped over the tubes to the head of the table. She peeled back the sheet, just to the neck.
Her breath fled as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
The man was young, not much more than a teen, with nearly translucent skin and dark curls left to grow well past his shoulders. A light scruff of a beard covered his sunken cheeks. Beneath his skin, she could see the gentle throb of his carotid artery. She caught herself on the edge of the table.
“Ellis?” she whispered, pushing her goggles up for a better look.
She traced the wires which burrowed beneath his hair. Brushing back his curls revealed electrodes fastened to his scalp.
Ellis is Hart. He has to be. Oh what will Hart think of this … and can I revive him?
She smoothed his hair back in place, uncertain what removing any of the equipment would do. The tubes, combined with the robot's care, had to be keeping him breathing somehow, but how long could that be sustained? Especially now that Dalhart wasn’t alive to supervise?
Her hand brushed against his cheek as she withdrew. His skin felt cold. Worried, she rested her hand on his neck and savored his pulse. Weak … but constant. Her fingers lingered for a moment. He might’ve been a handsome youth, if not so wasted, but more than that, he was Hart, her companion throughout this hellish day. He was her friend, and seeing him like this ached.
Oh God, please don't let this hurt him. Help me help him through this. Let there be a way to wake him.
Covering him again, she turned her attention to the computer. A restrictor, similar to the ones used to keep Hart in the library computer, clamped down on both the wires running from Ellis to the computer and from the computer to the wall, presumably to power other systems. She carefully removed the second one. The humming from the computer doubled in volume.
“Nyssa!” Hart's beloved voice called.
She leapt to stare into the screen. “I’m here! You’re okay? You remember me?”
He gave a wavering laugh. “I told you, from now on, backups of backups. I’m honestly not quite sure what happened after that witch unplugged the RAM, but everything before that is clear as a bell. You’re not hurt? You managed to get away somehow? How long has it been?”
“Half hour, hour tops. I’ll tell you everything later.” She ran her hand over the dusty keyboard. “This is the last room. The laboratory.” She glanced back at the sheet-draped figure. “I found Dalhart. He’s dead. Can you … the memories in this system, do they tell you what you need to know?”
“Yes, and maybe you were right.” His tone sank to a murmur. “Maybe we should’ve stopped.”
Nyssa’s heart shattered. She choked out, “I’m sorry.”
“You know, then?” he asked.
She stepped back to the table and pulled down the sheet.
“Oh … Am I … I’m alive?”
“I think so. I don’t know how to wake you, though. Hart … Ellis, why did he do this to you?”
“I begged him not to. I kept telling him I didn’t want it. Yes, my mobility was limited. Yes, I couldn’t do a lot of things I could before the accident, but I was happy to be alive. I could make the best of it. He kept saying he wanted to restore me, make me whole again. Dammit, Dad, I was whole! I simply couldn’t walk.” The screen crackled. “At first he let me keep my consciousness, tried to convince me this was better, that I was some sort of improvement on the human form, a better version of man, but I fought him. I didn’t want this, especially when he began experimenting on the staff.”
“What did you do?” She leaned closer to the screen.
“I tried to get a message to someone, anyone, who could help me. So he started restricting my memories, picking and choosing which I kept, isolating the rest in files I couldn’t access, hidden on this computer you just unlocked. Every day there was less of me. Sometimes I’d piece things together, start to figure out who I was and what he’d done, but he’d find out and he’d … he’d take my memories again. It was like solving the same mystery over and over … for almost three years. Then finally even he couldn’t take it anymore. He isolated me to the library and put my system in sleep mode.”
“He was insane, Hart … Ellis. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Oh, he did.” Ellis’s monitors beeped. “You say he’s dead?”
She nodded.
“I wish I could mourn him. I just feel cheated. I … I don’t want to be this.” His voice rose in pitch. “Nyss, I don’t want to. I think I’d rather be dead.”
“Settle down.” She pressed her hands against the screen. “I’m here, Ellis, and I’m going to help you. We’ll bring you back, all right. How do I get you into your body?”
“It might be possible, but … Is there a restrictor on the wires … coming out of me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what’s keeping me from my own brain. If the restrictor's removed, I can try to transfer back, but I still might not wake up. My body was preserved, but … there’s a chance what’s left of me is brain dead, like Yancy and the maid were.”
The knot in Nyssa’s stomach hardened and forced its way into her throat. “Being a computer … it’s not so bad. No headaches, no need to eat or sleep … and you’re still you. I … I became quite fond of you as a computer, you know.” The warmth from the screen rose through her hands, and a soft feeling crept through her.
“I’m quite fond of you too. There’s a chance, though, a chance I can wake up. I’ll need your help. I know it’s possibly suicide, Nyssa, but you have to understand, this isn’t life. I can’t feel … I can’t feel you. Please, help me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed onto the screen. “What do you need me to do?”
“I need to surge all my data through those wires as if I were uploading myself into another computer. All I need from you is to remove the restrictor.”
“And if it doesn’t work? Maybe you can go back? Save a copy of yourself, just in case.” She sniffled. “Maybe not to stay this way forever, but to try again, later … or just … or just not to die.”
He sighed. “It's not that simple. The surge necessary to force my brain active might fry the electronics. There’s about a sixty percent chance this will kill me, end my electronic and human lives simultaneously ... maybe a twenty percent chance it will work, and maybe twenty percent that it won’t work but I’ll be able to continue on as a computer. One step at a time.”
“All right.” She wiped her eyes. “Are you ready?”
“Almost. There’s just one thing: thank you.” The lights from the screen brightened until she had to drop her gaze.
“Nyss, I’ve been trapped in a computer for longer than I care to contemplate. Today, for the first time in years, I’ve felt alive. I’ve … I’ve cared for someone, and that’s what gives life meaning. No matter what happens, you made today … maybe not what I would choose, but as good as possible in these circumstances.”
Her throat tightened. Grief stole her words, throwing them out of her reach like a bully stealing a child’s toy. She pressed her face into the screen and forced herself to stop crying.
Shaking herself off, she moved towards the wires.
“Wait!”
She glanced back over her shoulder.
“I almost forgot: those tubes running into my body, you need to disconnect me from the third one. It’s keeping me under.”
“Third from the left or third from the right?” She eyed the containers.
“Third from the left. The right I actually need you to increase. The left is anesthesia but the right is a stimulant he was using to keep my internal organs from shutting down. If we up the drip on that one, it might help to jolt me out of this.”
“And the middle canister?” That one was almost empty.
“Nutrients and hydration. You can leave that one alone for now.”
She slowly turned the roller under the stimulant beaker. The blue liquid dripped faster into the tubes. Tracing the green anesthesia tube to his arm, she unhooked it from the catheter.
“All right, I want to be in my body before it wakes up. I’m not certain what happens if it wakes up beforehand, but that’s not something I want to play with.”
“Maybe you’d just wake up, as yourself, but without the memories stored in the computer.” Her heart quickened. “You’d still be alive.”
“But I wouldn’t know you.”
“You didn’t know me before this morning anyway. It would be worth getting to know you all over again.” She stared at his face, his human face. “I could tell you all about us, about what happened.”
“I’d hate to lose today.” Ellis’s tone sank to a murmur, barely audible above the hum of the computer system. “Also, I wouldn’t know about what my father did. Anyway, the risk in this upload isn’t to my human body. It should remain stable, even if the upload fails.”
“You’re sure?” She chewed on her bottom lip.
“Ninety percent. If we do end up having to revive me without my memories, give me a message from me. Tell me I’m an idiot if I don’t take you out to dinner. Last I remember, the most fashionable restaurant in town was that club on the lakefront, the Raleigh Club, I think. Is that still well thought of?”
“I think it closed last year … but that’s okay. I’m more of a bag of popcorn from a street vendor and walk through the park sort of girl anyway.” She smiled.
“I’d like that. I’ll just need to find my chair so I can accompany you. All right, Nyss, the stimulant should be kicking in soon, so I need you to remove that restrictor now. Are you ready?”
She dug in her satchel for her pulser and knelt beside the bundled cords. The restrictor felt hot in her hands.
“Ready.”
“Do it.”
Concentrating on the restrictor as if it were the only thing in the world, she flipped through the frequencies. The restrictor fell open in her hand. Lights surged through the wires. Sparks flew from the computer, and on the table, Ellis’s body convulsed. His tremors shook the table, the metal legs clanking beneath him. Nyssa sprang to his side, wrapped her arms around his bare chest, and held on for dear life.
Ellis thrashed. She could feel every rib. His head bounced against the metal table top. For a moment she feared he’d shake them both to the ground. Then he slumped. Sweat beaded on his brow, and a sigh escaped his cracked lips.
Nyssa traced his dark eyebrows with her fingertip. “Please wake up. Please be you. Please.”
Ellis's eyes twitched beneath his paper thin lids. His eyelashes fluttered, then opened, revealing deep brown eyes with slightly yellowed whites. A faint smile played over his lips, “Hey, Nyss … I think I’m naked.”
Chapter Twelve
Nyssa flushed and yanked up the sheet to cover him from the shoulders down. Ellis laughed, but it turned into a cough.
“Easy.” She wiped his brow with her sleeve.
“I feel like someone stole all my blood and replaced it with ice water.” His voice had a rasp to it, but beneath it was a pleasant baritone, nothing like Hart’s mechanical chiming. She could get used to it. He raised a trembling hand. “My arms … I used to have a decent amount of upper-body strength. I’m guessing I now have the physique of a malnourished five-year-old.”
She scrambled for something comforting to say then gave up and shrugged. “That about sums it up. We’ll get you back to yourself. First things first, some pants?”
“I didn’t realize you were such a prude.” Ellis smirked then turned his head towards the door. “My father used to keep a spare suit in his office, in case he stayed up all night working but didn’t wish to look it at breakfast. We’re roughly the same size. Keep an eye out for my chair too. It’s in a briefcase like thing with a silver handle.”
“Your chair is in a briefcase?” She frowned.
“You’ll see … provided my father hung onto it. Also, if you increase the drip on the nutrient and stimulant, it might help me have the strength to dress myself. I’d like at least that much dignity.”
“What about the nursing robot? Can it help you?”
“Oh, Dad was working on that before … before all this happened. I didn't realize he'd finished it. There should be a dial on the back that controls its functions. Switch it to 'out-patient,' and I should be able to use it to disconnect myself.”
She nodded and switched on the dial. The robot jerked to life. Nyssa slipped into the next room.
Her heart felt like a windup toy wound too tight. His eyes, so dark. She wanted to go on a walk with him, or even a fancy dinner at some stuffy restaurant. She hadn’t wanted that before with anyone.
Doing her best to avoid the remnants of the professor, she knelt beside the desk and pried open the first cabinet. Within, a black briefcase with a silver handle lay beside a stack of papers. She pulled it out. Beneath it lay a yellow envelope with “Ellis” scrawled on it in spidery handwriting. Nyssa scooped it up. The envelope crinkled around something more solid than paper, something round.
She found a musty smelling but serviceable set of clothes—trousers, stockings, shirt, vest, even shoes—hanging in a cabinet beside the desk. When she returned to the other room, Ellis was sitting up with the sheet draped around his middle. He had one hand to his head but a faint smile on his face. The robot loomed over him, clasping the now-disconnected tubes.
“I’m already feeling better. The robot got me unplugged.”
Her hand clenched around the envelope.What if whatever it is only makes things worse? What could his father say or do that would make this better?
She laid the garments and the briefcase beside him. “I'll leave you alone so you can dress.” She resisted the sudden, strong urge to lean over and kiss him on the cheek.
Soon Ellis was dressed. He reclined on the table. “I’m sorry to send you about like a gofer. I’d do everything myself, but I’m afraid that’s not an option.”
I can't hide this from him. Drawing a deep breath she held forth the envelope.
His brow furrowed. “What's that?”
“It was in your father's desk. It's … it's addressed to you.”
Ellis's mouth hardened. “Throw it out.”
“You don't even know what it is.”
“It doesn't matter. Whatever he …” His voice grew husky, and he cleared his throat. “This is my chance to get away, to make a clean break. I can't think about him any more. He's gone. It's over.”
“I suppose you're right, but ...” She stopped, hesitating over her choice of words.
“What?” he asked. “Out with it.”
“It's like you said: we're well past the point of
ignorance being bliss. Could whatever this is really make things any worse?”
He closed his eyes. “Open it. You're right. Worst possible outcome, it just reinforces what I already know.”
Nyssa tilted the envelope, and a small black disc slipped out. “It's a memory wheel.”
“Put it in the big computer.”
When the disc slipped into the slot, the computer hummed back to life. A sepia toned image of a dark eyed gentleman with sunken cheeks flickered onto the screen. Ellis rolled onto his side for a better look and gave a hiss. His shoulders shook.
“I can turn it off,” Nyssa said.
“No, let it play.”
The image spoke in a wavering voice, with the same underwater quality as Mr. C's videophone, “My dearest boy, if you are listening to this, I ask for your forgiveness, for my endeavors have failed. My desire was to preserve your mind until I could restore your body, creating a new temple, the best parts of man and machine. However, I grow feeble. My mind lacks the clarity of my youth, and the voices in my head have grown so dark.”
Nyssa slipped her fingers around Ellis's and squeezed. He stared at the screen, his face stoic, but his eyes hard.
“For so long, I believed their whispers, that I acted in love, that making you whole and strong again would be worth the damnation of my own soul—If such a thing exits. More and more I pray it does not,” Dalhart's recording continued, his voice husky. “I envy your mother her faith, kept pure until her tragic end. I envy you your conscience, for I have slaughtered mine in the name of your restoration. I even envy those I destroyed in my campaign, for they now have peace.
“The voices who once led now taunt. I see now their traps, and as darkness approaches, I have only the hope that your mind, your precious thoughts, will live on within the workings of the manor's computer … though if you have found this, chances are even that hope is crushed. May you remember me in better days, when you were sound of body and I of mind.”
